Today I started playing Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker for the Wii U and I am having a great time so far. Exploring and finding hidden junk is one of my favorite things to do in games when they are hiding in fun ways. Captain Toad is all about hiding stuff in interesting places. Its a real blast figuring out each and every puzzle and searching the map for ways to grab those eyeballed diamonds (dieballs?) and the best part is, the game wants the player to soak in the environments and really get a lay of the land. In another Nintendo game, Mario 3D World, the gamplay is honestly pretty similar except you are able to move around a lot faster and move vertically all on your very own. The design nearly maps 1:1 with Captain Toad. Of course Mario is getting more power ups and jumping around but he is just as much of a hoarder as Captain Toad, but Toad takes his sweet time while Mario is frantically running against the clock to find those worthless green "stars".

That was my one gripe with 3D World, on one hand the game has three green starts and one stamp on every level that you have to collect to see all the game has to offer (secret levels etc.) On the other hand the game wants you to get through the level under a time constraint for no other reason that I can figure out other than there were timers in the older games. The thing is though, Mario 64 changed everything. Mario 64 removed the timer in favor of absorbing your surroundings and choosing your own paths to get to the star. There are a bunch of shortcuts around each world that take some detective skills but are extremely rewarding to find. That's not to say finding the green stars in 3D World is boring but finding them and exploring the level under a time limit adds nothing to the game. In the 2D games a time limit works fine in a sense the art is mostly based off of a tile set and the music was only ever a 1-2 minute loop that was used multiple times per game. In the move to 3D the asset became view able from every angle and the music became bombastic orchestral tracks for the most part. The time limit just takes away what was so great about the previous 3D mario games. Doing a slow pan of your camera, hearing the oh so fitting music, and taking in the possibilities.

To be fair most levels in 3D World give you just enough time to grab all the collectibles and complete the level, but some of those green stars are hidden real deep in the bowels of those floating islands and I end up dying halfway through feeling like the game is fighting me and its own design. Nintendo all I want to do is savor your games like steak but you want me to chew it like slim jim. Let me savor you Nintendo...

Having a timer isn't always a bad thing though, timers work well for challenge levels like in Mario Galaxy and even on that one flag chasing level of 3D World. Timers work fantastically when the designer wants the player to kick it into gear when making as escape or waiting for rescue. Watching a clock tick down in situations like that can really get the players heart racing when used effectively. This is the same reason I believe we don't need the timer in Mario games anymore, this isn't the arcade, players don't need to be rushed through games for no reason anymore Nintendo.

The more I play Captain Toad the more I realize the vestigial nature of ever looming countdown clock inside of Mario games. The timer not only fights the 3D World the game but goes against the happy go lucky nature of Mario himself.