Back in 2006, during that period’s “portable console war” of sorts, I was a PSP kind of guy. I was a teenager, and that portable had FIFA, Grand Theft Auto, and Need for Speed Underground 2. I wouldn’t jump into the Nintendo DS bandwagon once more, after having gotten it at launch, until 2010, with the release of Pokémon Soul Silver. As such, I wasn’t one of the three trillion people who bought New Super Mario Bros at launch, and haven’t grown up with it. It is a game beloved by many, one of the best-selling Nintendo products of all time, but once I got my hands on a copy… I just wasn’t feeling the hype.

That’s not to say I didn’t have fun with it years ago. It’s a Mario game, of course there’s fun to be had with it. But it was the first 2D Mario game I just wasn’t feeling the same kind of magic I’d be able to notice in titles like Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros 3, and so on. And I did not grow up with them, either, so I can’t even say nostalgia was influencing my thoughts. Yet, the game was so freaking successful, it basically dictated the path Mario would follow for the next decade. So was New Super Mario Bros a monkey’s paw situation? Was it a hit game that actually led to the franchise becoming stale and generic with its follow-ups?

Oh hey. You again.

Upon booting New Super Mario Bros up for the first time, you’ll realize you’re in familiar territory. Bowser’s son captures Peach, you need to complete eight worlds full of levels, go from left to right, the usual. Gameplay-wise, this is basically the level design from the original Super Mario Bros, as well as a bit of Super Mario Bros 3, with the physics and controls taken from Super Mario 64. Mario is a bit heavier, doesn’t jump as high, but he can ground pound, triple jump, wall kick, and so on. This leads to a slightly slower-paced adventure, one that emphasizes taking your time and exploring your surroundings, but in environments that just don’t feel that inviting for you to want to stick around for a while.

New Super Mario Bros was the game that originated the now-generic standard for 2D Mario worlds. You start off in a happy go-lucky grass world, then move to a desert world, and so on. I guess the game wasn’t even that visually impressive for 2006 standards (not when Super Mario 64 DS, as flawed as it was, was rendering much prettier environments as a launch title), and the juxtaposition between the generic 2D backgrounds and clearly reused assets from 64 DS just hasn’t aged very well. In no moment this feels like a spectacle, or even something that is visually appealing for Nintendo DS standards. Even for a DS game, New Super Mario Bros felt basic.

Hey look, Mario can wear a shell now. Not a Hammer Bros shell like he used to do, just a normal Koopa shell. Hooray…

And gameplay-wise, the other additions just aren’t the most shocking inclusions in the Mario franchise. There are a few new power-ups, including the return of the gigantic mushroom first seen in Super Mario 64 DS, as well as some other buffs, such as a wearable Koopa shell. Are any of them as cool as the cape, or the Tanuki suit? Not really. They’re just a few new powerups that add one or two new occasional gameplay elements to an otherwise very simple and straightforward platformer. For the most part, you’ll still stick to the Fire Flower. Again, another trend setter for future Mario games: including a couple new powerups for your characters, and revolving your entire marketing campaign around them. In this game’s case, it was the gigantic mushroom.

For the record, I completely understand why New Super Mario Bros was such a hit twenty years ago. The Game Boy Advance, as popular as it was, did not have an original Mario game. All of the games in the Super Mario Advance series were remakes or ports of other titles. At that point, the last truly original 2D Mario game was Super Mario Land 2, released fourteen years prior. So I do get it. A competent, well-put, decently entertaining new Mario game, available on a then-popular portable, acting as a return to form of sorts, after the release of Super Mario 64 DS. Of course the damn thing sold like hotcakes. But maybe did it sell too much? Can massive success eventually become an actual issue?

Ground pounding is one of the moves inherited from Super Mario 64.

This simplistic return to form led to the development of New Super Mario Bros Wii, which would sell two and a half times more copies than Super Mario Galaxy. In Nintendo’s head, reverting Mario back to 2D sounded like the easiest money-printing machine in existence: make vastly cheaper games, and sell two to three times more copies. Why bother with 3D when you can make this much money? This led to New Super Mario Bros 2 on the 3DS, New Super Mario Bros U on the Wii U, Super Mario 3D Land… you get the point. It would take Nintendo years to develop a brand new open-world 3D adventure, and only on the Switch: that game would be Super Mario Odyssey.

During that period, I’d go as far as to say that the Mario franchise became synonymous with laziness. The games stopped being groundbreaking, barely transcending over the threshold of “good enough”. They were selling, casual audiences and nostalgic enthusiasts were eating that up. But I guess this also led to less people buying Nintendo CONSOLES as a whole. A big new Mario game is enough to make you want to buy a Nintendo console by itself. A New Super Mario Bros game… well, it makes owners of their respective consoles buy them day one… but they weren’t system sellers. One in three Wii U owners bought New Super Mario Bros U… but I doubt they decided to buy the system because of it.

Some levels feature eight collectible red coins. They can grant you an extra life or an item. That’s it.

I honestly think that New Super Mario Bros‘ legacy is a bit mixed. Even if it sold like hotcakes back in the day, it led Nintendo to realize it was a lot easier and cost-effective to make these throwback 2D games instead of focusing on innovating the Mario franchise with brand new gameplay elements and generation-defining mechanics. It began an era where Mario was merely relegated to being the protagonist of decent, but unmemorable platformers in all Nintendo systems up until the Switch. I completely understand why that game was such a hit back in the day, but honestly, I don’t particularly like its impact in the franchise as a whole. It’s still fun, it’s Mario after all. But it doesn’t feature the magic seen in the 8-bit and 16-bit entries, or games like 64 or Odyssey.