Wait that’s not what it’s called is it? Oh right, Super Mario Maker is the name! Spoiler alert, this game is freakin’ amazing. Thank you for reading, have a nice day. Then again, I suppose you want to know WHY it’s a good game and if that’s the case allow me to educate you mongrels. Mario’s old, old enough to be your dad (maybe) because this game is a celebration of his 30th anniversary. The developers at Nintendo decided that they were too lazy to keep making side scrolling Mario platformers and made a game where we did the work ourselves. Yes, Super Mario Maker is a video game where you can design and make your own Mario courses.
In addition to creating levels you can share and play courses made by other players; however be warned, some of them are downright horrible or chaotic. Mario Maker gives the players four different Mario templates to use as well and six different level backgrounds. You can play in the style of: Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros WiiU, in addition to playing the grassland levels, underground, underwater, ghost house, castle and airship levels. Nintendo was smart enough to skip the second Mario game because that shit was downright horrible, erase the thought of it from your mind and soul.
It’s important to note that there are certain skills and things unique to some of the Mario games and it’s cool to see players implement these factors in their levels. In the original Mario Bros you can’t hold items, in Mario 3 you could hold items and fly. Super Mario World introduced the Spin Jump and kicking items directly above you, then lastly, there’s Mario WiiU. In that game you can Wall Jump, Air Stall and Ground Pound. One cool thing in the template exclusive to the original Mario Bros is the use of Amiibos. You can create power ups that make Mario look like the 16-bit (8-bit maybe) versions of whatever Amiibo you scan. From Link, to Sonic and even Samus! These inspire Mario levels created in the honor of different games for example Kirby courses.
Mario Maker does a very good job not overwhelming the player with too much all at once. Initially you can only use two Mario game templates and two backgrounds. They also only give you a handful of tools and once you’ve played around with them all for a while, the game gives you more. This allows the players to slowly but surely get used to the concept of designing levels in this game and rewards them with more toys to play with. Personally, I was upset at first that I had to unlock stuff, but in the long run, I thought this was the most effective way of getting used to the game.
You can upload your levels online and see who played them, where they died, how many times the level has been attempted, the success rate and how many people completed the course. Even though a lot of bad courses make it online, you cannot upload a level you can’t beat. So if you make an impossible course, you have to be able to beat it. Unpopular courses get removed from the server after sometime, meaning you don’t get rewarded for making tomfoolery. If players like what you’ve created, they’ll award you with stars. You can only upload ten courses online but getting a certain amount of stars increases the number of stages you can upload. Players are awarded for making good levels.
With level creation, there is SO much you can do with the tools you’re given I’d need a different article just to explain half the possibilities. The game is by no means perfect though; there are a few things it needs. It obviously needs more of the various power ups and enemies missing from some of the games but more importantly, check points. Mario 1 and 3 didn’t have checkpoints, true, but Super Mario World and Mario WiiU did. It’s frustrating to have to play long levels all the way from the beginning if you died near the end. The last thing I’d personally like to see is Luigi being playable. I mean he was playable in all of these games so why must I only be Mario (yes there is the Luigi Amiibo but it’s not the same).
100 Man Mario Mode makes you play 8 or 16 online levels made by other players at random, based on three difficulties. After you complete one, you can unlock a mystery costume like Ashley from Wario games. If a level is too hard you can always skip the course; however you stay on the same course in the overworld meaning you can’t skip levels, just switch them out for a new one.
Overall though, Super Mario Maker is a great experience for fans and gamers. Whether you want to create challenging, technical, trial and error, creative, cerebral courses or just play, this game has something you can do. It’s fun, engaging, inspires the imagination and challenges hardcore Mario players. If you have a WiiU, I recommend this game.
Final score: 8.6/10
In addition to creating levels you can share and play courses made by other players; however be warned, some of them are downright horrible or chaotic. Mario Maker gives the players four different Mario templates to use as well and six different level backgrounds. You can play in the style of: Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros WiiU, in addition to playing the grassland levels, underground, underwater, ghost house, castle and airship levels. Nintendo was smart enough to skip the second Mario game because that shit was downright horrible, erase the thought of it from your mind and soul.
It’s important to note that there are certain skills and things unique to some of the Mario games and it’s cool to see players implement these factors in their levels. In the original Mario Bros you can’t hold items, in Mario 3 you could hold items and fly. Super Mario World introduced the Spin Jump and kicking items directly above you, then lastly, there’s Mario WiiU. In that game you can Wall Jump, Air Stall and Ground Pound. One cool thing in the template exclusive to the original Mario Bros is the use of Amiibos. You can create power ups that make Mario look like the 16-bit (8-bit maybe) versions of whatever Amiibo you scan. From Link, to Sonic and even Samus! These inspire Mario levels created in the honor of different games for example Kirby courses.
Mario Maker does a very good job not overwhelming the player with too much all at once. Initially you can only use two Mario game templates and two backgrounds. They also only give you a handful of tools and once you’ve played around with them all for a while, the game gives you more. This allows the players to slowly but surely get used to the concept of designing levels in this game and rewards them with more toys to play with. Personally, I was upset at first that I had to unlock stuff, but in the long run, I thought this was the most effective way of getting used to the game.
You can upload your levels online and see who played them, where they died, how many times the level has been attempted, the success rate and how many people completed the course. Even though a lot of bad courses make it online, you cannot upload a level you can’t beat. So if you make an impossible course, you have to be able to beat it. Unpopular courses get removed from the server after sometime, meaning you don’t get rewarded for making tomfoolery. If players like what you’ve created, they’ll award you with stars. You can only upload ten courses online but getting a certain amount of stars increases the number of stages you can upload. Players are awarded for making good levels.
With level creation, there is SO much you can do with the tools you’re given I’d need a different article just to explain half the possibilities. The game is by no means perfect though; there are a few things it needs. It obviously needs more of the various power ups and enemies missing from some of the games but more importantly, check points. Mario 1 and 3 didn’t have checkpoints, true, but Super Mario World and Mario WiiU did. It’s frustrating to have to play long levels all the way from the beginning if you died near the end. The last thing I’d personally like to see is Luigi being playable. I mean he was playable in all of these games so why must I only be Mario (yes there is the Luigi Amiibo but it’s not the same).
100 Man Mario Mode makes you play 8 or 16 online levels made by other players at random, based on three difficulties. After you complete one, you can unlock a mystery costume like Ashley from Wario games. If a level is too hard you can always skip the course; however you stay on the same course in the overworld meaning you can’t skip levels, just switch them out for a new one.
Overall though, Super Mario Maker is a great experience for fans and gamers. Whether you want to create challenging, technical, trial and error, creative, cerebral courses or just play, this game has something you can do. It’s fun, engaging, inspires the imagination and challenges hardcore Mario players. If you have a WiiU, I recommend this game.
Final score: 8.6/10
Written by: Nya Hemmingz a.k.a Super Nyario
Twitter Handle: @LolitaZenpie
