Mario experts will be less excited by the latest NSMB game, but in its own right the game is quite good
Maybe the developers are just lazy and can't think of any new ideas? I don't know - but the excitement of the cool new world map goes away when I realize that they just patchworked the 8 usual areas into one big overworld and called it original. Its honestly kind of laughable. The gameplay itself is tight as ever and controls like a dream, but the main quest is just too easy. This is coming from someone who has beaten Super Mario Bros 2: The Lost Levels on SNES, which is arguably the most challenging mario game of all time. I know how to gauge the difficulty of platformers, and this one falls pretty much to the bottom in terms of difficulty.
Now, I haven't played multiplayer yet and I have yet to try out the lauded boost rush mode, so I can't speak for those and I'm looking forward to trying them out as I can get another Wii remote. Given how solid, albeit lazy, the game already is, I imagine these modes I haven't tried could warrant me jumping back on here and rewriting my review. But who can really say?
The graphics... are amazing. We're talking high quality HD mario the likes of which we've never seen. They could have added more and made the game look a lot better, but I'm content with this for now. What really disappoints is the music - Its all remixed from previous games and the developers were clearly rushing the game out to meet the Wii U's release. (Smart move)
Lastly, the coin stars. I am getting sick of the coin stars. I don't want to scavenger hunt levels as a replacement for a set of NES and SNES quality mario levels - so that I can get 8 levels in Star Road that are as tough as they were in Mario World. Donkey Kong Country Returns and Rayman Origins did it right - they didn't cater to new audiences and leave us longtime fans in the cold. They had a set of brutal levels and the extra levels were extra brutal. I want to see that from mario as well, and I really hope that the next side scrolling mario game meets the quality of Super Mario World, instead of trying to carbon copy its image.