New Super Mario Bros. U review

[briareos_kerensky]

Finished it now...the final battle with Bowser was a letdown, the last stages increased my expectations! The funniest thing are all the user messages telling that levels are hard from castle 7 onward: I would have preferred a much higher challenge in all levels.
All in all it's the best of the New SMB games, but the level design still is not up to par with SMW or SMB3. I think that the thing for me is that Castles and Fortresses are too short; worlds don't have too many levels and within a world levels don't change too much. I probably said this in one of my earlier posts, but it feels like developers were scared to let their imagination run wild with some layouts, are there are interesting ideas here and there, but never fully exploited.

[djtickle]

Finished this last night and was overall impressed with it! Although i do wish id not started playing the Wii version on Dolphin as the HD graphics where not impressive after that!

Played most of it on a wii remote and had the wife helping out on the pad. Great fun. Will keep with it for the challenges which look like they can be great fun also!

[gambit6613]

I wonder how many takes that took to perfect whilst filming. Quite amazing just how skillful people can be doing stuff like this, it would take me months to even get close to doing that

[djtickle]

wow thats pretty impressive.

[originalbadboy]

Good god.

Fail .. They didn't get the Red coins!

[crocky-chocky]

Good god.

[briareos_kerensky]

I've just completed Soda Forest and I'm pleased that Nintendo is trying to get back a SMB3/SMW vide back in; it's probably the best entry in the New SMB series (I still have to complete NSMB2 on the 3DS though), though it does lack the refinement of the 3D Mario games and the older 2D games.
It's like Nintendo attempted to bring back old elements but never fully did, and a lot of things hang in a dangerous middle ground, like the world map: I like what they did in Soda Forest, but the overworld could have been more complex. Same goes for the levels, though I really appreciate what Nintendo did with some of the later Ghost Houses. Fortresses and Castles do feel a bit souless though: a lot of Dry Bones but often you're given the Sow Flower to make short work of them, while in previous games they were a distinct threat that could be eliminated only with few, rare items. In this stead there's larger versions and this feel kinda cheap, especially considering how many enemies the series spawned throughout the years and how inventive some enemies in SMB3/SMW were.
And, well, I really do miss a Feather/Racoon suit. Extensive flight would hadn't mixed well with four players (probably) but most stages do feel too restricted to one plane of movement.

[Neon Ignition]

I'm at the point with this were I feel its... decent. I enjoy it when I'm playing and as the game goes on the devs do seem to try more. There's some fiendish level design at play also. It's very much more of the same for this sub series so a lot of it depends on how recently you played the others also. It feels like a solid 7 for me. Theres nothing technically wrong with the game as it plays well and is solid however to score it higher feels a little insulting to Nintensos greatest Mario games which prove Ninty is capable of far more with the series than what they do here. NSMB is too much Old Super Mario Bros.

[ETC]

I don't get it I pretty much hate Mario in general yet every day since getting my wii-u I have been looking forward to playing this, it's even keeping me off Far Cry and I have only put 3 or 4 hours into Zombi-U I'm vexed its so good I could have returned my Wii-U after finishing Zombi-u if it had been crap and at the same time

[crocky-chocky]

Depending on the controller: Press the trigger buttons or shake the remote.

[rmoxon]

What are the baby Yoshi's for? Earlier in the game one of them asked me to feed it. But I can't figure out how? They just appear in levels and cause me to die as I try to carry them about.

[crocky-chocky]

Flat-out sublime now, this is.

I've beat Bowser, unlocked

->Open Spoiler<-

star-road island or sommat

and am well impressed at just how many secret levels and areas there are. Mopping up all the star coins is ace fun, and a lot of them are collected in quite ingenious ways. As in all the best Mario's, awesome design touches are used sparingly and shine brighter as a result. Anyone who's dubbed this as more of the same hasn't quite looked hard enough or played for more than a few levels, I think.

It's flippin' well wick', and definetly the highpoint of the 'New' series.

[crocky-chocky]

Aye, lots of nice musical motifs and touches to the audio in general. My favourite has to be the baby Yoshi's belting out a few choice notes whenever Mazza's carrying one. Bless 'em.

[BIG EDD]

Yes it's a week on from the launch and I'm still loving it

[nakamura]

The little touches, too, show this game has some old school Mario and "soul". Things like when you get on a Yoshi and extra notes start playing in the music. Little layers that raise a smile as you play.

I still smile when it does that on the SNES game.