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+--- Thread: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? (/showthread.php?tid=1947)
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Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Neweegee - 07-31-2019
So I've been thinking about NSMB2 again.
![[Image: screenshot-98.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/XJG5fgvv/screenshot-98.png)
Being released mere months before it's HD console brethren while looking too similar to the previous entry, a lot of fans, independent reviewers, and players in general seem to write this game off as bad and don't exactly detail why, past the fact that it's extremely similar to the previous NSMB Mario games, and the coin gimmick being a uninspired idea and not useful.
I mean, those are very valid points(this is the only mainline Mario game since The Lost Levels that introduces no new characters aside from enemy subspecies!), but from what I've seen, the game isn't buggy, the DLC isn't intrusive, and the level design quality seems up to NSMB par despite the coin gimmick and allegedly hiring inexperienced devs. Most other problems with this game seem like they could be applied to any other NSMB game.
What do you think about it?
Is it uninteresting due to it being all-to-similar to the NSMB games? Or is there something I'm not seeing here?
Or maybe it's because it has no relation to the original NES Super Mario Bros 2 game ;(
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Jeff - 07-31-2019
I finished it and generally enjoyed myself. Nintendo games are rarely truly bad, so most complaints are going to be in comparison to the previous games. It's New Super Mario Bros. again, but this time they didn't even change the music.
I did not like the coin gimmick. It felt like they're trying to appeal to impatient children, like they'll get bored if they're not winning at every second.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - GothGirlGangBlasterMaster - 08-01-2019
i think it's one of the better games in the new super mario bros series because if you're playing for maximum coin efficiency the game is very fast-paced and challenging
but there's like five of these f***ing games and i can't even tell them apart any more. how many had the poison level? two? which one lets you be a penguin? f*** mario
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - HammerGuy - 08-01-2019
I liked Coin Rush as it allowed me to rapid fire (3 pseudo-randomly-picked) Mario levels, a feature I wished was in more Mario games.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Evil Yoshi Toes - 08-01-2019
I think it’s my least favorite game in the series but that could be just because it’s so bland, even compared to the others. It’s a Nintendo game, so good design is almost a given. There needs to be more than that, though. This game had no creativity put into it. I know the other NSMB games after Wii had similar issues, but something about this one in particular just felt so boring to me, probably because it rode so hard on that awful coin gimmick. I also don’t remember any of the levels or bosses but that can be said for any NSMB game after Wii. Strangely, I remember the visuals in NSMB2 making me really queasy for some reason.
So I guess my conclusion is that it isn’t bad by itself, but it isn’t up to par with the creative excellence I expect from Nintendo. And the gimmick is bad.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Great Destination Tracks 3 - 08-01-2019
nSMB2 is not bad at all, it's decent, and if you put Wario and Waluigi, it's even better
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Hyper - 08-01-2019
I played it back in 2012. At first I was excited to see a NSMBWii game for the 3DS. But after I played several levels, it was quite underwhelming and I feel dissapointed with a lot of recycled materials. Overall it's mediocre compared to other NSMB games. Of course there are unique elements but it failed to stand out like the other NSMB games.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - SilverVortex - 08-01-2019
i think scott the woz described this game perfectly in his new super mario bros series video, "the amount of new things this game does could be counted on, at the very most, two hands".
and i agree with him. it's not necessarily a bad game, it plays great, as per usual from mario, but it's so unoriginal that it may as well not have existed. don't worry though, new super mario bros u deluxe is worse. just saying.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Mors - 08-01-2019
I've never played it despite having a 3DS. I'd want to try it but I haven't even finished NSMBU (Deluxe) yet, and I also want to replay the DS one first.
I'm actually curious, is this game better or worse than NSMBU? I mean that game was also just as generic, if not more.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Evil Yoshi Toes - 08-01-2019
(08-01-2019, 09:43 PM)Mors Wrote: I've never played it despite having a 3DS. I'd want to try it but I haven't even finished NSMBU (Deluxe) yet, and I also want to replay the DS one first.
I'm actually curious, is this game better or worse than NSMBU? I mean that game was also just as generic, if not more.
I would say it's worse. NSMBU was generic too but at least it looked pretty and every once in a while it'd do something cool and unexpected, like the level that looks like an impressionist painting. It also gave Bowser a new weapon on his airship which played into the bosses sometimes, which was cool. NSMB2 doesn't do anything like this, it's just generic through and through. I guess the coin thing is what they thought would make it different enough, but all it does is clutter up the screen and make getting 100 lives way way way too easy. The game is also pretty ugly looking to me and golden Mario is tacky as hell.
Edit: I guess I should clarify that I've never played NSMBU Deluxe, only the original. They're pretty much the same though except one is on a good console and has a weird tf power-up.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - HellJumper - 08-02-2019
When I first saw the reveal trailer for this game, I was legitimately ecstatic. I loved the first game on DS so much. It was the second game I ever owned, so yeah, I have lots of nostalgia for it. But looking past nostalgia, I still consider it my favorite 2D platformer of all time. It's got charming visuals, distinct environments to explore, a great soundtrack (especially the castle theme), the best level design I've seen in a 2D platformer, and the best boss battles in any 2D Mario game. You weren't just fighting the 7 Koopalings at each castle. I mean yeah, you fought Bowser. Jr in every Tower, but he still didn't hog all of the Castle boss fights to himself. Plus, he got progressively harder to beat, and it helps that I find him a very underrated character. And sure, most of the level themes are the same as they were in Super Mario Bros. 3 and World, but I feel they did more than enough new with them. To me, yeah, it's nice to have brand new level themes that we've never seen before, but more than anything, it matters what you do with them, and New Super Mario Bros. DS does more than enough to stand on its own. This game also has one of my favorite multiplayers in any Mario game. The minigames are very fun with friends, and the star battle mode was even more fun! So many great memories. I just hate the title of the game, and how it's associated with its much less original brethren.
P.S: Dry Bowser is my absolute favorite. When I beat that world 1 boss for the first time, and saw Bowser's skin melt off, I was shook as a child. And then I see him in World 8, and... agh! I love Dry Bowser. I love his entrance in the World 8 boss where he falls, breaks upon impact, and then gets reassembled just like every other undead enemy in the Mario series. Very creative.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii was a game I was extremely excited for, despite how similar it looked to the original. Back then, I wasn't super concerned with originality, so it never really bugged me. The game still had slightly altered visuals, which was enough for me back then, but now, it's kind of irritating, yes. See, while New Super Mario Bros. DS brought back level themes from the previous games, it still gave them their own flair. New Super Mario Bros. Wii on the other hand, is uncomfortably similar to the DS game. Still had some little differences here and there, but still gave off that same overall image. But I can still have fun with the game due to its good level design, the ability to ride Yoshi's in multiple colors (but you can't take him to other courses for some dumb reason), the Bowser. Jr boss fights which are a step up from his fights in the previous game on DS, and the awesome climactic final boss. It also has a pretty good soundtrack, especially the final boss track. At this point, Bowser becoming massive at the final boss of a game wasn't as much of a cliche as it is now, and it made for my favorite final boss in the NSMB series. It was also fun and chaotic to play this game with friends, so yeah, while this game was very unoriginal, I still got lots of enjoyment out of it, so its lack of originality was never something I thought about as a kid.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 was actually the first game I ever pre-ordered. Odd, I know. But I was extremely stoked for this game. Watching that reveal trailer just brought out the 8 year old in me. It was a direct sequel to my favorite 2D platformer ever, and one of my most nostalgic games ever. It also looked nearly as graphically impressive as the Wii game, despite the fact that it was on a handheld. And later, I discovered that Dry Bowser was somewhere in the game. And it was also revealed that you could play as Luigi on his own just like in the DS game after you unlocked him which was something the Wii game couldn't do, and it let you experience the entire adventure with a friend! And it brought back the Raccoon Leaf, which played way better than it did in Super Mario Bros. 3. So... what did I think about the game when I got it? Well, I played through it, beat it, had a decent time, but it had a very strong "been there done that" feel. Plus, the final boss was just an inferior version of Wii's final boss, and Dry Bowser's fight was just a slightly harder version of that. So... this game didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth or anything. It's fine for what it is. It's just very hard for me to praise it for the great game it is, when so much of this game has been done in the past. Like, the entire soundtrack is basically the Wii soundtrack, but slightly altered! It also reused a ton of visual assets.
Honestly, I think if the best aspects, level design, theming, tracks, and bosses of these 4 games were combined into one, and not call it New Super Mario Bros, it could've been way better. Of course, if it were up to me, it'd basically just be the DS game with elements from the sequels.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Neweegee - 08-02-2019
(08-01-2019, 09:43 PM)Mors Wrote: I've never played it despite having a 3DS. I'd want to try it but I haven't even finished NSMBU (Deluxe) yet, and I also want to replay the DS one first.
I'm actually curious, is this game better or worse than NSMBU? I mean that game was also just as generic, if not more.
imo, that might boil down to whether you prefer the spacious, multiplayer-focused level design of NSMB Wii or the more narrow ones of NSMB DS. I personally couldn't finish playing through neither NSMBU or NSLU(even though the levels are shorter) because the levels are kind of exhausting to me, as are NSMB Wii's. Might be because I only play single player, tho
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Mors - 08-02-2019
(08-02-2019, 09:31 AM)Neweegee Wrote:(08-01-2019, 09:43 PM)Mors Wrote: I've never played it despite having a 3DS. I'd want to try it but I haven't even finished NSMBU (Deluxe) yet, and I also want to replay the DS one first.
I'm actually curious, is this game better or worse than NSMBU? I mean that game was also just as generic, if not more.
imo, that might boil down to whether you prefer the spacious, multiplayer-focused level design of NSMB Wii or the more narrow ones of NSMB DS. I personally couldn't finish playing through neither NSMBU or NSLU(even though the levels are shorter) because the levels are kind of exhausting to me, as are NSMB Wii's. Might be because I only play single player, tho
I also honestly prefer the smaller view area in NSMBDS far more.
Also you never finished NSMBU? Are you... a fake Nabbit fan?
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Evil Yoshi Toes - 08-02-2019
I didn't even consider the difference in view areas, probably because I played NSMBU exclusively in multiplayer so it didn't bother me. I can see NSMBU's larger areas being a lot less favorable for a single player experience.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Guinea - 08-03-2019
I remember enjoying it a lot. I think a lot of the criticism comes from it being the third "New" series game, and people getting fatigued then. This shows when NSMBU is considered the best game in the series, and yet it had the worst sales.
The coin gimmick, maybe a lot of people saw this as "what's special about the coins when you get so many?", but I think the intention was one of two things. All players could simply enjoy the insanity of the gold rush, and expert players could craft routes to maximize the coin score. Both of these aspects just felt so incredibly awesome, that I miss this in the later games. Maybe I'll make a Mario Maker 2 level inspired by this game...
It dropped the ball in some areas though, e.g. the coin scores not really amounting to anything other than a different title screen, so there was a huge disappointment involved after they teased this to be important.
In the end of the day, whatever your opinion of this game is, it's still a professionally made Mario game, and those are apparently so good, that people went out to buy the no-online 3DS version of Mario Maker, just because it contained a set of Nintendo-made Mario levels
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Kirby's Adventure - 08-03-2019
I like NSMB2. It's pretty unremarkable and it's been years since I last played it, but I had a good time and found it to be enjoyable - it's over fairly quickly, too, from what I remember.
I will say I definitely prefer the level design of the handheld installments of NSMB to the more open, less wacky level design of the console installments - which seem to only be that way to accomodate for multiplayer.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Mario - 08-03-2019
I haven't had the chance to play it but it always seemed bizarre to me. Seemed like they were trying new things with it and just kinda gave up on what they were trying with it afterwards.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - DustinVG - 08-05-2019
New Super Mario Bros. 2 is a good game in a vacuum. However, most of the ire towards it, I think, can be sourced to the fact that most of its merits can be traced back to other games, while it mostly introduces none of its own.
What the game lacks, in my opinion, is a coherent identity of its own. The coins were a start, but were ultimately not enough.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - Arrietty - 08-05-2019
I personally find it a very well crafted game but with a gimmick tacked on, on the top of it being too safe. It's arguably the safest NSMB game but it also manages to be really fun just due to the strong game design. I can't call it a bad game in itself, but disappointing and a weak Mario entry? Sure. I love the game though in spite of that.
RE: Is New Super Mario Bros 2 actually a bad game? - GeneralGuy - 08-05-2019
I thought it was a solid game with a neat gimmick, albeit slightly unoriginal like the rest of the New Super Mario Bro. series are.
Wario and Waluigi definitely should have been the main characters due to their greedy lust for gold, or at least unlockable characters after clearing the main story. A huge missed opportunity there.