New Super Mario Bros. Nonsense

Hey everyone, here it is, I guess... My first non-Zelda post.

And what better a topic than to make it about Mario? I'm quite a fan of both series, so... this shouldn't turn out too terribly awful. I hope.

Anyway, where to start...

A while back, I came to the realization that I've played through 100% every main-series 2D Mario game in existence except for most of the New Super Mario Bros. series. Me, being the completionist I am, decided that the best use of my time was to then play through each of the games in order. Just because.

I had the original NSMB on the DS back in the day, but I never got around to completing it. I guess it was just too difficult for me, or something. So I dug around for a few days, finally found the cartridge buried somewhere in my room (surprisingly still intact), and popped it into my 3DS XL, and...

Man, these graphics have aged.

Now, normally graphics aren't the first thing I notice about a game. At all. I'm a retro game addict anyway, so it's not like I care. But I had this distinct image in my mind of me as a little elementary-schooler playing this vivid Mario game on my DS that looked better than anything I had ever seen on the GBA I had before it. It may have even been my first DS game that I owned, although I'm not quite sure.

But there I was, looking at the pixelated little Mario on my screen as the low-quality catchy music played in the background. And I realized that this game has aged.

I find it's the case for a whole lot of my old DS games. Part of it's probably because the XL's screen is so much bigger than the original DS, but I really think the main factor is just nostalgia. Not that I ever had too much for this game, but... yeah.

Not to say that it detracted from my enjoyment of the game, though. I still had a good time playing it, despite its almost overwhelming simplicity compared to more recent platformers.

Anyway, I never intended for this to turn into a review, so... I guess I'll get on with things.

I ended up beating it with plenty of lives left over, as per usual... and it was a lot easier than I remembered it. I guess I just really sucked at Mario when I was younger, haha.

Next up would be New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

My uncle bought this game for me for my birthday a while back. I never really asked for it, and I wasn't a huge fan of 2D Mario games at the time, but I was grateful nonetheless. When I saw it had up to four players, I actually got pretty excited. I had a fun time playing the multiplayer with my uncle, but when he went back home (I think he was visiting for some special occasion, not quite sure what), I never got very far in the singleplayer. I made it about halfway through World 2, and just kind of put it down. I was probably preoccupied with Super Mario Galaxy or Twilight Princess or Mario Kart Wii at the time.

And for whatever reason, my brain never put two and two together and I never even realized that this game was related to New Super Mario Bros. for the DS in any way. I had long forgotten about that game after giving up on it the first time, and I actually only just remembered several months ago that I had ever even owned that game. So I was under the impression that NSMBW was my first NSMB game.

At the time of writing this, I'm currently in the middle of this game. I'm about halfway through World 7 right now, and I'm eager to beat it, although mainly to move onto other games. It's not that I'm not enjoying it, (quite the opposite, actually), but I just have dozens of other games that I need to play.

This game. I never even heard about this game for quite a while. I also didn't own a 3DS until far after its release (after I got a Wii U, actually), so I passed on quite a few of the earlier 3DS titles. 

Luckily, I got the game for Christmas a few months ago after deciding to play through all these games, and it's only about $20 now, even for a new copy. 

I don't know much about this game. I know it involves a lot of coins, and I know it's supposed to be painfully easy compared to the other two, but... other than that, I'm pretty much in the dark. I'll keep you updated once I get around to starting this game (probably in a few months).

This game is actually what inspired me to play through all of this series. For quite a while, the only Wii U games I had were Nintendo Land and this. Partially because I had very little money to buy games around that time, but mostly because of the drought of Wii U games early in its lifespan. (I got the system a mere month after its release, so I remember this very well).

It took me an entire year to beat this game 100%, just because I kept taking breaks from it to play other games, but I was determined to beat it, effectively making it the first NSMB game I ever beat/100%'ed.

I actually had a strange experience with the end of this game, though. I beat the third-to-last level in the Star World, which can only be unlocked after 100%'ing every other world in the game. And then my delusional brain tried to tell me that I had in fact 100%'ed the entire game. So I stopped playing it for a while. And then, a few months later, I stumbled across pictures of the final level somewhere on the internet (maybe on Miiverse or something, I'm not sure), and I realized that I had never even seen this level.

So I put the disc back in 3 months after I thought I had beat it, and to my surprise, there were still 2 levels left.

Also, for some unexplained reason, this was at about 3:00 in the morning. Not sure why, or why I remember this, but it was after midnight when I beat the game.

It was a struggle, and the final levels were really hard, but I managed to beat the game. While everyone else I knew was likely sleeping. And there we have it. :P

Overall, I quite enjoyed this game. Perhaps what kept me going was the awesome overworld. I love a good overworld in video games, and this one is nonlinear-ish, vast, interconnected, and full of secrets. The other NSMB games all had closed off worlds, and the only secrets to be found were a few cannons here and there that let you skip to another world.

This overworld, though, was like Super Mario World's overworld on steroids. And I'm quite fond of that game.

Just compare this: 

To 8 of these:

I thought it was pretty cool, especially for a 2D Mario game.

As for the level design, it's more of the same. There's more platforming, jumping, and this new boost block mechanic where you can tap the Gamepad as a second player to create some temporary platforms, but overall it's the same. That overworld just... really did it for me, though.

Never played it. Not even sure whether to consider this a NSMB game. By the time I finished NSMBU, I needed a break for a while, and I never got around to getting this.

I'm not sure if I'm going to replay NSMBU before this for the sake of playing through the series in order. Heck, I'm not even sure if I'm going to play this at all. I heard it's incredibly difficult. And I'm also not sure whether to consider this DLC or an actual game.

I'll make a part 2 post in a few months once I get around to playing more of this series. For now, though, that's all I have to say.

Thanks again for reading, and I hope this post was interesting! Sorry for the lack of Zelda, but as I said in a previous post, there's just not enough going on in the Zelda world right now for me to post consistently about it.

Oh, wait... what's that? Zelda news? Yeah! I can make a post! Alright, let's see...

Zelda U was delayed. Alrighty.

See what I mean? That's all we've had in the news of Zelda content in the past 6 months. Really, that's just a lack of news disguised as news. There's not much I can say about that, other than that I'm a little disappointed, but still thankful they're taking time to make the game the best it can be.

And that's that for now! I'll see you all next time in another post. I'll probably do something about Metroid Prime... just finished that a few months ago, and I still need to start the sequel.

Or maybe Pokemon. I'm playing through Y right now. We'll see.

Smash Bros. is always a possibility...

Alright, I'm done rambling. I'll try to decide on a topic, but until then, bye!