Super Mario Run shows Nintendo understands mobile gaming

  

Why they haven’t done this sooner, I’ll never know. I only had the chance to play the first two worlds and the Toad Rally mode, but within about eight seconds it was clear that Super Mario is the perfect fit for iOS – more specifically iPhone, as you can play this one-handed. And this wouldn’t be Nintendo if there wasn’t some sort of hook – something that makes Super Mario Run different to the countless Endless Runners available on the market already – and this time it’s the ability to stop.

Like all in this genre that have come before it your character will gladly plod along from left-to-right without any input from you, but given how precise a platformer Mario normally is it’s nice to survey your surroundings in order to plan out how you’ll grab that seemingly unreachable coin, and that’s where pause blocks come in. Scattered about the ground on the levels I played, these bring the Italian Plumber to a screeching halt, giving you a brief moment of respite so you can look at what’s around you before tapping the screen to begin your brisk jog once again.

As Super Mario Run is played in portrait on the iPhone it’s ideal for those of us who are squashed into public transport with little room to manoeuvre on our morning commutes, or those that pull up Twitter on their thrones when Ant & Dec go to an ad break. It’s cleverly designed in that way – if you want to jump in quickly and do a few run-throughs of a couple of stages while you’re waiting for the kettle to boil, you can, but there’s also a lot to offer the hardcore as well.

A soft tap will see Mario do a short skip into the air whilst a harder press will make Nintendo’s mascot leap for the harder to reach areas. While on his descent back to Earth, another tap will delay Mario’s landing. Like any good tradesman with Super as a prefix to his name, Mario can also bounce up along walls to get those coins that would otherwise elude him. Though they’ve been a staple of the franchise, just as much as the mustachioed one himself, coins feel a bit more important in Super Mario Run than other games in the series. Unlike Sterling their value has increased quite dramatically, and that’s because you can use them to decorate your own Mushroom Kingdom.

Yes, it is set dressing, I suppose, but I know there’ll be many out there that’ll love jazzing up what is essentially the main menu screen. With coins that you collect in World Tour mode (the game’s main campaign), you can purchase various little Mario-style trinkets that you can then place around your Mushroom Kingdom. As well as your war chest of Nintendo gold, Toads that you procure in Toad Rally mode are used to brighten up the place and acquire more colourful tat that you can sling about your Kingdom.

Toad Rally mode is weird. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but Jesus Christ, it’s strange. You compete against the ghosts of other players on slightly altered courses from those in the World Tour mode and must impress a crowd of onlooking Toads. You do this via a list of gestures like pirouetting in mid-air, or wall-jumping, or performing a forward roll as you land on the ground, amongst others. There’s a surprising number of different things that you can get the plumber to perform through different taps and presses that’ll have Toads bellowing with excitement like Bruno Tonioli on Strictly Come Dancing. If you score higher than your opponent, then you’ll have convinced a number of the budding talent show judges to move into your Mushroom Kingdom. Yeah, peculiar, but a lot of fun.

There’s more than enough here for people that want to dip in and out, or rinse a stage for all it’s worth, as that’ll take a myriad of goes. Super Mario Run is a game that, once you play it, you’ll wonder why it took Nintendo so long to embrace the platform.  

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