Ten Ways to Improve upon Super Mario Maker

Nintendo has grown increasingly more open to the idea of downloadable content over the past few years, with Mario Kart getting more characters to race with and tracks to race on. Super Smash Bros. is bolstering its roster with Ryu from Street Fighter and series veterans like Lucas and Mewtwo as DLC and even allowing the people to vote for Britney Spears as the game’s next addition. They’re even taking part in selling cosmetic DLC, so they clearly seem over that whole “we released finished games” schtick they were all about a few years ago when everyone else was firmly on the DLC train.

Super Mario Maker seems like a prime candidate for them to wade into deeper DLC waters. It’s a game that offers so much in the way of possibilities that to even ask for DLC at this stage is perhaps a bit premature, but for a series as iconic as Mario, it’s hard not to notice what didn’t make the cut.

10. More Aesthetics, desert, snow etc.

A change in scenery could go a longer way than it might seem, and it seems like a natural direction for Nintendo to go with Super Mario Maker. They might consider making them not entirely aesthetic though, and add quick sand pits or alter the physics based on a given tile set, and they might even allow for combinations of different sets. Allowing me to put water and lava wherever I see fit might be cool too.

9. Amiibo’s more than just for show

I don’t personally collect amiibos, nor do I have any, but I might if that meant I could Super Mario Crossover in my Super Mario Maker.

8. Allowing Rule Tweaking

Adding more options would be a cool thing. Allowing for tiers of power ups instead of it’s always a fire flower, it’s always mushroom would be cool. Being able to choose whether you can back track would be cool. These are the main points, but things that a lot of first person shooters see like low gravity or whatever might be neat too.

7. Allowing World Creation

Making my own Mario levels is fun and all, but I want to really test my metal and make my own Mario game, from 1-1 to 8-4, but I could be talked into settling for 1-1 to 1-8. This is a sort of follow up to the previous suggestion. Allowing my Mario and his upgrades to carry on through each level would make my Mario Maker experiences all the more authentic as I plow through something with more pacing than a bunch of random levels coming from dozens of different people of wildly varying level designing skills.

6. Adding the Missed Powerups

There’s all sorts of power ups that were skipped. Super Mario Bros. 3 had fun power ups like the frog suit and the hammer bros suit. Super Mario World had a number of Yoshi upgrades obtainable in various ways that remain unavailable in Super Mario Maker. The poison mushroom from Lost Levels would be fun to add as an additional hazard. Even the 3D games have power ups they might consider translating to the 2D space, like the pretty standard boomerang suit or the ones with more interesting possibilities like the cat suit or bee suit.

5. Adding the Missed Enemies

Nintendo definitely hit a lot of the important enemies, but it’s hard to not feel a little sad about the ones that missed the cut. The Sun from Super Mario Bros. 3 always made levels a lot scarier. The iconic giant bullet bill from Super Mario World missed the cut, as did the dinosaur looking guys. Plenty of enemies missed the cut, because Mario is just a massive series. They could even add more upgrades like parachutes from Super Mario World in addition to the wings and mushrooms for making enemies more diverse. There is so much potential for growth in this respect alone, and similar to what I suggested earlier, Nintendo could even look to the 3D games for enemies to add.

4. More Bosses

This is a sort of extension of the previous one. Adding all the koopalings would be fun to mess with, especially in regards to making entire worlds rather than just levels. Why stop there though? They could translate 3D bosses into the 2D for something we haven’t even seen before. Throw some of the Mario Galaxy bosses like Kingfin into a 2D space for a grand old experiment.

3.???

I leave #3 up to you. What would you like to see? A specific enemy? Powerup? Mechanic?

2. Add Super Mario Bros. 2

A stretch to be sure, because it's technically a reskinned version of another game, but it would be fun to play with the weirder toys available in Super Mario Bros. 2. At the very least they might consider adding enemies like Birdo, Shy Guys, or that bomb chucking mouse. They might also adding the games unique, but simpler mechanics like keys with the mask that chases you. Although if they did consider a full conversion of all the mechanics, we could even get real crazy and talk about Yoshi’s Island, but let’s not because that one is even weirder.

1.Make it a Castlevania Maker (More Makers)

I got really into Castlevania a few years back, and decided I wanted a Castlevania Maker. A little while later, Super Mario Maker was announced and I can only hope it reaches a level of success culminating in more of these kinds of games being released. Konami is in a bad spot, so Castlevania is probably out of the question, but Nintendo might consider a Metroid Maker or a Zelda Maker. Perhaps Capcom would look at Mega Man. Mario is easily the most obvious choice for such a game, but now that it’s just about out of the way, I believe there is room for some other less likely franchise to get the same treatment whether it is Castlevania or not.

I'm hoping that some of the missing enemies and power-ups end up as DLC. They are already releasing some Famitsu crossover DLC as a promotional thing, so the ability is there.

As for how to make the game better, I would love to see some mixing and matching between game styles. If anyone remembers Super Mario Advance 4, there were e-Reader cards you could swipe in that would add stuff like Mario 2 Turnips and the Super Cape into Mario 3. It was insane, and that's the only real thing that would make this game perfect.

@pudge: I never knew about that. imagine since they've done something like that before, it might mean it's not that hard to do something like it again, and it'd sounds great.

@morecowbell24: Here's all the info.

It was done right at the tail end of the eReader's life in the US, so some of the cards were Japan only and they started releasing the game without the cards packed in. I really wish that thing took off more, it was such a cool little gimmick.

I'd love the Zelda Maker mentioned in the above post, ideally for top down Zelda titles and with the ability to switch between Zelda 1/Link to the Past/DS Title Aesthetics and two "Layers" to make Dungeons and an Overworld.

Only problem is, it'd be probably MUCH less appealing than Mario Maker because the unique demands of Zelda-Type Leveldesign would mean that simple creations would be very boring and well thought out designs very time intensive and complex to make.

In wich case, i'd like Capcom to make a Megaman Maker for the ability to make honest Run and Gun Games in an accessible way.

Super Mario Bros X then?

I think some light scripting would open up a whole world of crazy things, it even has a semi-educational purpose if you want to consider it a way to teach some very basic programming.

This game is also going to be a great vehicle for DLC if Nintendo goes down that route, hopefully if they do so it follows the track record of Mario Kart and Smash Bros.

They already said that they'll support it with DLC. Hopefully there will be more variety

I think DLC might make up for some of what you are asking.

I think a big thing later this generation will be "Maker Games", or rather teh return of such things. Super easy toolsets to make games that are approachable by most people. I'm sure like in the past they will be specialized: platformer, RPG, shooter, fighter, etc.

oh I dunno... sloped surfaces??

so disappointed when I realized you can't make them. Not to bash Mario Maker or anything, it looks great in fact, but when I realized this it felt like the SMW style was just a big lie. xD

Even SMB3 had 'em, and you were able to slide down them and take out goombas. No idea why this matters to me. I guess in this particular case it's more about having slopes for style rather than what it actually adds to gameplay. That's also probably why I'm annoyed that Mario Maker puts a shadow behind Mario, even if the stage is outdoors. It's like they were trying to go for a Paper Mario effect rather than be realistic, but I'm not really digging it.

I bet they're already got it working but are waiting to give it to us later...FOR A FEE!

@egg: Wow that is silly, you can't butt slide down slopes?! that ain't my mario.

You can only see Mario's trajectory off a platform by manually doing it yourself, right? You should be able to place Mario in any given spot and be able to see what his trajectory would be if he's doing a full jump at max speed. I feel like it'd help simplify the process of making a good level. I've never played the game yet though, so can you do something like make the barebones level, run through it, see Mario's "perfect" path through and then place obstacles accordingly? If not, that too should be a thing.

As Jeff's mentioned, the ability to have the traditional power-up path would be really nice. I think the current method encourages gimmick levels more than it does plain old good levels.

I know SMB 2 is looked at like a bastard child by Nintendo Corporate, but I'd really like to see some of that stuff in the game. I think there's a lot of enemies and mechanics that would lend itself nicely to Mario Maker.

They should make a Mario Player for 3ds where you can play said levels :)