I'm a fairly big NSMB defender, but this one is just so boring to play through. It took me months to finish just because I'd go week after week with zero desire to pick it up even just for a few more levels. The coin gimmick is fluff and I still dread tiny mushroom required areas/coins lol.

As is typical, the extra world (Star World in this case) is a lot of fun with a decent bit of challenge but even that is only 9 levels and some of them are still a breeze. Happy to say I've played through it, but I certainly will never return lol.

(Still checking off mastered even though I only got 4 out of 5 save file stars. I simply can't be bothered to quickly rack up the extra lives for that final star when I'm literally never going to touch this again lol.

Pra mim é um pouco estranho definir oque eu realmente acho desse jogo, ele é a fórmula do Mario condensada muito bem, uma experiência muito muito sólida, exatamente oque voce esperaria, mas ele não faz absolutamente nada mais além de ser exatamente oque voce esperaria. Tendo jogado todos os platformers 2D do Mario esse aqui fica muito turvo na minha cabeça quando eu tento lembrar oque sentir sobre o jogo, nada anima muito, lembro até de ter me decepcionado com o tema das moedas que lotou o marketing todo, porque apesar de estar sim presente eu sinto que o jogo não tirou proveito disso, as moedas são totalmente inuteis além da satisfação simples de conseguir mais e ver os números aumentando, as fases não brincam tanto quanto eu gostaria com essa temática e nem tem uma histórinha fofa por trás, é só Bowser Princesa Sequestro Salve-a. Pensando em um jogo como Mario Sunshine que soube brincar com seu tema central em estética e gameplay se torna muito frustrante perceber que NSMB2 é como se voce fizesse um jogo do Mario básico e no último minuto inventasse uma mecânica as pressas. Em contrapartida é inegável a fluidez dos controles do jogo, o Mario controla muito suavemente e de maneira muito satisfatória, o moveset expandido da série New é sem dúvida um dos seu melhores fatores, e junto com level desing sólido porém bem básico, esse jogo ainda é divertido e respeita seu tempo diferente de NSMBU que as vezes parece um teste de persistência. Jogue esse jogo se voce não joga Mario faz anos e procura algo simples, se voce é fã diehard, pode ignorar.

I’m going against the grain here to say NSMB2 is up there with the best of 2D Platformers… yes I’d say it’s almost as good as Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World.

Contextually, I can understand the tepid reviews. Within a year this and NSMB U released within a span of roughly 6 months. Also NSMB aesthetic is very sanitised.

I’d say, playing it in a vacuum like I am, I really enjoy the punchy level experiences. They’re similar to SMB 3 where each level contains a theme or gimmick and it short and contained. At no point did I feel like I was playing filler material, it’s so tightly constructed and releases the dopamine hits of collecting all 3 Stars, Hidden Exits and the central theme of the game - collecting coins.

Some of the funnest moments are when you collect the Gold Fire Flower and mow down enemies and blocks for huge coin potential. I’m often surprised to see the Mega Mushroom featured, I know it featured super prominently in advertising NSMB but when it shows here it is always welcome.

The game is fun, but the problem lies in its level design, mechanics and difficulty.
The main mechanic of this game is to collect as many coins as possible, and the game encourages the player to do this by putting things in the levels such as golden rings that give you coins for a short time for defeating enemies, or golden counterparts of the mushroom and the fire flower, which serve to grab more coins.
The golden flower is too broken, they give you coins for everything you do with that power up, whether it's killing an enemy or shooting blocks.
The problem with this is that the only thing the coins do is make the game even easier, because by grabbing 100 coins, as is customary in Mario games, you win a life, now imagine that in the levels there are much more than 100 coins , results in a game with an extremely easy difficulty, so much so that I personally never saw the game over screen.
The only thing the level design does is increase this problem, in many they put sections where there are too many bricks, obviously so that you can break them with the golden flower and earn more coins. Also, the level design in this game is truly uninspired, it doesn't try anything new.
The soundtrack is exactly the same as New Super Mario Bros Wii, just with more "gah", which can be annoying at times.

The game is very mediocre and does not come close to the Wii and DS releases.