Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Super Mario Maker for 3DS is a curious piece of software. On the surface, it is very similar to its Wii U counterpart. Beneath that surface level, though, the game is lacking in one key way: sharing. First, the good. If you have not played Mario Maker on Wii U, this "game" is a blast. Super Mario Maker's core component is a toolset allowing you to craft Mario levels using four tile sets: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. There are a healthy amount of tools and options to allow you to get really creative about your levels. The other aspect is downloading other players' levels and playing them, which is frankly where a lot of fun comes into play. That is where the game really falls flat, unfortunately. In order to share a level on the Wii U version, you need only upload it to Nintendo's servers. To share a level on 3DS, your sole option is to share with another local user. This is a bigger problem than it might initially appear to be. It's the equivalent of a social media service that only lets you share your pictures with users of the service in the same room as you. You can't upload levels, but we know the 3DS system works with Wi-Fi, so the inability to upload is really questionable. If Nintendo's testing made it clear that hardware limitations prevented levels from being able to be uploaded, fine, but to date we have no idea of what the real reason is behind this restriction. The other thing stripped from this version is amiibo support. In the Super Mario Bros. toolset on Wii U, there is an item that lets you transform Mario into an 8-bit version of an amiibo. Many 3DS units do not have a scanner built in for NFC chips. However, that did not stop Nintendo from including amiibo support in other games like Animal Crossing, Smash Bros., and Mario Party. All of this gets back to a very unfortunate reality: Super Mario Maker for 3DS is a half-complete port of its far superior Wii U counterpart. It is hard to say why certain decisions were made in developing this title, but what remains is a game that is simply not as fully featured as it should--and ostensibly could--be. If you are looking to design on the go and share with friends who also have this game, it's still worth picking up. If you don't have friends with whom you have regular in-person contact (who will also be buying this game), it is better to get the Wii U version or hold out hope for a Switch version.