If you want a sense of skill and satisfaction akin to F-Zero GX with a Mario game, try to get 70 stars in Mario 64 in less than 1 hour. It's tough but doable. And fun as fuck.
NSMB 2 Review Thread
- Thread starter Nirolak
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If you want a sense of skill and satisfaction akin to F-Zero GX with a Mario game, try to get 70 stars in Mario 64 in less than 1 hour. It's tough but doable. And fun as fuck.
Obviously it's overly simplifying things if I said only the challenge was a problem. The Presentation is super lackluster, from the music to the visuals, so that helps disincentivize (is this a word?) the desire to progress. But the biggest problem I have with the NSMB games is they all seem to take until the very very end until they offer something approaching challenge, even if you're going for all the big gold coins or whatever they're called.
Lack of challenge is the reason I hated Kirby Epic Yarn, but Mario is nowhere near as blatantly offensively easy as that thankfully.
I think you're right on the money when you say generally the balance difficulty in the Mario series is some of the most balanced in the industry, which obviously allows more people into the "big tent." That said, since it's clear Nintendo has no problem whoring Mario every two days, I feel like it wouldn't distract much to have a pure Mario skill game where the entire game is one hardened challenge after another, where it hits Super Meat Boy+ challenge level.
I dunno, seems like it'd be a nice way to twist for long time fans.
I don't like arbitrarily forcing myself to do something like that, I like my challenges pre-baked. That said, I've beat Mario 64 in pretty quick time, though I'm never going to match that guy. That's robotic skill level, something that if they required that in order to beat the package would likely result in mass suicides or some such
I've seen that video of the guy doing it, the streaming guy who always wants to beat the Super Mario 64 world records, and no doubt he's amazing. Only speed run I can really watch all the way through, because half the time I'm going "DA FUCK!?"
I believe the platform genre is itself the issue here, the genre mega-popular Mario was born. People around the world are used to a certain level of difficulty from those games and Nintendo has to carefully try to not shake the pillars of its entire foundation by not giving more of a certain thing which would automatically give less to other players. They can't alienate not even 1% of their Mario platforms' base, because those products made and keep sustaining the whole company. So i don't think we'll ever see such experiments. Mario has to be this difficult
my two cents!
It was a great game.
Q
qizah
Unconfirmed Member
The NWR review makes me really excited to play it.
I'm a nut for trying to do 100% completion in Mario games, so I think I'm in for a treat with the new game, especially the 1,000,000 coin thing.
I'm a nut for trying to do 100% completion in Mario games, so I think I'm in for a treat with the new game, especially the 1,000,000 coin thing.
Snowden's Secret
Banned
This morning: Westerners worry about grafix first, gameplay mechanics second.
This evening: Westerners complaining about the grafix in a Mario game.
This evening: Westerners complaining about the grafix in a Mario game.
The only thing I'm saying is that since they make a million different Mario games every year, I think the "Mario collective" can deal with one of those games being a really hard edged twist on the formula... maybe?
Or we can just keep sucking in mediocre NSMB titles over and over
breaking news: wacky japanese gamer wonders aloud why visuals, one of the cornerstones of gaming, is highlighted in many topics! it's a mystery to everyone!
We've had one mediocre NSMB and one fantastic NSMB.Or we can just keep sucking in mediocre NSMB titles over and over
I must admit that I think this one is going to be somewhere between the two, but hey -- a "good" Mario platformer is better than most 8+ reviewed games from the past 10 years, generally.
I did think NSMB Wii was "fantastic" in the last two worlds, as good as any platformer ever. The last two worlds were fantastic, and the other 7 were all low calibre Nintendo-phoning-it-in-cuz-everybody-needs-to-be-able-to-beat-these-levels-because-we're-too-scared-to-challenge-any-non-animal-cracker-obsessed-gamer-over-the-age-of-7 mediocre. For me anyway, Rayman Origins was infinitely better as a single player title AND multiplayer title - visually, gameplay, level design, everything.
I know some people liked multiplayer, but boy was it the most infuriating multiplayer concept i've ever played. They didn't really modify levels in such a way where you had to make meaningful use of multiple players to actually finish things. Sure, you can have a bunch of neat little acrobatic tricks together, and maybe boost off each other to reach higher and make it just that much more painfully easy in an already absurdly easy game to reach certain coins or pipes or whatever, but in a meaningful level it's just the same game with a few other players lazily slapped on top.
Mostly it devolved into one or the other player ceaselessly annoying each other, stop breaking the flow of the game, or just rolling each others eye that the same gag was played for the eighteenth time. Those few that actually did play together synchronized just meant they were already really good without friends, which meant the game just because that much more offensively easy.
If they had re-designed levels so that certain partners could only go down certain routes, that each character had meaningful abilities which the other didn't and which created openings to secrets impossible to reach alone, if there was meaningful incentive to work together or work competitively, it would have been something.
I think however you may feel about that specific style, the most important thing it indicates is that there will be a not insignificant amount of visual variety in the game. Definitely a good thing.
Snowden's Secret
Banned
People don't seriously think Mario games are too easy do they?
I've got two nieces and a nephew (ages 5-8); they each have a DS Lite and a copy of NSMB and play it probably an average of an hour a day for the last two years and have never made it past World 4.
My NSMBW playgroup (all 20-something adults, 3M 1F) had a least 20 continues a piece by World 7 (a lot of that was griefing related).
I finished SM3DL with 386 deaths (that's 100% completion) and I thought it was pretty easy. My girlfriend finished just the regular worlds at over 600. My dad's stepson (12yo) finished the regular worlds at 950+.
Remember Super Mario Bros (NES)? How hard it was? I'd never beat it, though I've tried for years. Then I got it as an Ambassador game, played it with the built-in save states, saved at the start of each stage (essentially just giving me unlimited lives a la modern Mario games) and boom I beat it in one sitting. It wasn't necessarily harder than newer games (it certainly tasks you with mastering a smaller variety of skills) it's just that you couldn't save and there were fewer 1-ups, which isn't anything more than artificial difficulty (making it harder through the rules, not the challenges).
I've got two nieces and a nephew (ages 5-8); they each have a DS Lite and a copy of NSMB and play it probably an average of an hour a day for the last two years and have never made it past World 4.
My NSMBW playgroup (all 20-something adults, 3M 1F) had a least 20 continues a piece by World 7 (a lot of that was griefing related).
I finished SM3DL with 386 deaths (that's 100% completion) and I thought it was pretty easy. My girlfriend finished just the regular worlds at over 600. My dad's stepson (12yo) finished the regular worlds at 950+.
Remember Super Mario Bros (NES)? How hard it was? I'd never beat it, though I've tried for years. Then I got it as an Ambassador game, played it with the built-in save states, saved at the start of each stage (essentially just giving me unlimited lives a la modern Mario games) and boom I beat it in one sitting. It wasn't necessarily harder than newer games (it certainly tasks you with mastering a smaller variety of skills) it's just that you couldn't save and there were fewer 1-ups, which isn't anything more than artificial difficulty (making it harder through the rules, not the challenges).
TaroYamada
Member
For me the NSMB games have been somewhat lackluster from a design perspective, they are mostly plain jane platformers. NSMB Wii tried to spice it up with the multiplayer but it just felt tacked on to me, especially without online play. Furthermore, playing the game alone stressed some poor level design; in some areas the platforms had to be large enough to accommodate more than one player, as such those sections became easier when I was playing alone compared to if I had been playing with two players or more. While overall I still like NSMB Wii, and DS, they just aren't amazing games. Rayman Origins is the king of 2D platformers this gen.
I think you pretty much answered your own question there! Why put the effort in if people are going to buy it regardless?
I continue to have conflict on this game. I didn't really dig the first NSMB, and I only enjoyed the Wii one when playing with the right people (the first playthrough I did was with someone who made gaming a chore and thus put me off ever buying it and playing through solo).
I have high anticipation for the Wii U version, but I put that down purely to my superficial nature of it "looking visually interesting". But as I said, I am torn on this one. Some days I feel like I could have fun with it, some days I look and it feels too bland to want to put time into.
What I'll probably do is the same I did for 3D Land - buy it when I see it on a deal, give it a go, and then get rid of it.
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