Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS

Super Mario Maker 3DS is a fun game on this console that offers some really fun gameplay and more importantly, the ability to create your own 2D arcade worlds with an intuitive creation system. However the downside of this title is the lack of sharing your creations with other players from the around the world and if this was included in Super Mario Maker 3DS, it would have been a fantastic game on this console. It’s still a fun game but is missing that final piece of the gaming puzzle!

The core idea behind Super Mario Maker is the ability to create, play, and share your creation, but the 3DS drops the ball on the last part of that credo. It’s worth noting that designing stages is as easy at it is convenient on the portable 3DS, but not having a larger platform to showcase unique creations left me wondering what the point is. It’s still an excellent way to play a bottomless pit of classic-style 2D Mario, though, and that makes it worth keeping in your pocket.

The game acts like a quick Super Mario campaign with an accompanying endless collection of levels — and endless Super Mario levels is never a bad thing. Despite a fantastic new delivery system found in Super Mario Challenge, too may of the downgrades strip the components of Super Mario Maker that made it a breakaway success on Wii U.

Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS is the barebones, no-frills, no-extra-options-selected factory model version of its original, tricked-out 2015 Wii U release. [Issue #25 – January/February 2017, p.64]

DIY paradise. Fun for traditional players. Hell for anybody who wants to share the content with the world. If a game wasn´t developed, really nothing would happen because the better version is offered by Wii U. Yet two out of the three elements work and are entertaining.

Super Mario Maker 3DS is a subpar port of a great game. While a lot of the fun is still there, the lack of sharing and search features make for an overall inferior experience.

At its core this is a decent port of the intuitive touchscreen jump-n-run-builder: Proven mechanics, technically sound and easy to control. Unfortunately Nintendo decided to take the online level exchange out.

Super Mario Maker 3DS is a great port, with creation tools that work wonders on the touchscreen and the Challenge mode is a brilliant addition. It's only besmirched by the fact online sharing is so very limited. Perhaps with a future update? We seriously doubt it.

Super Mario Maker 3DS takes everything that worked on the Wii U and replicates it for a handheld experience. It's a shame that sharing levels via the Internet isn’t yet possible – but this game’s a joy all the same.

The lack of meaningful level sharing or communication with the full Mario Maker community that has come up over the last year is sad. The local level creation is nice when it’s available, but that’s probably not going to be very often. The ''Maker'' part of the title seems less to matter. While I never made too many levels to begin with, having the possibility missing is something that can't be denied.

Some of the best 2D Mario levels in years, but the lack of online options means the construction aspect is unnecessarily limited.

A good Mario game with a fun single player, but one that lacks the tools to make it fully worthwhile from a creation point of view.

I find myself much more frustrated by Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS than I really ought to. If this had a different verb in the title and eschewed the notion of creation, if this wasn’t releasing in the wake of the outstanding Wii U version of the game, it wouldn’t be a problem, but this game strives for something and comes up short. It’s still worth picking up for fans of Mario games, but there are too many jarring limitations that I really hope Nintendo see fit to address.

Super Mario Maker is every bit the engrossing, feature rich creation tool that it is on the Wii U, but only if you plan on sharing your creations with a very limited pool of people. Its lack of real course-sharing rips out the heart of what made this title so captivating on the Wii U, making it a clear second best choice.

The addition of the tutorials to the maker modes, the addition of the Super Mario Challenge and retention of the all great single player content and the ability to still download courses means this game is less Super Mario Maker and more Super Mario Fan Edition. It's hard to recommend this one, especially when the Wii U version is far superior and feels more alive, the Super Mario Challenge is interesting but it still feels incomplete.

Super Mario Maker for 3DS isn't a bad game or even a bad creation tool, but without its online heart continuously pumping life into it, it feels more like a useless skeleton, and nobody likes skeletons. NOBODY.

While the core experience of Super Mario Maker stays the same on 3DS, the exclusion of certain aspects definitely hurts the game. Not being able to upload and share your courses is incredibly disappointing, and somewhat defeats the purpose. The overall presentation is great, but the exclusion of features like a course search and amiibo support also feel like strange decisions.

Super Mario Maker without the possibility of sharing levels through the internet feels like playing chess alone. It's a well designed game, but it certainly lacks something.

Super Mario Maker For Nintendo 3DS is a good recreation of the Wii U classic, but the lackluster online capabilities makes this conversion severely inferior to its console counterpart.

When stacked up to the Wii U version, there’s little doubt that Super Mario Maker For Nintendo 3DS is the lesser of the two – and it doesn’t even support 3D on the notoriously 3D-enabled handheld. The lack of online sharing is only made more baffling by the fact that apparent user-made levels from the Wii U iteration can be accessed through the ‘100 Mario Challenge’ mode, while the exclusion of Mystery Mushrooms also makes little to no sense given how prominent amiibo support on the portable is nowadays.

Mario die-hards that only have a 3DS will find some enjoyment in playing the new mode, and the limited selection of online courses, but without the ability to share your created courses with the world, it seems like a waste of time.

Where the game truly is lacking is in the online component - no course sharing and searching is a big oversight and does dampen the selling appeal of the 3DS edition, something that Nintendo should resolve.

Sadly the scope for this game is severely limited by the lack of online sharing of levels, which was one of the main qualities of the original and overall this feels like a downgrade. It's still an appealing title and it succeeds in what it offers but it's impossible not to shrug off a certain sense of disappointment.

Making courses in a streamlined editor on the 3DS is a joy, but the unexplained absence of sharing courses online takes away any interest in continued building and playing.