My love of platformers can be tracked straight back to Super Mario World. I loved that game but in the modern era I've hardly played any Mario titles. As a fan of the 3DS I've been looking for more games to play and so I ended up picking up New Super Mario Bros 2. I was quite disappointed by the first New Super Mario Bros but I did find the sequel to be an improvement. It was enjoyable enough to warrant a full playthrough but I'm still not sure how much fun I actually had.
If you've ever played any classic Mario games this title really doesn't deviate much from the classic formula. Each stage has you working your way across a stage from the left to reach the flag on the right. For casual players it is just a matter of survival while many other will likely want to collect the three Star coins hidden throughout each stage. Each has a single checkpoint which you'll respawn at if you die otherwise you'll start at the beginning of the stage. When you die you'll lose a life which you can recover from collecting a hundred coins or finding green mushrooms. Lives are unlikely to be an issue as I soon found myself with over a hundred.
A large aid to your survival and a big part of the enjoyment you'll get from this game is the power-ups. Of course the iconic red mushroom will make you large enough to destroy blocks and is required to obtain the other power-ups. Returning with the red mushroom is the fire flower which helps let you take out enemies from a distance. The other power-up is the tanuki suit which turns Mario into a racoon dog. This power lets Mario use his tail to whip enemies and gives him the ability to fly through the air. If these aren't enough you can still find stars which will grant invincibility essentially letting you charge straight through to victory.
In the overworld you'll pretty much take a linear path from one stage to the next with a few exceptions. Some stages offer a hidden exit which you can find to open up new bonus stages. Also you have the option to spend star coins to enter mushroom houses which will grant you one time access to a power up. Get enough star coins by the end of the game and you'll unlock the Star world which has a couple new stages. Boss fights are relatively easy but the levels leading up to them are usually quite fun. The few times you do find yourself failing a stage repeatedly you've be granted a golden tanuki suit which combines the perks of star power which the tanuki abilities essentially taking away any challenge.
I didn't mind New Super Mario Bros 2 but it felt so generic and offered little in the way of surprises. If not for the updated visuals this feels like it could have been the successor to Mario Bros 3 on the NES. All the enemies and obstacles are the same as they have been since Mario's inception. It is true that I personally prefer 2D side-scrollers but at least 3D Mario games have seen tons of innovation. Maybe I was too late to really enjoy this game but I honestly think time will more fondly remember the older Mario titles.