Super Mario Bros. 35 is an Interesting Take on a Battle Royale Game
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The battle royale genre has made its mark in gaming as a mainstay in the current and foreseeable generation. Developers and publishers have been scrambling to release their own take on it in hopes to be the next Fortnite. While most entries in the genre go with the tried and true approach of the 1-vs-many mode paired with either a first-person or third-person shooter. With Tetris 99, Nintendo has proven that the battle royale concept isn't limited to shooters. And as part of the Super Mario Bros. 35th anniversary, Nintendo has released another unique take to the genre with Super Mario Bros. 35.
Many of the battle royale games tend to follow the same formula. Players are airdropped players into a wide map with a slowly shrinking playing field until one player or team is left standing. In Super Mario Bros. 35, you play the original Super Mario Bros. but the twist being that you're competing against 34 other players to be the last remaining Mario alive. How this works is you play your own instance of levels from the original Super Mario Bros. but for each enemy you take out, be it via stomping on them, shooting them with fireballs, or knocking them out with Star power, those enemies get sent over to another player. Subsequently, if you or opposing players take out any enemies that were sent by others will also be thrown into another player potentially causing a back and forth of wave upon wave of garbage enemies. Garbage enemies sent over are easily identifiable as they will have a gray and white color scheme.
Developed by Arika, Mario 35 has a lot of similarities with Tetris 99. The user interface and presentation are very similar to each and the targeting system is the same between both games. You choose between 4 preset targeting commands or use the analog sticks to choose specific players to target. You will also be made aware if other players are locked on to you, to which you can respond by selecting the option to target attacks and send garbage enemies to them simultaneously which makes for a really satisfying visual effect. Aside from using enemies as garbage fodder, killing enemies will also add seconds to your stage timer. The stage doesn’t begin with the usual 400 seconds timer but instead, start with a measly 35. You’ll have to work the timer up by killing enemies and clearing stages to avoid an early knockout.
Before the start of every game, you are given the option to select 1 level as a course. The game will then take the selected level and throw it into a random pool of other levels that the other 34 players have selected and will randomly put you into these stages once you clear the current level that you are in. Most of the levels will be locked on your end until you play them for the first time. This can happen if you run into a new stage that was put into the pool by another player or by playing in the Special Battle mode which applies special rules week-to-week and can sometimes have predetermined courses.
Why choose a more difficult stage to the pool and risk dying an early death you ask? When sending killed enemies as garbage to opponents, this applies to all killable enemy types. This means you can send the likes of Lakitus, Bullet Bills, Hammer Bros., and even the Koopa King himself, Bowser, to other players. And keep in mind that not everyone has the same familiarity with the later levels as you and this can be used to your advantage. Since these old levels weren't designed for certain enemy types, especially if there are multiples of them on screen at the same time, an awkwardly positioned enemy might just be enough to make or break a person's run. All levels from the 8 worlds are present in Mario 35 and having knowledge of each stage and their secrets is a great advantage to have.
While all of this might sound overwhelming, the game does give you a tool to help turn the tide to your favor. Collecting coins don't serve the purpose of granting you extra lives, but instead can be used to procure a random power-up via an item roulette. For the price of 20 coins, you can roll the item box for a chance to get 1 of 4 power-ups. You can get either a Super Mushroom, a Fire Flower, a Star Man, or a POW Block. These will be consumed immediately so timing and a bit of luck is key. Getting a Super Mushroom or a Fire Flower while already in those forms will add extra time to your game. Unspent coins will be banked to your profile and can be spent on a power-up that will be granted to you at the beginning of a game.
Nintendo has made Mario 35 a limited-time release that will only be available to play until March 31, 2021. I'm guessing that if the game does well enough, Nintendo might change their mind whether or not to keep the game up as they have done so with Jump Rope Challenge which was scheduled to be delisted on September 30th but is still available on the eshop. This could also be an experiment to gauge the level of interest and player retention with these types of games that tweak the formula or an old classic. The optimistic outtake could be that Nintendo or other companies start giving their old properties a battle royale variant similar to Mario 35. I can very much imagine the original Metroid or an 8-bit Mega Man in this style of game and am very open to seeing more unique takes on the battle royale formula.
On a personal level, Mario 35 doesn't keep my interest as much as Tetris 99 does but the game is entertaining in its own right. Early sessions might not be as action-packed as you'd expect but the game can get pretty crazy in the hands of skilled players. Take a look at this video of Mario 35 between the last few players of a game. Jump to around the 9:30 mark in the video.
The upcoming action adventure Stellar Blade comes out on April 26 and before launch it was updated with a new game plus patch, allowing players to carry over most of their progress and unlocks to a new playthrough, playing the game from the very beginning.