The year is 2006. It's been 14 years since a fresh 2D Mario entry. Then New Super Mario Bros. comes out on the brand new DS and breathes new life into the series! For many reasons, I consider this to be the Mario Wonder of it's time. Both games added new ideas and fun design into the stagnating 2D half of Mario. While Wonder's powerups are more interesting than 'grow super big' or 'become really small', New Super Mario Bros. did a lot of things right with it's level design and game feel.

The levels are thoughtfully designed and memorable! Many of them utilized the power of the DS in creative ways to add to the experience. The ground can shift and change shape, mushroom platforms tilt and threaten to throw you off, and pipe cannons that can shoot you to new areas all add to the unique feel of this game. Sometimes you'll find a linear sidescroller reminiscent of Mario 3, and sometimes you'll come across a more adventuresome level that feels like a Yoshi's Island stage. I would argue that the level design is the strongest part of the game and the biggest reason to pick up this game today!

As powerful as the DS was at the time, New soup hasn't aged the best graphically. Some enemies are 3D modeled, while others are just 2D sprites. This goes for other entities and stage effects too, and while it was novel at the time I think it makes the game elements look superimposed on the screen. The DS had decent sound for a handheld too, and while New soup's music is charming and upbeat, it does sound crunchy and low quality by today's standards.

However, Mario feels great to control! It's easy to pick up and understand, and he feels just like he would in any other 2D outing. In addition, he has some of his 3D moves like the wall kick and triple jump for the first time in 2D, and they feel fantastic to pull off. The signature twirl of the New soup games isn't here and some may miss having that, but I'd argue that the controls are simpler and better off without it.

Many people look back on this game as the beginning of the stagnation of 2D Mario, but personally I think that began with the Wii follow up. For the time, New Super Mario Bros. was unique, inventive, and a breath of fresh air for 2D Mario after all the re-releases on the GBA. It's my personal favorite of the New soup games and is still a fun playthrough today!

Coming from P5R as a casual fan wanting to explore the rest of the franchise, Persona 4 Golden leaves a lot to be desired mechanically. The story more than makes up for it though! My goal for this review is to point out differences to help minimize the shock if you're coming from P5.

First, the battle system:
I really missed the baton pass in battle. It made each battle feel slower when only one or two party members have effective skills. Plan to use support skills and guarding a lot! In contrast, having fewer elements to play with meant that I was able to hit weaknesses more often, so missing baton pass was more of an annoyance than a real issue.
The dungeons felt like walking simulators. Each dungeon still had a unique look and feel to them, but visiting was similar to doing a Mementos grind in P5. For me, every TV visit boiled down to getting up to the boss floor, leaving to reset HP and SP, and then smashing the boss. By the end of the game, it got pretty old. The extra Golden dungeon has a new mechanic that spices it up a little, I just wish there was more unique stuff like it through the whole game.

As for the social sim parts:
You are encouraged to do a full sweep of Inaba every day since the game doesn't tell you what confidants are available and where they're hanging out, which gets old fast. Thankfully the rural town is not as big as P5's cities, and many of the confidants are locked behind jobs on certain days, so I was usually only checking for 3 or 4 confidants a day.
Evenings are much less valuable than your daytime slot, which introduces more strategy to how you spend your time. This was annoying at first, but I ended up enjoying it more than P5's approach to having similar day-night timeslots. It helps break up the daily monotony and feels more accurate for a high school kid.
Finally, side-confidants (not direct team members) feel far less valuable in P4G. In P5R, every confidant has active and passive benefits for spending time with them. It was often my main reason for spending time with Sun, Fortune, and Temperance. In P4G, each person in your main party can earn abilities like enduring hits and curing stat effects. However, confidants outside your party will only reward you with a fusion XP boost. This severely limited my interest in all 12 confidants, and I usually just spent time with my teammates instead.

I have more things I could rant about, but I don't want this review to be all negative!
Persona 4's story is FANTASTIC and is the sole reason I stuck with it to the end (No spoilers here). I was sick and binged it for a week, but the story gripped me so hard that I couldn't stop playing it after I got better. I dunno about you, but if a game can convince me to play it every day for two weeks straight, there's something extremely special about it.
I wish they elaborated more with the TV at Junes and how the team was able to enter it so many times while staying unnoticed. Like, wouldn't there be security cameras? In P5, the team changes hideouts several times, but that didn't happen here. This was the only plot hole I found though, and I thoroughly enjoyed piecing together the murder case clues. The case never felt too hand-holdy while staying relatively easy to deduce on your own!

I wrote way more than I thought I would oops. I cannot recommend P4G to first time persona players; P5R has way more polish that makes it an easy recommendation over P4G. BUT... If you enjoyed P5R and want more from the franchise, P4G is a great time if you can stick with it. I came away from this game with a much higher appreciation for the series' history and brilliantly intertwined mechanics!

I've heard many times that Gen 5 was one of the best generations that Pokemon could offer, and I'd have to agree. It's mostly the same ol' stuff, catch pokemon, level them up, teach them good moves, create a complimentary team, etc etc. and it feels at home on the DS with the gorgeous sprite work and 2D playing field. The difficulty was pretty good; The elite 4 and Ghetsis were really tough but most of the game is a breeze! I thoroughly enjoyed exploring Unova and all the towns :)

What makes this game really shine is the story. No spoilers here, but it was much more interesting and engaging than the two previous games I played (firered and emerald). N is such an interesting character! I wasn't expecting the great twists and turns that he and the rest of the plot pull you through. Just the idea of forcing everyone to set their pokemon free seemed crazy but founded in reality like some sort of PETA campaign.
I haven't played the post game yet but I plan to in the near future since the main story was pretty creative!

Some sidenotes:
It takes me a long time to beat these games but I'm planning on playing gen 7 eventually. It took me over a year to beat emerald, and I was just shy of a year with White too. Also Ghetsis was an omega pain in the ass and I barely beat him with pure luck. I guess I'm a pokemon fan now even though I still need help making a good team :P