Super Mario 3D World was the flagship Mario game that was released on the Wii U. While being a great game in its own right, it wasn’t the game most of us wanted. Instead of building on what Sunshine and Galaxy created, it felt more like a multiplayer-focused evolution of the New Super Mario Bros games.
One of the highlights of Super Mario 3D World was the sections where you took control of Toad to solve short puzzles set in standalone levels that you could rotate to inspect from every angle. This rotation mechanic was a big part of the gameplay, as the stages were intricately designed to take advantage of the 3D space with nooks and crannies to discover and sections that are connected in different ways.
Not long after Super Mario 3D World was released, an entire game built around Toad’s levels was released, named Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker. Are these puzzle stages enough to sustain an entire game of their own?
Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker features the most basic of stories, in which Toadette was captured by a giant bird and you embark on a quest to rescue her. This takes you through 64 stages (not including bonus levels), broken up into 3 chapters. In the first 18 stages you play as Toad, which concludes with you rescuing Toadette. The second chapter puts you in control of Toadette and the third chapter has stages for each character. Each character plays the same way, but its nice to take Toadette on an adventure for a change.
Each stage is a self-contained puzzle with multiple goals. The primary goal is to find the star hidden in each stage. Finding the star lets you move on to the next level. The secondary goal is finding the three diamonds in each level. These range from hidden in plain sight to requiring some clever puzzle-solving to collect. To receive a checkmark and “100%” the level, each stage has a unique challenge like collecting a minimum number of coins, taking no damage or defeating every enemy. Getting 100% on each stage is a nice challenge and rarely becomes frustrating.
You control Toad or Toadette my moving them around the stages and your actions are limited to pulling up stalks that can reveal coins or turnips (which are used as weapons) and turning on and off your headlamp. No jumping, no basic attack. That’s it, but its plenty for the way the game is designed. You don’t need any of that in this game.
The game’s main draw is the ability to spin the stage around 360 degrees and you can also tilt each level to some degree. This allows you to inspect how each stage fits together to find hidden passages, secret switches and buried goodies. You can also zoom in or out to get a better look if you want.
The game features many familiar enemies from the Mario series to get in your way, including Shyguys, Boos and Goombas in addition to new creatures unique to this game. They each require ingenuity to either dodge or defeat and they have a lot of character, lending to this game’s charm.
And charm this game has in spades. The visuals in Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker boast a vibrant and colorful aesthetic and both the character and stage models are some of the smoothest I’ve ever seen. Everything looks like its molded out of perfectly smooth plastic, for lack of a better description. Without adapting a specific art style, its created its own look based on the visuals of Super Mario 3D Land, but looks even better in my opinion. I simply love the way this game looks. If that wasn’t enough, the characters are full of personality and are very expressive. In short, I think its one of the best-looking games on the Wii U.
The audio is great too. While not as impressive as the visuals, it perfectly fit the game with whimsical sound effects and peppy, bouncy fun tunes. Most are fairly forgettable, but some tunes will bore their way into your brain. Wether this is a good thing or not depends on how much you like the music.
With even more content like bonus stages and Amiibo support (the game can be picked up in a bundle with a Captain Toad Amiibo), there’s a lot of game here for the price. The game is beautiful, fun and rewarding and I can’t recommend it enough for Wii U owners. With a price as low as $15, I think its a great deal, though I suspect this game might be on the slate for a port to the Switch too.
I hope it gets one, because this great game definitely deserves a bigger audience.
Current value (Amiibo bundle):
Loose: $15.00 | Complete: $26.00