GenGAME writes: "A lot of people rightly complain that the New Super Mario Bros. games are too easy. Objectively speaking they do cut back significantly on a lot of the things that made the classic game so notoriously tough, adding more coins and extra lives, more chances to save the game, and the ability to replay levels in order to mine them for 1ups and power-ups. Older games didn’t have these luxuries – getting a Game Over sent you back to start and you only had one shot at each level, meaning that every move you made had to really count."
These groundbreaking video games changed gaming forever and drew in scores of fans in the process.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder delivers record-breaking sales after over 10 million players ride the inchworm. The plumber and the pipe make history.
If all the world is a stage, then Mario is adept at playing all the roles – something Miyamoto was very keen to tell us.
3 had a good balance of difficulty before crybabies stepped in and cried about the difficulty of SMW, which is why the game was made easier before release. Would also explain why most other games have been easier except for special worlds etc.. or ones you unlock after you beat the main game.
Isn't the reason we got a Doki Doki Panic sprite swap because Lost Levels was originally deemed too difficult?
This is a lot of revisionist history. All games back then had to be difficult or else they would be over in less than an hour. Super Mario 3 was actually super approachable because you could use the map and warp whistles to go right to the boss. And as with Super Mario World, you could farm stages for more lives. The beautify of Super Mario 3 was the abundance of secret areas and tools like Hammer Bros. suits. You didn’t really want to rush it. The lost levels were a different beast. They were never marketed as a mainline Mario game.
I watched an interview with a developer (I think it was for Disney's Aladdin) from years ago and he said they were required to raise the difficulty because so many games were rented back then. They didn't want the game finished quickly so you had to rent it longer. it was the home-rental equivalent of pumping more quarters into an arcade machine.
The cry babies? It was Nintendo’s perception that yanks didnt like difficult games hence the easing of the difficulty.
This is an odd statement considering the history of Japanese games that had you press X on your way to victory. Seriously, games like Ninja Gaiden in the 00s was born of the developer’s belief that Japanese gamers had grown too soft.
or just a 'hard' difficulty
Odd I do not remember a hard difficulty in the classic super mario bros.
It does not "need" any such mode at all.
Remember that block that appears if you get neutralized, frequently?
Just add that, and it won't be such a bad idea.
old super mario was cute but deadly, and thats what made it so addictive!
It was the same with the original tomb raider as you knew one mistake would mean big trouble and thats what made it a classic!
i got this feeling in the second quest of super mario 3d land. You want a hardcore super mario challenge beat every level in both quests and get every coin in every level. Possibly the hardest challenge in any mario game.