New Super Mario Bros. 2

Voices of: Charles Martinet (uncredited), Samantha Kelly (uncredited), Kenny James (uncredited)
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Designer: Yusuke Amano
Rating: E
Genre: Platformer
System: Nintendo 3DS
2012

Times Completed:
Tim: 1

Summary: Bowser and his kids once again kidnap Princess Peach, and Mario must come to her rescue.

Review:
Tim: Look, I'm always going to get excited about a new Super Mario game. I think it's the best franchise in video gaming history. The track record is absurd. New Super Mario Bros. 2 might not be the best entry into that series, but it's another success, a wildly entertaining game that I loved playing.

The story here is identical to a dozen other games- Peach is kidnapped by Bowser, Mario must save her. That's never really been the point of these games, although the familiarity is comforting. The rest of the game rolls out exactly as you'd expect. Mario goes through a series of different worlds, populated by different levels, towers, ghost houses, and castles. There's 3 star coins to grab in every level, secret exits that lead to additional stages- all the recent staples we've come to expect from the 2D, side-scrolling games of the series. None of this is new, but that's okay- the fun and innovative level designs hold your attention. None of the levels are especially challenging- this is definitely one of the easier games in the series. It's just pure entertainment and fun. I had a blast beating the levels and searching for star coins, even if none of the levels were very difficult. This game doesn't take an outstanding amount of time to beat.

The one new gimmick introduced in this game doesn't quite live up to its promise. The whole game was built around the idea of collecting coins- the goal is to finish with 1 million coins. That's totally new and I was so there for it when I started the game. The levels might be the same, but the increased importance of collecting coins, seeing your grand total increase, was a ton of fun. The game introduces a number of new elements to help you get more coins. The most noteworthy is the Gold fireflower, which allows you to throw gold fireballs, which can help rack up the coins. There's also gold versions of many of the enemies, which leave a trail of gold coins in their wake. At first, this totally had me invested. I was determined to get a million coins and I had a blast playing these levels in a different way- not just to finish and collect the 3 star coins, but to grab every single coin I could find. I didn't even mind dying, because it just meant a replay of the level and more coins for the bank. It's a really cool idea. However, the execution of this doesn't quite work. When I beat the game, after grabbing every coin I could, I had 82,000+ coins. That's it. Not even 10% of the goal. I played the Coin Rush mode a few times, but it wasn't all that fun. So, I was faced with a decision- replay levels over and over to get an arbitrary goal whose reward was minimal... or just be done with the game. In my 20s, I might have put in the countless hours to achieve this goal. At 41, though, I absolutely refused. I can see the end of my life in the distance and I don't have the hours to pour into this. Had I been further along in my coin count, maybe. But I wasn't going to keep playing to get the 92% of the goal I didn't achieve. It was a little frustrating to not see Nintendo's gimmick through to the end, but I don't think it was especially well-thought out.

Outside of that, I did complete the game with 5 Shining Stars on the main menu, meaning I collected all star and moon coins in the game and did a number of other things, including getting Three Crowns in the life column (which meant I ended with 1,110 lives) and I also found every secret exit. I did look online for a few of them. My final score was 13,182,890. I feel like I did enough of the game to feel satisfied with my play and not much desire to continue.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 did continue to innovate, namely with the coin challenge. It doesn't work out quite as well as intended, but it did add new elements to the long-running series (I count this as the 17th game in the series, others say 15). The gold enemies and flower were fun additions. This isn't the best game in the series by far- it feels far too similar to the previous one. However, it was still a total blast to play. This was also the last Super Mario game on the Nintendo 3DS. So, while not my favorite, it was still a great success.



Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



If You Enjoyed This Game, We Recommend: New Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros. U