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REVIEW: SUPER MARIO RUN (iOS)

2/1/2017

22 Comments

 
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Here we are then. 2017. And having almost died at the end of 2016 (this is a gross exaggeration, designed to elicit your sympathy) I've got some catching up to do with the games that were released towards the end of last year. 

Here's the first one: Super Mario Run. And to kick things off with a big, new year bang, let's start with a song...

Run Mario,
Run Mario,
Run! Run! Run!
Here comes an opinion that you probably won't like,
You're a sexist pig,
You're objectifying women,
Your adventures are full of stale, retrograde gender stereotypes,
You're unsuitable for children,
Run Mario,
Run Mario,
Run! Run! Run!
UNKIND
Reviews of Super Mario Run were not kind - at least, not from customers on the Apple Store. Too expensive at a penny under £8, not enough free content, and people angry that in order to play they need an Internet connection - not much use if you commute on the London Underground, or live in 1887, ages before Wifi was invented. Yadda yadda bing.

The negative reviews were a drop-kick to Nintendo's shares/testiballs, and though the company is big enough to shoulder the pain, it can't have been what Nintendo wanted from the smartphone debut of its biggest character.

Is this just a case of idiots grumbling like idiots, and jumping on a bandwagon once again? Well... a bit. There's no denying that Nintendo's decision to require an Internet connection - "to thwart pirates" - is a stupid, paranoid one, which has never been a good idea. I mean, just ask Microsoft.

However, perhaps most hysterically, further evidence that Super Mario Run had a target painted on its dungarees came when it got hit with absurd claims of being sexist.

You see, Princess Peach is kidnapped, offers to bake Mario a cake, and can only be "won" as a playable character using "coins", thus reducing her - and Toadette - to the status of trinkets. Or - worse - Russian mail-order brides.

As far as I'm concerned, none of the things Super Mario Run was criticised for were particularly valid. It felt like opinion engineering for the sake of it. These misplaced criticisims also obscured the most important matter: whether Super Mario Run is actually any good or not. 
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BIG MISTAKE
When it was first announced, Super Mario Run was mistaken for some sort of an endless runner thing, but it isn't.

​It's a Mario game in which the running is done for you. There's a real big difference. 

Levels are finite, they're not random, and the only thing you control is the jumping. Nintendo saw the importance of making Super Mario Run playable with just one hand, thus leaving the other free to do things, like waving at a brave horse, repeatedly opening and closing a musician's drawer, or pointing at a clow-clow.

It's almost a puzzle game - where the biggest challenge you face is that forward momentum. Collecting the coins is more of a focus than it has ever been before in a Mario game. Completing the levels isn't difficult; completing them and getting all the purple coins can be a headache when you just can't stop. You know: like when you eat too many Pringles.

Occasionally you'll run onto a pause block, giving you a moment to take stock - though the countdown timer doesn't allow you to rest for long.

TROPE ON A ROPE
Beyond that, all the standard Mario tropes are intact; blocks, buttons, coins, platforms and familiar enemies (in a change to convention, you'll automatically leapfrog ground-based enemies if you run into them).

There's a multiplayer, of sorts, where you race against the ghosts of other players. Any coins earned in this mode allow you to buy decorations for the world map, which let you design your own Mushroom Kingdom. Which is a nice touch.

On one hand (ha ha), it's very clever - Nintendo clearly considering the limitations of smartphone gaming rather than making a standard Mario platformer, using a horrible virtual touch-screen d-pad. On the other hand, it just isn't anywhere near as much fun as a regular Mario game. Which might've been too much to ask for £8.

Nevertheless, it feels a bit like a halfway house, Nintendo trying to have Princess Peach's cake and eat it (which is exactly the sort of thing they'd do - down with the patriarchy!).

Rather than go the route of a game such as, say, Lara Croft Go - which radically reinterpreted the Tomb Raider character for on-the-go gaming - Super Mario Run feels like it adheres too closely to the original gameplay, while removing the parts of it which have traditionally been the most fun. Perhaps Shigeru Miyamoto was making some sort of meta point about a subjugated male being castrated by a shrew. Sounds like him...

SUMMARY: Mediocre Mario Run more like.
SCORE: Three sexisms out of five sexisms.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
10 BLATANT MARIO RIP-OFFS
THE GAMING POET: DOES MARIO DREAM?
​
A DAY IN THE LIFE: SUPER MARIO

22 Comments
Rufio1980
2/1/2017 10:52:23 am

Welcome back, Biff. Glad you didn't make the list of 2016 casualties...

Reply
Rosie
2/1/2017 10:55:45 am

Happy new year!

I've been longing for you to review this game - weird really when I think why that might be:
Do I agree?
Has Biffo thought of reasons why I like the game that I had only tossed around subconsciously?
Do I disagree?
What has Biffo got wrong!

Needing to be connected to the net IS a valid complaint.
I don't think that's opinion engineering...
My son loves the game and yesterday we took him & his sister on a 40min round trip to a Crocodile farm.
Watching Crocs driving tractors was fun... at least it would have been.
Turns out ..... you know the rest.

I too enjoyed Lara Croft GO but it could have just as easily been Fred West GO.
Mario Run really does feel like a Mario game - like doing a speed run.
Removed all the fun parts? Er..... ar...... sort of know what you mean but it remains fun, at least I think so and so does me boy.

Fred West RUN would have just been wrong. Unless he juggled hammers whilst idling.

Reply
Super Bad Advice
2/1/2017 11:13:02 am

I thought SMR was fairly good, but that slightly above averageness in itself is fairly damning - this is Mario after all, not Sonic (who'd appear in any old tat for pennies these days - yes, even 'special' games). And while I can see Ninty wanted the big man up front as their first proper mobile game, something else may have worked better - a Zelda game you can stop and save anywhere, or a Metroid-themed shooter. Still, now the ball is rolling hopefully it'll be the first of many.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
2/1/2017 12:29:30 pm

There's two main issues with what is otherwise a really fun game (for what it is).

1) If Nintendo had marketed Toad Rally as the real game from the start (because it is), then people wouldn't have just judged it so harshly on the length of the single-player. They'd still have slammed the price, but that's just the iOS store economy.

2) However, the fact that the single player can't be played on the tube due to Nintendo's obsession with piracy really kills it from a city-dweller perspective. It's not so bad elsewhere, but cities do contain a lot of people.

Overall it's pretty fun/compulsive for what it is, and a good way to kill a half hour. I believe it actually has a decent conversion rate by pay-to-play app standards despite the hit to Nintendo's shares over the reviews, so it probably will overall be considered a moderate success.

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Pebble-dash
2/1/2017 12:54:17 pm

How does it compare to, say, Half-life 2 as a game experience? Flab

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Scott C
2/1/2017 01:14:24 pm

Welcome back with a quality review!

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Mr Biffo
2/1/2017 06:55:28 pm

Thanking, Scott!

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Kara Van Park
2/1/2017 01:22:34 pm

If I wanted to play Mario with one hand, I'd complete Super Mario Land on the Gameboy one-handed. Again.

I'm annoyed they're quite willing to whore out their IP for the smartphone dolla, but still insist on forcing people to fork out £300 every few years to play a handful of games.

Reply
LeighDappa
2/1/2017 09:29:41 pm

Nintendo NEVER force anyone to pay 300£ to play their handful of Games.

If only these idiots, who spend 300£ on new Consoles and THEN realise there's no Games of interest, actually did research on what they were about to buy.

Reply
Nick
3/1/2017 12:17:50 am

Nintendo once forced me to pay £300 to play their handful of games.

It was terrifying. Miyamoto broke the door down brandishing a pick axe handle with a nail through it.
No amount of research could have prevented it. Totally ruined shrove Tuesday.

sawdust
2/1/2017 01:23:41 pm

I was expecting something along the lines of the excellent Rayman runner, with control of momentum and basic positioning being the focus. This actually sounds a bit more interesting to me in that it allows for more exploration, but it doesn't sound like it was implemented too well

Reply
sawdust
2/1/2017 01:26:35 pm

I enjoyed this review by the way, funny and informative with a smidge of opinion thrown in, great stuff

Reply
Reversible Sedgewick
2/1/2017 02:14:51 pm

The online connection requirement... whether it's stupid or not is up for debate, but it certainly isn't paranoid.

I once had access to the stats for a similar game - large console franchise coming to phones. Sold slightly differently - upfront cost of a fiver - but the piracy rates were about 30% on iPhones and 95% on Android phones.

Everyone who made that app was out of a job within 6 months. Those scurvy scallywags really are out to get you. And me. And Miyamoto.

Mario? Still not played it yet, but the Rayman games which got there first with the same play style were delightful. My save got accidentally deleted and I was overjoyed because I got to play through it again.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
2/1/2017 09:54:55 pm

It would be interesting to see more of this kind of information, as nobody really believes that piracy has much of an impact.

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Meatballs-me-Branch-me-do
2/1/2017 02:22:47 pm

I thought the whole point of games you could play with one hand was so the other could hold on to the poles on public transportation.

Alas, this concept is lost on many of my fellow commuters who would rather go flying down the coach when the brakes are applied or we change tracks rather than stop playing their game or reduce their candy crushing efficiency by using that extra hand to hold on.

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Scott C
2/1/2017 11:30:39 pm

Indeed, by my reckoning about 50% of the population are usually holding a pole during most of one-handed computing/mobile sessions.

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RichardM
2/1/2017 05:00:07 pm

Happy New Year, all. Glad you survived 2016 Biffo. Hope you're only putting gruel in that Philips Airfryer of yours (any Digi2000 readers who don't stalk Biffo on Twitter also are really missing out!!).

I like SMR. Have all but about half the black bonus coins and about 3000 Toads: feel I've got my £8 worth, but think I'll keep going back til I've got all the bonus coins and maxed the Kingdom level. I thought Kingdom builder would have secrets? Maybe they're yet to be discovered / added. Other than that, enjoyed it.

Sexism didn't even register. Couldn't you argue that Toad and Luigi are obtained in the same way as Peach and Toadette...? I dunno. Maybe I should care about this stuff? I don't think my almost-2 year old daughter is going to be held back any by Bowser kidnapping Peach for the Nth time. But I digresss...

I liked it. Looking forward to more Nintendo mobile stuff, especially a Zelda game.

NES mini review coming up?

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Mr Biffo
2/1/2017 06:55:59 pm

Yuss! Tomorrow or Weds, Richard.

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Penyrolewen
2/1/2017 10:53:53 pm

Hi Biff, glad to see you back and hope you're feeling all bright eyed and bushy tailed and that.
Re Mario: I liked it: I thought it had a real 'premium' feel to it, a very clever approach to bringing Mario to mobile and some great features.

But that always online thing meant I didn't buy it. Yes, I could play fine at home but I have consoles to play there and they are better than any mobile game.

When travelling you can never guarantee a signal (I'm a rural Devon dweller, never mind you poor city types with your talk of the legendary "four" g, we don't even get 3G in my village), so what's the point? Can't play when I'm out, why would I play it when I'm at home?

I'm a long time Nintendo fan so wanted this to do well but seems to be classic big N snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Plus, £8? I know, I know, it's a better system than micro transactions and it's the one all games should adopt. Most mobile gamers aren't used to that type of fee though. Surely, £3 or £4 would have sold many more copies? Stack em high, sell em cheap kind of thing?
I dunno. Just hope they know what they're doing...

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Kan
3/1/2017 12:10:02 am

Biffo....Err.. Door 22, 23 24 of advent? My Christmas was ruined.

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Chinny Hill
3/1/2017 12:58:46 pm

Is piracy really a problem on the iPhone on a game this big? Don't you have to have a cracked iPhone? Who bothers with that?

Android I can understand. The entire system is a jumbled mess but in Apple's walled garden I can only imagine it's a tiny proportion of gamers.

Anyway nice to see Mario finally catch up with Sonic after 25 years in terms of running along and having fun. Pity it seems expensive and not much good.

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Darren link
3/1/2017 02:19:36 pm

Everybody moans... The end.

Reply



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