EatChildren said:
See, this is all absolutely truthful and the reason why they've tethered digital controls to the analogue pad, but in practice it doesn't make sense, because there's still a full 3D arena to move in. The level design is heavily compartmentalised, smaller and focused on making jumps and movements in eight directions as opposed to free form. I didn't really have any trouble at all playing the game for these reasons, but it still felt like a completely unnecessary with no inherit value of its own.
It's like they feel forcing digital controls, and thus eight directions, makes the game easier to play. I really don't think it does.
Perhaps it does feel unnecessary. After all, we're so used to guiding Mario as we ourselves would traverse it, as a result of enjoying the last 15 years of not only Mario games, but 3d platformers and adventure games in general.
But I wouldn't say this control method doesn't make sense. While it may be a little more cumbersome when navigating an open plain, the bulk of the game, and any good platformer in general, is designed around running along paths, avoiding enemies, and timing jumps. Contrary to other 3d Mario games, all of the paths in SM3DL are either in front of you, behind you, to your left or right, or to a diagonal angle. They've simply tailored the controls (and camera) to the bulk of this game's focus. If anything, for this specific game, it makes an awful lot more sense than giving us infinite directions to choose from.
As such, we've got to ignore the aching desire to long jump over a gap at the self-selected angle of 97.5° with camera following sharply behind, accepting this as a new type of Mario and giving the 8-direction control method a chance to shine. By thinking of this as something else, hopefully we'll be able to enjoy tighter controls and the new challenges that are designed around them.
I'll personally be hoping for a Wii U reveal of Super Mario Galaxy 3 at next year's E3 to get my explore-all-dimensions Mario fix, but I'm hoping this will be a fresh new spin on the Mario platformer.