Coins are everywhere in New Super Mario Bros. 2– they’re hiding in blocks, they’re in the sky, they’re falling out of the environment. Everything’s just waiting to be turned into cash in this game, particularly when you pick up one of its new power-ups, the golden fire flower. This turns every single brick into an unstoppable cash making machine, giving you the power to monetise everything in your path.
But it’s not all about raking in the big bucks. Collecting coins has the usual in-game benefits like 1-Ups, but they really come into play with New Super Mario Bros. 2‘s brand new Coin Rush mode. Whenever you complete a level, it goes into your Coin Rush bank. These are then grouped together in packs of three whenever you want to play Coin Rush, and all three levels will have roughly the same difficulty level. The aim of Coin Rush is to get as many coins as you possibly can over the course of the three levels. You can help increase your score by finding Golden Mushrooms, worth 50 coins each, but speed-running is absolutely critical to achieving success in this mode. The catch? You only have one life.
But once you successfully complete your three Coin Rush levels, these go into your StreetPass bank, and you’ll be able to send your Coin Rush levels together with your high score to other players. Of course, it works both ways, and you’ll receive other players’ levels and scores as well, giving you extra incentive to go back and try and beat their coin total.
Another new addition is a two player co-op mode. Demoed locally at Nintendo’s 3DS press conference, the camera is tied to bro in the lead, meaning you can’t run off on your own unless your partner’s particularly partial to being ballooned along as they try to keep up with you!
Mario will also be able to don the classic raccoon tail first seen in Super Mario Bros. 3 on NES, and unlike Super Mario 3D Land‘s tanooki suit, you will be able to fly in this game (hooray!). This lends a lot of verticality to each level, but you’ll still have the iconic flagpole and castles to greet you at the end of every level.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 will be released on 19th August 2012 as both a packaged game and a digital download on eShop.
