5 ms·

I had forgotten how many interruptions there were to actually getting to the game. Intro cutscene, letter from Peach, prompt from Lakitu outside the castle, pro

• spywaregorilla 3y ago
  That's not quite correct. EVERYONE plays in the front garden first. Beelining to level 1 is the unusual thing.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • djbusby 3y ago
    And swimming
    • k12sosse 3y ago
      Hell it took me 30 minutes before I stopped playing with Mario's face at the title screen
• thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > I get it though, they had to ease people into 3d games. Are later games different? I thought all Mario games had a bunch of cruft at the start. Look at Galaxy; 3D games weren't exactly unheard of by then.
  • dddddaviddddd 3y ago
    I opened up Super Mario World today, and it just has one intro slide before going into the first levels.
    • FillardMillmore 3y ago
      Games on a surface level used to be somewhat simpler, but man, I pine for the days of games that wouldn't waste your time with long intro segments and just let you enjoy what it had to offer right from the get go.
      • fho 3y ago
        That statement made me laugh a bit. On some level a lot of games (e.g. those repetitive "open" world games) seem to b structured around wasting time. Collect 10 herbs, raid the hideout, activate the lighthouse, etc. Haven't played games on a long time, but from watching some let's plays I got the impression that a lot of games are just repetitive grinding these days.
    • thaumasiotes 3y ago
      Super Mario World is earlier than Mario 64, not later.
    • Wolfbeta 3y ago
      Sometimes, I don't believe I'm not in a simulation. I was just using it to setup cloud saving with Syncthing and Retroarch across Windows, Mac and Android (Works brilliantly). Then I come here and see this thread.
• minimaxir 3y ago
  That's oddly a staple of the 3D Mario games even years later: Super Mario Sunshine had an annoying miniboss and a ton of cutscenes before entering the first world, and Super Mario Galaxy had cutscenes and a very long intro level before getting to the main game. Galaxy 2, Odyssey, and Bowser's Fury toned the tutorials down a bit.
  • grishka 3y ago
    The latest Mario game, Super Mario Wonder, still does it. Especially the stuff that pops up after you finish a level.
    • minimaxir 3y ago
      Wonder is a more modern balance, but it still does have quick tutorials for new mechanics which is fair. The more traditional tutorials are replaced by the Talking Flowers.
      • grishka 3y ago
        The flowers have a good sense of humor, I thought that was their main purpose :)
• jareklupinski 3y ago
  try a modern console :( first you press the power button, then wait for the console to load (5-10s usually for a Switch), then dismiss the ads asking you to buy or subscribe to something, then navigate to the game you already have inserted into your console, then press play, then confirm you DON'T want the recommended update (which prevents you from playing the game), then accept the update when you realize it stops you from playing the game, then wait for the update to finish (10-30s + a console restart), then accept the System update which didn't even pop up before (another 1-2m + restart), then finally go through the above again, and now.... you're finally at the main menu of the game sorry i just tried picking up the Switch again today during my sick day and had to wade through all this just to play Metroid Prime (a game that came out a decade ago)
  • Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
    God forbid you are not playing in handheld mode on the switch, it will take ten minutes to get the controllers in the right configuration
    • throwaway17_17 3y ago
      Hard agree, my 8 year old habitually un-docks the Switch does his controller set up and then puts it back in the dock. He discovered the time saving and convenience by himself and doesn’t even realize he is working around Nintendo’s lackluster design. Addendum — he and I both truly enjoy playing on the Switch and Nintendo’s games, so no ‘hate’ intended; but it is worrying for future hardware from the company that their designs are badly implemented enough that a child has to invent a way around the inconvenience.
  • jrockway 3y ago
    Wait, you get an update cycle done in 10-30s? I feel like on mine I download an update over the course of 3 weeks, and then it takes 4 hours to apply. Also every time I touch a game it needs to be updated, which takes another 4 hours. All in all, I have been trained to never touch a console after I haven't used it for a day or two.
• kube-system 3y ago
  At the time, many games were linear and didn't have anywhere to get lost. The first time I played SM64 I remember not knowing exactly what to do. I spent the first bit of time banging on doors, grates, or other inactive features trying to figure out how to work them. The interactions let me know I was going in the right direction.
• pseudosaid 3y ago
  you can jump after peaches letter, and for new players none of the motives have been established yet. those interruptions are integral to getting started.
• dhucerbin 3y ago
  That's the moment where you wipe your hands and compose yourself after restart because of failed canonless!
• footlose_3815 3y ago
  all of that only takes a literal minute to get past.
• nonbirithm 3y ago
  Reminds me, I played Genshin Impact once and I was struck by how brief the opening cutscenes were. Given it was a fantasy epic I sort of expected a bit more introduction to the characters in the first 30 minutes. But I think that was because of my conditioning on console games. It makes logical sense. The longer the intro cutscene took, the more people would just exit out before the action could take place, the more money they lost on IAPs. So fast-tracking the player to beating things up within 2-4 minutes is critical. The longer story cutscenes can take over later. There are probably hard metrics to back this up somewhere.