New Super Mario Bros. U - Review Thread
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ViewtifulJC
Banned
I'll just settle for good music in 2d Mario platformers again
Kill the BAH-BAH with fire
Kill the BAH-BAH with fire
Barbacoatl
Banned
Game will be awesome, I hope it gets dlc levels like nsmb 2 in the near future.
Agent Unknown
Member
Very good scores so far.
To myself I say, "It's gonna be a good weekend."
And to the NSMB haters, I say this:
To myself I say, "It's gonna be a good weekend."
And to the NSMB haters, I say this:
I'm not even entirely sure why they don't just add the 100,000 (or however much, considering how much these games sell) to the budget required to make a true amazing Galaxy-style soundtrack. Mario games have often had some of the best music in gaming (as well as some of the most creative and bold visual styles), so it just sort of feels like stubbornness at this point.
Surely they cannot believe the masses buying the game eagerly anticipate the latest ear-drum shattering disaster from these games...?
You may agree with the generalities of it, but that doesn't excuse the pretty significant holes in his analysis.
Also, I repeat that online should not be an expectation until someone actually implements it into 2D platformers which require precise accuracy.
Additionally, as far as challenges go, there is the challenge mode and the boost rush mode to address this. If you really want a challenge, play with some friends.
So I see conservative game design, and presentation as negatives. But again, feep's review ignores almost every change between Mario wii and Mario u. He said the only significant changes were the squirrel suit and nabbit levels in the main mode, which is untrue.
[edit] sorry about small, repetitive sentence structure. I'm on my phone now.
Well, NSMBWii was the best 2D Mario yet, so...
Damn.
Seeing my once favorite platforming series reach the heights it did with yoshi's island, only to slowly slide into complacency and even at times, mediocrity, kills me.
I mean, with the kind of horsepower at their disposal, THIS is what we get? I honestly find Mario World and the previously mentioned Yoshi's Island, to be more visually and auditorily engaging.
At least there's still the 3D iterations to look forward to.
Seeing my once favorite platforming series reach the heights it did with yoshi's island, only to slowly slide into complacency and even at times, mediocrity, kills me.
I mean, with the kind of horsepower at their disposal, THIS is what we get? I honestly find Mario World and the previously mentioned Yoshi's Island, to be more visually and auditorily engaging.
At least there's still the 3D iterations to look forward to.
You look forward to Mario titles for visuals and audio only? ... Dear god
UncleSporky
Member
Link?
Barbacoatl
Banned
The nostalgia goggles make for great hyperbole.
gamergirly
Member
There's a lot of people who have played a Mario game before and still die on the first Goomba in World 1-1
And there's a lot of people with crippled hands who can't hold controllers; we don't coddle motor skill deficient people for eternity. There are enough painfully easy Mario games, don't you think? And that is SUPPOSED to be what "Super Guide" is for, so why make excuses for it?
But hey, they can do what they like. At this point, there are many platformers picking up where Mario left off and in my opinion doing things quite a bit better, so all it does is make me sad for the state of 2D Mario titles as they used to be one of my favorite series and I can appreciate what is out there.
I just think it's worth discussion is all.
IS this real life?
I did in NSMB Wii
A LOT of people feel this way. I'm not so sure, but it was pretty damn good. Especially in multiplayer.
The Fancy Pants Adventures on XBLA and PSN uses the same rollback system as fighting games, the same collision as local play without any input lag (other players might warp if there's a ton of network lag, though).
I personally don't really care if NSMB has online or not, but there's really no technical excuse for it now that the hardware is beefier than the Wii was.
chertipros
Member
ChosenPredator
Banned
A challenge mode should be online but not directly against the person - pick someone off the leader board and see a ghost image of themselves that you can race to perfect your timing..that would be neat sort of like a racing game for a platformer.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
I could have some sympathy if it was just Yoshi's Island we were talking about. It was, for its time, "Mario Galaxy". A game where a specific emphasis was put on lavish displays of technology and art assets as well as level design and play mechanics.
But Mario World? No. No matter how one cherishes childhood memories when a few small sprites running in front of often nearly featureless solid color backdrops melted a young mind.
I still think a reason why the NSMB brand is so popular with the actual mainstream and not just the hardest core Nintendo fans, is because the visuals are so recognizable and rich without being weird or overly stylized for the sake of stylization. People forget that when Yoshi's Island came out, it was roundly mocked for its "kiddy" graphics with crayon scrawls, and a lot of people refused to play it because from visuals alone they assumed it was even more tame than Kirby. Now, that's silly and shallow, as people are wont to be. But it's a real reaction that happens.
NSMB focuses on clarity above all else, the art design intended to do two things: clearly represent iconic Mario imagery that literally anyone can recognize. And facilitate the gameplay above all else. The visuals in NSMB U are greatly improved, and frankly, look fine to me. The far more elaborate far backgrounds are taking advantage of the hardware and are quite beautiful. They do not look generic. The foreground environment, while improved, sticks to clarity above all things. It's NSMB. Mario hasn't degenerated.
At this point, the most legitimate complaint remains solely the music. Yep, the music is conservative. They're definitely sticking to what worked for NSMB Wii, to keep that branding going. Though we haven't heard all of the themes in this version yet.
At the end of the day though, the music is the most minor aspect on the table.
That is one sexy world map.
You are easily pleased. That hardly looks better than the Wii.
...really now?
Yes. This is not even controversial to me, and it's sad you thought it was a salient point to jump upon it as if it was. I think that speaks volumes about the sacred cow status people think Mario still holds.
Super Meat Boy alone is better than any Mario platformer game I've played sans Galaxy since the SNES days. Ridiculously tight controls, astonishing level design (the way some levels are played with incredibly divergent approaches by simply flipping them is inspired), a gobsmacking amount of content, TONS of secrets, incredibly rewarding challenge, etc.
And that's simply one game on a list I think is at least 6 or 7 games long at this point.
Edit: It's fine to disagree of course, but I think it's a point worth far more than "REALLY herp!?"
Rayman Origins?
Than the NSMB games, absolutely in my view. Brilliant visuals, music, really great level design that shines in time running... but it's obviously not better than some of the past 2D Mario titles, no.
This is just my opinion but I think it's a little crazy at this point, considering the state of the series, to just automatically reject the point of view. There are MANY amazing platformers now.
fabfour64xx
Banned
Great to see it's getting really good reviews. I'm definitely more hyped for this than NSMB2.
Super Meat Boy, for as excellent as its actual platforming mechanics are, is the very antithesis of what makes good platformer design.
Spectacular and amazing level design coupled with actual challenge and just genre defining control tightness?
Oooootay
superkid_86
Banned
Yup, feep really likes to be critical to aspects of games I generally put very little value in.
For instance, to mention online in a 2D platformer as an expectation despite zero 2D platformers having online is ridiculous, in my opinion. Second, stating that the early levels are easy is something that I expect 100% out of all 2D mario games ever, minus the lost levels and is not something I would ever speak of as a demerit.
It's an alright review, but gawddamn feep... some of these comments seem arbitrarily put in simply to justify the score rather than a detailed analysis of the game as a whole as a 3.5/5.
This rhetoric is just awful (i'm sorry, I have to):
you are very unsurprised to say that HD matters very little for Nintendo. Really? Just say it doesn't add a lot to the experience.
- Do you mean it was never worth much of my attention? Because I'd agree... it's a mario title about platforming.
- No, I wouldn't be hard pressed at all. Here is a comparison of Wii U vs. Wii.
"The few changes include the replacement of the propeller suit with the acorn suit, functionally similar but offering less vertical lift for the ability to stick on walls for a short period of time, new Nabbit sequences, in which you chase a thief across a previously traversed level, and a few remixed 1-Up and item challenges but there simply isnt enough, at least in this mode." - Did you completely forget about the new world map? Did you forget to mention all those new baby Yoshi's and their abilities? Or how about the ability to play as Miis? Or the Mii-verse integration? Or baby bowser running around randomly? There is nothing else you could think of to put in this section?
- How about differentiating the experience as a whole?
- You guess? All the other reviews I've seen have claimed a great mixing of old and new ideas. You saw zero new ideas, you guess? >_>
I'm sorry Feep, but I will never agree with your methodology for writing reviews. They are not thorough, and overly critical of aspects I will never see as fundamental to the experience.
+10.....It's fine to have negative feelings about a game..but to come off so disconnected and oblivious to features is embarrassing.
Challenge?
In Super Meat Boy?
That's hilarious.
Not that Mario games haven't had the problem of being too forgiving lately, mind you.
I'm not going to participate in a discussion where you just join some form of alternate reality, while simultaneously attempting to defend the NSMB for something that is as far from challenging as humanly possible.
I don't think there is a reviewer on Earth who didn't acknowledge the challenge of Super Meat Boy; some of the secret levels and dark world levels (Kid, nuff said) were super tough, to say nothing of what it meant to try to top time on leaderboards (when they weren't borked or hacked)
superkid_86
Banned
I do agree with your comment about Mario being surpassed in a lot of ways...but for me...the level design and platforming mechanics are close to flawless. Sure, it is easy but there is just something sublime about the way each level plays. As far as graphics,art,sound and creativity...it is severely lacking at this point.
I agree, Mario's control tightness is also close to unmatched. But it is the level design I would like to call out, because while the NSMB games certainly have inspired levels, it takes forever to get to them.
MarshMellow96
Member
Did he even say anything to that effect?
Well he edited the post to say he wasn't defending NSMB for that, I just interpreted it as such prior to the comment. That said, to say Super Meat Boy isn't challenging is just distorted Republican-level reality field.
I thought Super Meat Boy was decent. Had very good platforming mechanics and was generally fun to play but I can't in good conscious support the bite-sized trial-and-error style of platformer design. I just ended up getting bored halfway through.
Now if I wanted to point out platformers better than Mario I'd go to the (good) Sonic games, but then that's just me.
Why are you being so belligerent and self-righteous? (rhetorical question)
Seriously, what are these "6 or 7 platformers" that are "quite a bit better" than modern Mario platformers? I'm genuinely surprised by your statements. This has nothing to do with Mario being a "sacred cow" FFS. This has nothing to do with ignorance to Super Meat Boy. This is me being mystified that there could be that many quality platformers out there.
H_Prestige
Banned
Yeah, I like how his smoking gun evidence that 2D mario always looked bland is because nintendo's arch enemy said so.
Unnecessary much?
Does that really count?
Sonic games better than Mario? Come on now. I haven't played Sonic Colors, but every other Sonic game I've played since the old days has been worse than even the NSMB games.
But is Super Meat Boy challenging or not? You call it trial-and-error gaming design, which implies you required trial and error to beat levels. By definition, that is challenge. By implication it is just challenge you don't like.
That said, of course I died a lot in Super Meat Boy, but I don't think it was trial-and-error. I almost always knew what I had to do the second I entered a level; it was just mustering all my skills to click in one specific run that made it complex. To me, this is the definition of quality challenge.
Bad trial-and-error is like LIMBO, where they teach you a mechanic (say, the button press on the floor thing) and then immediately switch the script and do the opposite so you fail almost always on the first try. I was often beating Super Meat Boy levels on the first try very far into the game; not a majority of the time, but enough for me to say it's not trial-and-error.
If anything, only some of the secret levels really reach that point
Barbacoatl
Banned
Not to derail, but I think meat boy is a completely different experience. A platformer based entirely on short, speed run-ey challenges with very tight and challenging gameplay and level design plus great music, but also very uninspired visuals (gritty galore) and many weird bugs where the meat boy just fell through walls or didn't detect collision, etc. Don't know if that was by design, but it sure was annoying. Even then, it was a great platformer, but if you ask me, inferior to mario as a whole package.
Enough meat boy talk this be mario's turf.
Enough meat boy talk this be mario's turf.
The level design becomes very good pretty quickly in NSMB2 (dunno if you've played it). The problem is challenge.
schwabdizzle
Banned
I truly think this game could out sell a lot of games including Halo 4 in a 6 month time span.
Socreges said:
I'm not being self-righteous! And if I am to your mind, you don't then think it's "self-righteous" to dismiss someone's point as 'really now?' Come on.
If I had to list some, it'd be
1. Super Meat Boy
2. VVVVVV
3. Rayman Origins
4. Wario: Shake It (this one will probably be controversial to some; I'd say the approach to challenges and visual quality slightly put it over NSMB titles)
5. And Yet It Moves
6. Fez
There are actually a lot more that I'd add to the list going down my purchases now, but I think this is a good start. It really is not at all controversial to say many games are better than where the 2D NSMB titles have gone: bolder approaches to visuals, music, even level design. It is no where near impossible to surpass anymore.
Socreges said:
I thought the level design was DECENT prior to the last two worlds, but 'very good' would be stretching it for me. It got VERY good in the last two worlds, I agree. If at least 2/3 of the game were like those worlds, I doubt I'd ever complain...and with Super Guide, it's possible?
grimshawish
Banned
Meatboy is a hard platformer, YES the world around is a bit more controlled (its almost big puzzles). Its still very good and pretty hard.
I'm talking about the world theme and look, but you're way off regardless.
Fair enough, you've defended your point well. My issue is that the structure seems really screwed up to me in that because the levels are so short there ends up being no real penalty for death. You waste a few seconds to half a minute at most. As the game went along my experience changed in that instead of trying to plan my approach or show caution or make any sort of risk assessment, I'd just brute-force my way through each subsequent level. If I died? Who cares, I would just get back to that point 10 seconds later and maybe get further. Or maybe not, like I said, it doesn't matter. Then eventually I'd beat the level and move on to the next one having no reason whatsoever to replay the level I just beat save for any warp zones or bandages I missed, which are an extra trip or two at most.
In the end, I just got bored because I never felt I was really playing skillfully or was ever given a reason to. I just kept losing and losing until I suddenly didn't, and I can't enjoy games that way.