I got this game to play with my wife and her family. The characters are adorable, the levels are full of charm, the music is outstanding, and the platforming is really tight.
However, the multiplayer is an exercise in frustration.
- The camera constantly jumps ahead at minimal prompts, forsaking anyone who isn’t adept enough to get every jump as perfectly as the best player, even if that player is the kind who is inclined to wait. The camera just makes whoever it follows into an ass to the other players.
- Online connection options aren’t intuitive. It cannot even be disabled in the middle of a level. You have to quit, run somewhere on the map, disable it there, go back and restart the level. Contrary to the intent, it takes you completely out of the game.
- There is no shared progression with online friends. If a step is particularly complicated and you leave your friend behind, you don’t really have a means to “carry” them through the level or get the items for them. If they get stuck and you want to progress together, you just have to wait in the over world until they struggle it out for themselves. Otherwise hope they understand you as you try to explain what buttons they need to press, when and where. I think my wife and I spent an hour in online co-op with her parents just waiting for them to finish a challenge that her father refused to give up on. We ended up not doing anything else that night and a bit disappointed in ourselves.
I just don’t know why they needed to go with this whole ghost thing. Just let 4 of us play in the same world, the same levels, and collect the same resources. Why is that so hard?
Yes, it’s not ideal for coop. It still still miles better than Mario Bros U Deluxe which - together with issues listed in this post - had player collision. This made the game more frustrating than anything as suddenly there were more obstacles for everyone in a shape of diffetent players.
It is a problem with 2D mario. It’s the same there was on Nintendo 3ds - the camera is your enemy in coop. I think 3D World is much better suited for shared screen/online as there’s simply more space for the players.
Player collision was the best thing about the local coop! It both allowed you to work together to reach high-up places, as well as screw each other over for fun!
Player collision has caused more arguments with my kids than any other feature in video games. At a very minimum you should be able to turn it off and on.
Agreed. And not just player collision but combined with a screen aspect ratio such that the obvious solution - spreading out left to right - punishes the third and fourth player for the slightest delay.