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REVIEW: NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. U DELUXE (SWITCH)

23/1/2019

34 Comments

 
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Circa 1987, I was a big fan of U2. Don't judge me for that. There was a time before tax havens and saving the world and built-up shoes and shoving themselves onto your iPhone when Bono was actually sort of cool.

I had a massive poster for The Joshua Tree on my bedroom wall, and a couple of mates and I went to see them play at Wembley Stadium. Well, technically, we went and stood outside Wembley Stadium, because we didn't have tickets, but the gates were opened about 15 minutes before the end of the show, presumably to ease congestion, and we were swept inside by a stampede of other ticketless fans, and got to see the end of the concert.

Some might argue that the end is the best part of any U2 concert...

I liked the next couple of U2 albums, but then... something shifted. U2 started sounding like U2 trying a bit too hard to be U2. Every album began promising a "return to basics", when - in truth - U2 never really deviated from the sound that everyone associated with U2. They never did a Radiohead. They just kept ploughing the same musical furrow, and it got... boring.

When it was published at the arse-end of 2012 on the Wii U - the equivalent of U2 announcing that their new album would only be available for the Zune - New Super Mario Bros. U was the proverbial "back to basics" album. The difference between it and the last four or five U2 albums - aside from the fact that one of them is a video game - is that Mario had earned the right to go back to basics. 

The Mario franchise had, for the most part, been doing things 3D since the release of Yoshi's Island (most of us forget that it was officially branded as Super Mario World 2) in 1995, and New Super Mario Bros. U was exactly what some of us wanted.

Of course, it wasn't fresh and original or noisy enough to help Nintendo make a success of the Wii U. In fact, if anything, making the big Wii U launch game a 2D platformer probably contributed to a sense of disappointment, and affected sales.

But here we are, six-and-a-bit years on, and 2D platforms are no longer a dirty nonsense. Whereas in 2012 there was too much riding on New Super Mario Bros. U, the Switch is already a success. The time feels right for Mario to go back to his roots.

OR DOES IT...!??
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SHINE!
A lot of you grumble about Nintendo's policy of re-releasing Wii U games for the Switch, and I understand it. You bought the Wii U. You'd prefer new games that you've not played before, but - presumably - the likes of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe isn't for you. It's an opportunity for an overlooked game to get a second chance to shine.

Let's face it, Nintendo - more than any other games company - sees its games as perennials. They're not just churned out to meet some quarterly financial target. They're seen as a long-term investment, and quite right too. Too often, huge amounts of time and money and effort are pumped into games, only for them to be rendered obsolete 12 months later, in favour of another annual instalment. So, in short, stop your moaning.

That said, it's time to get real here: New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe might - technically - be a proper entry in Mario's side-on adventures, but there's something about it that feels oddly inconsequential. When playing it I never felt like I was enjoying the official successor to Super Mario World - the ideas, such as they are - are remixes, throwbacks, rather than attempts to move both genre and series forwards. 

Indeed, Deluxe takes that feel even further, with the introduction of a new character or two (who you play as will affect the difficulty), and the inclusion of Super Luigi Bros. U - a hard-as-nails remix of the remix, in which you play as Fantoni (Luigi). Indeed, overall the difficulty feels like it's set for veterans of the series, not newcomers. While it starts much as Mario games always start, it swiftly gets frustrating, as death comes quickly to the Mushroom Kingdom, regardless of who you're playing as.

Laid atop this, the inclusion of a manic four-player mode feels little more than a novelty, an excuse to justify the "New" in the title.  
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REHASH
The biggest issue I have with New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe - and it's the same one I had with New Super Mario Bros. U before it - is that it struggles to stick in the memory. Whether it's an underwater haunted house, or power-ups that are tweaks on old power-ups - everything just feels like a rehash of what has come before, rather than wholly new.

Maybe that's okay. I mean, whenever Bono proclaims that the new U2 album is back-to-basics the fans gleefully lap it up. Unfortunately, here - as with most of U2's 21st Century output - the reality feels disappointing, the same old notes played in a different order, rather than capturing the true spirit of what made both classic albums and classic game series great; at their best they were fresh, and new, and unlike anything else. 

Admittedly, Nintendo has Odyssey for those who still want their Mario games full of original deas, but by comparison - even when you shunt aside the fact that this is a six-and-a-bit years-old game - New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe can't help but be anything more than a tribute band.

Making matters worse for Nintendo, there has been a resurgence in the popularity of side-scrolling platformers in recent years, games which have taken the Mario format and evolved it.

​Compared to those, New Super Mario Brothers U feels depressingly old. 

SCORE: SUPER MARIO 64 OUT OF SUPER MARIO 100
34 Comments
Sean McErlean
23/1/2019 09:43:00 am

I think this is a little unfair both on U2 and NSMBU.
Their 90s output has a significantly different sound from their 80s output, even if it is still grandiose stadium rock stuff.

NSMBU is a really great platforms, easily the best of the NSMB series. But that's the problem for me. If this was the first go at stripped down 2D Mario Bros, it'd be as lauded as Johnny Cash doing U2 and 9 Inch Nails covers. As it is, even though the level design is great, the presentation is somewhat tired and unexciting. It's like a new Oasis album that's pretty good but coming off the back of 3 similar sounding albums, and not pushing their 90s peak.

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Col. Asdasd
24/1/2019 09:35:18 am

I think you're right. It took four NSMB games for them to make a truly great one, and the games that came before it have inevitably coloured the judgement of this one.

It's easily the second best 2D Mario, much better than World which is a boringly easy game with a hatefully hard one hidden in the background. The difficult curve is much better here and even the significantly harder content in Luigi U and the challenge mode scales more smoothly. Mario's moveset in this one is unrivalled too, with the full suite of jumps making him an absolute joy to control as he was in Odyssey. SMB3 still pips it for more secrety secrets and an overall sense of wonder but that might be the 8 year old me taking over.

I also feel like it took them four games to turn the aesthetic into something appealing. The game looks great in HD and the music is pretty good but I think for his next 2D outing they ought to be bolder and go for a complete refresh of the art style.

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Super Bad Advice
23/1/2019 09:43:51 am

Needs more Bario, that’s the real problem.

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Dan Whitehead
23/1/2019 09:57:38 am

Does this mean Bono has an evil adversary called Wono?

Answer: yes.

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Neil Young
23/1/2019 11:05:43 am

You have to turn the first leytter of his name upside down. So b ~~ P.

Therefore, Bono's evil adversary is Pono - a high-falutin MP3 player. Which stands to reason, I suppose.

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Tw
23/1/2019 10:07:35 am

I think sadly, few bands *can* do a Radiohead. They've mostly got what they've got and the best they can hope for us to become a Muse or a Foo Fighters.

It's probably the same with all creative endeavours, video games included. The likes of Breath of the Wild that manage to escape their old formula for the better are very much the exception.

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Neptunium
23/1/2019 12:15:09 pm

I think the Beatles did a Radiohead before Radiohead ever existed.

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Tw
23/1/2019 12:48:45 pm

I think you'll find Og the Tuneful got there first. BCE 4285's "Og Make Noise" still contains the definitive mammoth-rib xylophone solo for my money.

Gronk the caveman
23/1/2019 02:46:13 pm

Pfft, Og the Tuneful is for sellout posers who only got into listening to things after "music" was established as a concept distinct from "sound".

Once "artists" like Huk-who-bangs-on-sabre-toothed-tiger-skull or Thurg-who-blows-hollow-reed complicated sound by making it anything more than random and occasionally semi-rhythmic noises like the rain beating on the ground outside of my cave, it became too accessible for anyone with ears to enjoy instead of being just for real fans of sound like myself.

And Og is even worse, he just took Huk and Thurgs' ideas and made them more marketable because he looks better in cave-paintings due to being a bit more evolved. If you ask me, homosapiens killed the neanderthal star.

Harry Steele
23/1/2019 10:30:00 am

The New Super Mario Bros format was exciting when it originally came out on the DS, but since then, as you say, there have been some really excellent 2D platformers.

Those Rayman games released on the XBox 360 were gorgeous and tried something different on every level. It would be great if the next 2D Mario game got a similar refresh!

(Also, still not a fan of 3D sprites in a 2D world - I think Rayman works because everything feels of a piece)

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Wapojif
23/1/2019 10:40:19 am

I have it on the Wii U and just enjoyed it a lot. But it's certainly nothing landmark.

3D Mario is the way for Nintendo to go, Super Mario 3D World is arguably the very best of the series. And Odyssey is so fantastic.

But strangely Nintendo has lapsed a bit in the 2D field, with indie games far outpacing them in terms of outright brilliance. Ori and the Blind Forest is a total masterpiece, for instance.

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Paul Shinn
23/1/2019 12:48:13 pm

I'd rather a re-release of 3D World than this. It does multiplayer Matio a whole lot better and more interestingly, IMO. Hopefully that'll be the next port we get. It's the only one that I'd consider double-dipping on....

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Wapojif
23/1/2019 01:05:34 pm

yes, exactly, so hopefully Super Mario 3D World is on the way.

Voodoo76
23/1/2019 10:41:19 am

When is Wave Race coming out on Switch?

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Nick
23/1/2019 10:42:27 am

I brought a U2 album once. Yer-know the one. L-ha-va-tion! It got pretty well reviewed and I thought maybe I had been too quick to judge and hop on the They’re Shit Bandwagon. I hadn’t been too quick to judge and they were shit.

I also brought this on the much beloved Wii U. It was alright I guess. Not a patch on the glorious Super Mario 3D World.

I just had a complete blank over how to spell World. I had to check and it still doesn’t look right. World, nah not right at all.

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DEAN
23/1/2019 08:41:49 pm

That's because you're not imagining the invisible 'h'.

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Nick
24/1/2019 11:25:25 am

That’s it. It’s got a H in it, except it’s not got a H in it but it should.

It all makes sense now.

stupidactingsmart
29/1/2019 09:24:59 pm

You're saying that wrongly, you know. It's "an h," not "a h". My mum said so.

Grembot
23/1/2019 10:50:33 am

I’ve said before that I find the NSMB games a bit bland and joyless (I’ve never played the coins one). But I wonder if no other Mario games existed we would think this was amazing? The answer is no. We’d say the gameplay was top notch but we’d still be saying it looks like a smartphone game...it’s like the absence of an art style.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
23/1/2019 12:26:34 pm

I have the coins one (New Super Mario Bros 2) and never finished it. Or if I did, I can't remember it. Either way that's a bad sign. I can at least remember being disappointed by how quickly I finished the original New Super Mario Bros.

Like its predecessor, NSMB2 was just kind of okay. A collection of short, largely linear levels that tend to just remind me that I'd rather be playing Super Mario World, all drawn in what you rightly describe as "the absence of an art style". Maybe it got better towards the end, but as I say, I can't remember if I got there.

It's definitely a better retro sequel to the older Mario games than Sonic 4 was to the older Sonic titles, but that's a low bar. Something about it just feels kind of bland.

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Mark
23/1/2019 11:16:07 am

I skipped this cos I got it as a free game on the Wii u and to be honest I really didn’t enjoy it neither did my son. It’s funny though as people are moaning about the game being the same as all the other 2d Mario games and they want something different but all you have to do is look at the game charts especially here in the Uk to realise people don’t want anything new come November time it’s the same COD and Fifa at the top of the chart and it has to be said they don’t differ too much from the last iteration. Nintendo should have released 3D world instead it’s a much better game than this

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Neptunium
23/1/2019 12:18:09 pm

OMG if they'd have have released a double pack of New SMBU and Mario 3D World, I'd have been all over that...

Hopefully they'd have stuffed all the miiverse stuff into a re-release of SM3DW - my favourite bit of the game was harassed looking Mii's staggering around the world and all the messages from other players telling you how evil the level you're playing is/giving you encouragement to beat it.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
23/1/2019 12:36:06 pm

I suspect that the people buying 2D Mario games in the late 2010s and the people buying CoD and Fifa are not really the same market.

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Mark
23/1/2019 01:29:36 pm

That’s probably true I just think 3D world would have been a better choice or even Mario galaxy remastered in hd or super Mario world redone using the new super Mario engine now that I would buy in an instant

Spiney O'Sullivan
23/1/2019 01:47:34 pm

Oh, I'd definitely rather see a Super Mario 3D World port instead of this and Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker. Nintendo's decisions are frequently baffling.

Mark
23/1/2019 02:37:32 pm

Treasure tracker is quite decent but I suppose it’s quite short and no real reason to go back to once it’s completed. You are 100% right though Nintendo’s decisions are odd oh and Sega too they are sitting on a gold mine of ips but are not willing or just can’t be arsed to bring any back or even release them at a steady rate instead they choose to dip feed them to us same as Nintendo with their online service

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Neptunium
23/1/2019 03:44:27 pm

Sega can't be trusted to manage their own legacy. They can only be trusted when they farm out the work to enthusiasts, like Sonic Mania.

I'd go all giddy for a 60fps port of Virtua Racing on modern hardware, but there's no way I'd trust Sega to do it themselves because they're all drunks.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
23/1/2019 05:37:14 pm

This has afflicted every Sonic game since 3. Even the ones that remember it was about the platforming and intricate levels, not speed. The best Sonic game I’ve played in recent years is the non-Sonic-but-inspired-by-it fan game Freedom Planet.

Same with Star Trek. Each new movie in the Kelvin universe or new TV series starting with Enterprise claims that this time, for realsies, they will “recapture the spirit of exploration and discovery of TOS”. TOS where every other episode had them on yet another planet that curiously paralleled Earth history, complete with humans? Was anyone fooled even at the time?

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Paul
23/1/2019 08:29:17 pm

WhenI worked for a software company, we used to do the Apple shows. One time, at the one in London in Islington, Apple were playing Vertigo (which they were using in the iPod adverts) on a constant loop. Every day. All the time. Loud.

So those of us, trying to enthuse potential customers over the software or meeting and greeting those who were existing customers, we doing so to the constant background of Bono's run of the mill AOR.

What the hell is is with Apple and U2 anyway?

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Nikki link
23/1/2019 10:55:18 pm

I like Radiohead. A lot. A LOT.

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James walker link
23/1/2019 11:43:05 pm

I like scotch. a Lot!!

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Adam Villarreal
23/1/2019 11:59:25 pm

I played the first one on DS and I think I may have forced myself to enjoy it more than I did, due to the high praise it was getting. I played it again years later on the original Wii in co-op and we almost and we I had to assure him that Mario games don't usually suck this bad.

Rayman's 2D adventures always seemed to eclipse Mario's during the last generation. Forget Beyond Good and Evil 2 (It's not what we want anyway.) Give us a follow up to Rayman Legends!

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Captain Morgan
24/1/2019 07:18:03 am

I like Dark Souls (Nick Cave)

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levi
24/1/2019 10:52:37 pm

Now that's a review I can agree with in a sentence: it's all the right game notes just not necessarily in the right order.

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