Mario took a massive leap forward earlier in December with his mobile gaming debut in Super Mario Run, taking him from his previous Nintendo console exclusive status to the headline act on Apple’s iPhone and iPad. With a history that goes all the way back to 1981, the little plumber has been a big part of gaming since the very early days and his next big evolution was poised to be one of his biggest since he first set foot in the Mushroom Kingdom.
The game is a simple mobile equivalent of Mario’s side scrolling platformers and with the success of Pokémon Go it was hard to see it not going on to be the next big mobile app phenomenon. However, the launch of the app saw it pick up mostly cool to ice cold reviews as gamers struggled to get past the price tag (£7.99), the limited content and the online only gameplay constraints. Read out Super Mario Run review for more details.
Depending on the success of Nintendo’s upcoming console, the Nintendo Switch, we could be looking at a major new direction for the company, which will find it difficult to ignore the revenue stream that Pokémon Go has generated. It’s a shame SMR doesn’t appear to be getting the same level of uptake, but hopefully Nintendo will go on to fix at least a few of the negatives to bring people back on board.
Release date
The US and UK release date for Super Mario Run was on the 15th December in the run up to Christmas 2016, as Nintendo looked to cash in on the seasonal magic and huge gaming spend throughout the biggest month in the release calendar. iTunes listed the iOS app in the store early on with a notify button to get a reminder on the official launch day. Apple also demoed the game in its stores a week ahead of the launch and Jimmy Fallon debuted it along with the Nintendo Switch on The Tonight Show. You can see a little more about the game on the Nintendo UK Twitter page too.
While the app is free to play, it’s only the first few levels that you get in the free version and the price for the full game is a hefty £7.99. It seems a lot when you compare it to the likes of Star Wars Angry Birds or Leo’s Fortune, both of which were much cheaper than Nintendo’s first foray on the iPhone and iPad. If it continues to get bad reviews, then we could see the price tag coming down in the not too distant future.
Story
There’s only a small back story to the game. Bowser has essentially nicked off with the Princess again, damaging the castle in the process, and it’s left to Mario to put it all right. Set in the Mushroom Kingdom, it’s up to you to take the seemingly perpetual fight to the fire breathing monster. If you’re anything like us, you will be pretty used to the never-ending battle by now, having done a similar thing since Bowser first appeared in Super Mario Bros. in 1985.
Super Mario Run gameplay
As you’d expect with an iOS app, the concept has been stripped back to make it as simple to play as possible – Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the character, has even been recorded playing the game while eating a hamburger! Essentially, Mario runs perpetually in the side-scrolling platformer and your job is controlling the jumps he can do to avoid enemies and make it past all of the obstacles that the Mushroom Kingdom has to throw at you.
You’ll do this with a variety of taps that control simple jumps, mid-air double jumps, wall kicks and reverse jumps where there’s a backwards jump pad available. Time your jumps right and you can do a lot of the things you’ll be used to from previous games like squishing Goombas, sliding down walls, climbing along monkey bars and hopping over Bowser to get to the all important bridge switch to send him crashing to his lava-pit doom.
There are three core game modes in Super Mario Run with the first being World Tour, the standard course run as you progress through increasingly difficult terrain to make it to the castle flag and ultimately to Bowser himself. There a six worlds with four levels each, so you have 24 levels in total to make it through. Nintendo has also added in a little extra complexity with three pink star collection location sequences to find for each level, which is about as fiendish as the app gets.
The second mode, Toad Rally, sees you pitting yourself against the play data of other people’s course runs to see who can complete it with the most style, factoring in coin collection, speed and how you fair in the face of danger. You’ll be able to see the ghost run alongside you to give you something to beat and you keep going until the timer runs out. Coin Rushes and star collections are all important to getting the upper hand, while avoiding enemies and drops will help you to keep pace.
In the third game mode you get to create your own Mushroom Kingdom using the coins you collect from the other two game modes. You get to pick items and add them to your little landscape to pretty it up a little. You also get little treats along the way to help you in the other game modes, so it all sort of links in together.
Graphics
The game looks very sharp with good side scrolling graphics and smooth animation. It’s not quite as good looking as New Super Mario Bros. U, but it isn’t a million miles off. There are a good number of level variation to make it through and they all look crisp with a number of cool features as you go.
Review
When we first heard about the game, we couldn’t see how can it be anything other than genius. Nintendo is the mastermind of side-scrolling platform games and Mario is the King MacDaddy of them all, so it should have been a winning combination with Apple. However, the cost raises expectations that the game can’t deliver and the fact that it’s an iOS exclusive will surely annoy mobile gamers that don’t worship at the alter of la pomme. Surely won’t be too long after Christmas before Super Mario Run also arrives on Android too, but the question is whether or not the damage will have been done by then.
