BY NICHOLAS BRANDT

A long-time icon of video gaming who had his debut in 1981, Super Mario has had a long history with Nintendo.

During the end of the year of his 35th anniversary in 2016, the extremely successful company allowed their poster boy plumber in red to make his way to the iPhone. Super Mario Run is a new app dedicating a true Super Mario experience in a side-scrolling adventure with simple controls and a basic design with the accessibility of a tap. Nintendo has announced that the app will make its way to the Google Play Store in the near future.

The controls could not be more straightforward: tap on the screen to jump. Mario runs automatically, so all you need to do is keep an eye on the screen and tap. Multiple of other characters like Luigi, Toad, and Yoshi also appear as playable characters.

The game includes various game modes, most of which are centralized around the basic side-scrolling adventure. World Tour is similar to a traditional Super Mario game, with a set amount of worlds and levels. Completing this mode entirely unlocks a brand new character! The second mode available is Toad Rally, a multiplayer experience dedicated to beating a certain time on courses in order to collect items. With the items, Kingdom Builder unlocks multiple other new characters and maps. Other items are available scattered around the courses, but it’s up to you to find out where to get them and how to reach them!

However, Super Mario Run isn’t all that it seems to be. The controls are basic and the gameplay runs smoothly, but the real issue lies within in-app purchases. Though there are quite a lot of courses available in the free game, the entire map pack costs over ten dollars. I personally don’t know many people willing to spend ten dollars on a mobile game, and for the ones that would, it certainly wouldn’t be for a few extra maps. Nintendo offered the option to purchase extra courses in order to pay the developers and coders of the app, but they could have done so with other funds from their already multi-million dollar budget. With their other products, from consoles and games to official merchandise, the company has more than enough money to pay the team working on the app and doesn’t need to charge a little extra from app users.

With everything considered, Super Mario Run is an amazing app and I highly recommend it. However, I simply stop recommending it after you finish all of the free levels, because then the game creates a hole in your wallet. I expected a little better from such a popular company that was celebrating the 35th anniversary of their biggest franchise, and hope that the price is lowered or removed completely in the future.