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Captain Toad Review:

Wii U Exclusive

 

 

Following on from Captain toad’s successful appearance in Super Mario 3d World, the often neglected Nintendo favourite gets to star in his own game, but does Toad have what it takes to sustain a full-fledged release?

The game revolves around Toad & Mrs Toad in their quest to collect stars over the course of around 75 levels (not including bonus stages). The levels length varies with some as short as 30 seconds particularly in the beginning but as you progress the challenge ramps up and some levels can last well over 10 minutes. Key to this complexity is the 3 hidden gems scattered throughout the levels. These gems often turn what at first appears to be a very basic level into a bit of mind bender and as you progress you require more gems to unlock the later levels. This replayabilty expands on the games length although it still only takes around 7 hours to beat the main game(not including the secret levels).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Similarly to Toad’s appearance in Super Mario 3D World he is unable to jump and his basic move set consists of the ability to move slightly faster, think power walk as opposed to a sprint. Yet he is not defenceless and can use turnips and power ups such as a pickaxe to kill his foes. If you’ve played a Mario game from the last 30 years most of the enemies will be familiar to you, favourites such as boo’s, shy guy’s and koopa’s make a reappearance. There are 5 new enemies introduced (excluding bosses) but none of them really add to the formula and mud troopers in particular are more annoying than a challenge. The star of the show however is the level design, which introduces just enough new ideas to prevent the levels from becoming stale and makes good use of the Wii U’s gamepad features with touch control platforms and air vents controlled by blowing onto the Wii U gamepad. Another nice feature is the ability to play the complete game using the Wii U gamepad as the screen and I found myself preferring it to the TV as the gyroscopic camera controls felt easier. The camera is key in Captain Toad with many potential hazards or rewards obscured from view, however one aspect I didn’t like was that the camera can only be adjusted from 2 set heights as opposed to a slider. This restriction often meant the camera was either too close or too far away to see what was going on and resulted in a few unfair deaths. Aside from the odd niggle with movement speed and the camera Captain Toad is a decent puzzler/platformer, that plays it just a little too safe to be considered essential, however if you’re after a fairly easy game suitable for people of all ages then I recommend picking it up 

 

 

7/10