Let's Make a Mario!

Super Mario Maker's finally out, and it's wonderful. Sure, a lot of fan made stages are "flag pole immediately next to the start" junk or stuff that's absolutely ridiculously hard, but there's lots of good stuff out there, and there's plenty of Nintendo-made courses to play! If you're makin' Marios, how about sharing some of your stages? Unfortunately you need to use kind of a clunky code system instead of being able to search by user name, tags, or stage name or anything like that. Making progress, Nintendo, but you're still kind of weird about this whole internet thing. 

Here are my first stages. I haven't unlocked most of the stage maker elements yet, so they're pretty minimalist! If you've got a Wii U, give them a shot and post your own stage IDs. Let's stomp on everything! 

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (2014, Wii U) - The Trouble with Turnips

 
In 2013's spectacular Super Mario 3D World, Nintendo introduced a series of short puzzle levels starring Captain Toad, a mushroom-man who made his debut in Super Mario Galaxy in 2007. While the main game focused on platforming and bouncing off of enemies, the Captain Toad stages featured a hero without any means to fight back and with a backpack so heavy he couldn't even jump. In each of these levels, players would collect a series of stars while navigating small, cubic stages. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker takes the concept behind these mini-stages and expands them into a bigger, prettier adventure with a few little frustrations.

Super Mario 3D World (2013, Wii U) - Catnip for Nintendo Fans

Super Mario 3D Land, released on the 3DS in 2011, offered an interesting new style of gameplay: It took the three dimensional exploration found in Mario games such as Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy and combined it with the more linear stage progression of the 2D Mario titles. The result is a game that feels simpler than Galaxy, but far more open than the increasingly inappropriately named New Super Mario Bros series. I prefer the straightforward, reach-the-end-of-the-stage objective found in the 2D titles, but the New Super Mario Bros games were feeling rather stale to me. By incorporating elements from the 3D titles, 3D Land offered a fresh new take and grew to become my favorite of the 3D Mario titles. Two years later, Nintendo would release a sequel on the Wii U that effectively makes 3D Land feel like a proof of concept project for the great things to come.

Dr. Luigi (2014, Wii U) - Neurotic Doctor Battles Space Flu

From early 2013 to early 2014, Nintendo spent a good amount of time and money on The Year of Luigi, a marketing promotion focused on Mario's greener, goofier brother. From games focused on him to hiding his NES sprite in various places to causing trouble on a train in Chicago, Nintendo's plan was a weird one that was often funny but of questionable value to the company, since 2013 ended up being a year of financial losses. Closing out the Year was Dr. Luigi, a Dr. Mario sequel that took a man who can barely walk safely and stuck him in a hospital to fend off alien viruses.

Review - Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES, 1988)

Writing my review of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link got me in the mood to take a look back at some of my all time favorite NES titles. As mentioned in that review, Super Mario Bros. 2 is one of my top three games for the system, along with Bubble Bobble and Zelda II itself. I really love all of the main NES Mario titles, from the arcade original through Super Mario Bros. 3, but SMB2 was and remains my favorite game in the series. From its unique character system, great enemy design, and catchy music, Mario 2 is all around fantastic.