New Super Mario Bros.

After more than fifteen years, Mario returned to where he belonged: the two-dimensional world of solid platforms, question-mark blocks and jumping turtles. New Super Mario Bros. from 2006 was the first classic 2D instalment since the days of the SNES console, and for an entire generation of players it meant their very first encounter with the way Mario was played in the eighties and nineties.

The genius of the game lies in how cleverly it combines the old with the new. The controls remain purely platforming and honed to perfection over decades, but the environment is rendered in a delicate 2.5D style, where the characters and enemies move like three-dimensional models along a two-dimensional track. New abilities were added, the most striking being the giant Mega Mushroom, after eating which Mario grows to monstrous proportions and literally smashes through an entire level, and conversely a miniature mushroom that shrinks him and opens up hidden little paths.

Development was handled by the internal studio Nintendo EAD, the same people who stood behind the main instalments of the series. The game came out on the Nintendo DS, whose lower touchscreen served to display the map and stored items, while the main action ran on the upper screen. A simple two-player battle over a wireless connection was also available.

The title's cultural significance is enormous: it proved that the classic 2D platformer is not a museum exhibit but still an immensely sellable and entertaining format. New Super Mario Bros. became one of the best-selling games on the Nintendo DS ever and ranks among the most successful titles in the entire history of the brand. Its success kicked off a whole new subseries that continued on the Wii, 3DS and Wii U consoles.

Thanks to how accessibly the game is built, even a complete newcomer can handle it, and yet it offers enough hidden challenges, three star coins in each level and secret paths to entertain even seasoned veterans as well. It is a textbook example of design that works at every skill level.

Why play it: A flawless modern 2D platformer that revived classic Mario for a new generation and still ranks among the best on the DS.