I'm one of the many that decided to take the plunge and spend $10 on Super Mario Run. My conclusion? It's alright.
$10 nets you six worlds comprised of three regular levels and a boss level. The regular levels use the multiple environments including deserts, sky levels, standard grassy levels, and Boo houses, while the boss levels are mostly castles and a couple of airships. Honestly, this can be cleared in less than an hour. The levels aren't long, and they largely are not difficult. The driving force to keep a player coming back is supposed to be pink coins, purple coins, and black coins. Each level starts with five pink coins. Collecting all five in a single run unlocks purple, which are slightly more difficult to get in new locations. Same progression with black coins, which may actually add assets to the level to really mix up the coin locations. This is okay, and it is largely important because each set of colored coins collected nets two Toad Rally tickets.
Toad Rally itself is alright. It's a rudimentary multiplayer experience where you and another player run the same course (I'm not 100% on how the match up works or if it's truly live multiplayer). You collect coins, and whoever gets the most coins by the time the clock runs out wins, partly dependent on the toad crowd gathered that adds to the final total. The winner gets toads of various colors, while the loser loses some toads. These toads are purely used to unlock decorations for the kingdom and to level up the castle, which has no real purpose past the fact it can be done.
Each Toad Rally costs one ticket, which can be partially replenished with a mini-game playable every 8 hours that offers a 50% chance of getting one ticket. No tickets means no Toad Rally, which will really hurt the long term enjoyment of the game. Otherwise there are things like enemy leveling to get more coins from defeating them in Toad Rallys, and "missions" that offer Mario Point rewards that offer a couple of rewards that are not at all necessary for the overall experience. Pretty much just fluff.
Was it worth $10? Not really. I'll ultimately put a loss less time into this game than I have in many free to play titles, though I was pleasantly surprised that there can be a certain level of strategy in running through levels. With kingdom building offering no obvious benefit, I don't feel much drive to go back and run the same levels a million times just to be able to claim I got some coins to get Toad Rally tickets to play dozens of repetitive endless coin gathering competitions. At the price, and considering the entirely reused assets, I feel like there should have been substantially more level based content.
Final Verdict? I do not recommend the title. Wait for either a price drop, or since there likely will never be one, wait for more content. If neither happen, pass on this and just pick up Super Mario Maker or any of the New Super Mario Bros. titles.
