New Super Mario Bros. Wii Review
2022-10-25
Many of us grew up with the exploits of Mario and Luigi, controlling them with a joystick in our hands. The series' popularity is phenomenal, and even non-gamers can easily recognize the characters nowadays. The newest game in the franchise, Super Mario Bros Wii brings you many new levels, an even more colorful art style, and solid gameplay that will keep you mashing your joystick to no end.
Gameplay
Since the game is for the Wii, you can expect to use the Wii controller for playing, though it's not required to move it around – you can simply play with the buttons. Though we have to admit, using the motion controller option makes the game a much more interesting experience in some ways.
The levels' difficulty varies, with the initial ones designed to be accessible even to newcomers to the series (and platformer games in general), while some of the later levels will make even experienced players cry in despair as they lose yet another life trying to pass through.
Luckily, the game includes the “Super Guide” feature familiar from some of the series' more recent titles. If you fail to complete a level a given consecutive number of times, you'll see an animation of Luigi coming to help you by showing where exactly you need to go to make it through.
You can cancel this animation at any time (if you only needed help for some particular part of the level), or you can let it play to the end where you'll be asked if you want to skip the level altogether. This isn't a complete solution for those of you who're stuck though, as the Super Guide won't show you how to get some of the bonus power-ups, such as the Star.
Graphics and System Requirements
NSMBW is noticeably more vibrant and stylized than its predecessor. The game now uses a mixture of 2D and 3D graphics – while the levels and environments are entirely 2D, the characters are 3D models which gives some sense of depth to the whole scene.
You may be worried that moving to 3D models as opposed to the pre-rendered 2D sprite cards from the previous games will degrade the graphics quality (as is common in these cases), but you'd be wrong – the new Mario and Luigi look true to their originals, despite being comprised of polygons instead of pixels now (figuratively speaking).
The Wii handles the graphics quite nicely of course, as there isn't anything heavy to render in particular. Character movement is smooth and hassle-free, and the game features some impressively short loading times on top of all.
Other
If you get tired of mastering the levels by yourself and want to enjoy the game with a friend, you can do that very easily thanks to the included co-op mode. It introduces some differences to the gameplay though, mainly in the way respawning is handled – but remember, twice the players – twice the fun!
Conclusion
Certainly a peak in the development of Mario games, New Super Mario Bros Wii is the perfect title to spend those boring evenings with.
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