An amazing revival of 2D Mario
I don't like to ramble on and on in my reviews lately, and there isn't much to say about this game: It's great. Gameplay wise, it's a 2D mario game. Soundwise, it's a mario game. Graphically, it's an amazing looking 2d mario game. The structure of the game is very similar to past 2d marios. Really, it's just the evolution of those old 2d platformers we used to play as kids. It's great.
So are there any problems? Well, a few minor ones. First off, I feel that most of the powerups are too specific. They're either absolutely useless, or essential to the situation at hand. I only needed the mega mushroom once in the entire game. The mini mushroom is required a bit more often if you want to get all the stars and unlock all of the worlds, but outside of those few instances you wouldn't want to be in mini state during a level. The shell powerup works, however it's unwieldy since as soon as you start running you turtle up and start bouncing on walls, that makes it very hard to navigate jumping puzzles. Sometimes you forget that you have the shell powerup, so you start running to make a jump and then BAM you turtle up, bounce off the wall and fall straight in the lava. True story, it happened to me! So the only generally useful powerup in the whole game is the classic flower. Oh and the normal mushroom of course. A bit lame if you ask me.
Also, the game is easy, especially if you don't collect the coins. There's nothing hard about simply going through any of the levels here, and that's all you want to do you'll finish the game in no time.
And finally...COLLECTING ALL THE STAR COINS DOESN'T DO ANYTHING! Jeebus almighty I thought it would unlock a ninth world but it didn't! :(
So yeah, that's pretty much it. Play it and enjoy it. And then when you want to have a challenge, pop in New Super Mario Bros Wii. Oh yeah.
