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Dom Robinson reviews
Distributed by
Nintendo
- Price: £29.99
- Players: 1-4
Instead of releasing a new Mario gameon their latest handheld machine, they’ve taken two old ones from the SuperNintendo (aka SNES), tarted them up a bit and released them on the samecartridge.
The original Mario Bros. game is simple enough and takes place on one screen,albeit with some vertical shift as it won’t all fit on. Spiky enemies emergefrom pipes down in the sewers and you, as Mario, have to jump up and hit theplatforms when the baddies pass over you, rendering them unconscious. Run overthem next and score your points. Extra points can be collected with coins thatappear along the way.
Connected to another GBA with a link cable, you can play as both Mario and Luigiin either this classic mode, or the battle mode. Sadly, as I was just playingwith myself, the machine made a farting sound when I tried to select’multiplayer’ to see what would happen.
Sideways scrolling is the name of the game in Super Mario Bros 2 as yourun from right to left, avoid getting killed and collect cherries, otherparaphenalia and boost your strength with love hearts. These love hearts actlike the rings inSonic the Hedgehog.With them in your possession, getting hit by a baddie the first time won’tkill you, but the next touch may well do so you must be careful.
Instead of killing the enemy by jumping on top of them, here you can eitherpick things out of the ground to chuck in their direction or jump on one baddie’shead to pick him up and chuck at the rest. Sounds a bit unfair to them, but theydoubtlessly deserve it.
Don’t expect to be knocked out by the graphics or sound – and with the GBAthe volume is incredibly quiet even on its loudest setting – while the gameplayis simple but effective. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s requiredand that’s where the game benefits since you can simply pick up and playwithout excessive reading of the manual, although a brief scan through thecharacters within the game is necessary.
Gaming fans will be tempted to snap this one up if they’re big fans of Mario,but if you played it ten years ago will you want to go back to it? For thosewho do it’s a reasonable price to pay given that you’re getting two games,but just don’t expect to be bowled over by the content.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
ENJOYMENT
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.