Starting today, Nintendo Switch players can once again flex their creativity, as Super Mario Maker 2 is finally available. This latest game changes a few things from its predecessor, including having the majority of the creation tools unlocked from the start and introducing the Super Mario 3D World theme alongside the original four. Naturally, Nintendo hid plenty of Easter eggs and secrets for players to find, including two brand new powerups.
The secret powerups operate a bit differently from other creation items, as they're not available right off the bat. In order to unlock them for use, players will need to complete Super Mario Maker 2's story mode, a small campaign that has them rebuilding Princess Peach's castle by playing through customized levels. Upon completion, players can head into the Course World portion of the game to discover two new unlocked powerups: Superball Flower and the Super Hammer.
In order to start using the Superball Flower, players can add a Fire Flower to the course, selecting it and then selecting the new powerup from the sub-menu. When touching it, Mario's colors change to a shade of grey, with the music and sound effects also changing into the Mario Land style from the Nintendo Game Boy. This ability basically turns the fireballs into super balls, letting the shots bounce off of walls, and into tight spaces, to defeat enemies. The Superball Flower can only be used inside of the original Super Mario Bros. Theme.
The Super Hammer, on the other hand, can only be used within the Super Mario 3D World theme and turns Mario into Builder Mario seen on the cover of the game. With the Super Hammer, Builder Mario can break just about any style of brick, while also creating crates he can stand on, up to 5 at a time. Better yet, when done in multiplayer, each character has their own crate limit, so, with four players, up to 20 crates can be utilized.
Nintendo hit a bit of controversy, right after revealing the multiplayer portion of Super Mario Maker 2, when it revealed that friends wouldn't be able to play together through matchmaking. While the initial reasoning was related to fears over global leaderboard tampering, the outcry from fans led Nintendo to backtrack on its stance. A few weeks ago, at E3 2019, Nintendo developer Takashi Tezuka confirmed that the team was making changes to how players matchmake with friends through a post-launch update.
Super Mario Maker 2 is now available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
Source: Kotaku