September 12th, 2012 by Nickie Williams
FACT SHEET
New Super Mario Bros. 2| Available Now
Nintendo 3DS | Publisher: Nintendo| Developer: Nintendo
Being both the Nintendo Editor around these parts, and a major Mario fan I couldn’t resist this game when I knew it was coming out. It also helps that it has a bright yellow box- yellow being one of my favourite colours. From just the cover of the box alone, you can tell that this game is going to have something to do with coins. They’re all over the box, and there’s Mario and Luigi collecting them. Other than that, you’re not really given any kind of an idea how this game may pan out. Of course, if you’ve played 2D side-scrolling Mario games in the past, you’ll already have some what of an idea how they work.
So, putting in the cart to my 3DS XL and booting up the game for the first time- I am treated to somewhat of a backstory of the game.
Mario and Luigi visit Princess Peach in her castle to talk about their adventures together. Sooner, they leave the castle by flying away in raccoon suits, happily collecting coins in the air. However, as soon as they land, the Koopalings suddenly appear, crashing their Koopa Clown Car onto the ground, as well as damaging the brothers, making them lose their raccoon power-ups. Roy Koopa stands aside to reveal Princess Peach standing behind him. They drive away in their Koopa Clown Car, and Mario and Luigi chase after them. When Mario and Luigi arrive at Bowser’s Castle, they find our favourite baddie and Peach, who is locked up in a cage. One of the duo has to step on the exclamation point switch behind Bowser, making the bridge collapse and sending Bowser to his doom. Just before the brothers can celebrate their victory, Peach’s cage gets pulled off screen. After riding some bony platforms, Mario and Luigi find the Koopalings in their Koopa Clown Car. They power Bowser up and he transforms into a gigantic size. He attempts to use his massive claws to destroy the path, but our favourite plumbers still manage to climb up and press another exclamation point switch. The giant Bowser then falls through the floor, and the Princess is released from her cage. Mario and Luigi then carry Peach back to the castle, with coins sprouting from different places along the way.
During the credits, the Koopalings can be seen in the background carrying the giant Bowser with the Koopa Clown Car. However, Bowser’s massive size exceeded its capacity, therefore the Koopa Clown crash-landed, scattering everyone throughout the land.
After the fun little cut-scene, you’re greeted with usual Mario options of start, load game, etc. And starting the game, it’s almost like playing Super Mario Bros. 3 again. You’re presented with a map of each world that you have to work your way through, various levels with a mini boss in the middle before being greeted by a different boss in the end castle. I’ve not worked my way to the end of the game yet, so now Bowser at this point but appears to be the whole Bowser family in the game preventing you from saving the adorable princess as usual. Of course, Peach as usual squeals like a girl when they pick her up and carry off. Oh come off it woman, you should be used to 25 years of this.
Different themed worlds present you with different challenges and enemies. Water worlds, desert worlds, usual mushroom worlds. They’re all here. Even things borrowed from more of Super Mario Bros. 3 are here like the blue P button that turns everything into coins. Oh yes, I forgot the coins. They’re EVERYWHERE. If you manage to get the golden flower, it will turn you into a white and gold version of Tanooki Mario and everytime you jump, you collect coins. More power ups, more enemies, more coins- and frankly a lot more fun than some of the Mario games of yore. For me, every New Super Mario Bros just seems to get better and better. I really enjoyed the Nintendo DS version, the Wii version is a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to the Wii U version too. The usual Mario forms are all there, like Tanooki, Fire, Super and Invincible.
But back to the main thing that this game seems to be centered around- the coins. The objection of the overall game is to collect 1 million coins. If you manage to do this, the title screen will change to show a Golden Tanooki Mario statue. Everywhere on this game, it’s located around coin collecting. When you boot up the game, there’s a counter in the bottom right hand corner of the screen that shows how many coins you’ve collected so far. Once you’ve collected so many, the Coin Rush gameplay mode is unlocked. This challenges the player to collect the most coins they can in three randomly-selected levels through three different options. The Mushroom option will choose three levels from the starter worlds and a special world. The Fire Flower option chooses three levels from the middle worlds. And the Star option will choose three levels from the final worlds. In other words, Mushroom is the easiest, Flower the second and Star the hardest. Coin Rush records are also exchanged via the StreetPass function, and beating another player’s Coin Rush records results in the receiving of a Crown Coin. This alone will give you 1000 coins to your grand total.
How many coins have I got so far? 6602. And I’m on the 4th world. I’m not being particularly thorough- but this just proves how many coins there are actually available to collect in game. But without further ado, here’s my review on the rest of the game.
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