Surprise! It’s inching towards midnight on a Monday-ass Monday night, so now is of course the perfect time for Nintendo to reveal the third (and final) “major” update to Super Mario Maker 2. Arriving for free this Wednesday, April 22, Super Mario Maker 2‘s big sendoff patch adds a ton of new items and abilities, including Frog Mario (!) and Super Mario Bros. 2 Mario (!!), as well as a new World Maker mode, which basically lets you hand-craft your own whole Super Mario Bros. sequel.
Let’s start with the show-stopper and outline World Maker mode first. As can be seen in the below trailer, players get to make their own maps from scratch, customizing their island’s pathways, theme, decorations, and icons. Up to eight worlds (containing a maximum of 40 levels) can be bundled together to create what is, essentially, an entire Mario game of your own design, which is such an awesome idea that I wish the game had launched with it back in June of 2019, or as archaeologists refer to it, the late Cretaceous period.
Wednesday’s update also includes a new Super Mario Bros. 2 mushroom, which transforms Mario into his Super Mario Bros. 2 incarnation, thereby imparting all the skills and abilities that might imply: standing on enemies, picking up enemies (and objects), etc. The patch also adds Phanto and their trademark key, thus allowing for new dimensions of terror in everyone’s forthcoming levels.
Elsewhere, the Frog Suit arrives as an exclusive item for the Super Mario Bros. 3 tile set, which can now be used to make underwater levels bearable, or to improve any existing level that does not contain Frog Mario. (Please look forward to Super Frog Mario World, my 40-stage collection of Frog Mario levels where there are no enemies or objectives, and all you do is hop around as Frog Mario and be happy for once.) The Super Mario World theme receives a new Power Balloon item, which causes Mario to inflate like a balloon and toot himself around in the air. I am choosing to not read anything into this.
New Super Mario Bros. Mario can now become Squirrel Mario by collecting the Super Acorn, which basically seems like a port of Super Mario World‘s Cape. A new Boomerang Flower grants boomerang abilities in Super Mario 3D World-style levels, and as seen in the above trailer, boomerangs can be thrown through pipes and used to interact with items, just like in the real Super Mario 3D World. 3D World stages also get five new power-ups that transform Mario in various blocks and/or baddies, including a Goomba Mask that lets Mario sneak past enemies, and a Bullet Bill Mask that lets Mario shoot himself across stages.
And as if that weren’t a lot already, the Koopalings are coming to town. Larry, Wendy O., Morton, Lemmy, Roy, Iggy, and Ludwig von Koopa are waiting to tear up any non-Super Mario 3D World level starting on Wednesday, with each Koopa Kid retaining their trademark attacks and patterns. Elsewhere on the minion front, Mechakoopas are a new type of enemy that do what normal Koopa Troopas don’t — which is to say, shoot homing missiles or lasers, depending on their color.
As someone who found Super Mario Maker 2 fairly lackluster at launch, I’m excited to hop back in and make tens of thousands of Frog Mario levels. It would have been nice for this stuff to be there from the jump, considering that most Mario Maker folk have moved on to other things at this point, but hopefully people will be able to tear themselves away from Animal Crossing long enough to make an art level about Larry Koopa applying for a sub-prime mortgage or something.
