Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker can be a fun series of mini games but it lacked the fun that I was anticipating.
Graphics:The game’s visuals are quite pleasing with its colorful palette, great lighting and shadows. The composition of the levels are very strong and there is very little to complain about. Due to the nature of the graphics, the loading times are practically non-existent and makes playing entering and exiting levels loading free.
Gameplay:At first glance you may believe the game is made up of only square levels but the game offers a variety of layouts. Captain Toad and Toadette mechanics revolves around moving and interacting with objects. With their limited move set the game’s challenge relies around overcoming these limitations with various game mechanics. To a large extent this is executed particularly well and most people would not find the manner in which the game plays at its core problematic. Camera movement can be controlled with the right analog, the gyroscope in the gamepad and the shoulder buttons. There is also an option to zoom (X) in on the character to get a closer look as you interact with the level.
Story:The premise for the story is not earth shattering or interesting. It particularly simple and follows the trend of rescuing a kidnapped loved one or friend. In this case rescuing will be shared with both Captain Toad and Toadette.
Good:Great graphics and solid core controls. There is little to no loading times and over 70 levels to play.
Bad:The game has several problems that greatly affected my enjoyment of the game. Some of these issues may not have the same effect on others.
- · There is not an option to restart the level. This may seem trivial but there are moments in the game where you will need to restart the level in order to meet the challenges but the only option is to quit and reload the level. Fortunately the loading times are very short but the lack of this options is quite shocking.
- · Camera controls are problematic and inferior. The game does not facilitate meaningful transparency for objects that are in front or blocking the character. This increases the need for adjusting the camera. This need to adjust the camera for a clearer view has made several moments in the game rather frustrating because of parallax and poor camera implementation. This is made worse with the zoom feature with simply zooms in instead of dolly in made the view more isometric and less perspective.
- · Touch, blow and screen switch. Nintendo is still trying very hard to sell the benefits of their WiiU controller. However, the vast majority of these implementation negatively affected the flow of the game. Having to switch from the main screen to small secondary screen to aim, turn wheels and move objects makes the controls awkward and less effective. There was no benefit from these gimmicky implementations and I wished I was not forced to use these controller attributes. I don’t think it’s wise to force the user to use a smaller screen for aiming when the larger screen can do a better for the job. Screen switching is not a viable gameplay mechanic and this game uses it a bit too much. With the additional focus on the secondary screen, it was even more confusing that the game punishes the player for using only the gamepad to play the game when interacting with gear wheel. The problem comes up when interacting with gears because a massive gear wheel appears on the gamepad that hinders the view of the character.
- · The secondary challenge are only made known after the level is complete. This forces the player to replay the level for most of the challenges. It would have been appreciated if the secondary challenge was made known prior to starting the level.
- · Bonus levels are simply retro-fitted Mario 3D World levels or old levels with new objectives.
Overall my experience with the game was not golden and I would find it very hard to recommend this game at the current price point.