Anon fixes Super Mario Bros

I am slowly recognizing what I don't like about modern gaming.

streamlining

you mean instead of playing the game, i could pay you to not play the game i'm playing instead?

sign me up

I have this same mindset and it's great because it results in 0 temptation to spend money on game progression or items. If I'm playing a game where it feels like spending money like that is the only way to have fun with it, I just drop the game.
Actually, I don't even really bother with any games that I understand to have p2w aspects or any mtx that aren't just cosmetic.
- If I’m playing a game where it feels like spending money like that is the only way to have fun with it, I just drop the game.
  A big part of the "hook" in GACHA and other whale-hunting games is the initial hook of a fun and engaging setup. Genshin Impact and Sword of Convallaria both stick out to me as initially very fun and captivating games. They draw you in with the cut scenes and ramp up the curve like a normal open world JRPG.
  But the longer you play, the more you start tripping over resource requirements and timers on abilities and the need to do "daily" activities that involve logging on every day. All of this is fun in the early cycles but feels more and more like work by the later stages of the game. Dungeons start looking more and more basic - big empty rooms with a bunch of respawns in the center. Fights feel more contingent on having a bigger number than any kind of strategy or skill.
  If you've played older traditional JRPGs before, it'll start feeling weird because you know you should be expecting the game to pick up towards a dramatic conclusion after 100 hours of play. But these games just... go on forever. There's no payoff. You get tired and bored and you leave.
  But if you haven't played older traditional JRPGs, you're just falling into this skinner box of induced anxiety. The game becomes habit-forming. The induced reflex to trigger a feature or use a power that's increasingly paywalled encourages you to open your (parent's) wallet.
  Actually, I don’t even really bother with any games that I understand to have p2w aspects or any mtx that aren’t just cosmetic.
  There's a networking effect to a lot of these games. Up front, you're strongly encouraged to get your friends to join in. And friends playing a game together can have enormous staying power. I know people who have been running the same D&D game for 20 years (literally the same characters and world, going on into the level 200+ range as they just crank those numbers higher). I know a couple that's been doing WoW for their entire relationship - they started playing when they started dating and now they've got their ten-year-old son along for the ride.
  I think part of what gives these games staying power is that they don't require you to empty your savings account to participate. But I think its naive to discount the addictive power of a community space you're comfortable socializing in.
  These places are predatory. I can't discount them just because I'm not one of the ones that got eaten.

That would certainly give me a sense of pride and accomplishment.

- It's a joke, because EA added crap to their games and defended it with those exact words.
  That's why you're being downvoted by everyone.

I know OP is joking (at least I hope he is), but it reminded me of this thread about Soulslikes:

https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/oc1w7g/separating_difficulty_from_drudgery_or_why/

Time-wasting respawns/progress loss seems like a very blunt tool with which to motivate the player to keep playing. It's some 1988 arcade coin-op shit that we really ought to leave in the past.

Time-wasting respawns/progress loss seems like a very blunt tool with which to motivate the player to keep playing.
Tried playing a game of tennis with my friends. 0, 15, 30, 40, Point. Then if you're two scores ahead the game resets. Wtf! Why did the game reset? I was 30-40 and now I'm back to 0? I should be allowed to keep my 30 into the next game.
Now I'm being induced into playing more tennis! I hate this.
And tennis has so few maps! Almost everywhere I go is concrete. Very luck to find a clay court anywhere. You need to buy the DLC to find grass, and only if you're really lucky.
Its repetitive. Its exhausting. The rules barely make sense. And the match-making is completely fucked. I'm either playing people I trounce or getting my ass handed to me almost every time I go to a court.
I think I'm going to try and pick up chess instead. Does anyone know how I can upgrade my pawns to queens, though?
- So your claim is souls likes are more like tennis than say, Fortnite is.
- It's a very funny comment but also tennis is only the gameplay of tennis. People don't play tennis because they Iike the story so much lmao
- My favorite part of playing tennis is the commute back to the court after every time my opponent scores. I really get to savor and look forward to the next time I'll get to swing my racket. It also makes victory that much more meaningful knowing that not only am I an expert at swinging the racket, reading my opponents moves, and responding, I've also memorized every crack, crevice, and nuance of conversation along the route to the court. That meaningless repetition of unrelated action is what makes games fun!
It's not quite the same though, souls still keeps the items you dropped, its just up to you to retrieve them.
You can't claim you climbed a mountain, if each time you fell you just resumed from where you lost grip. Falling and reclimbing with renewed tenacity means that when you finally conquer the mountain, the view is all the more sweeter for the huge experience you've gained along the way.
- You can't claim you climbed a mountain, if each time you fell you just resumed from where you lost grip.
  Sure you can; it's called redpointing.
- You can’t claim you climbed a mountain, if each time you fell you just resumed from where you lost grip.
  Well, good thing games are better than real life. Or they would be worthless.
It can be the only way to punish people in certain games.
If there's no punishment for failure, there's no reason to respect any dangers the game presents.
In Minecraft, what should happen if you walk north for an hour and die? If you respawn with your inventory, why not just do that again and die as a quick way to get back? Why even bother with equipment or food at that point? Suddenly, half the game mechanics have lost their meaning, and there's a lot less to do for the player.
- If the punishment for failure is wasting time, then I'm just going to play something else.
  Games are supposed to be enjoyable.
I think soulslikes are appealing to a certain type of player. Personally I love Dark Souls it's my favorite game.
But I like playing with stakes. I remember stumbling around in the forest, down to my last scrap of health, with no more heals, desperately trying to reach the next bonfire. That for me is fun. Is it frustrating to lose your progress? Sure. But the only "penalty" is you have to try again or change your approach and try something else. And really, is being forced to replay a section inherently punishing? If the game itself is fun, you should still be having fun fighting and exploring even if you aren't progressing.

Green Mario and Metroid

I'm triggered!!

I'm just imagining a metroid coming down to suck the life out of Bowser
But no Zelda with Epona.

Recently I re-played Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 on an emulator and did not feel ashamed by making save points everywhere to avoid re-playing the levels, I had time for that as a kid.

I get the urge, but I wouldn't reccomend doing that on any of the later Wario Land games. They're puzzle platformers, so (especially in 2 and 3) the punishment for messing up is the short window of time it takes to get back to the start of the puzzle.
- I used save states on them also, I can't remember if there were any problems with the puzzles.
I use save function though but differently instead of saving everytime I breath I just save once at start of Level then everytime even if I take a single hit or Fall somewhere. I load my last start save no matter progress. That's why it take me around 1 week just beat one game.

A game is something that has a goal within certain bounds/rules. You accept that when you play and tedium isn't relivent except as maybe a thing you don't like, just like you might not like how a piece feels or character looks or a particular rule.

A toy is something you play with for "fun".

I think people that want a toy accidentally start playing a game then get upset that it isnt a toy.

Why can't/shouldn't a game be both? Plenty of games have easy modes and cheat consoles.
- They CAN be, but they are not obligated to be.

Kids have it too easy. Back in my day we did it the hard way! (using Game Genie)

"Green Mario" because the kind of people who have these ideas should fear his true name.

other characters... Metroid

https://www.smbgames.be/super-mario-crossover.php

What if Metroid and Zelda were girls

Thanks I hate it

I'd go as far as to even implement a 1-Up mushroom cash-shop, $1 for five 1-Ups

Anon invents arcade cabinets

dark souls would still benefit from difficulty settings

The difficulty settings are your stats. Literally.
Depending on your build and your personal skill level the game becomes easy or hard. The souls games are notoriously difficult because people don't have the attention span to learn boss patterns and want to kill every other enemy they see. The game punishes arrogance and forces you to figure out the mechanics yourself.
Once you get a hang of it the games become really easy. Not even joking. I have a harder time playing Space Marine 2 than I do Dark Souls.
- sure but you won't know that as a new player unless you go outside the actual game for info.
- So what, I have to dive in deep just to get the correct stats to have the difficulty that I want?
  How about my old retired dad, is he not allowed to play dark souls because he doesn't have the same reflexes he did 40 years ago? Because it would otherwise invalidate your sense of pride for being able to beat it?
  Dark Souls should have a story mode difficulty. Every game should.
  Claiming it shouldn't is selfish.

It would be like 1us for 500 coins, and a pack of 5 life-up mushrooms for 450 coins.

During COVID I beat smb1 for the first time. On Switch. Where you could rewind 😓

I beat this game back in the 80's and I still don't know how
- In the 90s I beat smw so hard, all the dragon coins, all the secret exits, tubular, the palette change, etc. it took years. I was convinced there was still more to find in that game even when the gba version came out and I finally had access to walkthroughs. I’m pretty sure I consulted Nintendo power on a few things though
  I recently watched a guy play through the nes Bart vs the space mutants though and that was legitimately a like “no kid ever beat this”

It's okay not to like Super Mario. You don't need to try and "fix" it.

I think it was a joke

Is this for real or am I too tired to understand the point of the text?

I'm genuinely not sure wether or not the first text is sarcastic, but I'm certain the reply is.

I used to play this game when I was like 10 I don't remember it being particularly frustrating it wasn't easy but I don't remember it being impossibly difficult.

Don't forget to add mounts and pets.

Some kind of plucky green dinosaur would fit in well.
- we need that Yoshi armor dlc

So many comments about how it is meant to artificially extend gameplay, or motivate the player to continue.

Could it not be as simple as the game cartridge only holds 1MB of game data max, and restarting the level from 0 when you die uses less valuable storage space?

ITT we don't to know to program

I know this is a sarcastic troll post but some QoL improvements can actually help old bad games. Like Save States.

And yes, Super Mario Bros was always bad. I never understood how it got so popular, even when I was a kid in the early 90's.

I don’t think it’s fair to say Super Mario Bros. was always bad. People played the heck out of it when it released. One could argue that’s because it was bundled with the system, but I believe the consensus is that it is considered one of the best games of its time. It’s probably one of the top 3 NES games still played today. It is legendary.
Blasphemer!
It was the best game i had. The bar wasn't high but it still was the best. Too bad I was a kid so I never really got past 1-3. Also at the time I didn't speak English (nor did my parents).
Save states are OP. I like the Celeste approach you go back to tag section and each section was its own challage. It doesn't waste any time because you are not beating any challenges you have already beaten

I use save states fuck that paywall BS

Emulators are great. Just found a Family Guy Game iso for PPSSPP after my original PSP died years ago. Now I can play with my favorite controller.

I never realized Mario is a metaphor for real life.

No it should have 10-year-olds with huge tits /jk

I see you there Trump

Noita has a resurrection mod for this.