Review: New Super Mario Bros WII

One of a few articles posted on my last blog I felt was worth bringing with me to NcNytes.

New Super Mario Bros Wii, if there was ever a game that warranted everyone in the world owning a Wii this is that game. By and large this throw back to the heyday of Mario games is the single best game made specifically for the Wii that I have played this generation. And as a great bonus, I was able to play through the entire game with my Wife at my side. Being a large Mario fan growing up she was able to instantly join in on the fun. From the new suits to the new game play mechanics, from top to bottom, THIS is the game to play this season if you own a Wii.

With the age old formula intact you start off at a happy go lucky mushroom kingdom festival where moments after kicking off Bowsers meddlesome children show up steal the princess and fly off. Yes you did read that right! The Koopalings are back! The only twist so far is that 2 seemingly random toad people follow Mario and Luigi off to go and save the princess. You are then placed on the world map, which itself harkens back to Super Mario World (SNES) and Super Mario 3 (NES). Each world is separated into two halves, each half ending with a castle. Unlike the other versions you fight the Koopa child in the mid-way castle whereupon defeat the Koopaling runs for the other castle.

Mario and gang get a few new surprise suits this time around of course, The Propeller Suit and the Penguin Suit make debuts in this title. Each giving the player a different ability that will need to be leveraged to uncover coin troves as well as secret areas. Speaking of which, New Super Mario Bros Wii takes secret areas to an incredible new height. Seemingly solid walls give way to a player uncovered coins, power ups, and even secret exits.

No review would be complete without a mention of the multiplayer aspects of this game, I admit I was skeptical on this mode going in. However my fears were soon abolished as I found myself jostling my wife for power ups or to get in the warp pipe first. NSMBW uses the first in first out method for the pipes, whichever player goes in first comes out first, getting first dibs on coin collecting. Surprisingly though, score as well as coin count are shared by all players during normal game play. For coins, whoever gets the token 100th coin earns an extra life. There are two other modes of play though, coin battle where players via for the highest coin count while navigating levels, some levels completely custom for coin battle. And Free play, where you and up to 3 other players are allowed to play through select levels from the game.

While I heap praise on New Super Mario Bros Wii, there are a couple gray points that I need to mention. First the most obvious. During mulitplayer game play whenever anyone dies, there is a very brief pause while the classic “oops you died” Mario music plays. Whenever that pause happens momentum is cut, so if your in mid jump and your friend dies, you are going to fall. I can not believe this made it past Nintendo’s QA team so it must be working as intended. However if anyone at Nintendo reads this, please relay to Mr Miyamoto that “feature” was the most infuriating thing in the whole game.

The other small issue I and my wife had with the game was the difficulty. Now, I should mention that we played through together. Meaning if one died the other could just stand in place and wait while the other floated back on the screen. This created a sense of invulnerability in both myself and my wife. Balanced against the seemingly easy level layouts we were able to breeze through the game within only a few days. This does not mean that we are done with NSMBW, with 3 “Star Coins” in each level as well as kidnapped Toads to rescue there is plenty of things to keep us busy throughout the rest of the holiday season.

While it has its flaws New Super Mario Bros Wii is by and large the best game released for the Wii to date. Combining both solid platformer game play along with a new “Wii Revolution” twist this is THE game for the Wii this holiday season.