replaying all three of these back to back, it’s crazy how tight and responsive and fun 64 still feels compared to the other two. they seriously got it on the first try.
Sunshine has a great vibe which hits me right in the nostalgia-oblongata, but it just doesn’t feel that fun to replay. It’s so loose and post-3D World, everything about the platforming and jumping feels so sloppy to me, and I get frustrated when I have to fight the camera and the platforming and the awkward jetpacking. It’s still fun in some parts!
Galaxy feels like such a slog for all the hand-holdy/condescending reasons people already mentioned and I’m not getting much joy replaying this other than enjoying the music
I just realized how significant the fire flower has become. Pairing piranha plants with cheep cheeps would be a good strat, but iirc 8-4 is the only level that has both
I’ve played a few round of Super Mario Bros. 35 today so far. I kinda like it, but I think it’s… not quite all the way there.
Super Mario Bros. 3(5) would be a more interesting game for this format, maybe, because of the wider variety of obstacles and enemies. SMB1 has, what… like 8? actual distinct enemies? It gets pretty samey and the potential for true chaos is kinda hampered.
I won one of my four or five rounds and placed third in the final because I missed a jump partly because I decided to stop concentrating as hard because I had to get to work. It was the 3 of us for a while before I bought it. I spectated for a minute and watched the 2 remaining players and honestly… that could’ve gone on for forever. The last movements of a Tetris 99 match are barely comprehensible to the human brain, but I think two competent SMB players could plausibly keep this going nearly infinitely (unless things get much more manic after a few more minutes).
It feels like this could work better with a bit more refinement aimed at cutting matches shorter and approaching a limit of impossible difficulty, but I am gonna play it some more to see if it can hook me more. It’s definitely at least enjoyable in small quantities.
Definitely, I hope we get some big updates, or another game out of this eventually. It’s very fun though, sending ~5 bowsers back and forth with another player was the highlight today, but it took like 10 minutes to get to that point.
I think 1 is still a better fit than 3 if only because of the tighter operational space. Some added stuff would be awesome, though I‘d love seeing what’s possible with a limited bestiary.
The red timer kicking in sooner and/or the roulette increasing its cost would speed things up. I think the level design rearranging would prevent some of the staleness. Maybe have randomized secret presence, roulette is kind of a lame risk and reward system.
i played one round of this last night and took 3rd. to be honest, i think i didn’t do better because i got sort of bored by the end of it? these matches take a really long time and it’s just like…playing the levels over and over. idk, maybe i’m missing some of the meta-game here.
No, at least as far as I know. The levels in Super Mario Bros. aren’t great substrates for chaos. Collecting coins for rank may match you with players that have more course options, but they’re probably selecting 1-2 to grind coins.
i got neo mario all stars with rewards points and controling fucking galaxy with an 8bitdo controller is misery…they even kept motion controls for the save your game prompt, which happens ALL THE TIME. i hate it! i don’t know why i thought they would have made the motion controls ACTUALLY optional this time, hmph
im gonna try mario sunshine proper for the first time (ive only played someone else’s save file to do the super abstract platforming levels)
I’m sure someone has figured out exactly what’s going on but the way level ordering/selection works in SMB35 is a complete mystery to me and I don’t love it.
The “special event” challenge seems more fun than the normal one. It starts everyone off in 2-2, so you immediately get bloopers and cheep-cheeps in the mix, which is great because goombas and koopa troopas are almost too easy to handle.
I feel like a fun thing might be to have your opponents’ screens get bigger on the sides as people get eliminated.
Ultimately, I want the game to be quicker and more chaotic, but I’m also having a fair bit of fun with it? I keep firing it up for a round or two when I dont’ know what else to do with myself.