Sunday, January 20, 2013

New Super Mario Bros Wii: excessive difficulty

I've had this on the shelf for over a year and never played it. The brilliance of New Super Mario Bros 2 has encouraged me to play it.

I may have lost a few lives in the 3DS game, but that is much easier than this. I was struggling for ages to get past the end of the first world, in fact, but after a while I realised that my video capture box was on the post-processing setting which adds a slight lag to controls, and so I wasn't able to react quickly enough.

Even with that corrected, I'm still not breezing through the game. The sand world with its collapsing platforms and annoying wind has caused a fair few deaths already, and I'm only up to 2-6. I've not quite got the hang of the propeller hat, and the shake-to-activate is frustratingly imprecise.

Despite these criticisms, it's still a great game; it's well designed and looks lovely. There are some great touches, such as the way the enemies dance to the music. The encouragement to play levels again through hidden giant coins and captured toads is hardly needed - this isn't a game I'm rushing through.

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