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Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
no, see, i think if a platformer had to do any one thing great, it should be level design. nsmbw does that. smg doesn't. smg's more of a jack of all trades. it's the skyward sword of 3d mario games.
I think we might fundamentally disagree about what makes good level design. It's more than, say, difficulty or even structure. It's about finishing a scenario and having it branded on the outer-wall of your skull because of how everything came together. Sometimes this might be because of a particularly ingenious take on much-covered ground, but generally -- and this is just a rule of thumb -- it happens when I'm presented with something that is completely unexpected. Galaxy constantly surprised me, NSMBW didn't. I was thoroughly entertained by NSMBW, but when I remember the act of playing a 2D Mario game, I'll think of flying for the first time in SMB3 or hitting the top of flag-pole at the end of 1-1. When I think of a 3D Mario game, Galaxy and SM64 will always occupy separate sections of my memory. That's completely invaluable, in any form of entertainment. It's also highly subjective, granted. I don't place as much emphasis on genre-specific intricacies as you do, but I certainly don't think I'm alone in doing so. It's part of the reason Half-Life 2 or Resident Evil 4 will always be stronger games to me than mechanically 'superior' shooters.
In that sense, I also don't think Skyward Sword and Galaxy are the same class of game, but that's kind of a secondary point here.