Super Mario Maker 2 review – The ultimate level editor

The original Super Mario Maker was a happy little accident, initially designed to help Nintendo developers get through levels quickly. However, the team realized how marketable it was, perhaps influenced by the Mario modding community, giving us one of the most unique experiences for the Wii U. It allowed fans to become expert-level modders, either through automated experiences where the player doesn’t need to press a button Or tackling very difficult obstacles that require precision in dealing with them. Super Mario Maker 2 It expands on the list of features, including a new story mode, various new tools, and a new level theme.

Super Mario Maker 2’s story mode begins with construction finally being completed on Princess Peach’s castle, only for the dog to undo all the work by pressing the reset button. To fund its rebuild, you’ll have to spend some time following the courses Nintendo has created using tools available to all players. Once you have enough money, you can set up a job with Toadette to purchase materials. It will take a few hours until you can rebuild the castle. However, over the course of the 100 or so levels, you’ll likely see a host of memorable hazards to inspire you creatively.

Overall, even though you don’t do any levels, Story Mode does a good job of what’s possible with the editing tools in Super Mario Maker 2. When you finally make up your mind and start creating your own, you’ll be given a plethora of filters and themes. The level, tools and surprises you can use. Combining items into new hazards or powered-up enemies isn’t a new feature, but with all the new items, you have more variety added to a limited set of tools.

Super Mario Maker 2 has everything the original game had, and it also adds a new Super Mario 3D World theme. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean you can create full 3D levels, as you’re still limited to a 2D plane, but at least you have Cat Mario’s Powerup, speed boost panels, timed blocks, and several new gadgets to play with. with. In addition to this new skin, there are also other power-ups you can unlock for the SMB1 theme by completing Story Mode. For example, the Super Hammer gives Mario the ability to break indestructible blocks, or the Superball Flower allows him to throw the ball from Super Mario Land and changes the music to the overworld theme of the Game Boy classic.

You can also mess with the object’s behavior by setting the time level to Night. This changes the form and function of some objects. For example, 1-UP Mushrooms turn into Rotten Shrooms that focus on your location and hurt you when collected. It can also change level physics, such as turning the water in SMB1’s jungle levels into a toxic hazard, or the sky theme reduces existing gravity, resulting in higher jumps and slower landings. It’s a clever idea and will be appreciated by those looking for an amazing upgrade to their stage difficulty.

If you’re stuck on how to do something, Super Mario Maker 2 has a bunch of guides designed to entice new players to create better levels. It also explains all the possibilities for item combinations or new tricks you can add to trick your audience. It is relatively easy to operate and understand, although there are some more advanced topics that it does not fully cover. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources available online that can help you.

When creating courses, I found the touch controls with handheld mode easier to use, even if they were a little hard to see. That’s not to say that using the cursor and controller doesn’t work when the device is in the dock, and viewing everything on your TV makes each object stand out in more detail. Compared to Super Mario Maker on the Wii U which uses both touch controls with a TV screen, both options are less than ideal but more traditional with what look like actual level editors.

Aside from the story mode, the main focus of Super Mario Maker 2 is to create and share your creations or gameplay levels created by players from all over the world. If you’re feeling particularly competitive, there’s also a multiplayer mode that challenges you to race around random courses, which is every bit as chaotic as you’d expect a 2D Mario multiplayer mode to be.

All of this requires a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to experience everything to the fullest, with an obligatory cost added to get the most out of it. However, the free features that Nintendo has added since launch, such as new power-ups and items that can be used in levels, make what the community has built over the past five years a treasure trove of creative level packs that will keep you entertained for a long time. .

Super Mario Maker 2 does a better job of helping you find noteworthy levels to play. Maker ID lookup tools are available, allowing creators to easily distribute their creations to their audiences. Hot Lists feature community-recommended courses based on categories, which players curate using the “Like” feature to highlight the best of the bunch. They can also add feedback to sections of each course, including written artwork that shows their appreciation.

If you’re willing to stick with one creator on multiple levels, there are now also fantastic worlds you can explore. This gives you several custom maps with various courses, individual house challenges, and anything else the creator added along the way. With no way to filter them, the quality varies wildly from very basic to unfairly difficult. Fortunately, you can still find the best in supernatural worlds via Maker ID codes.

The two types of people who will get the most out of Super Mario Maker 2 are the creative types who want to dip their toes into game design, and those who are looking for awesome, challenging 2D classic Mario levels to play. This pack caters to both genres nicely and will keep them entertained as long as the community creates the levels. Maybe Nintendo will revisit this concept one day to give us Super Mario Maker 3D. Currently, this is the final official level editor and is an essential purchase for anyone interested in game design.