Topic: Is 'New Super Mario Bros.' a brand for bland?

[Pixelated Pixies]

 

Super Mario Bros. at it's best.

Super Mario Bros. is without a doubt one of the most important series in gaming history. From the earthquake that was Super Mario Bros., through to the wacky Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA version), and finally on to what is considered by many to be the greatest 2D platformer ever made, Super Mario Bros. 3, it has been an iconic and sometimes groundbreaking series. For those reasons gamers were understandably excited when New Super Mario Bros was released for the DS in 2006. It might not have been as revolutionary as Super Mario Bros. and neither did it have suits or power-ups as memorable as those in Super Mario Bros. 3, but on it's own merits it was a fun game and could easily be thought of as one of the best handheld Mario games. However, it seemed to me at least like a first attempt; a chance for Nintendo to test the retro waters while introducing the Mario Bros. series to a new generation of young gamers who never played the original trilogy. As it turned out, this tried and true 2D platforming formula proved to be just as popular on the DS as it was on the NES, and NSMB became the best selling game for the platform.

A pictorial representation of Mario's dominance and Nintendo's love of money.

Despite it's stellar sales, however, some (myself included) wished Nintendo had been a little more adventurous. It had been a long journey from the original SMB to Super Mario Galaxy and Nintendo fans who had grew up with the series had certain expectations not for what a modern Mario game should be, but rather what a modern 2D Mario could be. For some of these people NSMB was unsurprisingly not the most interesting Mario game they had ever played. Nintendo, therefore, had a great opportunity with NSMB Wii to really push the envelope, to redefine what a 2D platformer was capable of. In the lofty imaginations of some Mario fans NSMB Wii had the potential to be an expanded, more intricate and more graphically lustrous Super Mario World. However, perhaps largely because the original NSMB sold so well, NSMB Wii provided yet more great 2D platforming, but yet again it seemed relatively bland when compared to it's original precursors, each of which managed to feel like a leap forward for the series in terms of level design, graphics and even music.


Since then of course Mario fans expectations have been raised still higher by Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Super Mario 3D Land. Galaxy not only represented the best 3D platformer since Super Mario 64 but also provided some of the best 2D levels our plumber protagonist has ever seen. Indeed, you could argue that the gravity switching 2D levels alone would form a great basis for a new 2D Mario. More recently we were also given the fantastic Super Mario 3D Land, which did such a deft job of blending 2D and 3D gameplay that although it felt like a very familiar game it also felt incredibly novel and interesting.

Super Mario Bros. 3 certainly has some competition.

It's for these reasons (i.e. the relative blandness of the NSMB series thus far and the incredible standards that have been set by both the original Super Mario Bros. trilogy and more modern Mario games) that I'm not finding the prospect of a new 'New Super Mario Bros.' all that appealing. Not only is the 'New' series underwhelming by the standards set by it's Mario Bros. predecessors, it's also underwhelming by those standards which have been reached more recently. The original NSMB was somewhat interesting sheerly for the fact that it was the first 2D Mario game since the Super Nintendo. NSMB Wii was something of a wasted opportunity, although it still offered a tight platforming experience. If past entried in the NSMB series and the 'New Super Mario Bros. U' demo shown at E3 2011 are any indication, it would seem that Nintendo have no intention of complicating what is one of their best selling games, and while I can't begrudge the company for making money, I can't help but feel that something more interesting might be done with this series. I have little doubt that the recently announced New Super Mario Bros. 2 will be a well made and fun Mario game. I'm just a little disappointed that the once iconic 'Super Mario Bros.' name is now a brand for bland.

[lolmonade]

The only thing I found truly "bland' about New Super Mario Bros was the visual style.
 
All of the games prior to it (not including the lost levels) had their own unique visual flare that made them feel like a new experience.  While I don't feel that NSMB had the same replayability that the older 2D mario games had, I don't think it was a bad Mario game overall, and I'd be much more satisfied if they went out of their way to make an entire new world (Transition from Mario 3 to mario world was astounding to the 10 year old me).

[Evan_B]

Well, the only thing I really have to knock against New Super Mario Bros. Wii is that it featured a game breaking power-up in the form of the Propeller Suit, which took most of the challenge out of the precision platforming in the game. But all-in-all, establishing a consistent visual style is something of a good investment, because players know what to expect when buying the title. However, that doesn't mean the game can't do more to reinvent its core mechanics. While New Super Mario Bros. for the DS was suitably challenging and required a good amount of skill, NSMBWii was more focused on the co-op portion of the game and that kind of hurt the really challenging platforming it could have achieved.

Now, could 2D Mario use a facelift? Yes, I certainly think so. The NSMB series is reliable, but not innovative.

[TJ Spyke]

I liked the DS and Wii ones, but the DS one was just not memorable. I liked the game, but nothing about the levels stand out (whereas I remember parts of every other Mario platformer).

[Lithium]

I've only ever played the DS NSMB and i intend to keep it that way considering how similar other games are in this franchise. Honestly, i didn't even like NSMB on DS all that much.

[NWR_insanolord]

The Wii game is a pretty huge step up from the DS game. While it's generally a bit bland, there are flashes of brilliance. If the 3DS game takes another step up, a lot of people will (or should) be eating their words about it.

[Spak-Spang]

I have to argue that Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is Mario at its best...or even Super Mario World...

but I think the DS New Super Mario Bros was horribly bland and I couldn't replay that game after finishing...it was just too generic. 

That being said...New Super Mario Bros Wii...was a blast to play in multi player modes, probably 2 player being the most playable...but 4 player being the most fun.  However, I could see how the single player levels were not as fulfilling.  However, many of the stages were brilliantly created throwbacks to the Mario experience...and had more unique twists to the gameplay. 

[Sundoulos]

I, too, thought the Wii game was a significant improvement, but how I wish that Nintendo had eschewed the New Super Mario Brother's main theme.  I don't know why, but I've always hated it...in both of it's DS and Wii incarnations.

A lot NMSB Wii stages or mechanics were pretty creative, but they were designed with the multiplayer in mind.  I think that creates some restraints on the types of levels that they could design; all of them had to be fairly linear and straightforward.  The thing I missed the most was the dense level design of Super Mario World; there were so many branching paths and secret exits in that game. 

I remember that when the first videos were released of Super Paper Mario, where Mario was running along the back of the first boss, Hooktail, , I thought that it would be cool to have a pure Mario platformer with that graphics style.  That's not really what we got, unfortunately, but I still think it would have been awesome.

[Luigi Dude]

The thing everyone has to remember is the team making the NSMB games are a younger team at Nintendo.  The DS NSMB was their first full length Mario game and the Wii game was their second.  The fact that there was a huge improvement in quality between the DS and Wii game shows this team is really learning and improving. 

If this type of improvement continues then in the coming years the NSMB team will be one of Nintendo's top teams and why more people should be excited for the upcoming NSMB games.

[Chozo Ghost]

Mario is a spicy Italian meatball. He is anything but bland.

[Uncle_Optimus]

New Super Mario Bros may not really be targeted at long-time fans anymore, with its stratospheric sales to the utterly mainstream market. Looking forward to see how NSMB 2 sales stack up against 3DLand a year from now, it will tell us a lot about who the 3DS audience really is.


To make 2-D Mario exciting again, going forward, these ideas of other lands with different rules and enemies may indeed be the ticket. This tact has been successfully carried out before: in the western SMB 2 and more recently with Galaxy, the latter perhaps being "Mario for hardcore gamers".
Or, give Mario a gun :p (hm...actually...the water jetpack mechanic in 2-D...hmm)


Edit: forgot the original intent of my reply, to thank the OP for a well written and well-captioned post!

[NWR_insanolord]

If I weren't pulling for EAD Tokyo to be doing something besides Mario right now I'd love to see them do a purely 2D Mario game. The 2D segments in their Mario games are way better and more creative than what we've seen in the NSMB games. Still, I'm looking forward to NSMB2.

[Pixelated Pixies]

@Uncle_Optimus
 
Thanks man!

[Periplaneta]

If I look at the screenshot from the latest two I notice that all the 4 latest Super Mario Bros 2d games 'New Super Mario Bros.', 'New Super Mario Bros. Wii', 'New Super Mario Bros. 2', and 'New Super Mario Bros Wii U' all look the alike. This is the reason why I'm not really interested in those games. I hope that Nintendo will change the art styles for the 3DS and WiiU versions. If it stays like this the games wont be memorable and most people will have a hard distinguishing those games from each other.

[fixyourface0814]

I'm reserving judgement until I see it in action. But the art style is incredibly......dry. It's starting to seem that, more and more, the "New Super Mario Bros." and, to an extent, "3D Land," are being made to appeal the casual audience with a few bones for the Mario veterans thrown in. I think the 3D games, specifically Galaxy 1&2, were made more for the veterans of the franchise. Don't get me wrong, I love them all for various reasons.

Honestly, I'll be content with NSMB2 if it has great level design.

[marty]

NSMB feels like a b-team effort all the way.
The 20 year old midi-sounding garbage music is forgettable to the point that I cannot remember a single theme from the game.  The graphics, as previously mentioned, are uninteresting--not ugly, but lifeless.


The level design is passable.  Not good; certainly not great.  Maybe if the controls were more responsive (play smb2 and then play nsmbwii if you don't believe that the controls aren't as good as previous games) the level design could have been better.  I don't know why Nintendo thought it a good idea to take the precision out of platforming but they clearly have.  Allowing for waggle (ugh) and wall-jumping to eliminates a lot of the challenge.  There isn't a lot of flow to any of the levels either.


I'd also have been nice to actually add a few new worlds to the mushroom kingdom.  You'd think after nearly 20 years of not making these games, someone at nintendo would have thought up something other than grass, sand, swamp, etc...  It's hard to argue that this series isn't just a remix of better games, as stated on RFN.  Like a lot of remixes, I'd rather stay with the original, which is pretty pathetic on Nintendo's part, that they couldn't best a game from 20 years ago.


It boggles the mind that Nintendo will spend so much money on a title like SS, which has no chance of selling like a 2d Mario game and VERY little chance of attracting new fans, and so little on NSMB.  SMB is still Nintendo's flagship series, might as well make it as good as they can and stop being babies about it.

[Pixelated Pixies]

@marty
 
I definitely agree with some of your arguments. For me the graphics are certainly lifeless. With regards level design, I thought NSMB Wii was pretty great.
 
*Tangent*
 
One level in particular stands out, which is the level where you're running on 'munchers' which have been encased in Ice, the ice acting as a kind of surface between Mario and the enemies within, enabling Mario to run atop them. Intermittently throughout the level there are also obstacles such as piranha plants which can only be scaled by building up speed and then jumping through them. Standing in the way, however, are various enemies which prevent you from building up speed, so you are forced to use the fire flower to kill them as you run, which of course unfreezes the 'munchers' in the ice, thus forcing you to effectively eliminate the platform between you and the row upon row of 'munchers' that lie beneath. It's perhaps one of my favourite Mario levels of all time.
 
*You will now be returned to your regularly scheduled post*
 
I totally agree, however, that the whole grass, desert, ice, fire, castle thing has been done to death. Not only for Mario, but also for Zelda and Metroid in my opinion. I remember being really excited in Twilight Princess when playing through the Sky temple and the Twilight temple because they were something completely new and interesting (even if it was just an aesthetic change). I wish Nintendo would do more of that sort of thing.

[tendoboy1984]

Well, the only thing I really have to knock against New Super Mario Bros. Wii is that it featured a game breaking power-up in the form of the Propeller Suit, which took most of the challenge out of the precision platforming in the game.

The Raccoon Suit / Tanooki Suit were also game-breaking for that very same reason. And the P-Wing made it easy to fly over the entire level.


And even the Cape Feather was game breaking if you could properly control its gliding abilities.


As for the visuals, New Super Mario Bros. (DS) was certainly unique when it came out. Nintendo gave the Wii version the same art style for consistency. We don't know what the Wii U game will look like, so there's hope that it'll be something different.

[tendoboy1984]

One level in particular stands out, which is the level where you're running on 'munchers' which have been encased in Ice, the ice acting as a kind of surface between Mario and the enemies within, enabling Mario to run atop them. Intermittently throughout the level there are also obstacles such as piranha plants which can only be scaled by building up speed and then jumping through them. Standing in the way, however, are various enemies which prevent you from building up speed, so you are forced to use the fire flower to kill them as you run, which of course unfreezes the 'munchers' in the ice, thus forcing you to effectively eliminate the platform between you and the row upon row of 'munchers' that lie beneath. It's perhaps one of my favourite Mario levels of all time.

There's a couple levels that are just like that in Super Mario Bros. 3. And using the Starman makes the whole level a breeze.