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Thursday 21 February, 2008
GGAMEPLAY
GRR AND ARGH! I couldn't get the swimming down. I know, ridiculous, right? But first I just kept pressing jump so I could swim and not drown and I couldn't figure out how to get *out* of the water, and then I figured out to press 'up', and somehow my brain translated that as "Don't press B at ALL, oooonly press 'up'!" which, of course, resulted in my dying over and over again. This is hugely embarrassing to admit, but in the interests of Truth and Justice, I admit all.
As you can probably tell, my second gameplay session was spent mostly trying to get through Yoshi's Island 4... The first water level. Let me tell you, in case you don't already know, as frustrating as it is to not know what the heck you're supposed to do, it is EQUALLY or MORE frustrating when you *know* what you should be doing and keep on failing at doing that thing. My second gameplay session pretty much looked like this: a. get through Yoshi's Island 2 again. b. Die one too many times in Yoshi's Island 3, c. have to start over from save. Get through 2 & 3 fine. d. Die one too many times by drowning again and again (and, I have been told, that that is an *unpleasant* way to die). REPEAT from 'c'.
GAME DESIGN
Well, I'm tempted to gripe about the controls for swimming, but I have a feeling that that's mostly my problem... All-in-all, I'd say the controls were fairly intuitive, for a veteran game-player at least. The buttons you press most, "B" for jump, and the left and right arrows for moving horizontally, are super simple.
Like I was mentioning in my first post, this game is all about rhythm. Knowing what's coming ahead, knowing the right moment to jump or... well, almost always you want to jump, but on occasion you'll duck or run or use your power. But even if you have a platformer with great rhythm on every level, you still need variety so that the player doesn't get bored. SMW definitely delivers on that count. Each level introduces different obstacles, from the huge freaking bombs to Yoshi, from moving platforms to water, and those are just some of the ones I encountered in the four levels I've played so far.
Super Mario World also has tons of secret levels that you can access in different ways, through pipes and vines, for instance. It's really fun for the player to try to find all of these hidden area, and it adds another layer of decision-making: "Okay, so this guy is coming towards me, should I make it down the pipe or just run?" or even more pertinent: "Even if this pipe leads me to a secret area, is it worth it? How hard will it be? How much of the non-hidden level will I be missing?" I think most players choose to find as many of the hidden areas as possible, at least when they don't know what's inside, because most of us are curious people, or at least want to make sure we don't miss something. ;)
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