- [Seth] It's hard to decide where to begin
when talking about all the things I love
about a game as open-ended as Super Mario Maker 2.
It does nearly everything better
than its already excellent
but criminally underplayed predecessor on the Wii U
and introduces some incredible new ideas
to this 2D platformer level designer.
Those include, but are not limited to,
level styles, building items, a story mode,
and so much more.
Most importantly though,
it maintains the charm of the Mario games we know and love.
(upbeat music)
One of the most surprising new additions
to Mario Maker 2 is story mode,
which has as much depth as you'd expect
from any Super Mario game story,
which I admit is a low bar, but it gets by on its charm.
Peach's castle has been destroyed,
and rebuilding it means beating over 100
increasingly difficult built-in levels, which in turn,
earns you the coins needed to repair the castle.
That's all the story mode is.
That's all the story mode needs to be.
What's cool is that these levels couldn't exist
in a Mario game outside the bent rules
of Super Mario Maker 2.
They take the classic Mario formula
and pull that familiar rug out from under you
in delighting and surprising ways.
(funky music)
But this is Super Mario Maker 2,
not Super Mario Castle Repair Simulator.
And since it's the second version
of an already groundbreaking tool,
it comes as no surprise
that the section dedicated to crafting your own fun, goofy,
or absurdly punishing Super Mario levels
in the style of Super Mario Bros.,
Super Mario World, or even Super Mario 3D World, is superb.
Any concerns I had about controller-based input
versus the 3DS or Wii U's touch input melted away
after a short period of adjustment.
The number of options here for level creation
are astonishing.
Options depend on what Mario style you're using.
Like you can't use the 3D World cat suit
in the original Super Mario Bros. levels,
but you can switch freely between the other styles.
My favorite extra feature of Super Mario Maker 2
is Yamamura's Dojo, which is a game design boot camp.
Yes, there are lessons showing you the basics,
like how to switch back and forth
between building and playing to test your levels,
what to do if you mess up, and how to use the various parts,
but there are also lessons on drawing inspiration
for your works, giving directions to your players,
and even a lesson where the ultimate takeaway is
no one likes a troll.
Well said, Nina, well said.
(bouncy music)
You could play through Super Mario Maker 2's levels
cooperatively, just like you can in New Super Mario Bros.
but you can also build levels cooperatively.
You just might not want to.
My son and I tried to work together on a level,
and we just didn't enjoy it.
There just isn't enough room on one screen
to not get in one another's way.
Co-op play is also kind of confusing.
It's well known you can't play online with your friends yet,
which is stupid, but what you can do
is play with your friends locally
or, if you're all in the same room, on your own Switches.
Mario Maker is fundamentally about sharing
and exploring levels built by other people,
and the Course World section of Super Mario Maker 2
is where user-generated content lives.
I liked how easy it was to browse other people's creations,
so long as they're not your real-life friends.
If you want to check out your friends' works,
it's as easy as entering their nine-digit Maker ID.
Seriously, Nintendo, in 2019?
The good news is that headache is the biggest knock
against an otherwise exquisite experience.
(sinister music)
One-upping the original, Super Mario Maker 2
is the most accessible game design tool ever created.
I've spent hours building, testing, and playing levels,
and I feel like I've only barely scratched the surface
of what's possible.
A lot of you out there will certainly blow my mind
with your ideas, but that's just part of the whole.
The story mode introduces hundreds of novel,
professionally made levels to play,
and its design tutorials are so much more in-depth
than they ever needed to be.
All of the new content and tools
afford us so much freedom in how you play, how we make,
and even how we learn that it's astonishing
how well it's all held together in one game.
Yet while Super Mario Maker 2
takes the incredibly complex concepts of game design
and makes them accessible to everyone,
accessing your friends and their level creations
is still needlessly difficult.
For more Nintendo games,
be sure to check out our look at 14 new details
in the upcoming Emerald Crossing: New Horizons,
and for everything else, keep it right here on IGN.
(triumphant music)
- Yeah hoo hoo!