Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: YouTube (includes reprises), extracted audio
Credits
Sound Director: Koji Kondo
Sound Effects: Takahiko Fujita, Taiyo Furukawa, Takahisa Yamamoto
Music: Atsuko Asahi, Toru Minegishi, Sayako Doi
Sound Adviser: Koichi Kyuma
While he’s only credited as sound director, Koji Kondo is known to have composed at least some of the new NES and SNES stage music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPi-u0D8sQ4&t=444s
Info
Relistening to this on account of it being a work of Sayako Doi, who’s secretly a top 2 composer at Nintendo. I had a pretty negative impression of the music the first time I listened to it, in comparison with the first game, but I think that was a bit unfair after listening to it again. It definitely has more than like two good tracks in it!
If you don’t know how Mario Maker in-game music works: a recap. Every level has a Mario game and environmental theme assigned to it, and when you play the level, it plays an appropriate song from that game (with a few additional songs composed for the oldest games that don’t have that much music). When you switch to edit mode, the music crossfades into a Mario Maker-exclusive arrangement of that song, a dynamic arrangement that’s generally a little chiller and quirkier than the original song. The edit mode tracks are divided into six different layers that randomly(?) come in and out of the song, as well as a melody layer that plays as you move objects around the level. The uploads of the edit mode tracks on YouTube tend to be a full mix of six background layers with no melody, which isn’t super accurate to how you’d hear them in-game, but there is a lot of fun intricacy in the “full” compositions when you listen to them like this.
The majority of the edit themes here are just reused from Mario Maker 1; the new ones are all ten for the new game style (Super Mario 3D World), four new ones for each of the returning games for the new environmental styles, and then five new “lesson” arrangements for New Super Mario Bros. U which I don’t remember the usage of. I still don’t think the new edit themes are largely quite as interesting (weird) as the ones from the first game, but there’s more fun and quirk in them than I remember there being, with the 3D World ones being most of my favorites because of the jazz influence of that original soundtrack. I suspect most of the 3D World edit themes were by Atsuko Asahi based on similarities with her Mario Kart 8 tracks, with maybe a couple done by Doi, who I also think may have been responsible for some of the forest environmental themes for other game styles (or maybe I’m just getting suckered by mallet percussion).
Mario Maker 2 also has a full singleplayer campaign with a bunch of new music, some Mario series remixes and some original. I mostly didn’t find this part of the soundtrack super distinctive, it’s kinda standard stuff in the style of a New Super Mario Bros. game.
Recommended tracks:
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“Course World (Version 2)” (Doi?) is a downtempo track with some Metroid Dread-ish synths going on
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“Story Mode (Field Music EMG)” (Doi?) is goofy, with perhaps a little more subtle intricacy in the background layers than was strictly necessary
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“Underground Maker [Super Mario 3D World]” (Asahi?) is a real smoove remix of the classic Mario 1 underground theme in a style of jazz you probably don’t expect to hear in a Nintendo game (I sure don’t)
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“Snow Maker [Super Mario 3D World]” (Asahi?) is some Animal Crossing-ish bossa nova with a bunch of unexpected chords to me
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“Forest Maker [Super Mario 3D World]” (Doi/Asahi?) gets weird at 0:44
(track titles are unofficial)
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