Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Am I the only one who like the NSMB games more than games like world? Specifically Mario bros Wii, but ds and 2 are great. The only one I don’t really like is Mario bros u.

@Eagly
I mean, I don't think there's any shame in not measuring up to DKC games. They're flawless.

@blindsquarel
I liked the DS one a fair bit. The 3DS one is the worst, but it was still fun. NSMBU though is far and away my favorite. Art style never bothered me (it could be more flavorful but eh, it looks clean) and, as long as you're not playing all of them back to back to back to back, the similarities aren't a downside either. I look at NSMBU as the only one that really matters. The other 3 may as well not exist as far as I'm concerned. Cause the additional enjoyment you get playing multiple games of the 4 drastically decreases.

@blindsquarel I mean, I'll give the series that both Wii and U are among the most fun I've had with couch co-op.

DS was a fun proof of concept, but definitely has some issues.
Wii is... not as good alone, it feels like it was primarily developed with co-op in mind.
2 is... not quite up to snuff, and having been released against the excellent U did it no favors. I'd say it's probably technically better than DS, but I have more nostalgia for DS.
U is the best in the series, balancing level design much better for both single and multiplayer. U with multiplayer I'd rank above World / 3 (and 2 even)... but the single player experience falls short of any of those titles.

@Eagly
they all feel the same you play one you’ve played them all

That's very true.

But it's precisely for that reason I don't play them all. I just play one. The good one. The best one. Treat it as if the other 3 don't exist, and suddenly that criticism falls by the wayside.

Ah! Can't wait til next Thursday for sparks of hope!

@JaxonH
Yeah you can’t play them back to back. I think the reason I love the series so much is nostalgia. Mario bros Wii was my childhood.

Y'know, I'm still fascinated by how much NSMBU's port sold compared to Mario Maker 2.

Like one of them is just two NSMB games on Wii U, the other is literally unlimited Mario. Just on a basic level, you'd think the latter would've done better or at least not notably worse. Unless the definitive structure of a 2D Mario game is what you play it for, I don't know why you'd choose the former. I have to believe that most people think its just a game about creating levels and don't actually know about all the levels to find online.

@kkslider5552000
Nothing beats the carefully designed levels of NSMBU, not to mention the NSLU expansion. Mario Maker is fun, but the pre-made levels and created levels just aren't as good, imo. It's appeal is in creation and enjoying wild and wacky levels. Which isn't everyone's thing.

@kkslider5552000 The vast majority of community-created Mario Maker levels can't compare to polished courses put together by Nintendo's level designers. If you just want to have fun with a good 2D Mario game, NSMBU is always going to be the better choice.

Just a heads up but for those with an Amazon Prime subscription in the US, they have early access sales going on right now. One of the sales is the SanDisk 1TB microSD card for $97.99

@IceClimbers In Canada the 1TB SD Card is $207.99. I could buy 3 games for that price.

Best 2D Mario I'd say is a close one between NSMBU Deluxe and the Wii U version of Super Mario Advance 4. The bonus e-reader levels make Super Mario Advance 4 a lot better than the base NES SMB3 but the only realistic way of getting those e-reader levels is buying the Wii U version. Though in a bit over 5 months that won't be an option anymore.

@Kermit1
I would rather get 1 TB SSD for PS5 when I can get PS5 machine in the future.

@Anti-Matter That would be a good investment

I honestly don't think most people buying Mario games thought this much about it to come to a conclusion like this.

Also I disagree, playing random Mario Maker levels of various quality was way more fun than NSMBWii and a good chunk of the DS game.

I'll third the sentiment that I'd rather have curated, made by nintendo levels than most of what the community sneezes out. There is a design philosophy to Mario games that makes them enjoyable, that most folks in Mario Maker really don't care about. And that is fine, as that is what the game is built for, but for the average Mario fan or average gamer, Nintendo's solo efforts are preferable.

@kkslider5552000 Maybe not, but clearly they thought enough about it to buy more copies of NSMB U than Mario Maker 2, despite both having Mario in the title.

A lot of people share my opinion that, unless you're deeply invested in the level design aspect of it, the gimmicky charm of the title wears off quickly, and you're left just wanting to play a normal Mario game instead of some rando's sub-standard approximation of one.

It's really not "unlimited Mario." That implies 99% of the content in the game (and that's likely being generous) isn't wildly inferior to what Nintendo produces in their actual 2D entries.

I will say, I never knew how much work really goes into level design until I tried (and mostly failed) to create interesting levels myself. It has given me a lot more appreciation for these "lazy" games people accuse Nintendo of mass-manufacturing.

NSMBWii is my favorite 2D Mario game due to nostalgia, it’s actually one of the first games I ever played. It’s relatively simple, but it has fun level designs and absolutely killer music.

NSMBU is probably the “best” one though. It has the most creative level designs, which is what really matters in the end.

But as @JaxonH said, DKCR and DKCTF are easily the best 2D Nintendo platformers, and some of the best 2D platformers ever made. While it would be nice to see Nintendo get a little more experimental with their 2D Mario games, I honestly don’t mind their simplicity. They almost feel like palette-cleansers in a way, plus they’re super fun to play in multiplayer.

@Ralizah
That's true. I spent countless hours making levels in Mario Maker, and was constantly going back and updating them, improving them, fixing sequence breaks (though I eventually learned it's better to keep those kinds of unintended breaks in- players WILL find them and exploit them, and when they do it gives them a sense of satisfaction, as if they outsmarted the level. I learned not to rob players of that, no matter how much I wanted them to experience my levels as intended).

Some ppl just have a knack for it. Lots of creativity, and if they've been doing it for decades, it probably comes natural to them. Like some artists can make elaborate drawings in record time, like speed drawing. Whereas I couldn't even draw that well if I took 3 months. Those are the kinds of ppl that likely flourish as developers.

I do agree with the level design. My one serious attempt to make a level was just a recreation of a Mischief Makers level (but made to make sense in Mario), and it was both time consuming and not good.

But I dunno. Like in general my interest in traditional 2D Mario hasn't been the same since NSMBWii specifically tbh, even a lot of the classic games. Mario 3 was one of my favorite games for a long time, and even that has fallen below a lot of other games. And the sheer unpredictability of Mario Maker (which I've sadly not even bought the sequel to, so I am part of the problem) and Mario 35 are the most fun I've had with 2D Mario since I was a kid. So its somewhat hard to say how much of it is the series and how much of it is me.

Anyway I'm gonna ignore any theories of quality because its not that. Super Mario Bros. is one of the biggest anythings in gaming, and at times New Super Mario Bros is not far off from that. "Super Mario Maker" is a Wii U game that looks like creating instead of playing, so it would probably need rebranding. I could easily imagine the next 2D Mario just having a Mario Maker as a very large second part of the package.