The idea, in theory, is great. A community of people making Mario levels sounds amazing. The problem is that so many of the levels are bad. I begin to play the 100 Mario Challenge, and Easy mode is far too easy. Normal is also easy, so I move to Expert, and the difference feels monumental.
Levels that don’t require skill, but rather the patience of a Buddhist monk, begin to make me frustrated and angry at the game. The majority of the levels that I end up playing aren’t actually difficult, but obtuse or simply unfair.
The moment when you begin a level and see what seems like thousands of enemies surrounding you is overwhelming. And don’t even get me started on the levels in which you are essentially forced to lose at least one life, since the designer decided to put an enemy so close to you at the start of the level that you can’t avoid a death.
These levels are not challenges, but rather shrines to trolling. That is what Super Mario Maker is when you play the “higher difficulty” levels.
Hopefully this is just a phase, and good levels will overtake the bad ones, but it will take a community effort to give stars to well-designed levels that offer real challenges, not arbitrary and petty ones.
I realize that it’s still early. Maybe the community just needs to practice building levels. I’m not good at building levels myself, so who am I to complain? Well…as someone who bought Super Mario Maker I am not overwhelmingly happy with the product.
Perhaps giving power to the people just wasn’t a good idea. Perhaps a regular Mario game designed by Nintendo themselves would have been better. I love the idea of everyone creating their own levels, in theory, but when most of those levels are bad, I feel like the game is just a lost cause. Only time will tell where Super Mario Maker ends up in terms of the quality of the levels. But right now the game is frustrating.
Am I the only one thinking this? Let me know in the comments if you have been playing Super Mario Maker and what you think of the levels being made.
