New Super Mario Bros.

We all (when I say all, I mean everyone) played Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Needless to say, it was probably the most successful game of all time. So that means, if anyone picked up New Super Mario Bros. on the DS they would instantly know what they were doing. After a really long run of games that followed the same formula Super Mario World was eventually  the death of the 2D Mario games... until now.

This game doesn't have a lot of fan service, it practically is fan service. It's weird how fun a game like this is, when you know that you could easily compile a huge pile of good, playable levels like this. If Nintendo decided to put a simple level editor in here, it would allow so many good levels to be made, just because the concept of the game is so unbelievably simple. The game does introduce things never in the old ones, just because they probably weren't ever possible on the old 8 and 16-bit consoles, but it's still far from a complex game.

Saying "... if you don't know how these games work..." in a review for a Mario game would just be dumb, so I'll skip that whole nuisance. 

Similar to Super Mario Bros. 3, the game has 8 maps, all of which have their own map. Each world has it's own theme and of course, they have two castles in each world, each of which will offer a boss at the end of them, and the game actually introduces new bosses, rather than making you fight Bowser every time.  

 Along with Bowser, tons of other things return from the old school Mario games. Powerups, such as the standard mushroom and flower power return, plus many of new ones. For example, the giant musroom, which will make you huge, basically allowing you to just walk through anything in your way, instantly destroying it. And another thing returning from the old games would be the same exact story, but really, who cares? And aside from a few minor additons, such as Mario's wall jump, the game really does play just like the old games did, even if it really is 3D, your moving is limited to left and right, making it feel just like it did 25 years ago.

Another great thing about this game, since it's on the DS, a handheld platform, you can just play a quick level in under two minutes. Each level is extremely short, but there are tons of them. There's atleast 10 levels per world, so since their's 8 worlds, that's a rather hefty amount of goomba killing, coin collecting, and flagpole jumping for you to do here. Plus, they threw in a rather large amount of entertaining minigames, so don't expect to beat this game too quickly.

The game is fun, but that still begs the question, if Super Mario Bros. (the NES version) would've never existed, would anyone thing this game is actually good? Is all the fun we have with games like this completely based on nostalgia? The truth is, this game 

probably wouldn't be so hyped up if the series wouldn't have blasted off on the NES. But that doesn't retract from the fun, nostalgia-based or not, the game is pure fun. But even games like this can make you mad. This isn't really a "flaw" and it certainly wouldn't even be questioned if this game was made 10 years ago, but the game is difficult. And short levels or not, only one checkpoint can really get on your nerves. When you lose all your lives, you restart from either the beginnig of the world or the last castle you beat, so you don't just restart on the level you were. You can only get hit once if you don't have any mushrooms, there's not healthbar or anything like that added here. I hate to call these "flaws" but when a game is pissing you off beyond belief, it's hard to hate it because of that. Challening? Sure. Frustrating? Definitely.

Final Decision
This is what we dreamed of, isn't it? A great sequel (remake? revisioning? who cares what you call it...) of one of the most beloved game of all time. The game isn't too simple to bore the hardcore gamers of the crowd, but it's not too complicated (but still hard) for the people that played Super Mario Bros. as kids, but never really became gamers. Very few games offer the feeling this game offers when you finish it... More! You want more Super Mario Bros. Period. It was gone for so long, and now that it's back, you can't wait for another game just like it.