By sjj_admin 
Originally published on GameOnAus.com in Oct 2020
Announced last month at a Nintendo Direct, Super Mario Bros 35 released today for the Nintendo Switch.
Taking the basic premise of Super Mario Bros, this new iteration adds a very Tetris 99 flair to it. You play through classic Super Mario Bros levels stomping enemies along the way, but instead of disappearing into the afterlife, they get sent to one of your opponents who now has to battle them.
It has lots of little additions to it. Along with sending enemies to your opponents, it also adds to your timer (which will kill you if it gets to 0). How you kill them adds different lengths of time. Jumping on one enemy adds two seconds, two in a row gets you an additional three seconds, then four. I managed to get it up to nine and I feel like it could go higher, although the timer maxes out at 400 seconds.
The coins you collect also serve a purpose. When you have 20 coins you can select an item box that randomises an item to help you on your way, such as a Mushroom, Fire Flower, POW Block or Star.
I played Super Mario Bros 35 with a Pro Controller and was a little surprised to find that the left control stick wasn’t the default for controlling Mario. Rather, it let you manually select which opponent to send your defeated enemies to. Controlling Mario was done through to D-Pad. Luckily the game’s options let you swap them around. It also lets you swap the jump and run buttons between the B/Y buttons and A/B buttons, but I found the default B/Y combination to be more comfortable.
There’s two different modes, the standard 35-Player Battle and a limited time Special Battle, where you get certain conditions. The current Special Battle, which runs until the 5th October, lets you start with a Mushroom and 35 coins, while the 35-Player Battle starts you with no coins and as normal Mario.
There’s also a Course Practice mode where you can practice certain levels that you unlock as you progress through the other modes.
You can track your stats, such as total time played, number of courses cleared, how many wins you’ve had and enemies beaten, among many more.
There’s daily challenges to earn coins, which is how you increase your rank and climb the leader board.
The controls too a bit of getting used to. The normally tight controls of the Mario series seem a bit on the sloppy side, but I managed to adjust and was getting top 10 finishes fairly regularly, and even a couple of wins after a couple of hours.
It also seems a bit weird that a game built around online play doesn’t let you play with your friends. There is no way to get into a game with your mates, or to even see the names of your opponents.
There’s only a small bit of customisation as well. You unlock new icons as you go through the game but the only place it shows is in your own game. It doesn’t even show on the 35-Player Battle screen so I’m not sure of the point of them.
When Super Mario Bros 35 was announced as a limited run event (it’s only available to play until the end of March 2021) I didn’t know why Nintendo would want to put a time limit on it, but there doesn’t seem to be a much to this. Even earning the coins for the leader board through playing and Daily Challenges seems rather pointless.
Super Mario Bros 35 is a fun enough game, but I can’t help but feel it would be greatly improved by playing with friends. But since it’s free with Nintendo Switch Online, it’s a fun little distraction while it lasts.
Super Mario Bros 35 is free with a Nintendo Switch Online membership. It is available now until the 31st March 2021.