At this point, most Super Mario Maker stages are one of two things: basic recreations of previously-existing video game levels or brutal, nearly impossible-to-beat challenges. Throw in some levels that play themselves, and you've basically seen 95 percent of what the Mario Maker community has come up with so far.
That being said, it's not as if every single Mario Maker level is the same thing: there are some genuinely clever stages, with coherent themes and fun platforming challenges. There are also stages that will not only tell an extremely dark story but will make you question your sanity at the same time.
Yes, there are psychological thrillers in Super Mario Maker: namely, a stage called "Will You Save Your Son?" Created by YouTuber Geoff Heromoto, the stage follows Mario as he explores what exactly is going on with his family — and it's about as dark as a Mario game could possibly get.
Alright, to be fair, most of what makes "Will You Save Your Son?" effective is Heromoto's voiceover and the ambient music — from a level design standpoint, most of the stage is either a roller coaster or a few quick jumps, and it clearly wouldn't work without the voiceover.
Even so ... listening to a story about Mario inadvertently killing his wife and hallucinating about a son he never had is pretty creepy. It's the sort of thing you'd see during the Golden Age of "creepypasta" — hopefully, it's not the last level of its kind in Mario Maker.
The idea of doing something genuinely creepy with the bright and colorful world of Mario isn't exactly new, but with Super Mario Maker, fans have the chance to make it playable for the first time — it'll be interesting to see exactly what the community can do with what Nintendo's given them.
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