Comments on: The Anatomy of Super Mario: XIII. The path not taken http://www.anatomyofgames.com/2013/08/10/the-anatomy-of-super-mario-xiii-the-path-not-taken/ Defunct, amateurish, game design analysis by Jeremy Parish Wed, 25 Nov 2015 23:31:21 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.7 By: MetManMas http://www.anatomyofgames.com/2013/08/10/the-anatomy-of-super-mario-xiii-the-path-not-taken/#comment-1929 Sun, 11 Aug 2013 19:24:56 +0000 http://telebunny.net/toastyblog/?p=8495#comment-1929 Yeah, points used to be a big deal. But at least games with points would usually give you extra lives for meeting certain quota. In Super Mario Bros. it’s just a number to make bigger.

Speaking of lives, there’s a mechanic that’s grown more and more vestigial over the years but refuses to go away. Lives mattered a lot more before save data became standard. A few games like Super Mario World and the NSMB titles tried putting restrictions on saving to make them matter more (the former doesn’t even save lives totals on SNES), but since Super Mario Bros. 3* the Mario series has thrown so many easy lives opportunities at you that the lives don’t really matter.

* I know SMB3 doesn’t have save data on NES, but still…

]]> By: Kirin http://www.anatomyofgames.com/2013/08/10/the-anatomy-of-super-mario-xiii-the-path-not-taken/#comment-1928 Sun, 11 Aug 2013 18:50:37 +0000 http://telebunny.net/toastyblog/?p=8495#comment-1928 On “points don’t matter”:
Sure, these days most of us ignore points as an extraneous factor good only for measuring one-credit challenge scores. But remember when SMB first came out a lot of people were still coming to it from a very arcade-centric mindset, where in most cases points were ultimately the *only* thing that mattered. “Beating” a game was often extraneous or not even possible, the whole reason to play the same short games over and over was to improve on your high score. Long before trophies or recorded speed-runs, points were the way to show your prowess at a game. It took a while before home console games started moving decisively away from that concept.

]]> By: jparish http://www.anatomyofgames.com/2013/08/10/the-anatomy-of-super-mario-xiii-the-path-not-taken/#comment-1927 Sun, 11 Aug 2013 18:13:09 +0000 http://telebunny.net/toastyblog/?p=8495#comment-1927 A fair point, but think of all the points you’re passing up! Scandalous!

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