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Super Mario Run review: mascot's phone debut is elegant and addictive

Tim Biggs

The first ever Super Mario game for smartphones has arrived in the App Store for iPhone and iPad and, although it's a bit different to what both Mario fans and mobile gamers might be used to, it really is quite a lot of fun.

At its core is the World Tour mode, which sees our hero once again racing to save Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser across a series of stages (in this case six worlds with four levels each, plus some secret bonuses). Except he's literally racing this time, dashing uncontrollably to the right of the screen while players tap the device to make him jump.

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Introduction to Super Mario Run

Tech editor Tim Biggs takes a look at the three modes that make up the very first Super Mario game for smartphones.

As a long time Nintendo fan I was a little worried the simple setup would lack depth, but it's clear from the moment you start playing that a huge amount of work has gone into making this feel like a full-featured game.

Mario has a wealth of new acrobatic moves, automatically hopping and rolling over short enemies and obstacles to keep his momentum flowing, but otherwise the control feels surprisingly familiar. Holding your thumb on the screen longer results in a bigger jump, meaning you're not so much timing your moves as you are measuring distances and managing your jumps accordingly as you dodge fireballs and platform across chasms. You can also kick off walls to gain some height, flip turtle shells to take out a line of enemies and tap in mid-air to spin — giving you a slight delay in your descent and letting you spring off enemies below — all of which are straight out of the main games and feel right at home here.

The levels themselves are cleverly designed for the new format, filled with hidden coins that only reveal themselves if you run a certain line and new blocks that pause Mario to let you think or send him backflipping to the left to take an alternate route. They're varied in the familiar way, from ground courses to ghost houses to Bowser's castle, and each one filled with familiar enemies to stomp or avoid. Nab all the pink coins in a single run and they'll be replaced next time with harder-to-find purple coins. Conquer those and you'll have to really work to find all five maddeningly difficult black coins in a single run. These hidden coins are the real hook of the main mode and are what's kept me coming back most.

In all, World Tour feels very much like a challenge mode that might have been included in the latest home console New Super Mario Bros game. But it's only one of three modes in Super Mario Run.

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Earning tickets in World Tour lets you play Toad Rally, where you take on a random course in an attempt to do better than one of your friends or a challenger from somewhere in the world. You race to collect as many coins as you can, all while pulling off stylish and daring stunts to attract Toads. Win and your overall Toad count will increase (along with your bragging rights), but lose and some of your Toads will join your opponent. Friends can be added via Facebook, Twitter, email, SMS or by exchanging unique codes from the app, and playing against someone else you actually know in the game (even though they're not technically playing at the same time) adds some serious motivation.

All those Toads you're attracting come in handy for the third mode, Kingdom Builder. Since Bowser trashed the place you need to rebuild the kingdom, and you do that by buying buildings, decorations and special additions with all the coins you collect. The more Toads you attract, the more stuff you find in the store. A lot of this is purely aesthetic, but there are also some real prizes like new stages and additional playable characters including Luigi and Yoshi. It's not an action-packed mode, but it adds still more motivation to keep playing and closes the loop between winning tickets, amassing Toads and buying items to improve the game.

Super Mario Run is free to download, but if you want access to all World Tour courses you need to pay a one-time fee of $14.99. There are no micro-transactions in the game, which means no underhanded tricks to try to coax you into spending more money, although the whole setup of three intertwining modes has a very mobile feel. On top of this, there are little touches like a bonus game that you can only play once every eight hours that show Nintendo and its mobile partner DeNA really understand how to turn the screws on mobile and keep you wanting to come back.

The game also interfaces with the 'My Nintendo' system. Logging in will give you access to play as Toad, will save all your progress in the cloud so you can switch devices whenever you like and will earn you 'platinum points' in Nintendo's loyalty system for completing certain missions. You can cash these in for in-app rewards like more coins or Toad Rally tickets, or for discounts on other Nintendo games on Wii U and 3DS.

One downside of all the connectivity is that Run requires an internet connection to play. This isn't unusual for a mobile game, but it certainly is for Mario. Yet while you will not be able to play the game anywhere that has zero internet connectivity, such in a plane with no Wi-Fi, it's not exactly true to say the game requires a constant internet connection. If you go through a tunnel and your 4G drops out temporarily, for example, Mario doesn't stop running and the app doesn't crash. But if you're offline when you finish a course you'll need to wait until you're connected again to proceed.

Super Mario Run is out now on iOS, coming to Android devices early next year.

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