Hands-On With Nintendo's New Super Mario Run Game

[iapplelove]

Fellas... Dont you guys see the point?

This game is released for promotion of Nintendo's real products...
They WANT you to feel "something is missing" or "incomplete" so that you'd go out and buy Nintendo DS or whatever to fully enjoy it..

This is actually somewhat true. Nintendo will never ever make full games for mobile devices.
They want folks to buy into their systems, the Nintendo ecosystem just like Apple does.
However, the brains at Nintendo understand a child's first interaction with video games won't come from a controller. It will come from a smartphone.
So if they continue to make short, colorful and quick games with Mario,Zelda themes etc. they are hoping kids will then switch over to the big system at an early age.

 

[teme]

Liked the game initially, but very limited play and then told you need to purchase Worlds 1-6 for £7.99. And there's not that many levels. I don't think so Nintendo/Apple. Now deleted from my iPhone.

Would you have preferred a typical freemium paying method? Collect 1000 coins and wait 6 hours and watch ads to play the next level or unlock 3 next levels for 0.99?

Maybe you like that, but I prefer one-time payment to get all the content.

 

[Ninja Dom]

So

it runs for me
it jumps for me (I have to do big jumps and multi jumps)
it has to always be connected
it costs £6.99
it isn't very good

It's a no from me

Well it made the front page of Apple so I guess Macrumors is just following the trend.
Either way - this game is probably worth 2-3 EURs max.

Again, 15" rMBP i7, iPad Pro and iPhone 6S, but you think £6.99 is high for a game?
Is your 6S not connected to the internet?

Fair enough that you don't think it's very good or like the style.

But guys - you buy and show off (boast) these expensive items yet turn around and believe you're entitled to all games being free? This is an odd forum to be doing that.

 

[iapplelove]

Again, 15" rMBP i7, iPad Pro and iPhone 6S, but you think £6.99 is high for a game?
Is your 6S not connected to the internet?

Fair enough that you don't think it's very good or like the style.

But guys - you buy and show off (boast) these expensive items yet turn around and believe you're entitled to all games being free? This is an odd forum to be doing that.

I don't think people are complaining about price. Well not most people. The game just sucks and is underwhelming. It looks pretty, but for me came up way short. Price was not an issue.

 

[OutSpoken]

Yeah, I would gladly pay $10 for the game for the family, but $50 (5 family members) isn't going to happen. Plus the always on connection is stupid. Nintendo is and always will be a ripoff. Keep Mario... I've got better stuff to play.

Does it not support family sharing??

 

[johngordon]

It is what it is - its Mario jumping and collecting coins, which is still fun. Its not trying to be anything else.

I thought this is what people wanted, but now for many its just not enough.

Anyway, I'm enjoying it.
[doublepost=1481886366][/doublepost]

I don't think people are complaining about price. Well not most people. The game just sucks and is underwhelming. It looks pretty, but for me came up way short. Price was not an issue.

Genuine question - what were you expecting?

 

[Ninja Dom]

I don't think people are complaining about price. Well not most people. The game just sucks and is underwhelming. It looks pretty, but for me came up way short. Price was not an issue.

There's plenty of posts in this thread complaining about the price.

 

[OutSpoken]

SUPER MARIO RUN IS HERE—AND SHIGERU MIYAMOTO TOLD US 7 SURPRISING THINGS ABOUT IT

• 
  
  Sorry, but Miyamoto doesn’t want the original Super Mario Bros.on your phone.
  “Why doesn’t Nintendo just put the original Mario on my phone?” isn’t something I’d typically ask Miyamoto, but I hear it so often that I wanted to hear his reaction. He laughed, and said, “I don’t want to do anything that boring. We’ve been making Mario games for a long time, and Mario’s evolved with every new platform.
  
  “For me, it wouldn’t be interesting work to just take the existing Super Mario Bros. game, put it on an iPhone, (and) emulate a plus control pad. That’s not very fun creatively. We’re more interested in looking at how we can be creative with Mario, and design for iPhone in a way that takes advantage of the uniquenesses of that device and the uniquenesses of that input and the features that that device has. For us, that is much more rewarding creative work.”
  
  He’s got one more thing to say about that. “If we did put Super Mario Bros. on the iPhone, (people) would say, ‘Wow, this is well-done, but are you actually going to expect me to pay money for it? Why isn’t this free?’,” he says. “We try to create products that have value that people are willing to pay for.”

I agree with Miyamoto here - Had Nintendo just ported retro SMB on mobile it would have been uncreative and boring.. I've only had a little play with Super Mario Run and yes it has been a bit of an anti climax, but I'm still glad they tried something new - however it feels like its missing something.

 

[Ma2k5]

I thought the game was quite disappointing. I was also shocked at the poor quality of the opening sequences where it made me choose which country I was in. Not only is it silly to ask that when they have geolocation API's like ipinfo.io available but also I downloaded it from the UK store where again they could check what store is available to my account and finally the window to choose the country has no search field and scrolling it makes all these noises and clicks as you scroll like really Nintendo? This is really poor.

The game itself .. I didn't find it fun. Not being able to control Mario completely like on 20 year old consoles just made it feel bland and like I was watching a video of someone playing Mario. I also don't like that you need to be online all the time to play or how many menus and things there was for what should be a very simple game.

And before someone replies, yes I know it's called Super Mario Run and the whole point is to only be able to control his jumping. I am saying the whole concept is meh.

For me, not great and I really do love Mario and the other Mario games.

I didn't like how MARIO automatically jumped over certain obstacles and enemies - making it far too easy.

 

[BornAgainMac]

I prefer Angry Birds without Ads to this game. I would pay $10 for Angry Birds. My hope is that game developers would rather receive $10 for a game than to provide it for free and then annoy the gamer for life of the game.

 

[iapplelove]

Genuine question - what were you expecting?

Good question. And as a Nintendo fan I guess I was just expecting the game to be a bit more fun. It looks pretty but after playing the 3 free levels I didn't have a desire to buy it. I didn't even have the desire to play it on my iPad.
I guess it just came down to the fun factor for me, and a self running Mario that jumps over 50% of the obsitcles himself didn't do it.

 

[essiw]

Lol at all the negative comments, you are all complaining about a game that has:

A free introduction to the game:
The first three levels are free
Nine challenges for free (3 per level)
Competing against other players for free

It has no DLC for real money (only for challenges that you do in game).
It has easy levels, and more difficult levels (purple and black coin challenges).
Each level seems to have different graphics and sound.
No ads.

The only technical downside: Requires internet on all times.

So despite the always internet connection, Nintendo seems to have understood how to do a mobile game in the right way. Compare it to other Nintendo games where you would spend 60 euro's for a mario game. I would say that 10 euro's is spot-on is a nice price for a game.

It seems you guys rather have a game where you need to grind through the same levels again and again to buy overly expensive upgrades to stimulate you to buy in game items with real life money (e.g. Pokémon Go), or one filled with ads, instead of a one-time payment for a whole game. I am personally sick of mobile games that are based on grinding and in-app purchases (DLC for real life money), or filled with ads that you cannot remove. I am glad that Nintendo did it this way, and if you do not like the game itself, then so be it. Do not buy it, be happy that you received a free introduction to the game instead of having to buy it before trying.

 

[djlythium]

So, after playing it a bit, here are my thoughts:

• Love the design! The UI, the colors, the characters & levels, the sounds... awesome.
• I think the gameplay model is really unique. I'm used to having to avoid enemies by jumping over them, but since it's automatic, the game is more about fluidity in your run, rather than survival. On that note, I LOVE Mario's little parkour moves! They're hella cute.
• I also like the pay-once model, but $10 is too hi. $7 max.
• Relatedly, if I don't buy the full game, at least let me finish World 1. I mean, c'mon! "We were right near the end!" Maybe let us buy one World at a time?
• "Rally Mode" was not what I expected, given the word 'rally'. That being said, still interesting.
• Lastly, Nintendo, you really need to remove the internet requirement. Big fail on that front.

Anywho, I'll keep it around for a bit. Still pretty fun, and it's unique.

 

[johngordon]

Lol at all the negative comments, you are all complaining about a game that has:

A free introduction to the game:
The first three levels are free
Nine challenges for free (3 per level)
Competing against other players for free

It has no DLC for real money (only for challenges that you do in game).
It has easy levels, and more difficult levels (purple and black coin challenges).
Each level seems to have different graphics and sound.
No ads.

The only technical downside: Requires internet on all times.

So despite the always internet connection, Nintendo seems to have understood how to do a mobile game in the right way. Compare it to other Nintendo games where you would spend 60 euro's for a mario game. I would say that 10 euro's is spot-on is a nice price for a game.

It seems you guys rather have a game where you need to grind through the same levels again and again to buy overly expensive upgrades to stimulate you to buy in game items with real life money (e.g. Pokémon Go), or one filled with ads, instead of a one-time payment for a whole game. I am personally sick of mobile games that are based on grinding and in-app purchases (DLC for real life money), or filled with ads that you cannot remove. I am glad that Nintendo did it this way, and if you do not like the game itself, then so be it. Do not buy it, be happy that you received a free introduction to the game instead of having to buy it before trying.

There's also the thing about getting to the end - presumably (assuming you're not some whizz at games), its a lot easier to get to the end of the game by rushing through the levels before the time runs out.

But still a challenge of getting to the end with as many coins as possible in the process.

Whilst its great that mobile apps are as cheap as they are, I think a lot of people don't really get the value of the apps against the time developers put into developing them. It beggars belief that some people complain that even $5 is too expensive for an app.

 

[NachoGrande]

not a $10 game...

 

[johngordon]

not a $10 game...

I think it is a $10 game.

The trouble is that a lot of $2 games aren't $2 games - they are probably easily $5 games.

Put it this way - how much time would you expect to spend playing it?

Suppose you spend even just 10 hours in total playing it - $1 an hour of entertainment.

You're telling me that $1 per hour of entertainment is too expensive?

 

[chasonstone]

I've been playing and I'm very pleased. It's well suited for mobile, minimizes the amount of 'buttons' and controls you need, but somehow still challenging enough to keep you interacting. I don't think the price is that bad honestly. I like that with the pink, purple, and black coins there are reasons to revisit each level again and again.

If Nintendo really wants to utilize the hardware they could easily create a Mario kart for iPhone and I would buy it in a heartbeat. They could make the vehicles auto accelerate and let us tilt to steer. Minimal controls, like super Mario run, but it could be an even more in depth game with (live) online play.

 

[Quu]

Except for the choice of country, every complaint you have about the game was known long before if was released. Why did you buy it?

I didn't buy it. It's free to play the first few levels.

 

[marty1980]

I downloaded the app and paid the $9.99 to unlock the game.

I am a bit surprised by the Builder aspect and how it ties into Toad Rally. I'm not sure I understand the point of it, but it does provide reasoning for wanting to do good in Toad Rally.

World Tour is the classic mode and it's great. I flew through the first 2 worlds but now the levels are starting to throw in some challenge. Not what most would consider "difficult" but I've actually had to restart levels instead of just popping out of bubbles because the courses are more challenging later on.

I am still trying to figure everything out with this game. There's more here than I thought from the previews. It's still not the Mario game I wanted but I am happy with my purchase and support for Nintendo's effort.

I'm sure plenty of people will shrug it off for various reasons but, for a mobile game, it's pretty darn good.

I can't help being excited that Nintendo made this a pay-once-play-forever game. Best purchase model.

 

[newdeal]

won't even open on my iPhone. Just crashes at launch. I am not jailbroken although I think I did have a jailbreak a year or two ago but I restored my phone and got rid of it a long time ago

 

[GadgetBen]

All of these people on here pretending that they won't download it already have.

 

[attila]

Not being able to control Mario completely like on 20 year old consoles just made it feel bland and like I was watching a video of someone playing Mario.

I find that the game could have been more engaging if at least they gave you a button to change direction of mario.

I agree with all of your points.

 

[thespacekid]

I'm sure we'll hear how intrusive or non-intrusive their "always internet connected" model is. Hopefully they'll offer something like a 24 hour off net mode so people can play on an airplane, unless it has to always download things.

 

[waquzy]

Should have had the classic controls... as a huge Mario fan this game is disappointing

 

[Thunderhawks]

No, I prefer to MacRumors when I poop.

Certainly a lot of ****going down here!