Way way on the easy end by the standards of the franchise. Almost every “hidden” star was findable without any hints or even looking too hard, and it never once expects you to do any of the fancy jumps except a couple times in the postgame.
The deal with Mario is supposed to be that any kid or mom can pick it up but there’s a sliding scale of content for different kinds of freaks. I should be a pretty good calibration case here because I’m right around the middle: a semi-casual who hasn’t gotten any better or worse at Mario since age 10. I beat the capstone stuff in Odyssey by the skin of my teeth and left behind a couple moons that I couldn’t figure out or found too frustrating—perfect outcome. With 64, I flamed out on most of the hard stuff, got as much of the hidden stuff that people used to have to learn about from magazines as I’d picked up from cultural osmosis, and topped out at ninety-something stars—also a perfect outcome. I haven’t played the Mario Makers but my understanding is that you can either dick around like a toddler with a Lego set or funnel an endless stream of those levels that only a robot or Star Platinum can ever actually complete. With this one I 100%’d the game and it only really pushed me 2 or 3 times, and then all it had to offer me was the opportunity to do it again as Luigi. I’ve come to detest any attempt by a game to try and trick me into playing it more than once. I’m not one of those people! Leave me alone!
Anyway there are worse things a game can be than too easy, and I love zooming around and doing fun physics stuff and shooting star bits at goombas, so: three stars. Gonna wash this one down with a FromSoft thing for sure.
The deal with Mario is supposed to be that any kid or mom can pick it up but there’s a sliding scale of content for different kinds of freaks. I should be a pretty good calibration case here because I’m right around the middle: a semi-casual who hasn’t gotten any better or worse at Mario since age 10. I beat the capstone stuff in Odyssey by the skin of my teeth and left behind a couple moons that I couldn’t figure out or found too frustrating—perfect outcome. With 64, I flamed out on most of the hard stuff, got as much of the hidden stuff that people used to have to learn about from magazines as I’d picked up from cultural osmosis, and topped out at ninety-something stars—also a perfect outcome. I haven’t played the Mario Makers but my understanding is that you can either dick around like a toddler with a Lego set or funnel an endless stream of those levels that only a robot or Star Platinum can ever actually complete. With this one I 100%’d the game and it only really pushed me 2 or 3 times, and then all it had to offer me was the opportunity to do it again as Luigi. I’ve come to detest any attempt by a game to try and trick me into playing it more than once. I’m not one of those people! Leave me alone!
Anyway there are worse things a game can be than too easy, and I love zooming around and doing fun physics stuff and shooting star bits at goombas, so: three stars. Gonna wash this one down with a FromSoft thing for sure.