It's a shame that you can't compete for score in the same way when playing in the game proper, but that's a structural quibble at best. The Propellerheads are great, but where's the Shirley Bassey suit? The replay value added by these modes is immense, as if the hunt for every secret level and Star Coin in the main game wasn't enough. Both work superbly but the purity of Coin Battle wins out it's a fantastically greedy scramble, even better in the five levels designed specially for it. In Free Play you compete for score and enemy kills, displayed on a leaderboard at the end of a level, while Coin Battle is a pure hunt for the most coins. Levels are unlocked in these as you work through the main game, but both also offer a recommended selection from across the game's eight worlds unlocked at the start. In addition, there are two dedicated multiplayer modes, Free Play and Coin Battle. When these end in disaster, though, it's always hilarious, slapstick disaster that's impossible to begrudge. The tag-team element grants that many more chances to stay alive and keep the level scrolling, but the multiplication of bouncing, free-wheeling chaos sparks off chain reactions of cause and effect that often spiral out of control. You can help or hinder each other as you feel like, but either way, the difficulty balances out perfectly. Up to four players can play through the entire game in the main mode, dropping in and out at any point. It's no more nor less than a chance to share the exuberant, mischievous joy of this magnificent series - and in doing so, to multiply it. With more than one player, however, it's transformed. It's almost routine in its excellence, resting with ease on Mario's mountain of laurels: a brilliant game, but more tribute than true successor, and an exercise in deja vu for the seasoned Mario fan. Wii is an improvement on the DS game, but it has the same character. Yoshi isn't the only returning feature from Super Mario World Switch Palaces are back, Other instances of motion control, such as tilting the remote to move certain platforms, are sparingly applied and good fun. It's quick and reliable enough not to let you down, but just awkward enough to break the telepathically instantaneous bond with Mario that you're used to. It ought to be redundant to mention the controls in a 2D Mario - they're tight, tactile, supple and intoxicating, of course they are - but it is a shame that some moves, notably the propeller jump and picking up some items, require you to shake the remote rather than press a button. So are the wise additions of the wall-kick and ground-pound that New Super Mario Bros. Funny, foolishly adorable, wild and flexible, they've got all of the cartoon joy of the power-ups in Mario Bros. The stars of the show, though, are the Propeller Suit (super-jump and float) and the Penguin Suit (better handling underwater and on ice, snowballs and a high-speed tummy-slide). The DS game's novelty Mega Mario and underwhelming Blue Shell are gone, the superb Mini Mario returns - underused, if anything - and the classic Fire Flower is joined by the Ice Flower, whose snowballs freeze enemies in ice blocks that can be picked up and thrown, or used as platforms. Wii for variety, surprise, intricacy, freedom, tuning, pacing or sheer wealth of ideas.Īnother significant improvement is to be found in the new power-ups. It's formulaic, but it's following a formula for sheer brilliance. But let's face it, Nintendo's second-best is still better than anyone else's A-game, and you can hardly blame them for having perfected 2D platformers two decades ago. The level design is prone to Mario-by-numbers retreads - genuinely inspired moments are outnumbered by familiar throwbacks.
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