{"id":10075,"date":"2013-01-22T12:52:56","date_gmt":"2013-01-22T02:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=10075"},"modified":"2014-05-03T18:48:56","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T08:48:56","slug":"new-super-mario-bros-u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=10075","title":{"rendered":"New Super Mario Bros U"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"supermariobrosu\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Platform:\u00a0 <\/strong>Wii U<\/em>
\nDeveloper:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/strong>Nintendo EAD Group 4<\/em>
\nPublisher:\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong> Nintendo<\/em><\/p>\n

New Super Mario Bros U<\/em>, the tentpole launch title for the Wii U and the first ever Mario game in high definition, is a decent platform game and a quickfire return to form for Nintendo after their lackluster effort<\/a> with New Super Mario Bros 2<\/em> on the 3DS six months ago.<\/p>\n

I don’t know enough about Japanese culture but they seemingly have a wry sense of humour when it comes to ironically titled video game franchises.\u00a0 From the country that brought us the never-ending Final Fantasy<\/em> series, the New Super Mario <\/em>titles which started<\/a> with New Super Mario Bros<\/em> on the Nintendo DS in 2006, is a range of games that seem anything but ‘new’.\u00a0 They are games that are heavily indebted to the original Super Mario Bros<\/em> trilogy on the NES and are notorious for recycling the same art style and soundtrack with each installment.\u00a0 It’s just as well that the majority of the games also feature top notch level design and impeccable controls.<\/p>\n

The previous installments in the ‘New’ series often took inspiration from a particular Mario game in the past and with New Super Mario Bros U<\/em>, it seems that Nintendo have opted to revisit Super Mario World<\/em>, the launch title for the Super Nintendo.\u00a0 This is a welcome choice for long time Mario fans.\u00a0 Any sort of ‘Best Of’ list with Mario games usually boils down to an argument for either Super Mario Bros 3<\/em> or Super Mario World<\/em> and I fall into the camp that prefers the latter.<\/p>\n

The influence of Super Mario World<\/em> means that this game has a cohesive world map, a hidden Star World that features advanced challenges, the return of the Koopalings, a new racoon suit that has similar properties to the cape from SMW<\/em> and of course Yoshi is back.\u00a0 All of these are welcome returns to the series.\u00a0 I’ll get my one major gripe off my chest right now and its that Yoshi still, still!, isn’t transferable from level to level.\u00a0 He remains locked to appear only for specially chosen levels.\u00a0 Considering that the first iteration of Yoshi in Super Mario World<\/em> offered the greatest amount freedom where you could take him anywhere, this bugs me to no end.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n

It’s stating the obvious but the most immediate improvement to New Super Mario Bros U<\/em> is the move to high definition which suits the Mushroom kingdom very nicely.\u00a0 Although Nintendo are accused of laziness with the art style in the New series, I think they have subtly made positive changes to this high definition installment by tightening the camera so that everything on the screen appears closer up and more detailed.\u00a0 In addition, the characters seemed to have been given a gloss over with some shaders that seem to give them a Pixar look about them.\u00a0 This really is a gorgeous looking game.\u00a0 Particularly when Nintendo loosen the shackles and get creative with the level design, most notably in the world that is influenced by van Gogh’s The Starry Night.<\/p>\n

The Starry Night aside, the biggest gripe that one could have against this game is that Nintendo seem to be playing it incredibly safe.\u00a0 The majority of the themed stages are designs that we’ve seen a bunch of times over the last three decades.\u00a0 There isn’t the ‘go for broke, throw the kitchen sink’ level of creativity<\/a> that we saw<\/a> in Super Mario Galaxy<\/em> or Super Mario 3D Land<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For that reason, I think most people reach a similar consensus with this game.\u00a0 It’s not bad.\u00a0 It’s probably about the fourth best 2D platformer in the Mario franchise which is nothing to sniff at.\u00a0 Although the gameplay remains challenging, the dressing is desperately stale.\u00a0 And we know Nintendo can do more.<\/p>\n

In the context of a launch title, it doesn’t really do a whole lot to show off the features of the Gamepad which is reduced to a ‘help or hinder’ second player mode where you can add platforms in the game by using the touch screen.\u00a0 However, the game does do a good job of showing off the Mii-verse integration that games can have.\u00a0 Periodically the game will offer you a chance to gloat or moan about a level depending on whether you aced it first time or lost a ton of lives on it.\u00a0 The world map is then automatically peppered with the thoughts and reactions of other players around the world.\u00a0 I found this to be an excellent feature and done in a classically family-friendly Nintendo style that fosters a healthy sense of community.<\/p>\n

So that’s that.\u00a0 It’s good, not great.\u00a0 But you want standards to remain high for Nintendo’s flagship mascot and while this game feels polished, you really feel that it isn’t showing the company in their very top form.\u00a0 I’d be happy to see the ‘New’ series get benched at this stage.\u00a0 Despite this game’s lack of creativity, I have high hopes for any prospective installments of Super Mario Galaxy U.\u00a0 If they do it right, Nintendo has the potential to do something amazing with that game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mii or U?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1499,829,1498,441,950],"class_list":["post-10075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-mario","tag-new-super-mario-bros","tag-new-super-mario-bros-u","tag-nintendo","tag-wii-u"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10075"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14325,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10075\/revisions\/14325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}