Once again, it’s been an incredibly tough year for the Wii U. Sales are still failing to meet expectations, the first-party lineup is remarkably small and third parties have all but given up on the console. There’s no point in sugarcoating it, but that doesn’t mean Wii U owners don’t have anything to look forward to for the rest of the year.
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On September 11th, Nintendo will release Super Mario Maker, a 2D Mario game that lets players build their own levels and share them online. When I first played the game at E3 2014, I was underwhelmed. It was a fun experiment, but didn’t look like it would hold my attention for any significant length of time.
A year later, with the game nearly complete, I had to change my tune. Super Mario Maker was the clear highlight of Nintendo’s showcase at E3, and for the first time since Splatoon, I had a Wii U game to look forward to.
Now that the game is less than a month away, Nintendo has kicked off its marketing campaign, trying to get as many eyes on the game as possible. The most effective effort so far can be seen below — a 7-minute gameplay video showcasing some of the features of the game, including the timed unlock system.
Spend at least five minutes with the game on one day, and you’ll unlock new items to play with in the level editor the next day. After nine days, you’ll have unlocked the entire selection of items and enemies. The game will also work with over 50 amiibo figures, allowing Mario to change his appearance to look like other classic Nintendo characters.
Watch all of this and more in the gameplay overview below:
