What's your favorite Super Mario Bros. game?

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Jumpin said:

Easy, Super Mario Bros 3.
I liked World as well, it was a step up in detail and added some cool bells and whistles, but was a big step back in many other regards: a step back artistically, in level design, in difficulty balance, it had significantly fewer stand-out levels, and didn't feel nearly as epic.

Super Mario Bros 3 was to Super Mario World as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was to Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

I understand why people like World, Yoshi and it, switch blocks, Ghost Houses, and Star Road which features gameplay design good enough to be comparable to Super Mario Bros 3!

But mostly, I found the level design a bit too repetitive and uninspired when compared to 3. Look at 3, almost every single level has its own personality and stands out. You can describe things like "the boot level" or "the tower" or "the sun level" etc... and people will know what you mean. Super Mario World doesn't really have that. In fact, some of the NSMB games have better level design than World did (Wii in particular had some fantastic design). Many SMW levels were slow because of auto-scrolling without much to do, or because there were annoying puzzles that required you looping around and trying for some silly jump. SMB3 had auto scrolling levels too, but they were filled with stuff to do, constantly; World was running back and forth 90% of the time. Super Mario Bros 3 also is a more wondrous and epic adventure than World--which is rather confined by comparison. Remember SMB's Giant World? Well, that was NOTHINGG compared to World 5 that followed. On Ghost Houses, I love the concept, but found the design was often more than a little annoying.

It sounds like I hate World, I don't, it's actually one of my favourite 2D platformers, but I rank it a tier below games like SMB3, DKC trilogy, and Sonic 1/2 (not limited to these games, these are just some examples).

In short, I like 3 more because: It's more epic of an adventure, superior level design, more inspired levels, better action, worlds are more interesting, and difficulty balance is much better. It is the Sonic 2 of the Super Mario Bros franchise.
That's not to say World isn't without its goodness, I liked the presentation: Yoshi, the hidden bits on the map, Star Road, and the Ghost House concept., and the block concept was neat, too. This is the Sonic 3 of the Super Mario Bros franchise.

I definitely agree with this. 

I do think a fair amount of people here never experienced the NES in its prime and maybe not the SNES either.  I've realized it is harder for people to understand NES games when they are looking at history backwards instead of forwards.  (I.e. they see modern day as "normal", and then judge the past according to what is seen as normal today.)  One example is graphics.  I prefer the look of 8-bit Mario to 16-bit Mario.  I didn't like the cartoony direction they took Mario.  In 8-Bit all games are neither really cartoony or non-cartoony.  Final Fantasy 1 doesn't look any more realistic than 8-Bit Mario.  But over the years Final Fantasy decided to go more for photorealism while Mario decided to go more cartoony.  If a person looks at history backwards, then they assume that Mario ought to be cartoony and then judge every past Mario game by that standard.  And of course, I am just pointing out one aspect, and every video game has many parts.  But all of these aspects are judged looking backward through time.

Perhaps the biggest thing that people don't understand about NES games is that there is actually a more direct interface between your controller and the screen.  Timing is very precise.  If your timing is one frame off then you might die.  This was great according to the common technologies of the 80's.  Today there is a lot of lag in the system.  Modern TVs, wireless controllers, emulation, etc... all throw the timing off a bit.  You can press the button at the right time, but still die playing an NES game today, because of this lag.  I can't beat Mr. Dream on the NES classic no matter how hard I try, but I can beat Mike Tyson if I have a proper lag free set up.  The fight requires precise timing, and the lag can make all the difference.

Starting in the 16-bit era, programmers started introducing a bit of forgiveness into the games.  I.e. you could press the button a frame or two late and still be fine.  In modern games forgiveness is the norm and a lot more generous.  You have to program this in, because there is so much lag in the system.  There are a lot of modern gamers that I think would appreciate a tough but fair game, but they still might not like NES games too much.  They haven't played them on a lag free system.  The NES games actually don't feel fair, even if it's a really well made game like Super Mario 3.  On the other hand World is an easier game.  I don't know if it has forgiveness or not in the programming, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.  You aren't going to feel as many "unfair" deaths in World due to lag, because it's an easier game.  Basically, World plays better in a setup with lag.  I wouldn't be surprised if this is a big contributor to why a lot of people like World more.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 04 March 2021