Next Mario Platformer Announced!
All seemed quiet on the Mario front, but today, on my FB wall, a trailer video on Super Mario 3D World; the newest 3D platformer for the Wii U, announced last week and planned for release in December. (I was still waiting for a proposed “downloadable content” (DLC) addon to SM3DLand!)
The big new powerup now is CAT Mario! (And the game’s logo shows a cat tail sticking out, replacing the raccoon tail!). It’s gained from a bell mushroom knocked out of blocks.
Cat Mario can climb walls, and climb to the top of the flagpole if he jumped onto it further down.
It will now be the first four player (like SMBW and SMBWU) 3D game, and it goes back to the old SMB2 lineup of Mario, Luigi, the Princess and Toad (but a blue-spotted one instead of red).
Some people are happy to see it’s not the same “the princess is kidnapped” theme. But like SMB3 (where she was free and sent messages throughout the game), she can still be kidnapped in the last world.
Other features:
•A purple boss who’s some sort of king (wearing a crown), leading some to wonder if Bowser is the boss. (Probably just a new underboss. The game still has Bowser flags at the checkpoints).
•Clear pipes (some of them having coins running through them)
•Some sort of clear blocks that are invisible until you point to them with the remote
•Throwable snowballs
•Snowman Pokeys
•A little orange dinosaur you ride through water surface on
•Some sort of little ice buggy rides with goombas (don’t know if this might be a separate mini game or something)
•And all the typical “NSMB age” and 3D Mario features, plus all-new characters.
Will this be what finally leads me to get the Wii U? (Then, I would want to catch up with last winter’s NSMBWU, as well. Or maybe not, as it is so much like NSMBW, though I did want a chance to see if I could beat the final castle, which doesn’t look that hard). Oh well, trying it out it at Nintendo World will make for a nice addition to my Christmas season visits to the Rockefeller Center area!
"ERIPEDIA" 
2014/06/06 at 3:23 pm
Played this a few times when it came out last winter, now just got around to watching the whole game on YouTube. Probably won’t get the new system for it, as 3D is hard, especially with my dexterity, my stamina and tolerance has worn, yet I did get to play Galaxy 2 and 3DL. It’s something I probably wouldn’t want to play through alone, and take advantage of the multiplayer, but I don’t have any others to play with.
It is a great looking game, and the ultimate Mario adventure; perfect 3D environment, but not too different from the regular format like the Galaxy series.
More highlights:
•Now, Bowser kidnaps seven “sprixies” (these new little characters that have been appearing in the games) instead.
•The “psyche-out” effect of this game is that after you rescue all of them, when finishing the 7th World castle, the standard dropped-into-the-void Bowser rises back up and takes them all in a bottle to the 8th World.
•After finishing that, you board a rocket ship for the special worlds, which are a lot like “Galaxy”.
One even has a speed run where you must chase the flagpole.
•Like 3DL, the new power is available to enemies at times, so you have Cat Goomba’s, Cat Bullet Bills, and a final battle with a Cat Bowser, or “Meowser”, who climbs up the walls after you, and can scratch at you through walls.
•Shadow underworlds (one was in the store demo) where you see only your 2D shadows on the wall, though the third dimension is still there. At one point, they psyche you out with the shadow of a flat Bowser sign.
•The rounder non-squishable goombas from SMW have been brought back and split off into a separate character, now named “Galoomba”, to distinguish from regular goombas. You have to jump on them first to immobilize them, before destroying them with the second touch.
•Green stars are what’s collected in the levels.
•Mini “Toad” games where you have to navigate a Galaxy-like floating world without jumping ability, to get the green stars
•Goomba costume, which causes enemies not to recognize you. (Including a Bowser searchlight in one of the castles that triggers guided Bullet Bills)
•Double cherries, which double the player. This can be repeated so that you have multiple copies of the player running around (perhaps the final fruition of that old “Mario 128” idea?)
•Flashlight helmets you wear in ghost houses. The light kills the ghosts after awhile!
•Canon head box, which shoots canons, but can also damage other players.
•A “potted piranha plant” you can pick up and use to eat other enemies or reach items
•Return of the Mega size power, Tanooki suit, boomerang suit, propeller hat and Coin head box
•Spiked piranha plants (that the first shots push back into the pipe), and square spiked frames that flip across the ground. Instead of the pillars (by now known as “skewers”), there are stationary or floating detached block-like objects with spikes in an underwater castle.
•Water areas (which are relatively few) are still bound by walls.
•A train ride replaces airships or battle tank processions.
•And all the typical “NSMB age” and 3D Mario features, plus all-new characters. (Still stick with the upright koopas, even though the Galaxy games this one is related to had them back on all fours).
•Uses the standard 3D world map, but now you can actually run all across it off the paths between levels.
•Stunning graphics (like water) and colors. Bowser’s final lair is an LED covered Vegas-like amusement park. So LED lit graphics are a theme throught the game leading up to this.
•On the flipside, there is also a nearly black&white ghost level.
•Improved lava graphics (including even blue lava). No rising lava level like the NSMB games, but one where it does rise and drop a bit. (And another one with a rising mass of Fuzzies).
•Forest worlds with the purple water from the NSMB games now adapted to 3D. The ground and atmosphere dark, like you’re in a real forest or jungle with a lot of overbrush. Night world Mushroom-1 has has this effect as well. One special world level is a sunset version of an earlier level.
2015/12/04 at 9:28 pm
Of course, the next Mario game, which came out this year, was Super Mario Maker. I wasn’t so into it, as it’s just making your own levels; which was interesting, and I would probably get it if I already had a Wii U, but I’m still more interested in 3DW. I did get to try out Super Mario Maker at Nintendo World, the week they first erected the tree. You can select which version of Mario to edit (original SMB, SMB3, SMW, or SMWU).
On FB, someone posted a the song of the original SMB tune, that was recorded (in Japanese) when the game first came out. I would have thought the carton outro song “swing your arms, from side to side; come on it’s time, let’s go, do the Mario” were the words, and wonder why the cartoon didn’t just translate the original song as this site does:
(not sure which words correspond to which notes in the songEdit: looked in YT comments and found someone posted the Japanese transliteration):Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
Go save Princess Peach! Go!
Today, full of energy, Mario runs
Today, full of energy, jumping!
Today, full of energy, searching for coins
Today, keep going, Mario!
Get a mushroom – it’s Super Mario!
Get a flower – it’s Fire Mario!
Goomba! Troopa! Buzzy Beetle! Beat them all!
Mario is always full of energy and strong!
[Spoken; set to underwater theme]:
The only one who can reverse the spell that has captured the Mushroom People is Princess Peach. But Princess Peach is hidden underground, in a far-off castle. Ah, the days of peace … if we could once more return to those days … to save Princess Peach and bring peace back to the Mushroom Kingdom, that is why Mario is on his journey today.
Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
Go and beat the Koopa tribe, go!
Today, full of energy, Mario runs
Today, full of energy, jumping!
Today, full of energy, searching for coins
Today, keep going, Mario!
Get a star – become invincible!
Quickly, go save Princess Peach!
Lakitu! Blooper! Cheep Cheep! Beat them all!
Mario is always full of energy and strong!
Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
He’s made it to the castle and gets fireworks!
Lightly sidestepping the Hammer Bros.
Show the last of your power, Mario!
It’s been a long journey but it’s nearly at an end
You’ve done it, you’ve done it! You’ve defeated Bowser!
Princess Peach says “Thank you”
Mario’s got a great big heart!
Mario’s adventure is over for now, but
Mario’s dream lives forever…
Kyou mo genki ni Mario ga hashiru, hashiru
Piichi hime wo tasukeni ikuze, ikuze
Kyou mo genki ni Mario ga hashiru
Kyou mo genki ni janpu
Kyou mo genki ni koin wo sagase
Kyou mo susumeyo Ma·ri·o
Kinoko wo totte Super Mario daze
Furawa wo totte Fire Mario
Kuriboo da, Nokonoko da, Metto datte taose
Mario wa itsumo, genki de tsuyoi
[Spoken; set to underwater theme]
Kinokotachi ni kakerareta mahou wo toku koto ga dekiru nowa Piichi hime dake desu. Demo, Piichi hime wa tooi oshiro no chika ni toraware no mininatteimasu. Aa, heiwa de yume no atta ano koro ni. Mou ichido ano goro ni modoretara. Piichi hime wo sukuidashi, futatabi heiwana Kinoko Oukoku wo kizuku tame Mario wa kyou mo ikuno desu
Kyou mo genki ni Mario ga hashiru, hashiru
Kuppa ichizoku wo yattsukeni ikuzo, ikuzo
Kyou mo genki ni Mario ga hashiru
Kyou mo genki ni janpu
Kyou mo genki ni koin wo sagase
Kyou mo susumeyo Ma·ri·o
Sutaa wo totte muteki ni narou
Hyaku Piichi wo tasukeni, ikou
Jugemu da Togezoo da, Pukupuku datte taose
Mario wa itsumo, genki de tsuyoi
Kyou mo genki ni Mario ga hashiru, hashiru
Kitaze, oshiro da, hanabi wa agero agero
Hanmaa Burozu hirarito, kawasu
Saigo no chikara dase, Ma·ri·o
Nagai tabi datta keredo mou sugu, owaru
Yattaze yattaze, Kuppa wo taoshita
Piichi hime ni thank you to iware
Mario no kokoro wa ookiku hazunda
Mario no bouken wa koko de owatta keredo
Mario no yume wa hattenaku tsuzuku
In other news I just saw, Wii U, which apparentely hasn’t been doing well (didn’t know that) already has its replacement annouced, the “NX”:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nintendo-nx-wii_5661a031e4b072e9d1c5b1b2
2016/03/19 at 8:39 pm
Now there are numerous videos of Super Mario Maker play out, including the “100 Mario Challenge”, which is a series of many videos of 16 course worlds (shown on a simple world map, map), where you can mix whichever “game engine” (called “style”: again, original SMB, 3, World or U) in the world, but not within the level.
What’s most interesting to me is the adaptation of the later features of the game to the earlier versions, especially SMB1.
For one, there are now doors (which were added with SMB2), and you can jump up through certain platforms (such as the “mushroom” platform; where in original SMB, all platforms with empty space beneath then created ceilings; and also, a single course of grey castle brick, which weren’t used in the original). This is called “semi-solid”.
In the original SMB, getting damaged with a powerup always took you back to little Mario, and then, little Mario could only become Super Mario (without fire power), even if a fire flower was already out when he was hit. Now, it’s like the later games, where little Mario can get the other power directly, and getting hit turns you back to Super Mario first.
Mario hopping on Lakitu in the cloud now knocks him out, where you can ride the cloud. (In the original, Lakitu and the cloud were one single unit, so hopping on him would knock out both, which would fall upside down).
You can have airships on SMB1, which use this new but archaic style 8 bit music (which resembles some other non-Mario game from back then), and the ship frame (horizontal planks) are black, while vertical ones are brown, but with no wood grain sprites; only nails (and there are these silver and gray background objects, including masts and walls with portholes).
On both SMB 1 and 3, you can now have ghost houses (ghosts were introduced in 3, but didn’t have their own specific levels), which both use new 8 bit music. A new kind of bigger [underworld green] brick is created for the wall graphics on SMB1.
(While on SMW, we also have airships added. An airship only appeared once in the original, as a sunken haunted area and thus used ghost house music. For this game, they have a new version of that game’s castle tune, done with the ship-like marching rhythm. Also, they’ve added a new walking Bowser sprite, where in the original, he only appeared in the clown car at the end).
Enemies and obstacles backward-adapted all the way to original SMB:
•Bowser Jr. (including lateral shell attack when hit and tossing items out of clown car)
•Bloober with children
•Bob-ombs
•round bombs from small canons
•guided Bullet Bills (red)
•Spike Tops (inlcuding new, faster blue ones)
•Dry Bones
•Fish Bones
•Rocky Wrench
•Monty Mole
•Wigglers
•Magikoopa
•Sumo brothers (with paralyzing ground pound)
•music block spring
•winged blocks and enemies (including ghosts and Bloobers [?!] and plants)
•muncher plants
•fire plants (in SMB, original “piranha” graphic, but pointing sideways)
•slip-ice blocks
•donut drops
•clown car (which Mario can take from enemies. There’s also one that spits Koopa’s block-destroying fire)
•conveyor belts
•torches (i.e. originally airship jets from SMB3)
•skull rides
•Chain Chomp
•Grinder spike wheels
•tracks (which in addition to Grinders, can carry cannons, platforms, coins, powerups and even enemies, up to Koopa himself)
•ghosts (individual and “Boo buddies” circles which began with SMW. In SMB, they look like the ones in SMW rather than SMB3, but with blue mouths instead of red, and with pink tongues ).
•”Stretch” ghosts in floors and ceilings
•Thwomps (where in their original form in SMB 3, the mouth was always closed, and afterward, it’s closed when static, and grits its teeth when falling, in the SMB version, it’s always gritting its teeth)
•Spinys that shoot slow moving spikes through the air
•Arrows pointing the way to go
•POW block
•”ninja star” spike blocks (these are used EVERYWHERE!)
Other items added to SMB1 style levels
•Kuribo’s shoe (There’s also this high heeled boot version, both black and red)
•check point flag that powers up little Mario
•P-Switches (changing blocks to coins) These use the same exact audio file as in SMB3 (where it’s also used for the toad house), and you can opt to have the same boss battle audio during boss battles as well, though this is only sometimes used.*
•large sized characters (shells can mow sideways through unbreakable blocks). Hopping on goomba splits him into two regular sized ones, with the same sound effect from the more recent games
•Castles and Underworld can have some backgrounds, via dark gray color.
•enemies and even cannons can ride in clouds and clown cars
•You can now backtrack in the level
•self-scrolling levels
•Vertical scrolling added
•sliding shells can now break bricks (This begun with SMB3). They can also kill plants. (In SMB, plants were never on level ground, but on SMB2J the tops of pipes sometimes were flush with the ground, but plants and shells didn’t interact).
•Water worlds have been color corrected, so that the fish that move in crooked paths now appear green instead of almost gray.
•On all styles, you often see multiple springs bouncing on each other. These can be used to get higher and higher. There are also sideways springs used to bounce characters horizontally or diagonally. (Like they can aid wall bounces on SMBU).
•Blocks can produce not just coins, vines or powerups, but also enemies, the clown car, ride-able clouds etc. These can also be fired from cannons, and Lakitu can toss powerups, coins, and enemies other than spinies.
•one-way gates (created new for this game), marked by arrows pointing the direction you can go in
•stacks of enemies and other other items. (So now, enemies can carry cannons, plants, etc.)
*(Something tells me if SMB had had P Switches, it would have used the “star power” music, which was also used for the cloud coin bonus area, as it coveys a sense of rushing through something, as does the same tempo-sped-up regular music when the timer is under 100. Likewise, ghost houses probably would have used regular underworld music, and airships, standard overworld music).
On the flipside, castles on the three later games can use the original 8 bit white/red/gray platform Koopa stands on that crumbles when you grab the ax. (That ends the level whether they’ve placed Koopa there or not. You see all enemies drop into the lava, and ghosts disperse. The flagpole of SMB and SMU and the goals of the other styles are also used on any kind of level. You can even place things in the same space as them, making it harder to grab).
We can also see that star power knocks out Koopa in one shot, and the Thwomp falling on him does too.
A super mushroom with a question mark will turn you into into characters from other games! I’ve seen Zelda, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. (perfectly fitting, the way many put vines side by side, and you move from one to the other just like in that game), Wario, Bowser, the Princess, Luigi, blue Yoshi, Statue Mario from SMB3, frog and other Mario power suits, Little Mac from Punch-Out and even Pacman! (i.e. the arms and legs running version from PacLand, but then running fast through coins, it turns into the original yellow circle figure). These are taken from the “Amiibos” addon. They are also small, but otherwise act like Super Mario. Sometimes, the music from these games will play when you clear the level. some of them talk (in Japanese) as they move.
There’s also this stringy version of Super Mario (that can jump a bit like Luigi; started out as a bug), and a fatter looking one. (Not sure what that one is. Probably one of the other “costumes”).
There’s also a double-sized mushroom that produces a large Mario that’s 2×2 blocks big (where little Mario is the size of one block, and most “super” powerups are 2 blocks high, but still 1 block wide). It can break sideways through blocks, and also some unbreakable ones (not the standard “cracked ground” block, but the one with the truncated pyramid relief. Not sure about castle bricks). I’ve seen it even “wear” a pipe, which then acts like a Kuribo’s shoe. Wonder if that’s supposed to be “Mega Mario”, but it can’t seem to break through as much, and Mega Mario is otherwise unused in the game.
You can also wear Buzzy Beetle or Spiny shells as hats, which protect you from overhead attacks, and the latter, in addition to destroying Thwomps that fall on it (where the other shell only repels them), also allows little Mario to break through bricks, and also breaks even some unbreakable ones.
All of these are only for the SMB1 style, it seems, to provide other powerups beside just fire power. Though the game doesn’t have every powerup from the later games, such as the frog, hammer, mini, ice/penguin or squirrel suits. It does have (for the respective games) the raccoon suit (not tanooki version, though), super cape and propeller suit.
There’s also this loud “party floor” effect that will, play, with lasers and flashing lights (I take it, adopted from the Mario Party series) and something you do that warps the graphics and music. Also these other effects, such as laughing mouths and these grey “blows” like punches, to the screen.
The big addition (via download) this past week or so, were the skewers (spike pillars), and red coins (which when you grab all of them, a key appears that you can use to unlock doors). These can also be added to any of the four game styles, including the original SMB and SMB3, where they had never appeared before. In these 8 bit adaptations, the skewers are largely black (or dark gray-green in dark areas), with some gray scaling on the edges and spikes (i.e. the points are white, with the sides of the spike as gray. This of course is supposed to represent reflected light for a 3D effect. There is a little bit more detail on the SMB3 version. In the other two styles, they appear the same as in those games).
The sound of one slamming (and a Thwomp as well), is, of course, the standard 8 bit “ummph” sound used for an explosion (Bullet Bills firing, the fireworks at the flagpole, original SMB3 Thwomps, etc.)
Skewers are made by shaking a Thwomp on the level creating panel, and red coins are made by shaking regular coins. [The latter, which are statically located and can be any number, not just eight, are loosely adapted from SM64 where they allow you to clear the level; and differ from the NSMB and 3D series, where you have to jump through a hoop to make them appear, they’re always close together, they only last a short time, and they give you a 1up or powerup. So even the NSMBU format reverts to this older version now].
I had been complaining about all these new additions to the later games, but with them now being able to be added to the original engine, I guess it creates more of a continuity. So interesting!
2016/12/31 at 9:02 pm
The big new Mario release this year was Super Mario Run, not for the Nintendo systems, but for Apple devices (and like so many other cool things, not Android). My wife decided to get it for her iPad, so I play it on that.
Running is the default state, and you can only stop at certain special blocks in the ground (or on lifts or when blocked by walls or other objects), or bounce off of things to go back and get something you missed (including there being backward pointing arrow blocks in the ground that a propel you backwards for a bit). So you can still do wall bounces to get up somewhere, in addition to these spring boards.
The player automatically climbs over walking enemies, but you can still be damaged if you hit them at any other angle (like from below) or they come at you. If you land on the edge of a platform, you also climb the rest of the way up.
It uses the NSMBU engine, with the same sound effects, and the giant quartz crystals sticking up out of the ground as mountains in the background, but without the squirrel suit, the tilting Easter Island heads, etc. just like Super Mario Maker’s newest game layout. (The underworld theme, while using the same familiar tune, is reworked, though, to have a faster rhythm to go with running).
Comparing all these games, especially on Super Mario Maker made me realize that while the initial “New SMB” restored some of the old sounds, upon NSMBW, they changed them, and this is what stuck to the present, with the two subsequent 2D games only differing in the “gold” theme of NSMB2, and the aforementioned additions in NSMBU.
Like Super Mario World used a modified “pluck” sound (more “plup”, with a bit more “voice” than the original; like flapping your tongue against the bottom of your mouth) for both killing enemies, and initially hopping on them. (And of course, the pitch goes up with every enemy killed afterward). In the original SMB, hopping on them was a “bwup” sound and then kicking the shell, or the shell wiping the rest of the enemies was “pluck, pluck, pluck…” (same pitch). On SMW, it was all the “pluck” sound, and while NSMB restored the original “bwup—pluck” (but the pitch still rises), what NSMBW/2/U did was replace the “bwup” with a “clipped” version of “pluck” (which also rises in pitch the more enemies you hop on. The “pluck” sound also has more of a “voice” like SMW, in the cavernous undergrounds).
NSMB also restored the original full “bling” sound of coins, while SMW totally muted it. On NSMBW and later, they now use an inbetween sound somewhat like that used on the 3D games.
I of course think it sounds better with the original “bwup” and “bling” sounds.
I heard many weren’t impressed with it, and being I saved the Princess fairly quickly, I imagine that’s why. (Further challenges are grabbing all the pink coins, which then are replaced by purple ones placed in more difficult places, and then black ones. Then, what are called “Toad Rallies”). Still always nice to have a new Mario game to play, though.
Other news, is that with the plans for the next home console (called the “Switch”, and is more of a hybrid between a console and a handheld; even moreso than the Wii U controllers), scenes from a new 3D Mario platformer were shown, and it seems to be set in a Mexican village or something. It reminds one of Sunshine.
2017/01/13 at 7:50 am
SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY!
Not just the little Mexican villa, but realistic scenes of NYC (even down to its unique, iconic “guy wire” traffic lights and “quarter loop” lamp posts) and many other types of area!
People are already waiting in line for the preorders of the new system (still set for March), but it says this game is coming out for the holidays (as they usually do).
2017/01/26 at 10:08 pm
After just over 28 years, I finally got around to playing through and beating Super Mario 2 (the “US” version or “Dreamworld” that was adapted from “Doki Doki Panic”). I had been planning to for years, and recently figuring, maybe next year for its 30th anniversary. But then my brother gave me his “NES Classic” last week (a sort of birthday present, when he decided he didn’t like it), so this week, I sat down and began progressing through the game.
I had originally bought the game for him on the old NES when it first came out, but then went into the Air Force. By the time I came home again, he had lent it to friends, never to be seen again, and then Super Mario 3 was coming out anyway. I played through that and Super Mario World in a week as soon as they came out; after that was the first Super Mario Kart and then Super Mario Allstars, which had 16 bit updates of the first three games, plus the debuting “Lost Levels”.
By this time, having seen in the Mario Mania guide, that SMB2 was not even originally a Mario game, and that there was a Japanese SMB2 that used the same engine of SMB1 (and would eventually be released as the “Lost Levels”), I lost all interest in bothering to go through it (I watched my brother play it again, and saw that the Wart chamber was redone in this psychedelic RGB brick pattern), as all focus now was on the “real” SMB2. Getting married and having a full time job, I pretty much fell out of the Nintendo circuit for years, missing all the spinoff series (such as “Party” and the “Kart” sequels), in addition to the [finally] 3D games Super Mario 64 and Sunshine; while my brother had afterward dropped Nintendo for Playstation anyway. It wasn’t until much later that I picked up the series with the Wii and 3DS, and so then tackled the “New” Super Mario Games (except U; never got a WiiU), Galaxy 2 and finally 3D Land.
So this was like a “hole” in the progression.
(Didn’t do the old Gameboy Super Mario Land series, as they felt too different, being non-colorized, where the 3DS games are just as good as the Wii titles. I also missed the first Galaxy, and when getting the Wii, and deciding on which 3D game to get; like whether to start with 64, and then work my way to the present from there, I in the end just decided to go with the most recent one, the second Galaxy. With the greatly improved graphics of that one, how could I ever go back to the crude early “polygon” graphics of the first 3D game? Sunshine looked better, but still seemed too different from regular Mario play with the Fludd pack. The two Galaxy games seemed so similar, I might as well choose the newer one to see how I like the 3D experience.
I also don’t need to play NSMBU, as it’s like NSMBW, but with the addition of the squirrel suit and those tilting Easter Island heads, and it became the “same ol’, same ol'”. I would like to beat Koopa on it as that looked like a fairly easy battle. I also would still like to play 3DWorld. I had also for awhile skipped the original NSMB, and filled that hole when I got the 3DS, and tackled that one sometime after beating 3DL).
Before the SMB2 game came out, we had gotten that first Nintendo Power magazine (replacing the “Nintendo Player’s Guide” or something like that), which featured the game, and the map of the first two or so levels. At that point, not expecting a sequel to the original SMB to keep the same graphics and gameplay features anyway, it looked like a very interesting followup with all of its new ideas, and I eagerly waited for it to be released.
But then SMB3, which I first began seeing in the “Playchoice 10” machine in the Penn Station arcade a year later, restored the basic form of the original, though with a new engine and various expansions. (I even back then by that point had been hoping a third SMB game would be a 3D version of the original, as 3D was the latest fad of old games, such as PacMan, Asteroids and others. I even sent in a suggestion for it, with sketches).
So this then led to the desire for the Mario series to stick to the original format (see http://www.erictb.info/mario.html). But of course, each new game would add new elements that would stick, to the present.
A few years ago, I finally got around to watching the whole Super Mario Bros. Super Show on DVD (after missing most of its run on TV), which mixes both SMB 1 and 2, but actually, it seems, has more of the SMB2 characters as the “Koopa Pack”, along with the sound effects such as climbing things (also used for running). So it seemed like I was missing something.
More recently, I saw where it was revealed that “Dreamland” was originally possibly conceived as a Mario game after all. It was supposed to be vertically oriented, using the stacking of objects to get higher. The idea was shelved due to the limitations of the early Famicom/NES, but then the basic vertical idea dusted off (and with regular horizontal play added) for the Doki Doki Panic format (which IIRC, was done for some company. The stacking of mushroom blocks to reach higher platforms is the remnant of the original concept, and would also be featured prominently in NSMBW).
Also, the answer to why Wart didn’t appear in the cartoon was that he was basically merged with Bowser to form the “King Koopa” character. The evidence; Bowser always had light color drawn around his mouth (both in games and in the artwork), while “King Koopa”s face is all green (and I always said he looks more like an “alligator man”).
So I played Mario most of the way through, but as jumps got harder in the last couple of worlds, switched to Luigi at some point. In the last level, with even harder jumps, with “Sparks” everywhere, I then finished with the Princess.
So the game in ways felt a lot like playing the modern Mario games, as this one introduced many of the new permanent features of the series such as vertically oriented levels, themed worlds (desert, ice, etc.) picking up objects, “semi-solid” platforms, conveyor belts, doorways, the Bob-Omb and Pokey characters, fire-spitting plants and Sparks (with the various renamings in later games, such as “Amp”. It also looks like the new “Odyssey” game will feature another nod to SMB2: plucking vegetables in places).
2017/06/18 at 12:13 pm
Video showing much of the urban scenes of the game, now called “The Metro Kingdom”:
Also, in the Sand Kingdom shown in other videos, is a pixellated pipe into a wall, that presses you into a 2D original 8 bit (SMB-style) world on the surface of the wall (and including the original sound effects)! When you break through the bricks on the top of the wall, you’re instantly flipped back into the 3D world on the top of the wall. There’s also a tower of some sorts with a cylindrical wall with this feature. This 2D world is extended by jumping up to higher platforms (including moving ones from the original game) where you can keep going around and around the wall until reaching the top.
(You also see in this clip that you can basically merge with Bullet Bills, guiding them through the air, but you have to jump off before it hits something and explodes).
2017/11/25 at 11:19 am
Have started watching PackAttack’s playthrough series on Youtube.
Pretty cool graphics (of course), and the first (at least that I’ve noticed), to show unbounded underwater scenes. (The 3D games I’m familiar with: Galaxy 2, 3DL and [from watching) 3DW always seemed to encase you in a stone passageway). For some reason, when you go into the 8 bit world pipe underwater, it doesn’t take you to the 2D water world, but rather just a 2D stone underworld lying flat on the surface of the ocean floor; so you’re looking at it through water, but running and jumping, and not swimming.
Overall, it seems like Sunshine, especially with having to clean up the purple stuff on the ground, and then taking over that creature with the water jet, and just the different settings in general. “The Mushroom Kingdom” section mimics SM64 and there’s a special suit he can wear, of the old polygon graphics. The “Luncheon Kingdom” is filled with food, and the “lava” looks like a hot strawberry candy sauce. Plucking up root vegetables (done with the hat it seems) and throwing them in the pot looks like a nod to SMB2.
The merging with characters is kind of weird, to me. It’s like you stun them with the hat, and then throw the hat on them, and when you un-merge, they are left dazed. Now, instead of riding Yoshi, you merge with him. (You do ride a stone lion statue through desert areas rather than merging with it, though).
You even merge with Koopa at the end, and then save the princess by grabbing her and carrying her out of the self-destructing lunar dungeon the final battle occurred in, breaking through walls with his claws, and this includes a 2D 8-bit section as well (original sprite, but with the hat and mustache added), using his block-destroying fire breath to blast through the old SMB bricks. (These 2D sections use 8 bit versions of whatever tune is playing, plus the “You Got A Moon” tune, and the rest of original SMB sound effects).
You also merge with other objects, such as levers to propel you higher, or these electrical ports that allow you to zip through wires.
I’m not into the “free roaming” (or whatever that’s called); I liked the definite goal of the 2D games, and 3DL/W, and even with Galaxy, things were pretty confined on the little planets. So I don’t plan to get this one. (Now, in this age of YouTube, I can just sit back and enjoy watching the scenes rather than knocking myself out trying to beat them. Did get to try it in Nintendo World, and it was in the forest with the T-Rex, and I didn’t know how to get out. I guess you needed the special hat, and he didn’t have it on. Plan to play it there again, and hope I can find one in other areas, especially New Donk City).
If we ever do get the Switch; I hope they eventually do allow 3DW to be playable on it (doesn’t seem to be, now). That’s the one I still would like to do.
2019/05/18 at 9:40 pm
Includes a 2D version of 3D World (which is not interchangeable with the other styles), but no SMB2! Don’t know why. (Though the game style menu contains a [now blank] space next to 3DW for “other styles” that we’re hoping might be where SMB2 would be added).
Unlike other “2.5D” games, the third dimension is actually put to use in this adaptation, as Cat Mario can climb walls from the “depth” dimension (i.e. you’re looking at his back as he climbs a wall that he’s neither to the left or right of), and Banzai Bills can come at him from the background, and lava dragons loop over the pathway in the depth dimension, and “Meowser” himself (the only form Bowser appears in in this style) does similarly!
In the regular overworld, the background graphics themselves, rather than just being mountains, are distant 3D courses, like in the actual 3DW game. In all of the level styles, the backgrounds are actually animated with 3D perspective (closer objects move faster)!
So it is very interesting looking, with other big new additions being:
slopes (including SMB1!)
big coins worth 10 or more
off-on switches (controlling red and blue blocks)
red Yoshi that breathes fire
dry bones shell you can float on lava in, and then play “dead” in it, making you invincible (just like the old tanooki suit)
falling icicles
vortexes
Boom-Boom
rising/dropping water and lava
purple (poison) water
desert, snow, forest course themes (adapted all the way back to SMB1)
tilting platforms
horizontal Thwomps and skewers
vertical courses
the angry sun
Banzai Bill.
(They also fixed the SMB1 version of Thwomp, to have a sleeping face when dormant, like the modern version). There’s also night mode, with a magic moon (replacing the sun) and other surprises (such as upside down play), and multiplayer!
So, looking forward to a whole new round of videos on Youtube!
Here are some old hacks adding SMB2:
Both goomba and Koopa Troopa adapted for SMB2 style.
This one’s obviously based on SMB3, which figures since Mario looked the same (and he has an updated version as well).
The Shyguys are really goombas, and so behave like them; only squishing. The vegetables in the ground are only background, and cannot be picked up. It uses the SMB3 level ending, but the metal “semi-solid” platform boxes become the SMB2 striped “mountains” (which were also semi-solid). Donut drops become the SMB2 logs. SMB2 waterfall (for now) ends up as another semi-solid (you can stand on top of it), and is not animated.
If they could even import these, if nothing else, that would be good! (I would just have non-boss levels add with the eagle mask gate already open, or you gain the crystal ball to open it just like you gains the key in the other games).
Edit: the first SMB2 hack is called “Fuji Mario Bros.”, and is really SMB1 redone in SMB2 graphics (but still SMB1 sound). Koopa looks interesting, with more detail, like SMB3 And afterward, but is only two colors; green and beige, and his hair (beige) makes his head look big. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8wB2cDZtCDqjEz4TtMPqOX1b2Om-2RpF
The second (SMB3-based) one is by Zachabossaloler Plays.
OK, so it’s out now, and the videos have begun.
A couple of additional new powerups I’ve now seen are (for 3DW) a hammer that you swing (or basically “chop” with, similar to the original Donkey Kong), rather than throw (like the Hammer Bro. suit). So this can break through blocks and even Thwomps. as well as kill the rest of the enemies
Also, (for SMB1) the Super Mario Land fire flower which turns you black&white and you shoot the diagonal moving bouncing ball from that game, which in addition to killing enemies, also collects coins, activates the P-switch, lights the Bob-omb, etc. (True to the original game, there can only be one on the screen at a time, and it’s a matter of timing the trajectory).
It seems a lot of people want any future “additional styles” to be SML (rather than SMB2), but with this, you wouldn’t really need it. What they could do in future updates is perhaps add more SML objects to the SMB1 style.
Just like they’ve added a sleeping face for the SMB1 Thwomp, they also added an angry gritting face for when it’s dropping, to the original SMB3 version (whose face was static).
The angry sun in the SMBU style has for some reason been made into a sad looking piece of what looks like Aztec art.
Swimmable clear water has been added to the SMB1 style. (this was introduced in SMB3, and in SMB1, falling into water (i.e. you weren’t already swimming in) was the same as a pit, or lava. Later games used purple for that deadly affect.
The purple poison mushrooms (introduced in SMB2J) follow you everywhere, including up walls.
On the older styles, the red and blue off and on blocks, if you set a shell to bounce back and forth between two of them, will turn the corresponding platform blocks essentially into “beat blocks” like in the 3D games, where they alternately appear and disappear and have to be timed to jump over. These can get very fast.
2.0 has been announced, and still no SMB2, but the new game added is a speed run, where you race a bunch of Ninjis (the black star shaped things from SMB2 and W).
There is also in the SMB1 style the sword to become Link, and shoot arrows (including diagonally), block things with a shield, run through bunches of enemies with a sword, and throw bombs (which sounds like throwing them in SMB2).
From SMB2 (and SMW and most games afterward, is added the “Pokey” cactus (was surprised it wasn’t there from the beginning). The snow version in at least 3DL, as well. (They’re green in SMB1)
The annoying spiked rock spitting things from the newer games (in SMB3, they will stay in the air, rather than roll on the ground). The rocks destroy weaker blocks. Demonstrated are how the rocks will become new things to use to spin jump across places. In snow levels on SMBU, he tosses snowballs. (Not in 3DL)
Coins frozen in ice blocks (melted by any kind of fire, including the angry sun) Also not in 3DL.
Dash block
Yellow P block, activated by the P switch (in addition to swapping bricks and coins, or making secret doors appear).
Finally, what’s been announced as the final update for SMM2.
No SMB2 theme, but instead, they’re adding to the SMB1 theme the key SMB2 features of riding and picking up things and throwing them, via the SMB2 version of the Super Mushroom (which was a bit rounder than the original mushroom, and red and white instead of read and yellow)! This mushroom turns you into the SMB2 Mario sprite. You can even pick up a chain chomp’s stump base and carry it away and use to eat other enemies (just like the potted piranha plant of 3DW), and the stumps without the chain chomp are just like the mushroom blocks you stacked in SMB2. You can also ride a Bullet or Banzai Bill or cannonball across wide open spaces. (Which then, is sort of like SMB2’s magic carpet or Albatoss/Pidgit/Beezo. Picking up one of these projectiles, you can then release it in another direction and height, to ride where you need to go!)
One thing that’s omitted is little Mario. In SMB2, you started as Super Mario, then became little Mario when hit, and then the hearts measured your damage after that. Here, like with every other “mask” they’ve used; getting hit reverts you to regular SMB1 Super Mario and ends the SMB2 mode.
Also added to their respective game styles is the long desired frog suit (SMB3) [which also allows you to walk on top of water!] power balloon (SMBW) the previously missing squirrel suit (NSMBU) propeller, cannon and POW block heads, goomba disguise (enemies don’t recognize you and attack), and boomerang suit (for the 3DW theme; each of these only works in its original game). We also get the Koopalings! (We get to see them translated to the SMB1 style too! But they’re omitted from 3DW).
But no ice flower, which I (and many others) hoped to see. There’s also the mecha-Koopas (so you now can have the actual Bowser battle from SMW in the clown car, where you throw them up at him. Blue ones shoot rays and red ones shoot guided Bullet Bills), and a switch that allows you to turn a rubber platform’s bounciness on and off. You can also become a guided (red) Bullet Bill, and create your own world maps, and number the worlds (1-1, 1-2, etc.) like the factory games!
Sprung on us out of nowhere today, this will be released tomorrow (4-22).
Day of release update:
This SMB2 add-on works just like the Super Mario Land and Link additions of the last update. So it actually switches to the SMB2 theme and sound effects, as those other additions do use their themes; and not only that; they also include underworld and boss battle as well for those scenes! (Underworld also is used for castle and ghost house. Using the ghost’s house’s unique style of bricks makes it look a bit like the SMB2 underworld. Boss battles have options to use the Wart music, and even the opening character selection, or closing credits score!) There’s also the SMB2 variation of the starman theme, which has conga drums added, and the P switch, instead of using the SMB3 “Toad house” tune, uses the original SMB theme variation from “subspace” in SMB2! (I’m wondering if underwater, it will use that “tinny” version of the SMB waterworld theme that appears on the start screen of SMB2).
Grabbing the flagpole uses the fanfare of beating a sub-boss or winning at the slot machine, and dying uses the one from losing on the slot machine. Beating a castle and walking out the door (the door part began with SMB2) uses the same rollicky exit theme.
Digging through sand is now replaced by digging through stacks of cloud blocks(!) (whose smiles very briefly turn into sort of dying faces as they vaporize into nothing! Don’t know why they couldn’t just use plain beige sand block graphics, though).
You can even do the crouch jump, to get higher, and Luigi’s “twinkle toes” jump animation (that’s what my brother and his friends used to call it) looks the same, but it looks like he doesn’t jump higher (though to me, it looked a bit like he did).
Now, if they just add SMB2 enemies (they would probably behave like goombas when not in SMB2 mode, like in that “SMB2 Maker” game on YT that uses the SMB3 engine. For now, they could just use those silly “goombrats” everyone uses, which are just goombas disguised as pumpkins and have no other function), block graphics and other items such as the log bridge and waterfall background, you would be able to make an SMB2 style level off of the SMB1 engine! (To make it look like the grassy earth that began with SMB2, they could use the green “T” platform with brown bluff under it). They already had that green striped semisolid butte from SMB2, and Link throwing a bomb sounds just like throwing something in SMB2 [wonder if these two items were preparation for this addition!]. For now, it seems level creators are just using the green T platform/brown bluffs in place of the green buttes to emulate SMB2. (Also, what I hoped they’d fix was the distortions on the animation of the sideways Thwomps, where one side flattens when it moves. Sideways was a new addition in the last update, recall. This occurs on all of the 2D styles, IIRC, and looks really sloppy, like a poor hacker did it).
The SMB2 character who does appear is Phanto, activated when you pick up the red key from SMB2 (just like in that game), now called “the cursed key”!
As much as I wanted to see SMB2 be its own style, I’m basically happy with this, as the ideas to represent the game in the SMB1 style are clever. It’s close enough so that SMB2 is not left out of Mario Maker!
(People really made so much of the whole “Additional game styleS” [emphasis on the plural] thing with the extra space next to 3DW on the style selection screen, as if that guaranteed at least one more new game style. It was just a provision for an option that they may or may not take. Perhaps they skipped the option and did it this way to save money and file size space, especially to make room for World Maker).
This effective merger of SMB 1 and 2 really evokes the original “Super Mario Bros Super Show”, which reflected a mix of the two games.
Here’s a video showing “experiments” with all the new features!
Week and a half later update:
Found this video, and the water world just uses the overworld theme (unless there’s an option to use the title theme):
It also uses the green SMB2-like platforms, which I found on the Mario wiki, are associated with the Forest world, as we see here. So I guess other creators default to using the regular overworld, forget the green buttes are there, and just use the regular overworld features such as the T-bluffs. So you would need to be in Forest mode to create the SMB2 look, and that shouldn’t be a problem. In fact, since the forest has wooded backgrounds that only go up to a certain height, then you would build continuous flat green T-bluff platforms up to the height where the trees stop and the sky starts, and that would become the new “overworld” ground (with the brown earth under them emulating the earth under the grass of the SMB2 ground, as stated above), and then build the buttes on top of them. (Assuming those can be placed on top of the platforms. The forest world under this platform can act as a sort of secondary underworld you can go down into to find stuff).
Creators have tried to simulate SMB2 enemies. Like a Koopa Troopa carrying a cannon is very similar to Birdo shooting the eggs (though you’ll knock it out with one hit instead of three, and the cannon will still be left there shooting at you!), and a cheep cheep or goombrat moving up and down a track is like a Hoopster.
Someone finally gets the SMB2 look right! (though they did it in night mode for some reason):
To simulate plucking items from ground other than snow-covered, they interrupt the green mushroom platform top (which they have laying on blocks, rather than using the green-topped bluffs), to create a little one block pit, which they place the item in (usually enemies, like a Bob-omb; or Dry Bones are used a lot in this one), and then add a donut drop, which will come back and fill the pit once you’ve plucked the enemy out. (But now you have to wait for the donut to drop before you can pull the enemy up). Again, pretty clever, though it looks a bit sloppy.
Here I put together all the characters and scenes from “Fuji Mario”: I had hoped the characters wold be used whenever they aded SMB2 to Super Mario Maker, but since it’s only a special mushroom on the SMB1 style, only the Mario sprite is changed.
Here, the “Fuji Mario” modder added several later characters and elements, as they would have appeared if the SMB2 style had been included in SMM2 (which of course adds those later things to earlier games):
(I had assumed the simplified skewers would only look like the ones in SMB1, but they found a different way to adapt them to the original 8 bit format; using light gray instead of black! Includes a firebar, which I had missed in the SMB1 conversion photo). Even though the video is from the summer after the final 3.0 was released, it doesn’t have the newest additions of the angry sun, mecha-Koopas, Kooplings or the green spikeball throwers
Here from some new pins are some more Fuji Mario screenshots:
Closeup of Bowser:
Zachabossaloler Plays version based off of SMB3 engine:
KaizoDan version:
Lassikko “Super Mario Megamix” remake of SMB2 on officlal SMM2:
OK, now they’re starting to get the idea:
(And using the green bluff top platform, and in daytime mode. Even better way to simulate the vegetables: set a Bloober on a muncher plant on a solid “ground” block just under the surface! The bloober is within the block level of the green top, and muncher on the second row below that, and the solid block on the third row under that. This seems to set the bloobers at the right height, where they are big enough that they can be picked up as you pass over them. They also don’t resume when thrown and landing on the ground without hitting anythin like other enemies do; they are just discarded, like the vegetables in the original game, so they are the perfect replacement in that respect. Problem is, like other enemies, they can be killed, even when still in the ground, by other ones thrown).
Wow; this is exactly what they should have done! If a mod could do it, then why couldn’t Nintendo do it? They should make a video series with this one!
Uses Fuji Mario Koopa Troopa (and the cherries are the “coins”)
Has a flagpole as it would presumably look in SMB2 (it’s base is one of those SMB2 blue pyramid blocks and the crystal ball is the “banner”), and then you enter the eagle mouth intead of the little castle door
Birdo acts like Boom Boom (and turns into a snowball instead of a shell)
Subcon mask becomes the “shelmet”
The little logs are the donut drops
Angry sun looks like Phanto with a corona added
The Wiggler is a chain of Tweeters
Trouters swim in the water like cheep cheeps
Pipes are wide vases (and their print patterns come in differnet colors)
Phanto acts normal when picking up the cursed key, but also replaces Boo’s (turn into original “Doki Doki Panic” less menacing looking version when in sleep mode), and Boo Buddies circle and floor ghosts as well
A black Sniffit is now the laser mecha koopa
Hoopster is now the Thwomp
Porcupo replaces Spiny (including shelmet)
Flurries act like Monty Moles
Actual vegetables are picked up out of the snow instead of snowballs
Goombas are turned into ShyGuys that face forward and walk sideways like goombas
Toadette replaced by Peach, like the original
Wart is there and behaves like normal
Though not shown in this video, the description says “the regular mushroom acts like a ‘Super Mario Bros. 1’ mushroom, turning the characters into their SMB1 super forms (& Toadette).”
The same guy (or the same page, at least) also redid the SMBU “angry sun” right:
OK, finally, as a later Christmas/Birthday gift I had gotten a Switch, along with, of course, Super Mario Maker 2, and when it came out a month later, Super Mario 3DWorld with the new Boswer’s Fury (I’ve completed all but the last two Crown levels, and had to get a Cat Mario amiibo to help out, as well as the first 50 Cat Shines to beat Fury Bowser the first time).
The latter game (being pitched as an “extension” of 3DW) is based off of the 3DW engine (with the same powerups and moves, but with the addition of a giant cat bell for the Fury battle). The main difference, is that it is a standard “open range”/”free roaming”/”sandbox” format (those are the names given to the usual 3D games such as 64, Sunshine and Odyssey), where you have to collect items to open a passage to the next level; as opposed to the 2D-based “linear” format of 3DW and 3DL, where you’re heading generally one (obvious) direction to a flagpole or other goal. The Galaxys are technically “free roaming” since the level clearance method is the same, but since you’re confined to the little planets, it’s not as “open range” as the others, so some don’t consider it as such.
As stated from the beginnng, the original SMB is what I like the “flow” of. So I found that I was never really enthused with open roaming, and start off not even knowing what to do/where to go first, where for linear; it’s readily obvious. So the linear 3D games were like the “holy grail” of what I’ve wanted since the time after SMB2 when I had hoped SMB3 would be SMB3D! (And Galaxy2 was a nice compromise, again, since it’s limited in range, and was my introduction to 3D Mario. There was also a limited edition “3D Allstars” set, which contained 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy1, and people lamented the leaving off of Galaxy2 and 3DL, but it would have been perfect since those other three were the ones I never had. But I determined I didn’t need to play them, or Odyssey, being I don’t care for the open range format. I played Galaxy 2, and now have Bowser’s Fury, so those are enough. 3DW is the one I knew I had to get, somehow, eventually).
So Bowser’s Fury has a rather dark feel to it. You start out in this beautiful, sunny serene world, resembling Mario Sunshine, and with serene music playing, but it’s surrounded by a sea of black muck, with spikes sticking out of it, which looks ominous in the background, and then a giant Bowser’s shell arises out of it and begins spinning. Suddenly, the sky goes dark and a rain storm begins, and then he comes at you in flaming form, shooting jets of fire, and scattering huge molten metal stakes into the ground and you have to eiher keep dodging him until he stops, or collect a Cat Shine (a feline version of the sunshine thing collected in Sunshine), which makes him stop sooner.
It’s so disturbing, even his son, Bowser Jr. comes to help you turn him back to normal, and flies around with you in his clown car.
Once turning him back to normal the first time, if you resume, then he “gets mad” and resumes his fury again, until you collect the rest of the cat shines (I think the total is 100, so this is the halfway point). I don’t feel like disturbing the peace again, right now.
So upon getting SMM2, I finally got to set out to try to create my own SMB2 rendition. (I had wanted to try it out in Nintendoworld, but because of COVID, you can’t play in the store anymore).
What I had to learn, and why makers weren’t creating it the way I thought it should be done, is that the blue sky portion of the forest theme is only the top six blocks of the horizontal level. To get any more height, you have to use a vertical level, but then it’s still only the top six blocks, and the graphic loops the tree background for the rest of the height. This is why you either had to do a night forest theme, to clear the backgrounds, or, most people just use a daytime version of the regular SMB1 overworld, with its familiar brown-based “bluffs” and “mushroom platforms” as the semisolids. (If I haven’t mentioned it, the original SMB1 had no semisolids. These were introduced in SMB2. In SMB1, a “bluff” (as called in early game guides) or mushroom/”T” platform was actually two objects, consisting of a “background” base (which ‘holds up’ the platform) you could pass through, but the actual platform on top was completely solid, and you could not jump up through it. Lifts and even cloud blocks as well. Since the base is not solid, I think some people might consider these “semisolids” anyway, but they could more accurately be distinguished as “demisolids” [“demi-” also means “half”, but in a more “inferior” or “degraded” sense]. But now, in SMM2, they have all been made true semisolids, where you can jump up through the platform and then land on it. In changing the themes, the SMB1 “bluffs” become the SMB2-like green “buttes” in the forest theme, and other objects in the other themes. What they should have done was to add the green ones to the overworld semisolid menu, so then you could easily have a daytime overworld that looks like SMB2.
So in using these top six blocks (with the top of the green mushroon platforms as the “grass”, and regular “hard” blocks, which in the forest theme are the “rocky” looking ones of the original water worlds, as the earth underneath —good thing the bases of the platforms can exist in the same space as ground blocks), the play area is squeezed up tightly into this narrow space.
Still, it does really look like the SMB2 daytime overworld now. I also employed Lassikko’s methods of setting bloobers in the semisolid over munchers on hard blocks, as the pluckable vegetables.
I also learned that you only get one main world and one “sub-world” and can choose different themes for either, a vertical or horizontal layout for either, and pipes only connect main to subworlds, while doors only connect different parts of the same world. This is why you’ll often see a pipe leading to a small area with only another pipe you have to go through. (I use this at one point, so you’ll go from one part of the top of the horizontal world to a remote part of the forest backgrounded vertical subworld that can’t normally be seen from the play area, and then back to the horizontal world). That’s the only way to have pipes connect to the same world. You have to briefly go through the other one.
This was completed on Jan.25, but I don’t know how to record gameplay (and didn’t want to try to do it from the phone which yields lousy picture quality); hence, why I’m just now posting this. I had in that time, begun submitting the level to BTG’s weekly Sunday “Viewer Levels” stream on YT, and as he says he gets hundreds of submissions, he’s not able to get to all of them. But a couple of weeks ago, I realized that I can sumbit them (via a link on the video page) when YT puts up the yet-to-air video hours before the stream and sends a reminder notification about it. So today, I remembered just over an hour before the stream started, and sure enough, it was the first one he played!
He seemed to like it, and likes SMB2. (One problem I knew about seen in the video, is that throwing a POW block kills the munchers, releasing all of the bloobers in the ground, which now come after you. Does add to the challenge though! Plus, he mentioned it not scrolling vertically, since as mentioned, it was at the very top, but understood it had to be that way). There was a pipe he passed by at one point, which would have led to an area with the “cursed key”, and going through the door (which he saw, but didn’t know where the key was) you would miss the vertical section, but have to do the horizontal section with Phanto chasing you, which is difficult in that tight top space, as both of you end up going above the screen, where he often easily gets you as you can’t see where he is! (Being able to skip a section has been dubbed “cheese”, though I don’t think it’s truly cheesy, since Phanto does make the rest of that main sections more difficult).
After that, I one day, after watching someone’s attempt to render 3DW on SMM2 (Bosses like Hissocrat, the purple lizard, had to be represented by crude giant sculptures using blocks, with icicles as the teeth, etc. The Meowser chase up the tower was nicely simulated, though!) I was inspired to do something like that myself. What came to mind was a cartoon. I chose the best Scooby Doo episode ever, “The Dynamic Scooby Doo Affair”; the first with Batman. So many things just came to me, as they were so obvious!
The the disappearing house would use “ON/OFF” blocks, and having to hit a block somewhere else to go to the next area, would make it disappear or reappear, which you would see the next time you passed by there. It was very easy to construct! A clown car in a ? block is the punch clown in a crate. (I thought you could put a coin in a clown car, but apparently, you can’t. So I put a red coin on top of where it comes out, to represent the counterfeit cash inside). One of the new swing hooks added would represent the car crane (with stacks of junked cars and a big sculpture of the hooded man constructed out of blocks). A pair of Thwomps in a pit make up the compactor! Conveyor belts are the moving floors in the funhouse, with one version that reverse direction via the on/off switch (like the floor that goes from moving backward, to moving forward as Shaggy and Scooby walk on it toward a door). I rigged a Bobomb lit by a Podoboo slightly below screen to activate that one. Two large “Dry Bones” turtles represent Joker and Penguin in the skeleton costumes, and you have to activate a P switch to drop them into a pit and move to the next section. I have rightside up and upside down versions of the inside of the house, plus the upside down outside where you climb out through the window in the cavern. The warehouse is filled with ? blocks (since those represent “crates”), with a couple stacks of clown cars and Mecha-Koopas (encased by blocks and can’t be interacted with) to represent “toys”. As for the rubber ball the bad guy throws at the gang in the end, since Lemmy Koopa throws big rubber balls, then he was perfect as the final boss! (I had used Iggy and Roy as the “Joker and Penguin” in the window of the funhouse, and you have to watch out for the spells they shoot at you). I placed a seesaw there, since that’s how Scooby defeats the bad guy. It would have been nice if you could ground pound it, catapulting Lemmy, just like in the cartoon, but this is in the SMB1 style which doesn’t have ground pounds. The 3DW style has actual wooden crates, but doesn’t have Koopalings, or other items like swings and tracks. That and the other styles have backgrounds for the underground or indoor styles, which would not have been good for the inside of the house, the funhouse, or the warehouse.
It starts with the Mystery Machine represented by blocks and a lift on a track, and even bumps over something in the road, like it does in the very beginning. (The road is spikes at that point so you have to ride to get past). The plane is similarly a set of blocks and lifts on tracks, and it comes down from the sky, lands, and then turns back around (by turning inside out briefly, basically) to take back off. The area with the tree that controls the house (on/off switches in block “branches”) is set in a floating block box that can only be entered via pipe from the funhouse, and is exited via off and on blocks that you switch twice, seeing that this also makes the house disappear and reappear. The pipe leading to inside the house is set a block up, on the porch, which disappears with the house, so the pipe is still there, but you have nothing to stand on to be able to enter it. There is also by the tree box a suspended door from the junkyard, so you can see the house missing the first time, and then for the first time continue on past it to the Bat Cave and Gotham City. (Which has a large sculpture of the Batmobile in front of the Batman & Robin exhibit building, which has very crude sculptures of Batman and Robin’s faces. In the cartoon, it’s full-body paintings of them. There is a smaller Batmobile behind the house, to show it’s disappeared with it,
and another one at the end of the funhouse, along with the Mystery Machine, for when they say “Robin, to the Batmobile”; “Kids, to the Mystery Machine!”.[Edit: this was in an edit made after uploading, and it looked like it went through, but it only updates in the files; when you play the actual online game; you don’t see any changes. So the area after where you drop the skeletons in the pit; which in an afterthought, I made a duplicate of the outside of the funhouse with the vehicles, just remains empty space. I had also added the “nails” holding the furniture tot he floor, another sculpture of the hooded man to the boss battle area, to show that he’s represented by Lemmy, and placed the skull lift on the outside wall of the funhouse on a track, so that you only see one skull, like in the cartoon, instead of four. I realized this after the initial upload].Much of the work here was eliminating possible cheese, and then representing the buildings and sculptures as best as possible).
(The plane stops and reverses to the left of the tree box. I have a file with an alternate version where the plane passes under it, and then continues the same direction over the house, and disintegrates behind the house as the tracks end. This would create a better flow of movement. But the possibility of riding the plane would create cheese, and I had to move the tree box back to make room for it to lift off again, but you would no longer see the house from the tree; but you’re supposed to see it being controlled by the tree branch switches, as Shaggy and Scooby did. So I didn’t upload that version, but rather use it to test potential edits).
I used up all the space of both the main world (outdoors) and the subworld (Indoors and underground, but with the outside of the funhouse after you’ve exited it also undergound, so that the next pipe leads to the outdoor tree area). As stated above, they fixed it so that it won’t scroll past an area if you construct an unbroken wall of hard blocks between areas. So you’ll never know what’s to the left or right of the room you’re in).
This I completed in four days (a few hours a day). It was looking up videos of the episode for reference, when I found that a long edited out piece of the story had been found (from old broadcasts) and uploaded on YouTube, last year! (See https://erictb.wordpress.com/2021/04/04/long-lost-scooby-batman-sequence-found)
I also did a couple of PacMan renditions. I had seen these before (including in SMM1, where you could use an actual PacMan “mask”), but I wanted to do a full scale version, with the same number of coins as dots, in the same arrangement. At first, I thought I could use the clear pipes of 3DW, and run tracks through them, for the “monsters” to run through, but 3DW doesn’t have tracks, and you can’t place coins in clear pipes. I ended up just haing coins at intersections where pipes end, and cannons firing Spinies, which just go straight left or right, and disappear in the tunnels. (They can’t go up or down through pipes). I did upload this, and it seems to be what is getting the most play.
But then, I did one in the SMB1 style, using blue “OFF” blocks as the maze, and was able to place the coins exactly like the dots. Stars represent energizers. The two bottom ones stay in the corners where they are located, but the top ones, which are in vertical passages, had to be inserted into niches in the wall, so they wouldn’t bounce away. For a fruit, I use a red coin. I placed tracks in little circuits in the four quadrants of the maze (so the enemies can’t follow you anywhere, of course), and instead of using four Boos as most do, (to represent what everyone calls the four “ghosts”), I found three other enemies that couldn’t be touched from any direction (e.g. jumped on): a Spike Top; Spiny, and Podoboo, in addition to a Boo. The “clear condition” is collecting all the coins. You enter and exit the maze (in the subworld) through a blue pipe, right where PacMan starts. I had rigged a switch with a trampoline, so that after you’ve lowered the flag you’ll bounce and turn the switch on and off repeatedly, causing the blue blocks to appear and reappear, like the way the PacMan maze flashes blue and white after you’ve cleared it, but the switch doesn’t work after the board is cleared, so I removed it. (I had created a miniature version of the board next to the flagpole for this effect, as the full size maze had to be in a vertical subworld to fit, and there wouldn’t be any horizontal space left for the flagpole).
Game codes:
“The Best SMB2 rendition”: 1NB-XP8-BLF
“Pipe Man”: 78F-PMD-7YF
“Jump Man”: TCD-6HK-5GG
“THE DYNAMIC SUPER MARIO AFFAIR”: CBM-XW5-Y0G
Just uploaded Night of Fright is No Delight!
0NC-G66-9GF
Similar to “Dynamic Scooby Doo Affair” with the moving structural elements as the centerpiece, the primary trick was figuring out how to do the moving walls. Tall cannons were the best bet, but the problem was how to position the organ (consists of note blocks, obviously, and I use empty tracks as the pipes, making it really look like an organ), and start and stop the “walls”. The thing is, the cannons on tracks will pass through blocks, but there will then be no way to stop them. I also tried placing them on conveyor belts, which can be reversed, and then, they’ll also will be destroyed when on/off (or “P”) blocks are activated which occupy anywhere in the same space as them, (and they do a whole twirling death fall) but then they will be blocked by the organ blocks. (People also place things like this on Monty Moles, but they do not move at a steady pace, like the moving walls). So I had to stack cannons on top of cannons. The bottom ones will pass through the note blocks you’re walking on, while the top ones (above the note blocks, and thus threatening to crush you) will be destroyed by on/off blocks at the top, activated by a switch amidst the noteblock “keyboard”. (Represents Scooby continuing to play the organ randomly, which is what finally stopped the walls). The small, lower cannons will pass through each other (you have to watch that you still don’t get crushed by them when going below the top keyboard), and then fall off the ends of the tracks on the far sides. Then you go to the lower keyboard, which is just four blocks on tracks arranged as a musical staff, and these are the “FEED” notes, with the last one containing the P switch to open the trap door to the catacombs (which has large sculptures of the four human coffins and the “dog shaped” one).
It starts off with a short boat ride (again, using items on tracks), over pink “poison” water in the forest “night” theme. Then you run up a hill to the mansion. Inside, you see the record player the audio will is played on in one room (a grinder wheel over a small wooden semisolid, with a track as the arm; it plays “backwards” because grinders are counterclockwise!), and the fish in a bowl (the one that gnarls at Shaggy for using his food) in the next, followed by the bathroom and bathtub made of P blocks with the switch in the tub, This drops you down to the lower level and the first ghost encounter. (And then you run back upstairs, and pass a bed with the crude dummy of Scooby).
Two pipes lead to the back of the house, with the cave underneath, and I had no way to represent either trip (swinging down via the drain pipe the ghost pushes off the wall, and then chasing the ghosts with the flying washing machine), so I have an empty track representing the drain pipe, and (using the “SMBU” style) you wall slide down.
A Koopa Paratroopa in a “?” block is the goose that pops out of the wagon in the cave.
The phantom or “green ghosts” are just large Boos. I set the clear condition as defeating at least one of them (either one has the key so that when you go back through Cousin Simple’s room the second time via the shaftway, you can open the key door). Though a potential problem is that when you first see them in the catacomb, then go through the door to the chandelier which (via rigged P switch) drops to an adjacent area with the star you defeat them with, they may or may not follow you quickly; depending on how you’re moving. A person may not see them in time (they come through the wall) or realize that this is where you have to kill them. I did put wings on them to make them faster, and so in the opposite extreme, they might come after you so fast you’ll barely have time to get the star.
This is in a second “FEED” keyboard with a star in the last note, representing when Shaggy and Scooby play the notes to drop the ghosts through the floor. I had no way of representing that (and especially not on the same organ as before), and no way to chase Boos, so you defeat them the final time then, with the star, collect the key, pass through a room with sculptures of the washing machine and fan (with a large lift as the ironing board), which represents the gang arranging the trap, then slide down the wall again in to the cave. There, a clown car, which was covered by red blocks should be uncovered now, and it will represent the washing machine flying through the cave and up the shaft, to the key door. If you happened to hit the on/off switch again while bouncing in the organ room, then it will still be covered, but then you can just ride the lift again like the first time. When you go through the key door, you see the ghosts trapped “in” the washing machine (which is made of tracks, with them on the circular “window” swirling around), and then exit through the pipe to the flagpole area, which has the “floating haunted bone” (made of winged blocks).
Got so lucky, sort of. Darby (BTG) played both of my Scooby levels, one the next week after the other!
The first week, however, was a total mess. My hard drive just died completely two days before, and I was still scrambing to see if I could get it to boot. (Nothing worked, and it makes noise like a head crash).
So I dig out my old computer (which I only really used to run the Vixen software for the old 2812 RGB LED nodes on the holidays, and I haven’t run those in years), and since watching live videos on that was clunky; I put Darby’s stream on the TV. At one point, I look up and see the tracks guiding the Mystery Machine and plane of the “Dynamic Super Mario Affair” level. Making it worse, is that he doesn’t know where to go, tries several things like riding the plane and dies, and then gets softlocked in the clouds in the barrier I had placed to try to keep players off the plane, and is now getting frustrated and talking about “moving on”. I’m frantically scrambling to try to post in the chat, but I’m not signed into Youtube on the other computer or tablet, and didn’t know how to get to the chat on the phone. My wife gave me her phone and lets me post under her name. I’m telling him “Go in the house!”, and couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t, but rather kept trying to climb over it, or figure out how to get into the enclosure with the tree. (My cheese-proofing really worked!) Others were telling him to go inside as well. One last try; he goes onto the porch again, and now sees the pipe to enter. He said he really couldn’t see it (I made it red to blend in with the rest of the house, since it’s really supposed to be the front door, and didn’t think it would be hard to see for anyone, but he said he really has problems seeing things like that sometmes). Once he got inside, he pretty much figured the rest of it out, though didn’t seem to recognize anything, like the Batmobile. (He IIRC said something like “ooh, a cool car!”) When he got the last red coin from the enclosure, he tried to remember if there was a key door somewhere, and by this time realized he needed to go back into the house, where he found it. He didn’t seem to recognize that one room was the upside down version of the one he just came from, and wondered why an arrow was pointing to a “P” block (again, that was supposed to be the upside down spent “?” block the clown object came out of). When he entered the cavern, he said “Now this is different”, and got through the rest of the level OK.
With “Night of Fright” (by now, I’m watching and interacting as normal from my new PC) he noted the boat he rode was “destroyed” (he had said that about the “car” from the other episode as well. I have them fall apart at the ends of the tracks as I don’t know where else to have them go after they’re ridden), he again kept looking for other ways to proceed, thinking the pit the P-block tub led to would lead to death. He eventually realized that was the way on. He quickly enough figured out how to escape the closing walls (and thought there was something to the “little” canons continuing to move). He didn’t realize he had to wall side down the outside soon enough, and died there (He thought there was something to jump to to the right). He didn’t know what “FEED” meant, but defeated the boos OK.
After all that, he still liked both levels!
(Now the only thing remaining to submit is the improved Pacman board).
So now, BTG has played the Pacman level!
Just like with Dynamic Affair, he tried to climb the sculpture in the beginning, and wondered what it was (not recognizing it as a miniature Pacman maze), and climbed it looking for a secret coin.
Otherwise, he got through it OK, and liked it. (pointing out how there were a “bajillion” Pacman levels on SMM1, which had the Pacman “costume”).
So all that’s left is “Pipe Man”, the original version of this one using clear pipes on the 3DW style, but it’s not nearly as good, so I’m not submitting that one.
Other big news as far as Nintendo is the OLED version of the Switch coming out this fall! https://www.nintendo.com/switch/oled-model/ Many peopel are skeptical of it being worth the money as an “upgrade”, especially given it is not a much awaited “Switch Pro”. I wouldn’t trade the one I have for it, as I rarely play it by itself (on its own screen; though this almost of makes me wish I had waited a year to get it), but when OLED was first arriving, people predicted kids would “lose their minds” with an OLED Gameboy! (way back when that was still out).
This video
points you to this site
http://tgrcode.com/mm2/level_info/ [XXX-XXX-XXX game code]
where you can see how many “boos” your level gets (which is omitted from the visible game data.
It brings up a page of source code, and you just search for the term “boos” and it takes you right to it (along with the other data).
“THE DYNAMIC SUPER MARIO AFFAIR” 2 (5 likes)
“Night Of Fright is No Delight” 4 (8 likes)
“PipeMan” 3 (4 likes)
“Jump Man” 2 (17 likes)!
“The best SMB2 rendition” 0 (8 likes)!
The level I first tried it with, “Confused operation”: 7 (40 likes, including me, once I figured out how to beat it)
Now, we have “level viewers” that show you actual maps of the levels, by keying in the level code:
https://tgrcode.com/level_viewer/
So now I clearly see the whole “Confused Operation” mechanism, but still can’t figure out exactly how it works. The same with another one I’ve been stumped by, “Karen’s Cool Carriage #GERK” (0DVR7VBNF)
For some time, people have speculated on what the next Mario Platformer will be, and when (and if on the next console). With SMM2, it seems you didn’t really need new 2D Mario anymore, as there are now millions of new levels, probably, cranked out by users. With 3D, many hope for an Odyssey 2, ar perhaps some further development of Bowser’s Fury. (We also await to see if there will ever be a SMM3, and if that might do actual 3D levels).
But out of nowhere, they suddenly announced for the fall, a new 2D game for the current Switch, Super Mario Bros. WONDER.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/super-mario-bros-wonder-trailer-161659348.html
Backgrounds remind me of Yoshi’s Island. I remember not too long ago, when Darby or someone else on Youtube speculated on what the next Mario platformer would be like, and if 2D (the last one over ten years ago, now!), it seemed the NSMB series was a bit played out, and I wondered what else they could possibly do (other than the flattened 3DW style for SMM2), and Yoshi’s Island (with its colorful “crayon” graphic) came to mind.
The new powerup; elephant Mario! (I had been seeing this trunk-nosed Mario on the sidebar of social media all day, and figured it was probably just another fan game or something! You also see a pipe that slinks like an inchworm, and the entire scene becomes trippy when Mario takes this blue flower; and you can push pipes as well. The piranha plant can move out of the pipe and walk after you on it roots (sort of like the old “patooie” from SMB 3 or World. Enemies are also shown rollerskating!)
Well, whenever they do release a SMM3, here’s another “additional game style” they can add!
Also announced, is a modern 3D redo of Super Mario RPG, which is technically the first 3D Mario, released on the SNES, right before N64 and its Mario 64, yet was a 3rd party title.