So in the 30th anniversary of one, of if not the most, well-known video game character name of all time, we have Super Mario Maker. Will this do for the ravenous Nintendo fans all over the world and not Super Mario Galaxy 3 as most people seem to want?

 

Well, I will admit the idea of a construction game using that special Mario magic could be the best idea of all time. Unfortunately, Sony had the same idea with LittleBigPlanet but the developer of that series seemed to forget how to make the platforming part of the game fun. And in my eyes Sony should have scrapped the idea well before the 4th proper game came out on PS4.

 

So Nintendo copied Sony for this game but unlike LittleBigPlanet, Mario has that timeless precision feel to the movement of the characters within the game. But the last time I really played a full 2D Mario game was maybe Super Mario Bros. back on the NES. So how has the template held up after all this time?

 

First of all I must say that blocking game content is never a good thing but for some reason when Nintendo do it, it's because they know what’s best for us gamers. Now I totally understand that if they chuck all the features of this game at you in one go then this might get very messy. But we all know most of what makes a Mario game work so why not make say ten levels that are based on ten well known levels from Mario history, but with certain blocks or enemies missing and you have to put the correct bit back into the game as a training tool? I feel the reason Nintendo do this is you literally turn on the Wii U every day for nine days to unlock all the hidden parts of the game.

 

Now for me this is no big deal but to a child, this subconsciously helps them to just come in and turn the Wii U on every day, something that they might not have been doing in months. To be fair, what really is there on the Wii U to keep you coming back day after day? So I really dislike this in a game it's one of my main hates for mobile games “We see you not been on today here have 10,000 credit to log back in,” just makes me delete the game. I'll play if I want to not for you to tell me that I have nothing better to do than load the game and get a small reward.

 

But anyway, enough of this. Super Mario Maker never really started out in the right way, now I have read an awful lot about this game. People talking about how simple everything is to do and easy it all is to understand. Well this was not my experience as it took me until my second attempt to find out where the button was to upload my created level. Now this was a shock to me as it seems that a hell of a lot of the game is hidden deep in menus where you have to just keep going down and down to find what you are looking for.

 

So the game was not innovative to use and one of my biggest problems to the game was the fact that the buttons start being the wrong way around, so all my muscle memory of playing these games on the NES, I was pressing jump when I wanted to run. This is just crazy to me I mean it’s not a one man team making a mod in his bedroom. This is Nintendo and they created Mario! They should know what buttons do what!

 

After working out what is the correct way for the buttons came another problem. For some reason, the face buttons on the controller just don't seem responsive enough as I pressed a button and nothing would happen, now I don't have the pro controller, as in my opinion if you are going to develop a game to be played with that then it should be included in the box not a £40 add on cost to the fans.

 

But I really don't think this would have helped as you need the tablet to actually make the levels on the touch screen. So in a way I enjoyed making the levels much more than playing them and I would have never guessed that would have been the case here. I mean Mario was one of the best games ever made but I guess if the controls aren’t quite there then the whole game suffers the same with LittleBigPlanet.

 

So let’s say that I'm a very casual Mario player, and I guess I moved on as Super Mario 3D land and World are still amazing games to play but this is just not fun. The levels that people have been making are just cruel and so difficult to complete. It's just not fun to play. You would need to be a very high level Mario player to get the enjoyment out of the game. I feel this is not a game aimed at the 5-10 year olds as most Nintendo games are. Here is seems the games been developed for the crazy people that do the speed runs that are super talented and I just don't want to play the levels that they can think up!

 

So for me you end up with a game full of content but none of it is of any value to me, maybe they really should of just make Super Mario Galaxy 3 instead?