It’s these stages that inspired me as a player and make me rush off to create my own masterpiece. This kind of player-based loop means that Super Mario Maker will constantly invigorate players to keep making and playing, and the amount of content will continue to boom.
Presentation:
From the original Super Mario Bros. on the NES to the Wii Us New Super Mario Bros. series, every important milestone in Mario’s lineage is present here. There are four distinct styles you can create your levels in, each looking fantastic as you build and play your way through their various assets. The fact that you can change these styles on the fly is fantastic, and showcase just how different every era has been. Levels that are easy to beat on NSMB style suddenly become ridiculously difficult in the more classic aesthetics as Mario loses his ability to wall jump or hover.
Another great addition is that all the new enemies and items that have appeared in later Mario games have been retrofitted into the older styles as well. It’s really cool to see newer enemies waddling around a classic level, charmingly pixelated.
Elsewhere the package shines, with sharp visuals, a great score (cherry-picked from decades of wonderful music) and iconic– sometimes hilarious – sound effects. What’s really impressive here are the clean, concise menus and UI that make it easy to navigate what could have been a maze of content. Even the interactive manual that you can open up anywhere is infused with Nintendo charm and fun, and one of the best help tools I’ve seen implemented in a game.
Conclusion:
When I wasn’t playing Super Mario Maker over the last month, I was thinking about it. Stage ideas would come to me when I was out and I would be eager to get home, create them and unleash them onto the world. Super Mario Maker has a permanence most games can only dream of, and it’s only going to get better once the public get their hands on it.
Offering endless replayability and the best creation suite I’ve ever seen, Super Mario Maker is going to be in my system for years to come.
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