Super Mario Run Impressions

I'm actually quite surprised, but the day is here where Mario has graced a mobile device. With Super Mario Run they take the classic character and stick him into what I'd describe as a generic endless runner. This impressions is purely taking a look at the free to play portion of the game which took under fifteen minutes to play in its entirety. I did go back and check things out as you can also play as Toad to do levels as a separate entity, he's unlocked by signing in with your Nintendo account. As mentioned this is an endless runner game where you simply tap the screen to make Mario jump or interact with the world. It doesn't particularly carry a lot of depth, but actually is fairly fun to play. The game does a great job of carrying that certain charm the franchise is known for and transferring it to the mobile device well.

The main goal when playing this iteration of the character comes down to coin collection, you're attempting to grab as many coins as possible for your score and to unlock new building items in the kingdom. There are also special purple coins to grab that are somewhat hidden in the levels and very satisfying to collect. Other than that you basically just auto run through the levels and by enemies as you just vault over them. This somewhat takes away basically all of the difficulty, but I'm assume the rest of the levels might offer a bit more depth there. There was decent variety in three levels offering a regular Mario level, an underground section and one in the mushroom clouds. You can also compete with special earned tickets in rally against the AI to collect the most coins. This is followed by a brief bonus area to explore on the occasion and then the core building area. This mainly just features a small selection of buildings to buy for coins and doesn't seem too large at the current moment.

From what I played the gameplay was decent though a bit shallow and not enough of a taste for me to personally to purchase the full version. I'm sure this will be a massive game and while I'm intrigued from what I played, I'm more interested in seeing what they do to expand the title post-launch. Once again, Super Mario Run is free to play on IOS devices and I suggest giving it a try at least to see what the certain to be craze is all about.

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Impressions Made on Super Mario Run during the launch on iphone 5s

Gamerheadquarters Reviewer Jason Stettner