Yep, it’s time for yet another analysis if the Super Mario Maker 2 Direct.
And now that we’ve covered Story Mode and the online, the analysis machine is now turning
its attention to the most everything else, including game’s overall interface, the
new Sound FX, Clear Conditions, new moves, and more.
Now since the Direct actually did a pretty bang-up job of covering the fundamentals,
as well as the fact that we’ve already covered a ton of the details across a variety of videos,
we’re only to be covering the truly new stuff--including some new details revealed
elsewhere such as in a lengthy video by GameCenter CX as well as the Japanese website.
Plus we’re under a pretty tight time crunch for reasons that’ll become obvious in a
day or so.
So with that out of the way, let’s get to it.
And let’s start with the interface itself--or rather, the lack of it at times, since it’s
nowhere to be found a lot of the times--well, mostly.
As there are little yellow marks along everything along 3 edges of the screen--these are actually
the handles of the toolbars for their respective sides, which we’re guessing you can pop
in and put with either a tap or swipe.
This should free up a lot of real-estate when editing.
And thanks to the this footage from GameCenter CX, we can see they have an auto-hide function
too if you drag an object behind them--but don’t worry, they’ll pop right back into
place right after,
But here’s a question: if the toolbars automatically slide out of the way when the cursor gets
close, how do you actually use them when playing docked?
Well, we can see how!
With the press of a button, your cursor switches to the menu where you can quickly make selections--and
it seems the Toggle for this is the X button.
And that video revealed a few other things too, such as providing a better glimpse at
how the new Objects Toolbar works.
Now we already discussed back in our first analysis that it now acts as a history of
your most recently used objects.
And now we can actually see that in action.
When you use the magnifying glass to Search for a new object, the object temporarily resides
in that Search box until you plop it down, at which point it gets moved over to the recent
History, bumping everything over one slot--except for the Objects you’ve pinned to the bar
which remain exactly where you want them.
Furthermore, the border that used to appear when using the controller-shortcuts for Moving
or Deleting objects has been improved, with the border now being pushed out to the screen’s
edges and now lights up in the color of the selected mode, either yellow for moving objects
and Blue for deleting.
Dragging Mario around while editing seems to work the same way as before, except now
you can summon him directly to your cursor with a button tap-and it even makes a little
whistle sound.
Cute.
This should be a handy shortcut when editing with the controller.
We can also see that creating Sub-Areas work the same way as before, by dropping down a
Warp Pipe and having Mario go through it--only in this case, there’s now an option in the
quick-access panel to instantly pull Mario to the pipe and warp through.
Nice!
And you might have noticed there are four different Pipe Color options too, with their
color indicating the speed that Enemies or Objects will pop out at.
Now after warping, we get our first and only look at the editing screen for the Vertical
sub-areas, including a floating scrub bar that appears in editing mode.
An arrow-button just beneath might be how you swap between the vertical and horizontal
landscapes.
Now one thing we haven’t seen yet is how large these areas can be, as most of the vertical
sections shown are only been a single-screen wide.
Yet the player moves the cursor revealing a second screen, confirming it’s at least
wider than a single screen--but how much wider?
Well, that’s a surprisingly complex question.
Because you might think that Nintendo just took the standard level layout and flipped
it 90 degrees, right?
Well, no, they didn’t.
Because here’s the thing--a normal horizontal level is only 27 blocks tall.
And yet, a single screen in Super Mario Maker is 24 Blocks wide, as we can see here.
Meaning if they did just flip the stage, it would only allow provide room for the screen
to scroll horizontally an 3 additional blocks--and why even bother at that point?
Well thankfully, a scene from the Direct shows it goes at fair amount farther.
Because this sliding sequence definitely takes place in a vertical sub-area, as it exceeds
two screens in height, and in it the screen scrolls horizontally by nearly two screens
worth before the scene cuts away.
So we wouldn’t be surprised if you have two full screens of width for your vertical
segments, just as the horizontal stages stages provide 2 screens of height.
So that’s width, but what about the height.
And once again, you might think that it matches the normal width of the stage, only now vertically,
which would be 10 screens wide, or 240 blocks--and once again, you’d be wrong.
Because do you see that scrub bar?
Well, each segment represents the height of one screen, so if we fill in the rest using
that one segment up to the point where the end-point marker would go based on the original
game, we can see it’ll stack 11 screens high.
And from what we counted, it seems each screen might be 14 blocks high, which would mean
the vertical segments would be 154 blocks high in total--so if our math is right, that
would make them considerably shorter than the standard 240 block width of a standard
course.
But, if you can indeed make these two screens wide, that would actually give you more total
room to play around with being 22 Screens or 7238 Blocks, instead of the usual 20 Screens
and 6480 of a standard course
And if that 30 block limit of the sub-area’s width ends up being true, that means you’ll
have 4620 blocks of total area to play with, as compared to the 6480 blocks of a standard--but
again, that’s purely speculation at this point as it’s entirely possible the vertical
stages could be wider.
Because there’s also always the chance the sub-area could work similar to how the horizontal
ones do, except instead of being 2 screens tall, it’s 2 screens wide instead/ And if
that were the case, would give you more room to play than the standard level, with 7238
blocks in total.
So in conclusion: We’ll just have to wait and see!
Moving on, we noticed a few other small tweaks to the game’s presentation.
Like when adjusting the length of objects, the arrows are now noticeably longer, likely
to make them visible underneath your fat finger since the Switch lacks the stylus of the Wii
U original.
Blocks that contain items have now been shrunk and moved the Exclamation Mark indicating
such to the corner, likely to make the exact block type more visible, which was difficult
to discern in the original game.
Oh, and it seems the presentation has even been enhanced in the small amount of time
between the reveal trailer and now, because the Bird icons used when designing a Custom
Scroll now look like cute little cartoon birds, as opposed to the single Twitter-like icons
before, and the speed of each section is now also shown along the entire length of the
track.
The Direct also revealed the co-op mode for course creation for the first time, with two
people able to working together on the same level.
But did you spot that the 2nd player seems to get their own unique mini inventory, where
they can toggle between the four main object categories with the shoulder buttons, to bring
up the associated objects below?
Neat stuff.
Moving on, one major new feature being added to the game are Clear Conditions that first
have to be met before you can finish the stage, as the goal physically won’t exist until
you do as shown here.
Clear Conditions come in 3 highly customizable forms:: Actions, Parts, and Status, with that
final Remove option likely just removing whatever condition you’ve previously set.
So for Actions, we can see that includes things like Reaching the Goal without taking Damage
or Reaching the Goal without touching the ground, which--yikes!
Parts is a bit simper, forcing the player to either collect or destroy a specific amount
of items or enemies, respectively.
The counter for each one appears to default to whatever the total amount of objects of
that type are currently in your course, as we can see that it won’t let you raise it
any higher, but you can of course reduce it to whatever amount you want.
You’ll be able to use this to create true Boss Fights if you want, such as demonstrated
with Bowser here or this crazy mecha-Bowser Jr contraption.
In any case, a Flag icon will pop up when you’ve actually you’ve met the condition,
signifying you can now reach the goal.
And as for Status, well that seems to refer to Mario’s physical state--the one example
we see is that Mario must be in Super Form to reach the goal, so you can probably adjust
this to be whichever power-up stater you want--or maybe even power-down state, like being Small
Mario.
A flag icon next to your character seems to indicate whether you’re in the appropriate
state--which we can see same again in this scene, along with the Koopa Troopa Car icon.
And between that flag icon and the lack of a counter, it seems the goal isn’t to kill
the Koopa Troopa, so much as it is to to hijack his ride and take it all the way to the finish.
Yep, you can make your very own Grand Theft Mario.
The Direct also showcased some of the new and returning Sound & VIsual Effect options
in Super Mario Maker 2.
Unfortunately, it was hard to hear them over the narrator--but thankfully, the Chinese
version of the Direct didn’t have a narrator at all.
So let’s take another look--and a listen--at all of the new Sound Effects we know about
so far, like this lightning effect, another based on Takamaru and his Famicom game, The
Mysterious Murasame Castle, then we have a Shockwave, a Japanese celebration which is
perfect if you want to try and recreate Bowser’s Kingdom from Super Mario Odyssey, the Pig
from Mario Paint, this Horror-movie like effect, these Music Notes, a Crowd in which we can
see Yoshi, Mario, Luigi, Peach and a bunch of Toafds all cheering you on.
And finally, a Super Famicom symbol.
Unfortunately, the Chinese Direct doesn’t provide any additional insight into this one
because of the 3D World music, but a clip from the Japanese website does: Yep, that’s
music from the original Super Mario Kart theme, which is just too perfect.
So that covers it for the new Sound & Visual Effects revealed in the Direct, but we can
hear some returning ones too, like the Shoe & Spring Shoe, the Cat Swipe, and this creepy
haunted effect--only now with improved fog effects.
And we wouldn’t be surprised if they’re all back--especially since we can see even
more returning ones in this GameCenter CX clip, such as Applause, Bells, and Fireworks.
And that’s not all--because at the very start of this clip, we can actually see the
Sound & VIsual Effects interface for just a few frames--and we can see that they use
the same radial wheels as the primary objects.
And we can see even more returning effects--along with other new ones, like the frog face here,
the multiple lips, this solar flare thing, and a Party Favor, which we can do see in
action here.
Now while we can’t see how many sound effects there are in total, we can see that they’re
split up into 5 sections--and if each one has even just 2 wheels of 5 icons each, such
as in this first category, that could mean we’re looking at a possible 50 Sound Effects,
which would roughly double that of the original game--but again, that’s just speculation.
As for the categories, the first one here translates roughly to “Feelings” and consists
of 10 sound effects split up among 2 wheels.
The next one might stand for Actions to punctuate a point, especially since we can see some
of the Sounds in that section based on the Red Wheel.
Then we have this green icon with a pair of arrows--and we have no idea what this one’s
for--maybe effects to help give directional clues or feedback?
The next one over shows what appears to be a pair of Stars, which might apply to more
atmospheric effects such as the Horror-movie like ones, and finally, we have a Record Player.
And what are Record Players for?
Yep, they play Music, so this might be a music selector--which is likely where that Super
Famicom Mario Kart effect is found.
And we can’t help but wonder if it might offer the option to make your own music too,
like in Mario Paint, which used several of these same icons.
Beyond the main interface, we’ve noticed some changes with how certain objects behave
too.
And first up is the Checkpoint flag--for one, it’s now its own object instead of being
the alternate form of the arrow--and two, did you catch that Small Mario didn’t turn
Big after touching it, unlike the first game?
Is this a universal change, or could it mean that you can apply different attributes to
the checkpoint itself, like awarding specific power-ups instead?
Next is Yoshi, or specifically Red Yoshi who can breathe fire.
And as we predicted in our first analysis, it seems to be on command rather than requiring
you to eat an enemy first, since his cheeks aren’t bulging out.
Except, we did notice one on thing--because in both this clip as well as the one from
the reveal trailer where Yoshi also spat fire, not only is he Red, but Mario’s also Fire
Mario--so is that possibly part of the requirement?
There’s also a Fire Flower right in front of him, so maybe Yoshi has to eat that first
to gain fire power?
And speaking of Yoshi, we noticed something else interesting in this multiplayer clip--specifically,
we can see that a Yoshi Egg spawns out of nowhere, in the exact same way the human players
do after dying--which likely means it’s actually respawning rather than appearing
for the first time.
But does this happen only at predetermined Egg Locations, or any time that one of the
players loses a Yoshi?
Next, even though we knew Goombrats were bring added to the game thanks to the Japanese flyers,
we can now see that they’re provided as an alternate form of the Goomba rather than
as their own object.
Finally, let’s move onto the 3D World Style.
Now as a reminder, we’ve already covered this a ton before, and since we’re running
low on time,m we’re only going to touch things that really stood out to us that we
haven’t mentioned before.
And first up is the fact that Mario has some new moves in this style, like Long Jumping
and leaping from a handstand--both of which we predicted in our first analysis.
But what we didn’t see coming is this new Twirl-jump--which is similar to secret move
in SM3DW where you could twirl the thumbstick before jumping to spin in the air--which clearly
isn’t quite how it works here.
So could this be 3D World stylew’s version of the mid-air twirl from NSBMU?
As for the Cat Suit, we can a couple of new moves too, like a basic swipe as well as a
dive, both from the main game as we expected.
Now beyond Mario, there are some more things to note about the objects in this style too.
Such as how Banzai Bills can also be given cat ears-- and that this will cause this to
home in on you, like the Red Bullet Bills from the original SMM.
And just as Bonsai Bills can be positioned either in the foreground or
background, it seems so too can the Charvaarghs, as we can see them leap both side-to-side,
as well as front-to-back, and presumably back-to-front will be an option too.
And even though we’ve seen the Porcupuffer before, it’s even more terrifying here as
it tries to suck up Mario with a big gulp of air while jumping out of the water--likely
aided by the wings that have been plopped onto it.
We can also see that they’re more agile than ever, being able to swim in any direction
as they hone in on Mario.
And speaking of terrifying, check out Mewoser, who seemingly climbs up from out of nowhere!
And it appears he’s able to climb up structures just as Cat Mario can, even using the very
platforms in the level to pull himself up.
And of course, he still spits fireballs too--yeah, it seems Mewoser will be a force to be reckoned
with,
Moving on, we see some more level themes in the 3D World Style, as they look almost exactly
as you’d expect, including Castles that take place outside, Snow, in which the trees
even bounce to the music like in the original game, and Ghost Houses set within libraries,
complete with comfy couches, large windows, and pictures of Boo?
And then we have this area, which at first doesn’t quite seem to specifically match
any style, but the GameCenter CX clip confirms it as sky--which leaves only the this theme
that hasn’t yet been placed.
Which means it has to be the Airship style, as we predicted back in our original analysis--not
to toot our own horn or anything.
Now while that might be it for the themes, we do see a couple of them in a slightly new
way that you might not have realized, because both this Underground stage as well as this
Forest one appear to be in a vertical Subn-Area, with the background objects far below, and
the background at higher elevations growing increasingly less detailed.
Okay, we’re almost done here, but there are still a few interesting details I wanted
to point out--like how the level themes for NSMBU have received a bit of an upgrade.
Caves now feature waterfalls and the Airship’s mushrooms now look more mechanical.
And there are new new random decoration too like the new taller grass above ground or
stack of jewels when underground, or even the Mario & Luigi Snowmen from NSLU when in
the snow theme.
And not to be left out, the SMW style gets in on the fun with new taller flowers as well.
Next, while the Direct did a pretty great job breaking down how the new Moon object
works, there is one possible detail it didn’t touch on: this Circle of Boos which we see
a couple of times , but only at night.
And we think that might be related to a new behavior in which they actually move toward
Mario, which they couldn’t do in the original game without being on a track.
Yet there’s no track in sight.
So is it possible that the Circle of Boos work differently at night--or maybe the tracks
themselves turn invisible at Night--wouldn’t that be neat!
And finally, we were wondering what might happen if a giant enemy tried to enter a Clear
Pipe--and thankfully, the Direct reveals exactly what happens: They shrink in size to make
the trip!
That was unexpected!
And there you have it, our main analysis of the Super Mario Maker 2 Direct.
But if you want even more make sure to check out our individual analysis of the Story Mode,
as well as Online & Multiplayer features.
Plus, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a lot more to say about Super Mario Maker
2 soon--very soon.
So thanks for watching and make sure to hit that subscribe button for more on SMM2 and
everything else Nintendo Switch.