We certainly heard people calling it a flipn’ something. The last, and hardest, level was wheeled out to prove Nintendo can still do tough with the best of them. Four minutes, 100 purple coins. The twist? A twist. Spin jumps flip the platforms: empty spaces fill, filled spaces empty. A last-minute lifesaver becomes a last-minute life taker. Instinct tells you to spin that final one inch, but doing so turns the one inch into a metre. What a brilliantly conniving play on Nintendo’s behalf, turning our best friend against us. As the time ticks away and tension rises, you’re more and more likely to forget yourself and pull the carpet out from under your own feet. Comically tricky (you’ve only yourself to blame, after all), but it’s got nothing on Luigi’s purple coins.
You can, however, shepherd Chomps into the black hole below. Remember this: the tiles under them are the tiles under Mario. Spin on the spot and you’re both dead.
Traversing Flip Swap gave us cold sweats, but there’s an undeniable mechanical beauty to a field of tiles click-clacking in unison.
Look in the distance: a swear load of shifting electrical fences. Yeah, because the whole ‘flipping tile’ thing was a cinch. The designers must have been in a foul mood that day.
