We got to check out a few new levels in next month's Wii U release.
The more I play Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, the more I want to order a Japanese Wii U and get it a month early. Treasure Tracker takes the Captain Toad stages, which were just about my favorite part of last year's Super Mario 3D World, and builds an entire game around them, adding in tons of new mechanics and twists.
The few new levels I got to play last week at Nintendo's offices in New York highlighted that. There are stages that are similar to what was in 3D World, as you use an adorable form of spatial logic to figure out the best route to move around a giant cube environment. You also have more action-oriented stages that show Captain Toad (and newcomer Toadette) on the aggressive throwing turnips at enemies. There are even stages that use mechanics from Super Mario 3D World as you use boost pads to quickly navigate areas while collecting three gems per level.
Each level has three gems to find, and they function much the same way that star coins have in recent Mario games. In addition, the levels have a stage-specific challenge that you can try to complete. The challenges range from "don't take any damage" to "avoid defeating enemies" and beyond.
The coolest thing that seems to be apparent about Treasure Tracker is that there looks to be at least three different adventures packed into it. Most of the levels we played starred Toadette and seemed to come from a storybook of Toadette-only levels that included levels that seemed similar to earlier Toad levels. One of them in particular called to mind the dragon boss level from E3 2014, except the stage is called "Draggadon's Revenge." It seems to make sense that someone, maybe Toad, would have had to defeat Draggadon once to inspire his revenge against Toadette.
One of the last levels we played during the demo came from a different storybook that appeared to contain only Toad stages. The main screen also listed three separate episodes. The first episode appears to star Toad, and the second seems to focus on Toadette. The third episode could likely star both of them or an unannounced third character.
If you're curious about the names of the stages we saw, check them out below. Be warned, there might be spoilers!
Stage Names
From Episode 1:
From Episode 2:
Do you say "newcomer Toadette" because she's been a Nintendo character 5 times longer than the title character, or because she's just now appearing in this game (like everything in this game, because it's a new game)?
Do you say "newcomer Toadette" because she's been a Nintendo character 5 times longer than the title character, or because she's just now appearing in this game (like everything in this game, because it's a new game)?
