brokenbeans
Banned
Enjoying this finding it very addictive. The controls don't feel so great I seem to jump from one object to another and just hit edge and land in water.
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New Super Mario Bros. 2 |OT| Coins!
- Thread starter The Wheel of Fortune
- Start date
Beat Bowser. Of course I don't have all the Star Coins yet and there's quite a few levels left to play and exits to find...
But I can safely say that this doesn't reach the heights of NSMB Wii. Not even close. It's an improvement over the first game in the series, but the level design is either too straightforward or too annoyingly open and loose in those levels that have lots of secrets. It's largely unmemorable too. Also striking is how much worse the ghost houses are. Instead of focusing on light puzzles and hidden nooks and crannies, they mostly rely on large numbers of increasingly randomly placed doors. Figuring out how they all connect isn't much fun. It's representative of the level design in general. New ideas are scarce and executed with considerably less inventiveness than when they're lifted from the earlier entries. As a whole the design is strongly derivative of the first two games, level ideas mostly taken from the Wii one but executed on a smaller scale and more conservatively, akin to the design in the original DS game.
The coin collecting leads absolutely nowhere as far as I'm concerned, unless you care about what amounts to little more than another High Score counter. This is certainly a missed opportunity and a puzzling "new" gimmick for a series of games that is reaching the point of *requiring* a more unique hook to distuingish itself from previous entries.
That said, I thought the game looked pretty, and I quite liked the 3d effect in theory, but the stong blur and bloom filter added to the background with the 3d slider all the way turned up ruined many of the quite detailed and intricately designed backgrounds with multiple parallax layers. I assume this was added because players got distracted focusing on the busy 3d backgrounds? Either way, it resulted in me playing with the 3d setting at about 30%. In hindsight I'd recommend either turning it up to 100% to get the full 3d effect or just turning off the 3d completely. At full blast the 3d is pleasing, but the background is extremely blurred, which actually ends up being less distracting than constantly looking at a slightly blurry preview of the sharp background art (the case if you're playing at 20 - 50%). The game itself arguably looks best with the 3d off though, the backgrounds sharp, colorful and bright.
The music is pretty much lifted wholesale from NSMB Wii, which is certainly a gigantic improvement over the DS one. But the lack of original compositions is a big disappointment. And the music team's grand achievement this time consists of adding an extra layer of those insufferable synth voices, successfully ruining the game's few stand-out tracks.
The game also probably has the worst designed Bowser end fight in Mario history. Certainly they've been a lot more bare bones in the early days, but this one has the distinction of being uncharacteristically clumsy and unelegant. On top of that it's also somewhat anticlimactic.
And isn't it about time we think up new, better rewards than 1-Ups? The life system is hopelessly outdated considering how easy these games are, but especially here, where the excessive coin collecting will net you an average of 5 lives per level. Hell, I finished the game with close to THREE HUNDRED lives!
So, I'd say it's definitely somewhere in between NSMB Wii and NSMB DS in terms of level design, although much closer to the DS one, sadly. Which means that this is very good, tight 2d platforming, lots of fun, but more forgettable than I'd expected and really lacking in new ideas or that one unique new gimmick to make it stand out. I think with the third entry we've reached the point where we can no longer dismiss this type of criticism. Though this is clearly the most derivative of the bunch, even if it's an improvement over the first one.
But I can safely say that this doesn't reach the heights of NSMB Wii. Not even close. It's an improvement over the first game in the series, but the level design is either too straightforward or too annoyingly open and loose in those levels that have lots of secrets. It's largely unmemorable too. Also striking is how much worse the ghost houses are. Instead of focusing on light puzzles and hidden nooks and crannies, they mostly rely on large numbers of increasingly randomly placed doors. Figuring out how they all connect isn't much fun. It's representative of the level design in general. New ideas are scarce and executed with considerably less inventiveness than when they're lifted from the earlier entries. As a whole the design is strongly derivative of the first two games, level ideas mostly taken from the Wii one but executed on a smaller scale and more conservatively, akin to the design in the original DS game.
The coin collecting leads absolutely nowhere as far as I'm concerned, unless you care about what amounts to little more than another High Score counter. This is certainly a missed opportunity and a puzzling "new" gimmick for a series of games that is reaching the point of *requiring* a more unique hook to distuingish itself from previous entries.
That said, I thought the game looked pretty, and I quite liked the 3d effect in theory, but the stong blur and bloom filter added to the background with the 3d slider all the way turned up ruined many of the quite detailed and intricately designed backgrounds with multiple parallax layers. I assume this was added because players got distracted focusing on the busy 3d backgrounds? Either way, it resulted in me playing with the 3d setting at about 30%. In hindsight I'd recommend either turning it up to 100% to get the full 3d effect or just turning off the 3d completely. At full blast the 3d is pleasing, but the background is extremely blurred, which actually ends up being less distracting than constantly looking at a slightly blurry preview of the sharp background art (the case if you're playing at 20 - 50%). The game itself arguably looks best with the 3d off though, the backgrounds sharp, colorful and bright.
The music is pretty much lifted wholesale from NSMB Wii, which is certainly a gigantic improvement over the DS one. But the lack of original compositions is a big disappointment. And the music team's grand achievement this time consists of adding an extra layer of those insufferable synth voices, successfully ruining the game's few stand-out tracks.
The game also probably has the worst designed Bowser end fight in Mario history. Certainly they've been a lot more bare bones in the early days, but this one has the distinction of being uncharacteristically clumsy and unelegant. On top of that it's also somewhat anticlimactic.
And isn't it about time we think up new, better rewards than 1-Ups? The life system is hopelessly outdated considering how easy these games are, but especially here, where the excessive coin collecting will net you an average of 5 lives per level. Hell, I finished the game with close to THREE HUNDRED lives!
So, I'd say it's definitely somewhere in between NSMB Wii and NSMB DS in terms of level design, although much closer to the DS one, sadly. Which means that this is very good, tight 2d platforming, lots of fun, but more forgettable than I'd expected and really lacking in new ideas or that one unique new gimmick to make it stand out. I think with the third entry we've reached the point where we can no longer dismiss this type of criticism. Though this is clearly the most derivative of the bunch, even if it's an improvement over the first one.
WrenchNinja
Member
Just picked it up. Took advantage of the Future Shop trade in, ended up getting the game for twenty bucks, haha. Probably how much it should have been.
I will say the intro was nice, with Luigi going back for the coins in the title screen.
I will say the intro was nice, with Luigi going back for the coins in the title screen.
Snkfanatic
Banned
So for someone who has never played much of any of the New Super Mario series this would be a no brainer?
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
Rayman, while not a game I'm a fan of at all, has pretty 2D art. NSMB has ugly, generic 3D art.
Further, this is the third game in the "series", and apart from there being more coins, it really makes no attempt to innovate at all. That's frustrating, given that Nintendo does a really good job of innovating with the 3D Mario games. So why is the 2D series relegated to some kind of creative ghetto?
That said, I haven't played the game, though I did buy it today, cuz I'll take more of the same if it's good. But what could've been... !
Mailenstein
Member
Nice, thanks for that!
The standard mario artstyle might be generic (though compared to what? nothing else on the market looks like it other than itsself really) but I definitely wouldn't call it ugly.
CrunchinJelly
formerly cjelly
The fuck is the festive jingle in Flower World?
No idea, but the star world map music is awesome.
Ehh, I think this has to be a sort of dishonest confusion. NSMB2 is virtually identical to the previous entries in visual, aural and mechanical properties. That's why it's getting blasted.
It's like that with all media critics really, originality/innovation gets more points than enjoyability/fun.
Not saying reviewers ignore one for the other, just that it being new will have more weight in it's score than the fun of it. NSMBDS is an example of this, it having a better review score than this game is stupid.
Yep. Gonna need it this time. Still never beat NSMB. Tried to get back into it today and still found it frustrating.
NSMB DS was the first one, so pretty much exempt from that sort of criticism. NSMB Wii considerably improved upon the formula, with much much better level design, a lot of new, unique ideas, fantastic co-op and improved visuals and audio. With NSMB 2 we've finally arrived at a standstill, in many ways this is even a step back, if you're not ignoring the Wii game that is. This is the first truly derivative entry. It even has that one superficial, but highly advertised throwaway gimmick that nobody asked for, so typical for a game that perfectly exemplifies franchise stagnation.
We're all just used to Mario doing something drastically different in each of his games. Mario 1 to Mario 2US probably cemented it even further for those outside Japan. I enjoyed Mario Bros Wii much more than DS though, for the co-op, much better soundtrack, and the controls/stage layout felt much better.
I'll jump in NSMB2 and see for myself after I test out other games on the XL.
EDIT: What other art style could the Mario series possibly tackle, unless Mario U really goes above and beyond with its painting backgrounds / totally new environment styles. I still want there to be some high tech space worlds or something similar to things we saw in Mario Land 1,2, or even more dino focused / food focused worlds.
Yes, this game is very fun and you don't need to play either of the others to enjoy this. Although the Wii version is the superior multiplayer experience and 3D Land is generally considered the better 3DS Mario.
I don't know about that so much.
I don't think that SMB1, SMB2(JP), SMB3, SMW, NSMBDS, NSMBWii and NSMB2 are all that different at all.
People can go on about yoshi's island, wario land and SMB2(US/EU) all they want but if you ask me they aren't mainline mario games.
Well sure, not gameplay wise, i'm speaking on art style. Of course, I havent turned on the game yet, so I cant comment whether the claims that the game seems like more of the same are just over-exaggerated.
I still want a well done space/rainbow road set of stages though
Mario Bros Wii dropped the ball on that. Such an awesome map theme, yet no stages that actually take advantage of the setting.Neuromancer
Member
I wish there was an option to not have the background get blurry in 3D.
Even the art style isn't that different if you ask me, the only one that stands out as having a different art style is SMB3's theatre-like style, but even that gets replicated to an extent in the New series.
So I wasn't planning on picking this up until the holidays, but this thread being on the front page of gaf all day plus Kingdom Hearts giving me 20 bucks trade in towards it made me cave. Only done the first world so far, so I guess my opinion doesn't mean much, but...
- Coins seem like a dumb distraction. The way I play 2D Mario is running as fast as I can stopping as few times as possible, so for me this is the exact opposite of what I'd want out of the series
- Graphically I think the game looks great, everything really pops. I get why people don't like the artstyle and obviously I'd prefer gorgeous sprites too, but we're clearly not getting that and for what this is it looks pretty damn good
- All the SMB3 nostalgia pandering is starting to feel really cynical and forced, but I have to admit I had a big smile on my face first time I started flying with the raccoon tail in here again
So, yeah, having fun with it so far. Helps that I went in not expecting a super lot. Probably shouldn't have replayed 3D Land last week though
- Coins seem like a dumb distraction. The way I play 2D Mario is running as fast as I can stopping as few times as possible, so for me this is the exact opposite of what I'd want out of the series
- Graphically I think the game looks great, everything really pops. I get why people don't like the artstyle and obviously I'd prefer gorgeous sprites too, but we're clearly not getting that and for what this is it looks pretty damn good
- All the SMB3 nostalgia pandering is starting to feel really cynical and forced, but I have to admit I had a big smile on my face first time I started flying with the raccoon tail in here again
So, yeah, having fun with it so far. Helps that I went in not expecting a super lot. Probably shouldn't have replayed 3D Land last week though
Not that your criticisms aren't valid, but, assuming it's as you say, it really just seems wrong to me that the bolded just plain isn't enough for some people.
But then I'm the same person who wanted Sonic 4 to basically be Sonic3K with different levels and who actually enjoyed Mega Man 4-6 precisely because it was more of the same. If I'm part of the problem then so be it.
So people don't have to watch the video.
I play much slower. I collect every star coin before moving on from a level, and I don't go back for power-ups. This definitely adds a challenge in the NSMB for me, and so when I hear 'NSMB is terrible, I beat it in 3 hours!' I just laugh. They're not meant to be blitzed through. And adding the coin counter actually has changed my style even more, where I want to go all out collecting as many coins as possible and finding hidden areas.
I'd be fine with that too, but some new stage style would be nice you know? I dont want them to do away with the first world being a grassy plain/field, but world two doesnt always need to be a desert area.
Even though one of my favorite areas in a game is the desert area, Nintendo should change up the order a little.
EDIT: Yeah I never blitz through Mario games, and ever since they added red coins AND star coins, it takes me even longer. Adding co-op into the equation, where I have to wait for whoever I started the game with, I usually get more than my money worth.
Inferno313
Banned
How do I get to the two extra worlds? I know in NSMB 1 you had to complete the castle with the minimushroom, is that still how it works?
I admit I would like to see new areas in the NSMB art style, even if it's just mixing up the current themes a bit (they kinda did a bit of this with the forest world with the levels that were actually in trees and the scrolling underwater fortress though).
The warp cannon dash levels.
The warp cannon dash levels.
So you're saying a lot of people are audio visual whores then? Because that would make a lot of sense then.
Too bad it did everything better than SMB3.
MatthewB92
Member
Quick question about one of the worlds. I have no clue if I should put spoilers or not but I'll play it safe.
I just want to know one thing.
I just want to know one thing.
Does every level in the mushroom world have a secret exit or only 1? If only one don't tell me which one.
Seven Force
Banned
^ Might want to fix that spoiler tag.
I just beat Bowser and saw the credits roll.
I'm probably echo-ing what everyone's already said, but here we go. I don't particularly care for the whole coin collecting gimmick. But the level design is solid and there's some new little gameplay elements added to keep things fresh. I especially liked the cannon levels.
I'm a bit disappointed in the amount of content. I know there's extra worlds, yet it seems shorter. I didn't blast through NSMB or NSBMW this fast. Hopefully the DLC won't be too expensive. Nintendo please
Super Mario 3D Land was a much bigger and better experience.
I'm probably echo-ing what everyone's already said, but here we go. I don't particularly care for the whole coin collecting gimmick. But the level design is solid and there's some new little gameplay elements added to keep things fresh. I especially liked the cannon levels.
I'm a bit disappointed in the amount of content. I know there's extra worlds, yet it seems shorter. I didn't blast through NSMB or NSBMW this fast. Hopefully the DLC won't be too expensive. Nintendo please
Super Mario 3D Land was a much bigger and better experience.
stuminus3
Member
Super Mario World is actually the greatest game ever retroactively. Nintendo took a lot of heat at the time for it being phoned in (especially because of the competition from Sega).
CrunchinJelly
formerly cjelly
I just beat Bowser and saw the credits roll.
I'm probably echo-ing what everyone's already said, but here we go. I don't particularly care for the whole coin collecting gimmick. But the level design is solid and there's some new little gameplay elements added to keep things fresh. I especially liked the cannon levels.
I'm a bit disappointed in the amount of content. I know there's extra worlds, yet it seems shorter. I didn't blast through NSMB or NSBMW this fast. Hopefully the DLC won't be too expensive. Nintendo please
Super Mario 3D Land was a much bigger and better experience.
The secret worlds are the best part of the game, IMO.
Dunno why Nintendo hid them.
The best levels are always hidden in mario games for some reason.
Well, on my first playthrough I go relatively slow since I like collecting star coins and Mario games are the only ones that I always 100%. Even then I just don't find collecting the coins that compelling since it usually just forces me to stop and jump around for 10 seconds if I want them (the blue coins being the exception, those are usually fun). I just don't like having the flow interrupted in my Mario, and that's why the ghost houses are my least favorite part of all the 2D games they're in
That all being said it doesn't sound like collecting coins is mandatory so I guess it's fine for the people who actually wanna do it
8-7 in NSMBW
Is that the bonercoaster level?
It was ridiculously easy for a world 8 hidden level but it was so much fun.
stuminus3
Member
I could dig the water levels if there weren't so many of them. Nintendo should pull a couple of water levels and replace them with side scrolling shmup levels, like in Super Mario Land. Weird that SML is the only game to feature that, I always thought it was cool. Rayman games have them.
Although in 3D Land I really loved the water levels, since most of them gave me a fish bowl feeling which is awesome in 3D.
I don't know, I think I realised there were just too many ghost houses when I realised the desert world had a ghost house.
I mean, that's just madness. There aren't any ghosts in the desert, and if they're going to do that, why not make like, a pharoah's tomb style level with a mummified pokies and a pharaoh boo called bootankhamun and now I'm rambling about shit that won't happen.
I mean, that's just madness. There aren't any ghosts in the desert, and if they're going to do that, why not make like, a pharoah's tomb style level with a mummified pokies and a pharaoh boo called bootankhamun and now I'm rambling about shit that won't happen.
I think most people who say this game is visually identical to the last two games have not played NSMB2 at all.
For one thing, it looks dramatically better than DS in all areas and better than Wii in most. For another it has this gold theme running through quite a few levels that defines it from the other two games.
The confusion comes from bland stills shown of early levels. If you actually play the game and say it looks identical then I say you need glasses.
For one thing, it looks dramatically better than DS in all areas and better than Wii in most. For another it has this gold theme running through quite a few levels that defines it from the other two games.
The confusion comes from bland stills shown of early levels. If you actually play the game and say it looks identical then I say you need glasses.