I played through the first couple of levels and was instantly hit by how much better the level design, gameplay and characters were than the usual mobile game. I happily plonked down my ten bucks.

I cleared the game in a single lunch hour, but I'm not disappointed. The game design easily surpasses anything I've ever played on my phone, and there's a bucket of replayability. Pink/purple/black coins to get, speed runs on rally to try, etc.

Giving the first 3 levels for free was a good move - the install is essentially a demo that is enough to let a customer decide if they want to front for the whole game.

I didn't have a problem paying, but I've read a lot of whining on twitter and other places. Younger gamers have an expectation that everything on mobile should be free, but kudos to Nintendo on having the balls to stay away from cheap pay2win tricks and stick to an old school pricing model.

I don't know if it's going to turn a profit, but I really hope so. This race to the bottom amongst mobile game devs is madness and has to stop.

The graphics are nice (similar to New Super Mario Bros.), gameplay is smooth, and I really wanted to like this, but I just can't get into it. I think it comes down to this:

My favorite games are the ones that embody some sense of freedom, and I just don't get that here (at least not from the first 3 levels). I completely understand Nintendo's decision to go with the single-finger jump-only game mechanic for a touchscreen device (I've never been a fan of virtual D-pads). But unfortunately, that decision has transformed Mario from a game about discovery and freedom into a game where you're - quite literally - not allowed to stop and take a second look at something.

As a natural consequence of this change in game mechanics, we seem to be forced into a constant state of hyper-focused speeding through what might otherwise be an attractive setting with subtleties to be explored. If I pass something that looks interesting in Super Mario Run, I'll likely never see it again (no, I'm not really motivated to repeat levels for coins - but I would be inclined to explore new paths through the game if I weren't always forced to be on the run).

Making matters worse, the few times I did attempt to explore a little (by jumping back off the walls), the clock ran out in what felt like an unreasonably short time compared to other Mario games.

In the back of my mind, it feels as though this change reflects something more profound about how society has evolved in the past decade. Maybe our competitive and demanding nature has overshadowed the desire for individual discovery and creativity. We don't need a landscape-oriented view of the horizon anymore; we only care about what's immediately at hand in our myopic view of the world because, let's face it, this is 2016 and we're too lazy to flip our phones around to landscape mode, let alone to confront the harrowing idea of plotting our own course through life. Just put us on the conveyor belt and tell us when to jump - and how high.

OK, that may be taking it a bit too far, but I'm still not buying the full game - and it has nothing to do with the price.

While watching the promo video, which gives zero information on what it is, I was actually under the impression it was a tie-in with a fitbit like device that you might use with headphones, and the audio would trigger you to jump at specific moments, and it would use that movement for jumps in some simulated run in a game it could show you later, and it would score you based on speed and jump accuracy.

Now I really want that.

I like the game but unfortunately Nintendo really does suck when it comes to online accounts.

I had signed in on my iPhone then also set it up on my ipad. After finishing a few levels on the iPad i went back to my phone.

The phone let me finish a level, THEN came up and said 'cant progress as you're signed in on another device' and the app crashed.

what the fuck is the point of signing up for an account if it doesnt even sync across devices

I only tend to play games when i'm bored on a plane flying somewhere - the necessity for it to be connected to the internet for copyright protection after I pay $10 is devastating. I'm sure they will still make a lot of money and I make up a very small fraction of their market, but it's still quite frustrating being punished as a paying user.

Many of the other comments in this thread are low-effort "mobile games aren't real games, lol."

After playing just one level, you can tell that Super Mario Run the real deal and not a cash-in (and it gets hard, especially if you want to get Black Coins). If you have an aversion to mobile gaming, give this a try.

You can play 3 levels without having to pay anything and it doesn't nag you until then, which means that Nintendo only gets your money if they can convince you if it's worth it. And they do.

I am surprised at how many comments are here but with only a single one mentioning "build". If you are playing the game, exit Tour, spend some Rally Tickets you earned collecting Colored Coins to compete against other players in Style competitions to get Toads to cheer for you and come to your side, which will level up your Kingdom and (based on the numbers of each of five colors of Toad you have) unlock the ability to Spend the normal Coins you find to Build not only Decorations, but also Buildings such as a Bonus Game Area where you can win Prizes. Then exit all of that and go to the Missions section of the My Nintendo menu to claim your Points to redeem for Rewards... and don't forget to come back every eight hours to the bonus game and every day to the rally and other random time intervals to complete various missions. Oh yeah: you also have a global count of how many of each kind of enemy you have killed, and when you meet objectives you increase your Enemy Level so you get more coins when killing that kind of enemy while competing in the rally. You can also unlock different characters to play as; I believe that Toad is a Reward you can unlock for 0 points just for having bought the game, so go do that now. OMFG this is complex and reminds me more of what I hear from people talking about scary games like FarmVille and Candy Crush than Mario :/.

I believe that this game's always online DRM is incredibly disrespectful and will not buy it. I don't want to pirate anything. I actually want to pay real money once for a polished mobile game rather than getting mostly junk for free. Nintendo got that part of the equation right, I'll give them that. But because of the always online DRM, it's unusable on the subway or on an airplane. If I can't use it when I want it the most, what's the point of spending real money?

PS: This website is ridiculous. It takes forever to load up, and the marketing video is just a stupid video of a bunch of people doing parkour in slow motion or some junk like that. They probably spent 6 figures on that dumb video that nobody really gives a crap about. Then there's another loading screen after the video, and once that's done there's a really crappy UI for a slideshow that's not even responsive. IMO, idiotic executives fingerprints are all over this shitshow with bad decisions left and right. Nintendo is a fantastic company who is capable of amazing things, but they don't really get the web or mobile technology. Sad!

That website was frustrating.

- splash page that has to load the background video before you can do anything.

- you have to start watching the video on the splash page to skip it.

- horizontal navigation in the about page.

- clicking the obscure "here we go!" back link in the about page has to reload the video before you can do anything.

It looks really nice, but the interaction is incredibly slow and cumbersome.

The announcement video had me thinking this was some sort of Pokemon GO / Fitbit cross-over. Thankfully, it's just a game.

I wonder how successful this game would have been if it was the exact same but with non-mario graphics and without the nintendo hype. I would imagine most people would see "$10 for yet another runner game" and dismiss it out of hand.

I have yet to find a good solution for finding the gems and avoiding the cruft of the various stores.

That took way too long to get to the actual playing... choosing my country(?!), linking to a nintendo account etc.

Based on the videos on the landing page, I was getting the impression this was a VR/fitness game. Everybody running around had me thinking you needed to run in order to your avatar to do the same. I was actually disappointed how little you actually have to do to play the game when I navigated a couple screens in to get the full-picture.

Played a bit. Seems like a solid runner -- feels a bit more like the Rayman Run games than Canabalt or Jetpack Joyride to me. Curiously, it's more technical than any of those. Not sure I'm going to play more soon, but that's mostly because I'm playing on a 12.9" iPad Pro and the game feels like it's designed for screens half that size.

From the video, I really thought this was going to be some kind of miraculous game that would marry fitness (via real-life running) with gamification -- the kind of magic that only a truly visionary company could pull off. Like Fitbit only with real entertainment and joy attached.

Not going to lie, no matter how great the game is, I'm pretty disappointed.

Am I the only one who feels in places the UI was rushed? Like the generic sans font in the splash screen, and buttons that look like Aqua from 10 years ago?

That first video is so inappropriate I can't get my head around it. I thought it was going to be an augmented reality game like Pokemon Go. Turns out it is just a regular game. I can't get back to the website to try it though, the promotional page sucks!

They really nailed this from an advertising and marketing perspective. From what I can see the gameplay is spot on too. Looks like Nintendo took a crowded genre, the runner, and completely pwnd it. Looking forward to the android release though as I own 0 iDevices.

I tried it and didn't enjoy it. It largely comes down to tapping the screen when you want to jump... nothing else. Not having a real controller cripples this type of game.

I was hoping this would be like pokemon Go and push the trend of getting people out of the house. That's what the ad had me infer. Pokemon Go ---> Super Mario Run

the website redirect to /ch/index.html , and show nothing but `File not found."`

found this in javascript:

  case 'zh':
		location.href = _WARP_ + 'ch/index.html';
		break;

What year do they think this is that there is no Android version?

How's that for a misleading commercial. I was 100% sure this was a Pokemon Go styled running game until I checked some Youtube videos.

The about page is more informative (https://supermariorun.com/en/about.html):

A new kind of Mario game you can play with one hand. Mario constantly runs forward, while you time your taps to pull off stylish jumps and moves to gather coins and reach the goal!

The video had me worried and excited it was some kind of AR based game

Nostalgia aside, SMR looks pretty underwhelming compared to other high-end runners like Rayman Adventures. Yes, it's remarkable that Nintendo caved to Apple's advances and they are likely to make a lot of money on this, but the game itself is just... meh, basically.

[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rayman-adventures/id10435896...

I thought this was going to be an augmented reality running app/game especially because of the recent Pokemon Go. Kind of disappointed when I watched the gameplay video.

Really would want to play this. I don't mind the concept especially the game is on par with those Rayman runner games. At least couple of the early ones were really great. The price is perhaps steep for what it is, not that it would stop me from buying this. Well the hype and interested might have mellowed down once the Android version comes out..

If you want to cash in on the success of this game, Nintendo's US-traded stock equivalent is NTDOY - it represents 1/8th share of the Japanese company stock, but traded in USD.

That said, it's not looking very good at the moment, and has fallen consistently from days before release, and still falling this morning.

I watched the intro video and still have no idea what this app is or does.

This is a fun game. I cant even remember the last time I actually wanted to fire up a game because it was actually fun. Rarely play and when I do, it is just to kill time.

And also.. It brings back childhood memories to play Mario.

Someone needs to do an edit of that video where the mass of people at the end bang their face on a door with a note saying: "Sorry, we only had 5... come back after Christmas".

A little ironic that the video shows people actually being extremely physically active and then concludes with those same people heads down on a phone game at the end

Does it still have the always-online requirement?

I appreciate the level of detail the game has compared to the average single finger jump game. But!, I think Nintendo is late to the game on this one. Had this game been launched a few years back a different story would've been. I'm not saying this is the wrong move, it's just a little late. The ad didn't help either, I honestly thought it was something similar to the pokemon game, where you had to run to get points or something, idk.

Another 'Run" game - just what mobile gaming needed!

This will fit right along my daughters' other 96 run games.

/sarcasm

Has anyone done any reverse engineering to figure out what infrastructure this is running on?

I was a little confused to see an iOS release only - wasn't the thing built in Unity?

The homepage ad is amazing. It makes me want to put my phone away and play outside.

I have an iPhone 6 and immediately I started the game with no sound and apparently it is an issue with others. Uninstalled. http://wojdylosocialmedia.com/no-sound-audio-super-mario-run...

On iOS 10.2 it just craches as soon as it's opened. Not too impressed.

The video makes it look like it's similar to Pokémon GO.

A Yip, Yap, Ya-HOOO!

The App Store reviews are appalling though. How can people be so incredibly entitled I couldn't possibly understand.

Mario for the sheeples!

Game sucks. Mario is not Mario if he can not move left.

I'm inclined to ignore this as another game hitch hiking on the Mario name.

Have we reached 200 yet?

boo, no AR

Horrible game, extremely low quality, thoroughly disappointed from the first screen to the end of the first level where I was disconnected due to no internet connection (which I did have). Uninstalled.

Really a pity this wasn't released internationally!

My Pixel is ready... :/

2/5 stars.

A Mario-themed Flappy bird clone?

How it stands out of thousands of similar "runner" games in app store? Only by having the sprite of Mario in it. Nintendo is nothing more but trademark-selling company nowadays.

And lots of people buys it not because of nostalgia but because you must respect classics to claim you have good taste.

The world of mobile games is infinite bullshit.

I got really turned off when it was listed as "Free (with in-app purchases)". Turns out it's basically a 10 minute demo, after which you have to pay $9.99.

Maybe it's good, but deceptive enough I uninstalled it.