Though Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 were in the works, I
bet someone at Nintendo was scared over the 3DS’ scarily bad start and thus a system-saving
savior was needed. Enter New Super Mario Bros. 2. What’s sad is that whoever
thought of making NSMB2 was a genius because like the DS and Wii installments
before it, all it takes for a Nintendo system to take off is a NSMB title. It’ll
sells for years, which can’t be said of most video games. And still seeing New
Mario Bros. 1 for DS still sell hundreds of thousands to millions years after its launch in 2006, at its full $34.99 price, is nothing less than
astounding. There’s a reason the box of this installment’s shows a lot of gold.
So my experience with NSMB2 started around twelve hours before
I wrote this. I woke up at noon, had breakfast, surfed the web and decided then
to start the game. Then, while curled up on my patio playing with the neighbor’s
cat, I finally picked up my 3DS. Throughout the day I picked up and put down
the system, playing just a little bit more. During this 11-hour on and off play
session, I beat Bowser, played through the three “secret” worlds and unlocked
most of the hidden stages, just enough time in my night to write this.
I felt déjà vu. When I played the first NSMB for the
Nintendo DS, I walked away completely irritated over the experience due to
Nintendo butchering the ideology of what makes the previous 2D Mario games,
Super Mario Bros 1-3 and World, special. While the core level design and
gameplay was rock solid, the worlds, the artstyle, the easy-to-notice hints -
the entire ambiance was just utterly generic, like it was some by-the-numbers
platformer. Although its console successor, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, was a
definite step in the right direction with its frantic-but-fun couch co-op, these
New Super Mario Bros. games needed a kick in the ass when it came to
presentation. New Super Mario Bros. 2 was no exception.
So in NSMB2, Peach is kidnapped… again. You go through your
generic grass, water, desert, dark lands... again. You run and jump on Goombas,
Koopas and the seven Koopalings… again (though no Bowser Jr. - that’s a plus). They
decided to bring back old favorites like Renzors and the Raccoon Tail, but this
is the recurring pattern - that mostly everything in its core is recycled.
Hell, all of the music was ripped from the previous two NSMBs. When I expect a
new badass final Bowser theme (because he always gets one) and get NSMB Wii’s,
you’ve really pissed me off.
I say, “mostly everything in its core is recycled,” because
the developers added a metagame in the mix throughout the game’s experience.
There’s a coin theme to the design because the game’s box (nothing in the game
ironically) tells you to collect one million coins. This is achieved by
spamming coins everywhere. Coins pop up if you touch the right place, there are
coin-enhanced Fire Flowers which can turn nearby brick to coins and coin
bonuses to enemies, and big gold rings which turns enemies gold and gives them
a Midas Foot (coins trail their path). There’s even a Gold Rush mode, where you
power through three levels with a single life trying to get coins and coin
bonuses. It’s an interesting touch, but other than a coin counter on the bottom
of the map screen, there’s no other achievement to perform this. I beat the
game with 20,000 coins and I am not bothering to do such a useless and
time-consuming task if there’s no goal on my end.
Maybe I’m just getting old and jaded, because if you aren’t
a hardcore Mario fan like me, you’ll probably enjoy most of what’s here while
given a decent challenge. In fact, its familiarity would be actually a sign of
solace and safety that you’re getting into something easier to understand. Where
if you want explore something, you’ll be rewarded and feel rewarded (see some
bricks/coins/structures in a mirrored pattern? Jump between them.). Where your
replayability is finding where the hell that alternate exit is and combing the
level for its secrets. I understand I’m not the primary audience for the NSMB
series, but it can if it gets a damn personality.
And that’s the problem I’m really having with NSMB2. It’s bad
per se, it’s just not exciting, but that’s what gets to me the most. There’s no
reason that a 2D Mario cannot have something fresh and new while feeling
slightly familiar, like Super Mario World or Yoshi’s Island did in the 90’s.
It’s weirder that while Nintendo uses the same layout for NSMB, the 3D Mario
games are blowing them out of the water in terms of reinvention and style. Super
Mario 3D Land took those familiar Mario tropes, but built a whole new way of
playing 3D Mario titles with a mix of the sidescroller blended in a 3D plane.
Super Mario Galaxy 2, while a traditional 3D Mario, is my favorite game this
generation because of its amazing art direction, pixel-perfect controls, it’s
fair-but-challenging difficulty and inventive power-ups that made the gameplay
feel newer. These two games represent what Mario games should feel like, but
NSMB2 does none of that - it feels rushed and forced. Its other modes, like
Gold Rush and it’s last-second attempt of 2-player co-op, are unappealing
add-ons to a game that has no personal replay value. It feels so rushed that
even the stereoscopic 3D effect is badly implemented, on a supposed system
seller of a stereoscopic 3D system.
Come on Nintendo, give me something to latch to with the NSMB
series. Maybe we can experience some new artstyle or some really unique power-ups
that’ll change the way we play. Do something drastic, like how Super Mario Bros
2 (Mario USA, Doki Doki Panic, whatever the hell you want to call it) is incredibly different than Mario 1 and 3. Hell, if you want to recycle, do something we haven’t seen reused since
Super Mario Bros. 2, because it’s really unique, stupid and fun. I feel at this
point it’ll probably be impossible to ask for a Snifit. I don’t know why
Nintendo thinks NSMB players don’t deserve more than hitting the same enemies
in the same locales. On top of NSMB2, New Super Mario Bros. U is coming out for
the Wii U’s launch later this year. Seeing that same personality as NSMB Wii will
feel even staler when put side-by-side with something like Rayman Legends, another
co-op-friendly platformer that furthered themselves since last year’s Rayman
Origins.
To those who never saw a Snifit before. My point exactly.
The worst thing about it is that though NSMB2 is a short,
unfulfilling experience, I respect its existence because it’ll drive the 3DS
through its entire lifecycle. Though it’ll destroy the sales of the infinitely
superior Super Mario 3D Land like how NSMB Wii dominated the sales of the gaming
nirvana that were Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 combined, I can watch it burn its name on sales charts for years to
come and not be terribly upset. That’s because just knowing that it’ll help
fund future 3D Mario titles, developed my more talented and inventive
developers, can make this lackluster title seem somewhat worth my money.