| Pristine20 said: "Creative genius in gameplay innovation" is nothing more than jumping up and down while moving from left to right to me. That's as subjective as it gets. The points you praise Mario for are so subjective that it's pointless to argue them. Some see the Mona Lisa as a great work of art, others just see an ugly female portrait. Who is right? It's nice that you called my criticism "cherrypicking" but realise that it's valid. It brings home my point. When it comes to Miyamoto, everyone is quick to say 'shhh, hide the flaws' and sing about how great he supposedly is. |
So in the end it's completely pointless to praise anyone since no one is appreciated by everyone. Everytime someone praises a game for what it is and/or for what it did we must come to the rescue and explain that everything is subjective and thus pointless. Fantastic. I propose that we add that to the forum rules.
And I believe you, and others, are completely missing the point here. It's not about whether or not you enjoy Mario games but understanding what those games did for game design. If you're serious about designing video games then understanding the history of gaming and how we got to this point is important. Liking the games or not is irrelevant because the point of going through the classics is to look at the mechanics and how they pushed the medium forward and/or into new directions. Merely knowing about modern games only takes you so far, and sooner or later you might end up in a situation where you need to go back to basics, which means you're screwed if you don't understand those basics.
Mario is one of those classics that greatly advanced video game design. You or others may not like those games but that doesn't take away from what those games did for the medium. As a mere player it's perfectly fine to not get what's so great about a certain classic. You don't like it and that's fine, we all have out preferences. But for a designer to say that he/she doesn't understand what a classic game did that was so great is just ignorant and speaks volumes about that person's ability to make games.
