Writing about New Super Mario Bros. Wii on the crux of whether you should buy it is like writing a piece on whether the Great Wall of China is long. Standard Mario games are a class act, and if you like Mario, you likely already have the game. Even if you’re a little wary from a sub-par past experience or two, all you have to do is look on the box: if Mario’s not wearing a glorified Super Soaker on his back, you’re good to go.

That said, the New Super Mario Bros. installments have latched on to many retro memories while adding new twists to the gameplay. The elements that most struck me are the ones I wish to expand upon, pointing out qualities I feel New Super Mario Bros. Wii and those that just seem to fall short. Will there be superfluous gushing? Yes. Will there be nitpicking? Yes. Should you keep in mind throughout that these will be my opinions and not stated fact, and that polite debate is welcome as long as it’s not flaming? Of course not. This is the Internet; no one else does that.

Things Done Right

Seamless Integration of Multiplayer

Admit it; when you first heard Mario Bros. Wii would feature multiplayer action, you tried to imagine the original Mario Bros. with four pixellated guys running around and went, “Urk.” From the beginning, 2-D Mario has been a one-player-at-a-time affair. If you wanted simultaneous co-op in the heyday, you’d have to break out the death-fest Contra (and the Konami Code if you actually wanted to get anywhere).

So does Mario Bros. Wii manage to fit four players in a course without it becoming a death-fest? Not in the least, but it’s a hilarious, fun-filled death-fest! The game’s camera fluidly zooms in and out to accommodate the players in a world while rarely causing someone who isn’t dragging their feet to be pushed along by the side of the screen. Courses often feature a couple different “levels” to play from to keep players more separated while not causing single-payer games to feel too open and sparse. If you die — and you will often — it’s most often due to a fault of your own or another player and not the level design. The exception may be the vertical fortress levels, which can be cramped, but the bubbles lend themselves beautifully at these points. Pick one or two people to scale certain points, place everyone else in a bubble and cheer them on.

Mario Bros. featuring Alan Wake!

The bubbles are a brilliant concept even outside tough spots, making death a most-often acceptable option in the game. If you die (a “blunder,” as the manual has taken to call it—and many times in multiplayer it is just that), the bubble is a way of coming back at your own convenience, letting the others pass through (or attempt to pop you over a chasm) instead of forcing you to play a section where you may be more of a nuisance than a help. Having only one player alive or not in a bubble does create some palpable tension, but with infinite continues and checkpoints in every level, dying is never much of a factor at all. Just make sure that, if you like to tick off your friends, that they’re at least the more vocal kinds steam-letters who wouldn’t gang-bludgeon you with your own Wii-motes.

Return of the Koopalings

The Koopalings (aka Koopa Kids) should cause almost any veteran gamer to have a flashback to the 90s and make new gamers wonder if Bowser’s wild days of partying port-to-port in the Koopa Navy have finally caught up with him. Bowser Jr., who still remains, is a good character in the sense of “a mini-Bowser you could kick like an evil, yapping chihuahua,” but the Koopalings feel like they have a more cemented foundation in the Mario canon and I’m unashamed to say a wave of glee hit me as soon as I saw the first hint of them in the game’s intro.

Throwback Sound

While I’m a bit disappointed some of the music for the Wii outing was recycled from the DS title, parts of the game’s soundboard toss me back into that Happy Old Gamer Euphoria that keeps catching up with me as time passes.

First of all: THANK THE LORD, THEY FIXED YOSHI. No, not that kind of “fixed,” you creeps; they gave him back his original Super Mario World noise instead of making him sound like a 3-year-old (or, in the case of his flutter jumping, sound like a constipated 3-year-old).

On the newer side, keeping in true non-voice fashion, the Koopalings were outfitted with their own unique grunts and noises. This is one of those superfluous moments, but man if it doesn’t add something more to their characters.

Feed me, Seymour!

And while the music itself doesn’t always seem inspired from the past, the style is awesomely so at times. For one spoiler-free example, listen closely to the fortress track. Every time I hear that synth I go straight back to the fortresses of Mario World and even the world of Link to the Past; those first-month-with-an-SNES memories I love to cherish, and all without making the game feel outdated today.

The Ice Flower and Propeller Hat

I’m glad the developers appear to have focused more on the ice flower than the fire flower in the game. While a staple of the series, fire flowers can get pretty dull after being in Mario’s arsenal so long. Not only does the ice flower provide something a bit new aesthetically, but it also adds more in terms of strategy. The platform-creating mechanic of frozen enemies is fun and functional, especially in multiplayer when more places to stand = less cramming on one spot and eventual (albeit hilarious) nudging off the sides.

The propeller hat, in addition to making your guy look like a chibi Evel Knievel, is more of a godsend defensive item than one to use for attack; once again incredibly useful in the multiplayer realm if you get knocked off a ledge and don’t trust your fellow players when you place yourself in a bubble. Plus it’s just plain fun.

Rewarding Collection Quest

Back before you needed a U-Haul to cart around everything Rare wants you to find in their games, games such as Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 provided great incentives to make you go back to their levels and find extra tokens. Mario Bros. Wii follows well in this vein with three star coins per level. The best part of searching for items in a 2-D world instead of a 3-D one is that it’s not going to take too much effort to actually figure out where they are. Getting to them is often the target challenge, requiring some problem-solving skills — or the involuntary sacrifice of a teammate (it just never grows old).

The star coins can be used within the game to purchase videos of tips, secrets and people just playing the game ridiculously hardcore, but that’s just a warmup to their true value at the end of the game, which I shall not spoil.