Let the creativity flow…
Super Mario Maker has always been an interesting idea for a game to me. Really it provides the culmination of where any 2D Mario game can really go. Giving us the tools to create our own levels and play them all essentially gives us the ability to have unlimited Mario levels, meaning we never need to buy another 2D Mario game again! Does this game really justify us never having to buy another Mario game? Let’s find out.
The story is… well there is no story! Not any traditional one anyway, this is a level editor, you make and play levels! I guess the only thing that can be construed as a ‘Story Mode’ is 10 or 100 Mario mode in which you play through a random assortment of levels with either 10 lives or 100 lives. Any guesses for what the story of these modes are? Anyone? Anything involving a princess possibly being kidnapped? No? Ok… Well these are fun modes anyway, with the 10 Mario mode only having Nintendo approved levels but 100 Mario mode have absolutely any random levels, leading to some wonderful creations or some dastardly hard levels. Either way they help to bring the game tonnes of replay value if you aren’t a fan of building levels.
This game absolutely screams nostalgia in its visuals. There are four unique styles of Mario games you can create or play using the level editor. Classic Super Mario Bros, Super Mario 3, Super Mario World and the recent New Super Mario Bros styles are all present. They each bring some flavour to the gameplay too with each game’s gameplay tweaks being implemented depending on the style such as the sprint bar from 3 or the spin jump from World. Even though the games look retro even the older style Mario levels look absolutely gorgeous on the Wii U with models being updated and colours being more… well… colourful! The music too is wonderful mixing all styles of music from the different games, I can’t tell you how many times I found myself singing along to the victory themes of the Super Mario World levels! Even in the level editor as you place items or change things the music is played alongside as you build making it almost artistic as you build and weave your creations around. Even though it will do more for older Mario fans due to the different art styles you can choose from everyone should enjoy just how colourful and alive this game feels.
The level editor itself is fantastic. Using the touchpad of the Wii U you can easily draw your levels, pick up and drop enemies and items, change up attributes of items and so on. It’s so easy to do and even me who personally is not a fan of creating levels or structures in games found myself easily creating simple levels that could challenge me to the point of slight frustration. Accessing levels to play is also incredibly good with a rating system allowing you to see the best levels made, most played etc. You can then download these levels onto your console to play them yourself and experience some of the most creative, challenging and visually spectacular levels created in any 2D Mario game thus far. I waited to buy Mario Maker just to see how well the community would do with the tools provided and they did miles better than I was even expecting. There is so much creativity from levels that play by themselves to RPG like levels to those incredibly difficult levels that would give Mario Romhacks a run for their money. There is something here for everyone to play, even if a large chunk of these levels are… well… tricky…
And thus we come to some of the bad points of Mario Maker. Obviously as it would seem to people while there is seemingly an unlimited supply of Mario levels you are just playing the same type of 2D platformer game and thus, eventually, boredom will seep in. No matter how much variety the map makers may put into their creations people will get fundamentally bored of just jumping and hopping to the finish line making some of the replay value a bit less welcome if it is just playing the same game style over and over again. Also a lot of the levels are hard, like, ridiculously hard. I only recently discovered my ability for pent up gamer rage due to being stuck on a single level for over an hour. If you have a short temper, don’t play this game with random levels. You WILL lose your TV screen.
All in all however I still find Super Mario Maker to be a fantastic game and a fitting tribute to the entire Mario series. Is this the end for 2D Mario games? Maybe. What we can count on however is that if this is the last one then I certainly can’t wait to find out what the new 3D Mario games will be like! if you like creating levels or playing platform games then I couldn’t recommend this game more, otherwise you probably weren’t interested in this game in the first place. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to beat 100 Mario mode on expert… gamer gods help me…