Super Mario Maker 2

Not realizing it was out yet, I did something I very rarely do, which is that I impulse-purchased Super Mario Maker 2.

So far I've only worked on one course, but like the previous iteration, this game feels like a "staple" one simply has to have if one has a Switch.

Probably the biggest addition is that there's now a "story mode" that encourages you to play through courses to earn coins to rebuild Peach's castle. I don't know how deep this will get, but my sense is that it's primarily to introduce possibilities and concepts for your own levels.

Naturally a lot of people will be building the most absurdly difficult levels possible, but I've always striven to create levels that are beatable but have something clever going on - not that I know whether I succeed at that.

I actually don't know off the top of my head if the Switch can use a stylus - on the Wii U, that was the main way you interfaced with Mario Maker when building courses. My brief experience controlling it via joystick has been not quite as refined, but perhaps that just requires getting used to it.

Like the previous game, you can make courses in original SMB style, SMB3, SMW, and New Super Mario Bros, but they've also added a Super Mario 3D world variant - which is kind of a kludge, as it's still 2D, but uses a lot of new assets that didn't exist in the other games, like glass pipes and trees that you can climb in cat form.

Additionally, there are more world-themes, so you can have deserts, forests, underwater levels, and snow levels.

I'm eager to make some fun new courses!