1. Long story short: there have been two Mario-related games in the last decade that I feel actually gave you something new and worth playing. One of those games is Super Mario Maker and the other one is Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. If you have a Wii U, get this.
2. I suppose you might damn this by calling it a kids game but I prefer to think of it as suitable for all ages.
3. I see this often classified as puzzle game but this really isn't about puzzle solving. It's about exploration and discovery. Certainly, there are puzzle solving elements but if you are looking for Portal, play The Talos Principle.
4. Actually, this does have something in common w/ Talos in so far as it pieces together assets from a better known game into something rather different. The Mario tie in is more obvious here than the Serious Sam basis of Talos but both games give you the feeling that the developers pushed themselves to do something new and different and that's what makes them fun.
5. I have a metric for judging Mario games which is how far in I get before I get sick of collecting the optional collectables. This never happened in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. I never got sick of collecting the three optional gems on each level. Never.
6. There are also additional bonus challenges for each level that I only completed when they seemed fun to me. One of my few complaints about this game is to meet the requirements of these challenges, you sometimes couldn't also collect all three gems. It's no big deal unless you want to do 100% speed runs or something.
7. This is a pretty deliberate game so maybe not appropriate for speed-running anyway. Even more than the fact that you can't jump, I'd say this difference in pacing is what sets it apart from a standard Mario game. The focus here is on planning your path through a level and examining every last inch of it, rather than avoiding hazards in a precise manner.
8. This plays to the Wii U's strengths, graphically. The levels are small but camera scrolling is super smooth, polygons are sharp and the colors are bold and bright. Basically, it's a first party Nintendo game. Yay!
9. The sound design is decent too but the most standout part to me is when Toad shouts what sounds like "Diaper adventrure!" before each level.
10. The story here is Captain Toad and Girl Captain Toad take turns getting kidnapped by a giant owl and you need to find each other by collecting stars and three optional gems.
11. There is something about the gameplay that I find very relaxing w/o it becoming boring. The levels are mostly pretty short, which helps since you don't lose much progress when you die. It is just a combination of basically getting to take as much time as you'd like to look around and explore but then also having it spiced up by some brief dexterity challenges here and there. There is a real kind of flow to it.
12. This is a pretty streamlined package overall.There's sixty some levels to begin w/ and then an additional bunch of bonus levels once you've finished. There are really no lengthy cut scenes or special modes or any of that kind of thing. You get the game and some optional objectives and that's all you really need. For what it does have, there is a good amount between how the levels play w/ some boss battles and even a couple minecart levels that play like rail shooters.
13. Playing a game called Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker kinda brings to mind that old adage about riding a moped and your friends finding out but, honestly, I've been telling everyone I know w/ a Wii U to play this game. (Note: this is two people.)
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