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New Super Mario Bros. 2  (JP) (officially abbreviated as NSMB2) is the third installment in the New Super Mario Bros. series for the Nintendo 3DS. The game is a direct sequel to New Super Mario Bros. released in 2006 for the Nintendo DS and a follow-up 2009 Wii game New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which is a follow-up to the 2006 game. A follow-up, (which is a sequel to the 2009 game) titled New Super Mario Bros. U, was released as a launch title for the Wii U on November 18, 2012. It is also the thirteenth game in the main Mario series.

The game also is available both as a traditional boxed form on a card, and as a digital download though the Nintendo eShop. Excluding Virtual Console games, this is the first time that Nintendo has released a game in both formats.

Gameplay[]

New Super Mario Bros 2 screenshot 1

A screenshot of gameplay.

The game continues to use the general gameplay mechanics from the previous New Super Mario Bros. titles. Players are able to play as both Mario and Luigi, supporting 2-player co-op.

The Super Leaf returns as a power-up, and functions much more like it did in Super Mario Bros. 3 in which Mario was given a pair of raccoon ears and a tail which allowed him to fly for a short time and slowly float to the ground.

This is unlike the Super Leaf's return in Super Mario 3D Land, which gave Mario a full Tanooki Suit and only allowed him to float to the ground. The biggest change in gameplay is the added abundance, and importance, of Coins.

As players make their way through the game, a running total is kept of all the Coins they've managed to collect, with the ultimate goal to amass one million Coins.

This quest is aided by the inclusion of new power-ups such as gold rings that turn enemies into valuable gold versions and a Gold Flower that gives Mario the ability to turn almost anything in his path into Coins.

Coin Rush[]

The Coin Rush mode allows players to collect as many Coins as possible across three levels and challenge friends to beat their record via StreetPass.

Enemies[]

New enemies[]

Recurring enemies[]

Bosses[]

Items[]

General[]

Power-ups[]

Downloadable Content[]

In addition to the included Gold Rush packs, Nintendo offered additional courses as DLC. The courses were mostly more difficult that the included ones. In Japan, as a part of a special 3DS LL promotion, people who bought a 3DS in August 2014 could use their voucher to purchase the Gold Edition of the game, which included all the dlc. This has yet to be released outside of Japan or normally.

Reception[]

The game has sold very well, selling 7.88 million units as of March 31, 2014 making it the 4th best-selling 3DS game. In the United States, the game has sold 2.28 million.

Merchandise[]

A Nintendo 2DS bundle with New Super Mario Bros. 2 was released on August 25, 2017.

Development[]

The development of a 2D Super Mario game for the Nintendo 3DS was first brought up during an earnings briefing in November 2010, with Shigeru Miyamoto speaking about the possibilities of 2D and 3D Super Mario games on the Nintendo 3DS.[1] Later, after the release of Super Mario 3D Land, Satoru Iwata officially announced that a 2D Mario game for the 3DS was in development,[2] which was revealed to be New Super Mario Bros. 2 during the April 21, 2012, Nintendo Direct in Japan.[3]

New Super Mario Bros. 2 had a more unique development cycle than other games in the series. Not only was the game developed by the Entertainment Analysis and Development team, but also by members of other development teams, including the Software Planning and Development team, as part of the "Mario Cram School," a program meant to teach other teams about the development of Mario games.[4] Also different is that the game's stages were designed before the mechanics and main focus were thought of. The focus on Coins came about early in development, with Takashi Tezuka and Toshihiko Nakago speaking about Coins; at the time, development of Super Mario 3D Land, which features the ? Box, had recently wrapped up. The Coin concept was first implemented with the golden Koopa Troopa, and soon after Tezuka suggested the one million Coin goal. The developers then began to fill the stages with Coins, and created more ways to collect them, such as the additional golden enemies and Gold Mario.[5] Because of the game's Coin focus, the developers considered naming it "New Super Mario Bros. Gold," but the "2" was chosen instead since the game features more stages than the previous entries in the New Super Mario Bros. series as well as several new elements, allowing it to stand alone as a standard 2D Super Mario title.[6]

Implementation of the co-op mode was originally met with conflict; Tezuka suggested adding it, but the staff opposed him due to being unsure on how it could be implemented, and that it couldn't be done within the remainder of the given development timeframe. Earlier in development, a prototype mode featuring both Mario and Luigi in the single-player stages had been developed. Using this, the developers worked on refining it, making it more similar to New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Issues with the Nintendo 3DS' screen kept the camera from expanding to accommodate both players, so instead the camera was made to focus on a single player at a time, with both being able to fight for control over it.[7]

The concept of the Coin Rush mode was thought of before the Coin theme of the game was. Yusuke Anamo was thinking about how to make the game more replayable, but also something that could be played even in free time. In addition, after making the stages more Coin-oriented, the developers noticed that, no matter how often the game was played, the million-coin goal was very difficult to reach. It was then that they decided to incorporate collecting large amounts of coins into the new mode.[8] The Coin Rush downloadable course packs were originally announced before the game was released; the courses themselves, however, had not been created at the time.[9] The idea of downloadable content had come up during the development of both New Super Mario Bros. 2 and New Super Mario Bros. U, and from both teams; the development team for New Super Mario Bros. 2 had thought of the idea of downloadable Coin Rush courses, and since this game was to be released first it was decided that content would be created for it first.[10]

Credits[]

Gallery[]

  Main article: New Super Mario Bros. 2/gallery

Trivia[]

  • New Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in North America the same day as the Nintendo 3DS XL (the second console in the 3DS family).
  • It was the first 3DS retail game to be sold in the 3DS eShop.
  • Getting 1 million Coins unlocks a new title screen.
  • This is the only New Super Mario Bros. game to not feature Bowser Jr. as a boss, making Bowser the only boss to be featured in every New Super Mario Bros. game.
  • This game has the most levels out of any New Super Mario Bros. game, with a total of 93 levels.
    • Similarly, it also has the largest amount of total exits out of any New Super Mario Bros. game, with a total of 108 exits.
  • US and Canada Club Nintendo members who purchased New Super Mario Bros. 2 from the Nintendo eShop by September 20th, 2012 and completed the surveys within four weeks after downloading could receive double the amount of Coins (for a total of 100 Coins) as they would receive if they bought the game at retail (50 Coins).[11]. European Club Nintendo members that purchased the game from the Nintendo eShop received 250 free Stars. Likewise, Australian Club Nintendo members received double the amount of Stars (i.e. 400 instead of 200)[12].
  • Nintendo made a special gold-themed week on the American Nintendo eShop to celebrate the release of the game, where every category's image was replaced with something from the game and the backgrounds were gold-colored; in other regions, however, this did not occur.

References[]

External links[]

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