While chipping away at Nintendo DS’s new Super Mario Bros. game – cleverly titled New Super Mario Bros. – I received a few queries from my friends passing by:

“New game?” “Can I see it?” “It’s in 2-D?” “Why’d they do that?”

“Why not just give it a go yourself?” I’d ask.

If I had known this would create a natural disaster, I would have simply explained that the game exists because of an occasional need for nostalgia, but, alas, disaster simply had to ensue. All of a sudden, my friends began to rock each other like a couple of hurricanes in heat over this game; they squeaked and screamed and tussled and tumbled, all while depleting the precious 1-Ups I had earned. Who knew this game was not just a time capsule of retro gaming too-long-forgotten, but a legit time machine to boot, bringing my friends and I right back to the third grade.

Clearly, tensions have begun to run high around here, and over a simple, 2-D, old-fashioned game. But at least they now know why Nintendo would go and do that, why they’d revert Mario to his 2-D heyday: Retro sells, and nostalgia hooks.

But Bros. goes beyond that, taking us – in a time rift sort of way – through the past and into the future, yanking us back only to bring us forward. With the new Bros., players get a graphically updated, downright gorgeous game, with a handful of new worlds to explore. Needless to say, Nintendo has now nearly perfected the platformer with this entry. But there are some faults: It, of course, often feels like a rehash; it’s pretty easy (save for a few secrets); and it’s short.

But, if you own a DS, let none of this stop you, for this is the Gatsby of all games. Observe: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Let’s hope this is the first and last time anybody ever quotes Gatsby in a game review, and that Nintendo keeps beating on against that there current only to bring us back a bit.