Nintendo Switch: Thread 2: The Drift

[madhair60]

In my sole and humble opinion, Bowser's Fury is shockingly weak for a Nintendo 1st party game, it runs like shit and I simply didn't find it at all fun. But that's just me. 3D World is outstanding. New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe is the best 2D Mario game, but it's also another 2D Mario game.

Captain Toad is pretty great but get it last, y'know?

[popcorn]

In my sole and humble opinion, Bowser's Fury is shockingly weak for a Nintendo 1st party game

Yeah, I found it extremely boring. Felt like a third-party DLC.

New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe is the best 2D Mario game

Have to say I am stunned by this — better than Mario World, Mario 3, and Yoshi's Island?

[madhair60]

Honestly, yeah, taken as the multiplayer thing that it is, and taking into account the sheer amount of intrigue in every level, then throwing in Luigi U and all the challenges and such. It's not original, it's probably not my favourite one thanks to nostalgia but I'd call it the apex of the series, yeah. I definitely prefer it to World, which I've always thought was a little weak for a 10/10 (which it assuredly is).

[popcorn]

I've never been able to enjoy any 2D Mario that uses polygons. It doesn't have the right sense of stickiness.

[MrMrs]

how can a 10/10 be weak Wtf go to bed

[madhair60]

bore off, socko

[RetroRobot]

I like Mario World the most :( Games like here mate have this cape, break the levels with it, we don't care.

I do get why people don't like it for having stuff like that though, but I feel being able to cheese stuff with power ups was always the intention? I am just a sucker for platformers letting you cheese stuff though. Like Sonic Adventure being able to jump from a spin dash off a rampy ledge and go fucking flying.

[madhair60]

cheesing is great. from my end it's a general dislike of the path Mario World took platformers down, with the revisits to stages to get alternate exits and such. can be done well, but i prefer the more linear Mario 3.

ironic i suppose as NSMBU has the open map, alt exits but the levels are denser and more satisfying. Mario World is fucking great, of course, i'm not insane.

[RetroRobot]

cheesing is great. from my end it's a general dislike of the path Mario World took platformers down, with the revisits to stages to get alternate exits and such. can be done well, but i prefer the more linear Mario 3.

ironic i suppose as NSMBU has the open map, alt exits but the levels are denser and more satisfying. Mario World is fucking great, of course, i'm not insane.

I love NSMBU as a World sequel (it's laid out the same with the same secret exit ethos but a little less obnoxious with the amounts)

[Pink Gregory]

I have to say I vibe off the stage revisits intensely.  Most of the times I revisit SMW it's just linking all the stages together in Donut Land and then not really going any further.  It feels odd to say because doing that is exterior to the play in the levels, all you do is follow a different path that may or may not be as obvious as the critical path but it's not as if you have to turn the game on its head or do something unorthodox.

If anything I've struggled to remain engaged with SMB and SMB3 (haven't really played 2), even though they're clearly as good as people say they are; it might be the linearity or it might be that SMW has the personal bias of being 'the one that I played first', similarly to my feelings on Donkey Kong Country 2.

[madhair60]

i think there's probably also the fact that, and maybe this is uncharitable, but it has the same problem for me as DKC2 & 3 which is that once you know where the secrets are the game loses a lot of its fun? like the secret exits in Mario World are perfunctory to me, obviously, since i know where they are. first time through the game it's hot as hell, like it is just absolutely great stuff. but subsequent plays i just feel like i'm ticking boxes. it's fun! i like it a lot. but with Mario 3, it's almost like less is more because without those secret exits, without that drive for "100% completion", the secrets I find are just bonuses, they're fun to find, they're not an obligation. and yeah you don't have to get the secret exits, but you kind of do, don't you? otherwise you're doing it wrong.

it's the reason i count Yoshi's Island as one of THE best games I've ever played, and one I  will probably never play through again because if you're not trying to get 100pts you're basically skipping 2/3rds of every level. it's arduous. it's not as fun as just knockabout Mario 3 shit. to me.

[Kelvin]

I sort of understand what Madhair says about revisiting levels, but then that was how you played all videogames back then surely? Older platformers had you playing through the entire game over and over again until you learned each level and found all the secrets. Mario World was just one of the earliest games that rewarded replaying levels immediately after you finished them. It's just an extension of the secrets in Mario 3, without needing to start over to find everything.

I do think it became more formulaic in later 2D Mario Games, but I actually like that in World there's a pretty good chance you'll find a secret exit on your first run through a level, as it makes you feel like you're discovering secret levels everywhere you go.

The big problem is the Forest of Illusion and Choco Island, which both require secret exits to progress and therefore make replaying levels/finding secrets a necessity.

EDIT: I still prefer Mario 3 these days, though. I love the little micro-levels and the insane number of secrets in all of them. 

[madhair60]

I sort of understand what Madhair says about revisiting levels, but then that was how you played all videogames back then surely?

it was, but it's the difference between repetition for fun/score/points and repetition to add a sort of nebulous % to your file. i admit that it's only a trifling thing but it does make a difference to me, psychologically; same as the way "game over" and some lost progress compels me to keep trying more than, say, infinite lives. but that's a whole other kettle of italian plumbers, just a similar psychology

[Kelvin]

it was, but it's the difference between repetition for fun/score/points and repetition to add a sort of nebulous % to your file. i admit that it's only a trifling thing but it does make a difference to me, psychologically; same as the way "game over" and some lost progress compels me to keep trying more than, say, infinite lives. but that's a whole other kettle of italian plumbers, just a similar psychology

No I totally get it. I seem to recall you and I are on the opposite side of the same argument with later 3D Mario games actually. I don't like the duplicate moons in Odyssey or the comet stars in Galaxy, and you said you didn't mind them. Sometimes these things just hit you a certain way, sometimes its easy to skip or overlook that stuff, sometimes it isn't.   

[RetroRobot]

I sort of understand what Madhair says about revisiting levels, but then that was how you played all videogames back then surely? Older platformers had you playing through the entire game over and over again until you learned each level and found all the secrets. Mario World was just one of the earliest games that rewarded replaying levels immediately after you finished them. It's just an extension of the secrets in Mario 3, without needing to start over to find everything.

I do think it became more formulaic in later 2D Mario Games, but I actually like that in World there's a pretty good chance you'll find a secret exit on your first run through a level, as it makes you feel like you're discovering secret levels everywhere you go.

The big problem is the Forest of Illusion and Choco Island, which both require secret exits to progress and therefore make replaying levels/finding secrets a necessity.

EDIT: I still prefer Mario 3 these days, though. I love the little micro-levels and the insane number of secrets in all of them. 

I'd argue the required secrets aren't a problem and are just teaching the player that secret exits exist if that makes sense but I'm not unbiased when it comes to the beautiful dinosaur riding game

[MrMrs]

bore off, socko

shut the fuuccckkk uppp you tottaaalll waaaannkk

[Pink Gregory]

I think truly I'm a simpleton who's won over by the immaculate presentation and the more refined/easier controls of World.

To be honest I struggle a bit with 8-bit stiff because I started, in my life, on 16-bit so it's consistently a bit of a new experience rather than a familiar one

[Famous Mortimer]

I struggle a bit with 8-bit stiff 

I bet you do, you dirty old bollocks

[Pink Gregory]

excellent

[madhair60]

I think truly I'm a simpleton who's won over by the immaculate presentation and the more refined/easier controls of World.

Yeah it controls like a dream, and the moveset has been expanded subtly but in a revelatory fashion. I just wish they did a bit more with it, you know? Even the Special World levels are, by and large, pretty easy.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

world is the best controlling platform game with the best power up (cape not yoshi) but the levels sometimes seem like after thoughts and it seems littered with ideas from a more adventure/rpg style successor to Mario 3 that never came to fruition

NSMB U is brilliant on every level but character design. loved it. the maddest thing back then was people saying the rayman games were way better. it might be the best pure platformer ive ever played but it cant even close to the pre-N64 games for imagination, style and invention. it deserves to be judged next to dust force or super meat boy or vvvvv rather than Mario 3.

[Kelvin]

I think the problem is that NSMB U feels so conservative next to the 3D Mario games, which have repeatedly tried very different concepts (water guns, gravity, transformations) with such obvious success. Then you have NSMB U re-heating level concepts from World and earlier New Super Mario games on handheld, and introducing no big new themes or ideas to push the 2D games forward. It feels so boring and predictable compared to the overwhelming creativity of a game like Odyssey, or the level design of a game like Galaxy.

3D World is probably the closest we've got to a decent Mario 3/Mario World sequel and that's not even properly 2D!

[Video Game Fan 2000]

NSMB was boring, nothing to distinguish it from most platform shovelware of the time other than the polish. and the polish itself was questionable since the presentation (like the front end of some other first party ds games at the time) it was worringly a bit flash game ish. most of the levels were cack aside from flashes of brilliance with the mini shroom power up

NSMB Wii captured something about Mario 3 that i dont think any platform game has done since, but it suffered from the blandness of the pseudo-pixar presentation and the fact every level was either a piss easy exploration stage or a more difficult jumping challenge. it had the feel of the classic mario games but not the flair. its like the animaniacs of platform games.

NSMB 2 is nintendo torturing us for wanting good wario games like MORONS. parts of it gave a taste of how good NSMB U was going to be, but on the whole the most stiff and off model feeling Mario platformer since Land 2. good gimmick but there is no way it should have been mario and not wario. the brown/purple levels looked so close to the shovel ware platformers that were on steam at the time.

NSMB U has even less flair, but out of left field they performed a miracle with the level design and combined Mario 3 fun with World secret hunting in a way that jived with the meat boy/vvvv era. the music and sound design almost makes up for the blandness of the visuals. and Luigi Bros put some of the flair back in it.

MM & MM2 are good but im reconciled to NSMB U being the high point of deliberately designed platformers of that formula. technically tighter games like Celeste have taken over now. young millenials and boomers have reached an agreement that metroids backtracking is the proper formula for platform fun. they're very wrong. why are there mario 3 maps in all games but mario 3 games now. this is despairing.

the peak of nintendo platforming: Mario 3, Warioland 4 and NSMB U all for different reasons. the first five hours i had playing with MM was the most fun ive had with nintendo since i unwrapped my first NES at christmas as a kid, but the returns diminished quickly. MM 2 was a better experience but i got tired of it eventually without good curation/meaningful secret hunting. madhair60 is on the money about how secrets should work in Mario games - the exploration of 3 is good the exits of World is a chore. in mario 3 it never feels like you should be combing through levels to find stuff, you can do what you like without the pressure smash every block lest you miss 80% of a level. the perfect mario game would be World controls, 3 adventure and messing about, and Yoshi Island/Mario 2 eccentricity in the presentation.

[Pink Gregory]

This discussion has made me realise that I'm not much of a Mario-head.  Sounds mad doesn't it.  As a fan of games.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

there's a guy in the other thread who doesnt like Doom, you should ask him out

[Pink Gregory]

there's a guy in the other thread who doesnt like Doom, you should ask him out

I still like Mario I'm not insane

[popcorn]

I don't like Doom either, it's just a load of boxes.

[madhair60]

direct tomorrow you fuckin' paedophiles, 10pm

[Huxleys Babkins]

Hope it's not all about fucking Zelda.

[Memorex MP3]

Pikmin 3 as well
Nintendo being Nintendo, there could be 12 months of fuck all after Zelda.


Realistically what does a new Switch need to do beyond being a Switch Pro with more advanced joycons?