Title: Super Mario Maker

Game Type: Platformer Video Game

No. of Players: 1

Publisher: Nintendo

Price: MSRP $59.99

Release: September 11, 2015

Review by Matthew Funk

There’s really no point in beating around the Piranha Plant here: Super Mario Maker is one hell of a game, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Ever since bringing the game home on Friday evening, my roommates and I have hardly been able to put it down. A level-creator unlike any other, this is a game that is somehow both infinite and infinitely accessible, providing endless challenges and laughs no matter who you are or how you want to play.

The most amazing thing about the game is how it teaches the language of the Mushroom Kingdom. Even if you aren’t a Mario expert, there’s hardly anyone who has played video games before who doesn’t know how to play through World 1-1. And with that simple sentence–the “see Spot run” of this language–as a foundation, Super Mario Maker effortlessly shows you how to make sentences into paragraphs and eventual magnum opuses of Mario magic.

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When creating your own levels, the user interface is inviting and simple: just drag a block from the menu at the top, place it on the grid below, and you’re on your way. As you explore how individual parts work, the language of the game becomes like second nature. Want a giant Goomba? Drag a Super Mushroom to it. Want a warp pipe? Just place Mario over a pipe. Want a red Koopa? Give the green one a shake. While there are few odd choices in button icons–such as a dog for undo and a rocket ship for reset, holdovers from Mario Paint–theuser interface is easy to use and full of fun easter eggs that make it feel like there’s always something else in the toybox to find.

For example, when my roommate Dusty was creating a level and shaking a block, flies flew out of it, and when he tapped them, a minigame opened up that had the player swatting exponentially-increasing numbers of flies with a swatter on the gamepad. It was a game that brought Dusty several minutes of zany fun that we have been unable to replicate. It appears to have been a completely random occurrence. The game is filled with these tiny details. Tapping on the title screen’s letters gives a myriad of effects ranging from a Wario shoutout to a shower of Super Stars in the random playable level in the background. The game fits Mario-references in wherever it possibly can, in a gloriously wacky and engrossing celebration for the gaming icon’s 30th birthday.

Levels can be as basic or complex as the imagination allows, and the process of level creation is fluid and really draws you in. I found myself accidentally staying up to 4am the first night when I told myself (at midnight) that I’d go to bed after finishing the level I was working on. The creation of courses constantly rewards the player for experimentation, and as I steadily unlocked new parts and mixed them in new ways the game kept inspiring new ideas and giving me new reasons to keep creating.

This wild self-perpetuating creativity is on prime display in the second half of the game experience: playing the levels. Only days into the game’s life and there have already been some truly incredible courses. From intricate machines that take you for a ride to meticulously balanced classic-style levels, there is already a stunning variety of content on display. One of the best ways to experience these are in the 100-Mario Challenge mode, in which you are given 100 lives to clear 16 levels. My friends and I have had a blast taking it on as a team, rotating between us to make the life-sharing a bit more interesting. Dusty, David (you might remember him from Force Friday) and I were doing this on Sunday night and decided to take on Expert difficulty for the first time. The very first level was quite a challenge, so much so that David and Dusty kept attempting it until long after I went to bed. I woke up the next morning to learn they’d spent all 100 lives, obsessively attempting this level, unable to get to the flagpole. David finally beat it the next evening, over 170 lives in. It wasn’t an unfair level, just incredibly difficult, but it was compelling enough that they kept trying.

With the knowledge that every level must be completed to be uploaded, it inspires a weird “challenge accepted” mentality to even the most absurd of courses. The community is already doing a surprisingly god job of curating itself, with a lot of quality design work rising to the top. This also encourages players to create levels that people actually want to play, rather than gimmicky or bloated messes, of which there are certainly a few. We’ve uploaded a handful of courses already, one of which–“Dusty’s Dank Danger Dungeon”–has already received a positive comment from a Japanese player. Even outside of the online courses, creating levels and challenging your buddies to try them is a recipe for the best kind of Nintendo gruddge-fuelled competition. Group play of this kind has also been very helpful for me in playtesting my courses, as watching someone else’s choices makes me look at the courses in a new light. The game actively encourages you to not only get better at playing Mario, but also at creating levels. Both halves of the experience are equally vital and equally rewarding.

The game isn’t completely flawless–the lack of checkpoints seems odd, and there are a handful of power-ups missing–but most are incredibly minor, and given Nintendo’s recent DLC patterns, a lot of the seemingly missing content could be on the way. Overall, Super Mario Maker provides an immersive experience that will have endless replay value in both creation and gameplay. This game has been on well into the wee hours of the morning every night since its release–and not just by me.

Super Mario Maker earns 5 Mario hard-hats out of 5.