Ah, the Mario battle royale game nobody asked for, but it’s here regardless to celebrate the series 35th anniversary, and like the Super Mario 3D All Stars collection, it will be only available until the 31th of March 2021.
That’s… a way to make people excited about investing time in a thing it will die by design in 6 months. Also, it’s an exclusive for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers, available for “free” in the same way Tetris 99 was.
And the game it structured in a similar fashion, just applying it to 35 players with the gameplay of Super Mario Bros on the NES, so everyone starts from a SMB stage with 35 seconds on the timer and can hinder the other players by defeating enemies, which get you extra seconds and sends the defeated goons to appear and try to hamper the other players. Coins can be stored and used to purchase power-ups before, or get power-ups from a “?” block if you get at least 20 coins on that run.
There are timed special challenges, a training mode and a standard ranking system that give you more icons for the profile, but not much else.
And it’s… ok, i guess? I don’t hate it, but it’s not that compelling either, after some matches you feel kinda done already, frankly. There is something to it, not that much, and while it’s clear players that already have amassed enough coins can use that to keep an advantage, you can still win and use some strategies like in Tetris 99, especially when you unlock the later levels (with tougher enemies) of SMB.
Cute idea to celebrate the 35th Mario anniversary, yes, but it won’t keep your attention up for long, almost by design, given it will become useless in 6 months.
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