i totally agree. while sm galaxy is incredibly condescending and (generally) linear (not to mention filled with gimmicky, pointless tech demo-ey stuff), it’s also a lot more (to me) ambitious than 3d world at least in scope, and i don’t just mean because it’s in space. the gravity conceit is inspired and a clear expansion in breadth when contrasted with sm sunshine. 3d world, conversely, feels like a return to a much earlier, more narrow and focused scope. it’s not trying to do anything new per se, but instead trying to refine and remove excess. games that don’t try to do anything new are, to me, by nature not ambitious. if i’m not mistaken, you can’t even control the camera angle in SM3DW, correct? it’s a reduction in some areas in order to be a tighter, cleaner game. it’s also telling that the title itself is a throwback to an earlier, clearly mainline game in the series - a true, expansive successor to sm galaxy 2 wouldn’t feel the need to drape itself in a nostalgia hook, would it? (let’s be clear, i don’t think anyone (here) really wants a more expansive sm galaxy; that design direction had clearly gone off the rails)
I take it you don’t mean “ambitious” to have a positive connotation
Disallowing control of camera angle is much more work for the dev team. It’s weird to describe it as a reduction in ambition when you think of the question from the point of view of Nintendo, as opposed to how players perceive it. It might’ve had as much as a dedicated staff member (or the equivalent in person-hours) just to position/move the camera nicely, to structure the levels carefully to make it sensible, and to debug every last camera glitch. It needs to be considered at every stage of the design, implementation and testing process. Free camera control amounts to giving up on the problem and going with a lazy fix. That’s why the earliest 3d platformers (to my knowledge, I’m happy to be corrected) all had free camera.
That’s like claiming Chrono Trigger’s battle system was less ambitious because it doesn’t bother to have separate battle arenas and just reused the existing landscapes. No, that’s an enormous, high-effort commitment to elegance, orientation, and formal consistency and Chrono Trigger’s dev team was super excited and energized about that decision I’m certain (and later they started to regret it after experiencing the pain!).
you are not wrong but I feel like y’all are arguing across purposes
Yeah. It’s contra your specific claim, but see how Mario 64 had meticulously designed camera angles and a half-concession towards player control (and here you see the maxim, “an option is a decision the designers gave up on”), and then Sunshine reverted to complete player control as the levels got more complex. They felt they could do this because they had players more experienced in 3D; later Nintendo decides this cuts off new players and tries to sidestep cameras through fundamental game design.
Mario Galaxy’s spheroids not-coincidentally solve the camera problem; Mario 3D Land/World require work but it’s a lot easier to set up a camera along a single plane of action.
Heck, Assassin’s Creed/Arkham combat gives up so much and camera is one of the major reasons.
ambition is potentially the wrong word, which could be causing these sort of semantic issues. i agree with what you’re saying; sm3dw is certainly refined, elegant, and consistent relative to galaxy. but i don’t think i’m wrong w/r/t scope or breadth when contrasting the two games
it’s not important to the user how much work the programmers spent implementing a seamless, unfussy camera; what matters is, within the milieu of mario sequels, we expect a consistent expansion in scope among mainline mario titles. it’s not a coincidence that the suffix changed from Bros. to World after the fami era
nintendo has seemingly intentionally obfuscated what even counts as mainline mario anymore (NSMB, 3D Land, 3D World, Mario Maker), partly because of this exact conundrum
The tech jump at that time really did allow a scope expansion while keeping the overall game the same; the name makes sense.
Get to 3D and the whole structure falls out the window. Action is weird and vacant (turns out there’s a lot more space in 3D space), platforming requires huge caveats and only really works at high skill levels. So the focus shifts towards exploration and puzzle solving. To be fair, I think Mario had already left action gameplay behind; Yoshi’s Island abandons challenge and tight controls in favor of dense cause-effect levels.
Sunshine is Mario 64+, then? Multiplayer is an obvious way to ‘scope up’ and it was keen of Nintendo to try it on their ‘casual’ system. But apart from that the real challenge is making the games appear to chart new ground while reining in complexity. Galaxy’s spheres don’t amount to much in the end, and 3D Land/World seems on some level to be an attempt to reconcile New Super Mario Bros’ massive sales lead over the 3D Mario titles.
Here I am.
I like that the Zelda thread became a Mario thread because Mario’s been pretty good as of late and Zelda has not.
If contra isn’t already an automatic word replacement for contrary then it should be.
I sling jargo like hashbrowns
(that’s just what I call ‘jargon’, deal with it)
Doubling down on the Mario thread…
I’ve never played Sunshine. At a distance, it seems like the ugliest game Nintendo has ever made, and FLUDD is ridiculously off-brand. Sunshine seems relatively forgotten, I get the feeling that people skip right from 64 to Galaxy in their Mario mental histories. But why isn’t it actively hated?
because it’s actually kinda good
It has gobs of… hangoutitude. There are good worlds and stages though they are frontloaded. It’s sheer delight just to control Mario and you can spend a lot of time bouncing around the hub, perfectly enjoying yourself. it’s not actually ugly at all? Unless you’re referring to the paint garbage all over the place. Which is, eh, a failed experiment of design.
It’s not an amazing game but there’s plenty to like about it.
Essentially you want Dragon’s Dogma?
I’d say the floating cube worlds are better 3D action platforming because Mario still had a bit of physics in him.
The levels are on the nicer than Mario 64, but not necessarily enough to make it worthwhile in a chronological book report. There’s a terrible collection b-game going on (find the hidden blue coins in each world) and the scope is compressed next to Mario 64 but it’s fine, really.
The second level has the best video game jungle gym. It gets closest to the feeling I want from this:
Also, sunshine is borderline dual analog at times which was a huge misstep, it’s actually a very elegant free-form 3D platformer but peculiarly difficult to play well given its audience (and it rarely asks you to)
I don’t think any kind of player movement is inherently better than any other movement. It’s all about how it interacts with the level design. Whatever abilities and sensitivity you have should feel useful and meaningful in the context.
nintendo 64 movement wasn’t 8-way gated, actually, though the physics are much more similar
I should play 64/Sunshine again to double-check, but I believe nu-Mario has much higher friction than he used to. He’s noticeable sticky when landing a jump. 3D Land/World introduces the discrete ‘boost’ mode after, what, 2 seconds? Which is an eternity in action game terms. I assume they did this so slower players have tighter control but I find it really slows down the game if I’m holding the run button down (I always hold the run button down) and occasionally get hit.
If I was running the levels perfectly it wouldn’t be an issue but I’m skilled enough that I’m taking few enough hits to remain alive but my momentum is killed in between. This is very apparent on levels sections comprised of multiple small platforms with obstacles: jump distance gets destroyed after you get hit, you’re unlikely to build up to the boost state, and you’re stuck with pokey Mario until you reach another broad ground section.
I think this comparison proves my point. Imagine I put you in an early prototype game with shotguns and punching with very polished sound effects and animations, but you’re in an empty room with nothing to destroy or kill.
Shotguns and punching are satisfying exactly to the extent that they have an effective impact on the environment. You can have the exact same shotgun, but depending on whether it instantly kills a dude and crumples him back against the wall, or whether it pings off a giant robot and eventually defeats it after 100 shots, the satisfaction level is totally different.
Likewise, the satisfaction of moving around as Mario is all about pushing off against and around things. In real life, Parkour artists seek out obstacle-filled environments because their kind of elegance (functional rather than expressive – that is the difference between Parkour and dance) only appears in the presence of difficulties.
I don’t think I’ve ever played a game that made water feel as “real” as mario sunshine did.
you know how when you were a kid, and played at the beach all day, and then when you went to bed at night you’d still have pleasant sensations of splashing water echoing in your body? did anyone else feel that, or was it just me?
anyway, I would get that same feeling after playing super mario sunshine for long enough.