New Super Mario Bros Wii... The Best Platformer Ever?

Could well be, if Mario Wiki, Official Nintendo Magazine and various official news sources are to be believed. A far cry from the bland game that some commentators thought of when this 'Demo Play' thing was mentioned, and an even further cry from the relative ease presented by it's DS predecessor, the game actually looks like it's the quality of Super Mario World or above.

1. Multiplayer!

Yes, you've heard of the co op multiplayer in adventure mode. Where you play as Mario, Luigi and two Toads through every single level of the game? Well, according to Mario Wiki... this isn't everything.

Yes, the game offers even greater. As well as a whole co op single player semi campaign/adventure mode, you apparently have specifically built levels made for multiplayer, in single player style as well as a mix of reused single player levels for shorter play, with both coin collecting and overall free play being options. Free play is judged on score, and I really don't need to tell you what the coin collecting mode is judged on.

Heck, this ain't even boring fields this time around. You've got a ghost house battle stage, and a stage which, by the mention on Kotaku seems to be an outright remake of the first two levels of Super Mario Bros 1.

Not enough? According to IGN, you can even revisit specific levels from a menu to play in multiplayer. These levels can even be sorted by 'favourites', based on just how many times the level has been played.

2. Challenges in Levels

Well, at least one aspect of my New Super Mario Bros Wii suggestion article came to fruition. You can apparently revisit cleared levels and rescue a trapped Toad from them, bringing him to the exit. Or maybe it's based on Mario vs Donkey Kong March of the Minis. It's pretty good though, reminds me of Wario Land 4 and Shake Dimension.

3. The Koopalings... and Bowser Jr

In one game, at long last! According to Mario Wiki, you not only fight the Koopalings in the towers/castles (it seems unclear from online articles how bosses will be distributed in the game), but also Bowser Jr, seeing as he's involved somewhere along the time.

Now, I know a lot of people do not see the big deal here. But look at it this way... this is the first ever Mario game where the Koopalings and Bowser Jr appeared together. Literally, even the Mario ROM hacks don't have this stuff, nor do the fan games. The people who wanted this for years have finally been thrown a bone by Nintendo, or at least given what they wanted for the first time in goodness knows how long.

Oh, and it's the first time we've seen the Koopalings in 3D. Can't forget that.

4. Demo Play doesn't interfere

Remember that article on Insomnia that I responded to, and they apparently failed to fact check and thought the Demo Play thing is some massive game breaker that will ruin gaming forever?

Quick Memory Refresh:

Insomnia Article

DS Ultimate Response

That aside, it's not quite the devastating idea that we originally thought and that caused such internet uproar. No, you get a video showing you how to beat a level, and you can resume play any time you want.

There is presumably none of this 'skip to scene' aspect people panicked about earlier.

From Mario Wiki:

First things first, note the wording. You have to die in a level eight times. That's probably about two game overs in the same level. You have to be utterly trying in many cases to experience that in a Mario game. This simply lets you watch a replay type run of Luigi going through the level. You cannot play alongside him. You don't get shown secrets or shortcuts in the level either.

Heck, according to Kotaku, these runs are not brilliant. Just better than average, staff ghost type runs. In one case, they even say the Luigi character outright DIES in the level and causes the run to end about halfway through.

You can take control halfway through, but there's another catch. You can't switch the 'Super Guide' mode back ON after retaking control. This means it's going to be pretty funny to watch some bad player activate the control of the game right before yet another difficult section and likely curse at the screen at how they can't let the game play itself for them again.

Now, that's not ruining the future of video games much. Super Mario Advance 4 had something similar a whole six years ago, as I mentioned fairly recently:

Demo Play Ain't New; Super Mario Advance 4 Had it!

Except you got the e-Reader cards in random packs in the shop for more money.

Now, I know no one at all will believe this, because hey, they just have to think they know better from a bunch of three month old message board posts, and others will probably ignore the big news sites which reported it a week or so ago. but still, my sources for this point:

http://www.mariowiki.com/New_Super_M...ii#Super_Guide

Super Guide/Demo Play information from Kotaku

5. There's lots more good news

For one thing, according to some commentators, the game has actually been made significantly more difficult than prior Mario games to make up for the added 'Super Guide' mode.

In fact, one blog even says it's as difficult as Contra. No, I am not lying:

New Super Mario Bros Wii; Hard as Contra by MTV

Kotaku also mentioned this:

Anyone who honestly thought this was going to be an easier game with the Demo Play/Super Guide... it's not. In fact, these articles actually hint that due to the Demo Play type thing existing, it gave Nintendo the excuse to make the game extremely difficult as to make the feature useful. Why would they have it for a game like the DS version where most people don't need the help? Heck, some of these hinted it flat out beats Super Mario Bros 2 (Japanese), you know, the Lost Levels or such like in difficulty.

1Up Said the same about the difficulty

This upped my interest, I actually like the Platform Hell elements in Yoshi's Island DS with those secret/extra levels. More of that here:

http://dsultimate.net/Board/upload/blog.php?b=561

Of course, that's not all of why this game looks good. You've got all the things from the DS game, such as Star Coins and Red Coins, the hidden areas with vanishing wall sections from Yoshi's Island, and the berries/power up and spin jump from Super Mario World.

Retro enemies like Blooper Nannies and Spiky Cheep Cheeps also appear. Yoshi, as said before can eat fire and hammers thrown by enemies and fire them back as a counter attack. Enemies appear on the map, assumingly like the Hammer Bros in Super Mario Bros 3.

Of course, there's Yoshi, and he apparently even makes the exact same sound effects from Super Mario World! He comes in many different colours too, although no word if they have abilities from shells. For the record, you can now hijack Yoshis in single player. Ground Pound one being ridden by another player, and apparently you steal the Yoshi from them. Heh, I can imagine this being hated a lot in multiplayer mode!

So with this all said, what's honestly not to love about the game? Okay, I admit, I'd prefer better designed boss battles where each Koopaling fought in a different manner, but Nintendo has never particularly been good at making the Mario series bosses even remotely challenging, and the current version of the game seems just fine for me.

Agree? Disagree? Post in the forums, or the comments.