If ever there was a game that was able to justify the existence of the Wii U, it was Super Mario Maker, without question.  The combination of this bizarre hardware, the level building concept, and the various Super Mario mechanics that have been drilled into my head for the past few decades helped to make it one of the only level creation based games I’ve ever enjoyed.  Also, the references to Mario Paint that were included were just some delicious icing on the cake.

Now there’s a sequel on the far more successful Nintendo Switch, which is great.  The problem lies in the fact that while Super Mario Maker 2 does a pretty good job replicating and adapting that experience for the Switch, it never manages to feel as intuitive or easy to handle as its predecessor.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Super Mario Maker 2, but I feel like creating things without a stylus is more cumbersome and difficult than I’d like.  To be fair, in handheld mode you can just touch everything on the screen and get things done that way, but I don’t want to smudge up the screen on this thing.  So in place of using my fingers to make levels, I can use the built in radial menu system to pick and choose objects.  It works well enough, but it’s nowhere near as intuitive as just using a stylus.

So that’s where I was with Super Mario Maker 2.  I wanted to create levels, but the in game tools left me wanting.  So what am I to do?  I suppose I could just adjust and learn to live with this new system, adapting to the changes that they’ve made in order to get my level creation on.  But this is America, and if there’s one thing I know about being an American, I can just kick and scream and throw money at the problem until I can do things the way I like them.

This is all a very long winded way of saying that I bought a stylus for my Nintendo Switch so I can play Mario Maker the way I want to.  Quick correction, I actually bought a pack of ten of them on Amazon because I need more bullshit to clutter up my apartment.

But honestly, I can’t seem to even approach making levels in earnest without a stylus. I’ve mostly kept to playing the “story mode” and various online courses. I’ve dabbled I’m level building with the built in controls, but when my glut of styluses arrive, then shit gets real.