I believe this is the first real video from this game, and you can feel how boring and confusing it is
Looks worse than Super Mario Galaxy, it’s incredibly slow and doesn’t feel like Mario at all, not even 3D Mario
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The ‘hardcore’ gamers out there can keep that Mario. This is MY Mario game…
Just that video in 2-1 shows you why 3d Mario will never succeed. Arcade gaming is tactile gaming. Super Mario Brothers is a tactile game where you feel the impact of breaking blocks, how the Y axis affects the X axis, of how your jumps need to be precise, of turtle shells bouncing left and right, and you feel it when you get hit.
3D Mario is not about tactile gaming. By moving in 360 degrees, Mario ‘slides’ around. Nothing in 3d Mario feels ‘solid’. Superficially, it is all the same. But jumping in 3d does not give the same tactile feeling that jumping in 2d does. Jumping on a goomba, always a tactile delight in 2d Mario, feels weird in 3d.
The DS and Wii, which had ‘successful innovations’, revolved around tactile feedback, i.e. touch. This is why when the Wii was released, many players got into it so much by slamming their virtual tennis rackets that they were throwing the Wii controllers into their TV sets. Tactile gameplay is arcade gameplay.
Imagine playing the classics. You feel the ‘tactile gameplay’ when you eat pellets, chomp on a pellet, or on a ghost. You feel it. And it feels good. You feel Q-bert hop, hopping about. Even in a game as abstract as Qix, the game’s sound and senses make you feel you are straining, straining as you stretch a line forward. And once you hit the other side, BAM! You are happy.
People who email me about the controls are really emailing me about the lost tactile gameplay the classic games had. Classic Mega Man was a very tactile experience. When you got hit, you felt it, and Mega Man got pushed back (hopefully not onto a row of spikes). This is why precise controls are so important in video games. The issue isn’t really about ‘control’ as it is about the ‘tactile experience’. You can’t have a ‘tactile experience’ with bad controls. ‘Getting into’ a game is really about getting into the tactile flow of the game. The game ceases to be abstract and becomes solid touch… at least in your mind. Remember getting a Tetris in Tetris? That awful sound it made ‘sweeeeerrrrgghhhh’, you felt it. And you loved it.
This is why I suspect racing games and FPS are the only games that succeed by being 3d. There is nothing loose, nothing ‘sliding’ around. Everything has strong tactile feedback. If you hit a wall racing, you know it. If you get shot at in FPS, you know it. But if I get hit by a goomba in 3d Mario, I don’t really know it. None of the jumps ever feel ‘solid’. While the X and Y variables were simple, 2d Mario excels at superior tactile feedback.
The issue isn’t that players have trouble hitting a brick or making a jump in 3d Mario. The issue is that it isn’t a tactile experience. Nothing in the game feels like it has weight.
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