Future 3D Mario Games: Non-Linear, Please

[blackice_cc]

Maybe I'm just too much of an old-school gamer in a new-school gaming world. Maybe I just love Mario 64 too much to appreciate the new titles as much. However, I must say that the direction the 3D Mario games appear to be going in has really degraded the quality of the series. Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 were both great games, but they lost a bit of the awesomeness that Mario 64 and Sunshine both had to a great extent, and they didn't seem nearly as fun to me: the linearity killed a lot of the exploration and sense of discovery, and took a lot of personality out of the levels. Both Mario 64 and Sunshine had huge levels with a lot of stars each, and as you became familiar with the area, you looked forward to going back and exploring it in more depth, finding more secrets, and so on. The Galaxies, on the other hand, had tons of different levels each with a lot less stars, nearly all of which were completely linear: you just had to wander around on the planetoid you were on until you found the thing that would trigger a warp star, or something like that, to appear, to move on to the next one. And even when you really liked a certain galaxy, you knew you'd only be able to come back to it a few times.

So I sincerely hope that Mario 3DS is a lot less like the Galaxies and more like Mario 64: give us deeper, bigger worlds, let us roam around on them as much as we want, maybe even get the stars in whatever order we want, and definitely bring back the secret areas from Sunshine (you know, you walk into some cave, or jump into a pipe, and you're transported to level full of all kinds of tricky platforming, and with retro music playing?) - those were simply awesome.

Of course, not everything should be like it was in Mario 64. I'm fine with adding all kinds of new powerups (and Yoshi in Galaxy 2 was 10 times better than Yoshi in Sunshine: the only way to improve there is to let us ride him in every level), new game mechanics like gravity changes and side-scrolling areas are awesome, and so on. I hope they add as much of that kind of thing as they can: they just need to get the same feel as they had in Mario 64.

Well, that's all I have to say (rant) about Mario 3DS. Does anybody here agree with me, or do you all think they should stick with the changes the Galaxies brought about?

 

[Fraxinus]

Well, I honestly have yet to play Mario 64, but... I can say from my experience with non-linear levels in games is that, yes... they are nice. They let you try to mix things up a bit and explore in a different way each time, but I'm the kind of person who actually gets distracted by that. If that makes any sense, in my first run I'll have a bit of a problem deciding which way I should go and how I should clear the level...

Not that it's super overwhelming for me or anything, but I just don't like making route decisions in games all that much. But I do agree that the Mario games need to be more non-linear in certain aspects. It's something that Nintendo should consider.

 

[SuperGanondorf]

Maybe I'm just too much of an old-school gamer in a new-school gaming world. Maybe I just love Mario 64 too much to appreciate the new titles as much. However, I must say that the direction the 3D Mario games appear to be going in has really degraded the quality of the series. Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 were both great games, but they lost a bit of the awesomeness that Mario 64 and Sunshine both had to a great extent, and they didn't seem nearly as fun to me: the linearity killed a lot of the exploration and sense of discovery, and took a lot of personality out of the levels. Both Mario 64 and Sunshine had huge levels with a lot of stars each, and as you became familiar with the area, you looked forward to going back and exploring it in more depth, finding more secrets, and so on. The Galaxies, on the other hand, had tons of different levels each with a lot less stars, nearly all of which were completely linear: you just had to wander around on the planetoid you were on until you found the thing that would trigger a warp star, or something like that, to appear, to move on to the next one. And even when you really liked a certain galaxy, you knew you'd only be able to come back to it a few times.

So I sincerely hope that Mario 3DS is a lot less like the Galaxies and more like Mario 64: give us deeper, bigger worlds, let us roam around on them as much as we want, maybe even get the stars in whatever order we want, and definitely bring back the secret areas from Sunshine (you know, you walk into some cave, or jump into a pipe, and you're transported to level full of all kinds of tricky platforming, and with retro music playing?) - those were simply awesome.

Of course, not everything should be like it was in Mario 64. I'm fine with adding all kinds of new powerups (and Yoshi in Galaxy 2 was 10 times better than Yoshi in Sunshine: the only way to improve there is to let us ride him in every level), new game mechanics like gravity changes and side-scrolling areas are awesome, and so on. I hope they add as much of that kind of thing as they can: they just need to get the same feel as they had in Mario 64.

Well, that's all I have to say (rant) about Mario 3DS. Does anybody here agree with me, or do you all think they should stick with the changes the Galaxies brought about?

Couldn't have said it better myself. I've been of this opinion for quite some time. Mario 64 is king because it gave you a decent handful of areas to get to know like the back of your hand when searching through for stars. Sunshine did this very well too, though some levels, specifically the hotel area, took non-linearity (or at least the appearance of non-linearity, as you had to follow a specific path, the problem being you have no idea what said path is) to an extreme that kind of degraded the concept. Then the Galaxies let you go to each level two or three times then whisked you off to the next area. And then when they finally did let you explore with the purple coin challenges it was just torture having to search every single nook and cranny.

I definitely want more Mario 64 and less Galaxy. I'm not against the concept of Galaxy, the gameplay mechanics like Launch Stars, or against some brief choppy areas like the Galaxy games have, but I want more of the meat that 64 provided in terms of exploration and so on. That was why Galaxy was so lacking; there was no opportunity in most areas to really explore. 64 and Sunshine remain at the top of my list of favorite Mario games for this reason.

 

[jugglaj91]

As much as I love free roaming games, I can also appreciate the linearity of more recent titles. With linearity you know you will never get lost, which I appreciate for the fact that I have gotten lost and couldn't figure anything out in quite a few games. I am mostly referring to my younger days when every video game was just awesome to me. But as far as free roam and discovery, Mario didn't really even have anything of that sort until Mario 64 and Sunshine. So to me the gameplay in Galaxy 1 and 2 was perfect. It left enough open to run around in, and also was linear enough to just keep moving forward.

 

[00steven]

To me Super Mario 64 is platforming perfection. Every 3D Mario should follow it's blueprint.