Game of the Week: New Super Mario Bros U really is a classic

Friends of mine who are much more intelligent than me have been telling me something for a while: New Super Mario Bros U is one of the best Mario games ever. I liked it at the time, for sure, but let's remember what time that was precisely. New Super Mario Bros U was a launch title for the Wii U, a console which arrived with a sense of slight inadequacy. The New Super Mario Bros games had started to grate with a lot of people who wanted more of the Galaxy-style big budget Marios. In my memory, this is that rare thing: a Mario game that came and went without making much of an impact.