Super Mario Bros. 35

 

In the same vein as the genre-bending battle royale, Tetris 99, Super Mario Bros. 35 takes an already well-established title and turns it into an exciting competitive multiplayer experience. Other than the Mario theme, this title mirrors Tetris 99 in almost every other way. Your opponents are all visible on either side of the screen, your successes in-game effectively sabotage whoever you're targeting, and the last player standing is the winner. Plus, the game is entirely free for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers! However, there is one glaring difference. While Tetris 99 was allowed to thrive and grow over the years, adding DLC with new game modes and running events with special rewards, Mario 35 is scheduled to be shut down before that can happen. Because this title was created to celebrate Mario's 35th anniversary, Nintendo thinks it's wise to make it unplayable after the festivities end (just six months after the game's release).

However, in the meantime, we have an exciting take on Mario's first adventure through the Mushroom Kingdom. Each round plays out in obviously familiar terrain. Other than the magically appearing enemies, almost everything here should be exactly how you remember it. Mario can now spring a little higher after jumping on an enemy, and spending 20 coins earns you a random powerup, but there isn't really a learning curve with either of those modifications. I wouldn't expect to be rushing to save the princess though. Instead of the typical linear affair of a 2D Mario game, Mario 35 loops through a selection of three or four levels every round, even limiting warp zones to do the same thing. 

Luckily, people like me who look for some measure of completion do have a few incentives to keep playing. Based on your performance in each round, you'll earn experience points that go towards your player level. Although this level is mostly just for bragging rights, you'll occasionally earn a new player icon upon leveling up. The icons are purely cosmetic, and only visible on leaderboards, but they are still fun to collect. The game also keeps track of which stages you beat, and how many times you beat them. After you have beaten a stage at least once, you can vote on it being the starting point of your next round. I found this to be a great addition, because it encouraged me to seek out new stages, even though I knew that I would perform better on the stages that I was more familiar with.

After a long play session (typically) through the same handful of levels, Mario 35 starts to feel a little stale. However, it always seems fresh and exciting after a little break. Although the core game is something we've been playing for decades, this title still manages to offer something unique to the series, and is a worthy celebration title for Mario's 35th anniversary. This isn't the first anniversary celebration title to have an extremely limited release window, and it's a shame that Nintendo still thinks it's a good idea, but at least we have it for a little while longer. If you're reading this and the game is still out, please play it while you can!

The game is available for Switch here (as of 10/15/20): https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/super-mario-bros-35-switch/