Game Review #408: PlataGO! Super Platform Game Maker (Nintendo Switch)
Reviewer: WoodmanFLG
Developer: Super Icon
Publisher: PQube
Category: Creation, Platformer
Release Date: 6.13.2019
Price (at time of review): $19.99
Buy PlataGO! Super Platform Game Maker from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.
Fight Through the Hype
There is a TON of hype right now surrounding Super Mario Maker 2, the inevitable comparison that will be made with PlataGO, but don't let that dissuade you from this platformer creation tool, because it offers a HUGE amount of options to you that Mario Maker doesn’t. It's refreshing to see that platformer-creation tool not being tied to a famous IP, and instead going off into its own direction, with its own mechanics and differences from the mustachioed plumbers’ beloved series. Let's delve a little more into what makes PlataGO! Super Platform Game Maker special, shall we?
A Whole New Game
This is not the kind of game where you are going to make a killer level your first go through. You aren't going into this with the familiarity with series mechanics that you are with Mario Maker. You have a WHOLE lot of mechanics with which to familiarize yourself, and the only way to really figure it out is to do it. I feel like some overview tutorial to streamline familiarizing yourself with the mechanics of this game world would have been appreciated, but having to explore the levels that were already made wasn’t the worst.
This is your classic platforming experience: you have spikes, pits, slopes, and more of the common tropes to make a full rapport of options, as well as a bunch of different enemies with which you can populate your courses. It's interesting to see how this game will develop as time moves on and people figure out more of the tricks the engine brings, just like other similar games have done.
Generations of Style
PlataGO allows you to style your game in a TON of different graphical styles from generational milestone consoles like NES or SNES. They also have things like Gameboy-styled, and even various kinds of older computer-styled aesthetics, which was a nice surprise to see. Each style also comes with a variety of backgrounds and images that you can use to make a cool visual theme for each level, and the ability to place items in the foreground and background gives plenty of opportunity to sprinkle personality throughout the levels and put your own spin on things. I was really surprised at how different all the level options and themes were, and there really were a ton of options to experiment with visuals and create something super cool!
Whatever You Want!
One of my favorite parts of this game is the ability to kind of make a string of levels by having different rules in different areas; and the ability to have a big number of flags you can turn on and off to affect the level really lets you curate whatever experience you want, rather than relying on someone visiting your author page to find your other levels. This game's wide variety of options lends itself to hours of experimentation to figure out exactly how you want your level to be. From visuals to mechanics, PlataGO is very vast!
I wish the port was a little better, as you can tell that not a ton was done for the controls in the move to the Switch. The text is SUPER small, along with most of the on-screen elements, and the controls are a lot more friendly to using the touch screen, so you will want to be on handheld mode for editing and creating levels. There are lots of enemy and level options, but I wish they were able to figure out some more unique things in terms of what purpose an enemy serves, because we mostly have the normal things here, rather than some stuff to really differentiate what PlataGO can do.
Wrapping Up
PlataGO! Super Platform Game Maker is a fun romp through a platforming game-creation tool that I really hope gets its own little fanbase so we can see some awesome stuff come out of this tool on the Nintendo Switch! A little bit of a lack of more inspired gameplay assets, along with a port that makes actually making levels a little tough, holds this game back from achieving true greatness, but PlataGO is a worthy entry in the platformer creation world of games. Even if you are already a Mario Maker pro, you will still find a lot of worth in PlataGo! I give PlataGO a solid 7/10!
Score: 7/10
Buy PlataGO! Super Platform Game Maker from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.
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*Review Code Provided by PQube