[QUOTE="ohthemanatee"]
[QUOTE="TheTrueMagusX1"]
While you have a point, the same could be say about SMB as that game was an experiment in itself, However I find that SMB is quite well made and playable where as I donot feel the same way about Super Mario 64.
TheTrueMagusX1
agreed, super smash brother is a hell of a lot fun to this day
maybe it has to do with camera? I remember the camera in the PS1/N64 days being terrible
Yeah the camera was tricky. For me though it was more of the design of the game. Yes the design of Mario 64 is the blue print for the current 3D Mario games, however, Mario 64 had a rough time to do it. It just felt to me that some of the Star Gathering levels felt a bit more as Fetch quests, and did not really have that element of Platforming. It felt like a chorel ike go fight this guy, who has the same pattern as this previous boss. Or the various race courses which were the same as the previosu one before htat. It felt like they also recycled levels or stages as well.
You've both got to deal with graphics and gameplay separately. As long as the graphics do the job of representing the elements that you have to interact with in the game, the matter of "better" or more realistic graphics is just a superficial thing - I'm not saying it doesn't count at all, it can certainly make a game a more pleasant experience, but it cannot fix a turd of a game into something more presentable and become a better game in the process. Although I certainly agree that pixeled 2D is something much more appealing in general than blocky 3D polygon graphics with a small amount of textures. Whereas 2D can be artistic, well - I don't really see that in 3D too often; the point is almost always to make realistic graphics.
Yes, Super Mario 64 is a game with small quests in it, but you're always working towards the goal of opening up new areas by gathering enough star power. The only thing I agree with is that the camera can be an issue and that the boss fights were uninteresting. But they weren't interesting in any of the old Mario games either. The interest lies in accomplishing the gathering all 120 stars (while getting as high a coin count as possible, if you should find that intriguing) - sure, you can go kill Bowser after collecting the 75th star and "beat the game", but that's like half of it. Personally, I think that's more interesting than the scoring system in the old Mario games where it was simply a matter of killing as many enemies as possible, smashing as many blocks as possible, etc. before reaching the end of a stage. They do not have the element of exploration present to the extent that Super Mario 64 do. You're just running straight forward most of the time, with no idea what lies ahead.
What is the element of platforming then to you? With the flexible analog controls in Super Mario 64, a balancing aspect was introduced. To me, it only served to enhance the feeling of jumping platforms. I suggest that you play Rayman 3 if you want a more straight-forward experience, but if you prefer to stick with 2D platformers, that's cool (and you should have no problem finding them). I'd be very interested if you could direct me to a platformer (2D or 3D) with the same kind of open-endedness that Super Mario 64 has, and with the small quests in it. Don't recommend Psychonauts, I've played it. And while I liked it, it doesn't exactly fit the bill, as it has stronger and more pronounced adventuring elements in addition to more of a sense of a direction, and a story, and pretty much unavoidably as a result, it is more linear. But anything like that I'd be interested in too.
Also, if any platformer recycled things it was most certainly the original Super Mario Bros - the warp zones, Bowser, the backgrounds, several bits of familiar level layout reoccured throughout the game. Oh, and the recent New Super Mario Bros., the one for the Wii and the one for the DS, certainly recycle the older games.
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