[Opinion] What has happened to 2D Mario games? (And how to “fix” them!)

The simple thing Nintendo did to effectively hold “New” Super Mario Bros. back from ever reaching super stardom.

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Right this very moment, my Wii is sitting in my basement, power on, Super Mario World loaded onto the screen, waiting to be played again whenever I muster the strength to give Forest of Illusion another shot. You see, I’m stuck in the (what I assume to be) infamous area where you cannot go on without uncovering some secret and opening up the next level, crafting your way through the trees and onto the next castle. Please don’t tell me how to do it.

In my break, though, I’ve been pondering quite strongly the differences between this Super Nintendo classic I’m plowing through for the first time and the round of 2D Mario games we’ve seen plop out of Nintendo’s money machine over the last six years. Upon first glance, there’s really not much that stands out as being truly different aside from the graphical downgrade seen in the three entries to the New Super Mario Bros. series that have been released so far, and yet something feels indistinguishably different.

Chalk it up to “atmosphere” if you’d like, chalk it up to music or “heart” or anything else truly intangible– and I’d certainly be hard pressed to disagree with you– but I think the big difference between the two “chunks” of Mario’s 2D history can be boiled down to how memorable it is.

And, well, how memorable it is can be boiled down to how much time you spend with each level.

The “New” series of Mario games– let’s use New Super Mario Bros. Wii for this article– from what I’ve seen, has much more thought put into its level design and complexity than Super Mario World. Any thinking person would assume that this would mean it’s also more memorable than Super Mario World, right?

But it’s not. And that’s not because Mario World is more magical (though it is), it’s not because Mario World has more “heart” put into it (though it does), and it’s not because the music in Mario World is better (though it is). It’s because remembering something requires spaced repetition, and in New Super Mario Bros. Wii there is none of that.

“Well Austin,” you begin to inquire, “I understand what “repetition” is, but what’s “spaced repetition?”

Hmm…

Picture this: If you practice piano for one hour every day for a hundred days straight, you’re going to be a pretty decent piano player. If you practice piano for 10 hours a day for ten days in a row, you probably won’t make too much progress. Despite practicing for 100 hours in both instances, one yields much a much stronger memory of how to play the piano than the other.

I think NSMBWii and Super Mario World are sort of similar. In NSMBWii, I die just about as often as I do in Super Mario World, but because there aren’t any game overs (due to hundreds of lives and powerups everywhere), I never have to go back and play levels prior in order to get back to the level I died on. There’s no spaced repetition of levels– only clumped repetition– and I think that’s a huge contributing factor in how memorable something is.

Another reason I think this is right is due to an unintentional experiment I did while playing through New Super Mario Bros. Wii the first time. See, I played the game front to back, no saving, and getting a game over meant I had to start from the very first level all over again. I was going for it Super Mario Bros. 1 style, mostly because I was curious as to how hard it truly was when stacked against the original entry in the legendary series, purely in terms of level design.

(Spoiler alert: It’s not as hard– but due to something else entirely.)

What this meant is that I had a lot more exposure to specific levels over and over again, and the end result was that my opinion of the game was far higher than that of my friends’. Not Super Mario World high, but I definitely think much better of it than most people I know.

The second contributing factor to how memorable a game is:

In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, levels got pretty tough here and there, but beyond having too many lives and save points and game overs, things never got intellectually hard; just reflexively. You never sat there (like in the Forest of Illusion!) going “God… What the f*** am I supposed to do next?” or “Geez… how do I get to the next world!?”

Things were hard, but you always knew what to do– perhaps just not how to do it exactly.

So here’s my plea to Nintendo: I want you to go back into the programming of New Super Mario Bros. U and give us a “hard mode”. Give us 90% fewer 1-ups, 50% fewer powerups, and take away all save points except at castles and towers. No more of this “suspend your game?” tom foolery. Make us keep our systems on if we want to stay on the exact level we’re on, or better yet, only let us save at the very beginnings of new worlds. Doing this will not only increase the satisfaction we get when we beat the game, but it will increase how memorable harder levels are, how memorable the music is, how memorable bosses are– pretty much everything gets better. And you don’t even have to make it mandatory. Just give us the option.

You’ve got the art and the feel on the right track. You’ve got a new overworld theme.

Make it memorable and you could finally have another 2D Mario game that measures up to the days of old.

Not that the “New” series is bad or anything.

Just take out the “WAH, WAH” things in every song ever from now on.

And stop rehashing old music. This especially.

Thoughts, my friends?