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Retro|Spective on Retro|Spective 150: Super Mario 3D

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    #31
    I'm up to 18 stars now and I don't think I'll be ever be coming back to this game. It's obviously great, but been there, done that...

    I'll try Galaxy 2 tomorrow. I've never played it before.

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      #32
      There's some fiendishly good level design in Galaxy 2 but it always annoyed me as to what was stripped out of it compared to the first. It just felt like the lesser game and like less love was put into it which isn't what it deserved after the original. It is criminal that it's been ignored though, quite easily the second best of all 3D Mario games.

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        #33
        Originally posted by CMcK View Post
        I have tried several times over the years but just cannot get along with Mario 64. I’d have to say it was overrated. I can’t really pinpoint why I’m so indifferent to it. Maybe the N64 pad? Or the blurry visuals? I’m unsure. I have picked up an alternative N64 controller which has a more conventional layout so will revisit the game at some point.
        I vividly remember the onset of true 3D games and always tying Tomb Raider and Super Mario 64 to not only that era but the 1990's too.

        I used to hold Mario 64 aloft as the best game I've ever played but as time has progressed, I feel that although the other 3D Mario's are nowhere near as revolutionary as 64, they are actually far better games. Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS for me, recaptured some of the feelings I had of Mario 64 with its 3D effect. It really was stunning and I feel has been forgot in the rush of other 3D Mario's since it's release, which is a real shame.

        Revisiting 64 now, it's very simple and although controlling Mario is still a joy, the mechanics, puzzles and levels don't hold a candle to what Nintendo have now gone onto acheive with Galaxy, Land, World and Odyssey. Because of that, a lot of the shine has gone for me, but it was lovely to revisit it with some technical improvments in the fantastic fan made port of the source code on Windows 10 recently, with 16:9 aspect ratio and on a modern pad.

        Oddly, out of those 2 early 3D games; Mario 64 and Tomb Raider, I prefer to revisit Tomb Raider. Although the controls are not as refined and it suffers the same feeling of simplicity, the atmosphere, gun play and adventure based gameplay (Along with not many other games aping the original Tomb Raiders style) makes it more enjoyable and fresh to go back to.

        Despite the game not standing up like it used to, which is only natural considering the evolution of the same game by the same studio, Super Mario 64 remained a benchmark for over a decade in how you take a 2D game style and update it to 3D without losing all the traits of what made it special.

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          #34
          Super Mario 3D Land
          After so many years of 2D adventures, the next 3D Mario finally landed on portable with this fixed perspective title that delivered a unique spin on handling a Mario platformer on the small screen. Aimed to also utilise the 3D perspective capabilities of the Nintendo 3DS, the game also provided a glimpse of Mario's future.




          At the time this was a great transition from the older handheld entries even if it's a bit simple compared to the console versions. The games perspective gives a great impression of the 3D effect and it's pretty simple in design making it a breeze to play on the go, that coupled with the very clean aesthetic means it works well on the screens which are sometimes too reflective for their own good.

          I think the games simplicity is probably the only real hinderance to it, if it felt a bit more involved I'd probably feel a bit warmer to it that I do but in any case it's a great 3DS title.

          Where do you sit with 3D Land?

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            #35
            I'm going to couple 3D Land with what will naturally come up in discussion, the next 3D Mario game released:

            Super Mario 3D World
            Two years after Land, Nintendo would launch its flagship Mario game for the WiiU. Anticipated by many ever since the spinning worlds and supernovas of the Galaxy games faded out to a The End screen, the next Mario game appeared and instead of expanding on the growing universe of freedom it used the handheld title as a foundation. Expanding on the concept of the fixed view game, more moves and suits and complex level design was deployed and the result was an appreciated entry that failed to help salvage Nintendo's failed system.



            I'm very much in the bubble many are with 3D World whereby it is a great game but it feels like a NSMB style spin-off. In fact I'd much rather Nintendo made new entries to this as a sub-series than they ever made another New entry again. It wasn't however in anyway convincing as a sequel to what the Wii entries delivered and felt like a huge miscalculation on Nintendo's part which was par for the course during the WiiU years. It looks great, plays great and has more depth and challenge than Land does but it still feels like a smaller side plate offering to pretty much the entire of the rest of the 3D Mario line. It's nice that it will likely get the wider recognition it deserves in the upcoming rerelease but I'm glad it's not the path being pursued for the mainline games moving forward.

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              #36
              I really enjoyed 3D Land. The levels are beautifully short, it controls well, it uses the 3D well and it's fun to play. But visually it has no personality and there's nothing holding the levels together - it's very much just a collection of levels with no dressing or contrivance to create any real sense of a journey. So it has it where it counts I suppose, in the gameplay, and yet it still is filed away under 'pretty bland' in my memory.

              And having played through all of 3D Land, 3D World just felt too familiar. It is derivative of a game that, for me, struggled to deliver a sense of identity and that leaves it in a poor place regardless of the fact that it plays very well. I don't know how far I got in the game but I know I didn't complete it. Maybe had I not played 3D Land, I would have. I can't knock the game itself but when I think of 3D Marios, in all honesty, I usually don't remember 3D Land and never remember 3D World.

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                #37
                I'm going to take the opposite tack and say that while I enjoyed 3D Land, I liked 3D World even more. It was a direct expansion of the same ideas, but with bigger, better and more complex levels - plus local multiplayer, which was a lot of fun.

                As NI mentions, 3D Land's levels are quite simple and relatively easy. 3D World inched the challenge and complexity upwards, and as a result for me it was a better game.

                I always end up defending 3D World - I think it takes a lot of knocks, and rightfully so in many ways. It was an inherently unchallenging choice for Nintendo, versus the much more inventive and expansive Odyssey (or the Galaxy games before it). It almost exclusively features all the hoariest old genre clichés like slippy slidey ice levels and avoid-the-lava fire levels, and as Dogg mentions, it feels more like an abstract collection of the kind of 'challenge levels' that featured in Sunshine, rather than a cohesive journey or adventure.

                But I still really like it. And that's for one big reason. It plays wonderfully. NI mentioned he considers 3D Land/World an NSMB-style sub-series. Totally agree. It sits apart from mainline 3D Mario for me as its own thing. And it does that thing, for me, really well. It's enormously fun to play.

                It's no Galaxy or Odyssey - but it's still a game that I love because for me it's got that kinetic feel, that bouncy toy-box fun, that makes Mario so compelling. It might be one of the weakest 3D Marios, but it's still ten times better than 95% of other 3D platformers ever made.

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                  #38
                  And finally we close with the most recent entry:

                  Super Mario Odyssey
                  After a very long wait Nintendo returned to hype up Mario's return to a full on 3D adventure on the Switch. Using the cap abilities and taking on a globe trotting theme the new game saw Mario chase down Bowser who planned to wed Peach.



                  Odyssey is probably the most mixed I've ever felt on a Mario game. It's without question a great game when it comes together but there are so many irritations and niggles that detract from it too that it still for me doesn't come close to the Galaxy/64 highs. Visually the game swings wildly from great to weak and at times it also feels like Nintendo made the game using 2 of three separate teams who didn't communicate with one another. The art style is all over the place ranging from traditional character designs and locations like the food based world and rabbit bosses all the way to ugly semi-realistic ones like the dragon boss world and the controllable T-Rex.

                  To me it's also a game that's actively better if you play it less rather than more. Whereas Mario 64 and the Galaxy games upward curved their skill requirements and rewards as the sheer fun of play made it compelling to want to complete every star objective, Odyssey features some of Nintendo's and easily this franchises worst objective designs. The more time passes the more I feel that the argument that Nintendo made the game with the moons placed the way they are so low skill players could still complete the game to be one that just makes excuses for Nintendo's sloppy workmanship on them. Some of the moons are so obscurely located and without direction that nothing but fluke chance would have you cross paths with them, likewise mini-games like the jump road challenge are blatantly poorly implemented. Like the Korok seeds in BOTW, they're an afterthought thrown in to pad the experience out in place of something meaningful and requiring of real effort by the devs, basically Nintendo pulling a Ubisoft.

                  So the game soured the more I played it post-credits and frankly that's not right. Thanks to the quality of life elements of Sunshine, the limited scope of 3D Land and how 3D World (no matter how hard it tries) doesn't feel like it belongs in the same group as the others I easily (unless 3D All-Stars version of Sunshine changes this) think of the 3D Mario's as being Galaxy > Galaxy 2 > 64 > Odyssey > Sunshine

                  I know 64 being higher seems a stretch but I feel it's definitely the better made game for its time and if I swap them it's purely on the basis of 64's age which in itself says all that needs saying about where Odyssey really belongs.

                  Now, like Wakka says, a weaker Mario is still better than pretty much anything else on the market and Odyssey is just that and I'd recommend it in a heartbeat but like BOTW (and sadly not getting what I want with the new game there) I'm fine to take Odyssey for what it is but I don't want a copy/paste sequel to this one.

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                    #39
                    I love Odyssey. I totally agree about the visual style though. The game can look amazing but it's lacking a coherence and some levels just don't look great to me. Generally, I have no issue with the moon system but that's probably because I'm not the type to need to 100% any game. So I never bothered with the jump rope one, for example. When you're not all that concerned with getting every single moon, I think the system really works because you get that feeling of achievement by hitting the natural 'end' of the game but you can then come back to it every now and again and be rewarded with another moon somewhere. You don't have to keep playing for hours at a time but it's fun to just come back and still be able to find something new. So for me, that system worked really well.

                    But I can see if your approach to gaming is different, that could be a real frustration because a lot of the moons are really random and some are likely just a pain in the backside to get.

                    I don't know how many I got in the end but I really enjoyed playing it and I'll go back to it now and again and it always feels good.

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                      #40
                      On the lack of coherence in the visual style in Odyssey, I'd agree, but at the same time I was so glad that they got a bit weird with it. The strange 'realistic' people in New Donk City, the motorbikes, the T-Rex, and the cathedral perched on the Moon - they were all things we hadn't really seen in a Mario game before, and I really liked that. We managed to get away from slippy slidey ice and Bowser's lava lake and I was really happy about that.

                      The dragon level was a low point though. It was pretty by-the-numbers fantasy stuff, and didn't really fit.

                      Originally posted by Neon Ignition
                      To me it's also a game that's actively better if you play it less rather than more.


                      I know exactly what you mean with this. I got all 999, but by the end it was out of a sense of pure bloody mindedness rather than anything else. It really stops being fun by the end, and it's a real shame for the game to go out on that note.

                      Whereas when you finish your initial runthrough, do the whole bit where you play as Bowser (great idea) and Peach sails off into the sunset (she don't need no man), that's a brilliant moment that really brought a massive smile to my face.

                      Getting the 999th Moon inspired nothing but relief!

                      Originally posted by Neon Ignition
                      a weaker Mario is still better than pretty much anything else on the market and Odyssey is just that and I'd recommend it in a heartbeat


                      Originally posted by Dogg Thang
                      I love Odyssey.


                      But, yep, despite that, it's still an incredible game that I absolutely love. It's in a different class to most other games.


                      Last edited by wakka; 08-09-2020, 10:58.

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                        #41
                        Originally posted by JazzFunk View Post
                        It depends if a woman's fanny is involved.
                        Obviously Mario's favourite yoghurt flavour then...! (yes this came up because we buy these yoghurts for the daughter)

                        Lie with passion and be forever damned...

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                          #42
                          Originally posted by Dogg Thang View Post
                          I really liked the vibe of Sunshine but, for me, the game fell down in one area that was enough of a big deal to place it right down the bottom of the Mario list: the camera. The camera and level design did not work well together. Too many times I plummeted to my death because the camera shifted at the point of a jump. Some parts I couldn't see at all - I had no idea what I was doing. The camera, in my view, was totally broken. That's not unique to Sunshine - I have revisited a bunch of games from that time and found the same thing (Sonic Heroes, Billy Hatcher for example) - but it is unusual of a Mario game to be so broken.

                          So my experience of the game involved a lot of frustration and, specifically, feeling that the frustration was the game's fault rather than my own and that's pretty damning for a series where the quality is so high.
                          Revisiting Sunshine in All Stars and over 50 shines in and thought I should take a peek at what I wrote here. And yeah, I think I’m experiencing the same thing again only maybe I’d be a bit more negative. Sunshine has stuff to love but I think the game feels broken, unfair and frustrating in enough places that it puts it right down the bottom of the 3D Marios but, more than that, I think it’s the only one that feels worse than non-Mario games. It’s got some painfully poor design choices and the control is really bad in places, such as in the underwater movement (baffling given that it already had good swimming controls).

                          Going to come straight out and say, while some individual elements are lovely (like how it looks), Mario Sunshine is a bad game.

                          I think I’d going to abandon it and move to Galaxy.

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                            #43
                            It's really, really sad Ninty couldn't even make SM64 widescreen. This compilation could've been one of my tempters to buy a Switch but Ninty treated us like plebs again like they did with the All Stars release on Wii. That was pure emu of the 1993 SNES version, pretty much, and lacked anything making it 'special'.

                            You think I'm a pleb???

                            Well I'm one pleb who ain't buying a ****ing Switch!!!

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                              #44
                              Originally posted by JazzFunk View Post

                              Well I'm one pleb who ain't buying a ****ing Switch!!!
                              I'd love to feel like embracing modern Nintendo and buy a Switch, but the company hasn't enticed me to splash £300.

                              I remember buying the Wii U with Mario Kart 8 bundle in 2014 for £199 and having a lot of fun with it for a few years, so I'm always up for some Nintendo goodness if there's a 'must-have' game and an attractive price to get in on the action.

                              Nintendo milking Mario Kart 8, and not being interested in making a new F-Zero or Wave Race, has held me back from feeling lots of enthusiasm for the Switch. A brilliant new Star Fox that plays like the original or 64 version would maybe be enough to tempt me. But no, Nintendo want to play very, very safe.

                              I'll probably end up buying the next Switch if Mario Kart 9 is available. I guess that won't happen for a few years though.

                              It was funny when Nintendo just bunged a Mario All-Stars rom on a DVD and acted like it was something special.

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                                #45
                                I'll probably get my head kicked in for this, but I never really liked Mario 64. I don't think it's awful or anything, but I couldn't engage with it at all back in the day and I still don't "get" it today.

                                I didn't like Croc either, if that counts for much.

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