Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 290: New Super Mario Bros.

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and Cole Jones bop in time to the music as they revisit Mario's ugliest (but arguably best!!) adventures in the New Super Mario Bros. series. Cover illustration: Step Sybydlo

You're listening to Retronauts, a part of the Greenlit Podcast Network, a collective of creator-owned and fully independent podcasts, focused on pop culture and video gaming. To learn more and to catch up on all the other network shows, check out Greenlitpodcasts.com. This week in Retronauts, wah, wah. Hi, everyone. Oh, I see people dying all around me.

I'm sorry about that. It's another Retronauts episode. And yeah, we're talking about new Super Mario Brothers this week. Or should I say old Super Mario Brothers? Because it is now, like, what, 13 years old? Yeah. It's more than eligible for a retronauts coverage episode. It's very old.

It's two generations old. It's as retronauts. Good Lordy. Actually, slightly older. Hot six, yeah. Yeah, hot six. I remember back in the day playing on a low-resolution Nintendo DS. Tell me about the two screens, Danny.

So anyway, hi, yes. I am Jeremy Parrish, and I am here to guide you through the mushroom kingdom in low-resolution and polygons, and here joining me this week on this exciting nine-level journey we have. It's me, Shin Bob Mackie. That means new. I see. And it's a part of your leg. Hey, come popping out of my blue turtle shell.

It's Henry Gilbert. Hello. And finally, a new guest on the show. Hi, my name is Cole. Do you have a last name? Jones. Oh, fantastic. So, yes, we are here to talk about the new Super Mario Brothers games.

We will definitely talk about the DS game. and time allowing we may talk about the others. You never know with retronauts these days. We always plan out a lot of content and then get like halfway through it by the end of the episode. So no promises. But we are going to travel back to the year 2006

and talk about New Super Mario Brothers. And first of all, we should talk about this name. What does New Super Mario Brothers say to you? Like when you first heard that title, did you think this is a reinvention? This is something dramatically different. This is an all-new take on Mario? or did you just think, like, well, this is Super Mario Brothers,

but it's just another version of it. I took it as more. It's more Mario than we'd had before, and so we were getting more of it. But New gives it a fresher feeling. That's why I figure they went with New. Bob, what about you? After the first game, I took New to me, no.

No Super Mario Brothers for me, thank you. I can tell you're going to be the gloomy cloud on this one. I've played and finished all these games, by the way. Okay. Nicole yourself? Yeah, I know for me, when I was looking at these games when they first came out, I kind of always felt like this was like Super Mario Plus. Like, it was like the reinvention slash reimagining of the games,

more like a way of breathing fresh light into the franchise. Yeah, and it definitely did that. New Super Mario Brothers is a, it was the best-selling game on Nintendo DS, which is the best-selling game system of all time outside of PlayStation 2. that's um i couldn't believe that when it had i i even thought the like mario card ds would have outdone it or something yeah that that they achieved their goal of getting back that old audience yeah i mean uh you know whether or not new super my brothers was for you or for bob it was definitely for tens of millions of people who uh i don't know like yeah ds you know really

succeeded in reaching an expanded audience beyond core gamers. And that expanded audience was like, oh, yeah, I know Mario. I remember playing Super Mario Brothers, you know, with my sister or my brother or with my kids or whatever. And this was like, oh, this is more of that. And, you know, by upgrading the visuals slightly and making them kind of, you know, generically polygonal, it made it more contemporary, if not especially exciting. It was very comfortable. Yeah. I, I, I don't want to say monkeys, Paul, because I really did like these games, but in a certain way, in 2006, when this came out, or the lead-up to its release, I was an avowed, like, Mario Superfan. I loved all those games, and I had been thinking for, I think, a whole decade, like, what if they made another real Mario game, another 2D-1, like, what if the real team really made it? And just, like, waiting and waiting and waiting.

So when you finally got it, I think that's like an impossible expectation to meet. But I did enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah, it's really weird to look back and think that when New Super Mario Brothers came out in 2006, there had not been a new 2D Mario game in 14 years. That's longer than it's been since this game came out in the first place. Yoshi's Island. Okay, so, okay, hang on a sec.

Hold your podcast is over. I'm ready to start this. This is a real event right now. No, no. No, I'm not saying Yoshi's Island is invalid. I love that game. But what I am saying is there had not been a 2D platformer starring Mario as the active avatar on screen. Since 1992's, Super Mario Land 2, 6 Golden Coins.

And that was a Game Boy game. Here before that, you know, Super Mario World had come out for Super NES. That's a long time. In that time, we had the entire Wario Land. series, which spun out of Super Mario Land, too. We had mini Yoshi's Island, Yoshi's Story, Yoshi's Topsy-Turvy,

Yoshi Touch and Go. We had Super Princess Peach. We had like games starring every Mario character except Mario. And Blue Toad. And Donkey Kong Country also, I'd

count of that. Yep. And yeah, we had Mario versus Donkey Kong, which I guess you could almost count, but that's like a single screen puzzle platformer. It's not a Super Mario Brother's game. Instead, Mario had gone into the third dimension.

He was in Super Mario 64. He was in Super Mario Sunshine. And, you know, Super Mario Galaxy was lurking in the wings. There just had not been a 2D, a new 2D Mario game in a long, long time. We had the, you know, Super Mario Brothers

DX for Game Boy Color, which was a remake of 1 and 2. And then we had a bunch of other remakes for Game Boy Advance. And we had, you know, they all included Mario Brothers. Every game on Game Boy Advance included Mario Brothers. It was just like, it was the pack-in for everything. That seemed to be where they switched their focus

to because all of a sudden they were instead of doing new IPs with Mario, they were saying, all right, let's go ahead and let's rehash all these old ones. Let's do Super Mario 3, Super Mario Advance 4. And I feel like that's how a lot of people around my age group like got into Mario again was through all the

Game Boy Advance and DX versions. And I mean that was totally valid. Those were good games that were many years out of print. There was no digital distribution to speak of at the time. So it's not like you had a virtual console where you could play those games.

So, yeah, fine. Okay, remake those games, reissue them. That's cool. Make them valid for a new generation of players. Add some safe files. And Charles Martinet talking a whole lot. Yeah, some work. That is not just what I needed.

But, yeah, that was what it happened with Mario. And there was this sense of, like, you know, as much as we enjoyed the 3D Mario, games, as much as we enjoyed all the spinoffs, I think all of us, you know, all Mario fans were like, I would, you know, love to play another game like Super Mario Bros. 3. And that is exactly what Super Mario, New Super Mario Brothers was. It was very much a game cut from the pattern of Super Mario Brothers and Super Mario Brothers three especially. And, you know, threw in some ideas from some of the other Mario games. But I feel like those two are

most thoroughly represented here. I think that it was just a choice that Nintendo made with Mario for a decade like it was their a team on Mario were the only people who would make a 2D Mario game because they weren't going to, they can give other series to other developers but I've gotten

the sense in the past of like EAD, formally EAD they didn't even like sharing Mario with Gumpay Koi's group to make the land games like they the land games are weird and those that was the last one I think so I think if they

ever going to make a 2D1, it would have had to be internally. I always got the impression, I don't know, where did you get that feeling from? Because my impression was that the, you know, the R&D1 team, it's not that they weren't allowed to play with Mario. It's like, you know, we want to do our own thing. Yeah,

no, I think they did their own thing, but I think I never got the feeling that they had personal nostalgia for it on EAD or really called back to it. My primary source on this was I interviewed Mr. Hayshita, the director of Super Mario Land

Super Mario 3D Land and when I asked him about like hey what stuff from, you know, this shares the name with the land games, like what stuff from land did you take his inspiration but this is paraphrasing but he basically said like he they didn't really take anything from those

they didn't look back to it like those games were just treated as non-existent to them and he said well I guess the fireballs bounce off of walls in 3D land once. So like that, I guess. Like, it was just the kind of, I don't want to say flippancy, but like 3D land had so much nostalgia for previous Mario games, but not the R&D1 ones. I mean, I think we've talked about this before, but, you know.

I bring it up every Mario episode. Well, no, not that specifically, but just in general. The idea that I think among Japanese deaf teams, especially at Nintendo, that when someone else create something, that's theirs. And that's, you know, you respect that and you don't tread on it. And so, you know, everything is kind of siloed. And that's why, like, on Virtual Boy, you had Telleroboxer, even though it very easily could have been a punchout game. It wasn't a punchout game because it was developed by R&D3 as opposed to R&D2.

Or maybe I got that reversed. But, you know, it's the same thing with Mario Land. You look at, you know, the Final Fantasy remakes, and those are headed up by, you know, for like, DS and everything, those are headed up by Tokita. and he worked on three and four, but he didn't work on five and six. So, you know, a long time ago, I asked him, you know, do you think you'll give five and six the same kind of remake treatment that you've done with three and four? And he was like, well, you know, I didn't work on those.

So I don't really feel like it's my place to go in and recreate them. And that's why he kept, you know, kind of hoeing the row with Final Fantasy Four for better or worse with the after years. So, yeah, I think there is just this kind of like this sense of, you know, that's theirs, this is ours. we're going to keep the clear division there and we don't want to impose on them or, you know, misuse their creation. That's the impression I get. Do you think that's a large part of why they had that giant gap between Super Mario land, the one before this, and then the new Super Mario Brothers, basically everyone was allowed to go out and do their own thing. Like you can go and do your, you can do Yoshi's World and you can do this one.

It's like we have our own IPs. We're going to guard them behind the gate kind of thing. Again, I don't really think it's a guarding behind the gate. thing. I think it's just, like Henry said, the lead team, the A team was taking Mario into the third dimension, exploring, like, inventing basically 3D platforming with Mario

64 and going beyond that. And that was just the direction they had gone, and no one else necessarily was like, oh, well, if you're not going to do anything with Mario and 2D, we'll do it. It was just, you know, that's not appropriate, I guess. Real Mario games were pretty scarce at this

time because Mario 64 was 96 and then Mario Sunshine was 2002 and this was 2006, so it felt like it was a big event. Yeah, right. When there was a Mario game. There were lots of spinoffs, Mario Party, Mario Tennis, Mario,

Gaul, Mario, Mario, or Donkey Kong, but yeah. The core Mario game. Yeah, instead we had all the remakes. And there was even Super Mario 64 DS. Yeah, they launched the system with it. Yeah. So by the time you got to New Super Mario Brothers in 2006, they were out of Mario games they could remake.

All of them had been remade. And they were like, finally, okay, fine, we'll make a new one. I think it was, I think internally they didn't, they maybe got the wrong idea that people had moved past 2D gaming entirely. Like, as the inventors of so much of what 3D platforming is, they maybe thought like, well, we own that space and that's where the players have gone. And so why go backwards? Like, we don't like, I think Miyamoto in particular isn't the biggest fan of going backwards without a new idea. Right. But, you know, at the same time, they always frame.

read it over, you know, the complexity of 3D gaming. Like, how do you teach players to maneuver in 3D space? And all of a sudden, they had this platform that was not owned primarily by seasoned veteran video gamers. So I think it was kind of intuitive. Like, it was a natural decision to go backward and, you know, not worry about the complexities of 3D. And just say, like, you press, you know, in one direction, you go in that direction, you press

the jump button, you jump. You don't have to worry about judging distance and, you know, navigating 3D space. you're just there and you run left and right. And so it was a natural fit. Yeah, like in the, I remember years ago I did a Mario 64 podcast for Retronauts. And in that podcast, I saw an interview where Miyamoto was like, I regret going to 3D because we lost a large portion of our audience. And that's true even today.

Like, if you sit somebody down with a 3D game and they've never played a 3D game before, the idea of like controlling a camera independently of your character or controlling like head movement independent of your character is just like they can't understand it. Yeah, multiple axes of movement. viewing. Yeah, and that's borne out with sales. The Wii sold almost as many units as the DS, but Super Mario Galaxy

did not sell nearly as many units as New Super Mario Brothers. I think New Super Mario Brothers Wii greatly outsold Super Mario Galaxy too. Very much so. Yeah, I think it was like triple the amount or even more like no, this is just anecdotal evidence

but generationally there was lost players. Like by my mom played this shit out of NES and Super NES but once Polygons came in in a three-dimensional thing like she got confused or she just like got lost or just went in circles

and once you feel uncomfortable in that space then you don't you also if you're over 40 it's like I'm uncomfortable here I'll find other ways to spend my free time. Yeah. Yeah, so with that said, all of that said, all of that said, what we have in

New Super Mario Brothers is a classic style Super Mario Brothers game. Like it's, it is very aptly named because it is a very aptly named because it is a, very traditional take on 2D Mario platforming. It combines elements from a lot of games. Like I said, the original SMB, but also SMB3. Little bits of Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, but it just kind of feels like a melting pot. And there's not a lot that's original in New Super Mario Brothers,

which is something that I complained about back in the day. That's out of the power-ups, I guess. Yeah, but I mean, even those aren't that. It's like one. It's like you're big or small, or a turtle. Yeah. That's pretty much it.

There's not really much going on. The core power-ups in New Super Mario are the fireflower and the mushroom. And then the others are just kind of there and they're more situational. And, you know, the one that's less situational, which is the blue shell, is really hard to come by. You rarely see that. Yeah. It seems to be just like whenever it wants to pop up on the screen. I'm sure there's points that you can trigger it.

I think, you know, from what I've been able to tell and what I've been able to determine even, you know, not just through play, but through research, is that really the only reliable way to get a blue shell is to go into a stage where the hovering block has stopped on the world map and go in there. And even then, you get the turtle shell so rarely. I think you have to have like fireflower power up and a fireflower in reserve and then you'll get a blue shell. I don't even know if that's the case, but that seems to be the only time it ever shows up for me. And it's kind of frustrating because there are shortcuts in the game, and the first major shortcut in the game requires you to have the blue shell. And it's very, very obtuse. Like, it's, there's some stuff about this game that I find annoying and vexing.

And going back to it all this time later and replaying it, I'm like, you could tell that they hadn't made a 2D Mario game from scratch in a long time, and they were still kind of knocking off the rest. The first one makes a lot of mistakes that the later ones didn't. Well, it's like a boxer getting the ring rust off, I think. Well, also, I think they got more over time, seeing this compared to the later ones, which I played more recently, I think they got more confidence to be more experimental and to add more. Like, I don't think they had the ambition or maybe like the, they were maybe wanting to go for such a core audience. So, like, if we had too many different power-ups, it's going to confuse people.

Yeah, they played it really safe. will say up front, I mean, that is, I'll be doing some complaining throughout, but I don't want anyone to think I dislike 2D Mario games. Like, I think they eventually figured all of this out with Mario Maker, where it is basically like, here is every 2D Mario element, you can play

in any visual style. And in fact, if these games came out in a different visual style, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, I think I would have enjoyed them more, but it was the playing it safe mostly that irked me all throughout the series until I do consider Mario Maker to be part of the series. Like, it is like, here are more 2D Mario stages, except

people online make most of them and we make some of them. Unless you play the 3DS game in which there's like a hundred of them. That's true. People tend to pooh that one for some reason. That's because it misses the point. You share your levels. You make it share your levels. There's that, but I mean if you... Okay. Yeah. It's totally a sidebar. Yeah.

But yeah, when they hold back, like you're saying, the blue shell, how much they hold that back. That's kind of those things that like if you, if it was more available, it would have made the game feel even fresher of like if you had it. But then I think they didn't design as many stages for it or I remember with the

Mega Mushroom, I remember reading one of the designers said they didn't like it because it broke all this architecture they bothered to make. That's why I was double checking it. You can get it in Toad Houses, but otherwise it's just in like four whirl. It's like four stages

it's available within the stage. Yeah, we'll talk about that later, but yeah, they really played it safe and it's really a nuts and bolt Mario game. If you just want to play it, like a standard Mario game, go from start to finish, not use any warps or anything like that. It's, you know, six worlds, and you can play it entirely with the mushroom and the fireflower. And that's all you need. There's no flying. There's no, like, crazy

spin around and hit things with your weird tail. There's no frog suit. None of the, none of the Mario three stuff. Like the cool stuff for Mario, no Hammer Brothers suit. Yeah, I, that was why it was so, when I played it the first time, I was kind of disappointed. I still finished it and intermittently really enjoyed it but I think I was disappointed in a way too because I think when they called it new Super Mario Brothers they really meant like think of this like Mario Brothers just the

first Super Mario Brothers but when they include some stuff from that you're more used to in later Mario's then it just makes you hungry for more of that like verticality in stages or more variety of power ups or enemies too like yeah I mean

in a way I guess that's good the new Super Bari Brothers, like, made you hungry for more stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I will say that, like, the idea of this game was extremely exciting. I want to say it was shown off for the first time at E3, 2005, which was the first E3 I attended as a writer in the press. I had been to 2004, but it was as a graphic designer for one-up, and I spent my whole time doing a bunch of promotional graphics and then, like, went out on the floor and wrote

about weird things. no one else wanted to like, you know, Puyo Pop or something. But New Super Mario Brothers was at E3, 2005, and the one-up booth was actually right next to Nintendo's booth. And so because we were exhibitors, we were in there. And so on the first day, like an hour before the show started, I just like walked over and said, hey, would it be okay if I played this demo? So I played the New Super Warrior Brothers demo and went back to our booth and wrote this like gushing preview because I was like, oh my God, I'm playing a 2D Mario game. And wow, I just turned huge. It's crazy.

What is this game going to be like? Like, if this is the first level, what's going to happen in the rest? I was so excited. And I think that article was probably the first online preview of the game just because I cheated. And it did really well for us. And everyone, you know, was like, oh, my God, that sounds really amazing. And then the game came out of year later and we were like, oh, okay. I feel fairly certain I read that review in me.

Oh, me too. That preview of yours, Jeremy, so I do blame you for having my two high expectations for this game. I mean, can you blame me? Like, if you played that one level in isolation as a teaser, like there's a whole, there's eight worlds beyond this. Yeah. Like, you just have to imagine what's going to be out there. Mario doesn't usually tip its hand, its entire hand, in the first stage. It's more of a sonic move, really.

Yeah. So I feel I was totally justified in expecting amazing things beyond that. This time what we got was a very well-made, competent game that contained very few big surprises. It's like a Honda Civic of Mario games. Wow, it totally is. It's reliable and kind of ugly, and it gets you there. It keeps going. You've got all the levels you can go to. You just keep cruising through it.

And Yoshi's Island? Is Yoshi's Island like a Maserati then or something? Yoshi's Island is, it's like the Wiener Schnitzelmobile. It's bizarre and crazy, and I love it. It's somewhat frustrating, but enjoyable. And instead of throwing eggs, you throw hot dogs at people. Yeah. See?

It works. All right, so that was my first experience with New Superior Brothers. Hands on, gushing, excited, cheating, breaking all the rules at the press and getting kicked out of E3, but not actually. What about you guys? What was the first time you had played New Super Mario Brothers? I was definitely looking forward to the second it was announced to that EGN, or that E3 press conference. Like, I remember just seeing the 2D Mario from that perspective grow tall with the mega, mushroom and stop everything.

That was so cool. And then when the game itself came out, like all the previews were making me high for it, though I remember reading the EGM reviews, and you were one of the three, and I think you tempered my expectations just a little bit lower. I gave it like an 8.5. Jesus, what a piece of garbage that game was. Only a silver. I believe you were the low man.

I was. I was. Dan Shue, I think, gave it a perfect score. I believe so. Yeah. And I think the other score was kind of. in between. Yeah.

Actually, I might have given it an 8. I think that might have been the review at which EGM switched from having decimals to just

like integers. So I would have given an 8.5, but I had to give it an 8. And I was like, I feel like it deserves a little better than that, but it's not quite a 9.

So, but yeah, my DS, I'd had it for about a year or so it was the first Nintendo system I didn't buy and launch because it just seemed so disappointing to me.

But then by 06, I was so into my DS. When I played it, I was kind of disappointed, but I loved every second of it. But, yeah, once I really started, you know, searching for the secrets and everything in it, that's when it felt the shallowness really came to me. And also, you know, it's not a game made for super players. Like, it's not made for people who have memorized all these classic Mario games.

Bob, yourself? I was not buying a lot of games at this time, but I did games. flight when it came out, I believe in May of 06, is that around when it came out? Yeah, sometime around there. Yeah, I know it was spring, but my expectations were really high based on all the, you know, very glowing reviews and previews and stuff, but I had the same experience Henry did where I expected a lot more from a Mario game. And I was not ever one of those, you know, filthy casuals or ruining gaming kind of people,

but I felt like, oh, Nintendo with the DS, they're doing a lot of stuff to appeal to new players, but the fact that they sort of, in my opinion, like dumb down Mario a bit. felt wrong to me, especially because Mario games were very rare then. And I wanted more from it, and that continued throughout the rest of the series, where I would play all the games, and I would finish all the games, and I would still feel like, oh, everything else I like about Mario is so much better than what these games are doing until Mario Maker. That's the one time where I was like, okay, these 2D Mario games are finally good

because they include everything you could possibly imagine in one package. Oh, and I will say, too, another thing that on immediate that did bother me about it from the first 2005 trailer was the 2.5D visuals. Like I just, and now that I know more about it and know that they, I believe they even just took the models they had made for Mario 64 DS and used that as kind of their starting point for it. It just, I think sprite art is a lost art form, and it made me sad to see that even Nintendo gave up on it.

Oh, yeah, that does remind me the other things I annoyed me about this game, about this DS game where the fact that Mario is a 3D polygonal character but the enemies are sprites Yeah They're pre-rendered sprites

And even on a DS you could tell It's even more apparent When you play it on like your Wii U or your TV Yeah, it wasn't too apparent On the original DS I mean this was before the DS light So it looked

You know We're talking some pretty crappy screens Yeah But I was replaying it last week On a DSI Excel Which has those Just big, wonderful, chunky screens

But this game is a little too chunky Yeah. And Mario looks really out of place compared to the enemies and some of the sprite elements. And the other thing that annoyed me is something we talked about earlier, but I felt like it broke the Mario rules where in my brain at least, the Mario rule was like everything you need to find the secret will be in the stage. But in this game, it broke that rule where it's like, no, you get the mini mushroom, then you survive with it once you go back to a stage. I felt that that was very anti- Mario. I think they did fix that in future games. Yeah, the later games don't do that so much. That was something that I saw in a few games at the time. time. Kirby the Amazing Mirror did that a lot too. It was like

Madridania-ish, but you had to get like get a power from a character like swallow a monster in another stage and then carry it, you know, across the map and use it in a specific place. It's just, it's kind of tedious. I feel like it's patting the game a little bit. And yeah, it's kind of

frustrating. I don't know, Cole, did you, when did you first discover the first play experience, the original New Super Memorial Writers? Yeah, I know. I kind of came to it a little bit after the fact because I got into the DS gaming year or two after the DS came out. And I remember going back and playing through Super Mario Bros. 3 on Gay Boy Advance and then getting really excited. I was like, all right, let me go jump into this new adventure. And I was

really excited about it. But then I was kind of frustrated because I was used to having like my, you know, backpack full of power-ups going into the stages. And then I could only hold on to that one from the past level that I was there. So it's like when I'm, when I'm ready to go in there and grab the small mushroom. Well, I don't have that with me. I don't have the mini mushroom. I only got the fireflower. So it was a little bit of frustration there. And I'm one of those people that enjoys trying to get all the coins. But at the same time, sometimes the actual platforming elements can be really frustrating. And that would actually end up leading me to just being like, I forget it. I'm just going to get through this frequent stage and get to the next one.

Yeah, for me, I mean, obviously I previewed the game at E3, 2005, and then reviewed the game before it came out. But I had kind of a... This game arrived at a weird time in my life because one, it came right on the heels of Ultimate Ghost and Goblins,

which I had a really difficult relationship with and I had a difficult relationship with the internet as a whole because of that game. And so, you know, it was inevitable that this, like, so many people looked to Ultimate Ghost and Goblins as like, this is the game that's going to save PSP.

I don't know why, Like, why that game, of all games? They're desperate. They were desperate people. Like, there were so many other games. Like, there were Final Fantasy games on the way. But for some reason, people really put a lot of stock in that game, and I really hated it. And so it was inevitable that my opinions on New Super Mario Brothers were going to be compared to Ultimate Ghost and Goblins.

And I was still pretty critical, like, much more critical than just about anyone else in the press of this game. And my bone of contention was like, this is well made, but I know this team. team has made better things and that they they can do better. And I expect more from them. And you know, I just feel like a little let down about this. But, you know, it was still a pleasant antidote to Ultimate Ghost and Goblins. And I felt like this was a nice positive game. It was challenging in places, but not obtuse, not like hard just to be dickish. And around the same time, my grandfather passed away. And so, you know, dealing with that on top of dealing with a lot of hatred that was directed toward me because of Ultimate Ghost and Goblins and my opinions

on the game. Yeah, so this game, like, I really needed it when it came out. And so I have a lot of fondness for it. Even though I recognize that it is, on the scale of Mario games, it's kind of in the middle tier, I would say, maybe the lower middle tier. It's not as good as it could have been. and I wanted more from it, but I sank a lot of time into it just to kind of disappear from all the other things that were weighing down on me. So I can't ever bring myself to be too critical of this game because, you know, it's just one of those, like, super subjective things. But that game was there for me at a time that I needed it, so I will always love it for that. But I also do think it's a good game. It's very accessible, it's approachable, and it's solidly made for the most part.

I think it's a good ride. It's just not quite, doesn't quite inspire the most. like, you know, warm fuzzies inside me, like when I think about WarioLand, the first time I played it and played over and over, or Super Mario Land 2, you know. Right, these games that are just like, wow, I don't know what's going to happen next. This is, like, crazy stuff is happening. But, I mean, that's comparing R&D 1 to EAD. Yeah.

But even Super Mario Brothers 3, like, every world in that, you opened up a new world. It was like something you'd never seen before. You're suddenly, you're like on this little island. Why is this world so small? Oh, wait. There's a whole cloud world above it that's part of this same world. That's wild. Why is there a ship with like a weird writing on the sale that just pops up sometimes?

And the power-ups aren't trivial either. How did I turn into a hammer brother? That's so weird. Yeah, what's going on here? Yeah, my take was like, why is this way less creative than the game that came out 15 years ago with, like, no technology supporting it? I just felt like there's so much you could do with what was then I considered like there's a lot of horsepower on this DS, especially for a 2D game. Why aren't you doing more with it? Again, it felt really safe to me.

Yeah, the safeness there. I mean, if you had the sales of, you know, Nintendo dogs at your back and you're like, this is what people want, you do think of that audience. And you're not wrong to design a consumer product for such a big group of people and try to kind of bridge the divide. Like, that's definitely what I think they were going for with it. Yeah, I mean, we're being very critical here. I really enjoyed this game. But we are approaching it from the perspective of, you know, kids who grew up with Mario and have. a lot of associations and attachments and expectations attached to it, and we're in a tiny

minority. Like, I recognize that. And this game is exactly what it set out to be. It is exactly what Nintendo wanted it to be, which is like, hey, let's have a refresher. Remember Mario, that guy? He's back in Polygon form. And, you know, that was okay. So it's a way for people that first experienced Nintendo through Nintendo to enjoy the Mario series.

Or people who played Super Mario Brothers, you know, 20 years before that, who were like, oh, yeah, I remember that Mario guy. I played that when I was a kid. Now, here's a game I can play with my kid. I love to imagine the customers like, they finally made a new Super Mario Brothers. I've been waiting for this one. Literally, the new one. In 1986, I played it. It's 20 years later.

They finally made a new one. I mean, that was a much more, like, on the nose, much more, like, intuitive title than Super Mario Brothers advance for Super Mario. Mario Brothers 3. Like, really. I will get to it, but I just, I really hate the title. I hate how they just added things to the end of this title. So New Super Mario Brothers U. I know what it means and I know what the U is there for, but it just, it just sounds

so assinite to me. I mean, now we've got New Super Mario Brothers U deluxe, which isn't even on Wii U. Yeah, yeah. It's called New Super Mario Bros. Switch. You're not going to make another one, unless you are. They probably are. I think that's what Mario Maker does. I'm sorry.

I'm going to keep bringing up Mario Maker because it taught me that, like, I can't enjoy. new 2D Mario games even if like strangers are making the levels not like Nintendo people I know. Mario Maker is one of the greatest creations of all time. I'm just thinking about it because we're on the cusp of it coming out as of this recording. The sequel. The sequel, yeah.

All right, so I feel like the tone of this podcast has been a lot more negative than intended. And like I said, I have a lot of fun feelings for this game. But, you know, part of that I think is mitigated by the fact that the sequels were all so much more interesting and fun than this. They added a lot more. Like, they had the elements of creativity and, like, hey, this is different that the first New Super Mario Brothers was really missing. So this does feel like, you know, like you said, the ring rust. It really does feel like not just a reintroduction to Mario for consumers, but also for

Nintendo to be like, how do we make a 2D platformer now that we haven't done it in 15 years? Because the last time this team made a 2D platformer was 1991. Actually, 1990, because that's when the Super Famicom launched with. with Mario World. Yeah. So 16 years is a long time to go without dabbling in a genre. And, you know, the discipline required for a 3D platformer is different. For, you know, for puzzle platformers is different.

So they had to kind of retrain themselves. So take it in that context, okay, this is fine. And it's good. I like, I don't know, there's a lot of stuff that I like about this. I will say my absolute least favorite thing about this is this is the game that made me realize lives are stupid. limited lives. This is the point where I really noticed it

because I was fine playing like if you are experience with Mario games you play this you're going to have so many one-ups it doesn't matter but if you don't have

a lot of Mario experience and I realize this as I watch my wife play who does not play a lot of platformers but she was enjoying this for a while but then it got to a point

where it's frustrating because you get five lives and if you lose those lives you go back to the last time you save but the only times you can save are when you beat a fortress beat a castle at the end of the world

or when you use the bitcoins to unlock something on the world map. So you have very limited save options and she would get really close to beating, you know, like a fortress or a castle and then run out of lives. And she'd have to do all of that all over again. And it

wasn't like a, oh, well, I'll do it better this time kind of situation. It was just like a, why am I wasting my time doing this? Like this is frustrating. I almost got to the point that I needed to be and now I to go back and do all of this over again. It wasn't, like, it didn't incentivize her to keep playing.

It disincentivized her. Like, she stopped playing. She never got past like World 2. Well, that save system, yeah, that was really one of the things they were having to figure out for the first time for a new Mario Brothers game. In this case, it was like, you know, they could, what do you do? Do they want to give you save states? That almost feels like it gives you too much leeway and not enough challenge.

But I think, too, it's a problem, though, with a game you play on the go, you need to be given more save options than they give you here. And especially that it is almost always tied into your abilities. Like, I remember, too, feeling like I have to get every coin. I have to make sure to get every coin now because this is how I buy saves. Yeah. And this is the same save system that was in Super Mario World, you know, 15 years before. But it was just a different audience, a different world, a different platform. platform. And, you know, Mario World's stages are a lot shorter than the ones in New Super Mario

Brothers. These stages tend, you know, after you get past the first couple of stages, they tend to go more like Yoshi's Island stages where they're really lengthy by comparison to like traditional Super Mario Brothers stages. They take a lot longer to play through. So it really needs to have the Yoshi's Island style where it just automatically saves after you beat a level. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Keep playing. It's not that hard to be a little more generous with saves. And I feel like, I don't know, I wonder how many people who were like, oh, Mario, yay, who picked up the game, then got to like World Three or Four and we're like, wow, I'm not having fun anymore. Why do I have to keep replaying the same stuff over and over again? They finally got it right with Mario Odyssey.

Yeah. Mario Odyssey, it got rid of lives. It took about 11 years for them to get there, though. But it's great because you lose some coins and then, you know, you play the level again. And that's fine. For the people that are good at Mario games and just get too many lives, there was the additional problem of they had to have extra challenges in the game to make some sort of life matter for you.

So I think that's where that whole like get the power up and then get to this point without being hit thing came in. But that was just more tedious than anything. So I think that was like, okay, lives don't matter, but here's where getting hit will matter for you, but that wasn't fun either. Yeah, they were kind of getting back into the swing of things. And I think New Super Mario Brothers too kind of solve this problem

by making the point of the game collecting coins. And it's so generous with coins. Like, you can't not collect coins. And so you get so many extra lives that at this point, it's just like you get the endorphins of getting the one-up chime. But, like, it doesn't matter. You have so many lives. You have hundreds of lives. It's ridiculous.

I don't remember how many lives I have to beat that game. But it was, it might have been four figures. I don't know. It was preposterous. Well, yeah, when I pulled up my old save file for two, I, I, I, I, I was. was just a crown, which is what happens when you pass a thousand. Okay, there you go. It's just three crowns.

So, yeah, I got there a long time ago. Yeah, I, yeah, you know, that's counterintuitive to their dream of wanting this to be more new user friendly by not making that move on saves. But I think that was just how they understood how they wanted saves to be from a challenge balancing standpoint. I think that's something they figured out better as they went on. Yeah. Yeah.

So this game, a little frustrating for newcomers, a little frustrating for veterans, a little frustrating for veterans, it's kind of missed the mark a little bit there. Yeah, now, if I may compliment it, I did. Yes, please do. After, it was kind of fun to go back to pretty much just a simple square and like less real estate to go in with Mario without, with no real flight power in this and no Yoshi and none of that stuff. Like the simplification was an interesting like throwback to find.

And also, I think they didn't. It was something they'd have to figure out on two, which they mostly did. Like, how do you get that kind of verticality on such a small screen with Mario being the size he is? You know, that changes how you design a 2D level as well. Right. So let's talk about what this game did add in terms of mechanics. What new things did it bring to the Mario sandbox? Because it did bring some things.

For one thing, there's eight red coins in each stage. And red coins have been explored in the various Mario games before, but they work a little differently. here. Basically, there's a switch and you hit the switch and eight coins appear for a limited time. If you can get all of them, then you can get a bonus, like a one-up or a power-up or something. So it's just like a little extra challenge that you can find and you can engage with. Oh, no, you don't hit a switch. You go through a ring. Sorry. Yeah. I do really love the red coin thing. I had forgotten that he got introduced with this. It just feels way better than blue coins. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. Because it just turns into like a little

mini game that's not, you know, it's fun to do, but not that important. And, and also, of just the sound, speaking of sound design in this game, the sound when you get a red coin of like, rip, rip, or how I can't vocalize it well, but the red coin sound is so satisfying. That's sort of rising, the ascending

The Mario 64 did that, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, kind of, it's similar to that, but yeah, like Henry said, it is this kind of like self-contained little mini-challenge that you can bypass it. You can be like, I don't care about this. You can go through the ring, grab a couple of coins, you can try to get them all. It's really up to you, and it's just kind of

like they're like that that's good fun play it's like it's not quite emergent but it basically like is hey do you want to do this no that's fine keep playing it kind of gives you a little bit of you get that satisfaction of grabbing them all you know and you're going through the stage doing the same thing over and over you're like well I didn't get the a coin's last time but I'm to get it this time right and and uh little victories I have to admit that I actually kind of like the little applause that it gives you to pull something off I don't need it but I think it's fun it's just like I feel like we all need a little bit of encouragement sometimes. Like it really kind of speaks to the underlying tone of the Mario series.

It's like, hey, it's a tough challenge, but you did it and we're proud of it. Come on, guys. Keep going. You can do it. The other kind of coin that is introduced here are the super coins, which I guess they're kind of like descended from the dino coins or whatever from Mario World. Because the dino coins were a bigger, they, I think they were added to most of the advanced games. So I think it just kind of continued on from there. But the coins, they were the main thing I replayed the game, all of the new Mario games for it. they, that's what kept coming back.

Because if I just saw an empty space on that menu, I was like, I have to go back now. I can't, I can't even go back later. I have to replay this stage now. I'm going there right now. But it was also forgiving of like, you don't have to get all three for it to count. You get two and then go back. In the later stages, that's really where the true challenge comes in is getting all those coins.

One, finding them. Yeah. And two, actually acquiring them because some of them require some of them require some real dexterity to pick up. But, you know, something that I really appreciate about the, about the game is the design of World 1-1, because there's basically like two ways to play 1-1, and you either skip the mega-mushroom or you skip one of the big coins. You can't really do both. So we should talk about the mega-mushroom because it's, it is the big addition to this game. It's featured on the cover. There's a giant-ass Mario on the cover. It's a big monster. It's a big monster.

This way, yeah. I mean, this really gets back to the mushroom concept, the Alice in Wonderland. There's the Mega Mushroom and the Mini Mushroom. Very much so. You know, eat me, drink me. You're giving them big, very small, one of the two. So the Mega Mushroom kind of goes back to, had they introduced limited time power-ups to the series by this point? I know it's like Mario-S64.

Oh, yeah, like that's the hat. And Yoshiz Island had that, too. The transformations were limited. Right. Okay, so it's very much in that vein. But in this case, they're like, hey, Mario's Apollo's Apollo. gun now he can get big so that's what he does Mario turns huge with the mega mushroom which is a gigantic mushroom and when he's big he basically is indestructible and you run you can fall into holes

you can die in a pit which is really stupid of you to do but you can do it I've done it but otherwise like if you run you'll smash up bricks you'll smash up pipes you'll just destroy enemies and there's a gauge at the top of the screen and the more destruction you reek on the stage, the more the gauge fills out and once your timer runs out, each block of the gauge

turns into a one-up and so you can get a bunch of extra lives by smashing things of the megamushroom. Yeah, it could be so satisfying. I just wish they hadn't held it back

as much as they did like to only have it be an item you can get naturally in four stages like that. When it's the cover thing that it's being very conservative

with it. But man, the payoff for all that destruction, like that almost feels like that's a game on its own that they just want to have, like the game where Mario destroys things. Yeah. And it's interesting because destroying things is not always good. If you destroy pipes and that pipe took you to

like a hidden room or something, you can't go to that hidden room anymore. Like the pipe is gone. You have to replay the stage. And that happens in World One-1. There's a big coin behind a pipe that comes right after you get the Mega Mushroom. So you either get the mega mushroom or you get the big coin, but your first instinct is to get the mega

mushroom. Like the first time you play and you're like, oh my God, I'm giant Mario. I'm destroying everything. It's so cool. But then you finish the stage and you notice you have the first big coin and you have the third big coin, but the one in the middle, it's missing. So it nags at you. You're like, what did I do? What did I do wrong? Where did I miss this? So it incentivizes you to go back into the stage and explore and see what happens if you don't get the mega mushroom. I think that's really smart, interesting, good design. It's very subtle. It teaches you that, yeah, you don't have to get all the coins to beat a stage, but if you miss

one, you're going to notice it there, and maybe there's a secret to getting the coin. Maybe the thing you missed, you know, how are you going to get that? Go figure it out. And, you know, I was ragging on the visuals earlier, but one of my favorite visual flourishes in the game is the way the Mega Mushroom kind of unfolds from the block because it can't fit in it. It's almost, it actually kind of reminds me of how, like, the mushroom tops moved in Fantasia during their dances of just, there's a real, like, kind of floppiness to it, like an umbrella unfurling that I really like. So something I didn't realize until I was replaying it for this episode is that, you know, you can pick up those mega mushrooms in the mushroom houses on the map, which are, you know, those are taken straight from Mario 3 and Mario World.

And, you know, if you pick one up in the mushroom house, then it goes, it does, you don't power. with it immediately, it goes into your queue of, like, that you can hold one item in reserve. And it's interesting because the megamushroom supersedes everything. Like if you pick up other power-ups along the way, normally, you know, the extra power-up you pick up will go into the queue, but the mega-mushroom just stays there no matter what you pick up along the way. So you hold it. If you die, you've still got it. So you can carry it a long way and you can take it to different places. So I said, what happens if I take this to the castle at the end of World One and fight Bowser with it? What if I weigh? What if I

wait until I take the mega mushroom and use it in Bowser's chamber. So I decided to do that. And basically, you can't hurt him by running into him, but he can't hurt you. But if you butt-stomp him, you'll kill him in a single hit. You kill Bowser in one hit. I was like, oh, okay. Well, so I just one-hitted, one-shot at Bowser. But, you know, it still goes through the same thing. He still dies. Bobby, you want to talk about that? Oh, yeah, his flesh melts off. Yeah, it's really macabre. Doesn't it happen in front of his child, too? Isn't Bowser Jr. there? He's...

I recall him being a witness to this once for us to be. He carries around those bones quite a lot. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. There's his token. There's too much Bowser Jr. in this, too, by the way, I don't like that. Can we talk about that? But the way he...

But, yeah, well, no, his death, though, was very... I do remember that disturbing me. He, like, comes up after you're not in the lava. It's like the guy in Super Metroid, the Krocomire in Super Metroid, where you knock him in... to the lava and he's like, uh-huh, uh-huh,

it dissolves. Well, because you're so used to, especially in original Super Mario brothers, that this, the Bowser battle is so, um,

normal, like it's just such an average Bowser battle that you've been used to for a million times that you're probably also thinking, well, if I already hit him with enough fireballs, it would reveal it's just a guy pretending to be Bowser.

This isn't really Bowser. So when he falls into the lava, it's like, no, this is really Bowser. And he's dead. Like, that's, that's shocking.

That's the end. That's the end of the Mario saga. It's all over. Bowser's dead. But yes, that's, that is an annoying thing this game got from Sunshine, the most recent platformer before it, Bowser Jr.'s like omnipresence. This was the era of video games. I don't think Nintendo was doing this, by the way, but I think it's funny that this came about in the era of video games where every video game had a moment where it's like, did you know that you're killing people in this game? How does that make you feel? Yeah. I feel... New Super Mario Brothers is the line. And it reminds me of that. It's haze, but new super. What is evil? Yeah, so, you know, there's a lot of kind of weird stuff in terms of subtext in the Mario games where Bowser's concerned.

Like, doesn't he reinvent the universe, like, all over from scratch and at the end of Mario Galaxy? Yes. So he's like an Evangelian kind of moment. He's like undead and then resets the universe the next game. And then Miyamoto was like, no more story in these games, please. Take this out. They went some strange directions. I like that and went weird.

But I think he'd, I like, every one of these games opens with like, oh, the princess's tea party is interrupted. It's time for K! Yeah. Yay. Well, I mean, New Super Mario, they have some of the lightest stories. I mean, 3D Super Mario Galaxy 2 has an incredible amount of story compared to New Super Mario. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Even the, it feels like Super Mario Galaxy was the first time they really tried to tell some lore in the series.

Well, Sunshine did have cutscenes. fully voice cuts. Oh, you sure did. Dancing. We had another negative podcast for that. You can listen to that one. This one's more positive than that one was actually. Oh, boy.

All right, so we should also talk about the mini mushroom, which is the exact opposite of the mega mushroom. It turns Mario extremely tiny, tinier than he normally is. He's like a little, it's like the little gumbets or whatever, the perigumba gumbets that drop down. What are those called? Paragumbas. No, the little baby ones. Oh, Mario 3. I have no idea.

Anyway, Gumba spiders. Gumbamites. And in any case, it turns him very. tiny. And it's interesting because this is the only power-up, I think, in the game where if you take a hit, you don't revert to normal Mario. You just die. Like, this goes, you know, the latter-day Mario style where if you take a hit while you're powered up with like a fireflower or something, you don't revert to small Mario, you revert to Super Mario. But as a, as mini-Mario, you just die. And you can walk on water, just like Jesus. I forgot about that. Oh, they're

micro-goombers, but micro-goombers? Microgombers? Micro-Gombers? Gumbas, by the way. Well, you know, Jesus can walk at his own pace on water. Mario's got to run. He's true. He's not as good. He can't walk. He has to dash on water.

But you also have like a super floaty jump. Yeah. And you can't hurt enemies unless you butt stop. When I first got the mini mushroom, it was, I think it is my favorite power up in the game. Really? Because it, I like that it made the game more challenging. It definitely pushed you to be, to be a better player. And also, like, it redefined the physical.

of the game, which, like, the physics are fine. They're not as perfect as I feel other Mario games got their physics. But I kind of like the redefinition of physics to be, like, so floaty and so weird. And then on top of that, I actually really did like the challenge of what it unlocked and what it made you have to do to unlock it. I kind of like, I just wish it was once you know that you have to unlock crap with the mini mushroom, they need to give it to you in better ways. because I remember just like, well, if I want to get to World Six, I better go back to the last stage I remember a mini mushroom was in and then beat it and keep it in the chamber.

Like, that bugged me. Yeah, it's kind of annoying. But I do appreciate the fact that, you know, the first time you realize that you can do something kind of crazy and weird with the micro mushroom is when you beat the boss of World 2 and you move into the next room and there's a tiny little pathway that you walk over normally. Yeah.

Like, wait a minute. You're like, I can squeeze you there. What if? Yeah. Like, they do a good job. that. I like that a lot, yeah. Giving you kind of like realizations. Less intuitive are the

warps. The first warp is in the first fortress and there's a room full of like moving blocks and there's a few spots along the perimeter of the room where the blocks don't actually touch so that it creates gaps. And you can

walk into one of the gaps and it's a pipe. Like you don't realize it because it doesn't look like it, but it's a pipe and it takes you to a special room. And inside of that room there are blocks on the floor that you can break like with a turtle shell but there's no turtle in there

so what you have to do is you have to have the blue shell which is not given to you anywhere in the course of the game in normal play like you have to find it in weird esoteric ways can you even hold on to it

if you grab another power up and does it go into your reserve like a firefighter? I don't think it does I think it becomes yeah you automatically wear it yeah and well as a guy who collected

once upon a time collected far too many Mario toys. The blue shell design, it's just not that, I don't know, there's cuter Mario power-ups. I mean, it's also kind of in the shadow of the Hammer Brothers power-up, which is cuter and cooler.

It's kind of like a snooky Mario with less going on. It's just a blue shell. It doesn't change his hat or facial features or shoes, so it feels more like a thing that is thrust upon him like liquid metal Mario instead of a fashion-forward outfit like raccoon ears in the tail.

That's true. I mean, it just kind of follows in the Mario cart pattern of blue shell sucking. Yes. Oh, yeah, destroying the game. Yeah, and the toy I had a blue shell Mario, it always looked lame. I was like, I wish, for complete news of sake, I have you on my shelf, but I don't like you. But the blue shell is interesting, though, because it does change the way Mario plays. it turns him into like a kicked turtle basically

like if you run and duck you will basically lose control like you you kind of lose control of Mario for a while and he just careens wildly like you can't stop him can you? I seem to remember no it's... No, I just remember flying out of bounds and it seems like I always got it on on stages

where I was like going... Yeah, it's platforming like this is really great and fly off the edge. Yeah, but it is potentially useful because you can, if you use it in the right place, you can rack up one-ups by hitting consecutive enemies by sliding into them. So there's a lot of fun to it,

but I don't think they give it to you often enough or freely enough to really let you get the most out of it, and it's a shame. Yeah, well, that's also like the saves. It's just a general balancing issue. They hadn't really figured out yet for these portable Mario games. Same with the Mega Mushroom.

It seems like all of them, they just kind of like, these are great ideas, but we don't quite know how to implement them, but here you go, here's a new Mario adventure. Have fun. We'll figure this out later. Well, because I think they rightly knew, like, if they added nothing new and it was just fireballs and stars, like that's, then you'd wonder why the word new was attached to it.

Give me something more. Though it did use a world map in good ways, too. I did like to see the return of a world map after Yoshi's Island, you know, and then all the hubs of sunshine in 64. It was nice to go back to just, like, freaking colored dots on a map. Right. And something that I appreciate about this game is that you can tell pretty easily when there is going to be a hidden path in a stage. It's not like Mario World where the stages with multiple exits have a different color on the map point. It's just like you look at the map and you can see, oh, there's like the tracing of a path here. So I need to figure out how to open that up. Like, again, there is a lot of kind of subtle figured out yourself. Like it hints at things and then let you figure it out. You know, Nintendo was having a problem with that kind of design in this era. Like, you look at the Metroid games from this era or all the talky games or they're just like, blah, blah, blah, do this, this, this. Something I will credit New Super Mario Brothers for is that it got rid of that.

There's no tutorial. There's no, like, there's no toad telling you, here's how you play. None of that. It's just like it drops you into it in the very old school style and lets you figure it out. Which the sequels actually go away from that ethos. Yeah. Which is a shame. But I think this game does a really good job of that and lets you intuit stuff.

And, you know, it's less opaque than in the old days. It's not like the 8-bit games where you're like, why is stuff happening? I don't understand. Yeah. And there was an element of discovery to that. But I think people play and digest games differently now than we did in the 80s. So I think it works better to have it more like this. I think this game strikes a really good balance of like nudging you without holding your hand.

Mm-hmm. Welcome to Casual Magic, the show where we explore the fun side of Magic the Gathering. I'm your host Shivenputt, and each week we delve into everything from casual format to explorations of creatures and card types to interviews with designers of the game. At Casual Magic, we believe that it just isn't magic without the gathering. Come along and play! Hunter Hunter, Yu-Hakashow, literary analysis. Comparative localization

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and I'm inviting you to listen to Our Three Sense, a weekly podcast where myself and two of my very best gaming chums are counting down our top 100 favorite favorite video games of all time. For all the episodes and information, check out our website, www.org.com.com.U.K. Video deathloop is a podcast where we watch a short video clip on loop until we just can't take it anymore. Along the way, we'll try our best to make each other laugh and to hold out longer than the other guy. You can jump in on any episode, no need to

worry about continuity. Check out video death loop on the Greenlit podcast network with new episodes every Friday. I'm And... ...and... ...you know... ...and... ...you...

...and... ...and... ...and... So we've talked a little bit about the visuals. What is your opinion of the visuals? We should also talk about the music, but we should talk about the visuals first. Okay, all right. Before we open that, Caird worms, the music.

I said it before. I don't like I don't like throwback games that are 2D having 2.5D as opposed to sprites like it's just the throwback for me is sprites or at the very least drawn visuals like two years after this I believe was the

Wario 2D game that was drawn by or it was the good feel one yeah that one looked so good and it was just you know heavily drawn I didn't they don't need to go back to pixel art maybe that's just a lost skill in Nintendo now

But I want flat. I don't, if I'm not playing a 3D game, then I don't feel the need to see polygonal characters necessarily. But maybe that's because I'm just old. I can't accept them. I will say I agree with Henry. But I also dislike the style even when it evolved beyond 2.5D and everything was in 3D, like on the Wii and the Wii U. I just think there's no premise to these graphics, I guess you would say. There's no intent or style.

It's just like, here's Mario. Here's a flower. In the Wii U ones, they get a little crazier later, we're like, here's a Picasso background, but it just felt... Van Gogh. Sorry, Van Gogh. Here's a Van Gogh background. But at that point, I just was like, well, yeah,

but everything in front of this background is boring. It felt like at the time, I was like, this is just like a bad, uh, CGI kids movie. Like Mario looks like he does in the manual and that's it. Or like in like a macaroni and cheese commercial. It's just like the most, when you see plain Mickey appear in stuff, you're like, well, that's plain Mickey. This isn't a stylized Mickey.

And you can't make 3D characters look good, obviously. You can make them look interesting. You can make Mario cell-shaded very, well, not very easily, but it's possible. Like, look at games like around the time, like Beautiful Joe, how good they looked being cell-shaded. It just felt like, especially after Yoshi's Island, a huge step backwards for Nintendo, just to make a game look just so, like, there's really nothing going on outside of just like, here's Mario, here's a level, here's a blocks, have fun at the end. Yeah, I'm willing to give the first one a pass on its bland visuals because the DS did have such limited resolution and they just wanted a clean look. But I do wish the later games would, you know, especially in HD, like New Super Mario Brothers, you, that really should look more interesting. Well, the market disagreed with you because they sold quite a lot.

The people who select the new Mario graphics and Mario Maker should be arrested. That should be a way to send the cops to your house. Like, excuse me, you need to get you. The one thing I will say in favor of New Super Roy Brothers graphics in Mario Maker is that they do allow you to use the wall jump, which opens up new level design options. That is cool. I do like how using that style gives you new things to do that are not unavailable in other styles. It's the one reason to use that visual style. It's kind of ugly, but you can make different games.

You know, that is a slight reason to forgive that just bringing. and then Mario 64 kind of art style to Mario because he does do the ground pound and the wall jumps and all that stuff that he picked up from 3D games which now I think you know we were talking this isn't exactly a 2D Mario game but Donkey Kong 94 he did have a lot of these kind of moves triple jump in the handstand

yeah so that now he could bring back into new Super Mario Brothers I'm glad they remembered a lot of those and then also brought in stuff like the wall jump that he'd had in Sunshine and 16th. Yeah, I actually replaying this was surprised by how much this game brings in from Mario 64. Like, I had forgotten that Nessie is in this. I hate that stage a lot. I feel like trying to stay stable on Nessie.

It's very slippery and annoying, and I don't enjoy it. But I tend not to like the poison water stages anyway. It's just not that fun. But there's the water skating spiders, and I don't know, there's just, you know, the wall jumps and the butt stomps. It does kind of pick up some inspiration for Mario 64, which does freshen up the sandbox of the 2D series somewhat. And so that's good. I appreciate that. The butt stomps gives you a little bit of a defensive power, too.

Like, if you know you're jumping over someone, you're like, ah, I mischamp that, or miscalculated that jump, at least I can smash them. And you aren't just, like, totally screwed. Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't be able to play as mini Mario without the butt stomps. Yeah, yes. But a big complaint I do have, I keep saying complaint. Okay. And a small issue I have with the use of the polygonal graphics, polygonal graphics, is that I feel like the collision detection is not very crisp in this game.

I find myself bumping into enemies that I feel like I should have killed them, but instead they killed me. I feel like that way, that actually happened to me a lot on the Wii as well. I don't know if it's just something to do with the 2.5D graphics or what, but it's... I feel that's the case with most 2.5D games. It's like you've got like two extra pixels. Like, I feel like I'm not quite touching you, but apparently I am and I'm dead. Yeah, there's more ambiguity when you add that, that 3D element to a 2D space. And that is one reason I really prefer sprites in 2D games.

Yeah. It's not just an aesthetic thing. Very clear division. Yeah, it's like trying to figure out the hit boxes on 3D objects in a 2D space. It's frustrating sometimes, especially on the extremely limited resolution of the DS. Like I was, you know, like I said, I've been playing on the DSI-X-L, so everything's bigger, but that hasn't really helped. If anything, it's probably made it more, a little more distorted and a little harder to judge. Yeah.

So that's frustrating. But we should talk about the music. Oh, boy. Because this is the can of worms. I will say that. Sackeren. I will say that I like the main theme, and I like the little, the stupid little dance that the characters do, the enemies, how they bop in time. I can't help them.

To the little sting, the little bop, ba, bop. It's just a little thing that adds a tiny bit of complexity to their patterns and movements. You know, you have turtles moving in the same patterns they have since 1986, since Warrior Brothers. You have, or 1985. You have, like, all the enemies kind of behave the way you expect them to. But then, if you're not paying attention to the music, you may go in for a jump and land in front of an enemy who's taken a moment to kind of, like, face into the screen and do a double little, little, hey, I'm dancing. And then they'll turn around and bump into you before you can respond. So it's just a little, a tiny little wrinkle.

It's goofy. It's kind of corny. But I don't know, it's got a little bit of personality. People keep saying, this game has no personality. But that's a little touch of personality. I will say, though, the rest of the music really sucks. Yeah, I think I don't like the dancing, number one. I feel like it would have been better if, like, a stage had been designed around it, like, enemies that move in certain ways.

But it feels like not like how neat I like Nintendo's platformers to be. designed. I don't like that one element of not really randomness, but I don't know, like you said, a wrinkle. I'm not a fan of that, but I feel like it's unfair. Like Koji Kondo did write this theme, right? I don't know. Yes. He did, yeah. I mean, like all of the previous

main Mario themes, it's sort of a variation on the field theme for Mario 1. It's like using the same scale or whatever, or going for the same tone. I think you asked him to reinvent the wheel like five times. The fifth time, it's going to be probably the worst version. And I like the song, but then all the remixes you

good of it are not good and the incidental music which I'm guessing is not done by him because at this point he was sort of composing one main theme and leading a team is also not great. The Odyssey music is fantastic and they've done much better music but this music is not very memorable. Well the Galaxy

Galaxy 1 and 2 also having incredible music too from around the same time. I think Galaxy is where basically Nintendo was like you know what? The sound of Mario is big band swing and yes that's awesome it's perfect but they didn't get the the memo for Maris, new Super Mario Brothers.

Yeah, I think the Wawa song, it kind of just wears out its welcome, much faster, which is, you know, maybe this is an age thing for me too, but like I could listen to themes from Super Mario, Super Mario 3 or Yoshis Island eight million times in a row

and something about it, maybe it is the vocalization of Wah Wah, just like drones it into you more. I don't know, but it, and I miss the kind of like chip tune feel, Like, it definitely felt like Nintendo got away from that one, too. I mean, the best negative thing I've heard on this is actually I'll tell people, look up. It's just on YouTube, but, like, giant bomb on their bomb cast in 2012, they had a really fun discussion of this where especially Jeff Gersman and the late Ryan Davis talk about how much just the wah-wah drives them crazy and they just can't go back.

They're like, this is what's killing my soul. It's really, I looked it up again today because I was like, what can I say that's different than what these guys said about the wah-wah. Man, people really hate that. You know, by the time I heard the wah-wah in you, I was like, come on, nope, not cute anymore. I don't like this. Even though I'm seeing it in an HD, I do not like this. It's just means for an end. Like, the music is just there.

It's not necessarily a real, like, they really. took their time to try to blow you away with it or make it something that's truly going to, you know, sparkle in your memory. It's just kind of like, yeah, we've got the Mario theme, we're going to twinkle it along here. And... When it was Cochicondo's

call, or his choice, he's like, you guys should have the enemies react to it. Like, connected into it, that's the theme. I wrote this theme to fit the pace of this stage, so they should then react back to it, I think. So, yeah. I think it started with Koji and his

writing of this, composing of this. Bob, did you have opinions? Oh, I gave them. Oh, did you? Yes. I think it's comparing it to the Wii version is tough for me because they improve so many things when they brought it out to the Wii. It was going back to the DS version.

It's kind of like, oh, I wish I would have done this. I'm like, oh, they did here. Well, it almost feels when I went back to play the one on the DS or watching footage of the one on the DS, it reminded me of playing, and I was like, it just felt like I was missing a leg again. Yeah. I missed all the toys I was given in the later ones.

Which I don't feel when I play Super Mario Bros. After playing Mario 3-year-world. That's a smaller or simpler game. Yeah. I think each of these, we probably won't have time to talk about all of these, but I think each version of this has its own downsides. Like, I like the focus on a single-player game in this one, even though the future games would be better.

But I also, with the three future games, I don't like the focus on multiplayer because I think it doesn't work, number one, and it ruins the level design, because it has to keep four people on the screen potentially all at once. So the levels are much more straightforward. And after Mario World and Yoshi's Island, I was like, no, I want levels I can really dig into an explorer. And that wasn't really even the case in the DS version,

but at least the levels were built around a single player experience. Interesting. Yeah, I definitely think that there's a really nice way of, I don't know if it's okay to jump into Newsomey, but there's for Wii or not. Yeah, I think we should talk about the Wii. because it does improve on the DS games so much. Because for me, it's like I went back and played that

and I actually took the time to introduce that with my daughter. So my daughter's six. You know, she's still getting the hold of video games. And normally whenever we would play Super Mario Galaxy or something, I'm holding the Nunchuk and she's holding the Wii moat. You know, it's like we're trying to juggle them both. But this one, we both had our own controllers and we're both playing. Yes, I get to carry her through the stages.

But it's like, okay, Daddy, I'm going to hop in the bubble. I'm like, you do that. I'm going to go ahead and play this stage real quick and then we can get through it. So it's, you know, it's a way of hand holding her through it. But at the same time, it's a way of, you know, carrying kids along for the ride and introducing them to Nintendo and instilling that bit of, you know, love for games that I had as a kid. So it's nice. If I could give one last compliment to the DS1, it is like, of the games of 06 of what other companies were trying to make their throwbacks, like they, Nintendo had a better, more realistic handle on it

than a lot of other of the giant publishers could do, like, so many of them were just trying to figure out what they could even do with a thing like Sonic or Crash Bandicoot or Castlevania. You're saying Sonic 06 wasn't good? Yeah, no, I am saying, yeah. I mean, it's easy to take a knock at Sonic, but even like Mega Man.

Mega Man was still finding itself in 06. I mean, in 06 we got what, Maverick Hunter X? Yeah. That was a good ass game. Okay, well, I guess I mean more like an 80s throwback when they tried to make Mega Man 9s, it's a little too hard for me. Did we also get like X7 and X8 in 2006 or around that time? Something like that, yeah, so it wasn't all good. So, yeah, I think, you know, compared to the throwbacks that existed 13 years ago, I think it was at least, I'm glad they kept their ambitions, you know, if you compare it to say Star Fox Zero, which just did too many new things, I kind of, I get, if I had to prefer.

them taking wild swings with Mario and effing it up or being careful with their first one back, I think I prefer them being careful. Yeah, and they did go a little nuts with New Super Mario Brothers Wii, which came out, what was that, 2009, so three years later

on a more powerful system with higher resolution and the ability to play on a screen, a single screen, so they said let's add four-player co-op. And that totally changes the game. Bob says for the worst. I agree. I don't really feel that way. Like, I enjoyed the

stages. I feel like it was, you know, more of like a, like they definitely felt old school, but I'm okay with that. Like, I feel like, you know, in terms of exploratory design, that's really more like Yoshi and, and Mario's forte. And Mario, they've really kind of gone back

toward the, I mean, I love Mario world. And even three, it was like fly up here and find the secret or go in these pipes and find a secret. I mean, there's still that in Mario Wii. Not as much. Not as much, but it's definitely there. The propeller head is fun, though. It doesn't have the speed of verticality

that you get from, you know, of the cape or the raccoon table. I don't know, there's still a lot of stages that have stuff tucked out of the way that you have to go looking for. But the four-player, I don't know, like to me, that really submits the game in my memory just because, like, it was so novel. And so basically everyone I knew was like,

oh, let's play this game together. So, you know, that was when we were reviewing the game at one-up, And everyone wanted to jump in and play. And I remember, you know, doing like live streams where you really got to see the Nintendo design philosophy of help people out, but also be a dick. Yeah. In action, because I would be like, you know, fielding comments from viewers. And at the same time, Scott Sharkey would be like, oh, Jeremy's not paying full attention

to the game, so I'm going to, like, kill him. So you kept doing that on the streams. That feels like the ideal environment. With me, it was like playing with a. friend who was also good at Mario games. We kept getting each other's way. And then playing with somebody who wasn't good at Mario games. It would often be like, all right, get in the bubble. And you can watch me be good at Mario. And then I'll tell you when it's okay to get

out of the bubble. Well, for me, hell is other Mario players. Yeah. Because I don't like sharing the space with them. I don't like bumping into them. If it didn't, friendly fires the wrong word for it. But if you did just float over each other, I think I might like it more. But that is part of the challenge, gameplay-wise, that you all take up physical space. So I get why they did that. But like Mario games to me are always about being alone.

Like they are about my experience through them. It is a perfect single player game for me. So it always felt like a bastardization to me of experiencing them with other people. I just don't like it. I mean, I enjoy this as a single player game too. It's a good. It's a really good single player. I actually feel like the best experience I had with this was not with other seasoned to players.

But, you know, when this game, was new. I was living here in San Francisco and my wife's cousin lived here as well. They're really close. They're like, they're pretty much sisters effectively. And she was pregnant. And so she would come over to our place with her boyfriend. And, you know, he plays a lot of video games. So he was pretty good at Mario. I would say I'm good to very good. He was pretty good. My wife's cousin is okay as she plays some Mario, but is not a super serious video game player. And then Kat, my wife, is not good. video games because she almost never plays them. So it was like this really kind of broad

spectrum of skills. And we would just sit together, you know, we would just hang out, playing this game, and the flexibility of the game really allowed everyone to have fun because you know, in really tough situations, they could like look to

the people who had the most experience and be like, okay, can you help us out here, give us advice, or, you know, carry us through to safety. But then the rest of the time, everyone was playing and we get in each other's way, and it was fine. It was, like, kind of frustrating, but in a funny way. And I don't know.

It was just really, it didn't quite have the party game feel of something like Mario Kart 8 or Mario Kart Wee, but it did kind of veer in that direction where it was a little bit chaotic, but a little bit controlled and just a good shared experience. So getting started on Mario Kart Wee. Oh, no, that's a, that's a screed for another. There's enough negativity on this podcast already. To bring it back down to Negative Town, I don't know. We'll say, they eventually improved on this, and I will say it's a good thing, but two playable toads, what are you doing? Number one, it's bad. It's not creative.

Number two, it's like, oh, which toad am I? I forgot. Like, oh, I lost track of who I was if you're playing with four people. They gave, like, a very bad excuse that was totally made up, and they could have made up a better one where it was like, we didn't have the technology to make Peach's dress move the way it should have. Like, no, no, you just didn't. That's a Ubisoft excuse. Yeah, it's like, you're hard to animate. You needed someone to be kidnapped in the beginning of the game.

game and it had to be Ph.O., like, it had to be two-toads, Mario and Louie-U. But in the Wii, and then the Wii U version, Peach is in it, and I believe Rosalina is in the, it too, at some point? Or is that the Switch version? Oh, you're thinking Mario 3D World. Yeah. Oh, and Mario Wii, Super Mario Wii U, she's not

in it either. It's still double toads. Oh, I thought they fixed that. No, on the same version you can play as Nabit or Toadette. Peachette. Yeah, with the peach crowd. I gave them the benefit of the doubt then. Sorry. Yeah, well, I think, you know, maybe to them, we, view thanks to

Mario USA slash 2 having Peach in it that we take Peach as a normal person to play as but I think it's more of a novelty from that cultural standpoint of Japan like they they had USA but it was not a real Mario game to them

not like how it is to me I believe it's so real to me but the well they also couldn't because Yoshi's a character in the game they couldn't just make a Yoshi because he's a power up he's not a character actually he's a modifier

Yeah. Yeah, and that's a great thing about this game, is that they did add in Yoshi. I like that. Yeah. He's a lot more useful than he was in Super Mario Sunshine. He's like, he's pretty much like he was in Mario World, except now you can have four people on Yoshi's all at the same time, and that's great. It does look pretty cool in those moments.

It's just the frustration, I couldn't get away from the frustration of it. I didn't like how that made me feel. And I can feel that in other couch co-op or couch competitive games that Nintendo Made, I played so much of that on the N-64 in GameCub and up to Wee, but for a Mario game, I wanted that, I wanted that to just be for me selfishly. But I think the solo game is still a very fun game, and I think they really discovered a lot,

they rediscovered a lot more of their inventiveness and sense of fun with the building Wii than they did with the more carefulness they had with DS. Yeah, there's more interesting and different level themes, even though like the world concepts are the same. It's like, there's a grassland, there's ice, there's mountain. But I feel like within those worlds, the individual stages vary a lot more. The fortresses vary a lot more.

On the flip side, you do basically just only fight Resnors and the Cuba Kids, which is... The Cuba Kids were back, though. They were, but... Okay, so one time you get that, but they keep doing that, and it's... I never want them to go away again. I feel like I love them. I love them to go away for a while. They're my children, Jerry.

Well, your children need to take a vacation. They did for like a decade. I know. Now they're back forever. Only if Bowser Jr. takes vacation with it. I don't think that's happening. We can take a vacation with some inshues in the pond. Now back.

But, yeah, like, I don't know, the Yoshi element adds a lot to this game. And you also get, you mentioned the propeller suit earlier, which is kind of like a very limited version of the raccoon tail, basically. It's extremely vertical as opposed to up in an arc. And you had to shake that wee remote to make it happen. But this one also brings in the ice flower from Super Mario Galaxy, and it makes it better in two. ways. One, it's not a limited time power-up, like the fireflower and ice flower were in Mario

Galaxy. How much all power-ups? I hate that. That's so dumb. But also, there's the equivalent of the Tanuki suit for the Ice Flower. Like, in Super Mario Bros. 3, you had the Raccoon Tail, and then you had the Tanuki suit, which was like the raccoon tail, but awesome. And in this, you have the penguin suit, which is like the ice flower, but awesome. I do love that penguin suit. It's very cute. I mean, anime penguins are some of the cutest things that's ever existed to me. Slide on your belly. Oh, so cute. Well, the penguin suit is this, you know, the anecdote I know I've mentioned before on the show, just watching Miyamoto goof around with the

game before a press demo at E3. Like, they were setting up and, you know, while they were waiting for everyone to come in, he was just like farting around with the penguin suit. And watching him, I was like, okay, now I finally understand what his thing is. He just wants to goof around. and turn things into a toy box. Like, just watching him have fun, slipping around on the ice, you know, it's kind of fuzzy in my memory now because it's been a decade.

But it was just kind of this revelatory moment where I was like, I finally feel like, you know, watching him play his own game, I kind of get what he's after and how he wants people to appreciate his games. And so, I don't know, that was like kind of a pivotal moment for me as a critic and analyst.

Well, at GDC 2012, Haishita had a whole panel about how he approached his game design. for 3D land and he talked about how Miyamoto was such an inspiration of them because his feeling was make everything a game. Try to invent a game like when you go swimming, make a game out of that.

Like when you're eating lunch, try to eat it in a different way each time. Like it's all about finding the joy in that. Yeah, Miyamoto was just like sliding around in the penguin's belly and like trying to do goofy things with the stage elements. Not actually like trying to play the stage, but just like what can I do

with the physics in this game and like with the movable blocks and the enemies and stuff. I was like, oh, okay. It's the opposite of a story tube from the games. Yeah, exactly. Well, on that belly slide, it felt like the better version of what the blue shell could do in the DS. Yeah, it's much more controllable. Yeah, because the blue shell is really difficult to kind of nail down, whereas in the penguin suit, you're just do a little quick jog, and all of a sudden, you're taking off and flying into things, so.

But also, the great thing about the penguin suit is that ice stages suck because they're slippery, and And the penguin suit gives you traction on it. Oh, it's great. So it makes ice levels much more fun. Like the slipperiness becomes an element that you control. It gives you agency over something that normally sucks about ice stages. And I'm like, yeah, good job. Way to go.

Yeah. So I'm a big fan of that. But, yeah, I really like Super Mario Brothers Wii, and I gave it a much higher score, like a point higher, oh my God, than the DS game. But I feel like, you know, this was a sign that. And Nintendo, you know, what they gave us with the DS game really was just them trying to, like, you know, scratch their head and say, how do you do this again? And then they remembered and we got this. I thought not to correct your own biography here, Jeremy, but I thought you gave it an A for one-up because EGM was no longer around. Sure, an A was, an A was the equivalent of a nine.

I'm just saying that's the reason why I bought this game. So I've got a bone to pick with you. No, it's fine. But I did enjoy more than the DS version, but I think you had a better environment, like friends, which I didn't have. Yeah. An office full of video game professionals. I don't want to show off or anything, but, you know, people like me. It'll happen for me one day.

I just, but it had to have wiggle controls. Like, it had to have motion controls. Yeah, I don't know if we'll ever see this collected anywhere else because of that. I guess they could fake it. But, yeah, I don't know. I do admit, you know. A switch could do some of that stuff. Like the DS game, you know, my feelings about that are subjective.

I also recognize that this game came out for me at just the perfect time to enjoy. it with other people. Like, I haven't played a co-op session with people with games like that really ever since. It was a kind of like a rare situation that sadly, like it was a great time, but it went away. Although I will say that, you know, I mentioned that my cousin-in-law was pregnant at the time that we played this. And like six years later, five or seven, six or seven years later, you know, I went back and played the game with her son. And so I had that kind of like moment of sharing the game with her son and his father and just kind of like bringing it full circle again.

So I don't know. It's a special game to me. I think it's a point to point that out because I'm not in the games press anymore so I don't have to explain what a review is to people every year. But it really is a snapshot of the context of your life at that point in time and it differs from person to person. Like the circumstances of your life will dictate your opinion and you're feeling about a game and there's no perfect way to evaluate.

You can say, I'm going to pretend I'm not mad at this game, but you can't actually do that. Yeah. That anchor is still there. Someday we'll find a way for humans to not be the reviewers of things. We need robots. I'm sure Google will help. Actually, I suppose like that's what fake reviews are. It takes away the human element.

I feel like for me, but the Wii version of it, it's a really good kind of condensation of what the Wii represented on a whole. It's like this console that is there for the entertainment of the entire family. Like that's, I feel like what they were really going for with the Wii is, like, reintroducing video games to the family dynamic. It's not just, you know, hardcore gamers only. So New Super Mario Brothers Wii was the way of saying like, hey, you can have Grandma play.

Grandma can play video games too. Just put her in the bubble. You can just have her pop around the stage. Don't, up. And if you piss her off, go ahead. Pick her up, throw her off the stage. No, grandma's in the bubble again. Yeah, it's just, I don't know.

For me, it felt like a really apt Mario game. Like, it feels like a very good condensation of the Wii's general ethos, I guess. You know, for the Wii, I think I was more receptive to it, too, because this is getting very subjective. But on the DS, New Super Mario Brothers was the major Mario game. There wasn't another, I mean, as in platformer. There were tons of games starring Mario, but it was the major platformer. On the Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are my favorite Mario games ever, I think, right behind Odyssey, I think, now. But I loved those so much on the Wii that when New Super Mario Bros. Week came out to me, I didn't, I could just judge it as, this is a good other Mario game to play.

But I have my real Mario game. Yeah, I agree with that. And I took it the same way. And I also felt that, like, in this case, I think it was true that I kind of resented the success of these games because I enjoyed the 3D games so much better. And Nintendo was like, yeah, let's just make more of these. And I feel like this is the style they iterated the most on to the point where this is their iOS version of Marvel. Mario, too, like this look. It is, absolutely.

That's one of the things that I noticed as well, too. Yeah, I mean, run is this. I do enjoy run, too. I do enjoy from what it is. Run is a new, Super Mario Brothers, uh, phone. Yeah. iOS. IOS.

I don't know, ever since the D.S. launched, I've been a big advocate of, you know, games that are not necessarily meant for us. And I appreciate the fact that Nintendo is willing to actually put a budget behind those games and treat them as, you know, games that are worth playing and worth holding up for people, not just little cheap, shitty cash-ins. they still bring that attitude forward into their mobile games, which has been to their detriment, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I respect that. I appreciate it. And, yeah, so, like, a lot of their games aren't for me necessarily.

I do love all the new Mario games, but I respect the fact that they're not for everyone. But I also respect the fact that Nintendo is putting so much effort into them. I do respect that. I think in this case, like I said before, I was never, like, oh, filthy casuals. These games are trash or whatever. I appreciated that it wasn't for me. But in this case, I think it did impact the production of games that potentially were for me because Nintendo, I mean, I don't blame them for making more of these because they

seemed a lot easier to make. They're not easy games to make in general, but they're easier to make than crafting a new 3D world with all of these new ideas. So I don't blame that at all, but I do think we could have gotten more Galaxy or Odyssey-style games, if not for the success of these games. I don't know. Since New Super Mario Brothers debuted in 2006, we've gotten two Galaxy games. We got Mario 3D Land, Mario 3D World, and Mario Odyssey. So actually there's more of the more 3D-style games than they are of the new Mario games. I consider 3D land and world

better than this, but they are still not the Galaxy or Odyssey experiences I like. They're transitional, I guess. It's like a halfway step between. But World especially is a lot more like in the 3D style. Yeah, I do not like land. I really like World. I like Land. I like Land.

I think land is good, but World's way better. Spectacular. Well, you know, actually when we talk about filthy casuals in this, what about this controversial Super Guide block they introduced in New Super Mario. It's optional, so it's fine.

If you want the Super Guide, you hit the block, and if you don't, you don't hit the block. That was their answer to people who complained in New Super Mario Brothers. That was too hard. No, I'm not judging people for it either. I think it was an interesting addition. They then continued kind of on to every...

They tried to have another version of that in most Mario Games after. It was in Galaxy 2, right? Yeah, in Galaxy 2, it would just play It, like, I loved how it worked for you as a player who doesn't want it because when it shows up, it feels like the game insults you of just like having trouble with this, huh? You know, you could just take this. Like, we'll beat it for you. Take the easy way out.

Yeah. But you don't have to do that. And I'm all in favor of things that make games more accessible to a wider array of audiences, especially if they're not forced upon you. Like, it's there. You could ignore it. I think some people have the inability to ignore a thing that is there. They're like, it is an interactive element. I need to interact with it.

But, I mean, that kind of gets back to the mega mushroom in stage 1-1 of New Super Warrior Brothers. You can take the mega mushroom and miss out on the coin, or you can go get the coin. You know, take your choice. It's an option. I like the super guide for what it can offer to people. But it makes me laugh in just how it would make me laugh or grumble in my. own gameplay of just like, or also in the next new Super Mario Bros. 2, when they give me the goal of the white.

I actually, I like that a lot. I think that's a fun problem. I felt so insulted. I was like, how dare you? I could beat this without a game. Get out of here. God, did I really die that many times? I mean, I think maybe the better choice would have been for them to have had a toggle at the

menu screen where it's like, do you want to have the super guide on or off? And if you choose off, then you never see it. Yeah. Yeah, I can't be too salty about that. It's fine. Sometimes I saw it. Sometimes I didn't. I never picked it aside from like testing it out to review it.

But it was there and, you know, it made me say like, wow, I'm really sucking at the stage. But, you know, sometimes the stage just gets the best of you and that's fine. That's part of the experience. Anyway, we don't have time to talk about the newer Super Mario Brothers games. So maybe in 2022 we'll revisit the 10th anniversary of New Super Mario Brothers 2. and you, because both of those came out a few months apart, which was one of the stupidest things Nintendo has ever done. Yep.

Jesus. That was quite an E3 when they revealed those back-to-back. It's like, you're really doing that, huh? Nope. Oh, all right. What a dumb idea. Anyway. All the Mario's.

Not my call, but in any case, yeah, I think we were kind of expressing some, a spectrum of opinions here. Some positive, some negative. I think everyone, you know, has mixed feelings about all. of these games, and I think that's fine. They're different, and that's why they're New Super Mario Brothers. Anyway, a lot of people wrote in letters about these games, and we don't have time to read those, so along with some of the other episodes we've been recording lately, those will go into a mailback episode at some point. You will not be forgotten.

Your opinions will be read and perhaps responded to, perhaps sarcastically. I make no promises. But in any case, thanks for listening to this episode on New Super Mario Brothers and New Super Murray Brothers Wee. I am Jeremy Parrish. And this has been Retronauts. Thanks guys for joining me for this conversation. It was opinionated but not heated, which is always the best way to go. So, Cole, thanks for joining us this episode. Tell us about where we can find you on the internet. If indeed we can. It's kind of difficult, but you know, I'm there occasionally. You can find me on Twitter at at Elkimos, I-L-C-H-Y-M-I-S. Just kind of there. doing things, just hanging out, just got playing video games.

So thanks for having me. Very good. Oh, yeah. Henry. Hey, you can follow me, Henry Gilbert, on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. And I just remember one last new Super Mario Brothers opinion I want to share. It's that New Luigi-U is actually the best one, in my opinion, because it is focused on being a fast, single-player game, which is the best one.

And also, there's tons of funny hidden Luigi's in it. But anyway, you can follow me on Twitter, H-E-N-R-A-A-W-A-W. If you love hearing me and does Bob chat about things like we did on this podcast, you can hear so much of that at the Talking Simpsons Network. Me and Bob do two podcasts a week. One, Talking Simpsons, where we talk about a different episode of the Simpsons in chronological order. We're up to season 9, maybe even 10 by the time you hear this. And we do What a Cartoon where we talk about a different animated series once a week.

We've covered so many great stuff, including some, with Jeremy Parrish as our guests, like on our G.I. Joe and Max episodes. Wow. So you can find What a Cartoon and Talking Simpsons in all your podcast searching devices. Or if you'd like to hear them a week early and that free, you can support those podcasts on patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Well, Henry did all the plugs I was going to do, but they can because I can plug Retronauts. Oh, yeah, Retronauts. It's another thing that I do.

And in fact, I'm doing it right now in front of all of you. Yes, Retronauts is the podcast you're listening to. And if you would like to support the show, it's a. support everything we do from recording to hosting the Flying Jeremy out here. It is all supported by great listeners. So please go to patreon.com slash retronauts. And for the low price of three bucks a month, you can get every episode one week ahead of time and at free and at a higher bit rate. And we also have incentives on top of that. And again, we appreciate anything you can donate to the podcast. It's been going on for this is now, I believe, our seventh year after

July 1st. So we've been doing this independently for a long time. It's all thanks to you. So please go to patreon.com slash retronauts and help us out. And of course, you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. And finally, I'm Jeremy Parrish. You can find me on Twitter as GameSpite. And you can find me doing stuff at Retronuts.com sometimes. You can find me on my YouTube channel, which just look for Jeremy Parrish, P-A-R-I-S-H. I do a weekly series where I look at an N-E-S game, Super N-E-S game, Virtual Boy Game,

Game, Game Boy Game, Other Game, in the chronological order of release and evaluated in the context of history, and then those become books a few months later. It's very cool and very exciting. Maybe not cool, but I enjoy it. It's pretty darn cool, Jeremy. It's dorky, it's dorky, but it's fine. That's cool in my book. Anyway, you can, yeah, do that stuff and keep listening to Retronauts.

We'll be back in probably a few days with a bonus episode, and next Monday with another full episode. Look forward to it. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to be able to be.