New Super Mario Bros.
New Power-Ups. New Moves. New Bosses.
Welcome to the new Mushroom Kingdom.
A Platform Game released in 2006 for the Nintendo DS, deliberately modeled after the side-scrolling games in Nintendo's Super Mario Bros.. series, but featuring polygonal renderings of some characters and objects to give it a 2.5D look. It's also the first original side-scroller in the series since 1992's Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.[1]
The plot is rather simple. Bowser Jr. kidnaps Princess Peach, and Mario gives chase through eight worlds, each with at least one fortress and one castle. Each fortress ends with a battle with Bowser Jr., who retreats to either another fortress or a castle when defeated; meanwhile, the castles end with a unique boss fight. The castle of World 1 sees Mario confront Bowser, his arch foe and the series Big Bad, in a fight that homages the original Super Mario Bros. Mario runs to the opposite side of the room and pushes a switch, causing the bridge to collapse and Bowser to fall into the lava pit below, reducing him to a skeleton. Before Mario can rescue Peach, Bowser Jr. nabs her and runs off to the next world, which is gonna happen a few more times.
The quest to save Peach leads Mario to a giant castle in World 8, where Bowser Jr. successfully revives Bowser (after a botched attempt resulted in the still-skeletal Dry Bowser), albeit several feet taller, and the final battle ensues.
In addition to the series' usual power ups, NSMB introduced some new ones. The Mega Mushroom turns Mario into a giant à la Super Mario 64 DS, allowing for some massive property damage. The Mini Mushroom shrinks Mario to the size of a mouse, enabling him to get through very small passageways and run on water at the expense of death in one hit. The Blue Koopa Shell allows Mario to protect himself while crouching; when running, he can knock enemies away just like the koopa shells he kicks. Finally, Shell Mario can swim better underwater.
From both a financial and a critical standpoint, the game was a hit, delighting players with its channeling of the series' roots. A sequel was released toward the end of 2009 for the Wii, simply titled New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the first game to introduce cooperative multi-player for up to four players. It also reintroduces the Koopalings, Bowser's original seven children, who have not been in a new Mario platformer since 1991's Super Mario World. And now, comming in August 2012, New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Nintendo 3DS, which looks to be quite similar to Super Mario Bros 3 with the presence of Raccoon Mario and the P-Meter. Another game in the New Super Mario Bros. series, is New Super Mario Bros. U, and it is the first announced Wii U game to have Miiverse support, with messages from other Miis (or players) about their experience with other levels.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Mega Mushroom turns the Mario Bros. into giant walking plumbers of destruction. It's also a Game Breaker in that a Mega Mushroom can be stored for later use, including the Final Boss battle, where Bowser can be done in with one Goomba Stomp. In fact, this is the only way (outside of Shell Mario and the switch) to "kill" Dry Bowser.
- Auto-Scrolling Level
- Avenging the Villain: Bowser Jr.
- Back from the Dead: Bowser in World 8.
- Big Boo's Haunt: The Ghost Houses.
- The Chase: Pursuing Bowser Jr.
- Credits Montage: The top screen shows all the levels you've cleared (even the cannons that you used). In the cases of the towers and castles, it will show the level itself first before the boss, while the final castle shows the level, the boss, and the princess being rescued.
- Damsel in Distress: Peach gets kidnapped. Who saw that coming?
- Dem Bones: Dry Bones and Dry Bowser.
- Demoted to Extra: Bowser, of all people. His only appearances period are the first and last boss fights; otherwise, it's Bowser Jr. and a bunch of Big-Lipped Alligator Bosses running the show.
- Aside from Petey Piranha.
- Dual Boss: The final boss is Bowser Jr. and an enlarged Bowser.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: The apparent demise of Bowser in World 1 mentioned above might be a little unnerving for some. He doesn't stay dead, however, as he shows up in skeletal form in World 8, and Bowser Jr. revives him properly for the final battle.
- Shout-Out: Bowser's defeat is very similar to Crocomire's.
- Fragile Speedster: The Mini-Mushroom makes you both a One-Hit-Point Wonder and weaker with your Goomba Stomp, but it greatly increases your mobility.
- Giant Mook: Super Dry Bones, Super Thwomp, Mega Cheep-Cheep, Mega Deep-Cheep, Mega Unagi, and Super Piranha Plant are all recurring enemies, while Mega Goomba serves as a boss, and you ride a giant Wiggler in World 7-3.
- And King Bill, an ENORMOUS version of the Bullet Bill which is truly invincible and will kill you dead if he hits you.
- Gimmick Level: Bowser's Castle in the DS game was this, unlike the one in the Wii game, which was filled with tough platforming.
- Grimy Water: In the forest levels.
- Ground Pound
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Can happen to Mario in certain levels if the Mega Mushroom is not used with care. One level is made up of nothing but pipes and the majority of them can be broken with the Mega Mushroom. Break too many of them and you'll fall into the Bottomless Pit you've created.
- Homage: Several, to the original Super Mario Bros.. For instance, many sound effects from the original game are intact, such as coin collecting, enemy squishing, and block bumping. In addition, the Mega Mushroom Power-Up is colored just like the Super Mushroom from the first game.
- Infinite 1-Ups: In homage to the original Super Mario Bros., the "Koopa Shell Bounce" trick was shamelessly recreated.
- Invincibility Power-Up: The classic Super Star and the Mega Mushroom, which makes Mario grow to screen-filling heights.
- It's All Upstairs From Here: The point of the tower levels.
- Lava Pit
- The Merch: Take a look at how much Mario merchandise in recent history is branded with this game's title.
- Mickey Mousing: Inverted: The enemies and powerups (and Yoshi in the Wii game) hop and/or dance to the music.
- Also, Bowser Jr.'s footsteps have musical punctuation in the opening cutscene.
- Mythology Gag: The game starts with a homage to World 1-1 from the first Super Mario Bros., and there is a Bowser battle that can be defeated simply by breaking the bridge and dropping Bowser in the lava (or down a pit ala Super Mario Bros 3), replacing the axe with a button.
- The New Adventures
- No Ending: Unlike the Wii game, Mario and Peach are never shown actually leaving Bowser's castle.
- Papa Wolf: Should you defeat his son first in the final battle, Bowser will go apeshit and barrage the boss lair with a spiral of fireballs.
- Reconstruction: Of the original 2D Mario sidescrollers.
- Save the Princess: That's pretty much the whole plot, folks.
- Space-Filling Path: That block train in the second World 8 tower goes an extremely long way around the room in a ping pong path fashion...
- Springy Spores: A lot of levels, beginning with 1-5.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: Present, despite being absent in the 3D Marios that separated NSMB and its 2D predecessors and the one that separated the Wii version and the DS one.
- A Twinkle in the Sky: Using a cannon on the map.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: There's no mistaking it.
- Video Game Settings
- World 1: Green Hill Zone.
- World 2: Shifting Sand Land.
- World 3: Palmtree Panic.
- World 4: Jungle Japes.
- World 5: Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
- World 6: Death Mountain.
- World 7: Bubbly Clouds.
- World 8: Lethal Lava Land.
- Villain Exit Stage Left: In both games, after defeating the tower boss, your character does the victory animation...then just stands there watching the boss get up and leap away.
- Walking on Water: Tiny mushroom form.
As for the Wii game
- Just go to the New Super Mario Bros. Wii page itself and put examples there.
- ↑ or, arguably, 1995's Yoshi's Island