Then what about this: a Mario game with difficulty levels? That would be a first. It would satisfy everyone's needs.

Sometimes, the most simple game features like this (that shouldn't be forgotten in this day and age) can make a difference for a bunch of gamers out there, regarding their views on it for example.

How would you implement difficulty levels in a Mario game? You would either have to do something ridiculous like increase enemy movement speed/reduce health, when enemies aren't the primary source of difficulty in these games anyway, or completely redesign each level for each difficulty level.

It wouldn't add to the experience meaningfully and it would create a tremendous amount of work for people who aren't really looking for what Nintendo focuses into the Mario experience anyway.

I just want them to get rid of lives. If they want to make Galaxy 2 harder, that's fine. But it's not necessary, and accessibility has to trump everything else.

It's not my job to decide what they do with their game, but why would you be against difficulty levels in a Mario game? What if they find a way? A few little examples here:

- Magikoopas would fire faster
- Goombas would probably have a different move pattern, like enemies in Bionic Commando Rearmed that shot diagonally when you play on difficulties higher than Normal
- Bosses would take more hit and probably have another move pattern, just like in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
- etc.

It's like people saying online is stupid for New Super Mario Bros. Wii because it's not suited for the game (I have my doubts about this anyways). This is not how I see it though: it's an extra, it would come free, so why not?

THat would be pointless, though, because the challenge in Mario isn't from the enemies, it's from the platforming. That's true in pretty much every Mario I can think of, and every game between Lost Levels and Galaxy demonstrates that the most difficult segments always have to do with running and jumping.

Making enemies faster and stronger and harder to track would not significantly affect the game. They would need to change the platforming segments, in which case they might as well use those resources to design entirely new levels.

The difficulty level in general will be above that of Galaxy. Miyamoto (or was it someone else?) said Galaxy was about being accessible, about being playable by the wider audience.

He said Galaxy 2 is for Mario purists, core gamers and such, so it will be more challenging.

Yea maybe a larger HUB world but there isn't much I would fix from SMG. Everything else is just bonus haha.

Well, to be honest with you, it's because of enemies that sometimes I miss my jumps or I get knocked out of a platform and have to restart from a previously saved checkpoint. Heck, when you get damaged and you have one slice of life left, you time your jumps carefully and it makes you think of what you're going to do next.

With that said, enemies are important in Mario games, even more in 3D platformers of the same name. Get rid of them as fast as possible, or don't. There are many ways to play a Mario game. Some prefer the speed-run route, some prefer to take their time, some prefer to do a little bit of both.

And it has been like this in many games in the past, I don't see why they need to come up with something new for upping the difficulty in a game. It's not because they are Nintendo that they need to change everything all the time you know. =P

I think that obstacles probably presented more challenge for me in Galaxy than enemies ever did - a Chain Chomp or a whirling fire stick were always much more dangerous, for me.

The first sentence of my last post is what I've experienced most of the time in Galaxy. Having one slice of life left, not so much, but it was just to give an idea on how it can affect your play style anyways. It happened on Super Mario 64... but I mostly got damaged because I was falling down to my death (those damn holes)!

It's because I live dangerously in games that I screw up most of the time, hehe! =P

that's how i play mario games too shmupgurus, i try to rush through a level in lighting speed doing crazy junps and shit and dieing most of the time lol.