New Super Mario Bros. at 20: How the DS Game Revived 2D Mario
Twenty years ago this month, Mario did something that shouldn't have been noteworthy but somehow was: he ran left to right in a brand-new game. New Super Mario Bros. launched on the Nintendo DS in May 2006, and the anniversary threads on r/nintendo this month are doing what those threads do best — remembering how big a deal it felt, and making everyone feel ancient. One running joke in the thread: the "New" Mario is now nearly as old as the original Super Mario Bros. was when New Super Mario Bros. first released.
That "New" in the title wasn't just a label. It was a statement about a gap most younger players never noticed.
The 14-year gap before "New"
By 2006, an entire generation had grown up without a new 2D Mario. The last original side-scrolling Super Mario was Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins on the Game Boy in 1992 — fourteen years earlier. On a home console you'd have to go back even further, to Super Mario World in 1991.
The Game Boy Advance years didn't fill the hole. Every 2D Mario on the GBA was a re-release: Super Mario Advance 1 through 4 remade Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, and Super Mario Bros. 3. Good games, all of them — none of them new.
So when Nintendo finally announced a fresh side-scroller, it landed as an event. As u/Jasoco put it in the thread: "I remember this was a huge deal because we hadn't had a 2D traditional Mario since World and Yoshi if you count that. It brought back all the stuff 64 and Sunshine left behind."
How it brought 2D back
New Super Mario Bros. didn't just resurrect the old format — it rebuilt it with parts from the 3D era. The game runs on a heavily modified version of the Super Mario 64 DS engine, and it shows. This was the first 2D Mario with the triple jump, the wall jump, and the ground pound, all carried over from Mario 64. Enemies like Scuttlebugs and Whomps made the trip too.
The look was new as well. Mario and the enemies were 3D models running over flat 2D backgrounds — the "2.5D" style the whole "New" series would become known for. It added three power-ups the old games never had: the Mega Mushroom, which turns Mario into a screen-filling giant; the Mini Mushroom, which shrinks him to slip through tiny gaps; and the Blue Shell, which he can ride around in.
What it got right — and wrong
The game's real strength is effort. Every castle ends with a distinct boss, a detail the sequels dropped. Later "New" entries recycled the same Koopalings over and over, and it got tired; the 2006 original made the effort with unique fights.
It also shipped eight worlds and 80 levels — comfortably the biggest handheld Mario at the time — plus a two-player versus mode that a lot of players remember more fondly than the main campaign.
Not everything held up, and the anniversary thread is honest about it. The Mini Mushroom and Blue Shell were divisive. The soundtrack — all mid-2000s wah-wah synths — drew more than a few complaints. And the series itself would grow stale by its fourth entry, even if none of that was the original's fault in 2006.
A commercial monster
None of the criticism slowed it down. New Super Mario Bros. sold 30.8 million copies, making it the best-selling game on the Nintendo DS — nearly seven million clear of second-place Nintendogs. It remains the fourth best-selling Mario game ever.
More than that, it worked. The revival stuck so hard that 2D Mario never went away again, and the side-scrolling platformer genre got a second life across the late 2000s.
Where to play it today
If the thread has you wanting to revisit World 1-1, you don't need to dig a DS Lite out of a drawer. New Super Mario Bros. runs in your browser on OldGame.io — no downloads, no emulator setup.
Play New Super Mario Bros. on OldGame.io → — and while you're there, browse the rest of the Super Mario series or the Nintendo DS library. Play Classic Games. No Downloads. Just Play.
