The timeline's a little scattered, but while Super Mario Sunshine was the latest game in the Super Mario series on paper, New Super Mario Bros. marks the first time in 15 years that Nintendo's created a classically-designed Super Mario game - Super Mario World ended the plumber's starring role in the 2D platformer series. Yoshi may have picked up the gauntlet in a labeled sequel a couple years later, but outside of a few nods here and there in spinoffs like Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi, Mario hasn't starred in this Plumber Saves the Princess role in a side-scrolling platformer since the Super NES launch title.
With this new game, the more things change, the more they stay the same: the basis for New Super Mario Bros. is, surprise, to save the princess. In this design, Bowser Jr. has snagged Peach right out from Mario's nose, and taken her to the closest fortress possible. This game won't win any awards in storytelling because there is none - Mario will simply have to bounce from level to level getting to each challenge's castle while collecting coins and stomping Koopas, Goombas, and any other oddly-named inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom. Anyone who's played the original Super Mario Bros. - and at this point, if you haven't, stop reading and find the nearest NES for a refresher course - will recognize the early nods to the original game design, from hopping on the flagpole to finish a round to Bowser protecting the end of the first castle.
So New Super Mario Bros. is a game that's been a long time coming. It's clear that a Super Mario game is a really big deal for Nintendo, and a game bearing the Super Mario namesake needs to be significant. It took the company more than a decade to advance the Mario mechanics in the side-scrolling design, but how much further can the company go without straying from the existing run/jump/bounce formula and becoming something not-so-Mario?
Obviously, a lot. The only reason why this game's on the Nintendo DS is because A) the handheld market's a lot more open to the idea of more limited game designs like side-scrolling action games, and B) the Nintendo DS has far more horsepower under its hood than the Game Boy Advance system does. A lot of the gameplay advancements are due to the capabilities of the Nintendo DS processor and not the system's more unique elements. In the main game, the dual screen and touch screen aspects are so basic and sparsely used that they're almost unnecessary to the game design. Honestly, they're not needed, either - it's the system's 3D capabilities that bring a lot of the new gameplay elements to light in this Mario sequel.
For example, Mario is no longer the pixel-drawn character he's always been in past Super Mario platformers. Instead, he's a fully 3D model similar to the one that's used in Super Mario 64. This enables the designers to give him a wide assortment of moves and manipulate him in countless ways without the need to redraw him in all sorts of poses. More importantly, with this model Mario can now grow super huge - literally the size of the Nintendo DS screen - and lay waste to the familiar brick layouts for some easy 1-up earnings.
The super-size mushroom is only one example of the new elements in this game. Some levels feature deforming platforms that shrink and stretch to make jumps a lot more challenging. Other levels have ground deformation effects in place, causing rolling hills to form simply by warping the ground under Mario's feet. Water levels have 3D whirlpools that can suck Mario down if he gets too close. Enemies can vary in size thanks to this hybrid 2D/3D engine, so you might encounter head-pounding Thwomps of all sizes in a single castle. Some elements are a little more subtle - rolling logs, swinging vines, spinning question blocks scattered throughout the worlds, all using the power of the DS for new Mario gameplay elements.
Even with the 3D capabilities, the designers keep everything at a modest level. There are occasional special effects that may make some go, "Hey that's pretty neat" - the water rippling effect on the surface of a pool, for example - but for the most part the game sticks to a rigid 2D visual design to make New Super Mario Bros. feel as close to Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3 as possible in the contemporary design.
Mario also has a few moves for this adventure, most lifted from his 3D adventures. Wall jumping is now possible, and in many levels, required. There's also a butt-stomp to smash bricks from the top-side. And, along with the Super-Size-Me version of Mario, players can also collect a micro mushroom to shrink Mario down to mouse-size which gives him the ability to run on the surface of water as well as float more gracefully after a jump. The game's almost peppered with cool little subtleties, some not as easy to notice. For starters, the end of level fireworks from Super Mario Bros. are back, but they're triggered by something completely different; and enemies now change their attack pattern based upon the beat of the background music playing during the action.
Most importantly, New Super Mario Bros. undeniably feels like a Super Mario game. This Nintendo DS title's spent a long time in development, and it's clear that the design team used much of that development cycle to get the classic Mario handling to feel right. Control-wise, this game gets it down pat…even with the new moves under Mario's arsenal.
The game's layout is very similar in structure to Super Mario 3 or Super Mario World - each of the eight worlds in New Super Mario Bros. has an overhead map that lays out all of the levels. By completing the different levels, the path will open up to the next available level. If you're looking to plow through the game from beginning to end credits, it won't take long - four or five hours is all that's needed to finish the game at its bare minimum. It's also not a difficult thing to do thanks to the abundance of extra life opportunities throughout the game - Nintendo's designers are very generous with the green mushrooms this time around.
But who plays Mario at its bare minimum? Plowing through will literally skip more than half of the levels in New Super Mario Bros. In fact, two of the eight worlds can't be accessed by traditional means, so if you beat the game on a quick run-through you'll literally be skipping two worlds to do it. The game levels are, on average, a bit on the easy side for those just wanting to hit the flagpole in each one. The challenge is to snag three large coins in each level. Spending these coins at specific places will open up paths that are inaccessible through the normal means. And, like in previous Mario games, some levels have different exits. If you stumble upon these you might open up a shortcut to skip locked levels - and true gamers don't let these areas sit unopened. Many of the coins aren't easily snagged, and it's here where much of New Super Mario Bros.' challenge and most of the game's length emerges.
Even when the main game is completely over, the whole package still has a lot of meat to it. On top of the single-player adventure is a fantastic wireless one-on-one versus mode, pitting Mario against Luigi in one of five looping arenas where the objective is to grab five stars before the other person does. This mode is absolutely maniacal, and reminiscent of the multiplayer mode in the Game Boy Advance versions of the Super Mario series…just on a bigger, two-player scale. Less impressive is the addition of the same collectible mini-games that were included in Super Mario 64 DS. It may seem like one of those Nintendo handheld recycling jobs, but that idea's thrown out the window when you realize that these games have been retooled for single cartridge wireless multiplayer. That's pretty cool.
Just as New Super Mario Bros. retains the look and feel of a classic Super Mario game, the same can be said about the audio. Familiar tunes have been remixed and recomposed for the Nintendo DS game, and while a lot has been changed, the soundtrack is still very Mario. Players will, however, have to deal with the fact that Mario has a voice in this platformer. The "Hoo!" and "Waha!" exclamations are kept to a minimum during the action, and most of the Italian stereotyped vocals are at the start and end of a level. It's a small price to pay, and most gamers aren't going to care about the "Here we go!" and "that's-a so nice" quips throughout the adventure anyway.