The 2.0 update to Super Mario Maker 2 looks fantastic, and the inclusion of the Ninji mode looks almost identical to the short-lived fan-made browser version of Mario Battle Royale. In the browser game, players started at the same time with the objective of dashing through a series of levels to reach the end, and while players could interact with each other, it was only in the acquisition and use of items in the game, or the launching of harmful projectiles like Koopa shells.
To be fair, the addition of the Ninji speedruns is different in two important ways. First is that one is not going against other players in real time, but instead facing off against the ghosts of others players who have completed the course. Second, there will also not be any interaction with the Ninjis since they are simply the recordings of past players. In spirit however, the new mode looks and feels like the browser Battle Royale, which like many fan-made projects that used Nintendo assets, was quickly shut down by the legal department at Nintendo.
The browser version did briefly have some hope of remaining available, as the creator swapped out the use of Mario as the playable character with a new character named “Infringio” and also changed the name of the game to DMCA Royale. However, the remaining assets used in the level design were still sufficient to warrant Nintendo’s lawyers to again ask for the game to be removed entirely.
The release of the Ninja speedrun mode perfectly exemplifies why Nintendo seeks to maintain such a strong hold over its properties, especially since in this case the browser game looks to have heavily influenced the Ninji speedrun. Then again, it is entirely possible that Nintendo already had the Ninji speedrun planned back in June when the browser game first launched. Unless Nintendo speaks up on the issue, we may never know if the two were entirely separate, or if the official Ninji speedrun was fundamentally inspired by the browser game.
In any case, the Ninji speedrun looks incredibly polished compared to the fan-made browser game and looks to add even more replayability to Super Mario Maker 2, which already has a massive amount of content thanks to the passion of its player base and creative level creators.
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