Mini-Review

So Super Mario Bros 35 came out on the Switch as a free download this week, and while it’s only here until March I wanted to do a little mini review of it and let you know my thoughts.

First and foremost, I feel a little biased because again, I remember when the NES was brand new, cost $200 at Circuit City, and I wanted one more than anything. I’d play the arcade version of Super Mario Bros and would dream about getting my hands on the home console version and be able to play and learn the levels and be able to contribute to the conversations my friends were having in school about not only that, but the other games that were out as well.

So in 2020 it’s been a real treat to play Super Mario Bros 35, since many years of playing it has made me good at the game, and testing my skills up against other players has been really fun.

The game is pretty close to Tetris 99’s Battle Royale format, where you compete against 34 other players to survive the longest. There’s a couple different modes, like the normal 35 player match to outlast other players, then there’s a special match where there’s a set amount of conditions for every player and the experience is the same. You can practice courses as well, and then you can also check your stats.

In the normal match, you can pick your starting level from ones you’ve cleared and then it’ll randomly, or at least I think it’s random, start putting you in other courses. The game plays the same other than Mario’s now able to get Mario 3 quality height off his rebounds from stomping on enemies. Speaking of those enemies, killing an enemy will add time to your clock and dump garbage enemies onto your competitors, and just like Tetris 99 you can loosely choose who you want to go after. I found myself switching this up pretty frequently mid match depending on who was left. Those same players will also dump more enemies on you as well.

You’ll start running through levels like 1-1 only to see multiple Bowsers show up, or you’ll be jumping from mushroom to mushroom in 1-3 and see tons of cheep cheeps or bloobers in the air to avoid.

Really the strategy is to hold onto that fire flower for as long as possible because you’ll be able to plow through waves and waves of enemies with it and most likely max out your clock or at least come close to it. Collecting coins can let you hit X to use the question block at the top left to grant you another power up. It’s really fun to get a star either by the question block or by finding it in your current level to run down dozens of enemies before it fizzles out. You can also start the game by spending some coins to power up your Mario right away.

The game feels kinda standard at first but it gets interesting when you’re in the top 5, since then you’re down to the best players and there’s so many enemies that it’ll start to test your nerves. You’ll start running through levels like 1-1 only to see multiple Bowsers show up, or you’ll be jumping from mushroom to mushroom in 1-3 and see tons of cheep cheeps or bloobers in the air to avoid. Running through the castle stages while getting chased by koopas or more than one bowser is fun, too.

Win or lose, you’ll get XP that goes toward icons to unlock. It’s not really that exciting but whatever. To further spice things up you’ve got daily challenges to do, ranging from clearing a certain amount of stages or stomping on enemies continuously, stuff like that. Hit #1 in a match and you can also unlock Coin Ranking, which is basically just a leaderboard for who has the most coins. It’s like real life where people like to compare their incomes, homes, and cars, but in the game, nobody has an opportunity to be a douchebag about it.

So I’ve been having a lot of fun playing this, and while I wish there was just a little bit more going on in the way of extra modes, I love it for what it is. It’s a little bittersweet that the game won’t be here after March, but then it’s entirely possible that it’ll wear out its welcome by then anyway.