42 – New Super Mario Bros
After Super Mario 64, it seemed for a long time that Mario would never return to the 2D side-scrollers that had made him a global icon. Since a new 2D Mario in a home console seemed impossible in the N64 days, I hoped that Nintendo would decide to develop a brand new Mario for GBC first, and GBA then, but only ports or remasters appeared… Ironically, there would be a 3D Mario in a handheld (although it was a remake) before a new Mario side-scroller would come, and its success lead to a new proliferation of 2D platformers (and Mario 2D platformers too). NSMB may not be as good as the original ones, and certainly is not so revolutionary, but was a great tribute, and having a 2D Mario after so much time was really cool.
