Topic: Super Mario 3D All-Stars

@Yosher I might just be being stupid, but wasn't yoshi's story for the N64 3D?

@Marioman2020 Nope.

It had a somewhat 3D-ish aesthetic to it but everything was still spritework and the game was simply a side-scroller. Yoshi has not had a 3D adventure yet unless you do want to count the times he's appeared in Mario's 3D games.

Food for thought though. There was a Yoshi (on-rail) 'FPS' back on the SNES in 1993/1994 with Yoshi's Safari but there's still not a 3D Yoshi platformer in 2020. Huh.

@Yosher Ohhhhh. Thanks. Yoshi's safari is actually the only through-Mario's-eyes game nintendo has made to date. It's also a shooter :l I want it in nintendo online!

@Yosher Well Crafted World seems to be experimenting with more 3D elements such as 2.5D level design, the flipside levels, and aiming at objects in the background, so I think that's going to have a bigger inspiration on any future 3D Yoshi game, but there's definitely some elements from the 3D Mario games that they should integrate into the gameplay.

Anyway, more to the topic, I just finished Galaxy 100% last night, finishing off the collection. Nice little blast through the past, but nothing special. Also, can I just reiterate how underwhelming Mario Galaxy's 100% completion reward is?

I just beat galaxy with 104 stars and I can confirm it is still my favorite game of all time. The beautiful visuals, just challenging enough so its not boring difficulty, and amazing soundtrack all give me a sense of joy no other game really gives me. Now to do the purple coin stars and win it again as Luigi (If I feel motivated enough to do it all over again). Also, the ending is really beautiful.

I just beat Galaxy again and I was wondering...was anyone else disappointed with how easy and linear it is? Overall, I think it's a good game. But I remember thinking it was a GREAT game. Only a handful of the stars were legitimately challenging, and Mario's limited moveset doesn't really allow for the type of creative and speedy movement that are in other 3D Mario games. Is it just me that felt this way?

So what you're saying is its a Mario game.

Since we we're talking about Yoshi earlier here's a question for you guys. Do you consider Yoshi's island to be a Yoshi game or a mario game? I mean right on the box it does say super mario world 2. I was doing a marathon of all the main mario games and I'm not sure if yoshi's island counts.

@Zeldafan79 I think its a Yoshi game, or a spin off but I count it as a Yoshi game if mario is not apart of the core gameplay then Its a Yoshi game.

@Snatcher
Yeah i agree. You do control mario at points but mainly it's yoshi's game. Misleading title if you ask me.

They simply decided more people would buy it if they saw "Super Mario World 2" in the box.

As a fun fact, the ps1 game "Croc" was originally created to be a Yoshi game. But nintendo rejected the pitch.

I'd say "yes". The reason being that it's designed by the core Mario team (Miyomoto, Tezuka etc.) and it builds on some concepts from Mario World and is - in its turn - built upon in Mario 64 (their next game). I think if you skip Yoshi's Island then Mario 64 makes less sense.

To me Mario 64 feels more like Yoshi's Island in 3d (but without the annoying flutter jump) than it feels like Mario 3 or World. Just in the sense of it being a game where the objective is more to scavenge around levels, the relative importance of moving transformative time limited power ups from one location to another, the slower pace of action and the less basic moveset.

I'd skip any of the following Yoshi games though (like Story, Island DS, New Island, Topsy Turvy etc.), I think the series' diverged very quickly.

@Bolt_Strike absolutely! Nothing compared to the great challenge in odyssey

@Banelamy_Jumm yeah I felt the same (it is here from a couple of weeks ago). I found it to be the easiest 3d Mario (never played Galaxy 2 and 3d world though)

Played an hour of Super Mario 64 yesterday evening. It felt more like working than my actual job, not a lot of fun. I remember it felt the same way the previous time I tried, which was slightly before the Wii era (ergo back then still the first 3D Mario I ever played). The graphics surprised me positively and I'll probably be able to get used to the controls. Only thing that really bothers me is the 'unforgivingness' of the game. First star with the bob-omb: took me a while to get a hang on how to beat the dude. Meanwhile I got thrown down every time and had to walk all the way up. That was quite cumbersome and unrewarding.

It doesn't really matter that much though. Galaxy alone justifies the purchase for me. Worst case scenario Mario 64 will solely serve future educational purposes

@Eel Croc was a great game, I have good memories of it. I tried tracing the IP to see who owns it now, but I fear that Activision currently owns the IP. Kinda ruins any hope for a revival.

@Zeldafan79 Think of it this way: is Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land a Mario game, or a Wario game? I think everyone would say Wario solely because you play as Wario, not Mario.

Of course it's a bit of a different situation for Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, since a lot of Mario related enemies still appear here and Mario himself still appears as well, but you still play as Yoshi and not Mario, featuring a gameplay and graphical style not found in any Mario game, and the game pretty much kickstarted the Yoshi franchise. You can still sort of argue that it's a Mario game (of course it's more a Mario game than Wario Land is), but it still is, for all intents and purposes, a Yoshi game.

Also don't listen to StuTwo on skipping any other Yoshi game. It's true that the first Yoshi's Island still is the king of the Yoshi games and likely will remain to be for a long while, but there's still good or at least decent games in the series. Yoshi's Island DS is at least worth checking out, and Yoshi's Woolly World was absolutely amazing as well, only a little bit behind that first Yoshi's Island if only due to the lack of difficulty and the, for the most part, sub-par boss battles. Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Crafted World are still fun in their own way too but are more on the mediocre side, but certainly not bad. And if you enjoy high-scoring games and can find it cheap... Yoshi Touch 'n Go could be a little addictive as well. I sunk a decent amount of time into it anyway, just gotta keep in mind that it's purely a high-score game, nothing else.

@StuTwo

I agree wholeheartedly.

So does Miyamoto: https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/09/24/mi...

From the interview: "When we first made Yoshi's Island, we considered it part of the Mario series. After that, the Yoshi series continued on its own. As developers, do we consider it to be part of the core Mario series? The answer is yes."

Basically, you can see how Mario games become progressively less linear, from 3 (where there are optional levels and multiple paths through individual stages) to World (where you gain the ability to transform the overworld itself), Yoshi's Island (where movement becomes very non-linear, as you explore, find secrets and solve little puzzles) and finally 64, which builds upon Yoshi's Island and makes it so that levels don't have endpoints, since they're constructed in a circular fashion.

Of course, Galaxy goes back to the older template, in many ways. But there's a definite throughline from 3 to 64, and Yoshi's Island is part of that evolution.

I'm feeling that the Yoshi discussion is starting to veer off topic, so I'm getting ahead of the mods on this one and creating a new topic for it before they come in and start cracking down on it. The new thread is here:

https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/nintendo-switch/should_th...

Croc was the game that I convinced myself was better than Mario 64, because I didn't have a N64 and was annoyed the Playstation didn't really have a proper 3D platformer at that point.

Until Spyro came out the year after, which I did genuinely think was better than Mario 64 (and still do actually).