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[Alo81]

I was about to reply to this, and then I read the rest of your post, and you said the thing I was about to type:


SMW kills a good chunk of its own challenge by allowing you to use Yoshi or powerups in any level, and the cape is ridiculously overpowered, not to mention lives and the saving system are completely meaningless or the special Yoshi powers. When I go for 100%, I always fly right over nearly all the Special World with the cape, from start to finish. You shouldn't be able to do that. The game does have some brilliant design, but it's sort of messy, unfocused.

Again, I really don't feel that allowing you the option should discredit the great level design. In Super Mario 3D Land if you die enough times they literally give you invincibility, and the game is still an absolute blast to play through.

You CAN fly over a lot of things, but you can also absolutely not do that and still play a brilliant game as a result. I played through again not flying over everything, and the special world levels were a total delight, and some stuff got pretty grueling. It was really great, and very tightly designed.

 

[Raptomex]

I'm excited about Super Mario Maker, so earlier I tried to play Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World. I couldn't get through the first few levels of each due to boredom. I love Donkey Kong Country, Sonic and Yoshi's Island but it's hard to dive into a 2D Mario game now and not feel as if I'm going through the motions (even if I've loved the hell out of them in the past).

They're classics, I know this. But once you've played the hell out of them AND have played Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, which one is the most entertaining?

Bored by Super Mario World? Crazy talk. Greatest game ever made.

 

[InsaneZero]

I think Super Mario Bros. 3 has the greatest amount of variety. The number of mechanics and unique challenges the game introduces is staggering. The only other Mario game that would come close is probably SMG2.

Super Mario World is my big nostalgia thing, but I think the only real strength it has over the others are how well its secrets are designed. Most of the hidden exits are actually somewhat easy to spot but tricky to reach or use a large variety of familiar mechanics as clues to the player. The NSMB series actually have harder to spot and harder to reach secrets, but they typically follow the same pattern (look for that really out-of-place coin or pipe) so it's not exactly as gratifying. Maybe that feeling is also the nostalgia.

But naturally, Yoshi's Island has the best level design because it has the best of both worlds while also having a great learning curve. A lot of the challenges that are presented to the player as-is also allow for the player to imagine what would happen if they didn't follow the obvious path forward and did something completely different instead, like daring to jump off a really fast moving platform. Most of the time you just die, but there's always the chance of seeing something really cool behind the corner that makes the attempt worth the effort. And you get rewarded for hurting yourself continuously with some really sadistic levels so it all works out, you masochist.

 

[Jawbreaker]

Super Mario Bros 3. No contest.

Yup, this is my answer as well.

 

[jett]

I was about to reply to this, and then I read the rest of your post, and you said the thing I was about to type:


SMW kills a good chunk of its own challenge by allowing you to use Yoshi or powerups in any level, and the cape is ridiculously overpowered, not to mention lives and the saving system are completely meaningless or the special Yoshi powers. When I go for 100%, I always fly right over nearly all the Special World with the cape, from start to finish. You shouldn't be able to do that. The game does have some brilliant design, but it's sort of messy, unfocused.

Yeah the cape kind of breaks SMW.

 

[AuthenticM]

Yoshi's Island

 

[ScHlAuChi]

Super Mario World - no contest!

 

[InsaneZero]

Yeah the cape kind of breaks SMW.

The cape's unique property of mercy invincibility is the biggest thing that makes it horrendously OP. If it wasn't possible to make a complete recovery after getting hit then it would be possible to retain some of the challenge.

 

[Simbabbad]

In Super Mario 3D Land if you die enough times they literally give you invincibility, and the game is still an absolute blast to play through.

Come on, that's completely different. The cape is SMW's main item, it's advertised on the box, and a good chunk of levels are made with the cape in mind. Compare this with the shameful Super Guide (or whatever the name is when it gives a special costume), which appears when you lose too much and makes it impossible to have a perfect save file.

The cape is overpowered, and SMW messes its own challenge with too many passes. It's actually so much an issue that it was deliberately fixed in NSMB games: in those, you can't get in a level/grab a powerup/get out through the menu and keep the powerup, in the Wii and Wii U games you can't use stocked powerups in-game, Yoshi appears only in levels designed for him, and no item allows you to skip whole levels by flying. In fact, the main NSMBW and NSMBU items (propeller Mario and squirrel costume) don't even have offensive moves (which in turn allows to make puzzles with destructible blocks and shells/switches, whereas you can "cheat" those in SMW or SMB3 with the cape or raccoon costume).

Actually this is why I love NSMBU/NSLU so much: the squirrel costume is perfect. It's risky and challenging to use, you can't really fly with it (as in "gain altitude), it has no offensive move, it doesn't break the challenge, it makes it more interesting.

 

[lensoftruth]

Workd by far has the best overall levels. Yoshis Island has the best levels though.

Touch fuzzy get dizzy

 

[Alo81]

The cape is overpowered, and SMW messes its own challenge with too many passes. It's actually so much an issue that it was deliberately fixed in NSMB games: in those, you can't get in a level/grab a powerup/get out through the menu and keep the powerup, in the Wii and Wii U games you can't use stocked powerups in-game, Yoshi appears only in levels designed for him, and no item allows you to skip whole levels by flying. In fact, the main NSMBW and NSMBU items (propeller Mario and squirrel costume) don't even have offensive moves (which in turn allows to make puzzles with destructible blocks and shells/switches, whereas you can "cheat" those in SMW or SMB3 with the cape or raccoon costume).

Actually this is why I love NSMBU/NSLU so much: the squirrel costume is perfect. It's risky and challenging to use, you can't really fly with it (as in "gain altitude), it has no offensive move, it doesn't break the challenge, it makes it more interesting.

I don't think that the cape isn't overpowered, I agree and accept that, but something being overpowered doesn't necessitate that you use it in an overpowered fashion. Flying over levels to the point where there is no or very little skill involved is obviously against the whole point of playing, but you don't have to do it. I played through SMW a few weeks ago, and I didn't exploit the cape. The game offered a really great challenge and was a blast to play through. It felt nice, and those instances where you DO need to fly, the flying feels great and its fun to master the skill of gaining and maintaining altitude. One of the things I really disliked about NSMBU was losing Yoshi at the end of levels. It felt needlessly restrictive. I felt similarly with Kuribos shoe in SMB3. I much prefer tools be made available to me, and I'm free to use them as I feel necessary.

Here's a great example, in the SMW star world where you need to activate all the switches to unlock the special world. Alternatively - if you're good enough, you can use a blue shell, a yoshi, and a cape to squeeze your way into the exit and get into the special world early. I think that is fantastic. It's tough to pull off and takes some tricky maneuvering, but if you can piece together a way to make it work then you get access to the special world really early. If the cape was tied to a specific world, or Yoshi to a specific level, or colored shells didn't grant you the option to fly, it is something you couldn't do. Limiting options prevents creative exploration of levels, and one thing I love is improving and finding better ways to progress in games. It's fun to take your time, explore every inch of a level for all the secrets and make it to the end, but it's also fun to hold down right + run and then do a perfect speed run through a level where you take advantage of your full moveset.

I don't disagree that the cape is overpowered, but I don't think that lessens the game. The player is free to use it as they wish, and if the joy of facing the challenges head on is more fun to them than flying over the levels they can do just that.

 

[greg400]

Haven't played Lost Levels, Land games, or NSMB2

I'd have to go with either SMB3 or NSMBU.

 

[Simbabbad]

@Alo81: challenge doesn't exist in a vacuum. You remind me of a guy I argued with about Muramasa: the Demon Blade. I pointed out the game was badly balanced because you could win all of the fights in the whole game just by button mashing a specific move with a specific weapon, therefore ruining the game. And he replied: "well, just don't use that move".

Sorry, but it doesn't work like that. I'm the player, it's not my job to figure out the rules of properly winning the game. I don't play Mario as a sandbox game where I have to create my own challenge, or figure out which move is overpowered or not, and censor myself not to ruin my fun.

There's a challenge, there are performance guides (achievements, marks on the save file, leaderboards, rankings, stuff to collect), there are means at my disposal, and I use all the means I have to achieve the goals given to me. I shouldn't have to decide which moves are "correct" or not, this is the job of the game designers.

Your line of reasoning could justify overpowered characters in fighting games, too. Hell, it could justify absence of correct level design ("make up your own challenge"). Sorry, but it's a design issue. I can sort of understand for, say, warp pipes in SMB (I never use them) because it's very clear it's "legal cheating", but using an item that's central to the game? Hell no.

 

[LordSparda]

SMB3 for me as well. The 8 worlds, with their own world maps and extremely varied stage designs blew me away back in the day. I was also impressed by the amount of content built into each stage... every time I played it I found something new; it was almost overwhelming to me as a kid. And world 8... man, world 8. Mario darting across invading tanks, jumping precariously through a fleet of airships, attacking huge fortresses... I don't think any Mario final levels have quite captured that feel of "shit gets real" stage ever since.

 

[epeternally]

Newer Super Mario Bros Wii here. By some cosmic oddness, the best 2D Mario game for me is... one Nintendo didn't make. The level designs are astonishingly well put together, and the sheer amount of content is untouchable. The whole experience just feels joyful in a way that none of the official New Super Mario Bros games have managed, though U was quite a solid experience in its own right. It takes everything that was good about Super Mario World and builds on it. Yoshi's Island was a great game in it's own right, but this is the real Super Mario World 2. Outside of a few extremely minor hiccups and World 4 being overly fanservice, Newer Team made a strong contender for the best 2D platformer of all time.

Keeping it to official entries only, I think Super Mario Bros 3 wins out. World was marred by floaty physics and being a bit repetitive, Yoshi's Island was gorgeous but never felt like a Mario game and I had less fun with it, New Super Mario Bros is just solid while Wii and 2 were lazy in design even if the engines were great, and U is probably a strong contender for second place but I don't think it has the timelessness of 3. The original doesn't hold up that well compared to the rest of the series, nor for the same reasons does Lost Levels / Japanese 2, and American SMB2 / Doki Doki Panic is a flawed game that doesn't even show against the rest of the series.

 

[Alo81]

@Alo81: challenge doesn't exist in a vacuum. You remind me of a guy I argued with about Muramasa: the Demon Blade. I pointed out the game was badly balanced because you could win all of the fights in the whole game just by button mashing a specific move with a specific weapon, therefore ruining the game. And he replied: "well, just don't use that move".

Sorry, but it doesn't work like that. I'm the player, it's not my job to figure out the rules of properly winning the game. I don't play Mario as a sandbox game where I have to create my own challenge, or figure out which move is overpowered or not, and censor myself not to ruin my fun.

There's a challenge, there are performance guides (achievements, marks on the save file, leaderboards, rankings, stuff to collect), there are means at my disposal, and I use all the means I have to achieve the goals given to me. I shouldn't have to decide which moves are "correct" or not, this is the job of the game designers.

Your line of reasoning could justify overpowered characters in fighting games, too. Hell, it could justify absence of correct level design ("make up your own challenge"). Sorry, but it's a design issue. I can sort of understand for, say, warp pipes in SMB (I never use them) because it's very clear it's "legal cheating", but using an item that's central to the game? Hell no.

If "balancing" the game the way you mention is going to prevent me from finding a fun new way to approach something, I would much, much prefer they didn't balance how you desire. This sounds like we have a fundamentally different philosophy when playing games. It sounds like in this case yours is to win, and mine is simply "enjoy the game". If you can't prevent yourself from taking advantage of the easy route that's absolutely fine, but it doesn't make my method of personal limitation to derive enjoyment any less valid, nor the Muramasa person you're referring to.

To give my own personal anecdote, I was talking to a friend who was playing Dark Souls II and really not enjoying the game. My friend told me that it takes forever to kill enemies, and the combat is so samey and uninteresting. I recommended he try some new weapons out since most have vastly different movesets, maybe try dual wielding or powerstancing, or maybe even give a magic build a try as it can offer a vastly different playstyle. They told me they only play fantasy games with unarmed builds, and that they didn't want to do anything other than dual wielding caestus. Eventually, they decided they weren't enjoying the game so they stopped playing.

I'm getting a similar vibe from you, where you're only allowing yourself one proper way to play the game, and letting that hinder your experience with it. If you weren't to look at it so rigidly and instead make your goal be to simply enjoy the game however it would be most enjoyable for you, I believe you would have a much better time with SMW.

As for fighting games, yeah, my line of reasoning could, and I don't see a fault with that. Again, it sounds like your philosophy is "have a perfectly balanced competitive fighting game" where my main approach is enjoy the game. If I were to stick to what your rigid philosophy seems to be, it limits potential options for fun for me. If I enjoyed a perfectly balanced competitive fighting game, I can play that and do that within how I play. If I also enjoyed turning on infinite meter and performing super moves and fatalities constantly, its an option I can enjoy in my philosophy that I wouldn't be afforded in yours.

Edit: I actually just thought of another example you might consider blasphemy that I would be curious to hear your thoughts on. I played Skyrim at launch on PC, and one of the very first things I did was use console commands to give myself 999999 carry weight. I don't enjoy weight limits in video games, so I just turned the weight limit off and had a fantastic time with it thanks to doing so.

A fighting game example I just remembered, I rented Soul Calibur 2 on the gamecube. I loved Link at the time, and it had Link as a character. His grab move would grab the opponent and throw them behind. Because the game featured ring outs, this made it pretty easy to beat almost any opponent, meaning there were often times where I would go through the story mode and almost every match I would just step to the edge, try to throw the opponent, and instantly win. Along with this, there were some matches that took place caged, which meant I couldn't just go for the easy ring out. So my strategy for playing the game was try to ring out opponent after opponent, get new weapons and upgrades or whatever the game had, then try to fight legitimately against the caged in opponents. This is a very different and I imagine fairly unorthodox method of playing the game that the developers likely didn't intend, but I had fun doing it. Every caged match was a severe challenge I had to over come, and over other match was this odd metagame of trying to ring out the opponent. It was sort of akin to grinding in an RPG until the next boss. This is a case where there is an OP move that I absolutely prefer being in there because it benefits the way I wanted to play the game. I don't doubt that in a competitive 1v1 match the move might be infuriating, but that wasn't the game or playstyle I was going for so it didn't matter to me at the time.

 

[March of the Crabs]

SMB3 for me with NSMBU in a close 2nd.

 

[Yoshi]

@Alo81: challenge doesn't exist in a vacuum. You remind me of a guy I argued with about Muramasa: the Demon Blade. I pointed out the game was badly balanced because you could win all of the fights in the whole game just by button mashing a specific move with a specific weapon, therefore ruining the game. And he replied: "well, just don't use that move".

Sorry, but it doesn't work like that. I'm the player, it's not my job to figure out the rules of properly winning the game. I don't play Mario as a sandbox game where I have to create my own challenge, or figure out which move is overpowered or not, and censor myself not to ruin my fun.

There's a challenge, there are performance guides (achievements, marks on the save file, leaderboards, rankings, stuff to collect), there are means at my disposal, and I use all the means I have to achieve the goals given to me. I shouldn't have to decide which moves are "correct" or not, this is the job of the game designers.

Your line of reasoning could justify overpowered characters in fighting games, too. Hell, it could justify absence of correct level design ("make up your own challenge"). Sorry, but it's a design issue. I can sort of understand for, say, warp pipes in SMB (I never use them) because it's very clear it's "legal cheating", but using an item that's central to the game? Hell no.

While I agree with this in principle, wrt items in Mario I think there is a really good rule of thumb: If an item is found in a level it's meant to be used there. Just treat the ability to carry items over to other levels as a cheat, too. If you don't succeed on your first try, you'd have to deliberately go back to another level, grab the item again and try anew. I think the game signals well enough that you can do that but you are not supposed to do that. There's even the super secret special level that only consists of a weapon arsenal you unlock about a quarter into the game... Same applies to the 3D Land / World games, the Tanooki suit is also way to strong for some levels (especially the final levels each) but you don't obtain the suit in them...

 

[AntiFacebook]

Super mario 3d world

Spoiler

/s

 

[Simbabbad]

To give my own personal anecdote, I was talking to a friend who was playing Dark Souls II and really not enjoying the game. My friend told me that it takes forever to kill enemies, and the combat is so samey and uninteresting. I recommended he try some new weapons out since most have vastly different movesets, maybe try dual wielding or powerstancing, or maybe even give a magic build a try as it can offer a vastly different playstyle. They told me they only play fantasy games with unarmed builds, and that they didn't want to do anything other than dual wielding caestus. Eventually, they decided they weren't enjoying the game so they stopped playing.

I'm getting a similar vibe from you

Actually, I thought it was pretty clear it was the exact opposite: I'm using all the means at my disposal, that's the point. If those ruin the challenge, then it's a game design flaw and an overlook of the game designers, period. When I play a game, I play it however I feel like to have fun, I don't want to bother thinking stuff like: "oh, that item is overpowered after all, so I'll restrain myself from using it from now on". It's not my job to figure out and correct such things, it's the developers', before I buy the game.

You say for example that you wish you could use Yoshi in any NSMBW/NSMBU level, but that'd ruin all the careful work of the designers to create tons of brilliant challenges involving stuff in the air and remote platforms. You don't seem to understand the consequences of the "do your own game" philosophy. Many, many times, more is less: if you can use Yoshi anywhere, either he ruins challenges where he's not supposed to be used, or you design all of the game with him in mind, and it makes the game poorer and less interesting, and frustrating since you can't afford to lose him. He's too powerful to be usable anywhere.

Open world games do exist for you to enjoy, why would that sort of design ruin tight games like platformers? You can't make the main item in your game ruin your own challenge and expect players to refrain from using it, it's absurd. It all has to be within certain limits.

While I agree with this in principle, wrt items in Mario I think there is a really good rule of thumb: If an item is found in a level it's meant to be used there. Just treat the ability to carry items over to other levels as a cheat, too.

Except you carry items over to other levels naturally when you beat them, it's a basic rule in the game. Or are you arguing that to properly enjoy Super Mario World, the player should purposefully get hurt at the beginning of every level so he loses his item? This sounds like a severe design flaw.

Look, not only you naturally carry your currently used item to the next level, but you can stock another one for spare in case you're hurt in action. No other home console Super Mario Bros. game allows you to do that. The game doesn't consider item use as "cheating" that shouldn't be done, it goes out of its way to encourage you to stock and use items wherever you can.

You say that the player can go in a level, grab an item and get out with the item through the menu, but isn't supposed to do that, but then why is he able to do that? If really you shouldn't do it, you shouldn't be able to do it. And if I did, it's because the game offers you to stock items, it indicates stocking items is the way to go to play the game.

I don't even understand why you mention the secret arsenal level in the game. Its presence proves my point: the game goes out of its way to encourage you to stock and use items wherever you like. If following naturally what the game allows you and encourages you to do spoils parts of its challenge, then it's the game's own fault. As a player, I don't have to correct the balance and design issues developers left in their games, especially when it's not canalized through in-game rewards. Good design in that sense is Wario Land the Shake Dimension: it's a game with tons of freedom for everybody to be able to play the game, but objectives focus the challenge. Super Mario World doesn't do that, and its challenges is muddied and spoiled by overpowered items.

 

[Castef]

I'd say Super Mario World, with Super Mario Bros 3 as a close second.

 

[InsaneZero]

The cape in SMW is problematic because it is a powerup that is accessible early in the game, significantly improves Mario's mobility in every way, and provides enough tools to combat nearly every single challenge in the game. You can fly forever, you can slow and control descents, you can destroy projectiles and enemies alike (even those behind barriers and those normally invincible otherwise) in any position unless you're flying, you get mercy invincibility from said threats when you're flying, can be used in every level and you can easily get another feather if you happen to lose one within minutes.

The cape has an answer to nearly everything that the game can throw at you to the point where the other powerups can't even compare. You can skip entire levels or at least trivialize entire sections of a level just by holding the jump button. Even the Blue Yoshi can't fly forever and it is still a Yoshi (so it can't eat everything, can only eat Koopa shells to fly, and can't be used in castles or Ghost Houses). Underwater is probably the only point where you probably should be using something else, but even then the cape is still useful.

Basically put, the cape makes 90% of the game almost entirely pointless or trivial. It's an option that's so useful in nearly every situation that you barely have any reason to not wear it unless you explicitly want to limit yourself. And that's fine and all, but having to go through a self-imposed challenge in order to play the game as the developers intended speaks volumes about how overpowered the cape is.

 

[kodecraft]

Super Mario World. It's not even close.

Come at me GAF.

The perfect platforming, pit falls, enemy placement, secret exits, enemy design and level length. Untouchable.

This.

 

[Alo81]

Actually, I thought it was pretty clear it was the exact opposite: I'm using all the means at my disposal, that's the point. If those ruin the challenge, then it's a game design flaw and an overlook of the game designers, period. When I play a game, I play it however I feel like to have fun, I don't want to bother thinking stuff like: "oh, that item is overpowered after all, so I'll restrain myself from using it from now on". It's not my job to figure out and correct such things, it's the developers', before I buy the game.

And you're limiting yourself by restricting yourself to always using everything available to you. There can absolutely be freedom in self limitation. Go look at Lobos Jr's Dark Souls speedruns. He has gotten hours upon hours of entertainment from the game simply by choosing to not do specific things. If he stuck stalwart to the idea "I must use everything available" he is playing a very limited game, in comparison to his "I will use what I choose when I choose" which has gotten him I imagine literal thousands of hours of entertainment.

Open world games do exist for you to enjoy, why would that sort of design ruin tight games like platformers? You can't make the main item in your game ruin your own challenge and expect players to refrain from using it, it's absurd. It all has to be within certain limits.

WHY not though? I did it. I do it. I had a blast with SMW doing exactly that, not abusing the cape by choice. And other times, I utilized the cape in ways I wasn't intended to to reach areas I wasn't supposed to, because I enjoyed doing it. You are saying a lot of "You can't do this because it's bad" without really giving concrete reasoning for WHY you can't do it. You say it isn't your job to balance their game, but no one is asking you to. Just play the game how you like it.

You say for example that you wish you could use Yoshi in any NSMBW/NSMBU level, but that'd ruin all the careful work of the designers to create tons of brilliant challenges involving stuff in the air and remote platforms. You don't seem to understand the consequences of the "do your own game" philosophy. Many, many times, more is less: if you can use Yoshi anywhere, either he ruins challenges where he's not supposed to be used, or you design all of the game with him in mind, and it makes the game poorer and less interesting, and frustrating since you can't afford to lose him. He's too powerful to be usable anywhere.

Why are those the only two options? How about this 3rd option, where you keep the game exactly as it currently is, except let the player bring Yoshi into any level they choose. If he at any point "ruins the challenge" for me, I can dismount him and continue. And I do! In SMW there were several times where I just ditched Yoshi because I liked a level more without him! Again, you seem intely focused on a core idea of "everything must be balanced" without saying why that is a NECESSITY. I'm not saying why you like it or find it important, I'm saying why you feel it seems to be REQUIRED, or else it is a bad thing. To reiterate what I said earlier, by forcing yourself to use everything at your disposal, you are removing all options where you choose not to take advantage of something, which in most games is a huge subset of variables.

 

[Simbabbad]

Why are those the only two options? How about this 3rd option, where you keep the game exactly as it currently is, except let the player bring Yoshi into any level they choose. If he at any point "ruins the challenge" for me, I can dismount him and continue.

Because at this point, the challenge has already been ruined. You're defending this course of events:

1) The designer allows everything, including items that ruin the challenge.
2) The player plays the game, minding only his player's business.
3) He involuntary ruins some challenges because the items he naturally uses are overpowered (at this point a good chunk of the game has been spoiled already).
4) After some time (this could take the whole game, actually), the player realizes the challenge is badly balanced.
5) The player analyses the game to create artificial game rules to fix the ruined challenge, not knowing yet if said rules will be sufficient and/or apply for the rest of the game, which he has no means to figure out yet.
6) The player plays according to his new rules, but has to change them if the challenge is still not balanced correctly in the later levels.

I'm sorry, but expecting this of the player is completely unreasonable and absurd (I was about to type: "insane", actually). Again, I'm paying for a correctly balanced and thought out game, it's not my job to analyse gameplay and fix flaws, it's the job of the people I give money to. I may analyse games after I've played them, for my own fun, because I like video games, but plenty of people don't want to do that, and some can't do that, and in any case, they're not supposed to have to do that, they have paid for a game that's supposed to be enjoyable without having to work.
A game should provide correctly balanced items according to its challenge, if the items it provides ruin its own level design, then it's simply a grave design flaw, a fault. That you personally enjoy sandbox games where you make up your rules is completely irrelevant here. There's a reason why Super Mario World is really the only Mario game where this issue is glaring, that's because the designers didn't want to make the same mistake again.