Game:

New Super Mario Bros. (2006)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 23:10

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3

Another LP begins! I haven't done any Mario games in a while, so here we go with one of the newer such games, which, fittingly, is called New Super Mario Bros. The New Super Mario Bros. games have gained a bit of notoriety for being too similar to each other, but hey, they're all still well-designed and fun. I wouldn't mind doing an LP of all four of them at some point down the road. And I don't think anyone complained about the first one when it came out. That's the one I happen to be playing, the original New Super Mario Bros. on the DS. (I can emulate DS games, though just barely...I wish I had one of those 3DS capture cards, which, thanks to backward compatibility, would also let me record DS games off a real system. Expect at least a little bit of lag at times.) It's probably not as good as either of the home console NSMB games, but it's still a solid game. I will be going for 100% in this playthrough, so if I miss/skip over a secret exit or star coin, rest assured that I had my reasons and will be coming back to it.

Now, to start things off, we get a bit of a cutscene. Mario and Peach are taking a walk, they see something happening to the castle in the distance, so Mario goes to check it out and leaves Peach behind, and, predictably, she gets kidnapped. Not by Bowser this time, apparently, but by his obnoxious little son Bowser Jr. (And let me just say that I REALLY get tired of "Peach got kidnapped" as being the main plot of Mario games...at least Super Mario 3D World tried something different, even if it was just as much of an excuse plot.) So, naturally, we have to get her back. We start our quest in World 1, which is, naturally, the grassland world. In this episode, I play through 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and the World 1 tower. 1-1 serves as an introduction to the basic game mechanics, some of the simplest enemies, and a new powerup: the Mega Mushroom, which is sort of like a Starman on steroids. It lets you destroy pretty much everything that isn't solid ground. 1-2 is the first underground level (1-2 is always an underground level in these games), adds a couple new things to the mix, and has probably the most overused music in the entire Mario series. Seriously, Nintendo can't make something original for underground levels instead of just remixing the underground theme from the original Super Mario Bros. again and again and again? Urgh. This level also has the first secret exit of the game. Secret exits in this game are actually kind of annoying, because unlike in Super Mario World, the world map does not give you any indication of which levels have them and which don't (and for that matter, even towers can have them in this game). At least there aren't fake walls in this game, though, unlike the sequels. And if 1-1 introduced grassland levels and 1-2 introduced underground levels, 1-3 introduces athletic levels. This one takes place high in the sky and mostly atop various colorful red and green mushrooms, some of which move up and down or tilt back and forth. Then we come to the tower stage, which involves going up. A lot of going up, as well as maneuvering around various moving blocks and avoiding Dry Bones. The boss of the level is Bowser Jr. Actually, the boss of every tower is Bowser Jr., and he's...well, "easy" is almost an understatement. He does get _slightly_ more difficult later, but for this first battle, he does absolutely nothing but run back on forth. Jump on him three times and you're done...and he takes the Princess to the castle.

With that, I'm finally back into another LP project. I hope you'll enjoy it! Oh, yeah, and I recorded this way back in freaking February, so that will explain any possibly outdated references you may encounter.

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