New Super Mario Bros 2 Review: Mario doesn’t grow up, only you do

 
Super Mario Bros. is one of gaming’s classic icons, a figurehead that has been prominent throughout the console and handheld genrations. Almost any player, regardless of age, can tell you about a time spent in his or her childhood playing a title that featured the plump little plumber. 
 
That’s what Super Mario Bros. has become, a rite of passage. The first stepping stone into the world of video-games that by now has consumed us all. I have great memories of playing the original ‘Super Mario Bros.’ on an Nintendo Entertainment System and playing newer version of those games is still fun. In the sense it brings back nostalgia and familiarity.
 
I’ve always felt that Nintendo’s characters aren’t ment to grow up with you. Mario is ageless because he is targeted at a demographic that never gets older. Children are playing more games now then ever and Nintendo’s Mario formula is a proven hit with those children. Odds are if you are reading this, you are no longer in that demographic. I no longer expect Nintendo to stop making games featuring classic icons and reusing classic level design, because I realized they need to be there for a new genration to play and to love. If they are done well, the cycle repeats and those kids will have the same fond memories of Mario and Princess Peach that I did, just on newer titles. Yes you can still have fun playing ‘New Super Mario Bros 2′ if you’re not a child, I’m just stating this to put some context into my review. I feel that Nintendo is still aiming most of its titles at children that have never played a Mario title before and to those children, ‘New Super Mario Bros 2′ is probably going to be pretty amazing.
 
For those of you that are in the ‘core’ gaming audience and fit somewhere between the ages of 17-90, let’s just get this out of the way. Princess Peach has once again been captured, Mario is once again in a standard platformer that revolves around collecting coins and side-scrolling your way to boss fights. All of this is in a giant effort to save the Mushroom Kingdom. Sound familiar? It should, you’ve been playing that game for probably 10-20 years now and if you think Mario is about to make a 180 degree turn and offer up some dramatic gameplay changes and genre redefining mechanics, you were wrong. I’m not going to hold it against Nintendo for reusing the same time-proven formula because it works, it just doesn’t work on me anymore. I feel that the game has a lot to offer younger players or players that haven’t played many Super Mario Bros. games in the past. If you have gone through you fair share of titles, things may seem a little stale.
 
If you can, imagine Nintendo is making a game that wasn’t built for your unique gaming history, then NSMB2 has some great gameplay and some obvious flaws that even newcomers will notice.
 

 
Gold Coins move from a pleasurable experience to an absolute challenge in this game. Instead of just picking them up as you run across each level, hoping for 1up, Mario is almost drowned in them from the start. Each level that you play has three ‘Star Coins’, hidden rooms to open unexplored places on your world-map, a tower-level and a boss-fight.
 
Gaining a million-coins is an objective in the game. Playing NSMB2, it I felt that Nintendo was trying to teach me a lesson. That striving for something so greedy would ultimately cause only frustration and “having too much of a good thing, is bad”. I don’t know how well that translated in the game, or if that was their purpose, but the objective seemed inserted just for marketing reasons or to give you something to do after you finished the title.
 
NSMB2 is filled with nostalgia if you have played previous titles, the characters from previous games are almost on every level. The level design is still inventive, though most of it is an homage to previous Super Mario titles. There were sticking points for me in the game and even though I consider myself a skilled Mario jumper, I did not breeze through every level. I also did not find all the Star Coins in my first playthrough even though I desperately tried to.
 
“Coin Rush Mode” is a new feature that Nintendo brought in for this game. You can replay a previous level with the objective to capture as many Gold Coins in a preset time-limit. If this score was kept on a server somewhere and shared with the world, it would have made a fantastic way to compete with others and keep playing the game. Instead, Nintendo uses the ‘Streetpass’ method so you basically can only play against your local friends. I thought that this really cut the game short and that an online component really could have done wonders for the game’s replay value.
 
The co-op portion of this game also can only be done locally. Just like back in the days of Gameboy, two people need a handheld and the game. Co-op was such a big marketing push while the game was in development that I was shocked at how poorly it was designed. It’s a single-screen, first-person is the center of the camera…disaster. Contra had an easier co-op experience then this, and that game was designed in 1988.
 
Those can be considered “extras” and NSMB2 is, at its heart, a single-player title. So that aside, the single-player campaign is well crafted. It stands on the same principals and mechanics that all previous Mario side-scrollers are built on. The button-layout is intuitive, the response is precise and moving around the levels is easier than playing through them, which is how it should be. I grew up playing Mario titles and I was hoping for something more than a frolic through gaming memories of the past, and I still had a great time running through the Mushroom Kingdom once again. If you are looking to introduce your kids or younger siblings into the world of video games and want them to expereince a bright, colorful world filled with creative creatures in a fantasy setting, then odds are they will have a fantastic time.