Finally, you can build an entire “game” out of Super Mario Maker 2 levels, Ars Technica

                                                             Lots of customization options to pretty up your world map.                                                                        

                                                             There are a variety of visual themes for your world maps. Here’s Underground …                                                                                     

                                                             … Desert                                                                                     

                                                             … Snow                                                                                     

                                                             … Sky                                                                                     

                                                             … Volcano                                                                                     

                                                             … Forest                                                                                     

                                                                                            … and Outer Space.                                                                        When the original Super Mario Maker came out on the Wii U nearly five years ago, (we lamented) how disjointed it felt to just play individual levels without “any sense of continuity or progression.” We longed for a Mario Maker that let us arrange individual levels as building blocks to create “a complete game, one that progresses gently from easy to hard, teaching you new tricks and throwing in clever twists on old themes along the way. ” Tomorrow, Nintendo will finally be making those dreams a reality with what it’s calling the final major update to Super Mario Maker 2 on the Switch. The new World Maker mode will let you play with “All your ideas that couldn’t be contained in a single course and share them with people around the globe,” as the announcement video puts it.

Yes, that includes the ability to create a world map, complete with bridges, hills, customized course icons, background elements, and a variety of cosmetic themes. Those world maps operate on a pretty coarse-grained 7 × 4 grid system, though, perhaps to make it harder to draw rude words or images with your course paths.

Up to eight individual worlds can be linked together to make an entire “game” with up to 550 of your courses (unfortunately, you can’t use this feature to curate custom collections of courses created by other players). You can also hide bonus levels in your map, including the famous slot machine item-matching game from Super Mario Bros. 3 After nearly five years, this feels like the final piece of the puzzle that will allow Mario Maker to reach its full potential. In the past you could just repeat a Mario Maker level for hours until you finished it, which encouraged a few specific types of level designs. Now, preserving every item, hidden coin, and extra life might be necessary to help you make it through a carefully constructed sequence. That should in turn lead to a blossoming of more thoughtful level layouts and sequences through different ideas.       

      

            

                              

                                                             With the “SMB2 Mushroom,” you can ride on top of enemies and even pick them up.                                                                        

                                                                                                  He floats through the air with the greatest of ease …                                                                                                                         
                                                                                            I’ve had nightmares that look a lot like this.                                                                                     
                                                                                            Mechakoopas are back, and now they shoot missiles.                                                                        More items, more enemies

On top of the World Maker feature, each game style is also getting a unique new item in this update:

Super Mario Bros. “ SMB2 Mushroom “that lets you ride on top of enemies and pick them up. Not quite the Super Mario Bros. 2 game style we might have been been hoping for, but it should allow for some good course variety in any case.

• Super Mario Bros . 3 : The Frog Suit gives Mario the usual high-jumping and fast-swimming powers, plus the new ability to run on top of the water’s surface.
• Super Mario World : The Power Balloon makes Mario float, now with the ability to also change his angle in mid-air. Ho-hum. New Super Mario. Bros. U : The Super Acorn lets Mario drift as a flying squirrel.
• Super Mario 3D World : The Boomerang Flower lets Mario throw boomerangs, as you might expect.