Super Mario Maker 2
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 "SUPER MARIO MAKER! 2!"
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Super Mario Maker 2 is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo. A sequel to the 2015 Wii U game Super Mario Maker, it was released on June 28, 2019, for the Nintendo Switch.
Gameplay
Like its predecessor, Super Mario Maker 2 is a side-scrolling platform game in which players create their own courses using assets from across the Super Mario series and publish them onto the internet for others to play. Players can choose from a selection of prior Super Mario games to base their courses' visual style and gameplay on, including Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, New Super Mario Bros. U, and the newly introduced Super Mario 3D World theme, which has been retooled to 2.5D to fit with the game's platforming style. Gameplay mechanics and enemy behaviors can vary between the styles, with some elements being limited to specific styles.
The sequel adds various assets and tools, including assets and a course theme based on Super Mario 3D World. This theme is especially different from the four others, with many features and gameplay mechanics unique to it. Due to the difference from this style to the others, the course has to be reset in order to switch to this style. This sequel also brings along the new vertical course feature giving creators the ability to raise the vertical height limit. It also introduces local and online multiplayer modes including co-op course creation, where up to 2 players can locally create stages together at the same time; as well as allowing up to 4 online players to complete user-made courses, cooperatively or competitively.
The game also features a World Maker mode, where players create their own overworld maps, creating the equivalent of their own Super Mario game, called a Super World. The world style is locked as Super Mario World, but the courses themselves can be any style. Up to six Super Worlds can be saved but only one can be uploaded. One world can have up to five levels, including a castle, and a single Super World can have up to eight separate worlds. A world can also feature Toad houses, where the player plays minigames for extra lives, and Warp Pipes to get around the world quickly.
Super Mario Maker 2 also features a new single player campaign known as Story Mode. The story follows Mario, Toadette, and several other Toads helping to rebuild Princess Peach's Castle, which had accidentally been reset by Undodog, a non-playable character. Players must traverse through over 100 Nintendo-created courses in order to collect enough coins to rebuild the castle. Non-player characters also offer players extra tasks and jobs throughout the mode.
A Nintendo Switch Online subscription is required in order to access any online functionality in the game, including accessing player-created levels.
Development and Release
Developed inhouse at Nintendo's Kyoto Development Center, planning for Super Mario Maker 2 began alongside development of the Nintendo Switch hardware itself. Most of the original development team reprised their roles for this sequel, including producer Hiroyuki Kimura, director Yosuke Oshino, and planner/game designer Shigefumi Hino. Nintendo's producer Takashi Tezuka stated that the theme for the sequel was to expand on what could be done compared to its predecessor and try new things, which took the form of new course elements and new side content in the form of a full-fledged single player campaign. Tezuka also stated that as players continue to upload levels, he and the development staff would use these creations as a reference for adding content after launch, viewing the dynamic as a give-and-take between developers and consumers. Longtime Super Mario series composer Koji Kondo served as the game's sound director and composed some music. Additional music was composed by Atsuko Asahi, Toru Minegishi, and Sayako Doi.
Super Mario Maker 2 was revealed during a Nintendo Direct presentation on February 13, 2019. It was released worldwide for the Nintendo Switch on June 28, 2019. Another Nintendo Direct was broadcast on May 15, 2019, which provided more information about new and returning features, gameplay modes, and pre-orders.
In Europe, a capacitive stylus was included as part of the limited edition bundle of the game for customers who pre-ordered.
Three major content updates were released for the game:
- The first update, released on October 2, 2019, added more multiplayer options, including playing with friends on local area networks or nearby networks.
- The second update, released on December 5, 2019, added an extra mode themed around speedrunning Nintendo-created courses, with ghosts called Ninjis to show the best timed performances shown for the player to know how well they compare against. Additional parts were added, such as a Master Sword power-up that Mario can pick up to become Link and gain a different set of moves, ice-encased coin blocks, platforms that greatly increase the player's speed, and invisible "P" blocks that are triggered by a "P" switch. Spikes and Pokeys were also added as new enemies.
- The third and final update, released on April 22, 2020, added the ability to compose worlds to hold multiple courses, akin to the presentation of Super Mario World with up to eight different worlds and up to forty levels. A new power-up gives Mario the ability to pick up and throw objects as in Super Mario Bros. 2. Additional power-ups added in this update include the Frog Suit for the Super Mario Bros. 3 style, the Power Balloon for Super Mario World, the Super Acorn in the New Super Mario Bros. U style, and the boomerang flower for the Super Mario 3D World game style. Five other new power-ups were added to the Super Mario 3D World style as well, including the Propeller Box, the Bullet Bill Mask, the Goomba Mask, the Red POW Box, and the Cannon Box. The Koopalings and Mechakoopas were added as new enemies, along with red-colored keys guarded by Phanto (an enemy from Super Mario Bros. 2) and new ON/OFF Switch-triggered blocks and mushroom trampolines in the Super Mario 3D World game style.
Why It Builds a World, Again
Overall
- Just like the first game, the game allows the creation of countless number of stages from multiple different types of Super Mario Bros. game styles.
- Speaking of levels, there are even levels that are inspired by the Cuphead bosses and run 'n' gun levels.[1]
- Super Mario 3D World is introduced as a brand new game style for stage building, having its own unique assets and mechanics exclusive to it offers lots of different options for stage building.
- Despite Super Mario 3D World being a 3D game, its mechanics translate into 2D very well.
- It also contains a new Super Hammer power up, allowing the player to dress up as a builder pictured in the poster, use a hammer to break blocks, and allow the player to create up to 5 crates (the next crate, the last crate placed disappears).
- Lots of new assets have been introduced, such as slopes, On/Off blocks, Moon, Angry Sun, Icicles, etc.
- The Nighttime feature is a great addition to the game with special effects that appear when entering a level such as gravity in sky levels, poison water in jungle levels, and darkness in cave levels.
- New stage themes are also included such as Snow and Jungle with their own unique quirks.
- There are music changing effects that appeared in this game:
- Touching a Super Nintendo Entertainment System panel will activate the SNES Mario Circuit from Super Mario Kart.
- Touching a Nintendo 64 panel will activate the Slide theme from Super Mario 64.
- Touching a Nintendo GameCube panel will activate the Delfino Plaza theme from Super Mario Sunshine.
- And touching a Nintendo Wii panel will activate the Gusty Garden Galaxy theme from Super Mario Galaxy.
- Stages can now change into night mode where the background theme changes and adds new gimmicks.
- The process of browsing for stages has been streamlined with filters to help the player find stages more reliably.
- A new single-player story mode is added which offers over 100 different stages many of which can offer ideas for stage building concepts.
- Players can do a specific task here, but once they finish a level or complete a part of a castle, then more objectives will be added in a similar vein to Trouble Center in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Dedede's Cake Royale in Kirby Battle Royale.
- Unlike both of them, clearing all the main jobs get not only Peach's tennis dress, but also the Robot outfit.
- Now you can set up specific completion requirements and objectives.
- You will need to collect coins because they are useful in the game (unlike New Super Mario Bros. 2) because the coins help rebuild the castle.
- Players can do a specific task here, but once they finish a level or complete a part of a castle, then more objectives will be added in a similar vein to Trouble Center in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Dedede's Cake Royale in Kirby Battle Royale.
- Instead of the story being about Princess Peach getting kidnapped by Bowser, you collect coins to rebuild her castle.
- Multiplayer is now available, both locally and online.
- Like its predecessor, it has lots of replay factor such as the aforementioned Story Mode, if players can complete some of the remaining objectives, and the Endless Challenge.
- Sub-areas can now be made to scroll vertically.
- The 100 Mario Challenge has been reworked into the Endless Challenge, in which you continue playing courses until you get a Game Over.
- You can play as either Luigi, Toad, or Toadette in this game.
- The Superball Flower from Super Mario Land returns in this game, albeit only appearing in the Super Mario Bros. theme.
- You no longer have to scan an amiibo just to use the Big Mushroom, instead it's built in.
- There are three new power-ups in the original: the Dry Bones Shell, which lets you float on lava and play dead, the Super Hammer, which allows you to place blocks, smash bricks, and defeat almost every enemy similar to the Hammer Suit, and the Rotten Mushroom, which chases the player around similar to how the Poison Mushroom does in Super Mario 3D Land.
- Additionally, the version 2 update features the Master Sword, which transforms the player into Link and gives them Link's moveset.
- While the search system is inevitably clunky like in the first game, you only have to type in nine characters to find a level instead of sixteen.
Version 2: Master Sword
- Hence the name, the powerup transforms the player into Link (this is not a mere sprite swap). The player also gains the moveset of Link: throwing bombs, using your sword to attack, sprinting, etc.
- You also gain a bunch of new elements such as P-switch blocks and coins trapped in ice blocks.
- New enemies such as Spikes, and Pokeys.
Version 3: World Maker
- Tons of new power ups: the Super Mario Bros. 2 Mushroom from Super Mario Bros. which allows the player to jump higher (while crouching for periods of time) and carry enemies, the Frog Suit from Super Mario Bros. 3 which allows better swimming controls and the ability to run on top of water, the Power Balloon from Super Mario World which allows the player to float anywhere within reach, the Super Acorn from New Super Mario Bros. U which, unlike the Propeller Mushroom from New Super Mario Bros. Wii, allows the player to float slowly down without propelling up first, and the Boomerang Flower from Super Mario 3D World that originally appeared in Super Mario 3D Land and allows the player to throw a boomerang to kill enemies or activate gizmos. All of these are in one new block in the Items section alone.
- As with the previous updates, you have a bunch of new elements to work with, such three variations of Super Mario World's Mechakoopa (one that shoots bullets and one that fires lasers).
- The Koopalings make their debut in this update, which adds 7 new bosses to the roster.
- You can also create your own world, which was one of the largest requests throughout Super Mario Maker's life.
Bad Qualities
- The Mystery Mushroom costumes which could have easily fitted in since the Switch has Amiibo support and Weird Mushroom have been removed.
- While there are more game styles and power-ups than in the previous game, the game somewhat still lacks power-ups such as the Ice Flower and the Hammer Suit, enemies such as Shy Guys, Chargin' Chucks, Whomps, Fuzzies, Boomerang Bros., Fire Chomps, Fire Snakes, Snifts, etc. mainly due to SMB3, SMW and NSMBU styles not having as many power-ups as the SMB and SM3DW styles and many more game styles, and it is even missing many themes such as Beach and Volcano.
- If you're building a stage in Super Mario 3D World mode and want to change to a different mode and vice versa it deletes all the stage due to Super 3D World having exclusive assets. Likewise, many assets in the other mode are absent in Super Mario 3D World mode.
- The stage builder UI was designed with the Wii U Gamepad in mind, which when translated to the Switch becomes clunkier. This can be somewhat alleviated by building stages in handheld mode but even then, it's still not as smooth as the Wii U version.
- Some mechanics that allowed for clever tricks such as overlapping pipes no longer work.
- Some tech often used in kaizo levels from the first game was removed, such as the ability to hold items while spinning in SMW style.
- Unlike in the first game, downloaded courses cannot be edited. While this make it more difficult to plagiarize courses, it also makes it more difficult to practice challenging courses or discover cheaply hidden items that make it easier to clear the course.
- For some reason, enemies such as Fire Bros. and Porcupuffers are only exclusive to the Super Mario 3D World style, despite them appearing in the those exact games (ex. Fire Bros. appear in SMB3 & NSMBU and Porcupuffers appear SMW & NSMBU.)
- Spike traps and enemies have large hitboxes that can result in frustrating deaths.
- The tutorial for stage building is very slow-paced.
- The online multiplayer versus mode can be very laggy. However, this got better when local multiplayer was added in the October 2019 update.
- At launch, there wasn't much more content compared to its predecessor. This has been fixed with several content updates, which makes it a service game.
- Unfortunately, after two major updates, Nintendo decided not to support the project anymore, although a lot of things were useful to add, such as setting fluids in other themes than forest and castle, and missing enemies such as the above-mentioned Fire Bros. in the other styles outside of the Super Mario 3D World, and Boomerang Bros..
- In Story Mode, if you fail to clear a level twice, Luigi intervenes as if Mario's calling him for help which can be an annoyance and offers the player to add some elements to make the course easier to clear or just clear the stage without actually reaching the goal (which the latter would actually be giving up on that attempt for good) — both of which would be considered cheating.
- If you play online, some people can make weird levels.
- You can't stack enemies in the Super Mario 3D World style, which is completely nonsensical as in Super Mario 3D World, they are stacked enemies.
Reception
Super Mario Maker 2 was positively received, with critics praising a large amount of new content and mechanics introduced and considered it an improvement over the first game. However, the game was also criticized for removing some features from the original and the slightly clunkier stage building process. The online multiplayer feature, however, was criticized for its performance issues. GameSpot, who gave the game an 8/10, stated that online lag frequently ruined the experience.
Super Mario Maker 2 was the best-selling game of June 2019.
Sales
It was the best-selling game in Japan during its first two weeks of release, selling 279,357 physical copies. By the end of March 2021, the game had sold over 7.15 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling games on the Switch. The 2023 CESA Games White Papers revealed that Super Mario Maker 2 had sold 8.42 million units, as of December 31, 2022.
Tips
- It's recommended to have a friend play test your levels.
- Keep in mind that you can only get up to three 1-UPs per level in Endless Challenge mode so once you reach that limit, you shouldn't try to get hard to reach Coins for the rest of the level.
- Skipping in Endless Challenge mode is not necessary if you're a skilled player, but you will need to skip often if you want to maintain enough lives in Super Expert.