New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Overview

Announced during E3 2009, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a platforming game set in the Mushroom Kingdom. Visually, the title draws many similarities to the 2006 DS title New Super Mario Bros. with similar visual design, settings, and scores.

The story goes that Mario and Luigi are at Peach's castle during a celebration, a suspicious looking cake comes in for the cake sliding. It gets thrown into the room, right on top of the Princess, and wanders out of the room with the princess trapped inside. The Koopalings & Bowser Jr. kidnap her, leaving Mario & Luigi, accompanied by two Toads named Yvan and Wolley, to save her.

The game has sold 29.79 million units worldwide, as of March 31 2016.

Gameplay

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is played as a 2D platformer, but features graphics in a 3D engine (see 2.5D). The game can be played cooperatively or competitively, with up to four players joining the game on-the-fly. In the story mode, players progress through themed worlds (ice world, desert world, etc.) by completing the levels, ghost houses, and castles within.

If a player loses all lives in single player mode, the player loses any unsaved progress and must repeat the levels. Opportunities to save are typically presented after mid and end of world castles. If a player dies during a multiplayer game, he or she will be resurrected and return to the screen floating in a bubble, which others can burst to bring the player back into play.

Players must restart a level (from the beginning or the midpoint flag) if all players are simultaneously dead or in a bubble. A player that loses all lives in multiplayer mode is given a "continue" and five additional lives when the game returns to the "world view". There is no penalty to this, apart from earning bragging rights for beating the game with a lower number of continues. If all players run out of lives on the same level, the players are returned to the last save point and each receives a continue.

Players can also choose to enter a bubble by pressing the A button at any time. This strategy can enable younger or lesser players to get through difficult parts of the game when accompanying more experienced or better players.

At the end of levels in competitive mode, players are scored and ranked depending on a number of factors, including lives remaining.

Like in New Super Mario Bros., players have an extended move-set that includes the wall kick and ground pound. They can also physically interact with other players such as jumping on their heads or carrying and throwing them around. As well as this, Yoshis, who are able to eat enemies and other players, feature in the game. Early hands-on impressions report the inclusion of a number of Koopa Kids, who have not appeared in a true Mario title since Super Mario World.

Power-Ups

Note: For ease of writing, all power-ups refer to Mario. Obviously, any character can use any power-up.

Mushroom — Makes Mario twice his original size. 'Super Mario' can break brick blocks from above and below, and will return to regular Mario if hit. Fire Flower — Turns Mario into 'Fire Mario', enabling him to shoot up to two fireballs at a time. When the Wii Remote is shaken, Mario spins and throws one fireball in each direction. When hit, Fire Mario returns to Super Mario Ice Flower — Turns Mario into 'Ice Mario', enabling him to shoot up to two snowballs at a time. Snowballs will break after two bounces, and can freeze enemies, which break free after a short time. Mario can pick up most frozen enemies and either throw them into other enemies, in the manner of a Koopa Shell, which will break upon contact with a wall. Underwater, frozen enemies will float to the surface, and in the air, frozen enemies will remain in the air for a few moments (serving as a platform) before falling and breaking. When the Wii Remote is shaken, Mario spins and throws one snowball in each direction. When hit, Ice Mario returns to Super Mario. Propeller Mushroom — Turns Mario into 'Propeller Mario', which allows Mario to fly upwards, when the Wii Remote is shaken. Mario will float down to the ground after ascending, but can drill downwards by pressing down on the D-Pad. Mario must have touched land after using the power before he can use it a second time, and will return to Super Mario when hit. Penguin Suit — Turns Mario into 'Penguin Mario', which gives Mario several unique abilities. Penguin Mario can shoot snowballs, like Ice Mario, can walk with enhanced traction on ice, can slide on his belly when he gains a run-up, to crash through enemies and brick blocks, or to slide along water quickly, and can move through water much faster and much more controlled. When hit in this form, he'll return to Super Mario. Mini Mushroom — Turns Mario into 'Mini Mario'. Mini Mario is a quarter of the size of regular Mario, and can only take one hit before losing a life. Mini Mario is too light to cause damage to enemies by simply jumping on them, so to attack enemies, he must use a ground pound. Mini Mario is light enough to walk on water, and can enter tiny hidden passageways and pipes, to acquire certain star coins or access certain exits. Star — The Star turns any form of Mario invincible for a short while, allowing him to walk through any danger, eliminating 7 enemies in one touch for a grand total of 16,400 points and 1-Ups for 8 or more enemies! When activated on the map, Mario can avoid encounters with enemies, and will remain in effect until he enters a level. Yoshi Egg — The Yoshi Egg also summons Yoshi during their adventure. When summoned, Mario & co. can ride on that Yoshi and eat any enemy or item along the way. When the stage is completed, they drop off and can be summoned again in later levels. Star Coin — In the game, there are 231 Star Coins. Star Coins allow you to access new levels, hint movies, and more. Each stage has 3 of them and they are now worth 4,000 points each instead of the usual 1,000 in New Super Mario Bros. Coin — Coins play a big part in the game. Each coin is worth 100 points and whenever you collect 100 of them, then Mario will receive an extra life. 1-Up Mushroom — When Mario snags this item, he'll receive an extra life, just like collecting 100 coins.

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Super Guide

The Super Guide is a new feature designed to help less-skilled players bypass sections of the game that are presenting them with a great deal of difficulty. Players that die eight times on a single stage will be given the option to activate the Super Guide by hitting a special block that spawns at the beginning of the level.

By hitting this block, the player's character Mario is replaced with a computer-controlled Luigi, who will proceed through the stage via a prerecorded playthrough by a Nintendo developer. The Super Guide remains in effect only for the stage it was activated on, and the player can take control of Luigi to attempt completing the stage at any time.

Worlds

In the game there are 9 worlds. Each world has a Koopaling Tower, a Koopaling Castle, three Airship battles with Bowser Jr., & the game's 2-part final battle at Bowser's Castle against the Koopa King himself, Bowser! Once you beat the game, you'll access the 9th world with 8 more levels to play making the game's level grand total to 77.

World 9 levels are opened by obtaining all star coins in the world corresponding with the 9-level (to open 9-1, you must collect all coins in world 1). The 9th world has coins to be collected as well.

Mini-games

During your adventure, you get to play mini-games in Mushroom Houses. The 1-Up Mushroom House lets you play 1-Up Blast where you use the cannon to earn 1-Ups based on the number of balloons popped.

The Mushroom House lets you play Power-Up Panels where you can win extra Power-Ups for later worlds and finally, there's Enemy Bashing. If you bump in an enemy, then the mini-game begins. To win, you have to get 8 Toad Balloons. If you do, then Toad will appear and he'll give you 3 Mushrooms for later.

Bosses

• Wendy O. Koopa
• Iggy Koopa
• Bowser Jr.
• Bowser
• Kamek
• Morton Koopa Jr.
• Roy Koopa
• Lemmy Koopa
• Larry Koopa
• Ludwig von Koopa

Scoring