New Super Mario Bros.

What you get here defines what Nintendo is all about - simple but brilliant gameplay that keeps you hooked from start to finish.

Before New Super Mario Bros. entered my life, "Yoshi's Island" was, to me, the greatest platformer ever created. That title may now have to go to New Super Mario Bros.

While it lasts, it’s some of the best platforming to date and features what I consider to be the best Nintendo DS graphics to date. While it’s a shame the new power-ups are frills and the length of the main game is ridiculously short, it’s hard not to recommend it.

The bottom line is you must own this. It’s your duty as a DS owner.

The kind of game that makes hardcore Nintendo fans get on their knees and weep in sheer joy over the eighty new levels of new 2D Mario action...The visuals come in scorching hot, with gorgeous 3D bringing the old school into a new school setting. Sprinkle in some minigames and multiplayer modes, and you have a system seller.

The wall jump from Mario 64 is perhaps the single best introduction to NEW Super Mario Bros.

It is almost as if half way into production one of the higher ups saw the progress, wasn’t happy and forced them to stick to the old formula that’s more than a decade old. The game is also really short.

The best Mario Bros game, best New Super Mario Bros game, one of the best DS game ever. This game is perfect, entertaining, difficult, has post-game... Marvelous

It's overall a good and simple platforming game that revived 2D Mario games back in the day. It may not be anything too crazy nowadays, but it's still cool if you have the chance to play it. The minigames are also cool.

I hate the fact that this game doesn't save automatically. Either you play until you beat some castle, or you have to spend 5 coins everytime you stop playing. It's a portable game, it was made for people that don't have much time or space to play. Also repetitive gameplay, the turtle powerup doesn't make any sense. Giving 7 because it's very fun at the beginning, and I know the importance of this game, but didn't age very well for me.

[OBJECTIVE QUALITY REVIEW] This reiteration of Mario into 2d isn't a BAD one and thus isn't a BAD game, by any means, but even though it was impressive for its time especially when then compared to later entries of essentially the same name, this is still slightly disappointing and lacking somewhat in content when we actually stop and question the game itself. It is impressive that a new Powerups were introduced into the game - especially those as the Mega and Mini Mushrooms that certainly allowed players to alter the experience in a fun and exciting way, and let's not forget the Koopa Shell Powerup that allows for Koopa Shell-style movement across the levels as well as pummeling enemies and breaking down obstacles along the way - but although there are certainly more new power ups than in later titles, there wasn't actually that many powerups to go off of, and that in itself is disappointing for some players who would've loved to have a large variety of powerups at their arsenal. The levels are unsatisfyingly generic even for what it was at the time; I actually found myself getting bored at times, more often than not in fact, just trying to push through the levels that don't really have that much variety in them anyway. The controls are also a bit shoddy and slippery even for its game theme; these controls, along with more questionable enemy hitboxes, actually goes as far as making combo stomping much more difficult, especially on an emulator where gameplay is slow, than previous Mario titles, where it was relatively easy to a degree if not easily executed. The soundtrack, however, is actually quite strong even for what the sub-series is now; some of the tracks are very melodic, and the graphics are also quite strong even for the limited hardware of the DS, especially with the true 2d sprites, which some are actually very colorful and beautiful, unlike the next installment NSMBW, which actually had somewhat questionable/ugly graphics. Overall, more, especially much more, could've been put into the design of the game as a whole, especially being New Super Mario Bros. That's not to say, however, that it needed much improvement much less was a bad game in any way at all; the game actually fulfills its bare minimum requirements for that New Super Mario Bros.-gamestyle quota, but it could've easily used more, and again, especially much more, with better, more fun and exciting level design, probably more powerups, tighter and thus and otherwise better controls, and an overall more fun experience. As one of two last notes, although the wireless multiplayer would be fun in theory and still actually can be, this is weighed down by the mediocre level design, and along with all its other problems, would actually make the multiplayer little to not satisfying, and your partner would likely quit after only a short time if they were in the same position as me, due to boredom or something else. Personally, the game was only slightly satisfying for me, and would get a lower to mid mixed rating at best. I've experienced some of if not all the same problems with gameplay fun as the objective review exhibits, and although this personally would get a decent rating, this is only a mediocre title that, while quite well executed, had fully plenty of room for improvement and could've used a lot more in the long run, especially with the later titles getting even fewer over time. What a crying shame for what was genuinely once quite a fun, diverse franchise.

New Super Mario Bros. feels less like a triumphant return to 2D and more like Nintendo hitting copy-paste on its own legacy and calling it innovation. The level design is painfully safe, recycling the same tired ideas with just enough polish to distract you from how soulless it all feels. Sure, it controls well—but congratulations, the bare minimum is intact. That doesn’t excuse the bland worlds, forgettable bosses, and power-ups that feel like gimmicks rather than meaningful additions.