

Tapping specific categories of enemies and seeing a full circle of options within a subcategory of a specific enemy or block made it much easier to find items. With a rubber touch screen pen, it suddenly felt like the experiences on the Wii U version, if not easier in some ways. Undocked is a completely different experience. I found myself spending much more time fiddling with the controls and erasing unintended mistakes rather than just focusing on the making of courses. The joy-cons were not accurate in placing items in specific areas, and not being able to simply tap on items that I wanted to be made making courses unenjoyable and inefficient. Playing on TV and trying to get right into making courses with the joy-con is extremely difficult. The level of customizations for enemies and certain blocks allow a much easier time browsing through the multitude of options. Of course, with the title being “Mario Maker”, having a course creator that can be easy, intuitive, and enjoyable is very important since it’s detrimental to the entire experience (beyond Story Mode). The question that I pondered was whether or not Super Mario Maker 2 can find the right balance with courses and replicate the charm Mario Maker 1 had with making courses. Uploaded courses have had objectively mixed enjoyment, however, with either the courses being too difficult to the fault or being awfully simple. Such experiences with the dual use of the gamepad, unexpected (yet funny) sounds and visuals with the course maker such as a cat paw or hopping noises of the eraser made making stages a charm.
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The idea of creating my own stages never really occurred to me, but with the release of original Mario Maker, it was rather exciting to play an unlimited catalog of creative stages without ever having to buy another game. 2D Mario games were especially up my ally, with interesting terrains, unique enemies, and a rather subtle charm that enemies evoke in each game.

I’ve personally been such a big fan of the Mario games, ever since my childhood.
