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New Super Luigi U
Wii U
Bring Your Wife and Your Rabbit
3/5 stars
“New Super Luigi U” (“NSLU”) is one of Nintendo’s first attempts at jumping onto the DLC bandwagon that has become so popular amongst publishers in recent years. Unlike most DLC, however, “NSLU” is a stand-alone add-on to “New Super Mario Bros. U” that was actually made available via physical media as well as via download. Serving partially as a promotional item during Nintendo’s “Year of Luigi” celebration and partially as a test for the willingness of Nintendo fans to buy another ‘New Super Mario’ game every year, “NSLU” is a full game being sold at half-price.
Presentation
“NSLU” completely reuses all of the graphical and audio assets from “New Super Mario Bros. U,” which were themselves simply HD upscales of the assets used in “New Super Mario Bros. Wii.” All of these assets look and sound just as good as they did the first time around. However, the fact that this is the third rehash for these assets is making them feel a bit stale.
Of course, “NSLU” is a DLC pack, so it should be expected that all of the assets remain the same. However, most DLC provides at least a few new things to look at, whereas “NSLU” simply re-arranges all of the old things slightly.
Story
I was not impressed with the rote, by-the-books ‘narrative’ in “New Super Mario Bros. U.” I’m even less impressed with the non-story in “NSLU.” Nintendo had an opportunity to explain Mario’s absence, to give us some reason for Luigi taking center stage. Yet instead of any kind of new cinematics, “NSLU” simply reuses the original cinematics with Mario replaced by his hat and Nabbit the Rabbit lurking in the background.
Nabbit is actually something of an intriguing enigma. He (?) is one of the few new characters to appear in the ‘Mario’ series in quite some time, yet he has never really received any kind of official introduction or backstory. Since Nabbit is a playable character along with Luigi and the Two Generic Toads in “NSLU,” it was the perfect opportunity to flesh him out a bit. Oh well, maybe he’ll appear in the next ‘Mario’ RPG…
Gameplay
As a stand-alone DLC, “NSLU” has all of the expected features from “New Super Mario Bros. U.” It’s practically the same game with a few minor tweaks. Unfortunately, most of these tweaks are for the worse.
“NSLU” has Luigi-fied physics in all of its stages. Luigi has long been known as the plumber brother with slippery shoes and a higher jump. Now, all of the Toads and the newly-playable Nabbit get the dubious ‘benefit’ of Luigi’s unique skills.
Also, because Luigi is a better jumper and has difficulty stopping his forward momentum, the new stages have all been designed around his strengths. Every stage in “NSLU” has a super-short 100-second timer, resulting in the traditional ‘hurry up, time’s running out!’ jingle playing as soon as the stage starts. None of the stages have midpoint flags anymore, but they don’t really need them because they are all incredibly short. The difference in stage length between “NSLU” and “New Super Mario Bros. U” is very comparable to the difference between “Super Mario Bros. 3” and “Super Mario World.”
Each stage still hides three star coins (which are needed to unlock the Star Road bonus stages after beating the final boss), only now the stages are brutally difficult. When I played through “New Super Mario Bros. Wii” by myself several years ago, I didn’t understand why so many reviewers were staggered by its difficulty. I found it to be ‘just right.’ “New Super Mario Bros. U,” on the other hand felt a little tough, and I was glad to have my friends as backup via local co-op. “NSLU” is a wicked little bugger that I wouldn’t actually want to play alone. Local co-op is the only way to play as Nabbit, and the GamePad-enabled Boost Mode’s (a.k.a., ‘Wife Mode’) ability to put temporary platforms on-screen finally serves a purpose.
While Luigi and the Two Generic Toads play identically to each other, Nabbit has a few unique tricks that are uniquely his. First, he can’t use power-ups (this also prevents him from picking up and throwing koopa shells or POW Blocks). Instead, he simply stuffs any power-ups he collects into his bag and converts them to 1-ups at the end of the stage. Second, Nabbit cannot be harmed by enemies. He can still be crushed to death by large moving objects or temporarily stunned and knocked-back by explosives, but for the most part he is an invincible freak in a purple rabbit suit who laughs at danger.
I always felt like Nintendo’s ‘casual’ helper features were unnecessary pandering in previous ‘New Super Mario’ games, but the extra difficulty in “NSLU” actually makes these features a central part of the game. While an insanely skilled player could dedicate a lot of time and practice to clearing the game alone, playing as part of a cooperative group where each player contributes to the cause is clearly what Nintendo was aiming for here.
Overall
With its super-short stages, slippery physics, and amped-up difficulty, “New Super Luigi U” doesn’t really provide anything that particularly improves the ‘New Super Mario’ formula. For a $30 stand-alone DLC, the game provides a decent amount of content, but when that content isn’t particularly interesting or fun, it’s easy to pass on it. The addition of Nabbit and his unique tricks is easily the best thing about “NSLU,” but I can’t help but think Nabbit could have been added to the “New Super Mario Bros. U” as a $0.99 download instead of coming as part of the “NSLU” bundle.
Presentation: 4.5/5
Story: 0.5/5
Gameplay: 3.5/5
Overall (not an average): 3/5
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