Geekscape Games Reviews ‘Super Mario Maker’
It’s hard to believe that the Super Mario Bros. Series has been platforming into our living rooms for thirty years.
Released on September 13th 1985, Super Mario Bros. has gone to become one of the most popular video games to date. It even went on to sell over 40 million copies and spawn endless spin-offs and sequels that continue to this very day. Even Mario himself has become one of the most recognizable icons in history. Flash forward 30 years, and fans are finally getting one of their biggest wishes granted with Super Mario Maker.
Super Mario Maker is Nintendo’s love letter to the Mario series and fans alike, allowing anyone to make their own 2D Mario levels from scratch. What really makes this game special is that not only can you make your own levels from the original Mario, but you can also choose art styles from its most popular iterations. These include classics such as Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and even New Super Mario Bros. U. There’s also a wealth of locations to choose between including above ground, underground, underwater, ghost house, air ship, and bowser’s castle.
The tool layout is very simple to pick up and use. All you do is tap on an item you want to use and you can summon that item at will. Most items are usable in all art styles excluding a couple of items. These include the goomba shoe in Mario 1 and Mario 3, turning into Yoshi eggs in Mario World and Mario U, and the Mystery Mushroom (more on that in a second) turning into each art styles specific flying item. Mario 3 has the Raccoon Leaf, Mario World has the Cape, and Mario U has the Propeller Hat.
One of the most fun additions to Super Mario Maker has to be the inclusion of the Mystery Mushroom. By tapping a corresponding Amiibo, or completing a run in 100 Mario Challenge (A mode where you adventure through randomly generated user levels) you can unlock a special character outfit for Mario to use in the original Super Mario Bros. theme. Want to go through a level as Donkey Kong, Samus, Kirby, or even Megaman? Well now you can! Just playing 100 Mario Challenge to see what character you’ll unlock next will have you occupied for a long time to come considering that there’s about 100 different costumes.
Now to the part everyone’s been waiting for: the user generated content. Content is separated by 100 Mario Challenge, Courses, and Makers. Courses can be sorted by featured, top rated, and up & coming. They can also be searched by difficulty, but not name, location or time period even though the options are there. This is one of the biggest flaws in the game since if you want to play a specific level from someone, you have to be either following them, or enter a 16 digit code. I’m really hoping for an update that can add a better search engine because as it is right now, it’s kind of useless.
Even aside from the search engine problems I still have a couple of minor complaints with the title. For starters, Even though there’s a nice amount of objects and enemies to use, there are still some really iconic items missing from the game. These include not being able to make slopes, as well as there being no Desert or Forest levels as well as the exclusion of popular enemies such as the Angry Sun and the Charging Chucks. There’s also a problem with content creation item unlocks.
The game starts you off with only one row of objects and enemies, and from there you have to gradually create for 5 minutes for 9 days in a row, or spend time nonstop creating every 15 minutes. While I understand this is done to prevent younger children from getting too overwhelmed with the pallet, it would have been nice to at least have an option to start with everything. This option could have allowed veterans to jump straight into the more advanced techniques.
Overall, Super Mario Maker is one of the Wii U’s best offerings right beside Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Super Smash Bros, Bayonetta 2 and more! Creating levels is very easy and the tools are very accessible to all ages. The complaints I have about it aren’t enough to ruin the experience and I can see myself already planning more stages to create and play. Even if you aren’t a creator, there are still a boat load of original and creative levels that’ll keep you playing for months and even years to come (perhaps I’ll highlight some of my favorites sometime.)
Rating: 4/5, BUY IT!!
