The big question – for me, at least – with all these adventure game is: just how difficult is it?
I’m not a full time avid gamer. I buy one if my kids ask for it or I find it interesting enough to try it. I don’t watch hours of YouTube videos or scour the internet for all the tips and tricks. I don’t have 8 hours a day to play and I’m not very knowledgeable of any of the lore before I go in. So if you want me to like your game I better be able to learn it while playing and with minimal outside research (I did watch a couple of videos for this one). The more work I have to do to make regular progress or even learn how to play well, the more likely I am to let it go.
For this game, I did have some recent experience to fall back on as I’d just finished Super Mario 3D World a few months ago. I’m a decent Mario player – I can get most of the tricks down over time but I never master all of them well enough to win all the prizes and bonus stages – so if I can make it through, I bet most of you can. So if I can win this game without a ton of help then it would get at least a passing grade.
All that being said, there is still such a thing as being too easy. For all my talk about games being too hard or too intricate I still don’t want it to be so easy that I can breeze through it in a day or two. That’s just as bad as it being too hard – if I can crush it in no time then imagine how bored an expert Mario player would get with it. There’s a sweet spot in the middle so as long as it lands there, I’m good.
So how was it?
Graphics
I’m not a big graphics nerd, to be honest. As long as I don’t think it looks ugly or like something from 1985, I’m fine. They passed the test pretty easy here. I didn’t miss the 3D stuff from the Mario 3D World, either.
Gameplay
If you’ve played the previous Mario games you’ll be fine here. But even if it’s your first time everything is pretty easy to learn as you’re playing. There are some new power ups, like the elephant mode, but they all fit the game and are easy to master. And there aren’t any ridiculous combos you have to learn, which is a big plus for me as anything more difficult than a double jump is asking too much from where I’m sitting.
I’m a fairly new Nintendo Switch player, and I’ve been playing Playstation games for a long time now, so I’ve had to learn how to use the switch controllers while learning the games themselves. To that end it came pretty easy and I didn’t have any real difficulties. In short, I never failed at any stage of the game because of the controllers which is the most important thing.
Degree of Difficulty
I found some of the early stages to be almost too easy, to the point where I put it down for a while so as not to finish it too quickly, but that changed not too long after I picked it back up. The middle and latter stages were just challenging enough for someone like me – some I got through on the first try while some other ones took several attempts and got me good and frustrated in the process. But I never reached the point of giving up entirely because it was too hard. I was able to eventually learn the patterns and get the timing down to get through each part and win all the necessary items.
Fun Factor
If you’re into adventure games but not into super serious themes and motifs and all then games like this are right up your alley. I had a good time from start to finish, even when I was pushing my way through some of the harder stages.
Final Grade: A
I got this game shortly after I got Sonic Frontiers and the differences couldn’t be more glaring. The latter at times felt like you were going around in circles and the story was hard to make sense of. And the graphics were not up to par for even a pretty lenient guy like me. I did eventually give up on that because it just wasn’t fun to me. But I really enjoyed this one, and it’s my favorite Mario game to date.
So whether you’re a Mario game veteran or this would be your first one, I highly recommend it.
Stroke of Genius 