“New Super Mario Bros.” on the DS was a welcome return to 2-D form for Mario and Luigi.
“New Super Mario Bros. Wii” takes that success and expands it, shoring up weak points from the first game and adding new features that have never been in a “Super Mario Bros.” game.
Like “New Super Mario Bros.,” the game’s visuals are in 3-D but arranged on a 2-D plane, so the game play is similar to the classic “Super Mario” series.
The game feels most like a mixture of “Super Mario Bros. 3” and “Super Mario World,” from the return of Bowser’s seven Koopalings to the haunted houses in several worlds. There’s an ice world, a desert world, deep caves and high clouds—in short, a variety of locations that will seem familiar to longtime players of the series but are presented in new and interesting ways.
The new items Mario and Luigi can find are also interesting, like the Propeller Mushroom, which can be used for short flights upward, the enemy-freezing Ice Flower and the new Penguin Suit. The Mini Mushroom that shrinks Mario returns from the DS game, along with the standard Super Mushroom, Fire Flower and Starman items. Hungry dinosaur Yoshi appears, as well.
These items are all useful in getting through the game’s numerous courses, which start out fairly easy but get harder. The game is tough in the old “Super Mario Bros.” way.
It’s easy to blunder into a pit or an enemy, but players who plug away at a tricky stage will usually find the way through. If not, the new Super Guide will show them the path. Collecting Star Coins in each level allows players to buy hint videos.
But the most dramatic addition is a concept that’s been around for decades: cooperative play, which has never been seen in a “Super Mario Bros.” game. Up to four players can run, hop and bop through any of the game’s levels, which adds a new dimension to the proceedings.
It’s tricky to make jumps onto narrow platforms when playing solo. It’s trickier when multiple players are bouncing off each other or accidentally throwing Koopa shells at their allies. Multiple players can pick up and throw each other, pound the ground for a screen-clearing blast and use each other’s heads as springboards.
While in standard multiplayer mode, the characters are meant to work together. There are two modes in which they compete. Free-For-All ranks players at the end of each stage by score, coins and enemies bopped. Coin Battle uses only coins as the deciding factor.
Nominal teamwork—or at least noninterference—is still needed to get through stages in these modes, because if everyone dies, game over.
