The future of equipment poll.

[LayZboy]

Super Mario World.

I think the main problem with that was when you got a box that was a power-up you currently have, it turned into a 1-up instead. And because you could get the cape on most levels, the boxes just gave lives instead. Other than that I don't think it threw too many lives out, unless you went out of your way looking for them, although one of them was completely broken, the Super secret area.

The newer games though, like Land on 3ds, well I have something like 300 lives on it...

[LaughingThesaurus]

If you got an extra power-up in super mario world, the game still spawned the power-up, and you got to put it in the box at the top. The only lives gotten from those boxes were like, the green star ones that give you extra lives sometimes, and the yoshi-containing boxes gave you free lives if you kept yoshi up until that yoshi box. The thing is... yoshi is immortal, so you always got free lives from those.

[Misery]

Super Mario World.

I think the main problem with that was when you got a box that was a power-up you currently have, it turned into a 1-up instead. And because you could get the cape on most levels, the boxes just gave lives instead. Other than that I don't think it threw too many lives out, unless you went out of your way looking for them, although one of them was completely broken, the Super secret area.

The newer games though, like Land on 3ds, well I have something like 300 lives on it...

I'm mostly comparing it to the very first Super Mario Bros game, which I always think is the one that really, really got it right.  In that one, extra lives really are very hard to get (ignoring the "million stomps on a Koopa" trick and any glitches), and because of this the coins were particularly rewarding and added alot to the game.    Super Mario World, while a brilliant game, unbalanced that pretty heavily.  It's easy for me to have like 70 extra lives halfway through the game.   You had the Yoshi coins, the Yoshi eggs breaking into 1-ups, the usual hidden 1-ups, the normal coins, the mini-game sort of thing, and even the rare 3-up moon.  Getting extra lives stops being interesting or even rewarding pretty darn fast.    Later games in the series are even worse about this aspect, but I think World is the best example of my point nonetheless.

[LayZboy]

I'm mostly comparing it to the very first Super Mario Bros game, which I always think is the one that really, really got it right.  In that one, extra lives really are very hard to get (ignoring the "million stomps on a Koopa" trick and any glitches), and because of this the coins were particularly rewarding and added alot to the game.    Super Mario World, while a brilliant game, unbalanced that pretty heavily.  It's easy for me to have like 70 extra lives halfway through the game.   You had the Yoshi coins, the Yoshi eggs breaking into 1-ups, the usual hidden 1-ups, the normal coins, the mini-game sort of thing, and even the rare 3-up moon.  Getting extra lives stops being interesting or even rewarding pretty darn fast.    Later games in the series are even worse about this aspect, but I think World is the best example of my point nonetheless.

Didn't you have 5 continues in the first game though, giving you 15 or something lives (it's been so long since I played the earlier mario games I can't even remember)? You had to start back at X-1 but if the levels didn't give you a problem then it wasn't too much of an issue. Also in World you had the Colour'd block places that either gave a tonne of coins or some lives too, and getting the rope at the top of each level-end ave you a life too. At least when you saved & quit the lives reset to 3, or was that the 3rd game I really can't remember now.

[Misery]

I'm mostly comparing it to the very first Super Mario Bros game, which I always think is the one that really, really got it right.  In that one, extra lives really are very hard to get (ignoring the "million stomps on a Koopa" trick and any glitches), and because of this the coins were particularly rewarding and added alot to the game.    Super Mario World, while a brilliant game, unbalanced that pretty heavily.  It's easy for me to have like 70 extra lives halfway through the game.   You had the Yoshi coins, the Yoshi eggs breaking into 1-ups, the usual hidden 1-ups, the normal coins, the mini-game sort of thing, and even the rare 3-up moon.  Getting extra lives stops being interesting or even rewarding pretty darn fast.    Later games in the series are even worse about this aspect, but I think World is the best example of my point nonetheless.

Didn't you have 5 continues in the first game though, giving you 15 or something lives (it's been so long since I played the earlier mario games I can't even remember)? You had to start back at X-1 but if the levels didn't give you a problem then it wasn't too much of an issue. Also in World you had the Colour'd block places that either gave a tonne of coins or some lives too, and getting the rope at the top of each level-end ave you a life too. At least when you saved & quit the lives reset to 3, or was that the 3rd game I really can't remember now.

The first game didn't really have "proper" continues.  It was basically a cheat code that let you do it, if you knew what it was (a very simple one though); the continue did send you to the first level in the world you died in, starting you with the usual 3 lives and 0 points.   Otherwise, the game just punted you back to the title screen when you ran out of lives.   Never really used it myself.  If I have to use a continue to beat a game, then I havent really beaten the game.

[x4000]

With Mario World, the main thing that helped me not have tons of lives there was that every time you shut off the system your lives reset to the default. Even as a kid, I rarely played marathon sessions of one game; I'd bounce between games and playing out in the woods. The newer Mario games let you keep your lives through saves (except the galaxy ones), so you wind up with literally triple digits of them if you're any good. It makes me wonder why they are even there, but you know what? All those games are still really fun, and the challenge is in getting the big coins now anyhow (in the new smb series).

[Billick]

You guys forget that you can get lots of lives in Mario 1 by using the turtle stomping trick.  The lives would display incorrectly over 10, and the game would completely glitch out if you got more than 99. 

[x4000]

You guys forget that you can get lots of lives in Mario 1 by using the turtle stomping trick.  The lives would display incorrectly over 10, and the game would completely glitch out if you got more than 99. 

They mentioned it, but I agree with them that I think an unintentional glitch doesn't really count as part of a game's design.  I mean, not from the perspective of talking about how to design further games.

[Billick]

You guys forget that you can get lots of lives in Mario 1 by using the turtle stomping trick.  The lives would display incorrectly over 10, and the game would completely glitch out if you got more than 99. 

They mentioned it, but I agree with them that I think an unintentional glitch doesn't really count as part of a game's design.  I mean, not from the perspective of talking about how to design further games.

Oh, I missed Misery's comment saying pretty much exactly what I said lol. 

[x4000]

It's a long thread.