Rank the Mario Land titles

[phart010 | 1,708]

3 minutes ago, Splain said:

I haven't played SML3 all the way yet, and I actually suspect I might eventually rank it higher than SML2. But SML2 is the one that I had as a kid and it feels like home to me.

It’s good. It’s like a Metroidvania Mario Wario game.

edit: actually I’m taking that back, there’s no weapon items that you find throughout the game that change the gameplay to unlock new areas. So not quite “Metroidvania”

Edited July 4, 2021 by phart010

[Sumez | 2,994]

7 hours ago, phart010 said:

Would you mind sharing some gameplay footage? I can’t seem to find any

It looks exceptionally awful, lol

 

[phart010 | 1,708]

3 hours ago, Sumez said:

It looks exceptionally awful, lol

 

Ugh  

Are there any really good Chinese developers? Every game I’ve ever seen developed out of China looks uninspired. Like either it’s not polished looking, the controls are off, or the music is annoying and repetitive.. 

And it’s not like they are lacking in technical know how… they are creating their own hardware, custom mappers, and brand new games from the ground up. 
 

Companies like Kia made crappy cars in the beginning but they stuck with it and today they have a high quality product… you’d think with the amount of time the Chinese have stuck with Famicom and Gameboy they’d be cranking out some high quality stuff by now.. But no, it’s the same unfinished crap over and over again.

Like seriously, can’t the team that did Super Contra 7 just tweak the controls and improve the sound a little bit, or is that just asking too much?

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,018]

As the gang the mentioned already, Idk if Wario Land deserves to be there honestly since it's the start of its own franchise. I think Nintendo just tried to use brand recognition to launch a new IP just like with Yoshi's Island. 

Either way, I vote 2 > 1 > 3. I could never get into Wario Land games but I loved Mario Land 2. I remember being amazed at how good the graphics and gameplay were on my Gameboy pocket. I played the hell out of this game in elementary school and was probably 1 of 5 or 6 Gameboy games I owned. Of course it was along side SML1. 

I only got into SML 1 as an adult but I do appreciate it. It just doesn't come close to SML 2. I felt like SML 2 was the sequel to SMW and I always wanted to see it remake or expanded upon.

Its still one of my favorite games to this day. Such nostalgia. Wow

[Tanooki | 4,952]

13 hours ago, phart010 said:

Ugh  

Are there any really good Chinese developers? Every game I’ve ever seen developed out of China looks uninspired. Like either it’s not polished looking, the controls are off, or the music is annoying and repetitive.. 

 

The conversion of Final Fantasy VII to Famicom is no joke, and the pokemon yellow conversion isn't without merit either.

But that said, it's slim.  I am enjoying some of the timetop made GameKing titles, but to be honest they're just blatant ripoff clones of 8bit NES games mostly but with a pokemon mini level of pixel depth.

I do have though an odd hack or fighting game using stolen IP tidbits on the NES/GB-C format that are fairly decent.

[Sumez | 2,994]

17 hours ago, phart010 said:

Are there any really good Chinese developers? Every game I’ve ever seen developed out of China looks uninspired. Like either it’s not polished looking, the controls are off, or the music is annoying and repetitive.. 

And it’s not like they are lacking in technical know how… they are creating their own hardware, custom mappers, and brand new games from the ground up. 

I'm sure there are. Best I can think of right now though is IGS - who are a very good developer (or, were, Knights of Valour and Demon Front are super good quality games), but I'm not gonna go on record calling Taiwan a part of China, haha.  

 

[Nintegageo | 582]

@Sumez ah the PGM, the 'main' cartridge arcade that I don't own. I have considered it though I haven't looked into how the bootlegs are rampant, easy to tell, etc. I do know Demon Front is supposed to rock.

[Sumez | 2,994]

@Nintegageo Bootlegs are rarely an issue on PGM because people haven't been able to recreate the shells and PCBs until recently (and even then, it's still pretty new, and supplies are few), so contemporary ones don't exist.

So pretty much all PGM boots are conversions, and the games people are converting carts into are the three Cave games (Espgaluda, Dodonpachi DOJ, Ketsui) which never existed as cartridges in the first place, so they are easy to spot.  

[Nintegageo | 582]

@Sumez haha don't tempt me! I don't even have my Atomiswave set in a cabinet atm due to space. Was considering a cabinet though the $/travel had me decide not to do the journey.

[Robot_Ninjutsu | 122]

I had to vote for the original SML because, while a very short and easy game, it gave us what is basically an alternative universe SMB game.

Exploding turtles?  Hearts instead of 1-UP mushrooms? The Powerball? Shooter levels?  It's fascinating to consider where things could have gone with the series had they not stopped at 2 games.

 

Oh yeah, Wario Land isn't a Mario game. It does contain elements/concepts *from* SML2, but it's a Wario game.

 

 

[themisfit138 | 523]

2, 3, 1. 

[G-type | 2,525]

what about virtual boy Wario Land?

[phart010 | 1,708]

1 hour ago, G-type said:

what about virtual boy Wario Land?

Should have been on 3DS virtual console.. missed opportunity

[Tanooki | 4,952]

1 hour ago, phart010 said:

Should have been on 3DS virtual console.. missed opportunity

Whole damn library is a loss not showing up on 3DS.  I've said that from the moment they started peddling emulated goodies, and even more so when NES remix dropped.  It's not like it would have been hard to wrangle those 14 games into a package considering who owns what, they have good relationships with the lot of them.  They play awesome flat, but the depth that system optionally gave would have really made that stuff shine.  They could have even doubled down, done  a Game & Watch style retro vs modern approach and just re-did the games in full color, with some 2.5D depth per layer (nothing so grand as like Metroid 2 demake) but you get the point.  I'd have paid $40 for that package easy and I own the library.

[phart010 | 1,708]

53 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Whole damn library is a loss not showing up on 3DS.  I've said that from the moment they started peddling emulated goodies, and even more so when NES remix dropped.  It's not like it would have been hard to wrangle those 14 games into a package considering who owns what, they have good relationships with the lot of them.  They play awesome flat, but the depth that system optionally gave would have really made that stuff shine.  They could have even doubled down, done  a Game & Watch style retro vs modern approach and just re-did the games in full color, with some 2.5D depth per layer (nothing so grand as like Metroid 2 demake) but you get the point.  I'd have paid $40 for that package easy and I own the library.

Only thing I can conclude is that Nintendo wants us to forget about the Virtual Boy as it was a colossal failure 

[Tanooki | 4,952]

On 7/9/2021 at 4:29 PM, phart010 said:

Only thing I can conclude is that Nintendo wants us to forget about the Virtual Boy as it was a colossal failure 

I want to try and believe this but their behavior year after year says otherwise.  They keep stuffing the system as a shelf display, a trophy, a prop, and more within game after game across I think every system that has come out since it was on the market starting with the Gameboy Advance and Gamecube.  They've even kind of simulated a taste as a Wario Ware game or two before as well.