I think Mario games in general are becoming too level-based and linear...

[lucky_sharm]

Granted, the Mario series initially began as a fun level-based platformer and nothing else. But ever since Super Mario Galaxy, there's been a lot less in terms of exploration and story. Even the RPG based games like Mario&Luigi and Paper Mario have recently become more linear and typical in terms of plot when both series were known for being creative and self-aware.

It'd be great if the levels went back to being just large, dense, interactive environments like in Super Mario 64 or at the very least on the level of Super Mario Sunshine. Or maybe another quirky and epic RPG like Thousand Year Door.

 

[default]

I would quite like to see a game that returned to the roots of that 'Big Level to Explore and Do Missions In' adventure format. I'm not a huge fan of how Mario 64 did it. Something a little more freeform would be nice. Go through the portal in the hub world and find yourself in a big, open, strange new land with a great forest in front of you. Explore around a little, pick up some tips on where to go from friendly NPCs. Find a cave, head inside to find the entrance to a deep, twisting catacomb. Or you can go in a complete opposite direction and find a stone giant guarding a bridge to an old, haunted town that has an evil witch living in the old church at its centre, and so on.

Linear levels are great for creating an intended experience and all, but I enjoy exploration and finding my own path a lot more.

EDIT:

I just realised I went on a massive tangent that had nothing to do with Mario, but the point still stands that I'd like to see more games built like that.

 

[Demonchaser27]

I completely agree with you about 3D Marios. I'm actually pissed that we haven't seen 2D Marios get as expansive as Super Mario World. That game gave you so many choices in which way you could go and what levels you could complete in what order. The closest thing to that was New Super Mario Bros U, but that one was predictable and had very few levels that led to secret paths. They're was only 1 secret path to each world. It just wasn't enough for me. I want them to actually expand from where they left off with Super Mario World, not go backwards towards the Original Super Mario Bros.

Though strangely, I feel like a lot of game development has been doing that. I haven't seen a true expansion of a lot of genres in a long time. Just minor improvements, while at the same time ripping old features that worked just so they don't have to do the extra work or to sell as DLC.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I'm sort of torn on this. On the one hand, I loved the exploration offered in Super Mario 64 and Sunshine, but at the same time, the Galaxy games' more linear design did offer better challenges than the open level designs of their predecessors did. The Galaxy games also offered some very minor exploration, but rather than making the whole map explorable at once, they split it up into sections that were easily manageable. Sure, it lost a little bit of the experience of the older games, but they also felt better paced and presented.

Overall, having gone back and played pretty much all the 3D Mario games (not counting 3D World) over the course of the last 1-2 years, I have come to enjoy the Galaxy games more than the others. If they could offer better designed open levels like in 64 and Sunshine, then that would be ideal, but as of right now, I think the Galaxy games have come the closest to ideally offering Mario-like challenges in an open/semi-open 3D environment.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Mario games have always been level based and linear. Even Mario 64 to some degree. You had to gather a certain number of stars before you could unlock the next section of levels and ultimately you were working towards to final battle with Bowser. Granted some Mario games have been more linear than others, but complaining about Mario games being level based and linear is like complaining about a GTA game having cars in it.

 

[JCAll]

I kind of like that Mario mixes up it's formula. You're right about the plots though, Nintendo seems to be trying to see how little story they can get away with.

 

[jdogtwodolla]

I love the Playground design of 64 and Sunshine levels. And i Like how those games handled linear levels as if they were small side obstacle courses/gauntlets. Galaxy was a nice in between where even the linear levels at least felt like big open worlds thanks to the galaxy design. It's just a shame that all the levels had a disappointing amount of star variety. Then Galaxy 2 comes along and exacerbates that problem while pretty much making all but maybe 4 levels linear as shit.

I feel like People view linear levels as better for accentuating gameplay, but a good level design for an open level can do that just as well.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I'm sort of torn on this. On the one hand, I loved the exploration offered in Super Mario 64 and Sunshine, but at the same time, the Galaxy games' more linear design did offer better challenges than the open level designs of their predecessors did. The Galaxy games also offered some very minor exploration, but rather than making the whole map explorable at once, they split it up into sections that were easily manageable. Sure, it lost a little bit of the experience of the older games, but they also felt better paced and presented.

Overall, having gone back and played pretty much all the 3D Mario games (not counting 3D World) over the course of the last 1-2 years, I have come to enjoy the Galaxy games more than the others. If they could offer better designed open levels like in 64 and Sunshine, then that would be ideal, but as of right now, I think the Galaxy games have come the closest to ideally offering Mario-like challenges in an open/semi-open 3D environment.

This is sort of how I feel. The Galaxy games are my favorite Mario platformers, but I do want to see a more open 3D Mario game style for the proper Wii U 3D Mario game. I also don't mind linearity in games as long as it is well designed and works perfectly with the genre, and for platformers, linearity is probably the best way to do it to begin with.

I guess I would like to see a future 3D Mario incorporate all the elements of the past 3D games, and do something new just as each one did before.

 

[lucky_sharm]

I'm sort of torn on this. On the one hand, I loved the exploration offered in Super Mario 64 and Sunshine, but at the same time, the Galaxy games' more linear design did offer better challenges than the open level designs of their predecessors did. The Galaxy games also offered some very minor exploration, but rather than making the whole map explorable at once, they split it up into sections that were easily manageable. Sure, it lost a little bit of the experience of the older games, but they also felt better paced and presented.

It's true that Sunshine was way too easy, but that's more of Nintendo's habit of trying to keep their games as accessible as possible.

Sunshine did, however, offer an immense amount of freedom in its levels and the ability to just screw around in the hubworld, messing with fruit, interacting with various piantas, finding hidden Shine Sprites, and uncovering secrets as you unlock more things like nozzles and Yoshi.

 

[Sould1n]

I have noticed this as well... and I'm incredibly thankful for it. I encountered Super Mario Bros first through the Super Mario All Stars pack, having a great time with The Lost Levels and Super Mario World in particular. When Super Mario 64 arrived though, I was disappointed. I'm generally not a fan of the open world feel to most games, much preferring a 'linear' or what I like to term, a more focused level based experience.

So on a whole, I've never been a fan of 3D Mario games... and then came Super Mario 3D World. Taking into consideration the main Mario series only, Super Mario 3D World is my favourite Mario game of all time. The levels were creative, platforming tight, and everything had a real rush to it. Their was a focus and drive, and aside from hunting down stamps and stars, nothing in the way of distractions, generally giving a quick but enjoyable experience. So a linear feel to the main Mario games is something I don't mind, as to me at least, it's the main Mario series re-obtaining values that made it so great and bringing itself back to the glory days but within a 3D environment.

That said, another Paper Mario like Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, is a must have. Super Mario 3D World maybe my favourite main Mario game of all, but Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is definitely my favourite when counting the spin-offs.

 

[josemlopes]

Something a little more freeform would be nice. Go through the portal in the hub world and find yourself in a big, open, strange new land with a great forest in front of you.

That part is close to what Vexx is

The rest is closer to Conker's Bad Fur Day or Psychonauts, I guess, they are all more linear though. There are other platformers that I never really tried like the first Alice game and Voodoo Vince. Maybe they fit a bit closer.

EDIT: You also have the Banjo-Kazooei games, maybe even the last one lol

EDIT 2: Just remembered about Crash Twinsanity, I really liked that game back then and if I remember correctly it has some space to roam around, not really open but still a nice one to take a look.

EDIT 3: Just take a look at these games:
Bugs Bunny Lost in Time
Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters
Oddworld: Strangers Wrath
Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee
The Gex games

Most of these games I didnt play or dont remember well enough but most of them do share some elements of what you want (none of them are combined though)

 

[Haru17]

2D Mario games need towns and quest givers like paper mario games. There's just too little interest story and interest otherwise. Also, they NEED to stop doing the plains / desert / ocean / swamp / snow / mountain / sky / lava worlds over and over and over. Mix things up a bit, maybe a pine forest, or a lake-themed world, go crazy. In new super mario bros. 2 they got so lazy they didn't even texture the overworld of two of the worlds. Just add an interesting plot that's optionally skip-able for the apparent crowd of platforming-obsessed gamers out there.

 

[verdant monkai]

Never been interested in Mario. I dont think the supposedly stellar gameplay makes up for the lack of story or point to any of the small Italians escapades. I know this is a tired question but whats the point if Bowser will just recapture Peach. And why does Mario care about Peach? There is NOTHING romantic between them in the games, its all fan fiction and speculations.

I dont really like the characters, they dont appeal to me. I think their simplistic cartoon style makes them ugly, and their lack of speech and personality doesn't make them charming it makes them boring. I have zero reason to care about them or their fungus ridden world, because they are apparently all banal cretins incapable of meaningful interaction, all of them locked in an endless cycle of Princess kidnappings. I know they have personality in the rpg's but I cant shake the fact that they are spinoffs based on brightly coloured empty 8bit rejects.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I'm sort of torn on this. On the one hand, I loved the exploration offered in Super Mario 64 and Sunshine, but at the same time, the Galaxy games' more linear design did offer better challenges than the open level designs of their predecessors did. The Galaxy games also offered some very minor exploration, but rather than making the whole map explorable at once, they split it up into sections that were easily manageable. Sure, it lost a little bit of the experience of the older games, but they also felt better paced and presented.

It's true that Sunshine was way too easy, but that's more of Nintendo's habit of trying to keep their games as accessible as possible.

Sunshine did, however, offer an immense amount of freedom in its levels and the ability to just screw around in the hubworld, messing with fruit, interacting with various piantas, finding hidden Shine Sprites, and uncovering secrets as you unlock more things like nozzles and Yoshi.

It wasn't so much the difficulty level of the games. I actually thought that Sunshine was significantly harder than Galaxy and about on the same level as Galaxy 2. However, the challenges in the game are certainly presented differently.

In Sunshine, and especially in Super Mario 64, a lot of the challenge comes simply through trying to find the star or shine sprite. There's nothing wrong with that, but the actual platforming tends to take a backseat to the exploration, and they simply just don't seem to do as much with the platforming as the Galaxy games did. Whereas the Galaxy games were more concerned with finding various and challenging obstacles to overcome, 64 and Sunshine often seemed more concerned with offering new challenges of trying to figure out how to get to the goal. Sure, there are exceptions in both games. Some galaxies in the Galaxy games emphasize exploration while some stars and shine sprites in the other games emphasize testing the player's ability to get to the goal, but is the general trend.

And there's certainly nothing wrong with the older 3D Mario games. Both of them, especially Mario 64, handled their exploration near flawlessly. However, I do prefer to the type of challenge the Galaxy games offer.

There is NOTHING romantic between them in the games, its all fan fiction and speculations.

Ignoring official comments by Nintendo about their relationship, there's:

The fact that Galaxy 2 basically said that entire Mario series is a metaphor for how nothing can keep lovers apart forever.
In Galaxy, Rosalina refers to Peach as Mario's "special one". And yes, this is a title she uses exclusively for Peach. Everyone else is his "brother" or "friends".
Peach has kissed Mario in multiple games, which often gets a look of affection or joy from him. Super Mario 64 probably has the most famous of these scenes.
In Paper Mario, which are considered canon, Mario was given advice of where he could take Peach out on a date. At the end, he did take Peach on a date.
Both Mario and Peach often act in an affectionate manner towards each other that is completely beyond how they act towards anyone else.
Double Dash refers to them as a "cute" couple, which is also stated in other games.
And I believe Mario Party 8 even flatly said that Mario loved Peach.

All of that is just the more overt ways in which it is shown, and I'm sure I've missed a few. Different games give bonuses to having them work together, and considering that working well together in Mario games is a sign that the characters are close (ex. Mario would have a similar effect with Luigi), then the mechanics of the games have also implied a close relationship between the two.