Best 2D Mario platformer?

Flowey

Flowey

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It's SMB3 obviously.
 
Super Mario Bros. 3 has some good ideas, and the groundwork for a great game is there. However, it's severely brought down by hasty level design with no uniform increase in difficulty or sense of progression. Many stages just throw random obstacles at you and call it a day, as is the case with World 2-1, World 3-4, most airship levels etc. To pinpoint one particularly bland level, the Angry Sun level starts with a couple of pits with quicksand, Piranha Plants and a lone tornado, followed by a straightaway with a couple of bricks on the ground, some Paratroopas and a dumbass in the sky that chases you. This is not a breakdown summary of the level, it's a complete description of it.

When there is some progression, it's either too subtle or poorly fleshed out. Levels usually end too quickly to permit it: World 3-2 has you navigate a moving platform above water while an increasing number of fish jump up at you. You can get some invincibility stars and attack the fish with blue brick blocks, but your experience is cut short by a pipe that sends you to the end of the stage.

And then some levels are just pure bullshit. In the first Fortress in World 3 you start out in a corridor with a series of doors, and have to enter a specific door that cuts you directly to the boss battle. There are some Thwomps and Dry Bones here and there and if you enter the wrong door, you're dropped in a body of water where you have to swim to the far left side to get back to the start of the level. Every single time. World 3-9 is a complete fuckfest that spams bombs and bullets every which way. World 7-8 is not too different with the myriad of Piranhas that you have to avoid as you jump between pipes. There's one obstacle in this level consisting of two vertical pipes, one upward and one downward, facing each other, with Piranha Plants coming out of each unsynchronised, and it's a pain to overcome without power-ups. World 8 Fortress is a hardcore version of the aforementioned fortress level where you have some doors that lead you to different rooms for no reason, even though the goal door is right at the far right side of the very room you start in.

The game relies way too much on fresh gameplay mechanics and obstacles to make itself memorable. It's not a bad game overall, you can have fun with it for sure, but it's also faaaaar from being a masterpiece and is pretty much overridden by its successors as well as the og Super Mario Bros.
 
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Oh, uuh, yeah, the thread topic. Best mario platformer is Mario Odyssey.:birdo:

... said:
Imagine writing a wallpost on a game you don't like.
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If I wrote something more condensed you'd have complained I have no examples to support my arguments.
 
If the 3D Mario games count, then either Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario Odyssey. For 2D platformers, my favorite would be either Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World.
 
BabyRosalinaFan2014 said:
Oh, uuh, yeah, the thread topic. Best mario platformer is Mario Odyssey.:birdo:
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On that, I have to agree. Super Mario Odyssey is amazing. It's beautiful and the gameplay is really fun. One complaint I have is about the moons. They don't feel as special as stars or shines.

Goombuigi said:
If the 3D Mario games count, then either Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario Odyssey. For 2D platformers, my favorite would be either Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World.
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True, but we can't understate the importance of Super Mario 64.
 
I've played New Super Mario Bros. Wii and died on literally the last jump of the game. I have not played it since that.
 
Zipper T. Bunny said:
Woah woah woah! Explain?
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It has most of what I want out of a 2D Mario. The level design is solid, there's tons of secret exits, I really like the powerups (Blue Shell needs to come back), wall jumping is a great addition, and the best thing about it is the Mario vs. Luigi mode. Seriously. I see no one talking about this nowadays and that's a huge shame, because it's easily one of my favorite side modes in any Mario game. It's the main reason why I have so many hours on the game.

I can't blame anyone for not liking it though. Nintendo definitely milked the heck out of the series.
 
Xananab said:
It has most of what I want out of a 2D Mario. The level design is solid, there's tons of secret exits, I really like the powerups (Blue Shell needs to come back), wall jumping is a great addition, and the best thing about it is the Mario vs. Luigi mode. Seriously. I see no one talking about this nowadays and that's a huge shame, because it's easily one of my favorite side modes in any Mario game. It's the main reason why I have so many hours on the game.

I can't blame anyone for not liking it though. Nintendo definitely milked the heck out of the series.
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Yeah okay, that's fair. And Mario vs. Luigi NEEDS to come back. But yeah, I respect that and agree to a certain extent. Also OC bosses.
 
Super Mario Bros. 2 USA and New Super Mario Bros. are the only ones I'll argue are the best. Super Mario Bros 3 is just a prototype New Super Mario Bros, while Super Mario World isn't *that* great as people say it is (dino coins are worthless, cryptic exits, timer that runs against the appeal of alternate exits, backtracking to get powerups in a similar way the Mini Mushroom was docked for, colored Yoshis in the original usually not worth getting, boss fights being repetitive and also something New Super Mario Bros improved on besides the op Fire Flower)

New Super Mario Bros, while probably can use alternative routes better, still overall made Mario games as they should be made and the earlier games were lacking a bit of what I expect from Mario games.
 
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I have yet to play Odyssey so for now I have to say Galaxy 1 & 2. They managed to bring what Mario's about. From the well designed physics and platforming, zany power ups and bouncy cartoon characters, beautiful playful music, all wrapped up in a dreamy fairy tale setting. In 3D!
 
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