Captain Toad is a very polished puzzler that does a great job of revealing layer after layer of a stage through exploration. Just about every level manages to hit a certain level of quality. I appreciated how well crafted everything felt. It's also strangely relaxing. With a few exceptions, most levels let you play at your own pace so it's a very non-stressful game.

The levels are also a nice 2-3 minutes long which makes it fun to replay them to get additional objectives. I ended up doing every optional objective in the game while also collecting everything. Something I definitely didn't expect to do going in.

I should also mention that there are 4 bonus levels in this based on Mario Odyssey and not only are they good, they are excellent. They are the best levels in the game and made me really want to see a proper sequel for this game one day based on those ideas.

Do not sleep on this game!

Played this one co op as well for the 1st episode, 2nd episode was alright, and then the 3rd episode was where it shined. It is a Wii U port with single player in mind so co op is a bit janky trying to maneuver the camera but it was a fun experience, can cheese some of the cherry levels. The last few levels were tough and I loved it, but the bonus levels I got about half way, I think towards the mummy levels and I was over it. The super Mario odyssey levels were fantastic and really got me thinking. It’s a cute little game starring Toad and Toadette and i always appreciate Nintendo’s platforming design. Good for a playthrough.

174 DIAMONDS?
Took like 6 hours cause I took my time.
I ain’t paying $6 more dollars for a special episode sorry. Tired of dlc ugh

Finally off the backlog. I played this game as a kid and loved it. I don't remember beating it back then though. Now that I have beaten it, yeah, this is one of the best games ever made just like I thought.

For starters, like usual with Nintendo games, the level design is as good as it gets. The mechanics and overall art design of the levels is some of the best I've seen. Really loved how small the levels were. I liked it so much becasue that allows for many more levels to be made, and a lot more ideas to be realized. Though just like in the game that inspired it, Super Mario 3D World, the more levels, the less memorable they are. This really isn't that big of a deal considering how good the levels are, but the other Mario games, Galaxy 1 and 2, Sunshine, 64, and Odyssey, have less levels but they are more memorable. Luckily the levels in Captain Toad are designed extremley intelligently, so it makes up for it. I only disliked like 4 or 5 levels, so that should tell you how good the levels are.

The look of the game is just as impressive as the Gameplay and levels, as it is one of the best looking games on the Wii U, and in any game I've played in general. Very colorful and lots of detail.

Not much story with most Nintendo platformers, but the story it has is very heartwarming. Toad and Toadett being seperated over and over, but never giving up, and eventually reuniting, is a great love story that I really enjoyed.

Not much wrong with the game, the over utilization of the game pad is a bit annoying at times, and because Toad and Toadett are so weak, sometimes enemies can be a bit too aggravating. Those are pretty minor things though, pretty much a perfect Puzzle Platformer. Nintendo, make a sequal for crying out loud!

Score: 4.5/5
Letter Grade: A

The Captain Toad stages served as fun little diversions in 3D World, these little puzzles that gave the game even more variety than it already had. They were also a fun use of 3D World's sort of "toy world" design and look, creating little dioramas of stages to push and pull at. When Captain Toad was first shown, I remember a lot of people saying stuff like "this makes so much sense, those levels were good enough to be their own game!", and after finally playing 3D World this year I was really willing to believe that, but what works as a side-mode in one game doesn't always work great on its own.

On it's own, the limits of this formula are really pronounced and hard to ignore. Captain Toad stages are fun the first time around, but many of them become not fun to do again for bonus objectives, and what Captain Toad is actually capable of doing in any level is revealed to be pretty limited as well. At it's worst, the game ends up feeling like doing the same three levels over and over again. There are good levels here, but a lot of them aren't until the third chapter, honestly. Too many stages feel like "3D World but you can't jump", which feels completely wrong for what this game should be.

I mentioned bonus objectives, and these can honestly make or break stages for me. Some are fun challenges that make going through the level again worthwhile, like having to figure out how to defeat every enemy, or using a certain level gimmick the least amount possible. The worst to me are the gold mushroom objectives, specifically gold mushrooms that are invisible and need to be found by flashing your light on a specific part of a level. I almost always miss these, and they just aren't fun to find. They're always on some part of the map that isn't obvious, and really easy to pass by without stopping to flash your light on it, especially if you've accidentally turned your light off since it's on the y-button, the same button I'm used to using for running. This might just be something I'm particularly bad at, but any time the bonus objective was "find the gold mushroom" I kind of felt like turning the game off.

There are highlights here, but more than anything Captain Toad just makes me want to play an actual Mario game. The Odyssey levels are cool, but they just make me want to play Odyssey, and everything else in this game is lifted from 3D World, another game I would rather play. Not worth the 40 dollars it usually goes for. Also why does this game have paid DLC, come on man you really expect to put more money on Captain Toad?

Nintendo’s recent exploration of 2D surfaces in 3D space (via cat suits, wall-melding bracelets) finds its most charming expression in Captain Toad. Who else could make such delightful dioramas? Who knows better the pleasures of space and all its secrets? This is the game Monument Valley wishes it could be.

But the Nintendo limits remain. Each jeweled micro-world is perfect in its way, and yet I can’t help but long for a way out of these immaculately manicured 3-secret cages. To explore a wider world of topological play. With secrets more radical, yet still uncovered with Toad’s deliberate little steps.