So the Super Mario Maker 2 Direct has come and gone, and while we’ve already made a
ton of videos about it, but we’re still not done--because we’ve got some analysis
videos to get through too, baby!
And for whatever reason, the Analysis Machine wanted to start off with Story Mode, so Story
Mode it is!
Hey, you don’t argue with the analysis machine, okay.
So let’s get to it!
Okay, so you might be wondering...how much can there be to this really?
Didn’t the Direct lay it all out there?
We know that there’s 100 Nintendo-crafted courses that you’ll play to play in order
to earn money that paid for rebuilding Princess Peach’s Castle?
Yep, them’s the basics--but there are still some interesting details that it left out--and
we’re pretty confident you missed at least a few of them too.
Now featuring pre-built levels by Nintendo is nothing new to Super Mario Maker.
The Wii U version had 68 so called “Sample courses”, and the 3DS one had an even 100
in its Challenge Mode.
But it seems Super Mario Maker 2 is setting its sights just a little bit higher by branding
it as a proper “Story” mode, which would imply that, you know, there’s an actual
story to go along with it--or at least as much as you’re likely to find in a 2D Mario
afford anyway.
So what’s going on here then?
Well starting out, things look pretty dire.
Chief Toadette looks to be beside herself, letting out a frustrated ugh, and only elaborates
that she can’t even believe what happened to Peach’s Castle, while the Taskmaster
Toad looks despondent, staring at the...well, nothing.
There’s literally nothing of Peach’s castle left--not even a trace--suggesting that it
wasn’t exactly destroyed--at least conventionally.
It’s almost as if it’s been..erased.
DUH DUH DUH.
That’s right, Mr. Erasor, you’re our Prime Suspect.
And hey, what happened to Peach in all this?
Did she disappear with it?
Although if so, these Toads have some seriously messed up priorities if rebuilding the castle
is the first thing on their agenda...In any case, the fact that the castle’s being rebuilt
at all seems to suggest that the original one ain’t coming back.
So again, what exactly here happened?
Well, the Taskmaster but might actually give some insight into this whole ordeal--maybe.
As he mumbles “This is why I’m a cat person,” before trailing off.
Huh, cats...what a curious thing to say in a game where, between the Cat Bell Power-Up
and Meowser, cats are a pretty big new addition.
And of course, who hasn’t suspected that Bowser--err, Meowser is probably behind it
all--you know, like he ALWAYS is.
Except, unless that Toad’s being sarcastic, his statement seems to be implying the opposite--that
it WASN’T a cat, which is why he’s a cat person...
So I guess Meowser’s off the hook?
Especially because when someone says they’re a cat person, what they’re really saying
is that they’re not a dog person.
So could a Dog character somehow be behind it all?
Hey, that Undo dog is right there after all--and if he were truly on your side, couldn’t
he just Undo the whole thing and bring the castle back?
WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR UNDO DOG?!
Is it Mr. Erasor?!
Man, what a plot twist it would be if these two are in cahoots!
Okay seriously, the story is still a giant mystery--but the few details we know so far
really do make you think...
At any rate, your primary concern for now is rebuilding the castle to its former glory,
which is pretty fitting for a game all about Making things from scratch.
And Chief Toadette has the Blueprints for doing just that, which she’s affixed to
the board behind her using pink pins that match her own color--if we zoom in, we can
see the plans in detail, revealing a drawing of the castle in what appears to be its finished
form.
There are even notes and arrows scribbled on the plans, lending an authentic touch.
But in order to actually build the castle, you’re going to need some cash, which you
earn by taking on jobs in the form of pre-built Mario Maker levels which are issued either
by the Taskmaster, or from others characters later on, like the Undo Dog.
But the Taskmaster seems to be your only option at the start, who offers up jobs from clients,
most of whom apparently want to remain anonymous--how strange.
Now even though his bulletin board is apparently packed with jobs--affixed of course, with
Red pins that match his own Red spots--he only offers up a single job to start, titled
A Downhill Battle, which yeah, about sums it up.
As the first level, it aims to teach the basics of slopes, with arrows directing you to press
down to slide down the hill and lay waste to the enemies climbing it.
The stage concludes with an arrow showing the optimal place to leap from in order to
reach the top of the flagpole.
Now while this is all we see of the Jobs screen in the English Direct, the Japanese one actually
revealed a bit more.
As when you select a course, it pops up a 2nd screen with a more detailed job description.
In this case, it roughly translates to "I made a course with many Goombas and have prepared
a reward.
Please reach the goal.
Tip: Slide and hit the Goombas” Oh, and you want to who left this job?
A Goomba-Loving Middle-Aged Guy--no wonder he wants to remain anonymous!
But we wouldn’t be surprised if these cute little messages is actually a message from
the stage’s real-life creator itself.
Anyways, as the first course, it’s appropriately numbered 1, has a difficulty rating of 1 out
of 4 Stars, and will net you 100 coins for reaching the goal.
But it seems you can earn even more, as the results screen seems to add the coins collected
within the level itself to your tally--nice!
This gives collecting coins an actual purpose.
Now even though there may only be a single job to start, a picture from the Mario Maker’s
Japanese website reveals the next 3 in line, that presumably become available after beating
the first stage--as its now marked with a Flag icon--as well as having built the Castle’s
foundation since we can see it in the background.
The newer jobs have a Red exclamation mark next to them indicating they’re still available,
whereas the first stage’s entire box has been grayed out, indicating that challenges
can’t be replayed solely to earn more cash--though we’re sure you can still replay them for
fun.
There’s room for at least 6 Jobs per page, and the counter up here indicates that there
will be multiple pages.
Furthermore, it seems the amount each job pays out might be tied to its difficulty level,
as Numbers 1 through 3, which are all rated at 1 on the difficulty scale, award 100 coins
each, while #4 which is 2 out of 4 awards 150 smackers.
And if we check out the Undo Dog’s Job, his is rated 3 out of 4 and awards 200 coins.
So did you so the pattern?
It went up by 50 coins with each increase in difficulty level, meaning a full 4-Star
difficulty level probably awards 250 Coins.
Now while the first level is a known quantity, we can roughly translate the other level titles
as a hint as to what they might offer.
So #2 is roughly says “Use the On/Off Switch,” which could be one of these two levels shown
during this segment that both featured that Switch.
The translation for Level 3 is helpfully already done for us, called “Hello, 3D World,”
which we’re going to go out on a limb and say is probably a level in the 3D World style--although
there unfortunately aren’t any clips of that style in this segment.
And finally, level 4 is titled something along the lines of “The sun in the desert” which
we’re guessing involves the Angry sun in some way--no wonder that level’s rated harder
than the others!
Beyond these, the Direct also shows some gameplay of some other stages as well, but there really
isn’t a whole lot to note about them besides that some stages have Live Counters, while
others don’t.
At any rate, once you’ve earned some cash, it’s time to get building!
Step 1 is to pay for the Foundation, at a cost of 100 Coins, which has the 3 toads waiting
around here before going to work on a pile of materials, made up of bricks and paint
cans that matches their own color.
Who knew Toads were so obsessed with color coordination?
But they won’t make much progress before another message pops up, this time in the
form of 2...Hammers?
What the heck does that mean?
Could it be a timer of sorts, showing how much progress the Toads have to make before
it’s completed.
Or maybe it correlates to hammers that you have to find before they can finish the task?
Could they even be the same hammer power-up that the Japanese Direct revealed?
Yeah, there’s a lot of questions here.
In any case, a meter in the top left shows how far along the castle’s construction
is.
And apparently, these piles of materials don’t even register.
However, we do see the castle in a couple more completer states throughout this segment.
First at 21%, which features two stories and a pair of towers, though the left one’s
entryways are boarded up, likely owing to the lack of a 3rd floor.
And the Red and Blue toad are now hanging around up here, but looking rather dispirited,
with the Red Toad evidently pondering his future, and the Blue toad looking rather...
well, blue.
Now if we back up the footage, we can just barely see an ! Mark above the Red Toad, indicating
he has something to say--and sure enough, when Mario checks in, he needs your help--what
that is exactly, who knows.
Maybe it involves that missing 3rd floor?
Now if we go only by the meter, we also see it at 26% and in the Japanese Direct, 27%
too--but did you spot the difference?
The icon turned pink--and it’s the only time the icon changed color.
Now it’s possible this signifies some kind of change with the castle, but since the font
size changed too, we’re inclined to think it’s from a different build of the game--we’re
just not sure which one is the newer one if so.
Moving on, even though there’s no meter on-screen, we actually do see the castle in
what appears to be its nearly-completed form at the very start of the segment--which we’re
guessing is the cutscene that plays after building it.
As you can see, the castle now has a finished 3rd floor, with a new bedroom tower, the doors
leading up to it are no longer barred, and even the ground floor has gained some cosmetic
touches with flowers that now fill the vases and line the balcony.
It all matches Toadette’s blueprints exactly, even if it doesn’t exactly match the look
of any Peach's Castle from the Mario series--which isn’t unusual.
But hold up--there’s still something missing: The spot where the stained-glass window of
Peach usually goes sits empty.
Huh.
So it seems Mario may not be done.
I blame that Yellow toad sleeping on the job there.
Which is actually a callback to the sleepy Yellow Toad from Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.
Silly Yellow Toads...
In fact, we’re reasonably confident that Mario’s no where close to done.
Because besides the castle, there’s isn’t a whole lot else going on here--which is a
little odd when you remember that there were three piles of bricks that made up the foundation.
While the red ones in the middle became the castle, what happened to the green and blue
ones?
Well our guess is that they’re still there, but are cut off by the zoomed in camera.
And we’re certain that they can be turned into something because in the clip featuring
the Undo dog, we can see a tower-like structure behind him, featuring what appears to be an
entrance with green trim--a color that’s nowhere to be found on the castle itself.
So yeah, this is probably what becomes of the green brick pile, meaning it’s located
just left of the castle.
We’re just not sure whether it’s a freestanding structure, or if physically connects to the
castle in some way.
And we expect something similar of the blue pile of bricks on the other side.
Now if each structure is built independently, then it would stand to reason that they would
have their own blueprints too, right?
And sure enough, Toadette actually has three extra sets of blueprints lying on the ground
next to her.
Now if one’s for the green stack of bricks, and the other for blue, what’s the final
one for?
Well, that might just be where the sleeping Yellow Toad comes into play, as we haven’t
seen any sign of yellow bricks yet.
So that might just be Toadett’es final construction project.
Now here’s something we haven’t discussed.
How exactly do you get around here?
I mean, does Mario travel point to point like on a World Map?
He does seem to move a little too precisely throughout this segment.
Except, there are some inconsistencies between the English and Japanese Directs that reveal
the truth.
Because in every scene involving talking to a character, Mario’s placement changes depending
on whether it’s the English Direct or Japanese one--and not just side to side, but depth-wise
too--which only makes sense if it’s something the player has full control over.
So it’s a little ironic that you have full 3D control in a portion of the game that’s
otherwise all about 2D gameplay--it reminds us a bit of Sonic Jam’s pretty sweet hub
menu.
In fact, the raised grass looks as if it may restrict Mario’s movement to the path itself.
This also explains why everything of note is either directly on the path or right next
to it, such as this Warp Pipe covered in bricks.
And speaking of which, it seems you’ll have to help out various other characters time
to time too, such as Mr. Erasor, who offers to erase those very bricks from the Warp Pipe--seriously,
how is no one suspecting him of the castle’s disappearance?
And where does that Warp Pipe go anyway?
Hmm.
There’s also there’s a second stack of bricks on the right that appears to be blocking
the path--which might be how the game prevents you from going any further, which likely indicates
that this is the area found to the right of the castle.
Oh, also, those bricks are oddly retro looking too--matching their appearance from the original
SMB.
Just a neat touch, or does it hint at something deeper?
Another character you’ll interact with is the Undo Dog, which we mentioned before.
But this scene demonstrates that you’ll occasionally have dialogue choices to make,
which might lend the Story mode a slightly grander feel.
Now both of these characters, as you probably know, are part of Super Mario Maker 2’s
interface--specifically, the right side of it.
But there’s a 3rd character from that side that we haven’t seen in Story Mode yet:
The Course Bot, who’s responsible for Saving your stages.
So we can’t help but wonder if he too might make an appearance in Story Mode.
Perhaps in the form of the robot floating around in the background of the online Section?
Maybe he’ll..Save the day?!
Get it?!
Okay, we’re almost done here, but there’s just a few final details I wanted to move
out.
Such as how the Toad’s heads follow Mario as he moves.
Or Toadette's cute idle animation, where she puts her hands up to her face.
And when Mario opens the front door, the handles fly outward--it’s some cute stuff.
Then in this scene, some kind of icon or prompt appears on-screen in the top-right corner,
but it’s obscured by the Direct’s overlay, so it’s impossible to tell what it’s for.
And finally, we’ve already pointed out the differences between some scenes in the English
and Japanese versions of the Direct, but the one featuring Mr. Eraser has some pretty profound
differences, including the grass’s texture changing, the tree changing height, and even
the hill in the background changing shape.
Again, it suggests that two different builds were used for footage--or, does it mean that
Mr. Eraser guy really can’t be trusted at all.
Hmmmm.
And with that, we’re finally done covering everything we could dig up on Super Mario
Maker 2’s story mode.
So thanks for watching and make sure to click that subscribe button for more on Super Mario
Maker 2 and everything else Nintendo Switch as well.