Review Information
Game Reviewed Super Mario Holidays - Canadaland, by Mariotroid
Review Author Roo
Created Aug 19 2021, 5:00 PM

General Commentary and Game Overview
Super Mario Holidays is an interesting idea for a game. Shame that idea isn't quite fully realized in this demo.
 
Pros + Good, creative idea
+ Some of the graphics are pretty good
 
Cons - Jumping is really awkward sometimes
- The collectibles, they do nothing!
- Somewhat messy BG graphics
- The low-health sound effect is from the pits of Hell
 
Impressions
Gameplay
7 / 10
The gameplay is... weird. Your main objective, aside from getting to the goal, is apparently "collecting Canadian Leaf Tokens," but they don't seem to actually do anything, so who knows. Furthermore, the first thing you have to do in the game is cutting off all the leaves from a tree in order to make a bunch of pink blocks disappear, which is definitely... a choice.

The engine isn't completely horrible, but for some reason, Mario keeps getting stuck in the air, making some jumps way harder than they should be. The concept of attacking with hockey pucks is interesting, but you can just keep tapping the fire button, eliminating any challenge there might've been (especially after you obtain the fire flower).

The level design is decent, but a lot of it consists of jumps, and as I pointed out above, jumping is quite difficult thanks to the way Mario moves in the air.

One more thing I have to bring up is what I assumed to be a checkpoint. You see, there's a flag in the middle of the level that makes a sound when you touch it. However, after you die, you're sent back to the beginning of the level. I don't know if something went wrong in the programming stage, or if putting useless noise-making flags in the middles of your levels is the new hip thing to do, but clearly something went wrong here.
 
Graphics
6 / 10
Some of the character/object graphics, like Mario and the Koopas, are pretty good, but most others, like the Goombas, could use some work.

The tiles, for the most part, aren't BAD, per se, but they're used in the wrong ways, leading to a very disorganized look.

The HUD is an confusing mess. Why are the life meter and the powerup icons so large? Why are the fireflowers halfway off the screen? Why is there some number below the timer? Why is there a random zero in the middle of the screen?

I know they're placeholders, but you could've still made them look a bit nicer.
 
Sound
5 / 10
The music's pretty good.

The sound effects are alright, though a bit too loud at times.

The sound effect for low health, though? It's basically as horrible as it could be. Why is it so low-quality, and why does it play all the time when there don't seem to be any sources of health available? Playing it a few times (at most) would absolutely be enough to warn the player.
 
Final Words
7 / 10
I hope you make a full version, but I also hope you make it a lot better.

Comments
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Mariotroid
Aug 22 2021, 10:07 PM
Thank you. Yes, all the graphics are placeholder and the game mostly is. I must fix the physics and collisions I have been told. I have been at this game for half a decade. I hope one day to complete it.

The game is kind of meant to be easy as I find a lot of fangames are too difficult and the challenge isnt very well paced in most of them.
 
1 like from: Roo
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Roo
Aug 24 2021, 10:37 PM
Quote (Mariotroid on Aug 23 2021, 1:07 AM)
Thank you. Yes, all the graphics are placeholder and the game mostly is. I must fix the physics and collisions I have been told. I have been at this game for half a decade. I hope one day to complete it.

The game is kind of meant to be easy as I find a lot of fangames are too difficult and the challenge isnt very well paced in most of them.

I definitely agree with the whole difficulty thing.

Hope you complete it some day.
 
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