Nintendo has just started a new line in the US called My Mario.  It’s a bunch of toys and games geared towards babies and toddlers and their parents.  Some of the items include Mario themed wooden toy blocks, which are cool because they also act as amiibo.  I wish I could get them, but right now they’re just exclusive to the Nintendo stores in New York and San Fransico, and I won’t be going to those places any time soon.  There’s also other toys like Fischer Price Little People playsets (which still look cool), apparel, plush toys, and videos.  Another item in the line is a free ‘game’ you can download on the Switch and Switch 2 and mobile devices called Hello, Mario! (reviewed here on Switch 2).  It’s a simple activity where your child can interact with Mario’s face and stretch and mold it to do funny things.  So yeah, they basically made a game out of Super Mario 64’s title screen!

Anyway, when you turn on the game, you can tap and drag Mario’s face anywhere on the screen to make it look funny and do silly things.  Move around his eyebrows, mustache, hat, and more.  Use two fingers to stretch his ears out and he’ll stick out his tongue!  Stretch out his mouth and he’ll try and talk.  Sometimes items will fall down for you to play with, too, like sunglasses or a comb.  Spin Mario around and he’ll get dizzy.  Spin him more and he’ll bounce around and you can pop bubbles (pop 100 for a special victory message). On the top left corner of the screen is a question block with a menu you can open to do other fun things.  Here’s what all you can do:

The Mario icon lets you play peek-a-boo with Mario.  The question block lets you tap it and get a lot of coins.  The mushroom will make Mario big when you drag it to him.  The star turns Mario invincible and you can do the spinny game with him like that.  The pipe brings out 3 pipes at the top and you must guess where Mario is.  The Blooper will squirt ink on Mario when you tap it.  The Note Block changes the background music and Mario will even sing along a bit.  It cycles from the Mario theme, underwater theme, and Super Mario World title theme.  And last is Toad, and he’ll take a picture of Mario and you have three seconds to make him do a funny face.  And that’s it.

After around ten minutes of this, Mario will get tired and they’ll play the piranha plant lullaby theme and he’ll go to sleep.  But you can just restart the game again.  This game has been out in Japan for a few months and they’ve even added Yoshi to it there.  I wonder if they’ll do that here?  Anyway, even though there’s not much to Hello, Mario, it is free and very cute so if you’re curious it won’t hurt to download it.

Kid Factor:

Nothing very violent or objectionable here.  You can stretch Mario’s face around, but he doesn’t seem to mind too much.  You can spin him around and hit bubbles and sometimes they have enemies in them like Goombas and Bob-Ombs, but they just fly off the screen when hit.  No reading is required, and of course this game is designed for the very young.  Hello, Mario is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews