The Game:There's been a fairly wide variety of opinions on New Super Mario Brothers Wii ranging from people that are happy to finally have more classic 2D Mario gameplay back to people who feel it's just a lazy cash in.
My opinion on the game is mixed. The game is fun... a bit. Its advertised as a four person platformer and one would assume that it would be best played this way... it's not. As a single player game it stands out as another superb set of platforming that Nintendo is known for. However once you add four players to the experience it can only be described as "gameplay designed to ruin friendships".
For some reason Nintendo decided that it would be great if all four characters could bounce off each other. This makes precision jumping a painful process. It motivates people to spread out so that they aren't inadvertently shoved around into hazards (such as pits/fire/enemies). However since the camera can only zoom out so far to accommodate all the players on a singular screen (it's single camera instead of split-screen), it begins to follow the lead character if you fall off-screen it's an instant death (adding much hatred for whoever moves the fastest).
When you die you come floating back on screen in a bubble (given there is at least one other player still living and you aren't out of spare lives), you can also end up in the bubble by pressing the A button thus allowing you to keep your power ups until your released. Another player can release you from the bubble by either bumping into it or hitting it with a fire/ice ball.
Seems fair enough, except you can't directly control were the bubble drifts, if you shake the Wii remote it will move in an arbitrary direction. The bubble does drift towards whoever is still alive, but this isn't always a desirable thing. Often the bubble pops when you'd rather it not, sending you plummeting to a second death. Worse the bubble slows down the momentum of whoever passes through it, causing the victim fall to their death as well. You can jump off the bubbles, but you can't directly move the bubble into a strategically useful position.
The game rigidly builds itself around the first player (player 1). Everyone can choose their character except the player 1 who MUST be Mario and NO-ONE else. The map screen gets more annoying as only player 1 can select the level and move the team around. After playing games like castle crashers, this system seems unfair and annoying (especially when player 1 gets distracted), sure the possibility that Mario doesn't rescue the princess arises, but it doesn't seem hard to create an alternate ending for the other characters.
Most of the problems are all based around the same set of issues. I find it confusing that Shigeru Miyamoto (the creator of Mario) has claimed to have planned this type of multiplayer since the Super Nintendo era. I can only assume that while he had the rough ideas for how the gameplay would work in theory, he spent no time actually testing the gameplay out in practice.
Many elements of the game are recycled from the New Super Mario Brothers game that launched on DS a few years ago. A few have argued that the models are from the DS game but I can't say for certain as there does seem to be a slightly better polygon count on the Wii version (or maybe just superior anti-aliasing).
I feel the most disappointing element is the recycled music. The music is exactly the same as that found in the DS game, and I personally found the DS music to be rather bland as it tried too hard to sound like the original Mario. Despite being identical in two games now the sound is easily forgettable in my opinion.
The levels, never really give a since of place or charm. It seems to intentionally hearken back to the NES era, having only three or four types of level, eight worlds, with the final world being fire and the middle world being ice and the other worlds being mostly the identical (perhaps a dessert and giant land thrown in somewhere). It often feels like it only wants to be as diverse as Mario 3 was but often falls short of even that level of diversity. The levels certainly aren't layered in the varied and entertaining style of Super Mario World (much less any later platformers).
The world map really reflects these weaknesses in design. While I enjoyed Mario 3, I can't help but miss the layered and incredibly interconnected map design of Super Mario World. It doesn't seem like it'd have been that hard to create something that would add a since of depth to the game as well as being entertaining to look at.
Why?:
So why do so many signs point to this game being rushed? Nintendo is traditionally a company that tells it's consumers that the games will only be launched when they are finished, and yet in this case they seem to have ignored that rule and pushed the game to meet a market deadline.
The answer to this question is most likely the declining sales of their system along with their own admission that last year's holiday lineup was weak. Nintendo had figured a year ago they could create simple games and endlessly skate by on the Wii's inertia while upholding its usual policy of meager releases for it's more dedicated user-base. However Wii music bombed and Animal Crossing's sales proved lackluster. So they've changed strategies.
Seems that Nintendo is beginning to realize that in this economic downturn they'd better stick with surefire hits. New Super Mario Brothers Wii was chosen because it was a sure fire hit from the start and could easily have it's development scaled to meet the deadline of a year. While I can't say for sure weather this game was really only in development for just a year, I do feel relatively confident in surmising that if it was in development prior to the poor holiday season of 08 (game sales wise, not hardware), it was not very far along.
This is both a good and bad thing, it shows that Nintendo is finally starting to listen to user feedback again and that they may even be developing a more market driven policy towards release dates. However this is all coming at the cost of quality, which is already fairly poor on Wii.
Fixing it:
I figure most issues in this game could have easily been addressed with an extra month of development. The changes I believe would help in order of positive impact are:
- Limit Character Interaction- allow all the onscreen characters to walk through each other rather then bounce off each other. While some of the cooperative and grieifing ideas in the game were great and entertaining, they could easily be remastered by keeping the function of players being able to carry and throw each other. This lets interaction occur when players intend for it to and not all the time.
- Allow us to control the bubble- the mechanic of bouncing off the bubbles is novel, perhaps it would be better if players were allowed to move the bubbles in at least vaguely intentional directions. It would ease frustrations as well as allow people to go to the bathroom while others continue playing the game.
- Diversify the Soundtrack- Nintendo could have easily had a composer working for this game. Even if they didn't and intended to reuse tracks, they could easily used remixes and tunes lifted from a variety of classic Mario games rather then just tossing in the DS games soundtrack without a care.
- Characterize the Levels- the backgrounds were unbelievably bland. There isn't even a need to create shockingly new locals, just take elements from Mario 64/Sunshine/Galaxy and crop them into backgrounds for the 2D levels, it adds value and gives the game an extra since of place.
- Replace one of the Toads with Toadette- I know that they were afraid that a character like Wario or Peach would generate expectations of each character handling uniquely. However they never really tried for another creative solution and instead decided to cheaply paste toad twice. They could have at the very least used Toad's female alternate as a character option for players. (A Wario or Peach option would've still be nice if they handled differently and unlocked upon completion of the game though)
Final Thoughts:
New Super Mario Brothers Wii is still a very entertaining game when played in the right setting. Only play with four players for a few laughs on the earlier/easier levels. You'll probably want to play through the bulk of it on your own (or with one other highly skilled player), at least if you plan to hold onto your current friendships.
If you do decide to press with a group of four then make sure they are some of the best players you can find, and I wish you good luck!
