Mario 3D World is overrated

[fox | 1,665]

58 minutes ago, TDIRunner said:

There has definitely been a trend in recent years for first party Nintendo games to be pretty easy to get through the main part of the game to the ending.  Then the challenge comes from 100%ing the game by completing everything else.  I guess it's Nintendo's way of adding "difficulty settings" without having to add "difficulty settings."  Personally, I don't hate it because I have younger children and it's nice to see them enjoy the game and not get stuck with difficulty on level 2.  Obviously, some traditionalists will argue that games used to challenge you to get better and work your way through the game.  But it was different back then.  During the NES era, I was LUCKY to own 4 games during the entire lifespan of the NES.  We played the same games over and over and having that difficulty prevented them from getting stale.  Nowadays, we have hundreds, if not thousands of games to choose from and sometimes I enjoy being able to get through a game in a month or two and move onto something else.  

Mario isn’t known for being hard with a few exceptions like SMB2 Japan.

The barrier for beating the 3D World is low enough for kids and casual players to finish.  You can skip whole boards and Sonic your way through stages getting the bare min amount of stars and still beat the game.

But there are still 4 more worlds (33 stages) post game.  Some of those get really rough.     Clearing all those should provide a nice challenge for hardcore players.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

1 hour ago, TDIRunner said:

There has definitely been a trend in recent years for first party Nintendo games to be pretty easy to get through the main part of the game to the ending.  Then the challenge comes from 100%ing the game by completing everything else.  I guess it's Nintendo's way of adding "difficulty settings" without having to add "difficulty settings."  Personally, I don't hate it because I have younger children and it's nice to see them enjoy the game and not get stuck with difficulty on level 2.  Obviously, some traditionalists will argue that games used to challenge you to get better and work your way through the game.  But it was different back then.  During the NES era, I was LUCKY to own 4 games during the entire lifespan of the NES.  We played the same games over and over and having that difficulty prevented them from getting stale.  Nowadays, we have hundreds, if not thousands of games to choose from and sometimes I enjoy being able to get through a game in a month or two and move onto something else.  

Don't get me wrong, I honestly think Odyssey and 3D World are great games, I was just personally disappointed in the difficulty for both (more so Odyssey without question) which also goes back to the design of the game (stronger and more frequent power-ups, less pits/stage hazards, more exploring, etc.). As many people mention in the thread, including yourself here, these were positives and make the game more accessible which is great but not the direction I am/was looking for. Even if they had just tweaked a few of the later levels in worlds 3-6 it would have made the game much more enjoyable. There is also no doubt that I have an overall preference for 2D Mario games. I liked NSMBU/Luigi U more than any Mario game since 64.

[TDIRunner | 2,727]

4 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

There is also no doubt that I have an overall preference for 2D Mario games. I liked NSMBU/Luigi U more than any Mario game since 64.

Definitely in agreement here.  I would love to see another 2D Mario game in the near future.  

I would also love to see some kind of collection of all 2D Mario games with the ability to change the graphical style to any of the styles used in Mario Maker.  I think it would be fun to play the original in NSMB style or play the NSMB games with the graphics of the original.  

Edited March 30, 2021 by TDIRunner

[TDIRunner | 2,727]

My son turned 7 today so I gave him the copy of 3D World that I bought at launch.  He was able to play it for about an hour before his bedtime.  He seemed to really enjoy it, which I expected.  I'm really impressed with how well he can play these types of games now without my help.  After he went to bed, I played through the first world.  It's what I expected.  It's fun and well done, but not super exciting either.  I just prefer 2D Mario games.  I will probably try to complete the game, but I bet I will have trouble playing through it quickly since I will need to take breaks by playing other games.  

[Code Monkey | 2,005]

My girlfriend and I finished the game last weekend and I have to talk about what actually makes the game barely playable for us. For reasons I cannot begin to understand, the developers made Y the button for run and also the button to pick up the other player. I have 2 questions:

1. Why can you pick up the other player?

2. Why is it the same as another button you use every 3 seconds?

Seriously, it could be any other button.....the jump button......or A / X, two buttons that don't even get used at all. WHY IS IT THE Y BUTTON? I can honestly say we died more deaths to throwing each other in the pit than to actual enemies. The level would start, we'd be right next to one another, I would hold Y to run and......oh shit, I picked her up........and now I'm on a bridge that's crumbling away underneath me.........must get rid of her.........into the pit she goes. Or we would be standing next to one another, throwing fireballs at an enemy, pressing Y as quickly as we can and.......why am I suddenly sailing into the face of the enemy and now I'm dead? We would have to stop throwing fireballs and boomerangs if we got anywhere near each other.

I have no idea why they added this feature and why they made it the absolute worst possible button they could have made it. I tried going into the settings for the controller configuration but you can't change it. We must have thrown each other into the pit at least once on every single level.

You cannot say it's useful to be able to carry other, less experienced players through tough areas because they can just press L + R to go into a bubble and float along behind you. So......what's the point?

[TDIRunner | 2,727]

19 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

My girlfriend and I finished the game last weekend and I have to talk about what actually makes the game barely playable for us. For reasons I cannot begin to understand, the developers made Y the button for run and also the button to pick up the other player. I have 2 questions:

1. Why can you pick up the other player?

2. Why is it the same as another button you use every 3 seconds?

Seriously, it could be any other button.....the jump button......or A / X, two buttons that don't even get used at all. WHY IS IT THE Y BUTTON? I can honestly say we died more deaths to throwing each other in the pit than to actual enemies. The level would start, we'd be right next to one another, I would hold Y to run and......oh shit, I picked her up........and now I'm on a bridge that's crumbling away underneath me.........must get rid of her.........into the pit she goes. Or we would be standing next to one another, throwing fireballs at an enemy, pressing Y as quickly as we can and.......why am I suddenly sailing into the face of the enemy and now I'm dead? We would have to stop throwing fireballs and boomerangs if we got anywhere near each other.

I have no idea why they added this feature and why they made it the absolute worst possible button they could have made it. I tried going into the settings for the controller configuration but you can't change it. We must have thrown each other into the pit at least once on every single level.

You cannot say it's useful to be able to carry other, less experienced players through tough areas because they can just press L + R to go into a bubble and float along behind you. So......what's the point?

I don't have an issue with being able to pick up another player, but yes, there is no excuse for assigning it to the Y button when other buttons are available.  Mario Odyssey has this same problem, but with the long jump.  If you don't time your button presses correctly, you will stop and duck instead of long jumping which can get you killed.  

[TDIRunner | 2,727]

Oh, I forgot to mention that when both of my boys played this game, they both asked me if Mario can throw his hat in this game. 

I guess when Mario Odyssey is the first Mario game you ever play in your life, you just consider the hat throwing to be pretty normal.  

[erac | 78]

Well, there is IIRC is a SM64 hack with the hat throwing already...

[Boosted52405 | 178]

Lmao at anyone who complains that a mario game is too easy.  It's a friggin Mario game, it's aimed at kids/family style play, nothing even remotely serious.  Remember most adults don't actually play Nintendo games...

I enjoy the atmosphere/quality of Nintendo games, and the casual pick-up/put-down play style - but mostly I enjoy the 100% challenge to collect everything or beat a certain timer etc.
 

If you don't feel challenged enough, pick up Dark Souls and circle back!

[Nintegageo | 582]

1 hour ago, Boosted52405 said:

Remember most adults don't actually play Nintendo games...

That is news to me, which site says this?

Play Castle-Castle in SM3DW and then honestly say that the camera wasn't a problem. I think it was the actual reason I ranted regarding the thing, though it is certainly an issue with other levels in the game as well.

[Boosted52405 | 178]

7 hours ago, Nintegageo said:

That is news to me, which site says this?

Play Castle-Castle in SM3DW and then honestly say that the camera wasn't a problem. I think it was the actual reason I ranted regarding the thing, though it is certainly an issue with other levels in the game as well.

You really want a source for that statement?  Lol I don't think that's needed, the bulk majority of adult gamers play PC, PS4, or Xbox - Nintendo has been 99.9999999% geared at families and kids pretty much since existence.  Thank god the Switch finally helped them build back up their 3rd party support (which is still limited due to their soft yet reliable hardware).

I'm sure there are some statistics out there to support that, but just silly to question IMO.

[Nintegageo | 582]

@Boosted52405 I was joking to prove a point  you don't actually know that you just assume. I thought the generalization is people get a Nintendo console and then choose Xbox or (correctly) Playstation. Those adults play both. Plus you mentioned generations of kids playing Nintendo; they don't just stop when they are adults and the ones with kids play with them. Now marketing I would agree with you, just not that Nintendo's player base isn't majority adults. I don't have a site to prove it either haha . So.. your thoughts regarding Mario? 

[CMR | 519]

I really liked it when it came out, and it's still pretty fun.  I do think the DS game, 3D Land, had better designed levels, probably because 3D World levels had to be able to accommodate four players.  That may be the reason for the funky camera system as well.  As for the difficulty, I think we're all pretty much professional Mario players at this point.  I'm also a big fan of SMBU/Luigi U.  I'm glad to see other people appreciate it as well. 

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

17 hours ago, Boosted52405 said:

Lmao at anyone who complains that a mario game is too easy.  It's a friggin Mario game, it's aimed at kids/family style play, nothing even remotely serious.  Remember most adults don't actually play Nintendo games...

I enjoy the atmosphere/quality of Nintendo games, and the casual pick-up/put-down play style - but mostly I enjoy the 100% challenge to collect everything or beat a certain timer etc.
 

If you don't feel challenged enough, pick up Dark Souls and circle back!

I don't expect it to be Dark Souls, but the game is just utterly boring for the first 80% because there is such a lack of challenge. Donkey Kong Country Returns is a great example of how they maintain the spirit of the original series without watering it down in difficulty. DKC Returns and DKC: TF are both amazing games and I enjoyed them far better than both Odyssey and 3DW mainly for this reason.

I fully agree that a lot of my complaints about the difficulty are simply because the game is aimed at a much younger and casual audience - No doubt about it.

[fox | 1,665]

5 hours ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

lack of challenge 

You skip the harder extra worlds and tricky green stars, then you skip the challenging content

[twiztor | 848]

On 3/26/2021 at 1:32 PM, Nintegageo said:

I think 3D World is super overrated. 

i think overall it's looked at pretty fairly. It's a bright spot in the small Wii-U library, plus it's a Mario game. both of those points lead to overrating. Add in that many people are playing it for the first time due to the Switch rerelease, and i can definitely see where you're coming from.

But i haven't seen anybody put it near the top of a "best of Mario" list or "top Switch games" list. It is a fun 4-player run-of-the-mill 3d Mario. It doesn't come close to the innovation of Galaxy, or explore the concept of an open world like Odyssey. i think when the current hype dwindles, it will show SM3DW's true place in the ranking hierarchy.

[Boosted52405 | 178]

21 hours ago, Nintegageo said:

@Boosted52405 I was joking to prove a point  you don't actually know that you just assume. I thought the generalization is people get a Nintendo console and then choose Xbox or (correctly) Playstation. Those adults play both. Plus you mentioned generations of kids playing Nintendo; they don't just stop when they are adults and the ones with kids play with them. Now marketing I would agree with you, just not that Nintendo's player base isn't majority adults. I don't have a site to prove it either haha . So.. your thoughts regarding Mario? 

Well there's certainly a sizeable number of adults that play Nintendo I'm confident, but compared to PC/Xbox/Playstation, it's just not even comparable.  I wouldn't even say that's an assumption - do you have a lot of gaming friends?  If so, I'd be highly interested in what systems they primarily play on...if you'd answer honestly ;).

I'm not dogging Nintendo it's just their bread and butter to kick out gimmicky family/kid style consoles and games - they flat out don't even try to compete with the big dogs and really haven't since N64/Gamecube eras.  They have their own corner of the market and are killing it with the Switch.

I personally love Nintendo, but they basically rinse/repeat the same crap over and over, and/or drop ports from the Wii/Wii U left and right.  I do feel their first party quality is unrivaled though, with both their games and consoles.  They will always have a place in my heart, but I struggle to even boot up my Switch anymore...at least until BOTW2 drops.

[Nintegageo | 582]

@Boosted52405 in all honesty I think among my core pals, only one doesn't have a Switch; the others have it along with another console. As to which they play, that depends on what games are available that interest them.

I also am not arguing that Nintendo has less adult players than those combined consoles; I was only saying that I think the majority their player base are adults. I do recommend you take a second look at the Switch library though, the console has got some awesome games available.

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

I'm not sure exactly how it's rated among the broader community, but I'm playing through with my son right now and it seems great. I'm actually liking it quite a bit more than 3D Land.

[elprincipe | 142]

On 4/10/2021 at 12:01 PM, twiztor said:

But i haven't seen anybody put it near the top of a "best of Mario" list or "top Switch games" list.

IMO it's the best 3D Mario game bar none. Probably because I don't rate the single-player 3D Mario games as highly as many people do. In terms of best overall Mario no, because the 2D ones are better.

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

32 minutes ago, elprincipe said:

IMO it's the best 3D Mario game bar none. Probably because I don't rate the single-player 3D Mario games as highly as many people do. In terms of best overall Mario no, because the 2D ones are better.

I may feel the same way. I mostly enjoy the standard 3D Mario games, but I don't love any of them. I'd much rather play SMB or SMB 3 over any of the 3D entries.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

I also like the 2D Mario games more in general. I honestly don't know why I like Mario 64 as much as I do. I guess it's simply nostalgia and how 'free' the game feels.  It's also a pretty easy game until the last few levels but I enjoy it quite a bit more than most of the other 3d games. Having said all that I still enjoyed every main Mario game, even the tease which is Odyssey and it's perfectly underutilized mechanics. 

After replying enough to this thread it's convinced me to give this game a go again. 

 

 

[Silent Hill | 276]

Outside of issues with control/camera, which I eventually got used to managing, it's a wonderful game. Great level design, ability to play as different characters, and fantastic music. I randomly hum the main theme very often. 

[TDIRunner | 2,727]

I'm very slowly working my way through this game, but now that I'm in world 5, I'm surprised to say I'm enjoying this game way more than I thought I would.  The levels get way more interesting after getting past world 1, and there are several really fun levels such as the one that is clearly based off of a Mario Kart track.  I also really enjoyed the level with 10 stars that required making your way through 10 mini levels in a row in a very short time.  There are also a few levels that start the clock at 100 seconds and you have to make your way through the level very quickly.  These aren't difficult to complete, but it's fun to try and find the stars and stamp, while trying to manage the clock.  

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

Definitely some neat mechanics and power-ups like the cannon and multiplier cherry.