21st April 2020, 7:39 PM
So, Mario Maker 2 has sold 5 million copies over its often months since release, which puts it as the 11th best selling Switch game. That is decently good, but somewhat disappointing considering that the first Mario Maker sold almost 4 million copies in less time on a system with only 12 million consoles sold. Compared to the size of the system sales base, the sequel did a lot worse.
And that is part of the speculation about why Nintendo has just announced that Mario Maker 2 will not have any more updates after one releasing tomorrow. Nintendo seems to have taken all of the updates they had partially completed, tossed them all together, and are going to publish what's done. This is the "final major content update". On the one hand, they're adding a lot of very cool stuff -- a whole bunch of new outfits for the characters in various game styles, each with unique mechanics; the Koopalings, as seven new types of minibosses to mix up the monotony of "it's always Bowser, Bowser Jr., or Boom-Boom"; one new regular enemy type, the Meka-Koopas; and such. It's a fantastic sounding update with lots of stuff and I am very much looking forward to playing the levels people make with all of these new parts. The five time-limited powerups for the Mario 3D World style are maybe particularly interesting; they include a POW block head, a Goomba head that makes you blend in with enemies; and more. Silly stuff which could make for interesting levels.
Most prominent in it, though, is a Mario Bros. 2 suit for the original Mario Bros. 1 game style. Now, a longstanding Mario Maker 2 rumor has been a Mario Bros. 2 theme. The theme select screen seems to suggest it, with an open space to the left of 3D World, and it's something a lot of people, me certainly included, want to see... but now it seems that they have abandoned that, and instead all we get are a suit that lets you pick up enemies Mario 2-style, and a "cursed key" item which makes a Phanto appear if you grab it. Both are SMB1 style-exclusive. And that's it. No full theme, no enemies from it, nothing. It's frustrating stuff to say the least, when SMB2 deserves so much more!
Of course, Nintendo has somewhat mismanaged this game all along. With a better userbase-engagement strategy to keep fans happier with an actual plan, seeming to care about what the games' fanbase wants to some extent, some kind of monetization maybe to encourage them to keep supporting it (look, I'm not saying I want to be charge more money for things already IN the game, but for more stuff that currently ISNT and won't be? That's a different question.), etc, maybe the game would have sold better and become the "evergreen" game it should be, because the Mario Maker concept is still one of the most amazing things ever. I still love both playing this game and watching streamers who are better than me at Mario play it, and I will, and this update will add some new stuff to the game which will make it even more interesting... but it feels like this could have been something even more special, and it kind of IS that -- there was a crazy amount in this game at launch! -- but it needed better planning and post-launch strategy to get there and they kind of messed it up.
For instance, the Ninji Speedruns concept is a great one ... when they publish the levels. Unfortunately, there is no set schedule for when they appear, and Nintendo does not make any particular mention of them when they do so. Instead, they just randomly appear every once in a while, and you've got a week or so to notice, play it, and get your time in. After that you can play levels you missed, but can't have an official clear time for the original run of the stage because you have to play it in that time window to get that. And that concept is good, but why isn't there a schedule for when levels are published? Why do they just appear at random every once in a while? Will there be more Ninji Speedrun levels in the future, or are the seven or so they have published it? The last one was a couple of weeks ago now, and this update video said nothing about them... though Ninjis do appear on the map screen in the (very cool!) new World Builder mode, so I wonder what that is about. We'll see soon. But anyway, as for Ninji Speedruns I have no idea about the answers to any of those questions, and nor does anyone else outside of Nintendo. Nintendo is famously tight-lipped and that's usually fine, but we see here how when running what is kind of a service game (with no monetization yes, but it still kind of is one) how not doing those small things hurts. But anyone who looks at that mode can see that every Ninji Speedrun level has been played by fewer people than the last one, which is not a good trend.
And yeah, there still is no Mario Maker 2 version of the website that MM1 has to help you find levels and such. Why they didn't do that is a complete, frustrating mystery. This is one of the best games ever as it is, but it's too bad that little things like that are missing... on the whole, you'd think by now Nintendo would be starting to figure this internet thing out, but they very clearly are not. It's too bad.
And that is part of the speculation about why Nintendo has just announced that Mario Maker 2 will not have any more updates after one releasing tomorrow. Nintendo seems to have taken all of the updates they had partially completed, tossed them all together, and are going to publish what's done. This is the "final major content update". On the one hand, they're adding a lot of very cool stuff -- a whole bunch of new outfits for the characters in various game styles, each with unique mechanics; the Koopalings, as seven new types of minibosses to mix up the monotony of "it's always Bowser, Bowser Jr., or Boom-Boom"; one new regular enemy type, the Meka-Koopas; and such. It's a fantastic sounding update with lots of stuff and I am very much looking forward to playing the levels people make with all of these new parts. The five time-limited powerups for the Mario 3D World style are maybe particularly interesting; they include a POW block head, a Goomba head that makes you blend in with enemies; and more. Silly stuff which could make for interesting levels.
Most prominent in it, though, is a Mario Bros. 2 suit for the original Mario Bros. 1 game style. Now, a longstanding Mario Maker 2 rumor has been a Mario Bros. 2 theme. The theme select screen seems to suggest it, with an open space to the left of 3D World, and it's something a lot of people, me certainly included, want to see... but now it seems that they have abandoned that, and instead all we get are a suit that lets you pick up enemies Mario 2-style, and a "cursed key" item which makes a Phanto appear if you grab it. Both are SMB1 style-exclusive. And that's it. No full theme, no enemies from it, nothing. It's frustrating stuff to say the least, when SMB2 deserves so much more!
Of course, Nintendo has somewhat mismanaged this game all along. With a better userbase-engagement strategy to keep fans happier with an actual plan, seeming to care about what the games' fanbase wants to some extent, some kind of monetization maybe to encourage them to keep supporting it (look, I'm not saying I want to be charge more money for things already IN the game, but for more stuff that currently ISNT and won't be? That's a different question.), etc, maybe the game would have sold better and become the "evergreen" game it should be, because the Mario Maker concept is still one of the most amazing things ever. I still love both playing this game and watching streamers who are better than me at Mario play it, and I will, and this update will add some new stuff to the game which will make it even more interesting... but it feels like this could have been something even more special, and it kind of IS that -- there was a crazy amount in this game at launch! -- but it needed better planning and post-launch strategy to get there and they kind of messed it up.
For instance, the Ninji Speedruns concept is a great one ... when they publish the levels. Unfortunately, there is no set schedule for when they appear, and Nintendo does not make any particular mention of them when they do so. Instead, they just randomly appear every once in a while, and you've got a week or so to notice, play it, and get your time in. After that you can play levels you missed, but can't have an official clear time for the original run of the stage because you have to play it in that time window to get that. And that concept is good, but why isn't there a schedule for when levels are published? Why do they just appear at random every once in a while? Will there be more Ninji Speedrun levels in the future, or are the seven or so they have published it? The last one was a couple of weeks ago now, and this update video said nothing about them... though Ninjis do appear on the map screen in the (very cool!) new World Builder mode, so I wonder what that is about. We'll see soon. But anyway, as for Ninji Speedruns I have no idea about the answers to any of those questions, and nor does anyone else outside of Nintendo. Nintendo is famously tight-lipped and that's usually fine, but we see here how when running what is kind of a service game (with no monetization yes, but it still kind of is one) how not doing those small things hurts. But anyone who looks at that mode can see that every Ninji Speedrun level has been played by fewer people than the last one, which is not a good trend.
And yeah, there still is no Mario Maker 2 version of the website that MM1 has to help you find levels and such. Why they didn't do that is a complete, frustrating mystery. This is one of the best games ever as it is, but it's too bad that little things like that are missing... on the whole, you'd think by now Nintendo would be starting to figure this internet thing out, but they very clearly are not. It's too bad.
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