MFGG - Mario Fan Games Galaxy

Review Information

Game Reviewed	New Super Mario Bros ( KimaxGames ), by KimaxGames
Review Author	smbmaster99
Created	Nov 16 2012, 6:36 PM

General Commentary and Game Overview

NSMB is a great game for the Nintendo DS. The same cannot be said for the PC. This basically takes the name of the great DS game and slaps it onto a game that is very mediocre in comparison. Oh, and did y'all know this game's 14 MB? That's almost too large to be on the main site. Games of this quality and size just don't go well together.

While better than a lot of attempts at remaking NSMB, this game still doesn't achieve what others have tried. I'll touch on just about everything in the rest of the review.

Pros

+Graphics match, for the most part
+Pretty smooth animation
+Mega Mushroom in a Mario fangame
+You didn't include Mario's voice for when he gets powerups and all that

Cons

-Rather bland gameplay
-Midis
-Just to get to the main menu takes a little while (unless you hold enter, but imo that should have allowed you to skip the opening logos, not speed them up)
-Some blurry sprites (the most obvious one being Mario)
-Mario's small sprite is just a resized Super Mario sprite, which doesn't make him look any better
-The music overall was loud and the sounds were very soft in comparison
-very large game size for a rather sub-par 5 level demo of a remake
-Level design is taken directly from NSMB

Impressions

Gameplay 2 / 10	I'm gonna talk about the opening cutscene for a moment. It uses still shots that (resemble old photographs) of the opening cutscene of NSMB DS, complete w/ the exact same track and SFX that played during that intro. It was sorta neat at first, but very quickly got dull and some of the images displayed came and went so closely together that it looked a little bit more messy than fluid. I'll go onto gameplay now. I've already mentioned it's pretty bland, and fails to deliver some of the features that were extremely common in NSMB: You can't wall jump, hold and throw shells, or ground pound. Gameplay's also glitchy, but not broken. Holding both left and right at the same time make Mario moon-walk in place, there's no friction, Mario doesn't stay on the moving platforms, etc. Jumping on two enemies at once causes you to take damage, which can be kind of irritating but you don't usually find yourself jumping on two guys at once. Besides that, controlling Mario is fairly easy and smooth. You can get an extra powerup to store in a little circle like in most fangames and in SMW (and NSMB DS) at the top of the screen, but when I needed it, it got stuck part-way in a wall under some ceiling spikes. I jumped to grab it, but when I did, I instantly took damage form the ceiling spikes, which is when I saw that they instantly make you small Mario. There is no cool down time between taking hits. In the last level, Bowser JR is the boss and you gotta jump on him. Doing so will make him fall on his back, but you're still not immune even when he's down, and if you don't hold shift and move as soon as you stomp him, you're gonna take a hit. Sometimes, powerups will go the wrong way when you hit a block, and the starman doesn't even move at all. There's also a demo timer. Why would you do that? Some people might not be fast enough, or would want to spend their time in a level or two, rather than sprint through it. At the end of the game (if you beat it before the time runs out) you go to a blank screen that tells you "you can only continue your adventure through the retail version." You know that retail means "the selling of goods", right? It's illegal to sell fangames (but I'm just being picky here, so I'll just finish this now). Gameplay is certainly not the best factor in this game.
Graphics 8 / 10	The graphics are probably the only good part of this game. They aren't without faults, but they are good regardless. Most of them match NSMB's style for example, there are particle effects in Bowser's castle, the animations are, for the most part, very smooth, and the background has parallax scrolling (a feature I honestly was expecting to be absent). However, I also believe the graphics are part of the reason for this game's massive file size (smooth animation takes a LOT of sub-images). Mario's mega-mushroom growing isn't as pretty and fluid as it was on the DS, and when he walks, he has probably one of the most awkward animations in the game. He's moving ridiculously fast, but his animation is extremely slow it appears he's almost gliding over the ground. I've already mentioned his sprites are a tad blurry but it's not too bad. His small sprite is the worst imo, which is just a resized Normal Mario sprite. The only real graphics clash I can remember was in the bonus level which is a remake of SMB level 1-1. There are 8-bit clouds, and they have some rather peculiar black bars protruding off their right ends. Despite these faults, graphics are pretty strong in this game.
Sound 4 / 10	Midis. Yup. We here on MFGG don't take too kindly to midis anymore, as there are other ways of using mp3s and oggs without bloating the game's .exe. The music selections are midis of NSMB themes, and they're either loud enough to make the sfx sound quiet, or they're soft enough to make the sfx sound loud. Some sounds effects don't fit right for what's happening, like hitting a ?-block w/ a powerup makes the swimming sound (or something very similar) from the 16-bit mario games. The bonus stage utilizes an SMB 1-1 midi, but it's not the one we're all used to hearing, no it's another one that made me wish I was hearing the one we say is overused. It was very high pitched and irritating. Something I said in the opening of this review was that the intro cutscene uses the same music and SFX from the intro in NSMB DS. The quality was good, which makes me believe that it was another factor in bloating this game's filesize. The starman theme is an mp3. That's right, mixing midis with mp3s. This is not a good idea. It doesn't mix well and brings up the question "If midis make up the majority of your music selections, why suddenly use a single mp3?" The sounds are okay, but the music isn't so good.
Replay 1 / 10	No. The graphics are good, but they aren't why people want to keep coming back to games. I'd also rather play the actual NSMB than a fangame of it with the same title.

Final Words

NSMB(KG) is an unspectacular attempt at a remake of one of the best DS titles out there. While better than some attempts, it still fails to deliver what you would expect out of a "New Super Mario Bros" fangame. I'd also not recommend using the same title as the real game.

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