Nintendo hit the jackpot with the New Super Mario Bros. series. Beginning on the Nintendo DS, the series has sold tens of millions of copies over the course of four games (five if you count New Super Luigi U).
While the series has sold well, it’s not the same as the mainline Super Mario series. The emphasis is on nostalgia and modernizing old ideas from older Mario games. It’s for lapsed Mario fans – those who played Super Mario Bros. in the ’80s and ’90s, but have fallen out of gaming since then. It’s designed to scratch the nostalgia itch of those who maybe have forgotten and need a reminder of how good the Super Mario Bros. games are. It’s the Super Mario Bros. formula repackaged for the modern era, or at least the modern era of 2006-2012 when they came out.
For hardcore gamers, the New Super Mario Bros. games are enjoyable, but they also know Nintendo is capable of much more than what the series offers. Pushing the 2D platformer genre forward with forward-thinking level design is not the priority that it is in the mainline Mario platformers.
Nintendo saves almost all their new ideas for the 3D offerings, and they currently seem much more interested in pursuing 3D open-world design with games like Super Mario Odyssey and Bowser’s Fury than they do in pushing the 2D platformer genre forward. Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Super Mario Odyssey were loaded with new ideas and amazing level design.
So what happened to the New Super Mario Bros. series? The Wii U happened. Even though it was still the third best-selling game on the system, New Super Mario Bros. U “only” sold around 6 million units. Granted, that’s still almost half the Wii U’s entire user base of 13 million, but still a massive decline from the 31 million the original sold on the Nintendo DS, the 30 million New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold on the Wii, and the 13 million New Super Mario Bros. 2 sold on the 3DS. Nintendo ported the Wii U game to the Switch where it’s turned in a very respectable 10 million copies so far, but Nintendo seems uninterested in continuing the series for now.
New Super Mario Bros. U was the fourth game in the series, and also the last. It’s a by-the-numbers 2D Mario platformer for the most part. In fact, New Super Mario Bros. U might be the most derivative and uninspired Mario platformer I’ve played – and I’ve played almost all of them. That being said, even a derivative 2D Mario platformer is still a fun game and worth your time and money. I liked it and enjoyed my time with it, but not as much as I wanted. I wanted to love and adore it, but I couldn’t. If this was supposed to be the system-selling killer-app for the Wii U, it becomes more obvious why that system didn’t light the world on fire.
There’s a lot to like about New Super Mario Bros. U. The Super Acorn power-up, which helps considerably with the platforming gameplay allows you to glide, float, and even shoot up into the air for some extra height. It’s probably the most useful power-up in any of the New Super Mario Bros. games.
You can also store away power-ups to use on the overworld map before going into a level, similar to Super Mario Bros. 3. You have your choice between Mario, Luigi, Toad, Toadette (who can turn into Princess Peach with a Super Crown power-up), and Nabbit. Luigi can jump a little higher, Toad and Toadette are quicker, Princess Peach can hover, float, and shoot up into the air similar to having the Super Acorn power-up, and Nabbit doesn’t take damage from enemies. Being able to play as different characters provides a nice change of pace to the gameplay. Yoshi is a playable character in some levels as well, adding to the Super Mario World nostalgia.
It’s also the best-looking of the New Super Mario Bros. games thanks to it being in HD. It looks great on the Switch’s handheld screen with everything animating crisply at 60 FPS. The game sounds fantastic as well.
But here we go:
Getting all the Star Coins in each level is a major aspect of all the New Super Mario Bros. games. It’s too often tedious, and Nintendo did virtually nothing between the first game in the series on the DS, and the Wii U game six years later, to make getting them less tedious.
The tedium comes from how the games handle exploration in general. You’re encouraged to get the three Star Coins in every level. In fact, to unlock every level in New Super Mario Bros. U, you have to get every Star Coin in the game. However, if you’re having a hard time tracking any of them down, you better have a guide handy. Although some Star Coins are out in the open to find, most of them aren’t, and the game doesn’t give you a lot of hints or clues. Not to mention, you’re on a time limit. Yoshi’s Island on Super Nintendo encouraged level exploration as well, but had no time limit, and the New Super Mario Bros. series seems regressive in its design by contrast.
Also, some of the design decisions in the levels don’t make sense or seem well thought out. For example, if I’m in a ghost house where all the enemies are ghosts, why am I getting Fire Flower power-ups when I hit a ?-block? Fireballs don’t affect ghosts, so it makes the power-up almost worthless, especially when getting a Super Acorn power-up would help so much more with jumping and exploration.
Another issue is the star-rating system you get on your save file. To get a five-star rating for Story Mode, you have to find every exit in the game, similar to Super Mario World – and just like Super Mario World, Nintendo “forgot” to put in a simple mechanic to let you know which levels have secret exits and which ones don’t. So if you’ve beaten the game and gotten every Star Coin, but missed an exit somewhere, you have no way of knowing what level you should start looking in.
Giving players this info could’ve easily been implemented into the game, and so I didn’t spend a lot of time looking for the one exit I missed in my playthrough. If Nintendo can’t be bothered to tell me the one exit I missed, or at least point me in the right direction and give me a clue as to what world it’s in, then I’m not going to be bothered to go searching the whole overworld map to figure it out. I’m not sure if Nintendo did this intentionally or out of laziness. Either way, it was a bad decision when they did it in Super Mario World, and it’s equally bad when they did it in New Super Mario Bros. U. Wasting the player’s time is never a good idea.
There are other criteria for getting a five-star rating as well, such as catching Nabbit in every world – but the game doesn’t bother telling you that. There is a Toad house where you can look at statistics of your playtime in the game. For example, you can see how many times you’ve caught Nabbit, but not which worlds you’ve caught him in and which ones you haven’t. You can see how many exits you’ve found in the game, but not which ones, nor which exits you still have to find. So basically, the game gives you a lot of unhelpful stats that don’t help you complete the game to get that five-star rating, and no stats that actually do help. Thanks, Nintendo.
Another common criticism is the somewhat generic art style. I understand Nintendo is aiming for a mainstream audience and isn’t looking to do anything progressive visually, but if the point of the game is to take players back to the days of Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3, why did Nintendo settle on an art style that looks nothing like either of those games?
In spite of the game being rife with nods to Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, you don’t feel like you’re playing either of those games, or sequels to those games. You feel like you’re playing another New Super Mario Bros. game, which isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but the game failed to communicate the spirit of the two games it was most trying to emulate.
Also, why isn’t the theme from the original Super Mario Bros. in any of the New Super Mario Bros. games? If Mario nostalgia is supposed to be a major theme of New Super Mario Bros., how can you not include the most iconic video game tune in the history of video games? While most of the tunes we do get aren’t bad by any stretch, they also aren’t nearly as memorable.
Every New Super Mario Bros. game had a hook. The first game on Nintendo DS was the return of 2D Mario after 15 years.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii was designed around multiplayer, and was the first time we’d had that kind of multiplayer in a Mario game before.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 on 3DS had the million-coin challenge with all the levels designed around getting as many coins and as much gold as possible.
However, the Wii U game doesn’t introduce any major new hook. It’s just more levels with some nods to past Mario games. That’s it.
I want to reiterate, this doesn’t make New Super Mario Bros. U a bad game. How you feel about it will depend on what the last 2D Mario you played was. If you haven’t played a good Mario platformer since Super Mario World or Yoshi’s Island, you’ll love New Super Mario Bros. U. However, if you’ve played the other games in the series, you should lower your expectations, because other than lots of nostalgia and nods to past Mario outings, there’s not a lot new that’s introduced.
And that’s the last we’ve seen of the New Super Mario Bros. series from Nintendo. Its legacy lives on in the Super Mario Maker games for Wii U, 3DS, and Switch, in which Nintendo basically took their level editor, put it into a game, and let players make their own levels.
The New Super Mario Bros. series lit the gaming world on fire for the space of four games in six years. Although nothing new in the series seems to be on the horizon, Nintendo always likes to surprise, so never say never – although I have a feeling the series has run its course. Plus, 15 years after its introduction, it’s not really new anymore. We all know Nintendo will eventually make another 2D Mario game, but it’s anyone’s guess when that might happen.
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