Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Masterpiece"

Nintendo have been churning out re-releases of the old Mario's for an extremely long time, and finally they decide it's time to get back to the drawing board and create a new 2d platformer with new levels and released two new games, one for the DS and one for the Wii. These games improve on the old classics with more items, enemies and secrets. New additions to the items include a Penguin Suit, Propeller Suit and Ice Flower which are brilliant and useful additions. As usual the game is spread out over 8 worlds with about 8 levels each and themes include the usual water, ice, land, desert, forest etc. Halfway through each world is a castle and a boss fight at its peak, which once you complete; you get the option to permanently save your progress. At the end of the world is another castle where you defeat the worlds boss for good and get another save point. You can save it after any level if you want to stop playing, but this acts as a temporary save and will be removed once you reload. What this means is that if you lose many lives between the save points, you will have to play the levels again which adds much pressure to the game. You will lose most of your lives on these castle areas as there is usually numerous places where the probability of dying is high. Sometimes you play Mario thinking that the game is fairly straight forward and easy. I mean, the basic gameplay mechanic of moving left to right and jumping on enemies and over platforms is a simple one, but the game excels in its level design, and getting the right running speed and timing your jumps to navigate the level often requires great skill, and completing it gives you great satisfaction. When you fail, it can be quite stressful but you do want to keep trying until you perfect it. You will lose many lives over the course of the game but there are plenty of places where you can pick them up. There are 1-up mushrooms hidden on the levels, there is a mini game on each world where you can acquire many lives (usually 3-4), collecting 100 coins gives you 1, as does grabbing the very top of the flag pole to end the level. My life counter usually was higher than 8 throughout the game and probably peaked around 17. For younger or less skilled players you may end up failing and be forced to replay the levels which could be infuriating.
Nintendo has always had a big reputation for creating the best platformers around, and its easy to see why with this game because it has so many moments where I thought "wow, that was clever" and manages to maintain challenging and fun throughout.