New Super Mario Bros Wii

[miffy495]

Yeah, 3D Mario has yet to recapture the charm of Sprite Mario, but he doesn't look horrible by any means. I'm replaying NSMBDS right now in anticipation as Amazon has yet to deliver the Wii version, and though the choir thing is irritating, the music itself and the graphics are both perfectly fine.

Whups: Mailman just came.

...Damn. No NSMBW. Back to the DS while I wait for L4D2 to download.

[shammack]

Clearly I'm in the minority here, but... I actually like the ridiculous choir samples. I would have found the NSMB music pretty bland and forgettable, but those cheesy samples partially redeem it for me.

Also, I believe the reason you can't use the classic controller is that there are some platforms and things that you have to tilt the wiimote to manipulate.

[Thrik]

They're not quite as bad in the Wii version, which I got today. At least now they're not played through the DS's tiny speakers, and it's still funny how the baddies dance to it.

I've only played two levels but I already rate this game 'Yeah baby!'. Playing a 2D Mario game on the big screen and being smashed in the face with a bagful of nostalgia (koopa kids, flying ship, menu music, clown copter from Mario World, Yoshi, cave music from Mario 64) is just undisputably great.

[Tobli]

My copy has been in my house for 24 hours, and i still haven't removed the wrapper.

*Goes back to playing L4D2 versus as infected*

[Thrik]

Bloody Nintendo. First Mario Galaxy, now this. I swear, they're turned pulling nostalgia strings into a fine art.

When I pulled up to the final castle in the first world, I was thinking "God man, if only they used the Mario World bowser's castle theme". So they only fucking did remix it.

Then as if I wasn't already buzzing by the time I got to the big metal door, I went through and was treated to the Yoshi's Island Kamek type deal with the same sound effects and everything.

Maybe I'm a soft target for this kind of thing, but man this makes a great experience for me. Highly recommended for childhood Mario enthusiasts. ;

[Lechimp]

Yeah, I really enjoy how the game is basically a homage to every previous Mario game. It's mostly like Super Mario Bros 3 but it seems like they've managed to fit things in from almost every other Mario game too.

[miffy495]

Woo! Arrived yesterday, but I was at the girlfriend's so I didn't get the mail until I got home from work today. I have now beaten the first two worlds. It's pretty damn awesome. The thing that bothered me about NSMBDS still bothers me here (addition of 3D physics to Mario platforming means that the jumping feels way less precise than it did on the SNES) but otherwise I'm entirely happy. Really looking forward to busting this one out with company around now, after I've finished the other 6 worlds of course.

One odd thing that I'm surprised no one has pointed out yet: There is no 4:3 mode for this game. My Wii moves back and forth from my computer monitor in the main room (where my other consoles live/multiplayer games get played) to an old CRT TV in my bedroom (used for lazy Virtual Console games in bed when the girl wants to play some old Genesis games). Right now, happens to be hooked into the CRT setup. So I was playing Mario in bed and wondering why it looked so funny when I realized that this was the first time I had played a game letterboxed. I may be the only one here who'd tried playing this game on an older TV, thereby causing this to only be an issue for me, but I still found it weird. New Super Mario Brothers Wii is 16:9, no matter what you're playing it on. All those people who got pissed at me when I worked at HMV because their widescreen movies had "those ugly black bars on the top and bottom" are going to be unhappy with this one.

[miffy495]

World 6 Airship level spoiler:

HOLY CRAP MARIO GETS HIS OWN KOOPA CLOWN CAR!!!!!

!!!!!

[Korax]

Just finished the 8th world. Nice, quality Mario platforming, but I have to agree with Jake about the synth choral hits. I played the entire game with the sound turned off.

[Garple]

I played the entire game with the sound turned off.

I'm embarrased to think about how often I do that. If the game's not story heavy, I often listen to a podcast or something while I play. That's what I'm doing during my current replay of God of War (got the PS3 reissue) and that's how I played a great deal of Trials HD.

[Korax]

I'm embarrased to think about how often I do that. If the game's not story heavy, I often listen to a podcast or something while I play. That's what I'm doing during my current replay of God of War (got the PS3 reissue) and that's how I played a great deal of Trials HD.

I do the exact same thing. The only difference this time was that it was a much more conscious effort to avoid the unpleasantness of the music.

[Thrik]

It's really annoying because otherwise a lot of the music is really good.

[brkl]

I miss the pastels of SMB3. Somehow that game managed to look really lovely despite the hardware's limitation. These new games look garish to me

[Thrik]

Yeah, I'd say the graphics do the job but they're not really anything special. I mean obviously if this were on the 360 or PS3 the game would look absolutely incredible, more like the pre-rendered art they used to advertise the game. I could see a 2D Mario game looking amazing with sweet use of post processing, depth of field, sophisticated lighting, etc.

As it is, while the game is fantastic and it's great to see a return to side-scrolling gameplay, it's not exactly visually astounding. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the Donkey Kong Country series from like 15 years ago does the psuedo-3D thing better and is more aesthetically pleasing overall.

The fact it's 3D doesn't really benefit this game at all, and to be honest considering the Wii's HD ineptitude I think doing it as full 2D and using the Wii's power on that would have resulted in a far greater visual feast — the jaggies really get on my nerves on my 42-inch screen. I mean just look at what the SNES managed to output when it dedicated its power to 2D (Donkey Kong Country, Yoshi's Island).

Whoops, went into a bit of a rant there. Did I mention this game is nostalgic as fuck and really fun?

[Kolzig]

Famitsu went and gave NSMB Wii 40/40.

I think Famitsu is giving quite a lot these perfect scores these days?

I haven't yet bought it as I have way too much stuff again to go through, but maybe around Christmas I'll buy it. This is one game my wife will definitely like in addition to old Mario games and Rock Band 2.

[Thrik]

Wow, check this out:

They have it running at 1080p through an emulator. While the frame rate is raped and various animations are wrecked, it's clearly so much more vivid and generally awesome when you haven't got jaggies assaulting your eyes all over the place.

This pretty much renders my previous complaints about the use of 3D redundant. It's not really the 3D at all, it's the fact the console is so shit at rendering it on a HD TV.

[Nappi]

My sister and I got this game for Christmas and completed it today. Completely awesome!

I was actually quite surprised that pretty much all the levels could be completed in 2-player mode. The chaos of Mario and Luigi constantly bumping into each other was nicely balanced by being able to free the other player from the bubble if he/she happened to die. I can't imagine completing some of the later levels with 4 players, though. Well, actually I can imagine that but I also can imagine it being a complete hell.

The level design was mostly superb and I'm looking forward to playing (most of them) again to get all the star coins. My only complaint is that I would have hoped for more variation in the boss battles, although that's not very Mario-ish, I guess. The clown copter battle was a clear highlight for me.

As for the controls, they felt different from those of the past 2D Super Mario games for sure but were close enough to get used to and comfortable with pretty fast. So much so that my sister, who doesn't really play video games anymore but was ace with the Super Mario games of the past, beat the final part of the last castle with relative ease* when I had died.

The graphics are totally forgettable but serve their purpose well enough. The music was mostly good and even the choir parts didn't bother me. Actually, I only now realized what you were talking about. While some (heartless bastards) might diminish this game as an ultimate example of shameless recycling, the fact that pretty much each background music, every sound and all the enemies bring back fond memories from the past only goes to show how enormous Nintendo's contribution to gaming has been.

*That is not to say she completed it with her first try, though. We died probably ten times trying to get through that part together before the run where I had no lives left and she got everything spot on.

[Jake]

Yeah, I'd say the graphics do the job but they're not really anything special. I mean obviously if this were on the 360 or PS3 the game would look absolutely incredible, more like the pre-rendered art they used to advertise the game.

I don't think the resolution of the graphics or the polycount have anything to do with it. If it was on the 360 or the PS3 it would still look like

, which is nicer, but no more stylish or interesting. The real issue just boils down to only being half-hearted with the character design, world design, and overall color design. Mario 3 through Yoshi's Island (and Mario Galaxy) made sure to have their own fully unique and consistent looks, across the characters, levels, and general color palette. If you look through their respective manuals and players guides (filled with amazing crisp renditions of it all), and then look at the games themselves (at 320x200 or whatever the NES and SNES ran at), the style of each of those games holds up regardless of the level of detail available to render the art. New Super Mario Bros looks boring simply because it is. There's nothing bold or confident going on. Lots of very Photoshop-looking textures on top of lots of personalityless geometry. It's the same sort of overly flat-colored, overly Photoshop brush-tool'd look that PopCap employs in things like Peggle -- basically Safe, Dumb, and Digital looking -- which I guess people respond well to, but it definitely does nothing for my imagination, which was never a problem with the Mario games of the 8/16 bit eras.

. I could see a 2D Mario game looking amazing with sweet use of post processing, depth of field, sophisticated lighting, etc.

I think Mario Galaxy's 2D segments proved this pretty well, even if the number of concurrent effects (and pixels rendered) was lower than it would be on a PS3, but even without that stuff, that game was just nice to look at and experience. Built out of great colors, shapes, and textures, with good animation, and good music. NSB Wii unfortunately is lacking in almost all of those departments (its animation is often nice), before it even has a chance to try and incorporate any glitzing up.

[JonCole]

Yeah, I'm definitely with Jake on this one. No amount of upscaling will help when there's so little work put into character design and backgrounds. Simply "being on the PS3 or 360" doesn't change the amount of detail put into the game, as is evidenced by that 1080p render which frankly just makes the game look like high resolution art that I could easily crank out using Forza 3's decal creation tool, let alone something as robust as Photoshop.

[Jake]

Not that I don't like the game... I've been enjoying the hell out of it... but that's largely despite the look of it. Other than being generally bright and colorful, and featuring things which look like things from other Mario games (AKA "doing its job"), the art isn't adding a lot. That's obviously a testament to Mario games just being fun to pick up and play through, but as a lifelong Mario and Nintendo dork, I always hope for a game like this to be one of those semi-rare times when Nintendo cleans up, goes all out in the visual design department and surprise me.

Unrelated: The similarity of these two images makes me happy

Edited December 29, 2009 by Jake

[vimes]

I think Mario Galaxy's 2D segments.

Heh ? I can't remember those ...

Anyway, Super Mario Galaxy is one of the most gorgeous game ever in my opinion.

[toblix]

Heh ? I can't remember those ...

I'm assuming he's referring to the various parts where you enter an area where the camera is fixed in a 2D-like perspective, and you're basically playing a 2D platformer. For example, most of the areas where the gravity is flipped are 2D areas.

[Udvarnoky]

Still impatiently waiting for a nearby retailer to be able to keep this game in game in stock long enough for me to get to it. On the bright side, Demon Blade is a lot of fun.

The real issue just boils down to only being half-hearted with the character design, world design, and overall color design. Mario 3 through Yoshi's Island (and Mario Galaxy) made sure to have their own fully unique and consistent looks, across the characters, levels, and general color palette.

The style of the New Super Mario Bros. games strikes me very much as being in the vein of the original Super Mario World, except sharper and with 3D characters. Simply copying another game's aesthetic would indeed be tantamount to half-hearted visual design, but Super Mario World always felt "plainer" and less interesting-looking to me than Super Mario Bros. 3 or, really, any of the others, and I think in choosing to use that game as its primary influence, NSMB is simply inheriting those characteristics. (While I haven't played it in awhile, I don't think Yoshi's Island had any of those problems for me that its immediate predecessor did.) The look of NSMB reminds me a lot of the way Nintendo updated the look of the first three games in Super Mario All Stars or for those GBA remakes - they were primarily just adapting the games to another, pre-existing style instead of creating a fresh one, which is fine for remakes and less fine for what should be a brand new (however familiar) experience.

Edited January 3, 2010 by Udvarnoky

[Fuzzy Lobster]

I've been playing the living crap out of this game for the past 2 weeks with three friends, and it's generated some truly amazing quotes.

Some highlights:

"FUCK!! I wouldn't have died if I hadn't been inside Yoshi."

"I'll stop being retarded when you stop jumping on my head."

and my personal favorite:

"Fuck you, Mario! You just fucked my Yoshi!"

This game is so unbelievably fun with 4 people, it's ridiculous.

[Sombre]

Addendum: This game is hard as balls.