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Awesome Juice's Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
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| [January 18, 2007 11:47:06 PM]
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I played for another hour and a half today, this time bringing in two of my friends who happened to be eating their dinner in their kitchen while I played in their living room. I asked for help finding some of the secrets since I don't remember / never learned where the magic flutes are. We quickly got two whistles and where whisked away to world 8 which was interesting, because I'd never actually played there before. The continuous mini-boss challenges were and interesting test of skill and a decent break from the basic levels found in world 1.
I realized that my Mario Bros. 3 skill isn't honed enough to get through world 8 yet without significant frustration, so when I got my second game over I decided to restart the game. This time I got another flute but went to world 4 instead, another world I had never seen before. Before tonight I hadn't played nearly as much of this game as I had thought I had. I beat world 4 before long and moved on to world 5. The variety they included in this game is surprising, since they work off a very simple base of gameplay and can create varied and different challenges just by adding a new enemy or item and arranging them in different ways.
I also discovered that this game is one that is far more enjoyable when played with another. For me, this kind of game gets boring quickly without someone else taking a turn. Perhaps this is because the base gameplay is relatively simple and requires more reflex and instinct than it does strategic or problem-solving thought, since games based around those kinds of challenges are generally more engaging for a solo player.
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| [January 18, 2007 02:48:27 AM]
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I played the 2-player mode of Super Mario Bros. 3 with my girlfriend tonight, with her playing as Mario and myself as Luigi. I haven't played this game in probably at least 7 years when I rented Super Mario All Stars for my SNES. Playing this game definitely brought back a feeling of nostalgia, reminding me of playing early NES, SNES and Genesis games with my friends back when these games were not very old.
I did very poorly with my first few lives, instead watching as my girlfriend took on the first 4 or so levels, passing each one within a few minutes. I tend to play Mario games at a faster pace than her, leading me to make a few embarrassing mistakes like running into enemies or pits, while her more cautious approach seems to fit this game better. I got my Mario play style from playing Super Mario World, in which the controls might be a little more responsive due to the newer system, or perhaps because the collision behavior with enemies acts differently.
One thing I admire about the 2D Mario games is that they manage to have some fairly deep emergent gameplay that exists solely because of a combination of the simple 2-button controls and the choice of using different power-ups. It's nice that this game in particular has a wider variety than some others, with such unusual things like the frog suit and music box. Since I haven't played this game in a while and because I needed to play for about an hour, I didn't (remember how to) go for the secret flute that takes you to the last level in a matter of minutes.
We continued through the first world and I finally made a comeback when I stumbled across a 1-up in a level and then went on to get 3 stars at the ends of levels, giving me another 5 lives. Once I settled into the pace of the game I started doing a lot better than my girlfriend, who had probably done better when she saw that I initially had been floundering.
The old-school 2D graphics and simple sounds allowed the gameplay to really come out. One thing that I don't like about some newer games is that they rely too much on features and graphics as selling points rather than simply making a fun game, but that isn't the case here. The game is so well balanced that the players with the "twitchy" skills can enjoy it as a challenge and the more casual players can simply pick it up for a fun time.
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Awesome Juice's Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Thursday 18 January, 2007
GameLog closed on: Friday 19 January, 2007 |
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