Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker Review

Toad – still a fungi?

Captain Toad was one of the better uses of the dual-screen setup on the Wii U. As the latest game to be transferred to the Switch, are Nintendo running out of ideas or have they worked some magic to make this game work on a single screen?

Story:

Like many Nintendo games, the story of Captain Toad is mostly implied, with the rest being shown through some occasional, un-voiced, un-subtitled cut-scenes. This is not a deep or involving take on what Toad does in his spare time. The little plot that is there is pretty sweet, and frankly, any kind of story being attached to a puzzle game is still a bit of an achievement really, even if it’s unlikely to win any awards.

Gameplay:

Treasure Tracker is a bit of a departure for Nintendo, who aren’t exactly well-known for their puzzle games. However, Captain Toad is basically a hybrid, bringing in some basic platforming elements in the small levels. There’s also a good level of challenge along the way. Completing a level just requires you to collect the star at the end of the level. However, there are also 3 crystals in every level, and a further bonus objective before you get 100% completion. Once a level is in the bag, you can go back in to either wrap things up, or enter the toad-hunt mode where you have to search for a small 8-bit picture of Toad. Most levels follow this format, although there are also some occasional coin-grabbing levels or bosses along the way.

It’s the same game as on Wii U, although there are some new bonus levels in this version using inspiration from New Donk City in Mario Odyssey for the level design. Unfortunately these levels aren’t unlocked from the start, so you do need to go and earn them, which may be frustrating if you were a Wii U owner.

The controls have been changed up a bit due to the fact you only have a single screen. In portable mode, there’s less of a change because you can touch the screen or tilt it to interact with things, aim, and generally this all works well. When docked, you get a cursor on the screen and this is pretty sub-optimal in my opinion. The sensitivity is ok, it’s just not as intuitive or quick to use as the portable control scheme.