Super Mario Bros. Wii Review

This is the game that all Mario fans have been waiting for, a call-back to the legendary original Nintendo game that emerged seventeen years ago. There have, of course, been a slew of Mario games that precede Super Mario Bros. Wii, ranging from the Super Nintendo all the way to their newest gaming system. This one, however, I believe has the greatest amount of nostalgic set-up and game-play to it of all Mario games released since the iconic first one.

When I first saw previews for it, I could already tell it had a lot of the qualities of the 1983 game except, of course, that it's been heavily revamped for the current system. And what we get is exactly that, a refreshing glimpse into the enjoyable nonsense that the first game embodied. There's very little emphasis on plot, which works in this game to keep the levels straightforward and fun without cut scenes or dialogue, as many games rely on. Granted, some Mario games do have plots and work very well too (such as the Paper Mario games; the Wii one especially has a very complex plot, given the simplicity of most of the games of this franchise.) But really, when you get down to it, the plot's much the same way it was in the original game. In this one, Princess Peach is kidnapped by King Koopa's little monsters (aka, Baby Bowser and his gang) while celebrating her birthday, and Mario, Luigi, and two of the Toads race after her captors and spend the game trying to get her back. From then on, the mission is pretty simple; you maneuver your way through each 'world', fighting off the various offspring, in addition to many of the same baddies from previous games (like goombas, Hammer Bros., and so forth). Now, this might sound rather boring and uninventive right now, but the additions that were made for this game make it incredibly fun while keeping with the simplistic story of the original.

The first new things are the two new caps they integrated into this game. There are still the ones we've come to know and love, like the red mushroom that grows you into an adult, the fire flower, and the invincibility stars. But in this game they also have the freezing flower, which gives you the ability to freeze enemies in ice and ground-pound them out of commission, the propeller suit, which attaches a propeller to the character's head and allows them to fly for set distances, and the penguin suit, which lets characters slip and slide across levels. To be honest, out of these three I was the least impressed with the penguin suit; it comes in handy in certain areas, but some of the levels it serves no advantage outside of sending you kicking and sliding into enemies that'll run off with one of your lives. But other than that, these new items are fun and creative, especially the Propeller suit. It allows you to reach coins and items and gives some levels a lot more space and dimension. You also at times get to ride around on Yoshis, which you can use to 'ingest' any pesky enemies that get in your way and sometimes even use them against one another (for instance, if you inhale flame-shooting piranha plants, your Yoshi can shoot out a fireball at other enemies.)

The background of this game is also really creative; whereas the characters and enemies in the forefront are composed as smooth 3D images, the levels are designed like the old 2D games, which produces a mixed effect that's really very imaginative. The characters are nice and fleshed out instead of blending into the surroundings, but the backgrounds are crisp, fun, and add a nostalgic feel that harkens back to Mario 3 that was released on the Super Nintendo a few years after the first one was born. In a time when everyone's scrambling to make the best and most realistic 3D effects, I found this call-back to the original, flat but detailed and colorful backgrounds to be very refreshing.

The themes of these worlds are also heavily derived from that game; there are whole worlds dedicated to desert, water, and ice themes. Each level is also different enough from the previous that it doesn't feel too repetitive; killing the same kinds of bad guys time and time again can be a little grueling, but there are new challenges and hidden surprises all over the place in each level, so there's always something new to be found. The bonus levels are also quite fun; there are various little mini-games that players go through in order to get what they do. There's still the matching game and the treasure chest with a free item in it, but there's also a new one which allows players to aim and shoot themselves out of a cannon in order to get 1-Ups and add some lives to their overall count.

Perhaps the biggest thing that irked me, though, was the bosses themselves. The castle levels which precede each boss fight are some of the best in the game in my opinion. They can be quite challenging from the get-go to navigate, especially when you have more than one player and have to move quickly to dodge certain obstacles or deathtraps. But the bosses themselves are maybe a bit too similar to their original counterparts. They too are heavily influenced by the bosses in the third Mario installment from the SNES, with each of them wielding a magic wand and commencing somewhat predictable moves in order to try and eliminate you. Granted, this too comes with a nice feeling of remembrance of the old games, but I was hoping for a bit more of a challenge. They do get harder and harder as you go into the game, so there's definitely a steady progression at least, but given some of the impressive fights that Nintendo managed to create in other Mario games, I think they could have been a little more imaginative in this aspect. Another thing that can be a bit grueling at times is the multi-player function as a whole in this game; I really do enjoy playing it with others, but there are some problems with it. Remember those castle levels I mentioned a few sentences ago? It's almost impossible to get through them without some of your members dying several times because of the limited space. If one player falls out of the view of the screen enough, they instantly die without the other players being given the option of going down and trying to retrieve them. It's also difficult because some parts of the dungeons, and some of the other levels, are so constricted in parts that it's hard to get everyone through in one piece without having to move at a snail's pace. I think that the multi-player would have been a bit a better if they had made the levels with a bit more space for additional characters, instead of just one or two. But these flaws are more than made up for with the overall feel and fun of the rest of the game.

One thing that always must be kept in mind is that the Mario games, for the most part, have never been lumped in with the 'elite' of complex games. They're more about imagination and invention as opposed to games that heavily emphasize their characters and their plots. Mario is more for people who just like to kick back and dedicate some time to a game that's purely about goofy fun and some nonsensical challenges instead of serious conflict and intricate stories. Overall, I thought that this game was incredibly fun and well-made; the game has enough of its own new features to feel fresh, but it harkens back to many of the older games that many of us remember from our childhoods. It's a wonderful game for the whole family to play, and I highly recommend it to anyone who knows and loves this game franchise as much as I do.