I bought the New Super Mario Bros Wii this last thursday, the day it was launched here in Japan (for some reason, the Japanese lauch was delayed when compared to the US or Europe). In the Launch Day, the Yodobashi Camera shop at Akihabara had a giant line with more than 300 people in it. On the other hand, the Book-Off just a block away had the same game at a 20% discounted price, with NO ONE in the line. Take that, Efficient Market Hypothesis!

The game is really similar to New Super Mario Bros DS – a revival of the first Super Mario Bros (the Nes one), with a bunch of technological enhancements. They have 5 extra “powers” – a Helicopter suit, which makes Mario jump high and float with a flick of the Wiimote, a Mini Mario suit, identical to the DS one (high jumps and running over water), an “Ice Flower”, which makes mario throws ice balls, which freezes enemies, a penguin suit, which throws ice balls, slides on enemies, and swims better, and good old Yoshi (which now is able to float a bit in the air when jumping). Mario can “stomp” while jumping, and he can also “triple jump” – if you press the jump button just as you finish your previous jump, the next one will be a bit higher.

With all these different powers, the game is not very difficult. I managed to get to World 8 in one night. I used the secret “world gates” found in worlds 1 and 5, but even those were not very difficult to find. The last stage of world 8, in particular the boss fight actually took me quite a few tries. This leads to another “innovation” of this game – if you fail a single stage more than 8 times in a row, the game will offer to show you how to beat that stage. It can clear the stage for you, if you wish, but a stage cleared like this isn’t counted towards game completion purposes. While clearing the game is not that hard (and I got a bit disappointed when I got to the end because of that) – COMPLETING the game is another story. The secret items and passages in some of the stage are very cleverly hidden – even if that is not apparent from the first world – my second “complete out” run of the game is going quite slower.

In terms of graphics and eye candy, I found the game to be full of nice touches. The enemies and creatures on the screen react to the music, jumping and dancing in tempo with the notes. The in-game minigames are fun, even if limited. You got the “memory game” for getting items, and a “hit the baloons” games for getting lifes. You can also be asked to replay some scenarios to save Toady, and get a few more item/lives out of it (you have to carry him with you, and thus can’t use specials/run through small places). I wish they had extra mini games, like New Super Mario Bros DS, but alas, it is not to be. In fact, as far as I can see this game does not use the internet for anything at all, which was a bit of a let down.

On the other hand, the main novelty of SMB Wii – up to 4 players simultaneous cooperative play – is really worth it. You can play with 2 to 4 people at the same time on each stage, just like in the normal game. If anyone dies, their player will be returned to the stage in a few seconds (unless they run out of lives) – the stage is only over if everyone dies at the same time. The players can get in each other’s way, jump on each other’s head to reach higher, or carry each other over their heads. With two players at the same time, the game actually gets easier (in spite of what Penny Arcade said), mainly because if one player dies at a tricky point of the stage, the other can wait until the previous player returns. However, with the full four players, everything changes. 4 Players is just TOO MUCH, and the game becomes a fast paced race to get away from whatever can kill you before the other players can kill you first, racing first to the end of the stage else you get too far on the back and get killed by the other players who darted far ahead. You can kill your buddies with impunity – if you manage to remember who are you in the middle of the madness on screen. Really, it is that hectic, and we went through 3 or four continues by the earlier half of world 1. The coordination required makes SMB with 4 people far more difficult than with 1 or 2 – specially for things like small platforms and sequences of jumps, that it got me curious to see team competitions of the game.

All in all it was well worth the trip to Akiba last week :-) Now to get a few more controllers to be able to play Super Mario Madhouse whenever a lot of people gather at my place.