Swung by my family's house to borrow my brother's switch and today I played a level where you get into a Clown Car that can spit fire and - get this - if you ingest a Fire Flower, it gets TRIPLE FIREBALLS. That's cool shit and stuff I want to see in the Ultimate Mario 3D Platformer RPG Adventure that I am speaking into existence.

Then Bowser Jr. shows up in his own fireball Clown Car with Koopa Shells and your task is to murder him. But, it really seems like canonically the Bowser breed of Koopa can survive falling into lava, because surely I will see Bowser Jr. again. It's just still somewhat discomforting to witness him being dipped in lava so casually.

My initial review was: If I gave literal INFINITE MARIO anything less than a perfect score, what kind of a video gamer would I be? Haven't messed around with the level editor, but the story level offerings makes me really want to.

Now, a few months later, I’m second-guessing my perfect assessment. It’s true—infinite Mario deserves 5 stars—however, Nintendo has made finding good levels extremely difficult (something I’ve become frustrated by more and more) so for that I’ve got to dock it. Still fantastic in almost every regard of its construction, but the online component is just too flimsy to ignore.

It's Mario Maker with even more ways to build. Sadly, I guess the novelty wore off since the first one. The Wii U Game Pad was perfect for level creation, so as someone who wasn't super into making levels, the new Switch editor kinda deterred me from wanting to use it. I did find that the quality of the levels online was better than when I played the original Mario Maker. The world creation update got me back into it again, so that's always nice. Overall, solid game, but if you played the first one you pretty much got the Mario Maker experience.

Back in 2015, when the original game got released on the Wii U, I remember being so excited for this game. As a long time fan of the Mario franchise and kid with an overactive imagination, I was thrilled to play that game. It is definitely my most played Wii U game to date. Then when the Switch came around and rumors of this game began to spring up, I just was not as thrilled. Once the announcement for this game came, I just did not feel anything. I was more excited about Tetris 99 which was revealed in the same Nintendo Direct. With all that being said, I still love this game.

As a kid though, I would not have been as happy with this game. Not because of the concept, but more so because of the building aspect. It's impossible to build anything whether you're on the TV or in handheld mode. This definitely could have been remedied with some AR pointer controls which really would make the building process a whole lot better. But there is so much more content to build with. Buttons, switches, slopes, platforms, and bosses, there is so much more to this game than was ever on the Wii U title.

From the perspective of an adult who really has less time to make endless Mario levels and would more prefer to just hop on and play some Mario levels when I'm bored, this game drastically improves upon the original. Levels are actually way better due to the higher skill level for making levels, it's easier to sort by what you want so you don't just end up playing what's on the hot page half the time. Clear conditions make the unique level design come to life and the story mode makes me wish that Nintendo would just give us another unique 2D Mario game.

However, for now, this game will do, as updates and patches came out it left the game in a much more playable state with much better content but if you bought this game on launch with the shoddy online, I am so sorry. If anyone wants to know what the Mario Maker experience was like on the Wii U, get them this game but I will always prefer the original, even if I end up scoring that one lower.