New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is a new P2P adaptation of Super Mario Bros. for 1 – 3 players that combines the Wii Super Mario Bros. U and Super Luigi U games together specifically for the Nintendo Switch. It maintains the 2.5D side-scrolling gameplay format and has slightly upgraded the graphics and is scheduled to release on January 11, 2019.
The Premise
In both games, Bowser invades Princess Peach’s castle with the help of his numerous cohorts. In the process, he successfully captures the protagonists and flings them far away from the castle. It is now their job to overcome all obstacles and travel back to the Mushroom kingdom to save Princess Peach. The only difference plot-wise is that in Super Luige U., Mario isn’t present at the castle when Bowser attacks and he isn’t a playable character.
Gameplay
As usual, both games will have players racing through courses either solo or in teams of up to four in order to match up against the ultimate boss. They will face various opponents with different abilities and appearances, that require different skills and power-ups to sneak past. Players will jump on clouds, the ground, the sides of cliffs and on and between platforms to avoid or jump on to monsters, avoid falling off the platforms, collecting coins and power-up items and try to beat their own scores or time to clear the different rounds.
The courses each have their own quirks, be it a slippery snow-themes course that sees Mario donning a penguin-suit power suit to speedily slide literally plow through enemies and across platform gaps.
Control Changes:
- Press the ‘Jump’ button on the controller to make the character spin around.
- Players can only pick up or grab objects by shaking the controller.
Characters
There are five playable characters in this rendition, namely Mario, Luige, Princess Peach, Yellow Toad, Nabbit and Toadette, with the last two being new additions to the roster.
Nabbit:
This character is so durable that he cannot sustain any damage, which means that players won’t need to worry about sustaining damage but can simply run straight past all enemies. However, enemies can still only be defeated when jumped on, and he cannot collect any power-up abilities. Therefore, Nabbit might simply be a good introductory character that will allow players to get the hang of the game mechanics without being killed.
Toadette:
She generally plays in the same way as the other character, with the exception of her being able to power up to become Peachette. She doe so by collecting the Super Crown. This form acts similarly to Mario’s Squirrel suit, as it allows her to glide and have increased height when jumping. When other characters collect the Crown, they will just get points. Peachette’s appearance is almost identical to Princess Peach’s except that she wears her hair in pigtails and wears a pink, rounded crown. Toadette can still pick up other power-up items such as the acorn, which will transform her into a squirrel-version with a gliding ability.
Conclusion
At this time, it seems that aside from the introduction of two new characters, there isn’t a significant difference between New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe and the two 2012 games. The only other major change is obviously that this bundle is exclusively for the Nintendo Switch console, rather than the Nintendo Wii console. Even the courses seem to be the same as in the original titles.