Disclaimer: This post is part of the VoucherCodes.co.uk Christmas Blog Challenge, in which bloggers write about the game they are most excited for this Xmas. I chose New Super Mario Bros. Wii. VoucherCodes.co.uk supplied a copy of the game for me so I could talk honestly about it in this post.

It’s difficult to judge a game like New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I’ve previously mulled on how nostalgia affects our judgement of long-running Nintendo franchises like The Legend of Zelda and Super Smash Bros. But NSMB Wii strays from the typical Nintendo course of reinvention and into the less trodden steps of true continuation.

Some would say Super Mario Galaxy is a sequel to the game it follows on from, the GameCube’s Super Mario Sunshine. I see it as a reinvention of core Super Mario gameplay for a new Nintendo console, just as Sunshine was, and just as Super Mario 64 was before that. Galaxy dropped Sunshine’s horrible water gun, delivered new gravitational physics, and took Mario into space. It may be the next core Super Mario game, but that doesn’t make it a sequel. It’s a reinvention, one of many to be found in Nintendo’s long history of adapting to new consoles and new times.

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