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makingmusic476 on 29 May 2010
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scottie said:
makingmusic476 said:
scottie said:
makingmusic476 said:
scottie said:


 

The purple coin levels are fairly few and far between, however.

I'd say a good example is the first level of either game.  In Super Mario 64, you're roaming around Bomb Bomb Battlefield.  One time you have to get to the top of the mountain to kill King Bomb-bomb, one time you have to race Koopa to the top of the mountain, one time you have to shoot to the island in the sky, one time you have to finish of Chain Chomp, one time you have to scour the level for the red coins.  And that's how most levels in SM64 are.  It's one large, open level, and you just have to go different places and do different things every time. 

In Super Mario Galaxy, a few levels have a similar scale, like Honeybee Galaxy, while most are smaller experiences, having you essentially follow a path through a level, then changing the path for the next star.  Even in Honeybee Galaxy, they're fairly good at guiding you where to go.  The changing placement of the shoot stars essentially forces you to only go certain places depending on which star you select.  SMG2 follows this linear approach all the more.  Start on a planet, shoot to the next planet, go into crazy chamber with changing gravity, get to the end, grab the star, etc.  Or levels like Flip-trap galaxy, where it centers entirely around getting to the end of the level while hopping across the flip traps.  There's a much wider variety of levels, but you essentially do 1-2 things per level.

 

I'm not sure I would describe that as open world. In SM64, each star is (for the most part) found by following a linear path, sure, you can deviate and walk slightly further but it has no impact upon what happens eventually. The linear paths are generally tied into each other better in SM64, but again I wouldn't describe that as open world. Open world for me is where you have multiple choices as to where to go, that actually have an effect upon the gameplay. The purple coins on luigi's face is an excellent example of this, all my RL friends, as well as all the people I've talked to on the internet/seen on youtube/seen maps drawn by them on gamefaqs chose a different path. Literally every single person chose a different path! All of them were valid, and had the same final result, but required different jumps. There is nothing like that in 64. Even the red coin levels, you have complete control of which order you get the coins in, but the steps you take to actually get the coins are the same regardless of the order in which you get them.

More open ended != open world.  Open world implies a situation in which you can literally go anywhere.  Super Mario 64/Sunshine are simply more open ended in that you can go more places than you can in other games.  They are not full on open world.  Just not quite as linear.

As for the rest, Soleron covered it quite nicely.