I went into Captain Toad with a lot of excitement. Let’s be honest here, Toad is awesome! He’s been in generally a supporting character in a ton of Mario titles throughout the years.
Giving him advice, directions and just generally making Mario’s life easier.
We’ve seen him playable quite a few times as well in some of the core Mario titles and even going all the way back to Super Mario Brothers 2 on the NES.
But now he’s got his own game, all to himself. He’s ready to shine and boy does he ever! This is quite the fantastic little game. A little light on content, but still a really solid entry into the Mario universe.
The premise is incredibly simple! You progress through isometric style stages attempting to collect a star. Similar to a lot of other Mario titles. There are however optional objectives and diamonds to collect that are hidden throughout all of the stages. It’s an addictive clever little formula that really got its hooks into me. I never felt the burn of replaying a level to grab those items I missed. Just the tiny adjustment of the camera can reveal paths that seemingly appear out of nowhere. The level design is clever, smart and never demanded too much of my time to overstay it’s welcome. I really enjoyed grabbing all the collectibles and bonus challenges the game had to offer.
You’re able to swing, move and adjust parts of the stage to reach seemingly unreachable paths using the touchscreen. It’s well done and never felt forced for the sake of using the gamepad. It also makes playing the game solely on the Wii U gamepad quite enjoyable “ as long as you don’t go out of range”
It also has chase, timed and boss battle based stages to mix up the formula. It’s really well balanced and does a great job of keeping it always feeling fresh.
Now the game isn’t free of some shortcomings that I feel could’ve definitely been addressed.
For starters it’s very very short. I finished the entire game in roughly six hours. It only took me roughly two more hours to clean up some of the collectibles that I missed the first time around.
The menu layout is also very very sparse. There isn’t any way for me to track collectibles and objectives in a cohesive menu. I had to literally turn dozens of pages examining each one to see what I had left to collect. It wasn’t a deal breaker by any means, but a more organized menu would’ve definitely been appreciated.
Last but not least this was a very easy game. Too easy. I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I died or felt stuck with progression coming to a haunt.
Normally I appreciate an easy going game as I am always very tight for time. I don’t quite have the gaming time I used to. But I definitely found myself when the credits rolled wishing for slightly more of a challenge.
I really enjoyed the casual nature of Captain Toad. It was a great game to play before bed and pop through a few stages. A slightly higher difficulty, better menu layout and a little more meat would’ve put it in the Incredible category. But, it’s sits nicely in the realm of “very good”
I enjoyed my time with it and I think any Nintendo fan would too. It’s colorful, bright and most importantly extremely fun.
Toad is awesome, and his first true game compliments a great character in the Mario universe.
All images belong to their respected owners
Score: 8/10
Playtime: Roughly 9 hours
Platform: Wii U