Arriving in the wake of last year’s Super Mario Odyssey, a game that basically reinvents everything players know and love about the Super Mario Bros. series, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe comes across like a love letter to everything Super Mario Odyssey left behind. That said, even without drawing comparisons to that recent Switch triumph, New Super Mario Bros. U is a bit unambitious given its pedigree.
The New Super Mario Bros. titles have always represented a stripped-down, brass-tacks version of the original side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. games, but aside from more kinetic elements in each stage, New Super Mario Bros. U isn’t a progression of ideas from what we’ve seen before from the 2D Super Mario Bros. games. It steals bits and pieces from the ones that came after the original Super Mario Bros. but doesn’t really advance its core concepts the way later 3D titles in the series built on the gameplay foundations set by Super Mario 64.
New Super Mario Bros. U is content to be about the sheer intricacy of level design, simultaneously beckoning players ever forward—to run, jump, and climb across grandly cartoonish obstacle courses, all leading to a showdown in a spooky castle. The Mushroom Kingdom of this game is a watercolor-painted place where the flowers dance to the background music, the coins flow like wine, and enemies mosey across the screen in carefully laid patterns, all waiting to be stomped on by Mario, Luigi, Toad, or Toadette. There are no keys or warp zones—save for a couple of alternate exits to stages scattered around—or warp whistles or Star Roads to find. The game is but a massive collection of stages leading to that one final fortress. The two new power-ups—a Flower that lets you turn enemies into ice, and a leaf that turns you into a flying squirrel, rather than a flying raccoon—aren’t as critical to the gameplay as the cape and raccoon suits are in previous titles in the series.
New Super Mario Bros. U is as basic a take on the Super Mario Bros. formula as the current era of gaming could possibly take. And yet, that simplicity puts the game in contrast with the slew of retro-tinged titles that clearly draw inspiration from the framework that Nintendo laid down over the years with such titles as Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and Yoshi’s Island, among others, without really grasping how to make said framework sing—which is to say, to make their worlds into places you want to spend time in. There’s a confidence and ease to New Super Mario Bros. U’s level designs, to how steadily the challenges escalate throughout and how players are afforded every chance to challenge themselves by taking the non-obvious road—to indulge their, say, curiosity about a certain route or pipe.
As for the “deluxe” part of the title, yes, there are a few new characters that players can now select: Toadette and Nabbit, essentially comprising, respectively, Easy and Easier modes for the game. Toadette gets a special power-up that turns her into a human princess, giving her the ability to float, which, sadly, nobody else can use—and lo, there’s been much wailing and gnashing of teeth about that. Nabbit, on the other hand, is practically invincible, as he can only die when he falls into pits. While Nabbit is definitely a casual option for just getting through the game, Toadette offers a much more egalitarian perk in traversal, opening up the harder-to-reach parts of the game to players who don’t have the skill or patience to figure out the precision jumps that are otherwise necessary to move forward. Through Toadette, New Super Mario Bros. U opens its doors to all, and makes no excuses to anyone for doing so.
On the other end of the spectrum, the game’s hard-as-nails DLC for the WiiU, New Super Luigi U, is also included, and its stages have been redesigned to the point that daredevil gameplay is the only way forward. Poor Luigi’s jump may be higher this time around, but he also runs like he’s perpetually on extremely slippery ice. The result is a game that isn’t sadistically difficult, at least not in the same way as many a notorious Super Mario Maker level, but it definitely feels like Nintendo indulging in a little bit of evil. These levels should silence anyone who would accuse the company of coddling a broad audience, and do so without losing the cleverness of design that makes the main game worthwhile.
New Super Luigi U is diabolical in design but immensely rewarding, and while playing the game this time around, I couldn’t help but think about last year’s Celeste, specifically a much-lauded moment in that title where a note comes up saying that players should be proud of their death counts, because “the more you die, the more you’re learning.” It’s a positive sentiment and ethos, and it’s one that New Super Mario Bros. U conveys consistently and brilliantly through its game design but without actually spelling it out for you.
This game was reviewed using a download code provided by Golin.
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