Captain Toad is Nintendo at its off-beat best

[Administrator]

Nintendo's Tokyo EAD has long been cherished for the abundance of ideas in its games, for the little novelties that bubble up in single levels of Galaxy and 3D World before being gleefully tossed aside as the developer tirelessly works its way through a bottomless toybox. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a little different, though. Here's a game with one big, very bold idea at its core: let's see what a Mario game would be like with the ability to jump completely excised.
This isn't the first Mario spin-off to move away from shifting platforms and arcing leaps - far from it - but it's the one that treads closest to that template. Here you guide Captain Toad through a world of familiars, where Shy Guys dawdle like toddlers through grass green mazes and where Goombas lazily recline in lifesavers before frantically paddling towards you. It's a world of well-worn assets, plucked from last year's Super Mario 3D World, where the seeds of Treasure Tracker were sown in a slim selection of bonus levels.
With a dose of cynicism, you suspect that those bonus levels were never meant to be spun out on their own. For a throwaway folly to hit the eShop, sure, but as a full-priced packaged affair? Nintendo's got to have something on the shelves beside Smash Bros., sure, but can something like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker ever step away from the shadow of the game it's been cut off from?
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