Review: Captain Toad Treasure Tracker

Nintendo hits the nail on the head once again with their newest release for Wii U, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.  What started out as a small smattering of mini-games in a flagship Mario title for Wii U, is now a fully fleshed out, new franchise for the lovable Nintendo supporting character, Toad.  There is so much to love about Captain Toad, it is cute, charming, and above all else fun.  Like most other first-party Nintendo releases, there is a ton of detail and quality throughout the entirety of Captain Toad.

With so much going for Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, it is hard to pick a place to begin so let’s start with the basics.  Captain Toad looks and feels so great when playing the game.  The quality of the sound design, music, gameplay, graphics, and other aspects of the game are almost flawless.  The controls are also ridiculously easy.  In fact Captain Toad quite possibly one of the shortest ‘tutorials’ of any game that I’ve ever played.  Before reaching the title screen for Captain Toad, players are thrown right into a tutorial type mini level to let players explore the controls.  This was a bit unusual for me at first and I found myself confused as to what was going on until I began fiddling with the GamePad.  Completing said tutorial ‘unlocks’ the title screen for Captain Toad.

Nintendo has included a few other new and unique features like the aforementioned tutorial in Captain Toad.  One of the most notable is the addition of interactive cut-scenes.  The cut-scenes in Captain Toad often start with players moving Captain Toad down a predefined path to trigger the cut-scene.  While this isn’t particularly groundbreaking, I found it to be a refreshing take on the snore fest that we currently experience in modern game releases.  Another great bonus is unlocked for those who complete Captain Toad or simply have Super Mario 3D World save data on their Wii U.  There are unlockable Super Mario 3D World stages that will grant players the ability to explore levels from the Wii U Mario title that are slightly tweaked to accommodate for our Captain, who is destined to live a life without jumping.

While there is so much good to say about Captain Toad, there is one negative. Nintendo has been sneaking ever so closely to perfecting the use of the GamePad in their games and Captain Toad is no exception.  Unfortunately, one GamePad feature became a hindrance during my time with Treasure Tracker and it was due to camera controls.  While for the most part camera controls are spot on, the GamePad’s gyroscope camera controls often shifted my view unexpectedly.  To exacerbate this problem, I could not find a way to turn off the gyroscope camera controls.  If there was an option to turn off the GamePad motion controls, this gripe may not have even found a way into my review but there wasn’t, so there you have it.  That’s it.  My one and only complaint about Captain Toad.  Even though I found the gryo controls a bit off-putting, on the other hand, I really enjoyed the gyroscope controls during the mine cart levels.

I can not say enough to praise Nintendo for Captain Toad. It is absolutely a must buy for ALL Wii U owners.  While the game seems short at first, it isn’t (not saying anymore about this to avoid spoilers) and there is plenty of content to keep players coming back for more.  There is a ton of replay value, especially when trying to 100% the game by attempting to complete the challenges for every stage.  I can only hope that this is not a one and done title from Nintendo.  Captain Toad is definitely of a high enough quality that it could be turned into an established franchise with more games down the road.  Hopefully Captain Toad will have a chance to do more treasure hunting or even something else and once again shine in his own game sometime in the near future.