New Super Mario Brothers
Unfortunately, I have to give the New Super Mario Brothers (DS) a 7.9 rating out of 10. My first impression, like pretty much everyone else, was somewhere around 9.5. The game has *great* presentation and plays as well as ever.
Mario has a million game mechanics now. Really huge mario, really tiny mario, wall slide, wall jump, butt stomp, floating after jumping on springboards, diving from the float, ability to carry springboards, sidling on ledges, tightrope walking and jumping, one way floors, one way doors, turtle shell Mario, and so on and so on. All sounds great so far.
I have three main criticisms. First, I do not like the philosophy behind the secrets in this game. Every level has 3 large secret coins to find (sounds good), but the methods used to hide these coins are just not up to par. They are similar to the methods used in Donkey Kong Country 1, rather than the much better DKC2. NSMB has far too many cases where you really have no way of knowing if you should have done this or that thing to get to the coin, then you see you guessed wrong and now you must do the level over to get it. Even DKC2 had some of this with the forced-advancing levels, but NSMB has tons of it. I got really tired of seeing that I rode the wrong platform or whatever, and realizing I'd have to restart the level to get the secret coin I just passed. Secrets should encourage exploration, not constant restarting. DKC2 remains the best platform game at hiding secrets.
Not liking the methods used to hide secrets might not seem like a big deal, but it is in fact the central goal of the player. I take the entire goal of the game to find these secrets, so if they are about a 7.9/10 fun to find, then that's unfortunate.
Second, the emphasis on pits that kill you. Yes, the original Super Mario Brothers has lots of pits that kill you, but we're not in the 1980s anymore. Dying and doing the level over and over is a dated mechanic, and I expected NSMB above all other games to show us that. Unfortuantely it doesn't and is full of those familiar instant death pits, the concept of lives, and restarting levels. Just like God of War shows that a game is fun when dying makes you repeat as little of the level as possible, NSMB *should* have showed us that platform games are about exploring to find secrets, rather than lots of instant-death pits.
I can imagine some people disagreeing with my second point, but there is really no excuse for the third: you can't save anywhere! The only times you can save the game are when you beat a castle for the first time (end of world), beat a tower for the first time (middle of world), or pay secret coins to open a mushroom house. This is really, really bad.
For example, let's say that i just finished a level and got 1 of thd 3 secret coins because I jumped down the wrong shaft to get this coin or killed the only turtle that could be used to get the other one, or whatever. Then I play the level again and accidentally fall into a pit of instant death and die. Then I play it again and fall into some other instant death pit. Then I play it again and die again and again, because that's what happens in this game. Ok, I finally get the other two secret coins, yay! Now I repeat that entire process on the next level. Now I feel like playing some sudoku on Brain Age or my girlfriend wants to play Nintendogs. But NSMB won't let me save the game! I have to beat a tower or a caslte or spend coins on a mushroom house (which I probably wanted to save for some specific use).
One year, Shigeru Miyamoto was kind enough to appear at the Game Developers Conference and give a keynote lecture about game design. I still think about that lecture. In it, he said the #1 rule of game design is "When you press the jump button, the character should jump." He isn't kidding. In the original Tomb Raider, you don't jump when you press the jump button. Instead, you jump the next time that your running animation reaches the point in your stride where jumping would "look good." You should jump when you PRESS the jump button. He's really talking about having responsive controls in general, and doing stuff like having a basic attack come out when the button is released or something, as opposed to pressed.
Anyway, it's a great rule that reminds about responsive controls. Here's my proposal for rule #2 of game design: the player should be able to save the game anywhere! There is nothing so important in a game that it should decide it gets to supercede the player's real life needs to go do something else or play another game, or whatever. In NSMB, an example way to handle this would be to allow the player to save the game in the pause menu at any time. It wouldn't have to save your position in a level or the state of enemies in the level or anything so fancy. The only thing that really matters is if you finished the level or not, and which secret coins you found on the level.
In fact, they even have a mechanic in place already that would prevent you from getting the coins in a way the designers didn't intend. There are some coins you can get by jumping into a pit or something and getting the coin on the way down just before you die. Interesting to note that you don't actually get the coin until a couple seconds after you touch it, because it has to fall down to the coin holder on the bottom screen. So even if you got a coin, paused the game and saved right before you died in the pit, you wouldn't really have the coin. That's fine because you weren't SUPPOSED to jump into the pit to get the coin. The real puzzle was to do some certain jump or throw a turtle shell at it or whatever, and adding this save feature wouldn't diminish that.
Anyway, the game is fun and great looking and all that. Secrets should have been hidden much better, the game should have graduated from the 1980 idea of instant-death pits everywhere, and there is really no excuse at all for the save system. Believe me, I wanted to give this thing a 9.5 as much as anyone else.
--Sirlin
May 22nd, 2006 at 3:33 am
I don’t understand the concept of Lives in platformers anymore. Why should one be taken back to the start screen instead of the level?
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Since NSMB had to also appeal to retro-fans, there was no way around pits, they are an integral part of the classical Mario-design. Lives and save-system could be explained the same way: What’s the point in lives if the only consequence of losing them all is a detour to the Title Screen? There is a reason to have some checkpoints between which losing all your lives has consequences, but maybe better not in a portable game.
May 22nd, 2006 at 3:28 pm
The lives in the game were utterly pointless just because they became meaningless in their common-place. I had 70+ lives by the time I got to world eight, and I wasn’t really even trying to get lives very hard. Game overs were never an issue in NSMB. I love the engine the game is based on, but the level design felt too “Slick.” It required little effort to beat any given level in that game, and I think it would have done better with either a more difficult level construct, or if it had more compellingly difficult “Hidden” worlds. Oh well, it’s still great fun.
May 22nd, 2006 at 5:09 pm
I had 99 lives after world 2-4, right around before the flagpole where there’s a koopa on the stairs. =) *coughcough*
I was annoyed by the save system too, though after you beat the game once…things change. Let’s just say that it’s a better idea to finish the game first, and then go back for secrets later. =)
NSMB is a lot of fun but it probably was never meant to be a challenge. You can own all the bosses by stocking a mega mushroom beforehand. I should probably go back and beat all the bosses legitimately later. =/
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:17 am
Haven’t played the game yet, but the Exit Level system in Super Mario 64 was pretty good. Basically, you could exit any level at any time, as long as you were not in movement. So, if you are falling down a pit, you cannot exit your way out of losing a life. That could be a good way to implemente a Save Anywhere system in a world/stage based platformer.
May 23rd, 2006 at 2:31 am
[…] New Super Mario BrothersThe game has *great* presentation and plays as well as ever. Mario has a million game mechanics now. Really huge mario, really tiny mario, wall slide, wall jump, … First, I do not like the philosophy behind the secrets in this game. … […]
May 23rd, 2006 at 3:38 am
The save system is a read shame especially considering it’s a handheld portable. that kind of games are more often then not played on the move in the bus, and at work or school. So beeing able to save anywhere is a must.
May 23rd, 2006 at 3:39 am
I meant “real shame”
May 23rd, 2006 at 6:30 am
Well, the world’s are so long are they? The only thing that should be saved are those pesky coins.
May 23rd, 2006 at 6:36 am
Metadeos Says:
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:45 pm
“What’s the point in lives if the only consequence of losing them all is a detour to the Title Screen? There is a reason to have some checkpoints between which losing all your lives has consequences, but maybe better not in a portable game.”
To be fair, you do get sent back to your last save point in New Super Mario Bros., which, with the save system, can be rather in-between. It could be perceived as a bit of a “cheap” way to increase the game’s difficulty, but I have no problem with it, mainly because lives are plentiful in the game.
I disagree with the points raised in the article for the following reasons:
1) The save system is not a problem because you can just sleep your DS whenever you need to stop playing; this is in fact more convenient than saving in almost all cases because it’s faster. Battery life is a moot point because the DS can stay in sleep mode for over a day even when it’s low on batteries. Plus, you can save anywhere when you’ve beaten the game, and it can be beaten very quickly, when you consider that secrets make up over 50% of the game’s content.
2) What’s the problem with pits? There are plenty of other environmental challenges around, and pits of death are the least of problems in my experience with the game. The game is a platformer, and so you would expect there to be some jumping, and by association, you would expect some of the consequences of missing said jumps to be fatal.
3) The Star Coins only really make up about half of the secrets in New Super Mario Bros., and though most of them are easy to get, they are generally used to do minor things like open Toad Houses rather than give access to new levels and whatnot. While I wish there were more secret exits around in the game, there’s really no shortage of them, as well as other secrets… including two worlds that are impossible to access normally.
To be fair, the game isn’t perfect. I found that some of the final stages were too easy, though my brother suggests otherwise through his screaming over death after death, so that may have been just a lucky fluke. Luigi is no different than Mario in how he controls, which is kind of a downer, but it’s still nice to see him around. Tiny Shrooms and Blue Shells are too tough to find and can be a real chore. A “Top Secret Area”-type level would have been perfect for this game. There is no way to fly in this game at all, which kind of limits the size of the levels, vertically. Finally, I prefer Super Mario World to Super Mario Bros. 3, and New Super Mario Bros. is inspired by the latter more than by the former. I prefer the greater emphasis on secret exits, world map exploration and non-linear levels in Super Mario World (flying, hello), but the game is still damn good either way. However, how much you enjoy New Super Mario Bros. will ultimately depend on how much you love “retro” Mario, and which “classic” game you prefer.
I spent far too much time writing this.
May 23rd, 2006 at 7:22 am
[…] New Super Mario BrothersThe game has *great* presentation and plays as well as ever. Mario has a million game mechanics now. Really huge mario, really tiny mario, wall slide, wall jump, … First, I do not like the philosophy behind the secrets in this game. … […]
May 23rd, 2006 at 7:25 am
I haven’t played it, but from what I hear it doesn’t fit too well with what I liked about the NES games. In the NES games, it was a challenge to see how far you could get before a game over, and it was a real accomplishment to get to the end. Platform games just changed their focus over time from being a journey to exploration.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:48 pm
The save system is absolutely horrible. I don’t want to hear about sleep mode either - in my household where there is only 1 DS Lite, if I don’t save the game my girlfriend is ripping out NSMB and playing Animal Crossing when I’m not around. Super Princess Peach did a MUCH better job of implementing save functionality. The fact that saving anywhere is an unlockable after you beat the game annoys me even more. It’s like they knew they fucked up and had to give it to you.
The powerups are rather lame (aside from the all powerful fire suit which owns up everything in the game) the blue shell sucks and mini mario never feels quite right to me.
At the end of the day I don’t hate the game, after all I beat it. But I agree it’s a solid 8 and nothing more.
Derek Daniels
http://lowfierce.blogspot.com
May 24th, 2006 at 12:48 am
“The fact that saving anywhere is an unlockable after you beat the game annoys me even more. It’s like they knew they fucked up and had to give it to you. “
Thats pretty lame, stupid, and pointless on their part………
May 24th, 2006 at 6:09 am
Ouch. Brutal save system.
Good thing there are 3 DSes in my house (5 once the DS Lite pops up.)
May 24th, 2006 at 6:25 am
“The fact that saving anywhere is an unlockable after you beat the game annoys me even more. It’s like they knew they fucked up and had to give it to you.”
But if it were that easy to add in a save anywhere feature, essentially as an unlockable, then wouldn’t it be fair to assume they could’ve just given it to you unlocked in the first place? This seems pretty obvious to me - that having the save anywhere feature as an unlockable was a deliberate design on their part. There must be a good reason for it. I’d say that it does make the game a little harder. Granted that it is on a portable machine, which would be preferred to have more pick-up-and-play friendly game mechanics.
But what’s more common? Households to share one DS, or for each kid to have their own so that their WiFi settings, game records and saves are all their own? Every DS game I’ve seen so far was created almost to be played by a single person (Brain Training and Animal Crossing are the only exceptions I can think of…) and not a household of players.
But then again, I still haven’t played NSMB yet ;). But I’m pretty sure I’ll love it, as I do like death pits :D.
May 24th, 2006 at 6:39 am
Or it might just simply be the best thing they could do under given design guidelines.
Choice A: Save anywhere. In this case losing all Lives would mean nothing, since the checkpoint you’re thrown back to is just the beginning of the same level. Result: No reason to keep lives, removal of which would drive SMB1-Fans mad (not good).
Choice B: Save after every castle. People do not like this when looking for secrets as seen above.
So what to do? Divide the game into ‘playthrough’ and ‘exploration’. For the linear playthrough part there’s a reason for having periods in which loss of all lives means loss of progress (even if this concept is quite antiquated see Point A for reason). In the exploration part there is way less linearity, so you can’t (and shouldn’t) have the player get to a special point to pin the progress. Besides by getting into ‘exploration-mode’ the player has already proven his ability in the previous ‘playthrough’-Part.
Btw. I should note that I still don’t own the game myself because it’s not out here in the EU and I’m only importing games if they don’t seem to get released here at all.
May 25th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
The reason i don’t play plataform games anymore is that they are about exploring and not beating hte level anymore, plataform games now have no point to me. i don’t like exploring i like beating.
May 25th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Well if you don’t like uncovering secrets, you can always ignore that aspect of the game and just beat it.
But seriously, if you wanted to go after all secrets and “conquer” the game so to speak, would you really rather constantly restart a level because you took a wrong turn instead of exploring every corner of the level and get it on the first run?
May 25th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
People are actually complaining about having to go back and replay the levels in this game? No offense people but it’s not like the game is unbearably hard or boring as hell; you never know what you might learn on your next run through. Look to improve, not just to win.
May 26th, 2006 at 4:34 am
Exploring is improving, and it’s fun.
Being forced to replay a level over and over again because you made a little mistake makes the game repetitive and boring.
May 26th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
#17 - “But if it were that easy to add in a save anywhere feature, essentially as an unlockable, then wouldn’t it be fair to assume they could’ve just given it to you unlocked in the first place? This seems pretty obvious to me - that having the save anywhere feature as an unlockable was a deliberate design on their part. There must be a good reason for it. I’d say that it does make the game a little harder. Granted that it is on a portable machine, which would be preferred to have more pick-up-and-play friendly game mechanics.”
I feel more like since they didn’t give you the ability to save anywhere - someone said, ‘at least give it to them as an unlockable!’. Which ranks pretty high in my list of worst unlockables.
I honestly don’t feel there is any good reason for not allowing me to save anywhere. Granted I’m making a game with save points also (although you can use ours more than once) but save points are antiquated game design cliches that need to go away.
Derek Daniels
http://lowfierce.blogspot.com
May 26th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
“I feel more like since they didn’t give you the ability to save anywhere (…)”
Since they put it in and even added a check if you finished the game to prevent you from using it from the beginning, it is more likely they didn’t want you to save after every level until you’re through. Or can you think of a better reason to not unlock it from the beginning?
And depending on what type of ’save now’ you mean there is a good reason to not allow to save anywhere:
- Save now and pick up exactly at this state: Works only in some genres, still even there it’s often needed to disable the feature. Emulator-style-quick-saving would make it impossible for designers to control the length of (’danger zone’) sequences the player has to pass to reach the next ’safe zone’ and thus takes away a lot of tension control.
- Save now and pick up at previous checkpoint (keeping selected progress like found secrets): Wouldn’t probably change anything in NSMB, since I suppose the ‘checkpoints’ to be the points you’re allowed to save in playthrough or every level-start (keeping secrets?) in exploration. Maybe even more people would be disappointed if they were thrown back two levels because they didn’t notice to which point the progress was saved.
May 28th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
If a game is more fun when dying makes you play as little of the level over again as possible, then by that standard wouldn’t a game be the MOST fun when you simply can’t die at all? You know, Mario get nailed by a fireball and instead of dying this little speech bubble with “!” appears instead of Mario dying. You fall down a gap and a Lakitu fishes you out and sets you back on a piece of solid ground (AHEAD in the level, not behind, we’d had to make anyone feel bad…). Sounds like fun, I’ll tape down on the right arrow of the d-pad and begin the process of asking why I spent $35 for this.
Dying is SUPPOSED to be a penalty. Beating a level is SUPPOSED to be some sort of accomplishment. If you don’t like it, get a Game Genie, don’t knock the game that holds you to some standard of some kind, and a pretty lax one at that.
I’m confused at what you’re expecting out of a side-scrolling platformer…
May 28th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
I don’t think anybody ever said anything about wanting a death to put somebody ahead in the level…
After playing through my friends copy of the game a little bit, I noticed that when I fell in one of the several instant death pits in World 1-3, it let me go back to a checkpoint and let me keep two of my large coins that I had collected before the checkpoint (I lost the one I got after). Returning to the checkpoint after I died, personally, is good enough for me. I kind of wish it had let me keep that third coin though… and then let me save when I finished the level. :(
May 29th, 2006 at 2:13 am
Well, you know, not REAL far… just to the next available solid ground.
… okay fine, purposeful exaggeration.
The thing is, this is what Mario IS. He runs, he jumps, he hits goombas, and he falls down pits. I bought the game EXPECTING that. If you want exploration and no bottomless pits, I’ve got one word for you: Metroid.
This is kind of like criticizing Spliter Cell because you don’t like the stealth mechanic. If you don’t like it then don’t play it! Don’t complain because you want dual-uzi’s and a rocket launcher.
Personally, I HATE it when a franchise gets changed from a formula that people like. It’s like the difference between The Sands of Time and Warrior Within… people that didn’t like the game complained, and the FANS get screwed because developers, for some reason, place the not-fans at a higher priority than the fans.
Or Final Fantasy, for that matter. Some people thought turn-based battles were a little dated, so now we’ve got an MMORPG and an action-RPG. Well that’s all well and good, but what about the people who LIKED Final Fantasy? If Square wanted to make an action-RPG then, great! Do it! But why did they have to change the Final Fantasy foundation? I mean, if they still wanted to cash in on the Final Fantasy name, then do a spin off. Mystic Quest, Tactics, Crystal Chronicles… there’s plenty of room for a different take on Final Fantasy, why should the fans LOSE something to gain something they may have never even asked for?
Anyway, the point is that if you want gameplay that’s not-Mario, you’ve got options. Don’t insist that Mario be changed into something it’s not.
May 29th, 2006 at 5:36 am
Call me crazy, but I honestly don’t think dying and having to do levels over again is what Mario is all about. I think you’ve got everything right, but I have to agree with Sirlin on having to redo a bunch of stuff you’ve already done after dying is a dated mechanic.
Now before I dig a deeper whole for myself, I don’t really mind all the pits in NSMB (they’ve already killed me more times than I’ve wanted them to). I do mind having to do levels over again, but checkpoints don’t make it nearly as bad as other games (Super R-Type).
So basically, I’m not really complaining about the game (my apologies if I sound like it). Just the concept of “I died at the boss, now I have to do a huge portion of the level over again” as Sirlin put it in his Difficulty Tuning article.
May 29th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
How much is ‘a bunch of’? Is it starting over from half of the level before getting to the boss again and beating his first form? Having to beat his first form only? Having to take away half of the health of the second form? Having to hit him once? The point is not to repeat someting, but not to experience anything new while playing it again. If you have to repeat something while getting better (and coming further) every try, it might be rather rewarding. Imagine Prince of Persia (the newer 3D-Parts) with unlimited sand. It would kill the game, since it is based on having the player to survive one passage of obstacles with a fixed set of lives (sand) and checkpoints in every frame for some period of time. If you run out of lives you have to repeat the passage completely (higher checkpoint level).
The point is not that ‘repeating something’ is dated, but the tolerance about repeating something you already mastered (as ‘you don’t find the trick to shorten this or not getting damaged there, there is none left’) has changed and also in many games the level of ‘mastering’ doesn’t rise much after the first playthrough (either because you have played dozens of similar games before and know every trick there is, there simply is no trick or the game is that easy that you don’t need to look for any trick).
But this might be only my personal point of view. There is another I myself hope to be wrong about. It seems many players simply don’t want to get better gradually. Look at the reviews of Sonic Riders. I also had to review the game (for a rather unknown website) and started being overwhelmed by the concept, because it plays different. I read people complaining about the game being too hard or unfair and myself I needed a while to finish story mode. Before I finished the review I tried the story mode again and was able to beat it without losing once. Even collecting the medals was fun, because every try was shorter than two minutes and closer to gold than the previous. Still I fear most people simply want to master the game the moment they start it and not to notice if they should actually get better (or rather they want to get better quickly). Bad omen for Wii, isn’t it (just look at the ign-comments about the control of Red Steel)?
PS: I should state that I’m probably the same in the genre of Strategy-Games where I’m struggling to get into the genre for a while now simply because I still have to get the feel and hardly get better (mainly because of the remote effect of mistakes in that genre) from one 30-minute-game to the next which simply is to slow for me.
May 29th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
I haven’t played this yet, but to be honest a save anywhere system would ruin the game for me. Marios are all about challenges and that’s the fun part for me. Being able to save anywhere would no way mean a challenge. The traditional (post SMW) approach of worlds, levels and the possibility to replay levels to find those hidden secrets is the best way I can imagine for a platform sidescroller.
May 30th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
For once, I agree with Thrazz. In my humble opinion, the overworld in Super Mario World was one of the most realized ways to tie the different’ levels of a platform game together. Mario 64 was good, but for me, the different paintings was a little contrived. It was a way to force the existance of different worlds in a largely static castle. Moving around on SMW’s overworld was seamless, there weren’t different worlds, it was one world, freely explorable by the player. It didn’t violate the Localized Puzzle theorem because it was easy to tell if you beat a world or not, either a new path was opened or it wasn’t. The GBA version went one step better with a check-off list.
I’m looking forward to playing this game, as it looks superb and I have heard many raves about the game from my friends. The only thing I have to say is that, being on a handheld, I should be able to save at will on the overworld.
May 30th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
Mario Land 2 also got that kind of free exploring.
PS: I got confused with that “for once”… I’m not that trazz you argued with in the Nintendo post, the “h” makes the difference :P
May 31st, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Oops, sorry.
June 3rd, 2006 at 10:27 pm
No one’s pointed this out.
Every time you spend some of your big coins, it gives you a save prompt.
Just hoard your big coins until A) you beat the game, or B) you need to save RIGHT NOW, and you can’t wait for the castle level.
—
Choosing the save interval is important for game difficulty. Old skool games were hard because they never let you save. Current game are piss easy because you can just slap quickload whenever you get hit. Remember the “Perfect” SMB3 run that was floating around?
I’m perfectly fine with the way NSMB turned out.
June 3rd, 2006 at 10:44 pm
Oooo, just realized.
They could have made a “resume” save.
1) You can use it anywhere.
2) But it quits the game automatically.
3) When you restart the game, it auto loads the resume save and deletes the file.
They’ve done this before (Fire Emblem, for example.)
Wonder why they didn’t do this here…
June 4th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
The challenge of this game is to find the secrets. Allowing me to instantly the current number of secrets I’ve found doesn’t even slightly ruin anything. Again, it would not have to save your position in the level, just save the stuff you have found so that when you restart (from the map screen) you don’t have to get the same old coins over again. The current method doesn’t let me instantly switch to playing Brain Age or my girlfriend to play Nintendogs. Don’t even bring up sleep mode because that doesn’t help in those situations.
Peter Molyneux originally wanted to disable the ability to pause in Populous because he wanted to make a world that went on, even if you weren’t playing it. He was (thankfully) convinced by others that his game-designery ideas should not be allowed to trump the real-world needs of players, such as the ability to pause to answer the phone, or whatever. My real-world need to let someone play Nintendogs on my DS without losing the secrets coins I’ve found is nearly as important.
The ability to save anywhere (not necessarily the ability to resume from the exact location of the save) should be a mandatory feature of a video game in this millenium. You can still make a difficult game around that system. In fact, some of the levels in world 8 are pretty hard, and even if you have 10 million lives, you still have to have the “skill” to get all the way through the level to beat it.
I’m surprised there is even any debate on this. If it’s possible to make a difficult game with save anywhere, then why not do it? The only way to stay on the other side of the “debate” would be to claim that it’s impossible to make a hard game while still allowing instant save, which is pretty shaky ground to be on.
After having playing the game more, and beat it so I can actually save on the map screen, I like it slightly more. I’m willing to go up to an 8.0 (complaints about the cheapy methods of hiding secrets still stand). DKC2 remains the authority on hiding secrets in platform games. NSMB is still a solid game that I would recommend to DS owners.
I’m still really liking Bleach DS (japanese) btw.
–Sirlin
June 4th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Actually by now I also think it could be done better. By allowing the player to save and load once on the lower-level ‘live lost’='(half) level start’ checkpoint. Having additional self-destroying save points during playthrough-part there could easily be the ideal solution for the game (doesn’t mess with ‘game over’-checkpoints and adapts to the player’s real life). Every other solution has its flaws. If only coins were saved, it probably would disturb players much more, because it’s hard to explain why the next levels aren’t finished anymore but you kept the coins.
My point is: it is not a save-point decision but a checkpoint-one. Meaning: The lives you’ve got are not for the next level, but for the next set of levels, which is not as strange as it seems by now (take a look at the DKC-games again). Having hard save points between two checkpoints would allow the player to bypass the system. Having save points storing coins only would confuse the player.
I’m still waiting for my Bleach DS (japanese) to arrive btw. ;)
June 8th, 2006 at 3:21 am
In my opinion, the greatest save system ever made exists in Fire Emblem. For those not familiar with it, it had a checkpoint-based save system (you were allowed to save upon completion of a chapter) combined with an instant save system: by turning the game off, your data was saved at any point in the middle of the battle. This was almost impossible to abuse (the only way involved exploiting the game’s random number system and was still based upon imperfect information), as if you turned the game off in the middle of a fight where one of your units is killed, when you turn it back on you would be faced with this exact same scenario; there was no way to change it. Death of a character was permanent, so this was a big deal, and the player would be faced with two options: accept his blunder and move on without that character, or restart from the last checkpoint. Seems fair to me. You get checkpoint based saves making for a somewhat more difficult game, combined with an instant save system that is nearly unabusable and great if you need to stop playing at any given time (if, say, your girlfriend wants to play NIntendogs).
This could have easily been implemented in NSMB: turn off the game while standing around somewhere, you’ll still be there next time you turn it on. Turn it off while falling down a pit, next time you turn it on you’ll still be falling.
June 8th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
prinnydood: Perhaps that save system solves everyone’s complaints. I like your explicit mention of me being able to let my girlfriend play Nintendogs, lol.
Too bad Metroid Hunters doesn’t have this. I played that game like 30 or 40 minutes without being able to save yesterday. I wanted to throw it out the window.
–Sirlin
June 10th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Minor point:
Fire Emblem was turn-based, so it had discrete times to save.
NSMB is constant, so saving constantly would have been impossible (on the DS, anyway. Saving to Flash memory is weird.)
But yeah, they could have at least done a mid-level insta save (Like, say, Megaman and Bass on the GBA.)
June 11th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Chadius: The game wouldn’t have to save continuously while playing, just give the option to Save in the pause menu. Progress in the current level wouldn’t need to be saved, just progress in completed levels.
June 11th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
I think he adressed only the last paragraph about the ‘easy implementation’ of a technically not feasible feature. Saving the progress up to the last in-level-checkpoint into a save state that gets deleted once you resume from it, was what I meant with the incredibly ugly description above (”By allowing the player to save and load once on the lower-level ‘live lost’=’(half) level start’ checkpoint.”). This could even be done automatically, so if you turn off it’s is handled as if you lost one life (once again to prevent conflict with the checkpoint system) and resume from the respective checkpoint.
Actually I could imagine an auto-quicksave-system in real time games on Wii. Since Wii is still working in standby, it could just as well give the running game the chance to quicksave (red-lamp-warning and refusal of ejecting the disc included), once you press the power-button, before it enters WiiConnect24-state.
June 12th, 2006 at 7:59 am
I don’t really like a “save anywhere” feature in games because in some ways it does kill the challenge, for me at least (of course it depends on the game type). I prefer checkpoints (like in some FPS), end-of-level saves, or in-level save points (like Ninja Gaiden Black). At least that way the threat of death still has meaning, but does not create tedium.
June 15th, 2006 at 6:47 am
I bought the game Sunday, and I think it’s pretty sweet. The main thing I don’t like about it though is Nintendo taking a step backwards and using a lot of old NES sound effects.
As for exploring, I haven’t done any such thing yet. I’m going to beat the game first so I can unlock the save anywhere feature.
Beat now, explore later.
June 15th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
I just can’t buy into the idea that instant, anywhere saving doesn’t make games easier. Is it easier to flip a coin and get heads 50 times in a row, or just flip a coin and get heads 50 times? There’s IS a challenge inherent to doing a series of things successfully rather than continually taking your best attempt. That’s why they don’t allow do-overs at the Masters; it’s to see who can golf the BEST game 18 holes at a time, not who can piece together the best game by taking the best shot they feel they can muster before moving on.
I mean… for a real example, go get yourself an emulator. Download Gradius III. Now beat the game once while you abuse the save state system as much as you please, then beat it again without using it at all.
I realize that the save state in an emulator is kind of an extreme example of what we’re discussing, but it serves as a clear illustration that saving more often DOES make a game easier. People will abuse any aspect of a game they can to win, am I right? Am I the only one that would save in Golden Sun before he threw EACH lucky medal into the fountain in case I didn’t like my prize? Hell, I abused the save system in NSMB on multiple occasions.
Though I do completely endorse quick saves (where the save file is erased once you pick the game up where you left off) for portable games just in case your lady needs to feed her dog. A dog’s gotta eat, after all.
June 19th, 2006 at 12:05 am
So I got this game awhile ago and I thought everything was perfect. It was never too hard to get to a castle or mushroom house to save and the coins were hidden masterfully.
Then my brother tried it out and the battery came close to dieing on him. He’s not good enough to get all the coins or to quickly beat a fortress. If he lost his data you’d likely lose him as a player.
I understand that Tezuka wanted some of the saveless old school field of having to complete four/five levels before you get a save, but that does not work for a hand held game. It kills the exploration game for poor players, limiting how they play the game needlessly.
All the game needed was save anywhere on the world map. The levels are short enough that having to do one over again isn’t something to complain about(The whole game can be beaten in 20 minutes!).
I’m completely baffled at how you thought the coins were placed poorly. I found all but one by myself, and by the end of the game I felt like the designer was talking to me and I could predict what was coming. The donkey kong country games have always frustrated me with their harsh level design and overly simple controls(Walljumps have saved my life countless times).
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Anyone who believes every game needs to have “save everywhere” hasn’t played Nethack, and doesn’t fully appreciate the challenge given when you can’t just slap save buttons constantly.
Go ahead and play Nethack. Beat it, I dare you. It’s got an instant save feature if you have to leave, but aside from that? You die, it’s over, DYWYPI?* There’s no coming back (save for with a certain item). You get to start allllll the way over. And people still come back to that game after twenty-one years. Now go ahead and tell me it’s not a good system, I dare you.
*”Do you want your possessions identified?”, told to the player after they die, so they can see their inventory, all items fully ID’d instead of the randomized descriptions given ingame
July 5th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
“It kills the exploration game for poor players, limiting how they play the game needlessly.”
First, I don’t mean to sound elitist.
Second, I’ve always felt that things like that were the game’s reward system. If a player is skilled enough to complete the game’s levels, then his reward is another go of the game, this time collecting secrets.
In a platforming game, the challenge is you, the player, versus the layout of the level. The challenge is to survive the pitfalls and traps of the level. If a player succeeds, and defeats all the levels, then his reward is to go back through and collect the various secrets in each level.
I don’t mean to sound harsh, and I’m probably going against any sound method of making profits, but I say, if someone is a poor player, he doesn’t get the same extras as the skilled player. $30 only covers the basic game. Extras are all purchased with skill.
July 7th, 2006 at 10:39 am
You couldn'’t save on metroid? Just return to the ship. Off topic, who else is looking forword to Star Fox Command?
July 8th, 2006 at 4:06 am
I agree; the ability to save anywhere, or at least, at the beginning and end of each “section,” should be a standard feature in today’s games. In the case of NSMB, I’d accept the ability to save at the end of each level.
It sucks when I have to set aside a great deal of time to play games like Metroid Prime Hunters or NSMB. Usually, I don’t have that much *straight* time to spend playing those games, and I just end up quitting without saving.
Portables are not like consoles; they’re meant for quick bursts of on-the-fly gaming.
A.J. Comix Says: “You couldn’’t save on metroid? Just return to the ship.”
That’s a very limited way of saving that game. Quite often, when I want to (actually, have to) save in that game, Samus’ ship is halfway across the planet. Running all the way back to the ship to save the game is too much time.
Perhaps, alongside “Loading Times,” one of the greatest enemies of today’s games is “Saving Times.” I don’t necessarily mean that in how much actual time it takes to write data to the card; I mean that more in the sense of how many actual opportunities a player has to save the game.
~Avatar Z
July 8th, 2006 at 4:07 am
PS. Both Metroid Prime Hunters and NSMB are in my “Incomplete” stack of games due to the above reasons. They’re both great games, but in my busy schedule, they’re on the borderline of being virtually unplayable.
August 1st, 2006 at 1:04 am
Ok, I finally got to play this and I must agree that the save system is bad. It’s so bad that it is the only thing that makes me not want to play the game. I have had it for two weeks and I haven’t even got past world 2.
October 24th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
if you are into Sudoku you shall check out Kakuro which is a new puzzle game that’s getting popular lately
November 29th, 2006 at 1:09 am
Just to let a different opinion here, I love the old concept of SMB 1/3, Battletodas and the like: lives and no possibility for saving or even passwords…
The game feels much hotter and important when youi know that your mistales actually mean something. Its like a good thriller and you are always very alert and ready for a challenge.
Plus, it is really nice when you learn to do well on the first stages and go through them like they’re nothing (so good to pass Battletoads stage 3 on NES in a single try).
In all games, I really prefer when lives mean something, and when each stage is designed to be fun when played many times, as opposed to most modern games.
I like the pause button for when real life gets in the way, but not the save button. It cuts the drama :)
I am pretty sure I am a really small minority here, but people like me do exist, and they really like the first Sonic or SMB 3 more than any Final Fantasy or GTA of today ;)
Playing a 2 D mario with infinite lives or whatever to decrease the challenge is not the same. Not that I am advocating the hardcore games only, but its nice to have something to keep us in our toes or whatever …
December 9th, 2006 at 6:19 am
Jon says “If a game is more fun when dying makes you play as little of the level over again as possible, then by that standard wouldn’t a game be the MOST fun when you simply can’t die at all? You know, Mario get nailed by a fireball and instead of dying this little speech bubble with “!” appears instead of Mario dying. You fall down a gap and a Lakitu fishes you out and sets you back on a piece of solid ground (AHEAD in the level, not behind, we’d had to make anyone feel bad…).”
Well it worked for Mario Kart.
November 12th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Old, dead thread, but the best handheld save system ever was Tetris DX on Game Boy Color.
You pause in the middle of the game and turn it off to save. Doesn’t get much simpler than that.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Ian Keith: Ironic that you mention Nethack as an argument against save-anywhere, given that it’s a perfect example of a save-anywhere mechanic that doesn’t alter difficulty at all.
The key is that “save anywhere” doesn’t have to mean “retry from anywhere”. Add a system where your progress can be saved anywhere (when and only when you quit) and you must always resume from the most recent point, and you have a complete save system. The ability to retry can then be doled out as miserly as you want, without making the game a real-life nuisance.
June 16th, 2008 at 5:24 am
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