Back in September Nintendo announced that for the first time ever they would be bringing one of their iconic characters to mobile gaming in the form of Super Mario Run. The gaming world was left waiting with bated breath as we crossed days off of our calendars for another three months. Well, December 15th has come and gone and many were left wondering if the game was even worth the wait.
Super Mario Run has a simple enough premise. Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach (again) and Mario is running (literally) to the rescue. The game operates as a continuous side scroller and the only controllable function is when to make Mario jump, making the timing of these jumps the key to a successful run.
The “Tour” mode is the main focus of the game, where much like previous incarnations of the Mario series, you must successfully navigate a series of 6 worlds (each including a “castle-type” stage). You get to play the first three levels for free before buying
The game also has two other modes you can play in, a kingdom building mode and a player vs player mode called “Toad Rally”. The kingdom building mode uses the coins that you have gathered through each of the stages to purchase buildings to rebuild after bowser destroyed the kingdom during Princess Peach’s capture.
The Toad Rally mode pits one player against another online to see who can run a stage best in 60 seconds. The winner is determined how many coins you collect during the run and by how many roads you impress by doing additional tricks and manuevers. Winner takes all of he toads gathered during the run from both sides back to their own kingdom.
Overall the Tour gameplay is entertaining and the Rally mode is enough of a challenge to make you want to keep trying to be the best (and collect the most toads). The kingdom building gameplay is a bit cheesy, but it will definite appeal to the designer in some (think The Sims).
The game does have a few serious faults. At $9.99, the price point is high for an App Store game, and with only 6 worlds in the Tour mode, it seems a bit short.
But the game’s cardinal sin is that it requires an active internet connection to play in any of the modes. So if you were planning on beating the game on the 6:30 flight to LAX, you’d better pack a magazine instead. Requiring an internet connection makes sense for the kingdom building mode or the Rally mode, where you would be making online transactions with either Nintendo or other players, but requiring it for the Tour mode just seems limiting.
All of these complaints have lead to thousands of negative reviews on the App Store, landing Super Mario Run a rating of only 2.6 (at the time of publishing). But the game continues to attract new users, with over 40 million downloads in four days.
Despite its shortfalls, the Super Mario Run does have some fun and challenging gameplay and will continue to rack up the downloads. I imagine this is only the beginnings of Nintendo’s move to the mobile gaming market.