Can you imagine the excitement of gamers all over the world, myself included, when Nintendo announced that our favourite plumber/Princess rescuer Mario was going to be coming to mobile devices in 2016? It was unreal. It wasn't quite Pokemon Go in terms of excitement but it was still a big deal. Super Mario Run was pitched as Nintendo's first crack at the mobile games market, and people thought to themselves, if this was successful, maybe this could signal a whole new era of mobile games. Well, this game was released today and I am here to tell you that this is not the case! This is an urgent public service announcement from good ol' Flix Reviewer here: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, download Super Mario Run. It is the definition of money-grabbing at its very worst in the mobile arena, and we as the consumers need to put our feet down and say "no". Let me explain my experience with the game and why I had deleted it off my phone within 10 minutes of downloading it.
The game starts off well enough. You've got the modern, updated Mario aesthetic, it's a new and refreshing take on the gameplay of the series due to the automatic running aspect but it still feels familiar to fans of the franchise, good performance, and everything else you might expect. All in all, a promising start. So I'm playing through the first world in the game, and each world has 4 levels, desperately trying to get the pink collectible coins, excited about challenging my friends, because I actually told some of them in a group chat when the game came out. Eventually, I got to the end of World 1-3, and it was time for the castle level, the big one, my first confrontation with Bowser himself on mobile (bare in mind this took about 8 minutes of gameplay). I clicked on it and then...I got a message saying I couldn't play beyond level 1-4, and would have to click a button to access it. Fearing the very worst, I cautiously clicked the button. Once I did, I knew that Nintendo were going to be no different from every other mobile developer. Here's the screen that greeted me and made my jaw drop:
I actually initially was laughing a bit, I thought "this must be a joke, it surely has to be". Then the humour started to fade, and my anger came to the top. This is a joke, but certainly not in the funny sense. There are 6 worlds in the game, all with 4 levels each. Minus the 3 levels you get for free at the start, and that's 21 levels total. Plus a few "Rally Tickets" (likely some form of premium currency for another game type), and coins? This is a seriously concerning and low amount of content. Nintendo is exploiting its consumer base and the fans of the Mario franchise, plain and simple. There is no excuse for marketing a game as being free, and then bombarding the player with a paywall this severe practically immediately. This game is an extremely dangerous precedent for other games looking to use existing licenses but we can stop this together. Look at how well the Square Enix "GO" series has done, bringing franchises like Hitman, Tomb Raider and Deus Ex to the small screen and charging £1.49 up front for all content. Sure, there's still some micro-transactions at play but this is purely to get to later levels faster. £1.49 is a reasonable price and though you might not like it still, it's a damn sight better than the screen above. Do NOT let Nintendo get away with this nonsense and cause other developers to turn to this disgusting, exploitative business practice. People of the Internet and gamers of the world, I beg of you: say NO to this game, and stop this from ever happening again. Thank you.
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