Super Mario Maker 2 review – the definitive level editor

The original Super Mario Maker was a happy little accident, initially constructed to help Nintendo developers make levels quickly. However, the team realized just how marketable it could be, perhaps influenced by the Mario modding community, thus giving us one of the most unique experiences for the Wii U. It allowed the masses to potentially become expert level designers, either making automated experiences where the player doesn’t need to hold a button or tackle fiendishly tricky obstacles that take precision to tackle. Super Mario Maker 2 expands on the list of features, including a new story mode, various new tools, and a fresh level theme.

Super Mario Maker 2’s story mode begins with construction finally complete on Princess Peach’s castle, only for a dog to undo all the work by pressing a reset button. To fund its reconstruction, you spend time running through courses created by Nintendo using the tools available to all players. As soon as you have enough money, you can set up a job with Toadette to buy materials. It’ll take a few hours for you to reconstruct the castle. However, during the 100 or so levels, it’s likely that you’ll see a memorable set of hazards to inspire you creatively.

Overall, even though you don’t make any levels, story mode does a decent job of what’s possible with Super Mario Maker 2’s editing tools. When you eventually take the plunge and start making your own, you get a plethora of filters, level themes, tools, and surprises to use. Combining items into new hazards or supped-up enemies isn’t a new feature, but with all the new items, you have even more variety added to an otherwise limited set of tools.

Super Mario Maker 2 has everything that the original had, and even adds a new Super Mario 3D World theme. Sadly, this doesn’t mean you can make full 3D levels, as you’re still confined to a 2D plane, but at least you have the Cat Mario powerup, speed boost panels, timed blocks, and many more new tools to play around with. In addition to this new theme, there are also other powerups you can unlock for the SMB1 theme by completing the story mode. The Super Hammer, for instance, gives Mario the ability to break otherwise indestructible blocks, or the Superball Flower allows him to throw the ball from Super Mario Land and changes the music to the Game Boy classic’s overworld theme.

You can also mess around with object behavior by setting the level time to nighttime. This alters how certain objects look and function. For example, the 1-UP mushrooms turn into Rotten Shrooms that hone in on your position and hurt upon collection. It can also alter the level physics, such as turning water in Forest levels from SMB1 into a poisonous hazard, or the Sky theme reducing the gravity present, making for higher jumps and slower descents. It’s a clever idea and one that those looking for a spicy upgrade to their stage’s difficulty will appreciate.

If you’re ever stuck on how to do something, Super Mario Maker 2 has a bunch of guides designed to get new players to create better levels. It also explains all the possibilities for item combos or new tricks you can add to fool your audience. It’s relatively easy to run through and understand, though there are some more advanced topics it doesn’t fully address. Thankfully, there are plenty of resources out there that can help you out online.

When creating courses, I found the touchscreen controls using handheld mode easier to use, even if it’s a little harder to see. That’s not to say that using the cursor and a controller isn’t functional when the machine is in the dock, and having everything displayed on your TV makes every object stand out in more detail. Compared to Super Mario Maker on the Wii U which utilized both touchscreen controls with a TV display, both options are less than ideal yet more conventional with what actual level editors are like.

Aside from the story mode, the main focus of Super Mario Maker 2 is to create and share your creations or play levels made by gamers from around the world. If you’re feeling particularly competitive, there’s also a multiplayer mode that challenges you to race on random courses, which is just as chaotic as you’d expect a 2D Mario multiplayer mode to be.

All of this does require a subscription to the Nintendo Switch Online service to experience everything to its fullest, adding a mandatory cost to get the most out of it. However, the free features Nintendo has added since launch, such as new powerups and items to use in levels, make what the community has built over the past five years a treasure trove of creative level packs that will keep you entertained for quite a long time.

Super Mario Maker 2 does a better job of helping you find noteworthy levels to play. Maker ID search tools are present, allowing content creators to distribute their creations to their audiences easily. Hotlists feature community-recommended courses based on categories, regulated by the players using the Like feature to highlight the very best of the bunch. They can also add notes to sections of each course, including scribbled art showing their appreciation.

If you’re willing to stick with a single creator over multiple levels, there are now also Super Worlds to explore. This gives you several custom maps with various courses, one-up house challenges, and whatever else the creator added along the way. With no way to filter them though, the quality varies wildly between very basic and unfairly tough. Thankfully, you can still find the very best Super Worlds via Maker ID codes.

The two types of people who will get the most out of Super Mario Maker 2 are creative types who want to dip their toes into game design, and those looking for awesome and challenging custom classic 2D Mario levels to play. This package caters wonderfully to both these types and will keep them entertained for as long as the community creates levels. Perhaps Nintendo will revisit the concept one day to give us Super Mario Maker 3D. For now, this is the definitive official level editor and an essential purchase for anyone into game design.