Although it was first announced at a Nintendo Direct Conference a few months ago, New Super Mario Bros. 2 was truly unveiled at Nintendo’s E3 press conference earlier today. The 2D sidescrolling Mario game for the 3DS marks Nintendo’s first effort in bringing full, retail-sized games to the eShop for over-the-internet download.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 puts special emphasis on collecting coins, an obvious appeal to the Pavlovian satisfaction of gathering golden disks. There are a plethora of coins to collect and players will be collecting tons of them at once.
Mario has a couple new power-ups that revolve around coins. First, there is a special block that will cover Mario’s head after being hit a few times. Once attached to Mario, the block will spout coins as he runs across the level. The Fire Flower is replaced with a Golden Flower that allows Mario to throw balls of golden flame that not only knock out enemies, but will also turn any blocks they touch into gold coins.
The game also marks the return of the Raccoon Suit which acts similarly to the Tanooki Suit in Super Mario 3D Land. With the Raccoon Suit, Mario will be able to fly a given distance determined by the P-Wing meter at the bottom of the screen, another element returning from previous Mario games.
If you like collecting truckloads of coins, then New Super Mario Bros. 2 may be just the game for you. The game will launch August 19th on both store shelves in physical format and on the Nintendo 3DS eShop to be downloaded.
