Email: 3d Mario is about getting to a point

You said in your recent article (okay, many of them) that the difference between 2D and 3D Mario is that the former has you reaching a point presented by a flagpole/gate, while the latter doesn’t.  The problem is here, the stars/shine sprites do act like goal points, when they’re done well.

In fact, I’d say that’s while Super Mario 64 did best sales wise, because the game was entirely platform/adventuring, without any lame gimmick levels thrown in.  Sure, you had some collecting and some ring levels, but most of the missions were still ‘reach this one area and collect the star’, or ‘reach this one area and beat a boss’.  You also weren’t ‘limited’ as you say about 3D Mario, if you didn’t like one mission you just went off and tried a different one, because the stars for most, if not all of the levels were collectable in any mission.  Tell me this isn’t ‘reaching a point’:

Or this:

No, the problem with 3D Mario games is just the increased focus on silly side missions with gimmicky gameplay and the increasingly linear gameplay that stops you from having as much choice in how to get stars.
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(The above videos you showed are early in the game where a player just does some well placed jumps to get to the star. It is not the same as the player given a choice to go through the stage his own way like through a green pipe bypassing everything.)

You’re mistaking the letter of my critique with the spirit of it. The reason why you do not have the same freedom to complete levels in 3d Mario as you did in 2d Mario is because Nintendo believes their personality is what is important, not your personality. Imagine stage 1-1 of Super Mario Brothers in 3d. You would be unable to go through a green pipe to get to the end of the stage. You would be unable to bypass the fire flower or the star. Since Nintendo spent all these resources of programming it in and showing all these gnarly 3d effects, you MUST see all the work they did. To me, it is no different than the developer not allowing you to skip cutscenes (such as Sakamoto). In 3d Mario, you often are forced to use a power-up. Sure, you can skip stars but that isn’t anything since these stars all take place on the same exact level. Why can I not take a warp zone straight to the end like in the real Mario games? Because I would miss out on the ‘developer personality’.

Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda were developed together and both benefited from one another. A reason why I suspect these games were instant smash hits was because both games allowed the player so much to embrace his own personality in the game. This may not have been intentional, but it was definitely an effect.

Many Mario and Zelda clones followed. None could duplicate the similar magic. The player was not forced to play a certain personality style. That huge freedom could also be why games with themes and mechanics hostile to the mass market (such as Metroid) found a cult following.

I own DKC: Returns, and I’m not too happy about it. The game should be selling three times than what it currently is. Aside from the numerous issues mentioned about it, a big theme I see standing out when I play is that I am forced into certain personality styles to play the game. Much of the game is based around ‘hit the button at this precise moment or die’ which comes across extremely boring to me.

Why does the audience LOVE being able to play as either Diddy Kong and Donkey Kong in the original DKC? What does the audience LOVE being able to select a different character in Super Mario Brothers 2? Heck, why does the audience LOVE the Miis? The player is allowed freedom in personality. And I don’t mean the personality of appearances, but the personality of gameplay.

It amazes me that gameplay is defined without including the player. If you add the player into the equation, things change. Every player has a different personality. Games are fun when we are allowed to illustrate that personality into the game. It is why Chess is fun. It is why Poker is fun. Ironically, games are depicted in movies, television, and novels as a way for the character to demonstrate his personality (for example, all those poker matches of the crew in Star Trek: The Next Generation).

Above: Games are showed in other mediums to illustrate the personality of the characters. Unfortunately, game makers haven’t realized this yet.

To all of those prone to game god worship be it a Miyamoto or a Sakamoto or someone else, have you ever stopped to think that it wasn’t their personality that powered the game but your own? One of the best selling science fiction books is Ender’s Game. Orson Scott Card came to a sad realization that people, when they read the book, saw themselves and their personality. It certainly wasn’t about Card’s personality.

Iwata says that games that are fun for others to watch is an indicator that the game is good. Why are certain games fun to watch? It is because we see the players’ personalities. Games that are not fun to watch do not allow the player to adopt a personality.

Look at Minecraft. The game is about blocks. There is very little personality that can even be attached. Yet, there are TONS of videos and movies about people playing the game. People have great fun watching these videos. Why? Minecraft, by itself, doesn’t have much personality. But you can tell a player’s personality by watching how they play and what they build.

One of the cardinal goals in Blizzard game design is to allow a freedom of personality to play a game. Even in Korean pro StarCraft 2 matches, you can easily tell a difference in personality between tip top players who are even using the same race. One player could be playing in a micro way while another player could be playing in a macro way. Both can lead to the same conclusion.

Now that we’ve progressed to the point where we realize that game developers are not ‘gods’ and shouldn’t be ridiculously worshiped as such, perhaps we can now move further to realize that the personality of a video game does not come from the developer. It comes from the player. A good video game mirrors the player’s personality. This is why the player, once finding a fun game, mistakenly applauds the developer for his ‘personality’. It is like declaring Notch’s personality as the reason why Minecraft is fun. It is not Notch’s personality animating it but really the player.

When we play a fun game of chess or cards or even Go, we do not celebrate the manufacturers for the personality of the game. So why do we do the same with video games?

The reason why I say this is because I believe many game developers (and those ‘young budding’ ones) believe in a myth that their personality animates and brings life to the game. Therefore, based on that, it is rationale to put in cutscenes, story, swooping camera angles, character dialogue, and all the other crap that has nothing to do with a game.

It is the reason why I think Nintendo found it ‘necessary’ to put in all the ‘3d bloat’ for something as simple as starting a Mario Galaxy 2 stage. It is also why I think Nintendo finds it of ‘great importance’ to bestow on us these ‘brilliant art styles’ as seen in Wind Waker (which the audience hated. Why? Because it clashed with their personality).