Nintendo will launch Super Mario Run on the Apple App Store in 151 countries on the 15th of December 2016. After Miitomo, this is the second biggest Nintendo title developed in-house for the iphone, and is the first smartphone game from the successful Super Mario series.
The catch phrase, “The new Mario that is played with one hand”, is absolutely right. This is a “running game” genre similar to Temple Run and Flappy Bird, that can be played by tapping the screen with one finger.
The game uses graphics and music from the new Super Mario Brothers series, and the courses are designed to be played horizontally. Mario automatically rights towards the goal without any input from a player.
A tap makes Mario jump. A long tag makes Mario perform a long jump. Tapping again when Mario is in the air will make him perform a spin jump. That is all the actions you need to perform in this game. Mario will automatically jump across any enemies or holes in the ground one block wide. In addition, Mario will perform different actions depending on the terrain and your tap timings.
In World Tour, there are 6 worlds and 24 courses in total. Bowser’s castle comes after that.
The usual rules of head-butting blocks and stepping on enemies,apply to this game. To step on enemies, the player must tap the screen when Mario is jumping over enemies, and Mario will perform a stomp. It feels really good when you master the controls and go on a stomping rampage. For enemies with shells such as Koopas, Mario will perform a stomp followed by a kick.
Even though the main objective of the game is for Mario to reach the goal, there are pink and purple coins in the stage for a player to collect. Collecting all these special coins is one of the optional achievements players can strive for.
As Mario advances automatically, it is easy to miss out on coins. There are ways to get around this however; for example, you can kick against a vertical pipe and jump backwards a little. There are also stage elements that goes in reverse of the stage scroll which a player can utilize.
Whenever Mario makes a mistake, a player can use a “bubble” from the top of the screen to return to the moment before making the mistake. If this is properly used, a player will be able to collect coins that he missed. It is also possible to deliberately make a mistake and exploit the bubbles. The downside is that the stage time will be lost, so using the bubbles can result in failing a stage due to timeout.
This game will feature completely new gimmicks not seen before, such as the aforementioned backwards movement stage element. There are directional arrows in courses that generate coins when you move or jump towards them in the correct direction. There are also jumping springs and cloud stairs, which causes moving lifts to appear when Mario stands on them. These elements add variety to different courses of the game.
The frustration of auto-scrolling courses, and the resulting sense of achievement for conquering them will make you want to play them over and over until you get the perfect hi-score. There are courses that loops between the left and right sides of the screen, and courses that require you to move upwards with jumps and gimmicks, all of which are part of a game design to keep players from ever getting bored.
Course 1-1 to 1-3 are free to play, but world 2 onwards are pay to play. The difficulty gets much harder from world 2 onwards.
Compete With Players All Over The World In Toad Rally
The Toad Rally is a game system that changes a course each time you play it, and you compete with other players in terms of best clear time and number of Toad spectators gathered. By performing various stylish actions such as stomping on enemies, more Toads will gather to watch you, which will boost your score.
In this game mode, you can compete with friends or with top scorers in the world. Some small actions can impact your score greatly, and with the whole world to compete with, it is sure to stir up the gamer within you.
To play Toad Rally, you need to use “rally tickets” obtained from World Tour and Mushroom Kingdom’s mini-games.
Customize Your Very Own Kingdom With Kingdom Maker
The Kingdom Maker is an editor that allows you to customize the home screen’s Mushroom Kingdom the way you like it. Using the coins that you gathered, you can buy Toad houses, pipes, blocks, and place as you please. Also, the Toads that you gathered in Toad Rally will sell you new items, which can add even more options to your Mushroom Kingdom.
The Kingdom starts with just one screen, but as you play through the game, it can expand to a maximum size of six screens. This should be a great motivation for players to keep playing.
Now only can you customize the appearance of the Kingdom, you can also unlock bonus games by placing certain buildings that can be bought using coins or tickets.
This is the first Mario game on the smartphone, and it does not disappoint. Unlike many mobile games, Super Mario Run does not use a stamina system, but rather it sells courses in packs (World 1 course 4 onwards cost 1200 yen ($10) to fully unlock). This allows players to play as much as they want. World 1, courses 1 to 3 are free to play, so go ahead and try those and see if you like the game or not.
(Article source : http://www.4gamer.net/games/355/G035558/20161207105/)
