Super Mario Maker 2
Like its predecessor, Super Mario Maker 2 is a side-scrolling platform game in which players create their own courses using assets from across the Super Mario series and publish them onto the internet for others to play. Players can choose from a selection of prior Super Mario games to base their course’s visual style and gameplay on, including Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, New Super Mario Bros. U, and a newly introduced Super Mario 3D World theme. Gameplay mechanics and enemy behaviors can vary between the styles, with some elements being limited to specific styles.
The sequel adds various assets and tools, including assets and a course theme based on Super Mario 3D World. This theme is especially different from the four others, with many features and gameplay mechanics unique to it. It also introduces local and online multiplayer modes including co-op course creation, where up to 2 players can locally create stages together at the same time; as well as allowing up to 4 online players to complete user-made courses, cooperatively or competitively.
Super Mario Maker 2 also features a new single-player campaign known as Story Mode. The story follows Mario, Toadette, and several other toads helping to rebuild Princess Peach’s Castle. Players must traverse through over 100 Nintendo-created courses, in order to collect enough coins to rebuild the castle. Non-playable characters will also offer players extra tasks and jobs throughout the mode.
A Nintendo Switch Online subscription is required in order to access any online functionality in the game, including accessing player-created levels.
Super Mario Maker 2 Review
If you were one of the approximately four million people who played the original Mario Maker, then Super Mario Maker 2 is going to look instantly familiar in more than ways than one. A number of features are returning relatively unchanged from the first game, namely the course creation process.
There are more items and enemies to add to your stages this time around, and you have more themes and mechanics to play around with, but the process of actually making a stage is mostly the same. If anything, it’s better than it was in the first game, if only because you don’t need to spend a ton of time placing stage elements to unlock new items and enemies.
There are still a few things you’ll need to unlock, but for the most part, you have access to most stage elements from the get-go. This means that you can dive right into creating stages, which is exactly what I did. I have to admit that I never thought I’d miss having the Wii U gamepad, but creating stages in Super Mario Maker 2 is definitely a little rough without it at first (at least in TV mode). For those who are used to using a gamepad to create stages, using a Pro Controller or the Joy-Cons definitely takes a little bit of adjusting.
While the process of creating courses is mostly the same, there are a few notable additions. The first is the Super Mario 3D World style, which joins the styles for Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. U from the first game. You also now have the option of designing courses with Desert, Sky, Snow, and Forest themes, and any course you create can be changed to take place either during the day or night.
Endless Mode is likely the mode people will spend the most time playing. In this mode, you select a difficulty and play a random assortment of levels until you’re out of lives. The number of lives you start with increases depending on the difficulty, but regardless, you’re never going to start with very many. You can collect lives in the stages you play, though, and here we come to a small but still significant change between the original Mario Maker and Mario Maker 2.
In most regards, Super Mario Maker 2 is a wonderful game. Playing courses created by other players will sometimes frustrate you to no end, but other times it’ll be illuminating. Sometimes you’ll find a stage that’s really well made and be left in awe by the sheer creativity of its maker. There’s a ton of fun to be had in even playing a good level over and over again just so you can claim the world record clear time.
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