New Super Mario Bros. hit retail today and after messing around with it for a while decided to give some of my impressions of the new DS game. When you boot up the game you get four different options: a Mario game, Mario Vs. Luigi (Multi), Mini games and Options. Before I talk about the actual game I will talk about the Mini games. Most of the Mini games are the same ones from Super Mario 64 DS but still are pretty fun and a great distraction to take up time and also come in 1 player and Vs. battle modes.

The Heart of the game which is exactly what the title suggests is trying to let people relive their past memories with all the great Super Mario games that have come out over the years while adding a bunch of great new features and such. The backgrounds are mostly in 2D while the character sprites are in 3D. I decided to go all the way through and beat World 1 before writing any impressions about the game and was surprised on more than one occasion.

The world map is like a pop up book hybrid version of SMB3 and SM World which is pretty cool too. Some of the first new things I noticed were on World 1-1 with the additional power-ups the Mega Mushroom and later the Mini Mushroom which have been shown in every preview for the game. The really awesome new addition is the way the environment interacts with Mario though. Level 1-5 pulled out a lot of things I didn't see coming such as bouncing mushroom platforms (which made up most of the level) and a part where a moving mushroom platform helps you get though a secret area in the clouds. In the last boss level of World 1 you end up fighting Bowser SMB 1 style with the switch and everything and although I don't know if that was a fake bowser or anything once I hit the switch Bowser flew into the lava and his skin melted off turning him into a skeleton which was really cool to see.

Overall I'm really impressed with New Super Mario Brothers so far as I thought it wasn't going to do the old school classics justice, but so far it is a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Gameplay and sound is great and really brings Mario back to his old tricks. The only gripe I have with the game is the save system  which is more like the Original Super Mario World then all of the remake GBA versions as you can only save when you complete big events  such as the mid and end level castles and unlocked  mushroom houses. If you picked up the game as well go ahead and give us your thoughts about it as well.