Email: 3d Land partly forces using the 3d option

From this review of the game: 

“Some of this ingenuity has gone into exploiting the 3DS’s 3D abilities, with a few bonus stages turning platforms into optical illusions that can only be fathomed with 3D enabled. Stages that look flat and simple might have deceptively placed blocks with positions that cannot be determined on a 2D screen. These mandatory sections don’t last very long, but having 3D enabled at all times certainly helps navigate levels, since it provides a better sense of where best to jump and land.” 

This, and replaying Mario 64 for the first time in years, have just made it clear to me the core problem with 3D Mario games. They are about showing off, first and foremost. First there was the camera that was based on what would looked good in the trailers rather than visibility in gameplay (Mario 64), to level design that more often than not are extended obstacle courses (Sunshine), to cramming non-platforming gameplay that should have just been turned into their own games* (Galaxy), and now this. 

I still maintain that if the 3D games were about doing what the 2D games did, but on a 3D plane, they would do a lot better, and I’m not buying another 3D Mario game until that is the direction. I’m tired of these games that are designed to be flashes in the pan. If Miyamoto really feels he can no longer do that, he should let people step up who can (but not chosen by himself).

Needless to say, I’m “Another satisfied customer”.

*Although the one differing gameplay element I wanted to see made into a full game was the Koopa shell surfing in 64, A game based on that would have been really cool.
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I think the game design has been corrupted by the artists. The issue with 3d Mario really crystallized in my mind when a Nintendo artist said how ‘beautiful’ 3d Mario was and how he liked to just fly around his own creation and look at every level from various angles. It is why in Super Mario Galaxy 2, after every level you it starts you on that little ball. You’re supposed to ‘take a break’ and stare at the digital night sky. I don’t know what moron thought that was a good idea, but it gives you an idea of the tone of what Nintendo developers think is important.

2d Mario beautifully cuts all this crap away. There are no camera angles to play around with in 2d Mario because there is no need for a ‘camera’. In 2d Mario, they can’t ‘fly around their own levels’ and marvel at their ‘beauty’ from various angles. The artists at Nintendo have to hate 2d Mario because of this.

Or let’s put it in another perspective. Somehow, the ‘art style’ of Zelda has become a huge issue. This is curious because for most of Zelda’s history, it never was an issue. But Nintendo artists believe they are entitled to this strange thing called called ‘creativity’ (I think its just gas), and they really ruin the experience with their ‘art’. Video games may be visual mediums, but art, like sound, is only a means to an end. Nintendo likes to treat it as the end itself.

So I agree with you, emailer. 3d Mario is greatly about Nintendo trying to show off.