While I think most Mario fans have understandably grown tired of the New Super Mario Bros series (especially when something as infinitely fun as Mario Maker 2 exists), I think in respects to this game, it's important to keep in mind that in 2006, there wasn't really a 2D Mario game for 13 years.

Well that's what all the Nintendo YouTuber people say anyways. In reality, Nintendo was actually remaking all the classic Mario games for the Super Mario Advance series (technically starting with the remake of SMB1 and Lost Levels as Super Mario Bros Deluxe for the GBC).

I'm bothering to mention this because NSMB essentially started development as Super Mario Advance 5. And while I don't think they did anything particularly revolutionary with this game, they added a lot of key mechanics Nintendo learned from making the remakes of the old Mario games and the new 3D games.

The Star Coins were essentially a concept carried over from the old remakes. In Super Mario Deluxe's Challenge Mode, you could find red coins hidden in levels. And of course in Super Mario World, the dragon/Yoshi coins were a collectible given more significance in the Advance remake. It's nice to see the origins of the Star Coins and it's cool to see this collectible executed well. None of them are too aggravating to get, some of them are hidden well enough to the point it lets out that sweet serotonin rush when you find it. Sometimes you can't even get them all in one go for levels due to needing power ups like the mini mushroom, adding to the replayability of levels.

In terms of Mario's movement, he feels great. The addition of the wall jump and triple jump, something we are used to by now, really adds a lot of depth to 2D Mario's gameplay. Being able to save yourself from a bad jump with a well timed wall kick feels sick.

The music I feel like is also important to mention due to how prevalent Koji Kondo's vision was with the sound design. You'll notice that enemies will essentially dance in tune with the song's beat, changing their movements in accordance with the soundtrack. Thus, if you are in rhythm with the song, you will be able to predict enemy movements and avoid them more efficiently. Really cool idea although sometimes the OST does feel like it needs a tad more variety.

Overall lots of great level design, so many great ideas thrown around it's too hard to list them all, but one that particularly stands out to me is the one where you are riding a giant Wiggler the whole level, and you have to time your jumps with his body to get to some important stuff like Star Coins and power ups.

Speaking of power ups, I felt like this game had a pretty good balanced system. Especially how you only can store one extra power up rather than the absolute hoarding you can do in other games. The Fire Flower is of course the most common, but seeing the Mini Mushroom and Mega Mushroom get a lot of use in this game is really cool. Crushing stuff as Mega Mario or finding secrets (even whole different optional worlds) as Mini Mario is also a joy. But by far the most underutilized power up was also the coolest, the Blue Shell. I really don't see why Nintendo didn't develop a level with this power up in mind, what a wasted opportunity. Crazy they haven't brought it back either.

Anyways I've done enough ranting. My tl;dr is this game is pretty sick. Relatively slept on due to how many NSMB games there are now. This one is unique not only in being the first one but because its level design was designed around single player, not multiplayer like the console sequels would add. I really like Mario, easily my favorite game series, I feel like this one was a lot of fun to 100%.

Easy 4/5