Topic: NSMB Wii vs. SMB. 3

Not even debatable for another 20 years to be honest.

If you're jumping to conclusions that NSMB is better than SMB3 after 3 days of gameplay... you're nuts.

@Wario
Whatever you think the underlying philosophy or whatever of the game is, the actual goal of the game is getting to the end of the level. The goal of the side-scrolling games has always been primarily to go from left to right. I leave out Yoshi's Island here, as it isn't really a Mario game. I enjoy running around levels aimlessly searching for stuff, too, but not as a goal. It's more enjoyable when you are free to do it (i.e. collecting dragon coins, finding secret power-ups in 3 or secret coin rooms in 1), not forced to in order to complete the game.

Also, I wasn't saying that the lack of a single vision in NSMB was a bad thing, just that it made it hard to compare to previous games. I like the cleverness of the levels, even if it does feel like they're going out of their way at points to make everything clever. I haven't really come to a conclusion. I joked in my first post that NSMB is worse for having star coins because they're annoying the heck out of me right now, but ignoring them I greatly enjoyed the game, and I pretty much feel as Rezon puts it: I'll have to get back to you guys in 20 years.

Edit: Screw it, I'll just use a guide... Hey, don't look at me like that.
One I don't think I'd ever found was in a hole in world 2. Why would anyone think to go down a hole? Holes kill you. This plus the random secret walls with no clues to their existence just feels like poor design.

It took me about a second to read your comment, and it annoyed me. I guess I just get annoyed by the little things

It's, to me at least, usually pretty obvious which walls are going to have secret walls in them. But there's stuff like that in ever Mario game. In Super Mario Bros. 3 if you take a shell and press down on the D Pad for 5 seconds while standing on a white block you fall behind the level and can unlock secret stuff but--who on earth figured that out?

Super Mario World.

Not really. They are both highly praised 2D Mario games.

I say SMB3.

You don't need a shell, and it's all the white blocks in the game that it works for. Sure, figuring it out once was random, but the pattern is obvious after. In NSMB Wii there are no hints for most of them, and there is no distinguishing color. So it's really not the same.

The amount of time it takes to walk from the previous level to the level in which you died in SMB3 takes significantly less time than waiting for the loading time to finish before re-entering the level in NSMBW.

And the controls... ugh.
I've died so many times from accidental waggles. They seriously happen on at least 1 out of 3 jumps, and sometimes multiple times per jump. Also, holding onto items with B (specifically Toad or a propeller box) while navigating a level is very tough and actually cramps up the index a finger a bit.
Of course, these complaints stem from using the wiimote+nunchuk control setup.
I also tried using the NES-style setup. Well, I hate using the NES-style setup. It feels very awkward. The D-Pad is tiny, the paddle is very small on the Y-Axis, and the groove where the B-button is irritating as well.
Tilting a platform in this setup is intuitive but tough. Running and jumping while holding both hands at a 45 degree angle is just awkward.

So, for me, SMB3 is better due to superior controls. And also the Raccoon suit, Tanooki suit, the Hammer suit, and of course, the P-Wing.

NSMBW is still great and a must-have for all Wii owners imo, but I wish they would have added CC or GCC support. Maybe possible in a future Wii System Update?

That's reductive to the point of absurdity. Many games share the "goal" of reaching the end of the level even if their genres are not at all comparable, but what's essential is the question of how a game invites the player to enjoy the path to that goal. In a bullet-hell shooter, it's one thing, and in Mario, it's something entirely different. The "playground" way of describing a Mario level is simply far more accurate at capturing how they've tended to engage the player over the years. Since we're talking about Mario 3, look at any number of details in the stages and you'll see that the level design is geared not only towards having an obstacle course to clear but more importantly towards both exploring and having fun situations or contraptions to play around with.

Heck, if you simply try to reach the goal quickly, you'll obliterate the majority of the work that has gone into the level design. The reason coins (and special or red coins), 1-Ups, and secret rooms are scattered about the stages is not primarily to give you a chance for more lives (who needs that anyway? all the way back in SMB3 you could max those out easily in the second stage) but instead to continually give you incentive and reward for examining your surroundings, trying to reach every difficult point you see, and figuring out little tricks built into the situation. One simple example of that from Mario 3 would be where you can kick certain turtles that have been arranged to causing a cascading interaction with a stack of blocks, which slows you down and may not always provide a ton of coins, but which is pretty dang fun. Add to that the situations where you can obtain a 1-Up by killing a sequence of enemies with a shell, or the blocks that make coins appear for a minute that you can frantically try to gather before time runs out. Those are as little about racking up lives as the games themselves are about reaching the goal. The goals and lives are just incentives to get you to enjoy the design of the level and its enemies, interactions, etc.

@This bit about the invisible walls

There are very clear hints for nearly every invisible wall in the game. Sometimes it's an enemy that walks into it partly, at other times it's a clear indention in the wall, and at others it's obvious given the position of a coin or object you can see that could only be reached by such a means. The only levels in which there are often no clues would be the Ghost Houses, but those have never been about linear platforming since their introduction in SMW; they're essentially puzzles, and always have been.

I just skimmed since you seem to have given up on Wario's Notes, but I disagree with it being "reductionist to the point of absurdity." There are games where you collect things to clear a level, but in Mario you go to the end and it's over. That's pretty much the definition of goal, so take it up with a dictionary.

Ghost Houses (and Star World in SMW) are the one level type that actually is designed specifically for secrets. It is the only way to enjoy the level, and I do like that. Your goal in those levels is to figure out how to get out, and so secrets are built in to the goal.

But your main overworld levels don't give you a time bonus for nothing. Secrets are enjoyable and rewarding to find if found incidentally, but they are not the goal. I would enjoy these little secrets much more if found at my leisure in levels designed specifically for secrets, as they have been in every previous Mario game.

To give an example, there was one level with lakitus. These characters force you to run through the level because if you stand still too long you'll be boxed in by spinies. However, the level hosts the hardest-to-find secret I've yet encountered, which unless using a guide (which I shamelessly did, for this one level), I don't see how you'd figure it out, as it requires you do something that would ordinarily kill you.

I just want to play World 9. It makes no sense to force a player to exercise one skill set in order to access levels that have nothing to do with those skills.

Im not too big of a fan of Mario 3. (Too dessert-ish atmospheres feel BAd, some annoying level design...) And Im loving NSMBWii completely. So my choice is obvious

They are pretty equal in my eyes. Wouldn't call either one too difficult though.

This, and Yoshi's Island...and Super Mario Sunshine.

@Adam

It is reduction, and absurd. Reaching the end of the stage is simply the minimum accomplishment required in order to proceed, but it in no way constitutes the sole objective of the gameplay. Completing a level means finding all its secrets and hidden tricks, finding ways to get 1-Ups or more coins, and so forth. The goal line or flagpole is simply the limit condition within which you must work: explore, find all the hidden coins, star coins, and hidden rooms, have fun throwing shells around or bouncing off walls -- but make sure you don't run out of time or get killed before you reach the end, or you'll have to start over.

My point is that Mario levels are thoroughly designed in order to encourage exploration and to taunt you to get every single coin or item, no matter how inaccessible and far off the basic path it may seem. If you simply wish to reach the goal, the games are generally much easier, and far more boring, as you can simply skip a tremendous amount of the challenges and design which constitute the meat of each stage.

In SMW, you had to find a good many hidden keys in order to see every level. That makes sense. Reaching each goalpost is a rather low bar to set, and it wouldn't be right to give you access to all the stages if you simply blow past everything and ignore all the difficult-to-reach coins or areas.

In every 2D Mario game, getting to the end of the level is the minimum requirement. Every Mario game has its secrets, and they usually come in handy and make the game more fun, but they're not necessary to finish the game.

I've yet to play New Super Mario Bos. Wii, but I'd be surprised if they actually diverged from that format, especially since even New Super Mario Bros. DS included secrets.

EDIT: Surprise, Surprise! They did change the format. Now you're required to get the secrets. Forced replay = Bullcrap in my opinion, so that pretty much seals the deal for me: I'm not getting NSMBWii.

...unless World 9 is just the "Lost Levels", which would be fine by me. The GBA versions of Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island have them, and I have no intention of ever getting to them. So long as I can finish the actual game without collecting the stupid Star Coins(if they're anything like the ones in the DS version they'll likely be a pain in the @$$ to get), I'll be fine.

No. You are describing things that can be done, not things that must be done. I don't doubt those things are fun and that they are intended for your pleasure, but they are not the goal. You can enjoy those if you wish, but you do not have to, thus they are not the goal.

In Mario 64 I spent a lot of time in the courtyard just running around and doing flips or trying to glitch my way into the castle via the roof. That was not the goal of the game just because I said I enjoyed it and then repeatedly called someone else's logic reductionist and absurd. The Mario World games even called the end of the level the "goal."

SMW's secrets are different. They aren't in every level, they don't involve invisible walls or fake holes, and the levels they are in are generally puzzle-centric levels, rather than having three secrets forced in every single level, regardless of how well each particular level is designed for such things.

Also, how on earth would it "not be right" to give a player access to levels? Since when do you need further justification to play a game other than just giving the developer your money? There is no right or wrong here. It's a game. People enjoy the same games for many different reasons. I don't consider speed running a low bar whatsoever. It's highly challenging and continues to be so long after you've found all the secrets.

EDIT: Thanks, Mickeymac, I was beginning to think I was losing it. I'm glad someone else understands the word "goal."

Actually, Mickeymac is is in line with my position.

"In every 2D Mario game, getting to the end of the level is the minimum requirement."

Yes, that's exactly as I described it, the minimum requirement. It's not a change at all to require you to actually do more than that in order to reach all the levels; it's just like being able to "beat" Mario 64 or Galaxy with a certain number of stars, but you'll need to go much further if you want to reach all the areas.

If you wanted to play the Special World in SMW, you had to find a whole sequence of hidden keys; if you just play through the game and don't look for those, you won't get those levels. That's fine, they're not part of the "minimum" game you get by reaching end goals, and essentially a bonus for those that go a little farther, just like the additional levels in NSMBWii. That's very little change.

It was a tradition also carried on (and further deepened) in Yoshi's Island, where you needed 100% completion of each stage in order to reach the bonus stage for that map. I know you don't consider that a proper Mario game, but the point is that the trend in this direction has been with the series (and with Nintendo's level design) in a very big way since at least SMW.

In Mario 64 I spent a lot of time in the courtyard just running around and doing flips or trying to glitch my way into the castle via the roof. That was not the goal of the game just because I said I enjoyed it and then repeatedly called someone else's logic reductionist and absurd. The Mario World games even called the end of the level the "goal."

That's a fairly ridiculous example, as it involves trying to do something that the level design itself does not encourage (which would be different if there were a special coin or item up there to indicate to you to try to reach it). What I'm talking about is the fact that a very significant part of the design that goes into every Mario title is not aimed at making it more difficult to get to the goal -- that's an incredibly simple matter at times -- but instead at enticing you, via coins or items, to try to reach additional, hidden or difficult areas. Ignoring that as a fundamental part of the experience is oversimplifying the series and its gameplay, that's all I'm saying.

This thread is getting strange.

Agreed

I agree with both of you, and also WariosWoods.