New Super Mario Bros. November (NSMBU Discussion!)

This came out during my uni years where I wasn't playing much at all, but both this and NSBU did not interest me in the least when I looked back on things that I missed in the 3DS/Wii U era. The only tie I have to NSMB2 is that it birthed that one Smash Bros. stage where you get powered up if you collect 100 coins.

I don't think you missed much Jay.  I don't think anybody will chastise me for saying that this was a pretty miserable time relative to other Mario games.  It was still solid, and that was about it.  The bosses being the Koopalings for the second time in a row helped to hammer home the feeling of an imagination deficit which, given that it released a year after 3D Land and in the same year as NSMBU, is understandable.  

Even though I finished it where I didn't Wii, this is the game that makes us all start to roll our eyes at the NSMB games isn't it?  I know U was the last one, and in the same year, but this cemented the rot.

Weirdly this ranks higher than the previous two for me, granted I never had the first game so that doesn't really count but I remember quite enjoying the 3D effect and the trying to better my score in the "get a shit tonne of coins" mode. Absolutely a cynical release but at least it had something a bit different going for it.

Balladeer wrote:

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

..debatably one of the Wii’s best platformers.

Oh wow.  In one player?  That's certainly a debate!  I thought our voting thread top five of Galaxy, Galaxy 2, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and even Rayman Origins (which I didn't care for much) were all streets ahead of NSMBWii.  Granted there's not a lot of depth after that, but that says more about the Wii than NSMBWii in one-player I reckon!

I’m fine with that, aye. Right enough I don’t think New Super Mario Bros. Wii is as good as those five games you’ve listed, but they’re the greatest hits and amongst the best ever in their genre. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is better than Epic Mickey, Sonic & The Secret Rings, Rabbids Go Home, de Blob, LostWinds, Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz and most of the dozens of other platformers I found and played on Wii. In fairness the Wii was pretty good for platformers, but New Super Mario Bros. Wii is one of the better ones for sure.

~

I’ve not much to say about New Super Mario Bros. 2. For me it was as forgettable and missable a game as Nintendo have released, just over-familiar by 2012 and wafer-light on imagination. As for the coin collection, I thought it was pretty rubbish. This was a game that needed a gimmick, and not a gimmick that needed a game.

Sorry, I love the Marios, but haven't had a lot to add to this - and I think it's because these 4.5 games feel very similar, almost like an iterative update that Nintendo would do on the Switch.

I can't believe you'd say such a thing.

I guess the point of this is less to look at the differences, although I think that's still interesting, and more to look at how we felt about each of them at the time - and whether we felt anything about each of them at the time.  And then, to look back at them all and say, 'Do they deserve to be dismissed as much as they are?'  To which 'Yes' may be a valid answer!

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I’m fine with that, aye. Right enough I don’t think New Super Mario Bros. Wii is as good as those five games you’ve listed, but they’re the greatest hits and amongst the best ever in their genre. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is better than Epic Mickey, Sonic & The Secret Rings, Rabbids Go Home, de Blob, LostWinds, Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz and most of the dozens of other platformers I found and played on Wii. In fairness the Wii was pretty good for platformers, but New Super Mario Bros. Wii is one of the better ones for sure.

Everything's subjective I guess.  For you, a massive platformer head, there's still quite a difference between the best and the rest.  For me, who wasn't, I didn't play any of those games you'd say were worse than it apart from Banana Blitz, and that was proper 3/10 material.  NSMBWii doesn't look so good in comparison.  'The best' is loosely defined.



Was the fourth game in the final sub-series what we needed for a launch title?  Probably not, but it being a launch title did make it feel more exciting than it might have done otherwise.  Mario was in HD for the first time!  And you could place platforms on the scr... yes okay that wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, but the flying squirrel power-up was cute!  And so were the Baby Yoshis, back into the limelight for the first time since World.  Also, this one arguably showed the most imagination in the sub-series aesthetically, with the famously 'paintery' level in the swamp being the best known.  Let's not forget New Super Luigi U either!  Which upped the difficulty and downed the timers.  At the time, a reworking of the entire game felt pretty impressive as far as DLC was concerned.

What are your memories of the game that put the seal on the sub-series, and its DLC?  Inquiring minds need to know!

Coming out as a Wii U launch game, and being a nice HD game on the new TV I literally bought to play my Wii U on, this game was somewhat exciting. Coming out close to NSMB2 seemed to hurt that game but I don't remember it impacting my excitement for this game very much. I think I considered this the real one, and that a kind of appetiser.

It's really good. This is a really well-crafted platformer that handles wonderfully and is great to play as a singleplayer campaign. I don't know if multiplayer is as good as on Wii or better or worse, but that novelty wore off after one game for me.

Playing this in my recent playthrough of Mario games, it definitely felt tired coming after the other three. That said, it played really well and with a little more willingness to be unconventional with visuals and audio, this could have been a great.

Looking at the two in isolation a few years from now, when the shine has worn off, this might be the better game than Wonder for some more hardcore players.

My introduction to New Super Mario Bros. U was likely the same as yours: it was as the first game on-screen when the Wii U debuted and we were told “hey, it’s time to watch some baseball”. At the time I wasn’t excited to see another New Super Mario Bros. U. That’s not just because it’s reveal was very much secondary to the Wii U’s reveal, but also because I thought it looked properly unimpressive. First impressions were that it was just a shinier Wii game, that was all. Most of all though, my lack of enthusiasm was mainly because (if memory serves me right) we already had another New Super Mario Bros. game to look ahead to on the 3DS. In the end I recall that there was less than four months between the releases of the New Super Mario Bros game on 3DS and this one on Wii U. Nobody needed that much New Super Mario Bros. in such a short space of time, did they?

Anyway, I got it to accompany my Wii U on its launch day. It was definitely my most expensive at £49.99 from GAME, amazingly the cheapest I could find it for around the time. Truthfully, at the time it got much less play than Nintendo Land, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and Tekken Tag Tournament 2. I was very disinterested in New Super Mario Bros. by that point, it couldn’t and quite plainly didn’t present me with anything that I felt was particularly new or captivating. I think I finished it eventually and reflect on it as being pretty good on the whole, but I never regarded it as a system highlight. That said, I definitely enjoyed my replay of it when it was ported to the Switch at the end of decade. I respect that it’s well-crafted platformer, not really putting a foot wrong in any place. On balance, I can say that it’s my favourite New Super Mario Bros. of the four.

Super Mario Maker was the game that New Super Mario Bros. U should have been. Super Mario Maker would have been a much more exciting demonstration of the GamePad in late 2012 than it proved to be in late 2015, by which time the Wii U was old news and by which time everybody was ready to move onto the NX. Nobody was excited by New Super Mario Bros. U in 2012, that’s for sure. I honestly think the Wii U’s fate would have been different if Super Mario Maker launched alongside it, I think it would have been a system-seller.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Super Mario Maker was the game that New Super Mario Bros. U should have been. Super Mario Maker would have been a much more exciting demonstration of the GamePad in late 2012 than it proved to be in late 2015, by which time the Wii U was old news and by which time everybody was ready to move onto the NX. Nobody was excited by New Super Mario Bros. U in 2012, that’s for sure. I honestly think the Wii U’s fate would have been different if Super Mario Maker launched alongside it, I think it would have been a system-seller.

This actually a very good take.

Easily my favourite of the series, not necessarily because it was the best but because it was a launch game for my lovely Wii U. Its the best a 2D Mario has looked and having any kind of Miiverse integration was an exciting thing, even if it was fairly barebones. I did enjoy it on launch day in its full 5 player glory, it was extra hectic thanks to the 5th player who was supposed to help was mostly placing blocks to hinder everyone else. After that it was second fiddle to Nintendo Land and only got a look in when I did my solo playthrough which as ever, was good not great.

I think Cappa and Smurf have nailed it here.

I was so excited for NSMBU. I was also really fed up to see NSMBU. The two things can co-exist. And now, going back, I'm a bit sick of NSMBU.

I got my Wii U with NSMBU, Nintendo Land, and Trine 3... only NSMBU didn't arrive on time. These were the ideal conditions for NSMBU! As a launch game for a console that didn't have much of hype going for it at the beginning, it obviously attracted more attention. Then it didn't arrive on time, which made me want it more. Then I tried the other two games, and obviously Nintendo Land's not much good playing on my tod and Trine 3 was a big pile of dog droppings. NSMBU's stock rose proportionately in my head. By the time I got my hands on the game, all of my apathy towards the sub-series was gone. I was willing this thing so hard to be good.

And it felt good! At the time. I agree with Cappa that it's the best game of the four: the design was solid, Mario in HD did a lot of heavy lifting visually, and the squirrel power-up is probably my favourite from the sub-series. Also, Smurf's reminded me of the Miiverse integration, and that was great - not because of the implementation itself, but because everything Miiverse touched turned to gold for me. Bring it back, Nintendo. Bring it back.

But, it hasn't aged well. Going back to it on Switch, after 3D World which did 2D-esque multiplayer Mario so much better, I found it quite a weak offering. In October 2021 I talked about "muted colours, dull level design, the asinine decision to boot players back to the world map on ever death, and the whole 'easy until the post game' thing writ large": while "dull level design" was unfair and part of a lash-out, it could easily have been replaced by "giving us Boom Boom and the Koopalings as the bosses a-sodding-gain". No Miiverse on Switch of course. I didn't enjoy New Super Luigi U at all either: time limits have always been a duff part of the series, and reducing it to 100 seconds for every level was a stinker of a choice.

I'd say it's a 6/10 game these days, having been a 7/10 at launch. I'd also say it's the best in the sub-series, just above the original for being more refined. I think that sums up my views on the bunch as a whole.