Probably one of the shortest games I've ever played. I can't believe how short it was. When it comes to the game itself though, it has some positives and negatives. The only really positive thing about this game is the Gold Flower, which is a powerup that turns things around the balls thrown with it into coins or coin dispensers in some way. That is a fun powerup to use. Unfortunately, the game's overall focus on coins gives you an excess of 1ups, which makes the game very easy. I never had a difficult time, and when I got to a level that had me stuck for a while, the really annoying "if this level's too hard, try this powerup"-system appeared, which is a level of handholding that I can not stand in video games. I wouldn't say that this game is very bad, but it isn't very good either, and the soundtrack doesn't help with that, because it is exactly the same soundtrack as the one for New Super Mario Bros. Wii! Some songs have been expanded on in a very, VERY small way, but it's exactly the same basically. I wouldn't really recommend this game to be honest.

É provavelmente o jogo do Mario mais sem alma que eu já vi na vida e que definitivamente não tenho saco pra continuar jogando. Tudo já foi visto em algum lugar, do visual as músicas, das mecânicas aos temas. A única coisa original - a tal mecânica de coletar moedas - é totalmente fora do conceito do jogo, não adiciona em absolutamente nada e só deixa o jogo mais fácil pela quantidade absurda de vidas disponíveis. Ganha algum ponto por ser Mario 2D, mas é tão esquecível que nem sei se realmente merece.

Game 14 of Mario Marathon

What a weird name for a title, huh? I kind of guess I know why they did that because it's the second handheld New Super game but naming conventions have always been a problem with Nintendo.

As for the game itself it's pretty much a solid edition to this series of games. The fun multiplayer is gone but you get get slightly tighter levels design now that the game no longer has to accommodate for four players. The Gold Mario power up is pretty damn cool and the Tanuki suit makes it's 2D Mario return. There's also an interesting obsession with coin collecting in this game that I thought was a neat tangent that didn't get out of the way.

It ultimately nothing groundbreaking but as one of two game in this marathon that I played for the first time it was a fun first-time experience. Fuck the Impossible Pack though. I got no time for that stuff.

It's still not really New and definitely not Super Mario Bros., but at least it's better than Wii.

The smaller screen resolution and single player design makes for more focused, compact level design; the stages don't rely on party-esque jank as much; hidden paths like in Wii are completely absent, and the coin scoring genuinely adds some interesting metagame functions, like adding importance to not dying, revisiting levels with flying gold blocks and gold flowers to maximize your score... it can get really interesting once you try playing it that way.

I just wish they'd gone all in with this mentality. Many levels simply don't work with this idea (eg: basically every ghost house); the traditional structure of the game doesn't lend itself as well as a more score attack-focused structure like the Pac-Man Championship Edition games might have; and perhaps most crucially, there's no online leaderboards for coin records that I can find.

It's a very interesting idea that could seriously be elaborated on further - but sadly, 2 inherited Wii's half-baked, newbie-training mentality, and gave up all kinds of iteration and elaboration in the process.