New hard game comes out. Idiot press wants easy mode.

[Erttheking]

Snip

You're not even arguing with me anymore. You're not addressing any of my points.

Also, From Software is not above reproach. They mess things up all the time. And you think somehow it's wrong to point that out? Even the director of Dark Souls 1 said that he was disappointed with the way that a lot of the second half of the game turned out.

 

[Kerg3927]

Apples and Oranges.

WoW got dumbed down because people asked blizzard to make the hard modes easier.
There was a time where:
Easy = Accessible, LFD, Normal Mode Dungeons.
Hard = Challenging, Required a cohesive group, Heroic Dungeons and Raids.

Burning Crusade was tough as nails, but it also had an "easy" mode in the form of normal dungeons. The Heroics were not diminished by the existence of that easy mode. But as time went on more and more people pressured for the hard modes to be made easy. Hard mode ceased to become hard.

People who are asking for an easy mode for Dark Souls are not asking for the challenge of hard mode to be diminished. Hard mode should stay authentic.

Point taken. But I still think it is a good general example of the players demanding things, the developer gradually giving in and giving it to them, and then the players rewarding the company by getting bored and quitting. And the point I was trying to make is that the players don't always know what's best for them. They can and will take a shit in their own sandbox.

I'd agree. If the easy mode actually effects the hard mode, that's a bad thing.

I've never played WoW. I can only do reference from a friend when he translates into ESO. Correct me if I don't understand something. As far as I've heard, raids from Burning Crusade were extremely long and very hard to organise because you had to have 40 people. It was arduous and now its more fun.

I dont know if WoW fits the case of Easy mode making everything easy. I thought it was actually desired by a portion of the player base.

Vanilla raids were 40-man. In Burning Crusade they were 25-man. And yeah, they were a lot of work for a guild to put together, but that was the burden of only the handful of people who organized and lead them. The rest just had to apply to a raiding guild, get accepted, prove themselves worthy of a raid slot, and then show up prepared to the scheduled raids, which for the average raiding guild was probably like 3-4 hours/night, 3 nights/week.

Everything in WoW affects everything else because it is a community, or it was. Guilds formed because there are 5-man dungeons and you needed to play in coordinated groups with others to get through that content. Then some guilds became raiding guilds, because the next content after 5-mans were 40-man raids. Success in the game was all predicated on socializing with others and proving your worth to the group.

But some people didn't like that they had to socialize and make friends to succeed. They didn't like that they had to pull their own weight as a player in order to get invited to groups. So they complained. And they complained...

So eventually Blizzard gave in. They put in LFD (Looking for Dungeon). Now to get a 5-man group, you just hit a button and hop in a queue, and bam it ported you into a dungeon with 4 other random people from around the world. And to make it so that these people didn't have to socialize and coordinate as a team or even know how to play the game competently, they dumbed down the dungeons and made them faceroll easy so you could just zerg through it.

Then they did the same for raids with LFR.

So suddenly there is no reason for anyone to have to talk to each other. No reason for anyone to have to learn to play competently. People just zerg through dumbed down dungeons and raids in silence. But here's the catch. That gets boring real fast. So people quit in droves. Subscriptions have steadily declined since then. Some would come back for the next xpac, play for a month or so, get bored, and then quit again. And now subs are estimated to be down to under 2 million, from the 12 million they had before LFR was implemented.

Yes, there are still hard mode raids. And there are still hardcore raiding guilds out there doing them. But I think the number of people doing that is far, far fewer than it was in vanilla and TBC when there was really only one difficulty mode for everyone. And I think that's because the community that once existed doesn't exist anymore and the stimulus to socialize and form large, coordinated guilds is no longer there. And I think most players never get past logging on and queuing for LFD and LFR, before quickly getting bored and quitting. And they've already seen all the raid content, albeit an extremely dumbed down version of it, and they've already gotten all of the gear, albeit versions with lesser stats, and so there is much less motivation, in my opinion, to make the jump to a real raiding guild, especially since nothing they have done up to that point has even required them to learn skills they need to succeed on that level.

Anyway, don't want to sidetrack this thread, but the bottom line is, the people who complained got what they wanted, and then they repaid Blizzard by getting bored and quitting, and it destroyed the WoW community, IMO.

 

[CaitSeith]

Reading this topic, I think the issue here seems to be that by adding an easier mode people who play in that mode will be left with the misunderstanding that they actually really played sekiro, and not the hypothetical gimped, easy to play version of sekiro which is not actually sekiro at all (as is indicated by actual sekiro not having a difficulty setting).

Shockingly, other people playing an "inferior" version of a single player game I also play continues to not diminish my play experience.

But if they like it, who am I to judge? Good for them.

"Inferior" is pretty subjective in the case of personal satisfaction and sense of accomplishment (which is pretty much the main goal of a game challenge).

 

[CaitSeith]

I'll never be a Starcraft pro, does that mean Starcraft should change so I can play it?

Well, that's what SC cheat codes are for.

https://ca.ign.com/wikis/starcraft/PC_Cheats

 

[Silvanus]

It's almost as if people understand that a game designed at a younger audience is supposed to be easy and if we want hard games we have other things to play. We understand that a game might just not appeal to us but understand that the game has it's place and let people enjoy the game for what it is. Instead of demanding the game cater to us.

Crazy right?

This hasn't actually addressed the point I made.

Both games are targeted towards particular audiences. So why d'you think people get angry about the suggestion of an easy mode, but not the suggestion of a hard mode?

Would the inclusion of an optional hard-mode (for those of us who are older but enjoy platformers anyway, like myself) somehow damage the integrity of Yoshi's Crafted World?

 

[CritialGaming]

I'll never be a Starcraft pro, does that mean Starcraft should change so I can play it?

Well, that's what SC cheat codes are for.

https://ca.ign.com/wikis/starcraft/PC_Cheats

Can't cheat in a multiplayer can you?

 

[CritialGaming]

It's almost as if people understand that a game designed at a younger audience is supposed to be easy and if we want hard games we have other things to play. We understand that a game might just not appeal to us but understand that the game has it's place and let people enjoy the game for what it is. Instead of demanding the game cater to us.

Crazy right?

This hasn't actually addressed the point I made.

Both games are targeted towards particular audiences. So why d'you think people get angry about the suggestion of an easy mode, but not the suggestion of a hard mode?

Would the inclusion of an optional hard-mode (for those of us who are older but enjoy platformers anyway, like myself) somehow damage the integrity of Yoshi's Crafted World?

Maybe because people admire the desire to push towards something harder, but they don't admire or respect people who whine about needed it too easy. But that's just my analytical thoughts behind it.

For me it's an either way thing. I don't think Yoshi needs a hardmode, just like I don't think Sekiro needs an easy mode.

 

[Silvanus]

Maybe because people admire the desire to push towards something harder, but they don't admire or respect people who whine about needed it too easy. But that's just my analytical thoughts behind it.

See, you'll notice that the outline you've given here is nothing to do with the artistic vision of the developers, or about the integrity of the experience or what-have-you. You've appealed instead to the idea of difficulty being "admirable".

That's the very basis of my point: people have this romanticised idea of hardcore games bolstering their cred, and this extends to wanting to keep it exclusive and elite. That's why the argument crops up for easy modes, but not hard modes. If it were truly about the integrity of the experience requiring a certain difficulty level, it would come up equally for both.

For me it's an either way thing. I don't think Yoshi needs a hardmode, just like I don't think Sekiro needs an easy mode.

I don't think either game needs different difficulty settings, and I think it was hyperbole of the author of the article to say Sekiro needs one.

But I sure as hell aren't going to get my jimmies in a rustle about their inclusion. I play Soulsborne games a mad amount, and I find the suggestion that an optional difficulty mode would dilute the experience to be ludicrous.

 

[balladbird]

Are you referring to hama/mudo with the rng comments? Cause you can equip worms that resist those elements if you know you're up against enemies that cast those often.

The game is really hard but only very early on, that Matador fight kicks your ass until you understand how to play smt (mainly that buffs are OP) but that has little to do with rng.

Hama/Mudo is certainly the most famous example of it, but Nocturne had a few ways RNG could getcha. An enemy could get lucky with a status effect, especially stone or fly. Enemy reinforcements could spawn endlessly and get multiple opportunities to move first, an enemy who happens to use the element your demi-fiend is weak to may happen along and decide to be picky with who he targets.

really though, none of that had to be terrible. Sure, it leads to trial-and-error and luck based missions from time to time, and generally, for a hard game, when you die you want to feel like you died because you screwed up, not because you couldn't either guess what the game had in store ahead of time, or lost a die roll, but by itself it's just another set dressing. It's when you have those elements in conjunction with long, long periods with no save point that it gets to being just plain frustrating. Replaying an hour of content because you got unlucky just never feels good.

Matador deserves his reputation, for sure. I don't think I've ever met a player who didn't die to him the first time they fought him. I actually like him as a boss idea, though. He foreshadows how much more real the Amala side quests will be compared to the rest of the game, if you decide to pursue them, and teaches newcomers that this is a game where stat buff/debuff spells (which tend to be borderline useless in most JRPGS) are *really* important in this game.

 

[CaitSeith]

I'll never be a Starcraft pro, does that mean Starcraft should change so I can play it?

Well, that's what SC cheat codes are for.

https://ca.ign.com/wikis/starcraft/PC_Cheats

Can't cheat in a multiplayer can you?

"Let me win and I'll buy you a beer". Starcraft doesn't even need to change.

 

[Trunkage]

Apples and Oranges.

WoW got dumbed down because people asked blizzard to make the hard modes easier.
There was a time where:
Easy = Accessible, LFD, Normal Mode Dungeons.
Hard = Challenging, Required a cohesive group, Heroic Dungeons and Raids.

Burning Crusade was tough as nails, but it also had an "easy" mode in the form of normal dungeons. The Heroics were not diminished by the existence of that easy mode. But as time went on more and more people pressured for the hard modes to be made easy. Hard mode ceased to become hard.

People who are asking for an easy mode for Dark Souls are not asking for the challenge of hard mode to be diminished. Hard mode should stay authentic.

Point taken. But I still think it is a good general example of the players demanding things, the developer gradually giving in and giving it to them, and then the players rewarding the company by getting bored and quitting. And the point I was trying to make is that the players don't always know what's best for them. They can and will take a shit in their own sandbox.

I'd agree. If the easy mode actually effects the hard mode, that's a bad thing.

I've never played WoW. I can only do reference from a friend when he translates into ESO. Correct me if I don't understand something. As far as I've heard, raids from Burning Crusade were extremely long and very hard to organise because you had to have 40 people. It was arduous and now its more fun.

I dont know if WoW fits the case of Easy mode making everything easy. I thought it was actually desired by a portion of the player base.

Vanilla raids were 40-man. In Burning Crusade they were 25-man. And yeah, they were a lot of work for a guild to put together, but that was the burden of only the handful of people who organized and lead them. The rest just had to apply to a raiding guild, get accepted, prove themselves worthy of a raid slot, and then show up prepared to the scheduled raids, which for the average raiding guild was probably like 3-4 hours/night, 3 nights/week.

Everything in WoW affects everything else because it is a community, or it was. Guilds formed because there are 5-man dungeons and you needed to play in coordinated groups with others to get through that content. Then some guilds became raiding guilds, because the next content after 5-mans were 40-man raids. Success in the game was all predicated on socializing with others and proving your worth to the group.

But some people didn't like that they had to socialize and make friends to succeed. They didn't like that they had to pull their own weight as a player in order to get invited to groups. So they complained. And they complained...

So eventually Blizzard gave in. They put in LFD (Looking for Dungeon). Now to get a 5-man group, you just hit a button and hop in a queue, and bam it ported you into a dungeon with 4 other random people from around the world. And to make it so that these people didn't have to socialize and coordinate as a team or even know how to play the game competently, they dumbed down the dungeons and made them faceroll easy so you could just zerg through it.

Then they did the same for raids with LFR.

So suddenly there is no reason for anyone to have to talk to each other. No reason for anyone to have to learn to play competently. People just zerg through dumbed down dungeons and raids in silence. But here's the catch. That gets boring real fast. So people quit in droves. Subscriptions have steadily declined since then. Some would come back for the next xpac, play for a month or so, get bored, and then quit again. And now subs are estimated to be down to under 2 million, from the 12 million they had before LFR was implemented.

Yes, there are still hard mode raids. And there are still hardcore raiding guilds out there doing them. But I think the number of people doing that is far, far fewer than it was in vanilla and TBC when there was really only one difficulty mode for everyone. And I think that's because the community that once existed doesn't exist anymore and the stimulus to socialize and form large, coordinated guilds is no longer there. And I think most players never get past logging on and queuing for LFD and LFR, before quickly getting bored and quitting. And they've already seen all the raid content, albeit an extremely dumbed down version of it, and they've already gotten all of the gear, albeit versions with lesser stats, and so there is much less motivation, in my opinion, to make the jump to a real raiding guild, especially since nothing they have done up to that point has even required them to learn skills they need to succeed on that level.

Anyway, don't want to sidetrack this thread, but the bottom line is, the people who complained got what they wanted, and then they repaid Blizzard by getting bored and quitting, and it destroyed the WoW community, IMO.

That's interesting. My friend is a guild leader and leads raids so he talks to a lot of people. My view might be tainted by this.

Also, this is pretty much what ESO does. I get in dungeon finders all the time. I get my social stuff through guild events and discord. Not dungeons. This seems to work for ESO as they claim to have 2 million daily users which is way up from a couple of years ago.

I don't know about thid dumbed down stuff. I don't understand how that connected to dungeon finders. It doesn't seem like they should be connected. But I'm probably at my limit of interest in WoW so any response would be ignored. I just can't care about that game.

 

[Kerg3927]

You're not even arguing with me anymore. You're not addressing any of my points.

Also, From Software is not above reproach. They mess things up all the time. And you think somehow it's wrong to point that out? Even the director of Dark Souls 1 said that he was disappointed with the way that a lot of the second half of the game turned out.

I think we've both made our arguments, and we're both pretty clear on each other's stance on this. But if you want, I'll address the points in your last post...

I'm pretty sure you accusing her of not putting effort end would end with her slapping the shit out of you. And she's 23.

That would be mean of her, but after she slapped me, I would suggest to her that she take that passion and instead focus it on learning to beat Iudex Gundyr. Because I know she can probably do it if she keeps at it and learns the boss's patterns. And then I'd offer to show her some tips or send her a youtube video or two that would teach her everything she needs to know in minutes. I'd also point out that if she can get past that first boss, she can summon other players to help her with most of the other bosses in the game, if needed.

No offense, not every gamer gives a shit. Some people...

There is no reason why From Software should have to cater to "every gamer." No other games do that. And "some people" have tons of other games that they can play if they don't like From Software's design.

Well glad to see that Dark Souls players can handle fighting the urge to make things easier for themselves and therefore an easy mode wouldn't be some horrible burden on them.

I can. Some can't.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Maybe because people admire the desire to push towards something harder, but they don't admire or respect people who whine about needed it too easy. But that's just my analytical thoughts behind it.

See, you'll notice that the outline you've given here is nothing to do with the artistic vision of the developers, or about the integrity of the experience or what-have-you. You've appealed instead to the idea of difficulty being "admirable".

That's the very basis of my point: people have this romanticised idea of hardcore games bolstering their cred, and this extends to wanting to keep it exclusive and elite. That's why the argument crops up for easy modes, but not hard modes. If it were truly about the integrity of the experience requiring a certain difficulty level, it would come up equally for both.

^So much THIS. Some seem to believe there?s only ONE thing to appreciate and ONE way to enjoy Souls games making that one reason the sole reason for their existence?

Let me try this approach: Sports, Beat-?Em-Ups, RPGs, FPSs, RTSs, MMOs, LMNOPs, etc. whatever forever, amen, are ?genres,? aka, those broad terms that quickly and generally qualify what one can reasonably expect from a given game?s experience. Can we agree on that?

?Hard? is not a genre; ?hard? is an adjective which might (and certainly subjectively) describe a single quality of a game. Can we agree on that?

In sticking with the titles we?ve been discussing, we?ve had various opinions as to whether the Souls games are actually ?hard? games; some say yes, it?s what they?re all about; others say not really once you memorize everything. Can we agree on that?

If an avid Fantasy RPG fan wants to experience the world and lore of a Souls game (and rightfully so) and the not necessarily the notorious difficulty over which its self-appointed harden veterans whet their egos, why should a rigid difficulty level be the price of admission? Clearly, as it stands, the difficulty of these RPGs is highly subjective; easier modes would only serve to broaden their appeal and ultimately their following. You know what developers of highly popular and broadly disseminated games get? I?ll just say it ain?t nothing bad?

 

[TrulyBritish]

I'll never be a Starcraft pro, does that mean Starcraft should change so I can play it?

Well, that's what SC cheat codes are for.

https://ca.ign.com/wikis/starcraft/PC_Cheats

Can't cheat in a multiplayer can you?

Yeah, because that would actually affect the experience of someone else other than the player doing the cheating.

 

[CaitSeith]

No offense, not every gamer gives a shit. Some people...

There is no reason why From Software should have to cater to "every gamer." No other games do that. And "some people" have tons of other games that they can play if they don't like From Software's design.

But they do cater to those gamers with their impressive visuals, complex animations, holistic design, memorable lore and well structured layouts. If you can't appreciate any of those integral components in From Software games, maybe these games aren't for you...

 

[Kerg3927]

No offense, not every gamer gives a shit. Some people...

There is no reason why From Software should have to cater to "every gamer." No other games do that. And "some people" have tons of other games that they can play if they don't like From Software's design.

But they do cater to those gamers with their impressive visuals, complex animations, holistic design, memorable lore and well structured layouts. If you can't appreciate any of those integral components in From Software games, maybe these games aren't for you...

I do.

 

[CritialGaming]

Reading the comments in this thread...makes me wonder how anyone ever played videogames in the classic 2D era. Obviously most of the big names were a few notches above SoulsBorne difficulty, yet there weren?t nearly the cries for including easy modes back then. People look back and say, ?Oh yeah, a buddy and I took turns and finally beat Super Ghouls n Ghosts together. It was awesome!? Everyone familiar would instantly recognize it for what it was: a difficult game. There was no need to ask, ?Oh, well what difficulty did you play it on??

Videogames aren?t a passive activity, so concepts like challenge naturally shift to the forefront of factors that can build appeal. Even single player games are played for challenge and the feelings of overcoming the odds against you, let alone the entertainment value. If some games are designed to have a fixed level of challenge, then they shouldn?t be penalized for it. The fact that they are ?just games? is beside the point.

To reiterate, the notion that adding difficulty options won?t change anything falls apart when considering that?s the very point of them to begin with. Then the argument usually pivots into ?Oh, well you must be an elitist to want to keep people from enjoying something!? Uh, no. Consumers choose with their dollars what they consider to be intriguing game design, and FROM has clearly garnered a significant following and acclaim with their current philosophy. Their fanbase has also grown exponentially in the last decade based on the same. Very doubtful the same could be said if they made their games like everyone else. True, the challenge is only a part of their success model, but still a vital one nonetheless.

 

[Trunkage]

Reading the comments in this thread...makes me wonder how anyone ever played videogames in the classic 2D era. Obviously most of the big names were a few notches above SoulsBorne difficulty, yet there weren?t nearly the cries for including easy modes back then. People look back and say, ?Oh yeah, a buddy and I took turns and finally beat Super Ghouls n Ghosts together. It was awesome!? Everyone familiar would instantly recognize it for what it was: a difficult game. There was no need to ask, ?Oh, well what difficulty did you play it on??

Videogames aren?t a passive activity, so concepts like challenge naturally shift to the forefront of factors that can build appeal. Even single player games are played for challenge and the feelings of overcoming the odds against you, let alone the entertainment value. If some games are designed to have a fixed level of challenge, then they shouldn?t be penalized for it. The fact that they are ?just games? is beside the point.

To reiterate, the notion that adding difficulty options won?t change anything falls apart when considering that?s the very point of them to begin with. Then the argument usually pivots into ?Oh, well you must be an elitist to want to keep people from enjoying something!? Uh, no. Consumers choose with their dollars what they consider to be intriguing game design, and FROM has clearly garnered a significant following and acclaim with their current philosophy. Their fanbase has also grown exponentially in the last decade based on the same. Very doubtful the same could be said if they made their games like everyone else. True, the challenge is only a part of their success model, but still a vital one nonetheless.

You know those old sort of games were about forcing micro transactions on you, right? It's the same principle that mobile games have, stupidly difficult to make you spend more money.

Also, fixed level games are being punished? By who? The people who think that the game is too hard? I feel like you need to reread your last paragraph. Becuase you've failed to realise that the only people punishing FROM is FROM. These people are telling FROM exactly what they need to buy their game. It's called feedback. It's up to FROM to decide if they want their money or not.

Lastly, didn't the world suddenly turn upside down? Did difficulty modes ruin Doom? System Shcok? Dues Ex? Dishonoured? Otherwise your claim that difficulty mode ruins games is false. It CAN ruin some games but it's definitely not all.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Reading the comments in this thread...makes me wonder how anyone ever played videogames in the classic 2D era. Obviously most of the big names were a few notches above SoulsBorne difficulty, yet there weren?t nearly the cries for including easy modes back then. People look back and say, ?Oh yeah, a buddy and I took turns and finally beat Super Ghouls n Ghosts together. It was awesome!? Everyone familiar would instantly recognize it for what it was: a difficult game. There was no need to ask, ?Oh, well what difficulty did you play it on??

Videogames aren?t a passive activity, so concepts like challenge naturally shift to the forefront of factors that can build appeal. Even single player games are played for challenge and the feelings of overcoming the odds against you, let alone the entertainment value. If some games are designed to have a fixed level of challenge, then they shouldn?t be penalized for it. The fact that they are ?just games? is beside the point.

To reiterate, the notion that adding difficulty options won?t change anything falls apart when considering that?s the very point of them to begin with. Then the argument usually pivots into ?Oh, well you must be an elitist to want to keep people from enjoying something!? Uh, no. Consumers choose with their dollars what they consider to be intriguing game design, and FROM has clearly garnered a significant following and acclaim with their current philosophy. Their fanbase has also grown exponentially in the last decade based on the same. Very doubtful the same could be said if they made their games like everyone else. True, the challenge is only a part of their success model, but still a vital one nonetheless.

Those 2D games weren't a few "notches" above Souls, there's an ocean separating them. I don't know how anyone can say Souls is actually hard when I played The Lion King, Rescue Rangers, Daffy Duck, Ducktales and many more as a kid. And I'm purposefully emitting the games from that era that have the reputation for being extremely hard. Making games like everyone else is far far more than just putting in difficulty settings. Bioware putting story mode in ME3 didn't make them a studio that makes games like everyone else, it was Anthem as that's a game that everyone else is making. Souls will still be Souls with the addition of Easy difficulty just like Mass Effect 3 was still a Bioware game. Gaming has grown exponentially since the 2D era as well. Just maybe that has to do with games being more approachable.

Dunkey's video nails what accomplishment in gaming actually is and no easy mode will take that away from any game ever.

"The idea of accomplishment doesn't stem from beating the game, but rather mastering it." It's just that those 8/16-bit games required mastery to beat. Thus, beating them was an accomplishment, which isn't true of beating a Souls game.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

We've had this debate before on this site. Should a games journalist be competent at video games in order to write about them? Like the whole Cuphead thing where the guy couldn't figure out the tutorial, it would be like reading a book review from someone who reads at a 1st grade level.

Yeah, and people, some-fucking-how, keep ignoring the fact that the dude praised Cuphead the entire time, wasn't reviewing it, and fully admitted culpability for flubbing gameplay footage from a convention floor on day 3, AND "GAMERS" ARE STILL LOSING THEIR MINDS OVER SUPPOSED "BASHING OF CUPHEAD" THAT NEVER FUCKING HAPPENED!

I'd say it's a perfect fucking parallel, because the people laying into the games journalists have a preconceived box they're pulling arguments from instead of actually listening to the people they're insulting!

Reading the comments in this thread...makes me wonder how anyone ever played videogames in the classic 2D era. Obviously most of the big names were a few notches above SoulsBorne difficulty, yet there weren?t nearly the cries for including easy modes back then. People look back and say, ?Oh yeah, a buddy and I took turns and finally beat Super Ghouls n Ghosts together. It was awesome!? Everyone familiar would instantly recognize it for what it was: a difficult game. There was no need to ask, ?Oh, well what difficulty did you play it on??

Yes, let's do that.

Let's talk about games in the classic 2D era.

Let's talk about Mega Man II. A game on damn near everyone's shortlist for Best Mega Man Game Ever. Let's talk about how Mega Man 2 had a Normal mode and a Difficult mode. Let's talk about how Normal Mode wasn't in the Japanese release, and was added as an optional easy difficulty mode for international release.

Didn't seem to ruin Mega Man, now did it

Or should we talk about Super Mario Brothers 2? Where you played as either Mario, Luigi, Toad, or Peach and threw vegetables at Birdo. Except that isn't SMB2, that's what they released in the US because actual SMB2 was balls hard and they didn't think we'd like it. Now let's talk about how it was so successful that Nintendo re-localized it for Japan under the name of Super Mario USA and how design elements from it define the Mario universe to this day.