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I guess i'm in the minority.

I really am enjoying this game and have no issues with the 24/7 internet connectivity. $9.99 seems like a fairly reasonable price for the amount of content and joy I am getting out of it.
 
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I wonder if they are paying any attention whatsoever to all the people refusing to buy because of the always-on requirement. I hope so.
 
I would happily pay $10 if it was anywhere near as good as the old school Mario games. This game just doesn't have enough input to me. I mean, Mario jumps over enemies and small gaps in the ground by himself for god sake. It's barely better than watching a video of someone else playing. They said they wanted to take advantage of the unique input the iPhone offers... but it's just a single tap game. It's not like it's utilizing the camera to jump whenever I blink, or using the accelerometer to control whether he moves forwards and backwards and how fast. This is not utilizing a unique input. It's a single button input. It's like taking a classic NES controller and removing the D-pad and one of the the two remaining buttons.

They don't even need to work from the ground up. The fact that the NES Classic edition console is sold out all over the place shows this. Nintendo seems very resistant to give the public what they want. I bet they could polish up the original Super Mario Bros game and put it on iOS for $2.99 and they would sell millions of copies. I'd buy Super Mario World for $5.99, and Zelda: A Link to the Past for $9.99, so long as the input worked well. Super NES games may be too difficult to bring to the iPhone, but I played through the 3 original NES Super Mario Bros games on my old HTC Tilt phone using an emulator and quickly adapted to the funky controls. Surely the brilliant developers at Nintendo could develop a better input for a game than a single tap.

If you're an actual Mario fan and not just a casual player, you will know that Miyamoto's games first train players how to use the mechanics of the game in non threatening early levels sparsely populated with easy enemies and then gradually introduces the real challenges and the brilliant level design that he's known for in later courses. If all you've played are the free levels, then you haven't gotten anywhere near the idea of how this game plays.

Around the second world, it becomes clear how in depth one can get with just a single tap input. Using walls and arrow and pause blocks, you gain quite a bit of control over Mario with just that single tap input.

The very first Super Mario Bros. was a one direction game. You couldn't go back, and because of the limited time on the clock, you were more often than not running nearly non stop towards the end of a course.
 
This game would have probably had more success if Nintendo stuck to their scheme of making people move like the success they had with the wii. Add a feature to tie in the game with the app watch and phone to move mario when you run/run in place. Probably would have got more people to pay the 9.99 for the game. Just my two cents.
 
If you're an actual Mario fan and not just a casual player, you will know that Miyamoto's games first train players how to use the mechanics of the game in non threatening early levels sparsely populated with easy enemies and then gradually introduces the real challenges and the brilliant level design that he's known for in later courses. If all you've played are the free levels, then you haven't gotten anywhere near the idea of how this game plays.

Around the second world, it becomes clear how in depth one can get with just a single tap input. Using walls and arrow and pause blocks, you gain quite a bit of control over Mario with just that single tap input.

The very first Super Mario Bros. was a one direction game. You couldn't go back, and because of the limited time on the clock, you were more often than not running nearly non stop towards the end of a course.
I expected to not like it, but knowing who was involved and seeing the production quality I gave it a shot. I've played through the tour and a good bit of rally now, and I have to say I'm astounded with what they've done using a single input.

At first it's obviously limiting and frustrating. I get it. But within that limitation a lot of challenges open up. It's deceptively difficult to get the more challenging coins, and throughout the whole thing it FEELs like a Mario game.

They made two mistakes, though, I think:
1) Using IAP instead of making it $10 up-front. I think we can pretty much all agree that this contributed to the low reviews. Additionally, it prevents Family Sharing, making it less attractive to families with multiple kids. They should have just made it $10. Even the price point, while high for iPhone games in general, seems within a few dollars of the right price for how much content there is.
2) The mandatory online component. You can tell the game components that require online access based on the lag induced by it: hitting the ? boxes or bonus games on the home screen, starting the game, starting a level, and obviously the rally feature. You should be able to get to the tour levels without being online. I see why they did it (anti-cheating measures like storing coin totals and bonus box contents), but for a $10 game it really is inexcusable they didn't come up with something else.
 
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I'm having problems between the perspectives of console games and smartphone games, including price tags. Let me say first that I've always paid €50+ for console games in the past. Though, I cannot justify the costs anymore though. Perhaps this is because smartphone gaming is often more fun or engaging and with price tags of just a few bucks I think they broke up the gaming (price) market.

With that in mind I cannot say anything except: €10 for a simple click and run game, whether or not Mario is in it, is too much.

Especially since the game can be completed in just two hours..
 
i just played this sucker on a 9 inch ipad pro at apple 14th street today (nyc). the game looks incredible. love the graphics however the game mechanics are awful. mario is constantly just running. i do like that you can't die by getting hit by goombas and so on so it makes it easy (i like easy games) but this feels like one of those demo discs to me, like demo disc extended of final fantasy 7 that came with suikoden for psx back in '97. the game is polished but still at the demo stage. not developed enough. for that, there's no way this should cost $10. a few dollars at most and obviously get rid of the dumb internet thing. this game is useless for most nyc folks as everyone uses the subway.
 
I bought it and logged in to my iTunes for my family to get it without buying it 4 times... I'd gladly buy a sequel and pay $10, I'm sure I've spent over 12 hours playing it this past week. Just needs an upfront payment instead of IAP cap.
 
Actually, IAP is the reason I haven't bought it yet.

Family sharing doesn't work with IAP. So for my wife and I to use it, it would cost $20. Too much.

Yep, completely agree. With a family of 5, this was no sale for me.
 
They have it all wrong. Why not put out an NES Emulator for iOS and sell the old games for like $2 each or something like that. They could make a bluetooth NES controller that works over bluetooth and sell it too. I don't think the $9.99 price is high, but it is high for the short play time and frustrations the game has. Combine Super Mario Run with Super Mario Maker. If they would have made a level creator where you could create levels like Super Mario Maker that would be a big hit.
 
I noticed momentary freeze she whilst playing - presumably it was 'phoning home' to check I'd hadn't pirated it?
Problem of course when it does this - your tap doesn't register meaning it's near unplayable.

Only found this on iPhone 5 not iPad mini 2.

I would pay up to £3 with no internet connection
 
Most Free to Play games I do not enjoy because they are meant to nag you for money constantly which limits play time and fun.

I am satisfied with my $10 spent on SMR.

Pocket Gamer wrote this little article about what SMR could have been like as F2P. It points out a lot of annoying things that come along with a "free" game.

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/Super+Mario+Run/feature.asp?c=72473

F2P is usually a more exciting announcement from the developers perspective than the customer.

It seems a lot of people just don't care and so F2P makes lots of moneys.
 
if nintendo had just made a real Mario game, and not some crappy runner, then people would be okay with paying more. But this Mario run crap is not worth $14 Canadian.
 
The best Tap to Jump game IMHO is still Jetpack Joyride. that game has held up wonderfully over the years and does a great job balancing skill, gameplay, and humor.

I'm not against IAPs, I just dislike when they are required. (I'd rather pay up front in that case.) When IAPs are optional, I feel like a developer has to "earn" my money. If they can make the game good enough, I'll reward them with a little bit of a purchase. If they fail at entertaining me, they get nothing.

Did Nintendo play other Tap to Jump games as they prepared this one?
 
meh.. surveys... If i was a super Mario fan, the first think I'd ask would be "Why are you asking me if I want a sequel?"

I thought that would be kinda non-obvious..


Loose the internet connection for single player.... 'The Simpsons: Tapped out' has that too, and it's why i refuse to play it anymore.
 
I feel $10 is a fair price. It's a quality, fun, *official* Mario game without all the freemium in-app purchases crap. DS/GB games would cost $30-40, so for this to only be $10 is a good deal, imo.
 
The main reason I disliked Super Mario Run and deleted it near-immediately: the forced-run aspect. One of my favorite things about playing NES/SNES/N64 (and other consoles) games growing up, was the free playability to do things how you want to, i.e. things that were not thought of when designing the games.

For example, in Super Mario 2 for NES, one thing I was proud of accomplishing:


1. Scoop the shell from ground at left (out of screen) then jump up to the upper level and run to the vine at right (out of screen); throw the shell left and jump on it heading toward the waterfall.

2. As the shell just starts riding off the cliff, immediately scoop the shell and in mid-air throw it downward to the bottom level.

3. Land on the shell on the bottom level and ride away, like a skateboard trick.​

Mario .jpg
I downloaded OpenEMU and Super Mario 2 ROM to try to recreate this but it is virtually impossible using keyboard controls, it was difficult enough to time and control this properly using the NES controller (it took many tries). The above is a screen capture compilation from the EMU.​


The inability to do things like this in Super Mario Run—controlling the direction freely, playing how you want—is an auto-delete. It doesn’t feel like Super Mario. Not hating, just saying.
 
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I agree with $5.99 as the sweet spot. Heck, they could maybe pull it off at $7.99 if they removed the online restriction.
 
Online restriction is what people care about. Plus they have already easily made back their development costs so what seems to be the problem with the price point.

I agree it's worth $10 but games like ray run and stuff are worth more.
 
It is very Nintendo in the way the game is, but £8 is a no for me. I agree maybe £5 tops for something like this.
 
I will never understand gamer's psychology. $60 day 1 game on a console is ok, $10 game on smartphone very expensive.

Either way, Nintendo is probably surprised by the reaction out of their "Nintendo sheep" zone. Outside their consoles world, slapping Mario's face on anything does not seem to be getting them the number of sales they want.
 
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