/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10105254
That's nice and all, Crash is a better game through and through. It's meant to appeal to gamers, not kids looking for a toy playground.

>>9573378
later 3D mario games are miyamoto submitting that mario 64's meandering sandboxes were a mistake, but his approach of throwing out the baby with the bathwater was a mistake. Mario 64 actually has decent moves...but the levels rarely encourage the player to use them. More like that in a more focused environment would go far as the sunshine underground stages showed. Shame about the rest of the game however.

>>9277482
the gamecube was nintendo's tribute to the PS1

>>9119665
That's a given, Crash implements the classic rule of 3's game design while Mario 64 experiments with more modern open world style sandbox-checklist completion design. One is timeless, the other is overdone to the point that it's a wonder why it ever took off to begin with.

It's well known at this point that Miyamoto himself was uncertain with which direction to take Mario in 3D space. He eventually settled on stealing Argonauts ideas but there were many compromises along the way. The end result demonstrates this, Mario 64 forsakes the design direction he helped pioneer in classic 2D spaces. The essential rule of 3's. Introduce a mechanic safely, test the player with the real thing, and lastly put a twist on it. Mario does it, Kirby does it, Sonic does it, and DKC does it. It's just how you make a game.

Mario 64's meandering approach has you repetitively navigating large areas just as a means of taking your time. It's just space for you to move though, ignore it and proceed. No rule of 3s, just waste your time. At E3 Shiggsy saw Crash.

"Oh my god." He thought. "They did it, they made the platform genre, MY GENRE, into 3D. It has it all. Iconic looney tunes inspired character design, high fidelity and detailed 3D graphics, tight classical game play and above all, rule of 3s. It's THE essential 3D game.

He was stunned, and at first felt cheated. It would be a long time before Miyamoto would return to Crash.

>>7964224
To be fair this hyper-reductionist defensiveness is telltale. Everyone knows at this point, Mario 64 was NOT the game Miyamoto wanted to make. Hard at work on Mario 64, crawling over a sloppy camera and shoddy levels with repeated objectives, Miyamoto lit up when he saw Crash Bandicoot at E3. "How did they do it? It's so simple!" Miyamoto couldn't believe it.

His classical rules of game design, rule of 3's, was applied to a 3D game. A 3D platformer. HIS genre. He made a glorified checklist completion game. It didn't abide by classical rules, it threw them away. It's no surprise that the only good parts of Mario 64's sequel, Sunshine, were the straight and simple fluddless underground stages. Pure 3D platforming...as pioneered by Crash Bandicoot.

>>6581309
>Now Crash Bandicootu? That was a fine piece of ludology.

>>6257954
>Crash Bandicoot
Only the creator of Mario 64 thinks that.

Did you know?
At E3 1996 Miyamoto got to experience Donkey Kong Country's game play applied to a 3D space. As you may know, DKC follows a classical progression of difficulty in games, a 4 step progression. First a mechanic or idea is introduced, second it is expanded upon with a challenge, third a twist is introduced, and fourth the twist is combined with the idea to create a final challenge. DKC and Crash follow this formula to a T, a formula popularized by the earliest Super Mario Bros. games.

Mario 64 abandoned this formula, focusing instead on acclimating players to a new type of control method. The actual game part of the game got much less attention and it shows. Miyamoto felt the same way, hooked to Crash Bandicoot he realized that Mario 64 shouldn't be what it is, but development was too far along.

dkc is a snappy feeling game with potential for fast movement that when you do achieve it, it feels nice. some of the gimmicks are poorly done, such as in snow barrel blast where the gimmick is it's hard to see where the barrel will shoot you out. the second game is also good, kind of more of the same of the first one but clearly a little better polished and less stupid shit like in dkc1. 3 isn't really worth playing.

The first two at least closely follow the typical rule of 3's design, nothing special there, most games did it, but it's interesting that nintendo didn't revisit it with mario 64. Mario 64 is clearly experimental in its design but they didn't figure out a way to apply a tried and true method of design, instead doing something more free form and "theme park" focused where you get a goal, have to travel to the area where you do it, and then platform or whatever to achieve it.

If anything, Crash Bandicoot applied the DKC style design to a 3D space better. Snappy momentum carrying movement, flowing levels with occasional secrets (DKC definitely had more but I think it's more a credit to being 2D than anything else), collecting shit along the ways - although the crate system is great. I wonder if Miyamoto would have rather made Crash when he saw how others were approaching 3D platforming.