Mario Maker 2 is an overall improvement on the first game in most ways that count, but at the cost of Costume Mario. I do get it - renegotiating all those licenses would've been a total nightmare, and especially doing them for something as trivial as a palette swap could not have felt like an ideal use of time. Sadly, as someone with only the most casual connection to the Mario Maker scene, this means that the one thing I really cared about in the long run isn't there, and I kinda prefer the original by consequence.

But there's a good deal that's been added, too, so let's not dwell on what's missing. A new suite of level archetypes is nice to see, plus nighttime to add a new layer of depth. Slopes were conspicuous in their absence last time, so they're very welcome here. A ton of other things feel like game changers, too, like On/Off Switches, additional checkpoints, and keys. New enemies are always appreciated, and the Lemmy's Land Tourist in me will always appreciate the Koopalings being relevant.

Super Mario 3D World's inclusion as a special level archetype is a curious one. I think adding something new to proceedings is cool, but it seems weird to convert an explicitly 3D Mario entry into purely 2D design. But (1) it comes with its own suite of power-ups/enemies/obstacles and (2) the mechanics are a bit different, so it makes for a pretty decent complement as its own thing. I do think it's strange that 3D World is the only game presented as this sort of Extra Style; I had Super Mario Bros. 2/USA pegged as an Extra Style that'd be added in a patch, but that never really shook out. Though we got SMB2 controls later as a unique power-up, so... I guess it evens out?

Speaking of power-ups as theme consolation prizes - the Superball Flower and the Master Sword feel like this, too. Obviously the Master Sword is way more interesting, since turning into Link gives Mario a wildly different moveset. From what I've seen, Link levels tend to be a lot more puzzle-oriented by consequence, which feels like a very accurate expression of Zelda's whole thing in the template of a Mario game. I would've loved to see other character-based movesets like this (Samus, maybe?), but just the one is neat.

...but Superball is cool, too! Definitely not something I would've ever expected to see come back, since I figured Superball was just poor man's Fire Flower. Super Mario Land is probably the only other obvious pick for an Extra Theme, since Yoshi's Island/Wario Land is a bit too removed from standard Mario and all the other New Soups/Mario Advances would feel redundant with what's already in-game (and Super Mario Land 2 is mostly just a slower Mario World). So it's neat to see SML repped in its own way.

I didn't spend much time if any with the course creator, but I did have a ton of fun running through the game's campaign. I'm sure the story mode is mostly just your in-road into the creative side, but I love the little story they make for these characters. Toadette as the strict forewoman of a construction project is... not at all a role I would've pictured, but I kinda love this take on her? Toad the Toad being relevant is always nice, and I like all the little character details you can pick up on if you read between the lines of the "anonymous" course creators. For example, Bowser gives his son a weekly 40-coin allowance! When else are you gonna learn something like that?

Like I said at the top, I probably like the first Mario Maker better for what it represented, but Mario Maker 2's at least as good in its own right. By now, almost every major Wii U game has been reincarnated on Switch, and I gotta respect that Ninty did more than just opt for a (second) port of the previous game. I don't expect we'll be seeing another Mario Maker any time soon, but I'm glad they let people experiment once again.

I got this on launch, but I never got super deep into the game's community. No indictment on the game by any means, just not something I spent a lot of time on myself. Normally I make a point to only cover stuff I've completed one way or another, and that's not really possible for this game. But since online's been shuttered, I suppose there's no harm in giving some quick thoughts.

I think it is so cool that Super Mario Maker exists. A 30-year anniversary celebration of Super Mario Bros. (down to coming out right around the original Japanese release date: Friday the 13th in September), placing the power of game design in the players' hands. True, things like Lunar Magic had existed in an unofficial capacity for years, and especially these days there's way more you can do with ASM. But Mario Maker is a GREAT tool for general access. Taking its cues from Mario Paint, the UI is perhaps initially intimidating but quite easy to navigate once you settle in and start poking around.

Being able to switch between game styles is suuuuper cool. I definitely wish the different games (Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, New Super Mario Bros. U) all retained their own physics, instead of just reusing the New Soup physics - a subtle thing, but you notice it when comparing to the source material. But I get why you'd want all of Mario Maker to feel the same, and New Soup is a solid enough physics engine. Besides, the real fun of each style is seeing all the hallmark elements of each game, as well as seeing reinterpretations of game elements across games. It must've been a fun challenge, for example, to reinterpret the Ghost House and Doomship level archetypes for the games that didn't originally have them.

The main thing I've always loved was the crossover stuff with Costume Mario. Like, okay, cute idea, getting in all the Mario characters as alternate costumes. Amiibo support was the REAL treat, meaning that all the other characters in Smash Bros. got to have some fun. Including third-party characters! Playing as Sonic in a Mario platformer was a little mind-bending. But then they just kept going! I don't claim to understand why Shaun the Sheep or Hello Kitty are here, but I'm not inclined to complain. And even within Nintendo, the picks got enjoyably obscure. Ayumi Tachibana? A lady from the Japanese team in NES Volleyball? Friggin' Master Belch??? There's sort of this feeling like all these characters were invited to Mario's birthday party, it's great. Granted, I dunno why you'd invite Master Blech to a birthday party, but hey...

Like I said, I didn't spend a ton of time with the game, but I did make a small handful of levels. There were two I was pretty proud of. One was called "Buddy Beetle", and it was a SMB3-themed one where the player worked with a big ol' Buzzy Beetle to collaborate on puzzles and get to the end. The other was "Koopa Troopa's Walk", a SMW-themed one where a Koopa Troopa navigated a straight line at the top while a player navigated an obstacle course and tried to keep up. Both pretty simple high-concept ideas, but I had fun telling little stories through the level design.

...I guess they're lost now with everything else, huh? Still, for a good 8-9 years, an innumerable amount of people would've interfaced with them. I wonder who all played them, and what they got out of 'em? Were my levels part of peoples' rush to beat everything before the service shut down? I hope folks had fun.

I mentally lump this game together with Hey! Pikmin, which should clue you in on what I think of this game. Truthfully, this game isn't nearly as stinky as that one, but it definitely bums me out way more. Hey! Pikmin is just a failed experiment by a studio that could seemingly orchestrate murder and still sucker a publisher into hiring them. Zip Lash was a final, last-ditch effort to save the franchise, in much the same way Fire Emblem Awakening was a last-ditch effort to make something of Fire Emblem. Only Awakening catapulted Fire Emblem from a D-list franchise to one of Nintendo's A-listers (for better and for worse), while Zip Lash failed so thoroughly that it killed the studio that made it. A slow death at that, wasting away for years with nothing to show for their agony but a slow retreat from society and a forgotten, desiccated husk discovered long after the fact.

Zip Lash is a conga line of bizarre decisions. Turning a quiet, character-driven open world game that defies genre into a 2D platformer is itself strange, but I at least get that one - desperate for something that would stick with Nintendo's audiences, skip Ltd. turned to an extremely safe and marketable genre. I also think the titular Zip Lash, while weird in the context of Chibi-Robo (how do you extend plug), is a decent idea. Actually, it lends itself to some decently cerebral moments in level design, trying to line up your shot and taking ricochet into account. At a certain plug length it doesn't really matter where you're aiming, since you're pretty much guaranteed to hit the foe anyway, but it's something.

What I don't get is the level roulette. So each world (well, continent, since you're globe-trotting Earth) contains six levels. You need to clear each of these levels before you can fight the boss and move on to the next continent. Standard stuff. Only, for some reason, you cannot select a level to go to - you have to play a roulette mini-game at the end of each level. This roulette contains numbers 1-3. Whichever number you roll is how many levels ahead you go. So, like, if you've just finished Level 2, and you spin a "1", you move on to Level 3. But if the spinner lands on a "3", your next level is 5.

Kind of a quirky, fun way of blitzing through the game, right? Well, no, not really. In fact, not at all. Ignoring the fact that this dumb thing legitimately adds a minute or two's worth of fiddling around between levels, this doesn't change the fact that you still have to clear all levels within a continent. So in my previous example, the player skipped Levels 3 and 4, moving straight into Level 5. This presents an issue: those two levels still need to be completed. But the levels do exist within a loop, so Level 1 comes after Level 6 in this roulette progression thing. What this means is that, ideally, the player would clear Level 5, spin a 1 to move on to Level 6, then spin a 3 to skip ahead to Level 3. Because - yes - if you spin a 1 or a 2, you are returned to a level you have already cleared, and you are expected to play that level again!!! It is necessary to finish a level to get that roulette, so you can't just stick your head in and dip out. It's a good thing four out of the six options on that roulette are "1", so you have good odds of playing the video game normally. Because if you try for another option to shake it up, there's a great chance you'll be replaying a buncha dumb levels you've already played as punishment for engaging with the systems at play.

Another weird choice is the battery system. So like previous Chibis-Robo, this game's hero has a finite amount of battery, which needs to be recharged here and again. My thought would be to use this as a themed health system, the way previous games sorta implicitly do - falling from a great height or getting roughed up by Spydorz in the first game quickly drains Cheebo's battery. But, for some reason, this game includes a separate health system. Battery is instead a separate resource for the player to manage. Throughout each level are outlets, acting as mini-checkpoints. The player must always keep an eye on the battery level, and when it's running low, they must drop everything they're doing to find one of these outlets. Sometimes, this means backtracking. I guess I've seen this sort of thing done before (off-hand, I think of Sandopolis Act 2 in Sonic & Knuckles, where you have to keep pulling the switches to reset the lights), but given how much ceremony Chibi-Robo puts behind plugging in and charging up, it's something else that bogs down the action.

Also, may I just say: in a game where you're roaming the Earth, wandering outside for the whole adventure, it sure is handy that there are so many Type A outlet designs lying around. No universal adapters necessary!

There's also the product placement! This game uses real-world snacks as collectables. In each continent, a tertiary goal is to find all the snacks you can to feed a toy. I know that sounds strange, but don't worry, it's a different toy in each continent. I'm not opposed to product placement, not even in a Nintendo game; Pikmin 2's product placement is nothing short of genius. But it worked there because it juxtaposed these clean sterile images of, like, friggin' Vlasic Pickles with a would-be cultural anthropologist trying to reason out what role this thing had within this fallen society. Here you're just getting promotional praise. So if you ever wanted a cymbals monkey to give you a straight ad read of UTZ REGISTERED TRADEMARK SYMBOL CHEESE BALLS, well, I guess this is what you've been waiting for.

Much like a player who accidentally hit a number greater than 1 on the level roulette, I could go on and on all day with this. But the bottom line is that this game shows a shocking lack of the single most fundamental aspect of the first game: humility. Chibi-Robo in this game is a global superhero, who lives in outer space, in his own satellite and flies down to Earth to solve global crises. Everyone in the world knows and loves him! He's the object of ladies' affection! He's a shoe-in for the intergalactic space patrol! Aliens fear him! Not to spoil the ending or anything, but the final boss is a mecha fight, with Chibi-Robo piloting a giant mecha modeled after himself! Yeah, isn't he so cool? Don't you wish you were like Chibi-Robo?

It... this game breaks my heart. I feel so bad for the human beings who were tethered to this game's success, who needed to produce something that could be a tentpole title, to prop up their failing studio and keep them in business. This game needed to be a very specific thing to even have a chance at being that, and that specific thing was as far as you could get from what I loved about the first game. The original Chibi-Robo is quiet, introspective, mature, and offers no easy answers to life: just characters doing their best and making small steps in the right direction. But something quiet and modest like that couldn't sell; hell, it had failed to sell over and over again. Yet, even turning their back on all that, getting full support from Nintendo, skip Ltd. couldn't make something to save them. And in the end, they had to watch their world fade away.

It was worth it to me to buy this game brand new. The original Chibi-Robo was so important to me that I actually voted for the little guy in the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot (I suppose that makes me in part responsible for the Mii costume we got in Smash Ultimate?), so supporting the do-or-die last release was not even a question for me. Plus, it came packaged with that amiibo of Cheebo sitting down, holding his plug overhead - one of the best amiibo, I think, since it really captures the little guy's understated personality. But devoid of that context, if you're looking at the game now as something to play, I don't think I could ever recommend it as anything but a showcase of what not to do, of what desperation will make of something once-great.