YMMV / Super Mario Maker 2

• Annoying Video Game Helper: Luigi can become annoying in the Story Mode, since he shows up whenever Mario has lost two of his lives on the current course and reminds him that he can always make the course easier. However, most of the time Mario isn't stuck at one obstacle and thus the items he offers you are unlikely to be helpful. The Version 1.1 update changed this by making his notices less intrusive.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Ironically, Bowser can fall into this often. Unlike all other boss-type enemies, he never enters an invulnerable state after taking damage, he's fairly slow to move and jump, and he has no particular tricks to watch out for (Roy's teleporting, Lemmy's speed, etc.). All he has over other bosses is higher HP. If the level gives players a Fire Flower, they can run up in his face, pelt him for a few seconds, and he's down.
• Anvilicious: The game's lesson section tells players multiple times that you should always make your levels fair to the player and don't build like a troll, otherwise no one will want to play them.
• Archive Panic: As before, there are so many courses it would take more than an entire lifetime to play all of them. It's growing even faster here, though. The original had 7 million courses in 8 months, this game reached 5 million in little over a month. Remember the previous game's estimated amount of possible, fun levels being 1.8x10^12431? One can imagine the new amount being much larger with the new features.
• Awesome Music:
  • Almost all music from the first game is carried over here, with additional pieces for the new environments. Furthermore, level builders now have a few themes from other Mario games to choose from for the music trigger aside from the previous installment's style-specific Bonus and Boss themes, including: Mario Circuit (Super Mario Kart), Slider (Super Mario 64), and one of the most awesome Mario themes ever made, Gusty Garden Galaxy (Super Mario Galaxy).
  • The main theme from Super Mario Land returns to a Mario platformer for the first time in 30 years, even though it only plays while Mario has the Superball power up. Relatedly, the Master Sword and SMB2 Mushroom (added via updates) bring back the iconic tunes from the NES-era The Legend of Zelda games and Super Mario Bros. 2 respectively.
  • The Snow theme in the SMB3 style is an upbeat, Christmas-y song that makes courses that much more enjoyable to play. And the Edit version of the music makes them fun to make as well.
  • The Forest theme in the SMW style is a slower-paced arrangement of the regular Overworld theme, fitting the aesthetic perfectly.
  • Another great addition is the SMW Desert theme, which is a dramatic minor-key Arabian style arrangement of the same leitmotif, featuring an accordion intro and bridge.
  • The 3.0.0 update finally enables makers to build world maps for their courses, with a design based on Super Mario World. There are eight themes to choose from, each with its own background music. The Ground, Underground, Forest and Volcano (Bowser) themes use their respective music from World. The Desert, Sky, and Snow themes, which weren't present in World, instead use music from the All Stars version of Super Mario Bros. 3, namely from World 2, World 4, and World 6, respectively. Finally, the music for the Space theme is brand-new, and very soothing and calming at that.
• Better as a Let's Play: The game has a very large community of fans that don't even play it themselves but love to watch dedicated streamers play the low-quality levels that random people have created. For this reason, many content creators attempt Super Expert No-Skip runs so that their viewers can watch them play through the horrors that await. Other sub-communities include Troll Levels (levels designed to make players look like idiots), Puzzle Levels (levels designed to test players' knowledge or problem-solving skills), and Kaizo Levels (Nintendo Hard levels designed for players to show off their reflexes and platforming skills).
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • "Bowser in a Box", a boss fight setup where it's just you versus (often giant) Bowser in an otherwise empty room, oftentimes with an infinite Fire Flower generator to make it more doable. It's widely hated because Bowser takes quite some punishment before he goes down, even if he isn't giant, and the Fire Flower is the most convenient attack to use, but this also removes most of the challenge from the fight and just leaves it feeling tedious. 3D World courses even use Meowser in this way, despite the fact that the boss wasn't designed for this purpose, but rather to be a nuisance hounding the player through a platforming sequence; see Goddamned Boss for more detail as to how annoying "Meowser in a Box" is.
  • Levels like the Story Mode's "Dash On, Dash Off", where the player needs to keep running and hitting On/Off switches with a series of precision jumps. Many players have quickly lost patience with these, due to how many people would make them, their usual high difficulty, and the fact that most of them come out feeling very similar to each other.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Spike Balls/Iron Balls follow your movements in the Ground theme at night. However, they tend to shatter when they hit a wall. When they're tossed by a Spike and become aerial, however, is when the real fun begins (at least in the SMB1 and SMB3 styles). They stalk your every movement with near-perfect accuracy, and unlike winged Boos, which do something similar, they have no "warm-up" period. Following you also means they're less likely to crash into walls and shatter. When part of a Flunky Boss setup, they can be very aggravating indeed.
  • The 3.0 update introduces Phantos, who are just as relentless as they were in the original, if not more so. Not only do they constantly fly at you in an erratic fashion, their threat status is magnified by their complete invulnerability and the fact that unlike in Mario 2, you can't drop the key to make them ease off their pursuit.
  • The Blasta Mechakoopa, one of two variants also introduced in the 3.0 update, aren't that much of a hassle on their own, but when enlarged, they can become a real problem. They attack with homing missiles that function like a Bulls-Eye Bill, with one key difference; these projectiles explode. In more open levels, this isn't so bad, but in boss fights or less spacious levels, they can become a nightmare due to their large blast radius; you have to stomp them before they blow up right behind you. At least you can trick them into hurting the boss they're supposed to be helping.
  • Meanwhile, the Zappa Mechakoopa, the other variant introduced in the same update, is just a hassle in general, especially if they come in packs. They utilize a laser beam that travels up to 20 blocks; when small, they have an annoying niche in "electrified floor" boss fights; when big, the laser beam suddenly becomes a hard to avoid Wave-Motion Gun. Especially cruel players can mount the big ones on something fast like a Monty Mole to effectively create a Guardian Stalker.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: One of the Yamamura's Dojo videos about treating the player fairly discourages unfair or unexpected traps, but throws a wrench into the lesson when Yamamura can't stop laughing after Nina gets nailed by a Thwomp from offscreen. From there, the lesson basically becomes "it's hilarious to you as the level creator to see how people get pranked by cheap things, but please don't use them in your level".
• Even Better Sequel: A given, since as its core it's like the first game but much more expansive, and fleshed-out with thousands more possibilities for levels as a result. Highlights include an added game style, features that were frequently requested for the first game (such as slopes, vertical areas and more level themes), new parts and assets that inspire new ideas for gimmicks and contraptions, and technical improvements like shorter codes for levels, not needing to have your levels voted positively in order to upload more levels, and the fact that unpopular levels are no longer deleted. The game's content updates were also more significant than those of the original game, as they not only added new assets for level making but also full new modes like Ninji Speedruns and World Maker (in comparison, the only new mode added in the first game post-release was Super Expert difficulty, which was more like a way to alleviate the pool of hard levels in Expert Mode). The only points of contention are the online multiplayer mode (due to issues with lag and stability) and the removal of Mystery Mushroom costumes and the 100 Mario Challenge.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The Angry Sun in the New Super Mario Bros. U style doesn't look very angry, prompting a name you may have heard from at least a few fans: the Indifferent Sun.
  • The Angry Sun's new moon counterpart is officially just called "Moon" but is often called the Happy Moon by the fandom due to its smiling face in comparison to the Sun's angry scowl.
  • Thanks to a line in the Super Mario Maker 2 Direct, Boom Boom is commonly called "Mad Lad".
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Pre-release footage showed that the Twister enemy newly created for Super Mario Maker 2 boasted a cute design akin to the Foo enemies introduced in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, shown in both the Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U game styles. However, when the final game released, the design had been completely altered...to just be a white ball with eyes. Why the design was swapped out for a much less interesting one prior to launch is unclear, but it makes the Twisters far more bland.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Red Yoshi functions as a terrestrial Fire Clown Car (fires a fireball, fires 3 if you have a Fire Flower equipped), but his can go through walls, something that even the Charged Shot of the OG Fire Clown Car can't do. He also is much more mobile than the Clown Car, as it's about as fast as Mario's walking speed and rather slow to change direction, which is more suited for an Unexpected Shmup Level. When combined with said Fire Car and a Fire Flower, Red Yoshi gives you six shots, at the cost of being a One-Hit-Point Wonder, meaning you can blow out a torrent of wall-bypassing death at your leisure.
  • In SMB3 and SMB1, Red Yoshi is replaced with the big Goomba Shoe/Siloetto. While the Big Shoe/Siloetto is plenty powerful in itself, placing it in the Fire Car, along with obtaining the Fire Flower, allows you to fire three charged shots that pass through walls and enemies alike, at the cost on making your hitbox a bit bigger.
  • The new Dry Bones Shell. Not only can you move safely on Lava, but you're also temporarily invulnerable while Crouching.
  • Link's items can fall under this. His shield can either defeat or deflect almost any enemy or obstacle in the game, included but not limited to: Munchers, Thwomps, Banzai Bills, or even Bowser Jr.'s shell! This allows you to parry attacks and, if it's a boss, bounce them back so you can get the jump on them. The other is his sword dash, which lasts infinitely when charged up fully, makes you invincible, and the only drawback is that you can't turn around, allowing Link to go full bore Peppino on anything in his way. But bombs take the cake by far; having an unlimited supply of something that can destroy bricks, hard blocks, ice blocks, and ? blocks can make almost any puzzle involving those types of blocks so utterly cheesable it's all but impossible to design them with Link in the level, and anything hidden in ? Blocks can easily be lost, which, if required to progress, makes the level Unwinnable.
• Gameplay Derailment:
  • In co-op, it's possible to abuse spawning on your teammates, using the few seconds of Mercy Invincibility you receive to cheese your way through hard parts.
  • A fairly popular style of gameplay in co-op mode is "Toads vs Bros.", where despite all being on a team, the players divide themselves based on the character they're assigned, forming two teams of two: Toad and Toadette versus Mario and Luigi. The winners are whatever team has a character reach the goal first.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • Meowser replaces Bowser in the 3D World style, making him the go-to boss character for many course makers. Unlike his classic counterpart, who mostly just jumps around and breathes fire, Meowser frequently leaps right out of the boss arena where he can't be hit, only to pop up from the foreground or do an invincible somersault attack. During this stage he's completely invulnerable (even trying to trick him into jumping into lava doesn't work this time), all while the timer steadily ticks down. It's even worse if you give him wings, as he will periodically fly into the background to launch a fireball barrage; Winged Meowser spends less than half of the battle in a state where you can actually hit him. Combine that with the fact that fireballs, boomerangs and/or cannonballs are all but mandatory to beat him (beating him with the Cat Suit or Super Hammer without getting hit is nearly impossible) and you've got a nasty chokepoint in your stage. A mandatory Meowser fight with time running out can easily be a Luck-Based Mission.
  • Iggy Koopa's habit of erratically jogging back and forth makes him a deceptively annoying enemy to stomp.
• Good Bad Bugs: Frequently found and just as frequently squashed, much like in the first game, and overtly using one in a level will likely get it deleted. One high-profile example is the use of a shell and a noteblock to launch a sideways thwomp rapidly upwards for a fast elevator or reverse vertical thwomping shenanigans.
• Harsher in Hindsight: At one point in the game's story mode, Toadette blames the union for her employees being lazy. While intended to be a minor joke, it has become a lot less funny In light of Nintendo of America being accused of preventing workers from unionizing.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • After being a glorified extra in the first game, Luigi gets the billing he deserves in this game. Toad and Toadette also ascend from being bit characters.
  • Peach kisses Mario after he rebuilds her castle at the end of story mode, and Mario is overjoyed.
• Just Here for Godzilla: In case the complaints about how it wasn't initially in the game didn't make it clear, the fact that this is the first official Mario platformer to allow online play with your friends has pulled in quite a few people.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "There, we added slopes. Now can you guys shut up and stop whining about it?!"^ExplanationWhile being a continuation of the "Let's See YOU Do Better!" meme with the first game, literally the first new feature revealed for the game were slopes, which were memetic for being absent in the first game.
  • The Wii U Killer^ExplanationUp until the trailer released, the original game was the only reason some users had held on to their Wii U consoles. After the trailer dropped, many joked that it was time to take the Wii U off its life support since they now had no incentive to keep it anymore.
  • "You fuckin' make it then if you're so goddamn smart 2"^ExplanationA continuation/sequel of the original "Let's See YOU Do Better!" meme, containing the same quote but with a "2" at the end.
  • Boom Boom is a mad lad. ^ExplanationBoom Boom was referred to as a "mad lad," already a memetic phrase, in the Super Mario Maker 2 Direct.
  • Extra Game Styles ^ExplanationAfter the May 2019 Direct of Super Mario Maker 2 showed off a suspicious empty space next to the Super Mario 3D World style under this header, which is thought to imply multiple special game styles, fans decided to Photoshop several unlikely new styles such as Minecraft or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (here). Unfortunately, there was no new extra game style added after 3D World.
  • "Heya, Big Bro! If you're having trouble with a course, use some assist parts!"◊^ExplanationAdding Luigi's Annoying Video Game Helper prompt to a set of instructions, signs, or illustrations that shows how to do something, how not to do something, or provides an example of Epic Fail.
  • The Indifferent Sun ^ExplanationA Fan Nickname given to the Angry Sun in the New Super Mario Bros. U style, where it doesn't look as angry as the older styles, instead looking like it's contemplating life.
  • Sans Eraser ^ExplanationMr. Eraser has a blue/white color scheme, somewhat violent tendencies, and a monologue on morality, all of which quickly led to Undertale fans comparing him to resident Fountain of Memes Sans.
  • Koopa Car Horn ^ExplanationSpecifically, the fact that the horn sounds identical to the infamous MLG airhorn sound.
  • [part] Gang ^Explanation For reasons unknown, a popular comment is to just take the gizmo, enemy, or the like where you're standing and make a comment that adds "gang" to it, and that's all. May be to invoke Interface Screw, especially on speedrun levels.
  • Bowser in a box. ^ExplanationA negative way of referring to the common boss fight setup of a Bowser in a single room with infinitely spawning fire flowers. Not only is it non-threatening thanks to the infinitely spawning powerups, but it's also incredibly tedious since Bowser (especially giant Bowser) soaks up fireballs like nobody's business. The boxes are often hastily scrawled without taking advantage of scroll stop, so the background can be seen outside of the box and the camera freely scrolls around as Mario moves. While this was a common thing in SMM1 too, the increased player count of SMM2 has made this setup even more extremely prevalent.
  • say sike right now ^ExplanationAn image of a sleeping Blue Piranha Creeper with the phrase above it, used to convey shock over an off-putting revelation.
  • minecraft; the way home ^ExplanationThe name of a completely nonsensical level that ended up being played by Alpharad during an endless normal playthrough. It quickly took off in the Mario Maker scene because of just how little the name of the level has to do with the actual level itself.
  • 1-1 with a twist ^ExplanationWhile recreating the classic world 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. is not uncommon in Mario Maker, this meme is named after one of the most infamous examples from the creator YTSunny: a level where the only change is the presence of fire bars everywhere. This level has since become popular fodder on both Twitter and YouTube, with creators like Video Game Dunkey and James Rolfe making videos of them playing it. It even garnered its own entry on Know Your Meme.
  • The Slider anti-softlock room ^ExplanationA common feature in troll levels is for the creator to trap someone in a room with no way of escaping save for figuring out a complex contraption that kills the player, while often having to avoid a stream of infinite powerups which resets the player's progress. A large number of these use the secret slide music from Super Mario 64 to drive the player mad on top of being frustrated that they can't kill themself.
  • WAHOO! ^ExplanationOne of the predefined messages you can send in multiplayer is this. For some reason, it's primarily used to be sarcastic; for example, if you die in a silly way, or the level's poorly designed, or the match is incredibly laggy, you can call it a WAHOO moment and drop one of these.
  • "Nice work." ^ExplanationOne of the messages you can send. Because of its ambiguity, it gets used for both genuine and sarcastic moments of praise.
  • Lemmy's balls ^Explanation During experimentation videos with the 3.0 parts, a popular question was to see how Lemmy Koopa's projectiles interacted with various other Parts. However, since they projectiles in question are giant inflatable bouncy balls, fans started referring to them as "Lemmy's balls" when proposing an experiment (i.e "Can Lemmy's balls push down a P-Switch?") It's not hard to figure out why they refer to them as such.
  • "Remember the Snake Block?" ^ExplanationA phrase uttered in the Super Mario Maker 2 Direct, followed by a long extended silence. Became a minor meme among fans shortly after.
  • Little Timmy ^ExplanationIt's become somewhat popular to refer to really poor quality levels, particularly those with things just spread everywhere and no coherent theme, as "Little Timmy levels" or "levels made by little Timmy", as a tongue-in-cheek reference to how said levels are presumably made by young kids who don't know any better. In instances where literal children make good levels, they're sometimes endearingly referred to as Big Timothy.
  • "Nintendo, hire this man!" ^ExplanationA carryover of a meme poking fun at people who overzealously hold up Unreal Engine demos of Nintendo characters in photorealistic test environments as better-looking than actual Nintendo games, often quoted in reference to user-submitted levels both jokingly and as an earnest compliment.
• Memetic Psychopath: Mr. Eraser, since his missions involve Mario killing enemies for money. While it makes sense, since he's an eraser, the last mission involves breaking into Pom Pom's house and killing her, while Eraser warns you that it might be a trap. It's not...
• Memetic Troll: Bowser Jr. has gained this reputation thanks to this game, thanks to his 'Easy!' Post mark commonly being abused by Trolls to block out certain parts of the stage where being able to see where to jump is incredibly important. Peach also gets this somewhat, for similar reasons. Thankfully, the comments can be turned off.
• Narm: Levels that makers intend to be "Horror-themed" tend to overdo it with scream/static/shock/distortion sound effects, which downplays the intended scares.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • One of the enemies available in the Super Mario 3D World style is the Porcupuffer. New to this game, Porcupuffers now behave like the Boss Bass/Big Bertha in Super Mario Bros. 3 and will try to swallow Mario whole, killing him instantly. Porcupuffers also violently explode when defeated with a Fire Flower. The fact that the story mode stage "Threat Level: Porcupuffer" has one of them make the screaming sound effect when defeated (and it has to be defeated with a Fire Flower) makes it all the worse.
  • In addition to the inclusion of Link and the Master Sword in the 2.0 update of the game, the music changes to iconic tunes from The Legend of Zelda when playing as him. While playing on most level themes with the Master Sword results in the Zelda overworld or underworld music playing, in the Airship and Castle themes, the music changes to the menacing and discordant Death Mountain theme.
  • The 3.0 update brings Phanto into the game via the Cursed Key item, and brings all the already existing nightmare fuel that goes with it due to it functioning and looking just as it did in the original game. Even worse, they're now completely immune to the Super Star, which was the only thing that could kill them in their original game.
• Older Than They Think: The second NES Remix has a snowy version of a Super Mario Bros. level, albeit with different tiles.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Twisters are difficult to use by players and makers alike. For players, they shoot you up very far very quickly, and at the height of the twister you bop up and down. This makes it tricky to jump out of them and requires careful timing, and avoiding them is very difficult because of the cone-shaped hitbox of the twister, which can pick you up and scoop you into it even if you're not actually above the source. For makers, Twisters are considered a Gizmo party, not an object or enemy, which places a lot of restrictions on how they can be used — they can't be enlarged or given wings, placed in blocks or spawning objects, can't be placed on tracks, and can't be killed by conventional methods.
  • Castle and Forest levels must have lava/water in them, and those hazards cannot be used in other level themes. This limits a lot of creativity in designing levels where you want the opposite. This is especially frustrating when you see the water in the background of the Super Mario 3D World ground theme and New Super Mario Bros. U underground theme (it's even highlighted in the latter).
  • In the base styles, you can't enable the night themes without also enabling their effects, which can be annoying for someone who wants to use the night aesthetics/music but can't since the effects would interfere with their course's design.
  • Snake Blocks can become a hassle to set up because there's no way to change the path you set it on without undoing the entire path after that point. If you set up a long Snake Block segment and want to change something toward the beginning of the path, you'll need to draw most of its path over again.
  • When uploading a course, you have to clear it from both the starting position and any checkpoints placed, and respawn from those points if you die. While this requirement is in place to stop makers from uploading Unwinnable by Design levels, the restriction has a major oversight, that being that playing from the checkpoints during the upload check is treated as though they're your starting point, and any progress up to them isn't saved. This places a severe restriction of the usage of red coins and keys, because if you place such things before the checkpoint and cannot backtrack to get them, the level is unwinnable during the upload check, even though a player playing the level normally would retain their keys and red coins if they had to start from the checkpoint. This also means that for any sort of level where the maker doesn't expect players to be able to finish it in a single attempt, like an open world level or an exceptionally long level, the maker does have to finish it in a single attempt, possibly up to three times if they use two checkpoints. This also means there are functional limits on how large levels can be since any level you upload has to be playable from start to finish in under 500 seconds.^note While these can be bypassed with "developer exits" where the maker hides a key in an invisible block that takes them to the end of the level, such a tactic will likely be found and pointed out for future players, and it's generally frowned upon.
  • There are many arbitrary restrictions on the behaviors of enemies — Dry Bones will throw bones in the Super Mario World theme but not in other themes, and in the same theme there are only Jumping Piranha Plants and not the normal kind, and in any course style a Cheep Cheep with wings won't actually fly and will drop to the bottom of the screen. While some of these changes are intentional to properly mimic the play in the original game, it's still restricting that identical enemies may act totally different depending on the game style, or that enemy behaviors that were in the original games (Dry Bones that didn't throw bones, Cheep Cheeps that flew horizontally) can't be recreated here.
  • The Koopa Car generally gets flack for various reasons, including being used to make uninteresting levels, moving very slowly for a car, and not having brakes (so the only way to stay still is to turn around repeatedly).
  • For some reason, it's impossible to unlike or like a course after already pressing either button. This leads to levels that you don't like appearing in your favorites or harming a level that you actually liked. Trolls will do this all the time and others will keep doing it by accident due to how rush-prone everyone can be.
  • Multiplayer:
    • The multiplayer versus/co-op modes lacked functionality to create an online room to play with Nintendo Switch friends when the game first launched, only letting you play locally with friends or online with strangers. Thankfully, online play with friends was promised and added in a post-launch update.
    • A few mechanics that work fine for single-player stages can become Scrappy in multiplayer, such as keys (which tend to turn levels that contain them into extended fights amongst the players to steal them and open the door first), rising lava or poison (which can prevent a player who dies from respawning if it covers the level entrance or checkpoint), earned/Bowser Flag clear conditions like coin collecting or enemy killing (which will inevitably result in everyone camping by the goal to steal the clear condition from whoever finishes it), On/Off Blocks (where players will very likely hit them multiple times, causing a chaotic mess in co-op), or bosses (which cause a chokepoint that will kill any lead a player set during the rest of the level). Snake Blocks are especially terrible in both co-op and competitive modes; falling off a Snake Block or missing it as someone triggers it in co-op means you're either forced to wait for the Snake Block to respawn after it reaches the end of its path or kill yourself and respawn next to the player that made it past the blocks. In competitive mode, whoever gets to the Snake Block first will usually gain a big lead most of the time, since the other players can't catch up due to only one Snake Block spawning at a time.
    • Unlike in single-player, getting powerups or taking damage in online play freezes you, but not the level, which can mess up cycles or timing-based things or cause other players to pull ahead of you, especially in levels where multiple different powerups are everywhere. What makes this more egregious is that if you're in a cloud or Koopa (Clown) Car, the game does allow you to collect powerups or get hit without freezing, and other games like Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and the versus mode of New Super Mario Bros. have shown that it's perfectly possible to have no freezing on powerup collection and still have the game work.
    • Multiplayer will involve a lot of bumping into other players and jumping off each other's heads. This can easily ruin your momentum and cause you to either fall into a pit or run head first into enemies.
    • Any course with puzzles. Impatient players or those who aren't trying to solve the puzzles can make the whole experience become soured for everyone and can easily run out the clock. Even if all the players are trying to solve it, Reset Doors (two doors set near each other so that one can reset a puzzle if they botch it) don't work online, so if the players screw up and make the course Unwinnable, they'll have to restart.
    • In multiplayer, a level can't be reset unless every player votes to. If one player doesn't vote, everyone will either be stuck or have to give up and quit the match. Checkpoints can’t help because objects that would normally reset upon dying don’t in multiplayer; The only way to reset states is to change sub-areas, but this only works for enemies and objects. Blocks will remain hit or destroyed.
    • The timer only resets in multiplayer if everyone votes to restart the level. This can be a problem if you now have to re-do the same sections with reduced time, especially since entities like bosses can respawn if all players leave an area.
    • Platforming that relies on using a P-Switch to turn coins into bricks can be a disaster waiting to happen in multiplayer. Because there will always be someone wanting to collect coins, they'll snag the coins needed to make a platform with the P-Switch, thus the level becomes impossible to complete since coins don't regenerate (P-Blocks were introduced in the 2.0 update to rectify this in future levels).
    • P-Switches which reveal doors can also grind to a halt if the door and the P-Switch are in separate places, especially if they are upside down (and therefore can't be moved): the player that finds the P-Switch won't press it as they'll be an immediate disadvantage and the rest of the players will camp out at the door waiting for the player that found the P-Switch to press it.
    • Transitions have some problems in multiplayer. As mentioned, Reset Doors don't work online, because everyone has to leave the room for its state to reset. Similarly, because the state doesn't reset unless everyone leaves the room, it's possible for a door that leads elsewhere in the same room to be blocked by rising lava, poison, or something else if the obstacle has already blocked the exit, halting everyone's progress. Additionally, unlike in offline mode, the world does not freeze when transitioning with a door or pipe, so if the exit was set to be blocked in some way after you continue, that often results in the path blocker getting in the way early and shutting down the level entirely.
  • Multiplayer Versus:
    • While there is a Multiplayer Versus tag and levels have a Versus Rating separate from their main one, all courses are uploaded to a single pool, so a level specifically made for Versus can show up in Endless and Versus players will get levels that have the problems in the points above. Co-op is hit hardest though, as there are no tags or endless modes made for co-op play, and a level that cannot be completed in single-player cannot be uploaded at all without building contraptions that detect the number of players. ^note This includes Round II of Nintendo's own 2019 invitational, which has an alternate path for single-player.
    • In Multiplayer Versus, players can avoid a significant Versus Rating loss by reaching the flagpole just after the player who reaches it first does, this would be a nice Anti-Frustration measure to reward players who almost won but it isn't available in all styles and can only happen in the styles that have flagpoles, so if you're playing a Super Mario World or Super Mario Bros. 3 level, too bad, the developers didn't account for that and you're out of luck.
    • The whole mode can be seen as a big Scrappy Mechanic by itself, as even though Multiplayer Versus is touted as a supposedly skill-based mode, a lot of it relies on luck outside the player's control and the Randomly chosen User Generated Content is not appropriate for this kind of ranked mode. The quality (or lack thereof) of the randomly-picked levels, the connections of the players you're matched with^note The game uses a delay-based netcode, which consists in freezing the game for everyone and delaying all inputs by the necessary number of frames to match accordingly with their online opponent with the weakest connection, suffice to say, this is by far not a good way to add online to a game like this. (which can make you drop a crucial jump input), which character you're randomly assigned (and therefore, where you start in the beginning box —and you might get a level where if you aren't first out of the box you can't catch up—), getting a level that isn't optimized for or has things that just don't work in multiplayer; can all severely affect the outcome of this mode. Ultimately, everything can and will go wrong in this mode.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Even if they aren't a level requirement, some players take it upon themselves to collect any big coin they see if possible.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Whereas the 10 Mario Challenge in the first game consisted primarily of short, easy courses (with the exception of the hidden NWC courses), and the 3DS version's Super Mario Challenge was longer (both by virtue of having many more courses, and these in turn being longer) but still easy until the last two worlds, the Story Mode in Maker 2 likely stands as the hardest 2D Mario game since Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels—courses frequently rely on precise platforming and timing and utilize unconventional and difficult-to-grasp gimmicks (with the "Don't Touch the Ground" courses being particularly notorious). And while generally avoiding outright Platform Hell, it often shows a degree of active player cruelty that tends to be absent from the New Super Mario Bros. series other than the special worlds in the console games and the Nintendo Hard New Super Mario Bros. U Challenges.
• Shocking Moments: After the first game introducing Mystery Mushrooms and them being removed in the second, fans thought there was no way they could top that. Following the update 2.0 announcement, and not only does an alternate costume appear in the form of Link, he also is his own playable character with his own playstyle using his sword, bombs, and arrows.
• That One Level: Some of the Story Mode levels can be surprisingly difficult without warning. Some of the most notorious ones include:
  • "No Jumping Allowed!" takes the most basic mechanic from the series away from you. You cannot jump a single time (unless you grab the flag before you land), and if you do, you will automatically fail the level. It's not just jumping - falling off a ledge or even stepping down a single block is instant failure. Mario's feet cannot leave the ground under any circumstances or it's a failed level for you.
  • "Chain Chomp Chiller", Undodog’s final job, takes the same concept as "No Jumping Allowed!", only this time you have to run past a whole field of Unchained Chomps without any use of headgear to protect yourself from them. While the winged Chomps have a higher jump, allowing a bigger (but still not an awfully big) timeframe for you to run past them, the final parts of the level pit you against Unchained Chomps without wings, leaving you only some springs for you to use, meaning you either have to backtrack to get more springs, or run at nearly pixel-perfect timing. Assist Mode might just be the only thing that'll get you through this level if you're not very good at dealing with Unchained Chomps.
  • "Dash On, Dash Off" is one of those levels where you have to, as suggested by the name, rush through it and activate ON/OFF switches, and perhaps jumping over some large gaps. What adds to the challenge is there's a strict 30-second time limit, and you better not screw around as much or otherwise, the timer will run out on you by the time you make that jump to the last switch.
  • "Super Mario Bros. W1-1?", a job offered to you by Peach once you've completed every other job, purports itself as a remake of 1-1. You immediately face a Hammer Bro, a stack of Goombas, and some Thwomps once you start the level, and the road to the flagpole does not let up from there. Peach does not kid around when she says "creating this brand of chaos is Bowser's specialty".
  • "March of the Rookie Toads", another job offered by Peach, tasks you with bringing ten Toads over to the goalpole, who follow either you to your very move, or behind another Toad doing the same thing, who can get trapped in a bubble in one hit. If that doesn't sound hectic enough, Fire Piranha Plants on Lakitu Clouds also show up as well, meaning if you aren't very careful with how you jump, half of the time you'll spend on this level is dealing with the Toads who were caught by the Sun swooping down on them, if they weren't caught by a stray Goomba or any other enemy that shows up throughout the level.
  • "Get Over It!" is a very, very frustrating level. You have to wall jump down a course while avoiding obstacles while the screen scrolls downward. It’s even worse because you can only take a single hit.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Anything pertaining to online Multiplayer Versus (such as the Fireworks shirt or the gear tied to rank) can be excruciatingly irritating. Everything, from the quality (or lack thereof) of the randomly-picked levels, to the connections of the players you're matched with^note The game uses a delay-based netcode, which consists in freezing the game for everyone and delaying all inputs by the necessary number of frames to match accordingly with their online opponent with the weakest connection, suffice to say, this is by far not a good way to add online to a game like this., to which character you're randomly assigned (and therefore, where you start in the beginning box) can have an effect. You might get a level where if you aren't first out of the box you can't catch up, or you might drop a jump input to a choppy connection, or you might play a level that isn't optimized for or has things that just don't work in multiplayer, but everything can and will go wrong in this mode.
  • Clearing 100 courses in a Super Expert Endless run for the edamame shirt. The first game's 100-Mario Challenge gave you 100 lives to do 6 courses. This game gives you 30 lives to do 100, and you can only gain up to 3 extra lives for each completed level, if the course's maker decides to offer them. It takes a lot of course skipping and luck to even get to double digits, on top of great skill.
  • Getting Bronze, Silver, and Gold Ribbons and the associated outfits. In order to obtain those, you have to get to the third, second, and first place, respectively, on any leaderboard. The "easiest" and most reliable ways to do that are also the most tedious — get the highest number of First Clears, or get the longest streak in one of the Endless Challenges. A far less tedious way is to become the most popular maker in the past seven days. In theory, this is simple — just have a sufficiently high-profile streamer Let's Play one of your courses, hoping their followers will propel it to the weekly Popular Courses list, and then you to the weekly Popular Makers list. In practice, however, you'll probably have better luck hoping a sufficiently high-profile streamer stumbles upon one of your courses while Let's Playing an Endless Challenge. Unfortunately, the ribbons, like the medals, are temporary — once you drop out of the leaderboards, you lose the ribbons. At least you keep the outfits, so you can crown yourself a king or queen in your shiny new sparkling Royal outfit.
  • Getting the Dash Block Sweater requires a beating total of one thousand endless easy levels. Literally a grand of the most tedious, basic courses the game has to offer. It’ll be hours at least, and SMM2 YouTuber Desbug spent over a year and a half on his quest.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The fact that one needs a Nintendo Switch Online membership to be able to play online (including Course World, which is the bulk of the game) was by far the biggest new thing that wasn't well received, mainly because Nintendo is charging players money for something that was previously free and the fact that Nintendo Switch Online is a controversial addition to begin with. Multiplayer also frequently faces lag problems (to the point where you'll sometimes be facing Bullet Time), even with good internet connections^note The game uses a delay-based netcode, which consists in freezing the game for everyone and delaying all inputs by the necessary number of frames to match accordingly with their online opponent with the weakest connection, suffice to say, this is by far not a good way to add online to a game like this., making people mock the game's online with comparisons to PowerPoint slideshows and wonder why they have to pay for something that's so poorly optimized.
  • The apparent replacement of the 100-Mario Challenge with the "Endless Challenge" caused some mixed reactions, mainly because — as the name implies — the new mode is endless, playing on and on arcade-style until you run out of lives. Instead of trying to get through a set number of levels to rescue Peach, this mode has no goal besides beating high scores, so it's a pretty significant change. This was fixed in the 3.0 update with the Super Worlds.
  • Objects can no longer be placed over the arrow sign and surrounding area behind the starting point, which makes certain styles of levels harder to make, such as automatic levels^note Previously, one could place a tracked block or spring just behind Mario to immediately push him into the automaton, not requiring the player to take any action at all, but especially single-screen levels without resorting to piping Mario to the sub-area and building there instead. The reason this is done is for the starting box in multiplayer.
  • The lack of amiibo support and mystery costumes. One of the most popular features of the original Super Mario Maker was to use costumes in the Super Mario Bros.-style and have fun playing as a huge variety of characters, including ones on your amiibo. The announcement that this feature would not return in the sequel disappointed many, especially since the Nintendo Switch has amiibo functionality. It's likely they were removed because of the new multiplayer aspect where either only one player would be allowed to transform ^note (unfair) and/or because all players would be sharing the same sprites. ^note (frustrating) However, as of the 2.0 update, this is no longer the case for Link, who features palette swaps for all characters.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • 152 of them^note with the exception of Link as of the December 2019 update, to be precise. The omission of the Mystery Mushrooms strips creators of the ability to add other Nintendo characters to their levels, especially those who were looking forward to making levels like Donkey Kong in a forest level, or the Ice Climbers in a snow level. It's likely they were scrapped because multiplayer would require Nintendo to make multiple Palette Swaps for 152 characters.^note Besides, legal issues wouldn't allow them to do so anyways.
  • Though she's present in the game's manual, Mary O. is strangely absent from the game's story mode despite several of the other original characters like Undodog, Mr. Eraser, and Yamamura making appearances. This also extends to her substitute, Nina.
  • The Moon is not compatible with the Super Mario 3D World style, so no night versions of level themes to be found here.
  • Fire Bros. and Porcupuffers are both enemies that have existed for as long as Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, respectively, yet they're stuck in the Super Mario 3D World style. The Porcupuffer case is especially blatant because, when it is put in the surface, it will chase the player and will jump to swallow him whole, the same thing that its Super Mario Bros. 3 counterpart, Boss Bass, does.
  • Chargin' Chucks are absent altogether from the game, which is odd considering they were mooks in both Super Mario World and Super Mario 3D World. Considering they converted enemies like Magikoopas and Monty Moles to even the Super Mario Bros. game style, some people think they should have been added in an update.
  • Several enemies such as Cheep Chomps and Conkdors appear in the background in various level themes, but not as level parts.
  • Meowser is a fun addition, and appropriately unique to the Super Mario 3D World style... but he can't be turned back into regular Bowser for this style.
  • Initially, Princess Peach was Demoted to Extra. While she got a break from getting kidnapped, her only appearances were seeing her completed castle at the end of Story Mode, and wishing Mario luck on his journey in the Endless Challenge. As of the 3.0 update, she once again fulfills her traditional role as a Damsel in Distress in the new Super Worlds, but she still hasn't become playable despite the game having both a Super Mario 3D World style and a Super Mario Bros. 2 mushroom. With Toadette has effectively replacing her as the "girl" character as well as the Damsel in Distress in the main plot.
  • Rescuing Toads, a gameplay facet similar to collecting Red Coins, is a mission style exclusive to the Story Mode as of this writing, and players hope that it will be patched into the main game in the future. Relatedly, there's also the Story Mode-exclusive Stone part, which has glaring potential as a puzzle element, being what's effectively a block affected by gravity. Several clear conditions, such as climbing all trees in a 3D World course and not being grabbed by a Swinging Claw, are exclusive to Story Mode as well.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Soundfrog has a surprisingly humanoid build, which looks very jarring with their rather cutesy-looking head. The Story Mode reveals a zipper on their back, suggesting it's an unknown character in a suit.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • While the original game had all built-in levels use the same tools that the player has access to, this game has a few tools exclusive to the Story Mode. Toads (running into a Toad gets them to follow Mario, and if they get hit they get trapped in a bubble and float back towards their initial location) and stone blocks (carryable like a POW Block/crate, but are indestructible and heavily limit Mario's running speed and jump height) are only seen in Story Mode levels that involve taking them to the goal and aren't ever unlocked for the player to use. There's also a few Clear Conditions that the player gets no access to, such as the ones tied to Toads and stone blocks, as well as the ones used in "Hold Your Breath" (reach the goal without exiting the water), "Swinging Claw Escape" (reach the goal without getting grabbed by a Swinging Claw), and "Treetop Fireballs" (reach the goal after doing a handstand on each tree).
  • As of the 3.0 update, the concept of "Extra Game Styles" has become this, as the announced "final major update" includes no new styles, leaving 3D World as the only one in that category despite the plural in the menu banner.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Who thought we would ever see the return of Superball Mario? Not only is it from a very old game, but said game is well-known for very rarely being represented in Mario games due to its nature.
  • Undodog appearing in the Story Mode was a shock. For one, he's just a menu option and has never interacted any of with the Mario cast before. And he's in 2D, even in a 3D environment. This also extends to the other menu options that appear as characters, such as Mr. Eraser and Soundfrog.
  • Goombrats, weird persimmon-like Goombas (their only mechanical difference is that Goombrats don't walk off ledges, like red Koopa Troopas to green ones) that made only a few appearances in New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario Run, have gotten added as enemies for the four base styles. They even got a brand new variant in the form of Goombuds, plant-like Goombrats that are the Goombrat counterparts to Super Mario World's Galoombas.
  • With the removal of Mystery Mushrooms, it seems that character selection would be limited to Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Toadette. Then came the December 5th update, which introduced the Master Sword item, allowing you to play as Link. And unlike his old Mystery Mushroom costume, he has plenty of unique abilities — his sword, shield, bombs, arrows, and Pegasus Boots are all at your disposal.
  • Ninji, an enemy from Super Mario Bros. 2 that has very sporadic appearances in the series, makes his starring role in a new game mode released in the 2.0 update. Fellow Subcon mook Phanto was added in the 3.0 update, being the guardian of the Cursed Keys, which came off as even more shocking since it hadn't appeared at all in any capacity outside its source game or its remakes (barring a cosmetic reference in a Mario Kart 7 course).
• Win Back the Crowd: The updates won back fans who had lost interest in droves. The first update implements various quality-of-life improvements on the game's local multiplayer and level editing. The second one adds several new course parts (among them Link as a playable character via a power-up, and he has a unique move to allow for tons of new potential in level design and Zelda-themed maps) and a dedicated speedrun mode. The third update adds a World Maker, so fans who wanted to make their own playable games now have the ability to put them all together at last, and alongside several new power-ups and other additions, it adds the Koopalings as bosses, which fans have been calling for a long time and allowing tons of new boss fight-focused levels as each Koopaling has different types of attacks.

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