When considering New Super Mario Bros. in retrospect, it's important to consider the status of 2D Mario titles around the time of its release. The last truly new 2D Mario game, prior to 2006, was Super Mario Land 2: Yoshi's Island in 1995 for the SNES. So after over a decade since the last title, there was plenty of excitement around the prospect of a new 2D entry to the series. And upon release, NSMB was lauded as an instant classic, and a title that would stand among the previous great entries in the series. Of course, in hindsight, that's not exactly an accurate perception, but a lot of the negativity towards this game is actually aimed at its successors, and people's distaste for NSMB (the series) is often misattributed or misplaced towards NSMB (the game). The Nintendo DS was red-hot at the time of New Super Mario Bros. release, so its no surprise that it sold as well as it did, but there was more to this game's success than just name recognition and a popular console.
While New Super Mario Bros. was a fully 2D game, it felt a lot more like a stylized blend between 2D Marios of old and 3D Marios, like 64 or Sunshine. Graphics relied on both 3D models (for characters and moving bits) and 2D textures (for backgrounds and still images), which gave NSMB a somewhat unique graphical style, even compared to its sequels. It's also brought quite a bit of Mario's 3D arsenal to 2D for the first time; ground pounds, wall jumps, and triple jumps are all present here, to great effect. Movement in general is excellent in this game, as would be expected of a 2D Mario title. The worlds were about what you might expect from a game like this-varied and short enough that they don't get tedious, but generic enough that they weren't too exciting. Level design, though, was quite good, which makes NSMB a breeze to blast through. Similar to Super Mario World's Dragon Coins, there are three Star Coins in each level, which can be used to purchase power-ups or to open up secret levels. This is a great addition to what used to be just a generic and practically useless collectable; not only does collecting Star Coins make the game more fun, but it actually has a purpose.
Even outside of the main game, there's a decent amount of extra content here as well, both in the form of mini games and a competitive multiplayer mode, which makes the main game's brevity feel more tolerable. It's definitely on the shorter side of the modern 2D Mario spectrum-a straight playthrough might clock in at less than 5 hours-but that also makes it a good option for short bursts of 2D platforming. Unfortunately, that option can feel quite limited, due to a lack of save options in this title. Once you beat the main game, a quick save option is unlocked, but prior to that, there are only a few ways to actually save your progress, which could either force you to play through more levels than you wanted to, or lose the progress you have made. Locking the quick save behind completing the game is a pretty bizarre decision, and might turn new players off to returning to this title if the save system annoys them.
It's clear, though, that one of the themes Nintendo wanted to focus on in this game was replayability; indeed, even after a full playthrough, you're guaranteed to be missing 2 of the worlds on the world select screen. And while it does increase replayability, it feels a bit cheap in doing so, as 8 worlds was the standard for most 2D Mario games prior. Especially so as, for many of the secrets in the game, including the 2 extra worlds, use of the Mini Mushroom was required, one of the 3 new power-ups added to NSMB. And while the idea of locking secret areas and worlds behind specific power-ups is a good one, none of the new power-ups in this game feel particularly good to use, especially the Mini Mushroom, which feels like more of a power-down than anything. This doesn't affect the core gameplay too much, but looking for secrets or new worlds can sometimes feel a bit tedious, as many of them are unlocked the same way using the same tools.
New Super Mario Bros. is a game that never seemed to be nailed down. Is it the instant-classic, genre-defining title that many reviewers claimed it was upon release? Certainly not. Is it a generic and uninteresting title responsible for the downfall of 2D Mario? Again, no. It's a game that suffers most, not because of what's a part of it, but because of what came after it, and its massive success indicates that it was certainly a popular decision at the time. And while it may not have lived up to the nearly unreachable heights of the NES or SNES titles, it was a great new addition to the Mario lineup, and a title that deserves more respect than it gets.
While New Super Mario Bros. was a fully 2D game, it felt a lot more like a stylized blend between 2D Marios of old and 3D Marios, like 64 or Sunshine. Graphics relied on both 3D models (for characters and moving bits) and 2D textures (for backgrounds and still images), which gave NSMB a somewhat unique graphical style, even compared to its sequels. It's also brought quite a bit of Mario's 3D arsenal to 2D for the first time; ground pounds, wall jumps, and triple jumps are all present here, to great effect. Movement in general is excellent in this game, as would be expected of a 2D Mario title. The worlds were about what you might expect from a game like this-varied and short enough that they don't get tedious, but generic enough that they weren't too exciting. Level design, though, was quite good, which makes NSMB a breeze to blast through. Similar to Super Mario World's Dragon Coins, there are three Star Coins in each level, which can be used to purchase power-ups or to open up secret levels. This is a great addition to what used to be just a generic and practically useless collectable; not only does collecting Star Coins make the game more fun, but it actually has a purpose.
Even outside of the main game, there's a decent amount of extra content here as well, both in the form of mini games and a competitive multiplayer mode, which makes the main game's brevity feel more tolerable. It's definitely on the shorter side of the modern 2D Mario spectrum-a straight playthrough might clock in at less than 5 hours-but that also makes it a good option for short bursts of 2D platforming. Unfortunately, that option can feel quite limited, due to a lack of save options in this title. Once you beat the main game, a quick save option is unlocked, but prior to that, there are only a few ways to actually save your progress, which could either force you to play through more levels than you wanted to, or lose the progress you have made. Locking the quick save behind completing the game is a pretty bizarre decision, and might turn new players off to returning to this title if the save system annoys them.
It's clear, though, that one of the themes Nintendo wanted to focus on in this game was replayability; indeed, even after a full playthrough, you're guaranteed to be missing 2 of the worlds on the world select screen. And while it does increase replayability, it feels a bit cheap in doing so, as 8 worlds was the standard for most 2D Mario games prior. Especially so as, for many of the secrets in the game, including the 2 extra worlds, use of the Mini Mushroom was required, one of the 3 new power-ups added to NSMB. And while the idea of locking secret areas and worlds behind specific power-ups is a good one, none of the new power-ups in this game feel particularly good to use, especially the Mini Mushroom, which feels like more of a power-down than anything. This doesn't affect the core gameplay too much, but looking for secrets or new worlds can sometimes feel a bit tedious, as many of them are unlocked the same way using the same tools.
New Super Mario Bros. is a game that never seemed to be nailed down. Is it the instant-classic, genre-defining title that many reviewers claimed it was upon release? Certainly not. Is it a generic and uninteresting title responsible for the downfall of 2D Mario? Again, no. It's a game that suffers most, not because of what's a part of it, but because of what came after it, and its massive success indicates that it was certainly a popular decision at the time. And while it may not have lived up to the nearly unreachable heights of the NES or SNES titles, it was a great new addition to the Mario lineup, and a title that deserves more respect than it gets.