Developer: Nintendo EAD Tokyo Group #2
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Puzzle
Players: 1
Console: Wii U
Hours Played: 4.75 hours
Progress: Completed all 60+ main levels in addition to a handful of bonus ones, collected 159 gems
Most people playing Super Mario 3D World (including us) were very enamored by the little side puzzle adventure levels featuring the intrepid Captain Toad of Super Mario Galaxy fame. After playing a few of the well-designed puzzle levels I personally felt that it would be a great idea for Nintendo to develop a full-out dedicated Captain Toad experience. Nintendo surprised everyone at E3 this year by announcing that they were doing just that and that Captain Toad would receive a full retail release in time for the holidays this year. So, is Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker a quick holiday cash-in by Nintendo or does the charm of the bonus levels from Super Mario 3D World carry over into a well conceived game worthy of a $40 ($45 in Canada) retail release? Read on to find out how we enjoyed our time tracking treasures.
Presentation is definitely Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (CT)’s strongest point. The fairly plain cube-based levels from SM3DW are replaced with much more vibrant, natural and lively ones. Water splashes, gems and coins glisten and in general the strong art direction from the main levels in SM3DW is paraded in full force in CT. The natural aliasing, while of course not as intense as on the average 3DS game, is still ever-present in CT, as in basically all Wii U games, but the game’s charm and style compensate enough that you probably won’t notice very often while you’re playing. CT’s framerate is consistent and smooth throughout (which is very much to be expected when dealing with such small levels), with the only exception being a couple of small moments on the final level when the game’s engine is apt to stutter slightly from all of the action and effects. The sound in CT is similarly good as long as you can stand Captain Toad and Toadette’s shouts of “Time for adventure!” in addition to the usual squeaky Toad noises they emit from time to time.
The levels in CT are laid out storybook style with each page representing a level. While this is used in a couple of interesting ways like bonus coin collecting levels that fly by the screen and temporarily replace certain pages in the book, it also shows you exactly how many levels you have left at any given point and takes the fun out of it a bit in that regard.
If you’ve played a Captain Toad level in SM3DW you basically know what to expect from the gameplay in CT ? you walk around the levels without the ability to jump or get over any obstacle more than a couple of centimetres tall trying to collect things. These main controls taken directly from SM3DW are great, but the majority of the control elements added for CT hinder the gameplay experience much more than they help. There are red valves, reminiscent of the ones attached to many people’s outdoor water taps, that are used to move things around in the level. When you walk up to one playing via the GamePad screen, a huge valve appears on the screen blocking your view. The only way to interact with the valve is to use a stylus and rotate it on the GamePad screen ? there are a lot of unused buttons on the GamePad that could be held to perform the same function, but they insist on blocking you entire view with no alternative. Yes, the valve is sometimes semi-transparent, but it’s amazing that no one along the development process thought it might be frustrating for the gamer to have their entire view blocked, even on levels where there are also enemies chasing you. The other annoying tacked-on control element in CT is the turnip cart/cannon rail shooter mechanic. There are certain parts of levels where your Toad rides in a turnip cart or goes into a turnip cannon and the game turns into a first-person rail shooter of sorts as you fire turnips around the level. This in general is good fun, but you get the first person aiming mode exclusively on the GamePad while the TV maintains the standard third person viewpoint. This encourages you to use the GamePad to “look around” to shoot your turnips, but you can also use a control stick to aim much more steadily and accurately. Being forced to use the GamePad screen while your perfectly good and (hopefully) much larger TV is ignored when you do not even need to use the tacked-on motion controls is a frustrating inconvenience that is all too common in Wii U games. The GamePad is excellent as an additional screen or TV replacement, but its maddening how often things are thrown on there just for the sake of checking the GamePad interaction box instead of thinking about how the experience will be for the end user.
In CT, instead of green stars you’re after three big diamond-like gems and then the final power star that ends the level. Often times you can get to the level’s power star rather quickly, so it’s fairly apparent that the meat of the game is in seeking out every gem ? otherwise, just sailing through collecting stars older gamers would be pressed to get five hours of play time out of the game. Age-wise though, CT is good fun for people of all ages with the exception of the last level. Without giving things away, there’s an insane exponential increase in difficulty on the final level, so anyone letting their kids toddle through the game will probably have to pick up a controller and spend a few lives to get to the end.
What was also a little disappointing for me throughout my playthrough was that even though some levels are decently large and complex, Nintendo never put more than 3 gems in a single level in CT. There were a few Captain Toad levels in SM3DW with more than three stars to collect, and that allowed said levels to be even larger and more complex. With the number of levels already quite meagre for a $40+ game, it would have been nice to have some larger “full retail console release”-size levels in CT. There are bonus levels available to people who also own SM3DW in which you can tackle actual levels from that game as Captain Toad himself which are fun, but without the gem collecting element to them they don’t really count as large puzzle levels and feel more like an addendum than an expansion on the formula.
This limiting factor in CT doesn’t only apply to the number of levels, but also their variety. Mario games in general have been bad for recycling levels and bosses in recent years, but this happens in CT to the point that it feels lazy and rushed. There are only two big boss characters in CT: a dragon named Draggadon and a big Sikh crow named Wingo that you fight a few times apiece. Each time you face them the experience changes enough not to feel painfully familiar, but for an “adventure/puzzle” game that’s being sold physically in stores I think most people are expecting more than a handful of levels and two bosses. Of the levels you do get, large parts of a few are reused once as both a Captain Toad level and a Toadette level. I’d liken this to the 12 episode anime series that still manage to squeeze in a filler episode or two. When you have such limited space/resources in which to convey your story or deliver your experience, it’s at best wasteful and at worst openly contemptible to be recycling things like this.
While my time with CT was by no means unpleasant and it oozes Nintendo’s charm and attention to detail, it’s fairly blatantly held back by its overarching lack of content and forced GamePad features. CT is a game that could have used either some extra time in development or a repackaging as a $20-$30 download-only eShop title to truly hit its stride and reach its potential. CT may well yet benefit from Nintendo’s recent DLC stint by receiving some extra bosses/levels in the future, but in its current full retail $40 form its hard to wholly recommend at launch unless you’re really aching for more of Captain Toad ? when it hits $20, though, it will be a steal.
[taq_review]
A review code for the game was provided to us by its publisher.