Late to the Party Video Game Review: Captain Toad, Treasure Tracker

                I have never played Super Mario 3D World, the game where Captain Toad got its start, but I can understand the idea behind making this a game all its own.  Captain Toad is incredibly addicting.  The graphics are great, the gameplay mechanics are relatively easy, though having to rotate the world you are on while trying to walk can be difficult at times, and the difficulty level is perfect.  This is a great puzzle game with short enough levels that you can start and stop whenever you want.  I continuously find myself say “okay, one more level, okay, just one more” and on and on. 

                The premise behind the game is simple, you collect stars to advance in the storybook (each page is a new level) until you reach the end and rescue your companion (Toad or Toadette, depending on which book you’re in).  There are also other collectibles in each level, such as the three diamonds you need to gather to advance in the book (certain pages are only accessible when you have gathered the requisite number of diamonds – kind of like the stars in Super Mario Galaxy).  There are also coins to be collected, and the always illusive Gold Mushroom.  The game starts off simply enough, and honestly, the first book, where you’re Toad rescuing Toadette, is fairly simple.  As you go along though, the difficulty ratchets up, not just in the gathering of collectibles, but the completion of the stages themselves.  This makes for a better experience because, while I was able to breeze through the first book, the second book (where you play as Toadette) and the third book (where you play as both) push the difficulty up quite a few notches.  There is a fourth "bonus book" which includes missions that you can unlock by gathering the gems that are hidden throughout the main levels, just to keep the replayability, which is already fairly high, at a maximum rate.

                This is a great game if you love the Mario Bros. Franchise but are a little tired of the side-scrolling, jump on Goombas and save the Princess kind of adventure.  It’s a nice change of pace, much like the Luigi’s Mansion games, a new twist on a popular character.  I hope to see more of this kind of stuff from Nintendo in the future instead of the same old rehashing of a tired plot and gameplay mechanic that has become many of their Mario games of late.