While creating Mario Maker stages is wonderful and intuitive, it takes way too long to unlock all of the items and enemies.
When I first heard about Super Mario Maker’s measured rollout where you’re slowly given access to more creation tools over the course of nine days, I wasn’t fazed. Having access to all of the tools at once would be intimidating. I thought it made sense and wouldn’t be limiting. After a night with Super Mario Maker’s final build, I’m not a fan of the plodding dispersal of creation tools, even in spite of how much fun the act of creation is in the game.
When you first boot up Super Mario Maker, you only have access to the bare essentials in the classic Super Mario Bros. or modern New Super Mario Bros. U designs. You can lay out ground pieces, bricks, and question mark blocks. Your only power-up is a Super Mushroom. The only enemies are Goombas, Koopa Troopas, and Piranha Plants (though you can give them all wings if you so wish). But that’s essentially it. For anyone who played or saw the E3 2014 demo, you start off with more or less only the tools available in that early version of the game.
Don’t get me wrong: you can make some fun stuff with these tools. However, as I started designing my own stages, I kept thinking of other items or enemies that I knew were in the game that I could place in levels. I thought about how, once I unlocked Cheep Cheeps on the third day, I wanted to go back to add them to a level I was working on. I couldn’t make an underwater level. Or add in Bowser. Or a Fire Flower. Or make a Super Mario Bros. 3-themed level. I felt stymied and limited by the restrictions.
I still understand some of the logic behind slowly doling out different tools and items. Having so many options at once can be crazy overwhelming, but dragging out the release of the content over such an extended period of time just makes the game’s early goings feel laborious at times, especially as you play other creator’s levels online and see the tools they can use.
There are a few ways to get around this limitation, though. You can set your Wii U’s system clock forward to unlock more content (though you have to play roughly five minutes in the game each day to unlock that day’s content and trigger a notification for the next day’s content). So far, I’ve done that to skip ahead a few days, though I don’t know if there will be any sort of Animal Crossing-like penalty when I eventually set my system clock back to normal.
The other workaround, which doesn’t involve time-traveling, is by unlocking the premade levels playable in 10 Mario Challenge. In the mode, you play through eight different stages using only 10 lives. These stages are meant to inspire your designs, and they regularly feature functionality that you don’t have access to (or possibly didn’t even know was in the game). You can then load these stages in the stage creator and use some of the items present there. This method is the only way to use the Super Mario Bros. 3 or World designs without waiting five or more days. Even still, some elements aren’t available, namely all the goofy sound-creating effects.
When Super Mario Maker launches on the 11th of September, I trust a lot of players that are chomping at the bit to create stages are going to wind up going on a wild journey through time in the Wii U System Settings to September 20 within their first few hours with the game. Ultimately, this complaint is something that will evaporate after a week with the game, but for that first week, it feels like I’m making levels with one hand tied behind my back. The measured release of items and tools isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution that works for everyone, and it’s a sad blemish on a game that impresses so much in every other aspect I’ve experienced.
