Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker Critic Reviews

Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker is a joyous experience in an age where many games go for the grim. This low-cost, high-value puzzler’s packed full of sweet characters, delightful visuals, and its multi-objective level design lets nubile gamers feel accomplished at simply beating a stage while still leaving some nice challenge for the more hardcore among us.

We’re facing a thesis in level design. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a game that could be placed among concept art books, printed developer diaries and classic toys on the same shelf.

It might be hard to tear yourself away from Smash Bros., but Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker makes for an excellent holiday diversion.

Captain Toad also makes an effort to tie its narrative into 3D World‘s, something that had me smiling when I finally got to see how. It’s just the best kind of fan service, and really the sort of thing that no one does as well as Nintendo, if at all.

Despite these issues, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is an incredibly charming game.

Don’t be tricked by Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker‘s relatively inexpensive $39.99 price tag; there’s a ton of game here.

Treasure Tracker may be relatively budget-priced, but it doesn't feel like a cheap, throwaway creation. Every inch of its nearly 100 stages and bonus levels has been buffed to a spit-shine finish, and the Nintendo content factory has produced dozens of one-of-a-kind stage concepts to explore here.

Top to bottom, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a delightful little treat of a game. It shows a purity of puzzle design that few studios can match, and it wraps it all in a sugary-sweet presentation that only the most jaded could refuse.

It’s a rewarding game that constantly revs up the creativity and challenge to keep you addicted while also throwing in a decent amount of extras to bring you back for seconds. It’s charming presentation and clever puzzles give it a special touch that sets it above other similar games. And frankly, there’s little else out there that’s like Captain Toad.

Like hidden treasure, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker packs a lot of value into an unassuming package. With a supremely addictive set of charming, brain-teasing levels, stellar production values and a budget price, Captain Toad is the perfect way for Wii U owners to wrap up 2014 after indulging in Smash Bros.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a delightful experience, and acts as a reminder that sometimes a simple change of perspective is all you need to succeed.

Its blend of platforms and puzzles and the way the game was spawned from Super Mario 3D World are very well executed and the overall atmosphere of the title is extremely creative and likely to keep players around it for a long time.

Treasure Tracker is a powerful gesture of confidence by Nintendo: a spinoff game with more original ideas than most companies' new IPs.

If anything, the release of Captain Toad goes to show just how confident Nintendo is, and more so with how much it understands its audience. In a blockbuster season filled with plenty of firearms and fistfights, Captain Toad shows us more creativity and style than many new IPs out there.

An exemplar game that gives hours of pleasure to those who own a Wii U and one that will remain among the best options for this console.

Treasure Tracker may not bring the near endless innovation seen from a brand new core Mario release, but I do not hold that as a criticism against it. Instead, it manages to be engaging enough to be both compelling and charming in its own unique way – that very much suits it’s titular character.

Captain Toad is a little gem on the Wii U library: a low budget game that manages to successfully expand and improve the gameplay from the Super Mario 3D World minigames, thanks to a brilliant and always surprising level design.

Everything you could ask for a Nintendo game: fun, beautiful, original and with great characters.

As usually Nintendo squeezed every last drop of fun out of a simple idea.

The fascinating interactive puzzles of Captain Toad convey the unparalleled mastery of its creators in the art of the 3D platformer.