This style may feel different from the other analysis videos and that's because most of what you see here was unscripted as I was looking over the map of each level! I made some mistakes while talking, but those got edited out obviously. I've been wanting to get better at on the spot analysis like these so that there isn't as long of a gap between videos :) Also there isn't a hidden blue shell in 1-Tower, I accidentally made it look like that cuz I didn't show the power-up in the inventory beforehand.
Ok that's absolutely incredible! The way you narrated was so consistent and convincing, it's not the type of thing I would expect from an unscripted narration. Awesome work!
You can keep doing it this way because I honestly barely noticed a difference (other than you sounded more excited than usual, probably because you were reacting on the spot as you were making it up lol). Great work.
Kinda feel like a missed opportunity to not talk about the hidden blocks in the stair case at the end of world 1-1 if you only destroyed part of it with the mega mushroom, so you don't get soft locked but also tells you about hidden blocks.
The warp zones in the original SMB weren't intended for speedrunning, they were meant for people who already played the game to be able to return to a point that challenges them since saving games didn't exist.
@@jodieburton1827 speedrunning in the modern sense wasn't really a thing until doom made it possible to easily share gameplay recordings, but plenty of games released in the 80s incentivized players to beat them as quickly as possible - outside the obvious racing games, metroid is a great example of this
theres something special to note about the hidden exit in the tower too. did you notice that the path that actually leads to the secret exit has the platform move differently then all the other blocks in that room? the fact its the only one moving oddly hints that theres something special in that spot.
also to mention that the slabs in 1-castle that are covered with spikes actually helps you a bit because if you get squished you will first take damage and not instantly die. and when you get smaller from taking damage it's easier to avoid the slabs.
You mention the Mega mushroom in the first stage. And tho I agree with your point, it also does a form of teaching. If you take it, you'll notice that you don't have all the collectables. So it teaches that the direct path won't get you everything and that depending on your power up state, you can't get everything, as if you comeback and get it and try a pipe, you can't use them when mega. Which in turn is also taught that if you smash through the pipes you can't use them later.
Also, its a great way to intise new players to stick around. Turning godmode for a while and keeping the shroom under lock and key afterwards makes you wanna save them as long as possible, as you dont know when you'll get another, and toad houses dissapear after using them unless you 100% the game.
Very glad to see a Zikedown on NSMB. I think this game is genuinely up there with the classic but sadly people don't appreciate it as much due to the "New Super" branding being milked.
Out of all the games in the New series, this is probably the one I want to play the most... ...and maybe NSMB2 as well. The fully 3D sprites on a purely 2D plane never did much for me, honestly. With the DS and 3DS games, the pixels honestly make them look better in that department, at least to me.
This game was one of my first few games ever, and my first ever 2D platformer. It's so fun to watch this, because it takes me back to when I was an eight year old kid playing this on my DS having absolutely no idea what a platformer was, figuring out what I was doing as I was playing through the game. This video practically explains the thought processes I had subconsciously in those childhood gaming sessions. Oh, and not to forget, this video showed me tons of secret areas I never found as a kid. I wasn't looking for secret areas and trying to get all star coins, because with that little experience in video games at all (my only other games pretty much just being stuff like Mario Kart or Mario Party), I genuinely didn't even think of secrets as a possibility. I know it sounds mad, but like, I barely knew how video games 'worked' at the time, so of course I wouldn't think of it in more depth. I had the same with cutting corners as a shortcut in Mario Kart for example, I'd always just follow the course even if I had a mushroom. So weird to look back on a time where that wasn't practically etched into my system.
This video made me realize how much I've been missing out on in New-Soup-DS. There's more to explore in familiar levels. World 1-2 was what got me to learn about the Blue Shell, while 1-3 for Red Coins.
Something else about the secret warp pipe thing in 1-Tower: the concrete block under it is moving half as fast as the others, encouraging players to investigate it.
What I love about this channel is that there’s a nice mix of consistent videos as well as entirely different styles of videos. Keep up the amazing work Zike!
I KNEW finishing your analysis of Mario 1 sooner or later was a good idea, because seeing so much appreciation and love to me and everyone from my generation’s first video game ever. Of course the double Z here being the one analyzing only makes it better.
The music in this game is just....iconic The first level’s theme is probably the fourth most iconic song next to the main theme of SMB1,cave theme,and the Super Mario World theme
I'm very excited for this series and to hear what you think of NSMB 2 on 3Ds as it is massively over looked, along with just your reviews being amazing to listen to.
Can we all agree this is OBJECTIVELY the BEST video game anyone can start their life with? It wasn’t mine for obvious reasons, but my family and younger friends definitely seem to recall this being their first video game ever, and it was my first on the DS specifically, no wonder it sold the best of any title on it, it’s a perfect starter for anyone getting into gaming young or old.
That off-screen pipe in 1-Castle makes me believe that Nintendo removed vertical scrolling for the level later in development and simply forgot about it. Otherwise I don't think it would have passed production.
Man I love seeing this vids that give me a different look at levels I loved as a kid and THOUGHT I inspected but like I DONT REMEMBER HALF OF THIS STUFF I plan on sticking around for all this beautiful content Also the improv like on the spot analysis style really works! I'm sure you'll only tweak it and refine it more to your liking but yeah this is already fantastic!
Your commentary on my favorite 2D Mario game really warms my heart, reminds me of the times I spent replaying this game and your talk on how the game is trying to teach you through pure level design just gives me a feeling of content, almost like you're complimenting it as you go along. If it's coming or not, a design commentary on the whole game similar to this video sounds awesome!
I have to say, I'm glad that you're making a separate video for each world instead of trying to fit everything into 1 video, it makes room for more nuanced discussion, which is something sorely needed when it comes to the NSMB series
I can safely say that I didn't know how to get the third star coin in the castle until well after I beat the game and began looking for star coins for completion. Great video!
I think it was actually an alright decision to put the mega mushroom in the very first level. The mega mushroom teaches you, in the most blunt way possible, that power-ups can be very helpful-- but that you'll need to find them first. It's the game's way of rewarding you for going out of your way to hit blocks that could have items in them, and it encourages you to hit more blocks. This may seem small, but to 4 year old me playing NSMB as his very first Mario game, it was pretty important. Without it, I might've spent a few levels or even a world or two without fully realizing the importance of items.
Love that you are also looking at this masterpiece! I've always loved this game, It clear it had alot of love put on the game. It really felt really original, fresh, and easy to control and master. One thing I liked this game over the others is the bosses are really original as instead of just the lame overused Koopalings we had Petey Piranha from Mario Sunshine which i really liked. Also the Mutiplayer this game offered was amazing and really impressive. You got an amazing, thrilling, and balanced 1v1 via Mario Vs Luigi. Love how you can't kill each other via jumping/fireball as it only knocks Luigi/Mario slightly back but you could get creative and knock them down to a pit to lose a life. The other ways to actually kill the other player was Mega Mushroom, Blue Shell, and Star but those power-up are more rare in the way as it most likely appears to the losing player. But if the starts to "camp" you could just race to collect the stars around the map/level and win. Also the map selection was nice with a easy map progressing to harder ones. But thats one, we also got the mini-games in which honestly could be an entire game on it's own as it the amount of mutiplayer value and just content is amazing. It has everything: action mini-games, puzzle mini games, and actual cards mini-game like freaking poker! Really hope one day this game gets a remaster on better hardware like Bowser's inside story.
I found the secret exit on my first playthrough when I was 5. I noticed the two-block tall gap and went through. Since I got lucky and hadn't lost the blue shell I got from a flying red block, I swooshed through and happily broke the blocks. I was shocked to find that I had then reached World 5, so I excitedly showed my dad.
When I first saw that Bowser death scene as a kid, that freaked me out and Mario acting casual about it left me pondering what I just witnessed. Then I wondered if Bowser was perma dead.
I didn't know there was a Blue Shell in a hidden block in the Tower secret exit room, that makes so much sense now. This game's design is top quality Nintendo, you love to see it.
One thing I noticed is that in the big crushing platform section of 1-castle, one of the safe areas that you’re guaranteed to reach at the end of a cycle had a multi-hit block. Since the player is trapped, they are essentially forced to see the interaction with this block and have time to explore hitting it multiple times waiting for the blocks to rise again. Another cool learning moment enforced solely by level design
It feels weird to think that ALL of this quickly got processed in my mind when I was like 6-7 when I was playing this as my first Mario game. God this brings back nostalgia
I played this game so much as a kid and I never knew about the little hidden mega mushroom room in the second level??? Shows how well secrets can be hidden that even though I have 100% this game and played through it more times than I'd like to admit during long car rides there are still things to find!
Let's name these levels because why not World 1: Friendly Fields 1-1: Jumping on to a New Adventure 1-2: Down The Pipe 1-3: Mushy Jumping 1-Tower: Slab Slam Tower 1-4: Uphill Course 1-5: Bounce-Shrooms Challenge 1-Castle: First Fortress 1-A: Sweet Swim
Born in 03, Grew up with this game. That cannon secret was the pipeline drug my brain needed to become a true super player. I’m constantly checking for secrets always nowadays.
Oh!! I really liked this video, it felt fun and fresh? Like I was listening to someone explain it all to me for the first time. Definitely will be looking forward to visiting world two with you :)
Haven’t even finished watching the video, but this honestly gave me a new found appreciation for the game. Prior, I had like no respect for it, just saw it as some dumb Mario game, possibly because by the time I played it, I had so much experience with Mario that I already knew all the tricks and was instead just trying to 100% the game as fast as possible and going for crazy tricks, not really appreciating anything else. This video showed the game in a new light, from the eyes of someone who has never played Mario before or even video games as a whole. It honestly feels like a playground, just something to explore, experiment, and have fun in, like Super Mario 64. And from a game designers perspective, it’s absolutely fascinating and completely eye opening. Thanks for showing this complete other side of New Super Mario Bros. and teaching something new about game design as a whole. Can’t wait to watch the rest of the series!
Found out from a RU-vidr named King of Skill that when playing Sneak and Snore that there is a way to have an idea of when the Chain Chomp has a possibility of waking up. If you look at the bubble when it’s sleeping, it will only pop when it is as big as it can be. Stopping for a second each time could be a good strategy to be able to win it more consistently.
I to this day wonder why 1-5 and 1-A were not switched. Paying 5 star coins to play what is 1-5 would be so much nicer and rewarding. 1-A is my least favorite level in the game and I agree with you in that I don’t like water levels in this game (well minus 8-3 which I think is kind of cool).
8:33 this video unlocked a memory of me getting absolutely spooked at the music for the tower levels. The music was so eerie, especially through the speakers of my DS. The dry bones moved so abnormally and that combo made me shit myself as a kid.
The shark level was probably an autoscroller because of how the sharks are meant to spawn. I've noticed this while making Mario Maker levels. It's much easier to make enemies appear in a specific way if the level scrolls automatically. If it doesn't, it's very likely that the player will spawn a bunch of things in a pace that messes up the flow of the stage. They might go right for a bit, just enough to spawn the next sharks, but then they might go back again, and by the time the sharks swim by, they're not in the intended place anymore. But when everything always appears in the same place, you can carefully construct a very specific challenge the player is meant to overcome.
Never played any mario game before because I don't feel like this gameplay is my thing, but you explain things in such an interesting way, that even a game series that I know nothing of sounds entertaining! There's just something about this excitement in your voice that makes it fun to watch.
NSMB always felt different from other games of the franchise. The atmosphere, the songs, the mechanics and levels were all fresh and satisfying to experience, it's a real shame that this didn't carry off to other titles. Sadly, I never had a DS - Nintendo has always been a kind of luxury in Brazil -, so had to resort to emulators to play this game, but it has always been a real good time playing.
You never mentioned the fact that standing still on a tightrope in 1-Castle for too long will cause Mario to wobble for a second and fall off, likely to your demise.
This has got to be one of my favorite 2d super mario games, people that I know normally sleep on this one because "it was on a handheld" seriously its such a classic now for being "new" ;) glad people are finally giving it the recognition it deserves
The "New" in New Super Mario Bros is a descriptor. It like the "Kart" in Mario Kart and the "Party" in Mario Party. It tells you what series you're playing.
Yoshi game veterans (such as me, who was in Yoshi's Story's target demographic when it came out, and played the crap out of it) might have figured out the ground pound easier, since it was Yoshi's Island on the SNES that debuted the mechanic.
Actually, Yoshi's Story might be a fun one to dissect, if you want something different. It's a game made specifically to introduce small children to games, and I enjoyed it very much when I was one myself. I honestly also think it works really well for older audiences as a leisurely, low-stress game.
If I'm not wrong, if you stay still too long on a rope Mario will fall into the lava cause he can't stay in balance when he's still on a rope for some reason.
I actually did find the secret exit on my first playthrough, but I was like 6 so I forgot where it was and never remembered until like over a decade later when I watched a similar video about that level. I would always play through the game up until that point, and want to try skipping to world 5 but I just could not for the life of me figure out where the cannon was even though I had already done it before, and it drove me crazy! Meanwhile I found the 3rd star coin in the castle easily
I remember lending the game to my mom to play, and then she found the secret passage to the cannon to skip worlds on her first try of the level. Little me was very shocked by my cool mom.
I agree that the last castle star coin is poorly placed, but the coins have been used as a guiding tutorial only at that point. As a seasoned player the coin trail would of been appreciated, but there is a difference between a hint and potentially encouraging newer players to obsessively check everything.
3:20 Super Mario World, along with Super Mario Land 2, had the spin jump, which was also able to do a similar thing. The ground pound was also present in Yoshi’s Island and in some 3D games
I love the Blue Shell. It is very fun to just slide through levels, taking on the extra challenge off having to time the jumps but as a reward not having to worry about enemies. I also agree that the water levels are boring as usual, I do not even understand why they even still put them in.They ought to just focus on the platforming and leave out the boring water levels, IMO.
I really want to see you cover all the other worlds and give lessons on how certain level mechanics work. It’s very fascinating seeing in depth vids on my favourite Mario game NSMB1!
