Video Game Blog 004: The Adventures of Green Mario

I have a love-hate relationship with the Mario series. Well, okay, hate is too strong a word. Frustration? Annoyance? Controller-throwing rage? I don’t much like platforming games in general, even though some of my favorite series have elements of platforming. Mario, Spyro, Sonic, the list goes on. One of the earliest video games I played (aside from all the Atari and Intellivision titles) was the original Super Mario Bros. I loved it. It blew me away. I had no idea that a video game could be so expansive, so stylistic, so comforting.

But on the other hand, I just fell into the same freaking pit five times and I will never play a damned Mario game again in my life! ARRRRRGH!

Basically I love Mario and the games annoy the hell out of me. So obviously I space out my playing quite a bit. That’s why I’m so far behind in the series. This year I finally cracked the surface of Super Mario Galaxy. As I’ve mentioned before, I tend to, for the most part. play games chronologically. Deviating from this rule a bit, I have played all the games in the New Super Mario Bros series, which brings me to the subject of today’s post. Those games were easy for me to pick up as they didn’t quite constitute the time investment of a 3-D Mario game. The New Super Mario Bros games are the sort of game you could fire up, play a couple of levels, and then wander away for a week or two. A nice, fun Mario fix before the frustration sets in.

Awesome beginning to the game. (Credit: Nintendo)

In 2013, Nintendo celebrated something they called “The Year of Luigi” to mark the 30th anniversary of Luigi’s first game appearance. Luigi was introduced way back in 1983’s Mario Bros as the Player Two. He continued on in this capacity for many of the Mario platforming games. He was originally just a palette swap… the “green Mario”… but over the years developed his own looks, personality, and play style. Luigi is often left in the shadows by his more popular brother, but he’s got his fans.

One of the games Nintendo released to celebrate Luigi was New Super Luigi U, an expansion to the previous year’s New Super Mario Bros U. The novelty of having Luigi lead a side-scroller drove me to get it. It proved to be a fun, challenging game that added a lot more replay value to the base game.

Plus Penguin Luigi is way too cute.

Go penguin go! (Credit: Nintendo)

New Super Luigi U has the same levels as New Super Mario Bros U, but shortened. Each level has only a 100 second time limit (about a third of the original game) which means immediately starting the level, the music gains that panicked speed which tells you you’re almost out of time. Mario is not in the roster of characters, and Luigi has the same sort of physics he had in Super Mario Bros 2, where he jumped higher and didn’t handle quite as well as Mario. The same power ups continue from the main game, such as the Squirrel Suit, mini mushroom, and fire and ice flowers.

Oops. ‘scuse me little squirrel. (Credit: Nintendo)

As with all Mario side-scrollers, the objective of each level is to reach the flagpole at the far right side before you run out of time. Each level contains three Star Coins, some of which are hidden or in hard to reach places. Some levels have hidden exits that lead to a secret level. If you collect all the Star Coins in an area, you open up a corresponding level of the Star Road, which contains more difficult bonus levels. There are some enemy battles on the map that grant items when you win. Now and then the thieving bunny Nabbit jumps into a level and you have to chase him to get the Toad’s items back. Every area has castles with boss battles where you fight Boom Boom, Magikoopa or the Koopalings. (If you don’t know who those are, play more Mario games!) At the end of the game you face off against Bowser and Bowser Junior in an epic final showdown.

I’ve really enjoyed the New Super Mario Bros series, so this game was a welcome expansion. I feel like each game in the series improved upon the last. This game, by its very nature, was a much more abbreviated version of New Super Mario Bros U, but it was fun revisiting that game in this shortened, more challenging form. It took me a little while to get used to Luigi’s jump physics, but after a few levels it started to become second nature. After I won, I went back to the base game to play as Mario again and promptly died because I wasn’t used to how he jumped.

There is still a lot more I could do in this game, and in the base game as well. I have only unlocked two secret levels, and have not reached Star Road yet. But the year is over half gone and I still have many games left in my list. My goal was to finish the game, and I did that. It’s a nice thought, though, that I could get the urge to revisit the world of New Super Luigi U at some point when I have the time (and patience) and gather more Star Coins. The completionist in me is nagging that the game isn’t really complete until I’ve bested Star Road. (Which means I’ll also have to log more hours into New Super Bros Wii…)

Kinda neat how Nabbit is immune to Star Power. (Credit: Nintendo)

So all in all, New Super Luigi U is a fun, challenging little game. You can get through it fairly quickly, or take your time trying to get all the Star Coins and finding all the hidden exits. It’s good to see Luigi get his own solo classic Mario-style game (I know he had several Luigi’s Mansion games, but that’s entirely different gameplay) but it still sort of feels like he’s getting his more popular brother’s leftovers here with remixed and shortened levels from the full game. Regardless of that, I don’t regret getting it or playing it. The game is challenging, shiny, and comforting. It was fun to revisit the colorful world of New Super Mario Bros U, chase after Nabbit again, and use all the power-ups to battle the hordes of Bowser. Hopefully it’s not the last platformer our old friend Green Mario gets.

Thank you for reading my review and commentary on New Super Luigi U! I plan to keep cranking out these video game posts in between my bigger posts, so look forward to more soon. Thanks again, I appreciate you all, and I’ll see you soon with more video game goodness!

Happy penguin! (Credit: Nintendo)