Topic: Super Mario 3D All-Stars

118 stars now. I'm so close. All I need is the 100 coins star for Tiny Huge Island and then, I'm guessing the red coin challenge star for the final Bowser stage. I think I'll do those tomorrow night.

Tonight in 64 I got the other 5 Stars in Shifting Sand Land. It was absolutely infuriating at first until I realized what items around the world make certain tasks easier. The Koopa shell makes getting to the top of the pillars (and up the pyramid) relatively easy as it can safely go over quicksand), and the with the cannon made getting the red coins pretty painless, for example. I didn't mind getting the Stars inside the pyramid, because it was pretty straightforward platforming stuff (just take it slow & steady). I think I'll ignore the 100 coin Star, but I never planned on 100% completing the game, so no biggie.

Moved onto Galaxy as I couldn't wait any longer to experience it again. While I'm not completely immersed in it (I'm only 13 stars in), it's a hell of a lot better than what I remember it to be, probably due to playing with a proper controller. Still not a fan of the remaining motion controls but that's not the end of the world.

Holy heck sunshine can be infuriating. The camera is terrible at times (behind the ferris wheel, ugh!) The physics dodgy (rolling the watermelon, sand bird riding, the pirate ship ride), and overall is just weird. And yet theres something incredibly charming and addictive about it.....

A short story about my history with 3D Mario games.

Now that more people have been able to experience Mario 64 and Sunshine, I finally feel safe to say how much I dislike these games. SMB2 was my very first game and I used to be a huge Mario fan during my childhood. I got both SMB3 and World at release day and both were my most played games on their respective systems. Naturally, I was pumped to get a N64 with Mario 64 when it came out. I had to wait almost a year until my 14th birthday to get it, and once I did... I was downright disappointed.

Even at that age, and with the novelty of it being the first 3D platformer, I didn't like it. Both the camera and controls never clicked with me and I didn't even like the level designs all that much. It felt too slow and cryptic for a Mario game. For the first time in my gaming life, Mario wasn't my most played game on a console, that honor went to Star Fox 64 and F-Zero X on N64 (both played about equally).

Once the GameCube saw the light of day I was very reserved with my feelings about Sunshine. I made the decision to rent it first and was glad I did. I played it for about 5 hours and in that time encountered a couple too many glitches and other frustrations for me to think it was good enough. I eventually picked up the Player's Choice edition of Sunshine and even finished the game, but it never stood out as a good game to me. At that time I was sure Super Mario games just weren't for me anymore and I moved on to other Nintendo franchises.

Mario Galaxy is an interesting case for me because I loved the concept of it and I thought it played much, much better than M64 and Sunshine, but I've always had trouble with motion sickness playing the Galaxy games. There's something about how the camera and planets move around each other that a part of my brain can't process well enough. As such, I can only play these games in short bursts. Which is frustrating because Galaxy was the first 3D Mario game I actually liked. It's just that I've never been able to enjoy them to their fullest.

After the Galaxy games came 3D World, but I want to talk Odyssey first. Super Mario Odyssey is boring. There, I said it. It's way too easy, there's almost no platforming involved, the Moons you have to collect are so abundant nothing you do feels satisfying anymore,... It's boring and tedious and an all-around poor-mans collect-a-thon game.

Now, if you're still reading this: 3D World ranks as my favorite 3D Mario game. It takes everything great about 2D Mario games and puts it in a 3D playing ground, has 5 playable characters with different playstyles and adds 4-player multiplayer that works ten times better than the New Super Mario games ever did. It's fun from beginning to end, the best Super Mario game since World on SNES and I'm super hyped about it coming to Switch next year!

@NEStalgia Haha. Agreed on all counts.

Also if there is a hell it is called “Yoshi’s Fruit Adventure”. I’m going to have to pound for a durian for the 5th time. 😭

Still a solid 8/10 game though.

@Octane I was confused by @Balta666 about the coins in Super Mario Sunshine because there is not a "swamp stage" in Super Mario 64. It has been a long time since I beat Super Mario Sunshine.

@BlueOcean Hazy Maze Cave?

@Octane That's not a swamp, that's just water inside a cave.

@Rexenoboy
Mario 64 used to give me motion sickness. You talk about your brain couldn't process galaxy? Mario 64 was the first 3D game i ever played and seeing that for the first time nearly melted my brain. I'm like whoa cool 3D mario lemmie play! Lemmie play! Soon after i was looking for a barf bag! Maybe it was the terrible camera bouncing and jerking all over the place.

I've talked about the Mario games already but, in short, Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World are 2D Mario in 3D and as such, they are fun. Super Mario Odyssey, if it wasn't called Mario, would be just another 3D platformer failed attempt (like Breath of the Wild would be an Assassin's Creed-Monster Hunter clone without The Legend of Zelda name), full of hidden moons and like someone said with no secrets at all. Boring enemies, bosses, mini games and possessions and with some decent platforming sections here and there and nothing in between. Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are linear action games more than 3D platformers and they have two things I don't like, motion controls and small planets that are almost guaranteed to give motion sickness to a big part of the population but I admit that they are fun, if more Sonic than Mario. Super Mario Sunshine is the most cohesive, epic, challenging and fun Mario 3D game. Super Mario 64 is balanced, it has the platforming, it has the exploration, it has the fun mission-based stars and it also has the limitations attached to being one of the first 3D platformers.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/gamecube/super-mario-sunshine

@BlueOcean I know, but that's what I think of when he said swamp.

@damien33ad Git gud boy. I managed to 100% it with ease. And I'm terrible at video games.

@Octane I just didn't know what he meant and I know that you just wanted to figure it out 😊. It's going to be my first Super Mario Sunshine playthrough in many years. I was about to beat it again last year and this year but I suspected that Nintendo would remaster it (I was hoping too much).

@BlueOcean
Man, I couldn't agree with you more about Odyssey. It was such a disappointment for me. One of very few Nintendo games that I couldn't wait for it to be over. And now being able to go back and play 64 right on my Switch, my opinion about Odyssey is further solidified.

I never owned a Wii so I hadn't played Galaxy until I gave it a shot with Collection. It's...ok. I don't know. I'm not a motion control person, so it's kind of putting a wet blanket over what otherwise seems like a nice game.

Honestly, though, I left Galaxy after just a few hours to play 64. All of these games are "simple" in relation to modern games, but I love how 64 is just the core mechanics and nothing gussied up about it. No motion gimmicks or Fludd or anything... just Mario's basic 3D moveset and classic little worlds to conquer. People say nostalgia makes the old games seem better in our memories, but so far I'm loving 64 just as much as I did when I was a kid (I don't own the DS remake, so it really has been however many years since I sold my N64).

@rallydefault Yep, Super Mario 64 is pure platforming and exploration and feels more epic than the "odyssey". As you said, it's basic in a good sense. It's not nostalgia, it's focused, it's still fun to play and since its only flaws are technical a remake would prove why it's so much better than Odyssey 🙂.

@rallydefault

I agree, and I never really played 64 back in the day. Or rather, I sort of did: I borrowed a cartridge from a friend, picked his save file, died a few times in the appropriately-named Lethal Lava Land, and rage-quit within an hour. Not the most aspicious memory of it.

Now as an adult I'm more patient and I can appreciate what the game is doing. Last night I got to the (apparently) dreaded Wet-Dry World and I just marveled at the concept of it. When I discovered the underground city I giggled with glee. There's this great mix of pure platforming, exploration, and puzzle-solving. No filler, every star is its own little adventure.

By now I'm more or less used to the camera, though there are still times it screws me over. You do have to sort of work with it and forgive the game because it was doing so many of these things for the first time. But the core of the experience is remarkable. And it's a tough game, it demands things of me. Ledges are white-knuckle moments.

I don't mind the "simplicity" of these old games. I think a lot of modern games are, frankly, over-designed. (I just finished Control on my PC and it's awesome, but there's so much needless stuff in it, a glut of weapon mods and needle-in-a-haystack fetch quests, which bog down the whole. It could've done with some trimming around the edges.) Also, many old games are only seemingly simple: the way you interact with a level in Mario 64 or Doom can actually be fairly sophisticated. It's just that this interaction is very, very immediate. Just you and your moveset, with very little menu-digging or ability trees to worry about.

Obviously a lot of indie games have caught on to this: Journey is a good example, which favors an experience that's as minimalistic and immediate as possible. (Though the platforming isn't as good as Mario 64, not even close.) And in the AAA space, you have experiments like Death Stranding, which exaggerate menu-digging to the point of self-aware art. You even have little AirBnB rooms peppered around the world just so you can rest up and... dig through menus. But that's Kojima for you. Most AAA developers aren't as cheeky about their own mechanics. They just follow trends.

@BlueOcean Even if I think Odyssey is a lot better then you think, I 100% agree with your points. 64 had that "whatever I want" vibe to it. You could do this world. Got tired of it? Here's another. Too hard? Amazing. We just so happen to have another painting.

Even if Odyssey had something similar to that, you had to do the kingdoms in the games way. Felt more like 3D World than anything.

@Beaucine Agreed. The filler menus make me sick, lately. The new Tomb Raider games found a perfect balance in that sense.

@Apportal Besides, I'll never forgive Super Mario Odyssey for not including the whole Mushroom Kingdom castle! 😜

The more I play Mario 64, the more I want to vent about it. Not the controls or the camera (those are excusable), but the poor gameplay design. Mainly surrounding the 100 coin stars. My usual pattern is:

1. Complete stars until I get to the red coin star.
2. Recomplete every challenge before and after so I can get all the coins, walking past every star along the way to get the 100 coin star
3. Circle back around to get the red coin star.

While there's variations (100 coins were done on the Secret of the Pyramid and Inside the Volcano levels for Shifting Sand Land / Lethal Lava Land), the bigger problem is most of the time you have to repeat most/all of what you do to earn each star in order to get all the coins. Admittedly, some levels have enough left over that you don't have to do that, but others (like Jolly Rogers Bay or Hazy Maze Cave) cut the coin count so tight you need to get almost every coin in a single run.

It's a lot like collecting notes in the original Banjo-Kazooie, which also left a poor taste in my mouth, albeit less frustrating... generally. Though, there's also the second issue with 100 coin stars: It's possible to spawn them somewhere unreachable. So suddenly, you have to scour the level without touching any remaining coins until you can find a coin that's good. And if you mess up, you have to run all the way back from the castle entrance unless you purposefully take a death.

Honestly, I never did the 100 coin stars as a kid, but I'm starting to regret my decision to finally 100% this game. These stars are more frustrating than fun, especially since I'm trying to go for as close to max coins as possible.

And all this is on top of the problem of stars that make you repeat earning previous stars to get them. Notably, it's a huge issue in Tick Tock Clock, Snowman's Land, Tall Tall Mountain and Rainbow Ride from what I remember (Which is why I still haven't bothered unlocking the 2nd or 3rd floor despite being over 70 stars), but even in the first 2/3 of the game, things like making you swim all the way over to the second area in Dire Dire Docks 4 times in a row, or climb the inside of the pyramid twice in Shifting Sand Lands feel like needless padding.