Building a better game.
The original Mario Maker game succeeded even with the laundry list of hurdles rooting against it. It was a creation game released on a console few people actually owned that required players to “make their own fun.” Still, it was able to persevere against all odds and likely ended up being one of the best reasons to own a Wii U. This was of course helped by the massive community that sprung up around it of creating ridiculously hard levels and punishing friends, oh and who could forget the auto-levels? Still when Nintendo announced a full-fledged sequel as opposed to the expected remaster of the original, gamers rejoiced. Could Nintendo actually fix the issues the first game had and make this sequel even more of a success?
Mario Maker 2 has an immediate advantage right out of the gate: it is not releasing on a console with a paltry install base. Instead it is releasing on what is the hottest console currently on the market. The Nintendo Switch is everywhere, and now all those people that didn’t buy a Wii U can see what all the fuss was about. Surely Nintendo has cleaned up the social oppression of the Wii U online service and made Mario Maker 2 a breeze to create, share, and play with friends…right?
MSRP: $59.99
Platforms: Switch
Price I’d Pay: $59.99
Creating levels and sharing them with friends is a fantastic idea. Nintendo has once again fumbled a lot of this out of the gate with Mario Maker 2. Codes are required, which makes sense and for the sequel they have at least made them a little more digestible. The most glaring omission though is being able to check out levels made by people on my friends list. Why is this not a thing? It is great that the Switch finally implemented a friends list, but it feels almost like it is just there for show. Outside of a handful of games barely any title uses it. Mario Maker 2 felt primed to utilize this feature, and yet sadly I have to search for another code to check out my friends’ levels.
The big draw to these games is of course creation, and Mario Maker 2 has definitely improved in this area. Players can now create levels while the Switch is docked using a standard controller. This took me a while to get used to, but it works, using radial menus to select new items and functions while having things like undo or delete mapped to specific buttons. The tutorial is nice, but the more advanced features usually come from experimentation. What keeps this from being a chore is familiarity. I think the reason Mario Maker works better than most titles that offer up creative freedom is that everyone knows what these items do. Most gamers have played more than a handful of Mario games so they know how everything works. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to make it do what they want it to do.
There is also a handheld creation mode that utilizes the touch screen on the Switch. This mode is much more intuitive and easy. One weird quirk is that I noticed when in handheld mode the controller functionality is completely gone. While the touch option is easily the most useful, it is weird that I was not able to use the controller to do anything outside of play test my levels. I also really liked the new addition of clear conditions. Being able to set a unique goal to a level is a game changer, although we still do not have the ability to create worlds of connected levels. Also where is the Super Mario Bros. 2 palette Nintendo?
Creating and uploading levels remains the same, and the new suite of tools really flesh out the creations. The new Super Mario 3D World levels and features open up great possibilities for more things. There are already so many levels to play, which becomes a problem as well. For those of us who do not have hundreds of thousands of followers getting our levels noticed becomes a problem. Sure the cream rises to the top, but what about that one creator who really does something special that goes completely unnoticed? The curation so far seems messy at best, and I found myself making levels mostly for my son to experience and less about hoping the world actually plays it.
Aside from creation and sharing there is a full set of levels for single player created by Nintendo. This is set against the backdrop of rebuilding Peach’s castle. I would have loved the idea of making this an extended tutorial where the game required me to create levels based on the ideas in the game, but instead it is the opposite, where Nintendo has crafted levels for me to beat. Still, the fact that there are 100 new Mario levels created by Nintendo for me to beat is appealing enough in itself. Also some of these are deviously challenging, and not like the torture chambers some players online create. Plowing through these is good fun, but not enough to warrant the price of the game if you are wanting just a solo experience.
Co-op is also a new focus for Mario Maker 2. Levels can be played with friends and even created with friends. Again, the lack of friend list support at launch is odd as I am not able to simply join my friends and play with them online. Nintendo has said this could come later, but this seems like a no-brainer right out of the gate. Creating levels together sounds like a cool idea, but ends up less than ideal in practice. I found that there simply isn’t enough real estate on screen to work in tandem. I am hoping with Nintendo’s recent practice of regular updates to their games we will see some of the issues ironed out, as the creation tools here are simply outstanding.
Super Mario Maker 2 is an outstanding game that is marred by some odd choices familiar with Nintendo games. Their online features still feel like a relic of the past, and with something that relies so much on creation and sharing it sticks out like a sore thumb here. Still, getting past that and knowing updates are on the horizon makes me comfortable in recommending this title. It is a pure blast creating and sharing levels with friends, and of course letting my son’s creativity run wild in creating new levels. The single player content is a welcome addition to an already impressive package. Super Mario Maker 2 is a fine addition to the Switch library, now can we please get that Zelda Maker stat?
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
