At the end of this month, right in time for Summer, Super Mario Maker 2 will land on Nintendo Switch. We’ve already played it for an hour last time we wrote about it, but in this preview, we can share a little more details. After spending a couple of hours with the game, this one is shaping up to become a must-buy for every Switch owner and possibly even one of the better Super Mario games ever created.
A story to learn the basics
For those who played the original Super Mario Maker (Wii U or the 3DS port), the lack of a story was one of the major complaints of the fans. In Super Mario Maker 2, the team addressed as many complaints as possible, creating the best possible version of this relatively new Nintendo franchise. Adding a story to the game makes sense as it’s the perfect way to guide you through the multitude of objects and items you can use to create your own Super Mario courses.
As said during my first hands-on session, the story mode serves as a lengthy tutorial but calling it just that doesn’t really do it any justice at all. Yes, you’ll learn the basics during the levels and yes, you’ll learn how to use certain objects but this story is shaping up to be so much more than just a tutorial. It’s filled with brilliantly designed levels, and you’ll simply have too much fun rebuilding Peach’s castle while communicating with adorable NPC characters while you progress. The story is considered as a major portion of the game and I really recommend everyone to give it a try once this game hits the shelves. Now, I didn’t finish it but I’m extremely impressed with what I’ve seen and played until this point. The levels are truly unique and thanks to some unexpected surprises, it seems like rebuilding the castle will remain thrilling until the very end. It’s also worth pointing out that Luigi will help you out when things get too difficult, a feature that’s certainly welcome in some of the more extreme courses.
Create your dream right from the start
What I’ve played from the story so far, really convinced me that the team is doing everything in their power to deliver the ultimate game. The Course Maker proves this a second time. Right from the start, you’ll have access to everything. No need to unlock extras, you can use tons of elements and sound-effects right from the start. This means you get a crazy amount of freedom to create your own Super Mario course in the style you like the most. Needless to say, I only touched the tip of the iceberg here and I’ll have to spend tons of extra hours in the Course Maker for a final judgment. But, from what I’ve seen now, it’s simply amazing. The Course Maker is extremely intuitive and uses a wide variety of new elements to really get you going.
Slopes, day/night cycles, being able to set your own goals for the finish, multiplayer… These are just a couple of important innovations that transform this sequel in a much better game. Nintendo really invested a lot of time and research in what fans liked and what fans still wanted to see. In our final review we’ll dive deeper into those new mechanics and discuss them even more but for now, believe us when we say you’ll be blown away with the number of options. And this doesn’t even include the new Super Mario 3D World style.
This new style is considered one of the extra styles in the game, meaning you can’t change to another style while creating it. Super Mario 3D World has its own elements that older Super Mario games didn’t have, so handling it as a separate style totally makes sense. I enjoyed building my courses in this style the most as it gives me tons of new abilities and possibilities on top of the already impressive pile of elements.
Course World
This brings us to the final part of our review, the Course World. It’s here where you’ll be able to play courses others created, leave comments on those courses, challenge online friends, conquer the leaderboards or test your skill in an endless stream of created levels. This is a powerful mode of Super Mario Maker 2 and since this is a preview, we’ve only seen the very forst potential of the mode and not the thousands of fan-made courses.
What I liked the most here, however, is the fact that you can really search what you’re looking for. Searching for a level has been improved greatly, allowing you to filter on all important decisions for your favorite kind of levels. Speedrun levels, used themes, multiplayer, you can all filter it using the tags. Thanks to this, you’ll quickly find what you’re looking for and you won’t need to scroll through thousands of courses you’re not interested in. Combine this with the fact that you can unlock certain special gear for your avatar by clearing challenges and you’ll understand why you’ll spend a lot of your time here. I really can’t wait to see all the creativity Switch owners will upload here once the game launches later this month.
Early conclusion:
After spending more time with the game, I can already conclude this will be a hard one to put down. Super Mario Maker 2 is shaping up to be the game everybody was waiting for. The team really listened to the feedback of their fans and if they manage to keep up the great innovations, this one might even exceed everyone’s expectations. Time to jump back in and learn even more before I give my final judgment.
