Submitted by: Nick Rathman at 29/10/06
Game rating: 9.0
While on vacation I bought New Super Mario Bros for the DS to pass my time. Right now im on the final world, with 2 extra worlds left to unlock
The game starts out as mario and peach taking a walk nearby the castle. Suddenly a big bolt of lighting strikes the castle and mario quickly goes over to investigate. While he was at the castle, baby bowser sneaks behind peach and steals her. Mario runs back and starts chasing bowser down. For the rest of the game you are chasing him down trying to get back peach.
The game follow a simple structure. Start off on a world, do a couple stages, do a "tower stage" where you fight baby bowser, do a couple more stages then go to a castle and fight a boss, then move on to next world. Each world, stage, tower, castle and boss are different. Some worlds are desert like, others are snowy, others still are volcanic. This makes for a nice variaty in the stages, so the game doesnt get stale.
There are also unlockable stages, worlds and places called mushroom houses. You can unlock extra stages and unlock mushroom houses by using star coins. Each unlockable typicaly costs about 5 star coins. You get star coins in stages, there are 3 of them hidden around in each stage. I havnt fount out how to get the extra worlds yet. Also there is other stages that you cant get to, dono how to get to them either
The mushroom houses are generaly a one time only thing ,though they sometimes come back. There are 3 of them. A item mushroom house, a giant mushroom house and a 1up mushroom house. The item house gives you a random item to use on stages (ie: fire mario). Giant mushroom houses give you giant mushrooms, wich I will explain in a minute. 1up houses give you lots of 1ups. How many depends on luck (there are like 8 boxes. all but 1 give 1ups, some give you 3, others double the amount you would get. The final box is bowser, which disables all the untouched boxes and shoots out the 1ups you currently got from the boxes you hit. He is really easy to get though so you will probably only get a couple 1ups instead of a dozen)
There are 6 different items in the game. The first is just a regular mushroom. It makes mario go from regular mario, who is short and chubby (and dies from being hit once) to super mario, who is just the regular mario that we are used to. Allows him to jump higher because of his height, break blocks and makes it easier to get the fire mario item. On any of the items (except for tiny and giant mushrooms and invcibility), if you get hit you revert back to regular mario (or super mario). The next item is fire mario. This item turns super marios overalls white, and underneath turns red and his cap turns white to. You can also shoot fire balls with fire mario, which kill most enemies in one hit. Another item is shell mario. Turns mario into a sort of koopa-mario hybrid. This mario is good because he can smash through blocks normal super mario cant, and he can also hide in his shell, which sheilds you from enemys. Also when you run fast enough you go inside your shell and the shell starts spinning, eleminating any enemys that come in your way and also smashing through blocks and going underneath pillars and such. Next item is tiny mario. This turns mario into a really tiny mario.. obviously. The big disadvantage to this is you get hit, you die. But its advantages more than make up for it. Tiny mario can fit through tiny gaps and go through tiny pipes, he can run on water (which is very fun) and he can also do "floating" jumps. Basicly a floating jump is just a really high jump and a really slow fall. Allowing tiny mario to jump much farther and higher than he could before. The second to last item, and by far the coolest, is giant mario. This item makes mario grow to a collosal size for a short period of time. While you are giant, you can smash pipes to the ground, jump farther, kill any enemy you touch, smash through any block just by walking into it and destroy many items (such as cannons) that you normaly cant. You also also invincilbe while in this mode, and the more destruction you cause, the more 1ups you get when you revert back to normal. The final item is invincibilty. Invincibilty lasts for a short while, but any enemy you touch is dead, you run and swim faster and also jump higher, and of course you cant die.
The game controls are simple. Use A or B (or X and Y if you change it) to jump, and the other 2 buttons can be used for fireballs and dash. Hold down X or Y (or A and B if you changed it) and you will gain speed, which allows for double and tripply jumps, or if you are fire mario you can tap X/Y to shoot fireballs. Ground pound is achieved by jumping then pressing the down button. You can slide by running then ducking, or just sitting on a slope and ducking. If you slide down a slope you will kill any enemys in your way. You can wall jump just like how you wall jump in any other mario game. Jump against wall, push over + jump.
Now for the scores...
Graphics: 9/10
--
The graphics are just as good as any other game on the DS, maybe even better. The style is cool too, its all 3D, but from a 2D sidescroller perspective
Sound: 9/10
--
Classic mario soundtrack, with most likely some remixed music. All really high quality to of course
Story: N/A
--
The game does have a small story, but its so small that it doesnt really count as one at all. Besides, this is a old school mario platformer, story doesnt count ;)
Multiplayer: ??
--
The game features 2 multiplayer modes. 1 is for minigames, and is up to 4 players and the other is a versus mode between mario and luigi. I havnt been able to try either of them yet, so no score for this part
Presentation: 5/10
--
The interface is great, game is great, graphics are great, sound is great and plenty of replayabilty... but the thing that kills it on this part is the minigames. Nearly all the minigames are from sm64 DS.. barely any original ones to choose from. >_>
Replayability: 10/10
--
A good amount of minigames to choose from, unlockable mushroom houses, stages and worlds make this game high up in the ones that you are going to be playing over and over. Stages dont really get old (unless you play them a million times over when trying to beat them) and the game is very good for pick up and play. Only thing that annoys me is that you cant save at all unless you beat a tower/castle stage or buy somthing with star coins
Gameplay: 9/10
--
Play it yourself and you will probably agree to
Overall: 9/10
--
Very few complaints on this game. Basicly just the save feature and mini games and thats it. Other than that this game just plain rocks, go buy it.
Review system explanation
Comments
http://[http]http:
Submit comment: HTML is disabled. Use [http] instead of http:// for links (for anti-spam reasons). Failure to do so will result in comment not being posted.
44369 spammers thwarted in their futile attempts - and counting!
