/vr/ - Retro Games

The answer is the different world maps.

In Super Mario Bros. 3, there were more powerups, sure; but levels were completed in a more or less linear order, with the option for a few alternate paths between worlds, or skipping worlds. If you encounter a Hammer Suit or Frog Suit or Tanooki Suit or Kuribo's Shoe, the levels around have been mostly built for it and balanced around its movement/attacks. The suits break a few levels; but in those cases, then the player's being rewarded for holding onto the costume for so long.

With Mario World, you can suddenly revisit old levels whenever, scour them for powerups, and use them to go forward. Levels with multiple exits, switch palaced, and secret stages encourage players to go back to levels they beat. After one point, you could visit the Super Secret Area whenever you like, and get powerups with zero risk. Not to mention, there's a convenient save system. Suddenly, all levels have to be balanced with this in mind. They'd need to test every stage with a Frog Suit, Hammer Suit, Tanooki Suit, Golden Cat Suit, and whatever other options there are; and redesign every level design to accommodate the possibility that a player might've smuggled a new powerup in. Nintendo today might have the programmers, testers, and time they need for that, with their suit-heavy NSMBs. I don't expect 90s Nintendo, putting together a launch title for new hardware, had that same luxury.

So they limited it to a few basic powerups that every level could be generally balanced around; and a couple of game-breaking abilities as rewards for secret areas. Put more simply: Mario 3 is made for discovering cool new abilities in single playthroughs, Super Mario World is made to for discovering cool new places through backtracking.

I know retro consoles have upscale lag on hd tvs.

But when is the cutoff?
Does N64 and GameCube lag on hd tvs??