Topic: Viewing SM3DW through a "previous Mario game" lens

Just bringing this up because someone mentioned lives earlier- I've seen people say Mario games lately give you too many lives... If that's the case, why not get rid of the lives system?

I realised a while ago that, if all that happens when you lose lives is getting kicked back to the hub and having to re-select the level, there's no point to a Game Over because there's no punishment. You're at the exact same position as before, you just have to spend a little longer going back to the map/level, which is an annoyance. IIRC, the only real punishment in 3DL/3DW is going through the start of the level to pass the checkpoint again, and I can think of only a few levels where that worried me. (That did make those levels more satisfying to beat, though.)

I guess removing lives would leave coins kind of pointless, but they could be changed to function like Rayman's Lums, where you get collectables for picking up so many coins. I honestly think lives feel outdated now, the way they are in Mario games.
If the newer games were intentionally NES-hard and lives were limited, it'd be different because you'd want to get/conserve tons to avoid repeating hard levels, but they aren't (outside of some bonus levels). Maybe it'd end up worse, but I'd like to see the use of coins changed so there's a better incentive to collect them.

I think they only keep them around for the satisfying "dodododododo" sound effect.

You could see them as an alternate score count. Each live is worth 100 coins, so losing them means losing money. In a way.

I figure that I'll add my two cents into the mix. Although I enjoyed 3D World, I do have to agree that the game missed any major innovative feature or 'wow' factor that the other 3D Mario games have. Mario 64 practically spawned an entire genre, Sunshine gave us a world that felt interconnected, with acute detail; FLUDD was only the icing on the cake (although that can be debated). Galaxy, gave us an expansive gravity mechanic that was nailed on its first try. Galaxy 2 refined and added more than enough to keep Galaxy being stale. Although it wasn't a huge leap, I think the fact that the title was unexpected and that it held up to the quality of the original is a testament in and of itself.

I feel like 3D World was just an expansion of Land. To be honest, I feel like it shows us what the 'New' series should be like; a close adherence to the old Mario games, classic mario with a new coat of paint AND the excellent and creative level design we've come to expect. The New series didn't ever fully achieve this, but 3D World easily did, even if it wasn't the most innovative title. IMO even if it is dissapointing to me, I find that 3D World (and Land) would be perfect for replacing the newer 2D titles, and have the games in the vein of Galaxy could work as their own entity. It fills my nostalgia trap, but definitely fails at capturing any of the wonder I had when first playing Galaxy. Lets just hope the Wii U has one more 3D platformer left in it.

EDIT: Fixed a bunch of typos.

To me SM3DW felt like having just an appetiser when you were expecting a full meal. It was definitely tasty but it didn't quite hit the spot. While I have always had fun with the games, the last one that really wowed me was Galaxy. I had hoped the Wii U 3D Mario would give me the same feeling while venturing in a new direction,but it really didn't.

If I may be honest I think the game was smaller in scale so that Nintendo could have SOMETHING to put out on the system for its second major holiday while allowing the dev team to test the waters of HD.

It doesn't matter that it wasn't done before in a 3D game. It works the exact same way as 2D.

Really? In which of the 2D games can you steal cherry clones from other players, ground-pound simultaneously for the super-ground-pound, copy super star powers, or turn multiple players large, and so on? I haven't played 2D Mario games alot, but to me it seems like SM3DW goes much further in it's multiplayer capabilities than what I've seen in any earlier Mario game. (Of course, NSMBU has the Gamepad player and Galaxy has the star-fetching player, but that's not multiplayer in the traditional sense.)

3D World's not Super Mario 64, but it's great at what it does, oozes charm, and doesn't feel lacking like Galaxy did, or like a blatant cash-in/beta like 3D Land did, or was as intensely frustrating as Sunshine could be. It's not everything I want out of Mario (which is...just more 64/Sunshine, but more refined), but it's still a fantastic experience. Maybe it's because I'm not a Mario fan and therefore don't actually hold the series up to high standards (because I hate most of them enough when I only expect to enjoy them past the first world, let alone actually expect a great game), but I find it hard to think of anything particularly wrong with it.

Not sure about the Super Ground Pound (although that sounds like what you could already do in Sunshine with one player), but the rest of that stuff isn't revolutionary either. Powerup sharing/stealing was in NSMB Wii and NSMBU as well.

No games are revolutionary, if you put it like that. But to me, the multiplayer aspects in SM3DW adds new dimensions to the experience in a way that no predecessor I've played did.

I enjoyed 3D World for what it was and didn't complain about what it wasn't. It had a great variety of well-designed levels, fun multiplayer, loads of unlockables, and tons of levels that made the game last many hours. It is tied for my 2013 GOTY and tied with Pikmin 3 for my favorite Wii U game. It may not have been groundbreaking like Super Mario 64, but it was nothing short of amazing.

Super ground pound is in every NSMB game from wii on I believe. So it doesn't even have that going for it

64 had 3D level design, an entirely new gameplay style designed around collecting Power Stars, and several new moves. Sunshine had FLUDD which gave you completely new abilities and enhanced platforming. Galaxy had antigravity level design. Those are all pretty revolutionary things that completely change the way you play the game. I haven't seen anything of that scale since the first Galaxy, at best they come up with some gimmicky powerup that might get some use, but that's about it, the gameplay has stagnated since then.

Too bad those Mario games didn't sell better.

It's one of the best Mario games ever! Take the best parts of SMB2 and SMW, put them together in 3D, add multiplayer and you get an awesome game of a system seller! Simple as that.