Luigi's Balloon World (Nintendo Switch) Review

After beating the main story and downloading the free update, the new online mode, called Luigi's Balloon World will become available to play. It needs an online connection and begins when Mario seeks out Luigi in each world. Luigi is not often too far from where the Odyssey has landed and is floating in the air with balloons so he's not hard to miss.

Once Mario has interacted with Luigi, they both dash off to a generic starting point, often in the middle of the map. The game features two modes that are all based around balloons called "Hide it" and "Find it". In 'Hide it' mode, Mario has 30 seconds to hide a balloon in the selected world. Going into buildings, down warp pipes, and through doors is off limits, so they must be hidden in the main hub of a level. In 'Find it' mode, the tables turn and the player gets a varying amount of time to find other players' balloons. Notably, the player will need to cave in to a 'pay-to-play' system or a 'Luigi Tax' but have no fear as this is not real money but in-game coins.

The minimum Luigi can take is 10 coins, but the harder the challenge, the more coins that are needed to enter. The higher the entry fee, the greater the pay-off at the end, although be prepared that these balloons are harder to find. Coins are given as rewards when finding a balloon, including bonus coins for finding them in under the time limit and finding balloons consecutively. Furthermore, coins are received when others have looked for their hidden balloon. Both of these modes feed into a ranking system, which goes up after the player has successfully found a large range of balloons, and met other objectives. To help find balloons, an arrow points Mario in the general direction, alongside a proximity counter that informs how many metres the balloon is away from the current position. Issues with Balloon World become more apparent, though, the longer it is played.

The vast majority of balloons are hidden in the same places, so monotony quickly sets in, and once finding four or five balloons, it is possible to know that vast majority of balloons will most likely show up in that spot again. This in part is down to the time constraints put on the game, meaning that it's very hard to stray overly far from the start. Hidden balloons can be shared with friends via a nine-digit code for friends to use. Sadly, it is quite a finicky way to share the experience with another friend but at least it is there.

Additionally, the update brings three new costumes with it, including a knight's armour, a musician's suit, and a Super Mario Sunshine-based outfit. Each of these goes for a pretty penny in the store, so some saving will be required! Those who use Snapshot will be pleased to hear that there are additional filters that can be used, although there isn't anything mind-blowingly great in the new update.