Super Mario Maker

By: Robert Murphy

Have you ever come across that one Mario level that made you rage so hard you almost smashed your controller? You had to go back to easier levels and spam for lives just to beat it. Fun times, right? Well have you ever wanted to make that rage inducing level and have hundreds to thousands of people play it till they pull their hair out? Well Super Mario Maker finally gives you that opportunity.

Okay so it's not as evil as all that, in fact Super Mario Maker can best be described as a celebration of everything Mario games have been through over the past three decades. The introduction to the game alone is enough to make your inner child smile as you start out on an unfinished level that you must complete. This gives players a brief introduction into the mechanics of making their very own Mario levels. From the basic stuff like placing down blocks to stacking enemies one on top of the other making a towering being meant for blocking anyone to come in its path. Players can also change which generation of Mario their levels will reflect from the golden days of pixelated Goomba to our modern day wall hoping hero. The pure addiction that goes into making levels is something that I did not expect however and as many people already know time simply flies when you're play video games but I've found a whole day could go by making a Mario level if you're not careful. 

Perhaps the reason behind this is the sheer simplicity of making each and every level no matter what generation creators happen to prefer. The game map is laid out in a grid fashion so everything will snap into place when items are dragged onto the screen. A basic level can be constructed in no time and it is something that even younger kids would be able to pick up quite easily. While the more challenging levels and tricks that people have discovered and exploited will obviously take much longer to create, it is done with such ease that you will leave your maps with little stress and feelings of accomplishment. It's almost therapeutic, like a build session of Minecraft, and the more you do the more features you will unlock from the Mario universe.

Super Mario Maker isn't just limited to the level design formula that we've all seen before however and it allows for a much more personal touch. There is an extreme freedom to create anything and everything you can possibly think of no matter how simple it may seem to everyone else. There are levels devoted to things like rube goldberg devices that propel players in every which direction without you even needing to move, there are levels with hidden birthday messages and even levels for proposals. Add to this the tiny touches that can be made to a level such as individual sounds and costumes and you will find that no two things are alike when you set out to see what others have made. It's all worth mentioning simply because it not only shows the games potential but also just how much these games have brought people together over the years.  

Once you've completed a level and proven that it can be beaten, by making it all the way through it yourself, you can upload it in seconds to Nintendo's network for others to try and vice versa. Levels are presented through various categories like "new levels" or "popular levels" so you can try out up and coming designers and see just what everyone else in the world is making. It's truly amazing when you see it as well, some levels are simple and pay homage to classic Mario and others are mindbogglingly difficult to complete. This is where the aforementioned rage comes from, but it still an incredible collection and coming together of designers. It is a bit difficult though to directly find levels that are made by your friends since there is no direct search function for people you have on your friends list, but if you simply ask for the code to their level it can be found with relatively quick.   

If you're having trouble sifting through all the levels and can quite determine where you want to start then look no further than the 100 Mario challenge. It wouldn't be a true Mario game if Princess Peach weren't captured and taken prisoner by Bowser or one his evil spawn and that's exactly what this mode does. Players are given 100 lives to traverse a number of user created levels at random difficulties in order to once again save your Princess from certain danger. It's a great way to get a feel for the massive community and levels out there without having to pick them out one by one. If a level ends up being too difficult then a quick switch out can also be made for another randomly picked level and then it's back to business. 

Super Mario Maker serves as an excellent reminder of the games many wonderful moments throughout the years. It's simple, sweet and doesn't bog players down with an overabundance of rules or restrictions when it comes to creating, you have a blank canvas and you can do with it what you will. When I also start to think about all the features and items that could potentially be added on top of everything that is already present it leaves me with the feeling that the game is not only a fantastic created piece on it's own but it has the ability to get even better. But, for the moment there are many more castles left to explore and it would seem that Princess Peach can never be saved for long, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Good:

- Quick to pick up controls

- Unlimited creative potential

- 100 Mario challenge allows to quickly try out a multitude of online levels

Bad:

- No quick interface to try friends levels

Scully Rating: 9.0 out of 10

Mario Party 10

By: Robert Murphy

When people usually hear about a party they think, a good time, few beers and good friends, not screaming in rage or frantic attempts to murder one another on a charming Mario style game board. Well, this is what you often get with Mario Party games (and most Ninetendo games in my experience) as you and your friends fight one another over stars, minigames and the attempt to be the first across the finish line and named the victor. It’s a charming little setup that has been going on for years now as groups of four players start on a variety of different game boards and move across the spaces to gain the most stars and victory over your friends. Mario Party 9 saw a change up in the long standing dynamic that continues on here in Mario Party 10. Four players cram into a vehicle together and individually roll a 3D dice to progress across a linear map, dodging obstacles and taking on different challenges depending on the game board you choose. New features though have come with the addition of the Wii U gamepad and other new Nintendo products so let’s see what lies in store for another “fun” party.

Despite my insane competitiveness, I’ve always found that Mario Party games were the best to lose at because of the amount of luck that can come into play with a game such as this. A randomly generating dice decides your fate and the fate of your friends each turn and there are any number of obstacles that can make or break you along the game board. Players can end up being bitten by a Piranha Plant or shot by a Bullet Bill and lose a fair amount of their stars or even worse you can now end up unleashing Bowser from behind his prison bars and he could steal half of your stars. You just never know what is going to happen when you roll those dice, all you can really do is pray that you will still come out on top. I haven’t kept up too much with the recent additions of the game but with the purchase of my Wii U, I thought it would be a fun game to have for my family and friends. A part of me does miss the old school styling of the game where players were all separate on the game board and raced each other across the looping map to get to the one solitary star placed at a random point. The new mechanic of everyone moving as one does lead to quicker games to be played but this new style of playing does debunks the long standing strong point for Mario Party and that is the minigames.

Minigames are the key part of every Mario Party game and where all the fun practically comes from considering most of the game involves you staring at a screen waiting for each player to take their turn. Minigames now though are far less frequent and do not occur after each player has taken their turn, rather they now appear to randomly generate on any one of the square spaces. There’s no labeling to indicate whether or not the square you land on will lead to a minigame so you never know when one will come along to break up the monotony. It isn’t like they never occur but it is sad that one of the strongest parts of the game doesn’t occur as much as it should.

When you do get a minigame, it is still an insane amount of fun and takes on the new look and feel of the recent Mario games that players have come to know. The bright and brilliant colors all look wonderful and you and other players will happily be jumping around trying to complete the various objectives such as being the last player bouncing on a trampoline while knocking everyone else off or kicking the most Cheep Cheep’s as they head towards a peer. There are also game modes for the motion controls on your old Wii controllers that will prove to be a challenge. Being the first player to move your player on top of a giant ball across various buttons was the hardest for me but others like choosing the Shy Guy with the most donuts on his plate even things out in terms of difficulty.

This all just happens to be part of one mode for Mario Party 10 and I came to find out that there are three different modes for this new game. The next mode I played was Bowser Party which brings the Wii U gamepad to some actual use and introduces a fifth player into the action. Bowser was always soar about being left out of things and so now another player can take on his role of crashing the party and stealing other players hard earned stars. In this mode Bowser follows the other four players that travel along like usual in their car and trying to get across the game board. Bowser in turn rolls a few dice to try and catch up to the other players and if he manages that then a 1v4 minigame takes place (hooray! minigames!). The games are fairly balanced to start off with as players will try to do things like dodge fireballs or avoid being thrown into a fiery pit as they run along a giant wheel. If the players manage to continue staying far ahead of Bowser or continue to beat him then the difficulty for the players gets turned up a notch and Bowser ends up more in favor of victory.

The mode is delightfully fun for the Bowser player as you lord over your friends trying to take them out (gosh, no wonder my friends think I’m mean). Regardless, players will no doubt have some evil fun at the expense of the entire party. Perhaps the best map to take advantage of being Bowser would be the underwater level due to the fact that certain points of the game board diverge to two separate paths, one usually worse than the other. Bowser can manipulate the signs at the diverging points with the gamepad due to the fact that they’re written in squid ink. It’s not a huge mind game to play but it is still a devilishly fun feature.

Our final game mode is the amiibo party and was initially something of a delight for me as it returns to the original Mario Party style of each player taking their own turn and moving separately. There is, of course, a gigantic catch and that is the frustrating mechanics behind this particular game mode. Players must constantly be close to the Wii U gamepad in order to plug each of their amiibo’s in when it is their respective turn to do something. Organizing this little function is like a game of hot potatoe or worse an exercise in everyone crowding around on the floor of your home to try and work this mode out. You also have to add on to this the fact that the maps to this game mode are fairly flat and linear, yes, there are different maps for the different amiibo’s but they do not vary much from each other in anyway. Overall, it feels like an exercise in futility to have even included this game mode in the first place (same goes for the amiibo’s in general) and I was supremely upset that this mode wasn’t as enjoyable as it should have been.

In the end, Mario Party 10 does prove to bring some new features to the table and make use of the new gamepad functionality. It certainly helps you become an evil mastermind while you take control of residential party pooper, Bowser. However, I do wish that if you’re going to bring back the classic Mario Party format, you definitely shouldn’t ruin it by adding the amiibos and making players crowd around the gamepad. It really detracts from the enjoyment. While there definitely are some shining moments for this game, there just isn’t enough to make you race to the store to pick it up.

Good:

- Five player Bowser game mode

- Wonderful maps and a few new minigame types to play along with the classics

Bad:

- Amiibo mode is a disappointment

- Where are all the minigames? And why am I not playing them more?

Scully Rating: 6.0 out of 10

Super Mario 3D Land

By: Robert Murphy

As I said before, I recently purchased a 3DS for the enjoyment of playing the new Pokémon game but that can only get me so for and I was in need of some more games and have now picked up Super Mario 3D Land. The game obviously offers to bring Mario into the 3D experience, but will it be any good? The answer is a definitive yes. Super Mario 3D Land brings a completely immersive three dimensional experience and takes you into newly design Mushroom Kingdom levels, power ups and new challenges, that bring back new life to an old favorite.

I truly must applaud the level of work that has been done in this 3D experience, each world is completely takes advantage of the functionality of the 3DS and creates worlds that are engaging and fun. Super Mario 3D Land takes the handheld versions of this side scrolling game and brings it to a new dimension, quite literally, whether it’s clever level design or puzzles that use the third dimension to mess with your perception of what you are able to jump on, almost ever feature of the game has been heightened in this new addition to the Mario universe.

We are welcomed with the usual standard of eight worlds to play through in order to once again rescue Princess Peach from the evil Bowser with some levels paying homage to some old favorites and some new ones as well. While the levels themselves shouldn’t be anything too problematic for players, they are none the less enjoyable and fun to play through. We still see hidden collectable coins to be found throughout the levels, along with our favorite power ups like the Flame flower and Raccoon suit, with the addition of some others like the Boomerang suit (lets you throw a boomerang like the boomerang koopa) and the Statue Suit (turns you into a stone statue when attempting a ground stomp). But for the Mario player looking for a bit more of a challenge, we see the addition of eight more special worlds that can be played once you beat Bowser in the first world. These special levels are much like the ones you could play in Super Mario World; they provide a much more challenging experience and are a flip flop of the original eight worlds you play through. And there are eight whole worlds worth…..EIGHT! This made for hours of more fun and challenge for me, even as a seasoned player of the Mario games.

Now a gripe, as some of you may or may have not seen in my last review of New Super Mario Bros. 2 was the Tanooki Suit and how it turns you into an unstoppable juggernaut, well it returns this time around too but I found it to be less of a cheat to the game. Not only does it not come as easy as it did in New Super Mario Bros. 2, it can now only be accessed in the first eight worlds, if you even need it. In the harder eight worlds you aren’t given the Tanooki Suit so you are made to play through the challenge and so you can learn to play the tough stuff.

All the levels together are memorable gems that make me yearn for the old days, especially since they were snuck into this new adaptation of Mario. Super Mario 3D Land has brought new life and innovation to the games with well crafted levels, loads of content and hours of enjoyment to be had. The game also gives me the first immersive 3D experience on my 3DS that I have and I’m glad that a Mario game was the game to do it.

Good:

- The gameplay is solid on every level

- An amazing 3D experience and world

- A mix of old classic gems and the establishment of new ones

- Not only are there the standard eight worlds to enjoy but eight more challenging worlds to work through

Bad:

- Nothing, I absolutely loved this game

Scully Rating: 9.5 out of 10 

New Super Mario Bros. 2

By: Robert Murphy

In an effort to make my purchase of a 3DS more worth my while I have started playing more handheld games and ever since I was a kid I have loved the Mario games and so I picked up New Super Mario Bros. 2. The little Italian plumber is still hopping his way through big platform levels, all in an effort to save Princess Peach from Bowser and his evil spawn. As many of you already know there have been a large number of changes to the game and this new addition to the series brings a few more to enjoy, along with new levels and new challenges.

The classic appeal of jumping through levels as one of my favorite childhood icons returns as levels continue to be evenly balanced and enjoyable to jump your way through for the surprisingly acrobatic yet pudgy Italian plumber. Levels in the Mushroom Kingdom are colorful and comical as always and classic enemies return to the screen such as koopas and grumpy goombas, who dance along to the catchy tunes accompanying the game play. Also the return of classic Mario power ups are back to help you along the way such as the flame flower, red mushroom and raccoon feather, along with newer power ups like the mini and mega mushrooms. World progression is also a similar setup to what we’ve seen in the past where each world has a final castle along with a smaller castle or a ghost house which come with a large amount of secrets and different passageways to trip you up. Then there’s also the different hidden ways to complete levels that open up different paths in certain levels, leading to other levels to play through, leaving all the things we loved from the past Mario games and the new ones as well.    

My initial excitement to buy a new Mario game to play eventually was dashed though much to my surprise, I didn’t get the old tingly feeling I use to get when playing a Mario game. New Super Mario Bros. 2 seemed to detract focus from playing the game in favor of collecting the iconic golden coins we’ve seen throughout the series. It’s not so much a bad thing but the game seems like it desperately wants you to collect all the coins you can but yet I still didn’t find it all that important. Also riddling levels with a ridiculous amount of ways to collect coins gives players an almost infinite amount of lives and removes a level of challenge to the game. Players now are also given the ability to turn blocks into golden coins through the golden flower power up which allows you to turn most anything into gold to the point where you could dive into a pile of them like Scrooge McDuck. Mario players are also accustomed to the brown blocks that can be hit multiple times to earn coins, well now if hit these blocks with good precision, the block turns gold and can be worn by Mario earning a golden stream of coins as you progress through the level for a short time. And finally we have the appearance of golden rings which unlike the red rings that spawn red coins, the golden rings turn enemies gold and earn you even more coins. So yeah, coins, REALLY big deal this time around.

Another unfortunate aspect to the game is the difficulty of the game itself, Mario has always been an enjoyable kid’s game and over the years the difficulty has been lowered and lowered and this time around that fact is even more present. It is doubtful that you’ll ever run out of lives in New Super Mario Bros. 2 in failing levels but what makes things worse is that if you do manage to fail a level a few times you are rewarded rather than punished. Failing a level a couple of times will get you the white Tanooki Suit which basically turns Mario into an invincible white raccoon that can not only not be hurt by anything in his path but can also fly a lot easier and can build it up a lot quicker too. The only thing that can stop you in the Tanooki Suit is falling in lava, falling in the purple acid and just plain falling in a hole. Even bosses can’t hurt you when you’re in this form, in a test to see just how powerful it was I failed the Bowser castle a few times and tested it out, Bowser was beat just by touching him in the Tanooki Suit which was just sad.

 As for other features there is co-op multiplayer which is fun, but is not anything new either for the game, it basically lets you play with friends or online through levels in the game together much like on the Wii and Wii U. And then we have Coin Rush Mode has a which can be played alone or against players online and is a competitive mode where you challenge one another across three randomly selected levels to see who can collect the most coins. This adds a little bit more of a lasting appeal to the game but not much and also adds a little bit of a challenging element for players as well.

In short, all the major appeals of a Mario game are here still in New Super Mario Bros. 2 but as far as a challenging game goes, you may want to try somewhere else. The game will barely take you a few hours to get through and a few more to find the hidden routes and the three large golden coins hidden throughout each level. Also with the massive amount of coins and the ability to get the Tanooki Suit for each level makes any semblance of a challenge disappears. But as I said before, all the appeal of the Mario universe is still here for players to enjoy and it is a fun game while it lasts, I just wish it lasted longer.

Good:

- Still a charming and enjoyable game and addition to the Mario series

- Levels are still evenly made and in the world of platformers there aren’t many better

- Coin Rush Mode adds a few more hours of fun and some replay value to the game

Bad:

- The Tanooki Suit isn’t a good addition to the game and removes any challenge you may find in playing the game

- The game is overall very short and won’t take more than a day

- The focus on coin collecting was overall irrelevant and hurts the game rather than adding to it

Scully Rating: 7.0 out of 10