‘New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe’ is the best game I’ve ever despised

The dogs are confused. My wife is no doubt peering down the stairs with concern. The shouts emanating from my office are primal and raw. I must be playing one of those jumping games again.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe and its mouthful of a title are all I know. At times, it feels like it’s all I’ve ever known. Five-minute stages last an hour or more as I try to navigate intricately designed spaces, brimming with beauty and imagination. It’s a joy-filled wonderland of color and sound.

Oh god how I hate it. 

I still haven’t finished. That may never happen. But I can’t deny the craft that went into this despicable beast of a game. My adult life doesn’t spare as much time for gaming as it used to, so it takes something extra sticky to keep me on board with Mario’s masochistic flavor of jump-perfectly-or-die experiences. Against all odds, I’m still going.

The fact that it’s Mario helps. Nintendo’s iconic series doesn’t just evolve over time; it also carries the entire history of everything that came before. NSMBU Deluxe is a Mario game where you zip from level to level on a colorful world map that pulses with activity. You store power-ups in a private stash for later use. Ride on the back of Yoshi. Swap between playable characters with different skills.

These are all elements that have their roots in Nintendo’s NES/SNES golden age. The series hit its stride right around Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, but there are even echoes of Super Mario Bros. 2 in this 2019 game. That’s in addition to Mario’s newer developments, like cooperative play and HD-kissed 2.5D levels. NSMBU Deluxe is a throwback, yes, but it’s a gorgeous one that somehow makes this ancient series feel fresh.

You’re not seeing a lot of gameplay broken down here because, well, it’s a Mario game we’re talking about here. You know the drill: Bowser and his family of minions kidnapped Princess Peach, and to save her you’ve got to make your way across multiple worlds and defeat all the Koopalings before you can topple Bowser in the final castle.

All the familiar Mario level tropes are here. There’s the easy Acorn Plains starting area, which lulls you into a false sense of security as you smash your way through every level and collectible with ease. There’s a desert zone filled with deadly quicksand and cloud-riding Lakitu. An ice world where you’ll slip and slide across most surfaces. Underwater levels. Haunted levels filled with boos and false doors. The gang’s all here.

It’s the design of these locations that makes NSMBU Deluxe a standout. Each level has its own rhythm, its own sense of momentum. They’re self-contained puzzle boxes where, yes, secrets and branching paths inject some variety. But in the end, the only thing standing between you and your goal — the iconic flagpole-and-castle combo at the end of every non-boss level — is the path forward. Timing and reflexes mean everything. Go too slow, jump too far, run too fast, and you’re starting over.

The “Deluxe” difference in this Switch re-release doesn’t amount to a whole lot in the end other tham you know, being able to play this forgotten game on a Switch. You get the original Wii U game’s add-on, New Super Luigi U, as a packed in bonus. A bunch of extra-short, extra-tough levels — stuff I haven’t even dreamed of touching yet, as you can probably imagine.

Deluxe is a throwback, yes, but it’s a gorgeous one that somehow makes this ancient series feel fresh.

But the biggest addition, by far, is a new character: Toadette. She’s great, but her presence represents an expansion of Nintendo’s ongoing efforts to make these infernally challenging games from the company’s catalog of classics more approachable.

Playing as Toadette essentially activates easy mode. She doesn’t slip on the ice, or skid as far after running. She swims faster than your average character. When she happens upon a mystery block that would normally spit out an extra life, she gets three extra lives instead of one.

But best of all: when Toadette collects the Super Crown, a new power-up that only she can use, she transforms into Peachette. This Princess Peach doppelganger floats slowly down to the ground after a jump. She can also jump a second time while in mid-air. If she happens to fall into a bottomless pit or deadly lava, she gets a second chance to survive as a burst of wind shoots her skyward.

It’s not unlike Nabbit, a playable character who joined the game in the Luigi add-on. Another easy mode character, Nabbit doesn’t take any kind of damage when he touches an enemy (though a few will knock him back). He can also run on ice without sliding and swim faster than others. Bottomless pits are still deadly and his jump isn’t anything special, but playing as Nabbit effectively eliminates all threats from the game that don’t involve falling to your death.

Toadette is great, but Toadette and Nabbit together represent a softening of the Mario experience. It’s completely optional, of course. That old school, no-compromises Super Mario challenge is there for anyone that wants it. But Toadette and Nabbit make the game more accessible for a wider. more all-ages audience.

And hey, it still gets stupidly hard as you draw closer to Bowser’s hideout! Toadette and Nabbit helped me persevere far longer than I probably would have if they hadn’t been there, but their existence doesn’t mean there’s no longer a challenging game to be conquered. They just help take the edge off.

I wonder though, is that a good thing? Long ago I came to terms with the fact that tricky platforming side-scrollers cut from the Mario mold aren’t really my thing. I leapt on the opportunity to play this one because I’m a sucker for classic Nintendo-made-new, and also because this one promised more forgiving gameplay.

But I quickly discovered as I played that it’s all fool’s gold. The shiny promise of a more user-friendly Mario game only holds true for so long. Eventually, the game’s innate escalating difficulty is going to get the better of you. Your willingness to continue, to bash against one level or another until you get your run-and-jump timing exactly right, is going to be tested.

The shiny promise of a more user-friendly Mario game only holds true for so long.

This is both good and bad. Kudos to Nintendo for not betraying the long history of deeply challenging Mario games. I can’t emphasize that enough. I’ve spent hundreds of hours in Mario games over the past three decades, and as much as I’ve come to realize they’re not for me, I also recognize the brilliance of their design. This latest one especially is a tremendous Mario game, and fans should be thankful that it’s found new life on Switch.

But all the additions that aim to make the game more approachable only work for so long. They can help a player like me get further than I normally would, but eventually there comes a level where all the reasons I generally avoid these games come rushing back. And I ask: what’s the point? Is it enough to just get a little further than I would have without an easy mode?

Not for me it isn’t. I work hard in my daily life to keep what has always been a short temper in check, but games that hinge on bashing against a reflex-based challenge again and again until you find a perfect path test my patience. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.

New Super Mario Bros. U is a beautiful and expertly made game that absolutely deserved its Deluxe second shot at life on Switch. But it’s also nothing new. If you’ve loved the thrill of mastering a Mario level before, this is more of that. But if you’ve ever sent a controller sailing through the air and watched it shatter against a wall after you missed a jump for what feels like the 373,587,576th time… this is more of that, too.

(Author’s note: No Switch Joy-Cons or consoles were harmed in the making of this review.)