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Wednesday 20 February, 2008
GAMEPLAY (Session 2):
Playing through the game was really fun. It’s a 2D platformer with Mario as the leading character. The beginning world is pretty much an introduction to the rest of the game where you learn how to control Mario and is powers. I remember playing this game when I was younger and getting frustrated because my sister knew many tricks to get further in the game and I didn’t know what she did. But as I was getting older I found some hidden secrets and it’s the same today although I don’t remember exactly where they are. I really like that Nintendo added a lot of hidden surprises within this game because it lets the players choose whether or not to play through the whole game, level by level, or jump to the last level to see what happens at the end of the game. I must admit that I haven’t actually played through every single world. I always used an item to get me to the end, which I like because I wouldn’t like to play every level just to see the ending. I really enjoyed this game because of the oldschool feel to it. It reminds me of when I was younger, which is why I guess Nintendo put it on the Virtual Console.
Along with being a fun game to play, it was interesting to play as well. Going through the levels lets you see the different looks of each world. You could tell when you were going to play through a water level or you could see that you would be fighting a Hammer Bros. Some of the levels are not really challenging, but other can get you a bit frustrated if you don’t time your jump correctly, which happened to me a couple of times, but that’s part of the experience; trial and error. Just seeing what different powers Mario could get is really cool and wanting to get through a level just to see the outfits he wears is reason enough to play through a difficult world. And the music is really familiar and everyone likes to hear the familiar Mario tunes while playing the game.
DESIGN:
I thought that the level design in Super Mario Bros. 3 was really good. You have many different enemies placed in different places on each level (even though there is only one way to get through the level). The way the backgrounds look is really good for each world as it matches exactly what the world contains. Within each level you have different challenges to beat and sometimes they are really rewarding (for me it’s the water levels because I really don’t like those levels. It feels hard for me.), and some just are there to continue the game. The worlds are really colorful with bright colors and not many dark colors, although the last level is really dark because that’s where the final boss battle is going to take place. Many of the powers that Mario gets let him do things better depending on the world that he is in, like a frog suit to let him swim better. Very cool looking outfits for all of his powers and I can’t wait to play a new Mario game to see what new powers he will have.
So this game is a bit challenging if you haven’t played it in a long time. Many of the platform elements can be done pretty easily but there are some levels where you can get frustrated a lot. There are some levels where you have to continuously grab a Star so that you can run across deadly plants. If you don’t, you die. I found this in one of the worlds and it got me frustrated because I couldn’t get one Star that I needed to continue so I got stuck on a brick with nowhere to go. Much of the other levels in the game have you dodge every enemy (or kill them) just by jumping or running, but there are some enemies, like a giant fish, that can’t be killed unless you have a weapon power (like fireballs or hammers). You need to have good timing with jumping to get past some of the levels because if you don’t time it correctly, you’ll have to start it over and sometimes it is fun doing it over, but if you die over and over, it loses the fun so try to get it right in a few tries. Most of the game isn’t really difficult, but it is challenging, especially when you ride the battleship to get to the boss for that world.
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