The Nintendo Switch

Literal nightmare aesthetic here lads
https://i.postimg.cc/cHF3BWB6/IMG-1115.jpg

Super excited to play this after reading this thread. I have some academic work due soon, so I'll buy it as a reward in a few weeks' time.

I had low expectations for the Switch Mario U port that came out a couple of years ago, but they had a copy at the place I was housesitting earlier this summer, and I thought it was pretty terrific - after Odyssey, I was glad to play a more bare bones Mario, and the level design was really good. Ultimately, I think good Mario games are like books, you can't have too many.

Got this yesterday. Just beat a level called “Jump! Jump! Jump!” in world 2 after like 20 tries. Celeste vibes. The difficulty ratings aren’t fucking around, wonder how high they go.

― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Sunday, October 22, 2023 1:01 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

uhh yeah the bullrush level is pretty insane, reminds me of those Super Mario World bonus levels where you basically have to memorize the timing of everything.

btw one fun thing about the piranha plant serenade is if you use a fire flower to kill some of them they stop singing. can't think of many game devs who would actually go through with that level of detail

The Digital Foundry video shows that a lot of the enemies on screen react to what Mario does to their friends!

seems like the switch 2 is really "on the way" (next year) now https://www.eurogamer.net/nintendo-demoed-switch-2-to-developers-at-gamescom

7 years same as all the other consoles, not surprising

yea standard stuff

Just beat wonder, wish it was longer!

is it anything like Super Mario 3D world where there is like an absurd number of bonus levels after you think it's over?

putting the hard stuff after "the game is over" is an elegant solution to not making it too hard for some people

yeah it's what I loved about 3D World, it was sometimes challenging but mostly kinda light, even the final boss battle was kinda easy. but then there's like 3 extra worlds worth of the stuff you've really been waiting for

odyssey is like that too, tho theres some optional hard stuff just mixed in with the normal levels too

I got confused after beating odyssey and found it was too much hassle running around trying to look for extra content

I like my Mario linear or linearish, like odyssey

The last battle vs the bowser castle isn’t fucking around…fun though but a slog towards the end

I've think I've failed the Jump Jump Jump level maybe 50 times now

oh man the five star jump level in the special world took me prob 150 tries

it took me like 20-30 tries to do it, something about how that last bit switches up the rhythm kind of messes with your brain I think. but now that I've beaten it I can probably pass it like...30% of the time. unless you're talking about the level that it unlocks (the 5 star difficulty one with wall jumps), I tried it 3 times and went nope impossible

I did the 5 star one eventually, but I had to switch from playing handheld to using the pro controller and TV first. Which is something I never had to resort to when playing Celeste, including most of its extra challenges.

Urgh I really hope this isn’t as difficult as you’re making it sound, our 7 year old wants this (and nothing else, apparently!) for xmas, he’s going to be so disappointed if he opens it up and then it turns out he can’t make any progress with it. Can you at least get through the core game to an initial ending before you get to the really tricky stuff? Or is the main path difficult too?

All the difficult ones we're talking about are optional. The main path isn't any more difficult than previous 2D Marios. If you have someone else that can play, the co-op is really well done too (my 5-year-old has been happily playing it as Yoshi which is the easy mode)

Ah phew, thanks. :)

Co-op can be a mixed blessing in mario games though, definitely remember some bits (especially in the Wii U NSMB game but also in mario 3d world) where it was so hard to avoid getting in each others' way that having a second player actually just made things more difficult.

they've really improved the 2p mode this time - we were much more successful with it

the big difference in multiplayer between this and the other new 2-D Marios is that the characters are basically transparent. so you jump through each other instead of getting in each other's way. though you can jump on top of the Yoshis which sometimes gets irritating on the tougher levels. but yea multiplayer is a lot 'easier' so to speak. I always wondered if the other ones made it obnoxious on purpose to cover for the fact that multiplayer is kind of cheating, since you can endlessly respawn

we're only halfway through yet but yeah I don't think the main game is too hard. all the really difficult stuff is optional. also I think this game put a lot of care into making sections that look crazy and difficult but actually aren't too bad. I think a 7 year old could do it.

There's two playable characters who don't take any damage (will die if they get crushed or fall offscreen though), my 8 year old daughter plays with them and loves the game.

its cool how theyve found clever ways to have easy modes more incorporated into games, special characters, stuff that comes "after" winning

its funny there was so much complaining when it was revealed that one of the semi-recent Mario games would have a feature where Luigi would 'help' you if you died enough times, basically making it so anyone could finish the game. I think a lot of people felt that you only deserved to beat a game if you had enough skill. I guess I get that but man, just thinking back to all the NES/SNES games I rented where we were basically stuck at Level 2 or 3 because the difficultly ramped up so much, and how much stuff was probably in those games that their most dedicated players probably never even got to see because they were just kids.

lol so many nes games were impossible just cause they were bad

^me and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

that's definitely true but I always suspected a big part of the reason was you only had so much space and developers didn't want their games to be beaten in an hour so they compensated by making them super hard

yeah just a mindset descended from arcade games where the design goal was to eat quarters

in retrospect pretty funny how the goal of the gamer back in those days was to outsmart the developer and figure out which moves you could spam or what corner you could hide in to trick the CPU

xp this design for insane arcade difficulty was always stupid for home consoles. every Mario game had cheat codes/warps built in so you could beat the game in 5 minutes if you wanted!

It wasn't necessarily an intentional mindset just something inherent in the beginning due to that reason.

old game difficulty was goosed to sell magazines and 900 number tip lines to children.

But it created the game genie market, which then converted the beautiful game hardware forms into a grotesque amd shameful monument to "winning".

you plug a cartridge into the genie, insert the hybrid mass into the mouth of your games machine, and now your basement is Moreau's Island

how exactly did the Game Genie work? my understanding is all it did was mess around with some commarea that held global variables, so for whoever was creating the Game Genie it was just a matter of figuring out which hex value got you to the hardcoded number of lives or timer speed or whatever

one thing I remember is the 'unofficial' Game Genie guides, which would include some very bizarre 'cheats'. you remember that dude in Mortal Kombat who would pop out of the corner and yell "Toasty"? you could actually play at that guy! well...sort of. your character would just be that animation, you could move around but I think as soon as you hit punch the game would freeze.

yeah it just messed with the memory, the codes were basically memory addresses

I’ve returned to Super Mario Wonder over my holiday break. I put some hours into it when it was first released, mostly just sprinting through levels, not spending much time soaking it in.

Taking more time with it now, replaying levels to catch stuff I’d missed, seeking out overlooked Wonder Flowers (maybe the best mechanic introduced into a Mario game imo).

Found the secret world (optional) with genuinely gnarly and difficult levels. Celeste-y. Beat a few by the skin of my teeth, saving the rest for after I clear the main game.

If you can play it on a proper TV and use a Pro controller, do it obv. Improved my experience immensely. It looks gorgeous and the joy cons just do not cut it for precise platforming.

Anyway. I think this is my favorite Mario game. More of this please.

It is great. We enjoyed 3D World and U, but this has been a new level of fun for us.

I bought Hori Split Pro controller add-on, the big one with a far more ergonomic feel, and it really does make this feel like a new console

I guess this is where the Mario chat is? My kids have been obsessed with Mario for the past year or so, we don't have a Switch yet but because I said 'we're not getting a Switch this Christmas' they think they're getting one next Christmas...hmmm

Anyway they have been playing old Wii games, New SMB (thought this was too difficult to start with but 9yo has gotten really good), and Super Paper Mario, which I played when it came out and have really enjoyed revisiting - it's made my kid a decent player. They're on SM Galaxy now. Have been watching player videos of SM Wonder which is giving them their fix for now too.

There's a pretty strong chance that an new, upgraded Switch console will be released in 2024 so holding out isn't the worst idea.

I hope so.

seems like it

how long after is comes out before you can get one tho! folks

Playing SM Wonder with the switch SNES controller is the only way to fly..

best in class D-pad and just enough buttons to control but nothing extra...

using joycons is like driving with boxing gloves on.

I generally like the pro controller but it doesn’t quite hit the sport for side scrolling or platformers. I should try the SNES one.

Wait, I have to have a Nintendo online membership to use it??