Super Mario Brothers 2 (3DS)

Here we go then this is my first blog of many hopefully, First off I'm going to introduce myself as been a huge fan of video games and have a degree in the area and have been a massive follower of the mario series from an early age, the SNES is still one of my favourite gaming consoles growing up. The Mario franchise has been a huge influence into me wanting to get into the gaming industry, every aspect from the level designs, characters and the gameplay is what I love about the franchise, its just so simple for your grandpa and casual gamers to pick up and play.

For those of you, if any that are not familiar with the Mario formula, its pretty basic story telling. The Princess gets captured by Bowser and his helpers, you really think she would learn by now however its up to Mario and luigi to save her from his evil clutches by going through a variety of different levels and crossing worlds, meeting familiar foos along the way.



The new features which come with this version is firstly its Nintendo 3DS only so you get the 3D graphics which look really great and colourful and add a little extra depth in 3D but its really not the best game to demonstrate the capability of the 3D feature with it been a 2d side scrolling game. The interface, and the maps look really effective however. Super Mario Brothers 2 also introduces this new feature which is all about collecting coins with the target set to a million and you can compare with people via street pass. Whilst at first I thought this was an interesting concept and increases the playability the main fault I have, is that with this feature there are a lot more coins to be collected per level so within playing the first world i found myself with other 100 lives. This making the campaign mode a lot easier, I realise the Mario franchise is aimed towards the more casual gamers but they probably should have balance these two aspects more, apart from these two features there really is not a lot different from the previous Super Mario Bros, which I can't decide if its a positive or negative, I agree with the mentality of if its not broke, don't fix it, but Id also like to see more imagination.

As with every Mario game, I can't fault the range of the level designs and all provide a challenge. The most difficult aspect of the levels I found was collecting the 3 major coins per level, some are really challenging and provide you to have a certain attribute for example a fire mushroom at the time for you to achieve the goal, though getting from A to B i didn't find challenging enough, though for the target audience of the game it probably has around the right difficultly. The one aspect I strongly dislike was the feature that if you die 5 times in a row on a level you a granted this special attribute which basically is like giving you a free by. as nothing can kill you apart from falling off the screen. Its like rewarding you for mistakes, and it should be more about upping your game to complete the level, instead it just makes it easier than easy at times, of cause you don't have to take the attribute but the fact its even included is a element that is not to my taste.

As with most games in the franchise the gameplay is pretty much nailed on, its so simple and fluent to play, and like most mario games its so fun, if not challenging enough at times. Playing with people in co op mode is a great feature as you battle between you to earn more coins than the other player whilst at the same time working together to complete the level. Id defiantly recommend playing the campaign mode on your own and with another player via co op as its two completely different experiences and others different challenges. The Coin Rush is also a fun new feature which I forgot to mention before which allows you to revisit levels as you battle against time to complete the level with as many coins whilst been awarded bonus and multipliers which really boost your coins total, which you can compare with other people and friends on the world rankings.

Overall if you have a Nintendo 3DS, then no doubt you are a fan of mario as the two things come together, however I wouldn't recommend this game to any hardcore gamers or players wanting a challenge. I'd recommend Mario 3D land for the 3DS instead. Super Mario Brothers is a good game but it offers nothing much different to previous titles, but theres enough to warrant the £30 rrp but I wouldn't be rushing and queuing up as soon as it hits the shop, id sit back with a cigar in hand and wait for the price to drop.

7/10