#nintendo ead

[n64retro]

0245. Suicune 3D model from Pokémon Stadium 2.

[posthumanwanderings]

Great Fairy, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Nintendo EAD - SNES - 1991)

[panda-pal]

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (1993) Developed by Nintendo EAD

[genobeat]

Japanese Disc - Super Mario Sunshine

[the2dvgstages]

"The Reznors" [Mirror Edit] - Super Mario World

[everygame]

Super Mario Bros. 2 / The Lost Levels

Developed/Published by: Nintendo EAD / Nintendo Released: 3/05/1986 Completed: 14/05/2023 Completion: Beat it by using warp zones (1-2 to 4-1, 5-2 to 8) and abusing saves at the most miserable parts. At least I'm honest! Version Played: Switch Online Trophies / Achievements: n/a 

How many times have I played the original Super Mario Bros. in my life? It must be thousands, from the real thing, pirate carts, emulation as early as Nesticle… of all video games it is probably the platonic form of the video game, the first screen the most indelible image, beating out Pac-Man or anything modern.

It is the Mona Lisa to art, or Dancing Queen to pop. Something we all know, something you respect, something that, probably, you never need to look at or hear again.

I do think that’s how I feel about the original Super Mario Bros. A masterpiece that I don’t really want to touch. In fact, even though I’ve never played The Lost Levels, I’ve played Super Mario Bros. so much that I approached this almost without curiosity, and after playing it for a while and slamming into its absurd difficulty spikes, I put it down for a long long time.

Because I just found it boring. The story goes that when developing VS. Super Mario Bros., Nintendo’s unusual (US-only!) arcade remix of the NES original, Miyamoto and his team had such fun making the levels more difficult that they thought it would be even more fun if they made an entire game of extremely hard levels–and with Nintendo all-in on the Famicom Disk System, a new Mario game wouldn’t even have to be a huge production. They could just slam it out on disk, quickly.

The thing is… as a level designer, I’m keenly aware that making extremely difficult levels is… well, it’s fun! But it’s fun because it’s easy. You just have to do a couple of things. You make everything that the player has to do require them get it perfect or at the absolute limit of their player character’s abilities. So the platform is as far as it can be for them to land on it at full speed. And then the other thing you do is that you trick the player as much as possible. You know that they need to jump there to make it across, so why not put a block in their way so they’ll bump their head and not make it! Funny!

It’s one of the first thing a level designer does, and I have been as guilty of it as anyone. It’s why games like Limbo are bad, because they’re tuned exactly this way. The player doesn’t play. They just do exactly, exactly what the designer is demanding that they do, with the frustration that what they’re being asked to do is either obscure, difficult, or both.

The funny thing about The Lost Levels, though, is that despite its fierce reputation, the game isn’t made up of only these moments. In fact, when you play the Lost Levels, you become aware of what it is that you’re good at in a Mario game and which parts of the design or controls you’ve never got a hook on. Because while I wouldn’t claim the levels have any meaningful overarching design concept, they generally just… play like a Super Mario Bros. level, until you get to a difficulty spike or a lie.

Playing the Lost Levels, I realized: I’m actually not bad at getting past Hammer Bros.; I guess I’ve internalized how to do it. I can get past fire bars!

But a springboard? Fuck me. It’ll kill me 99 times out of a hundred. I just can’t hit the button at the right time, and maybe I never will. From about the second level of this I’m fucked.

The cleverness, then, of the designers at the time was to work out which of these things were going to fuck the most players. What ways of playing Super Mario Bros. people hadn’t internalised. So it’s not just jumping to hit things at Mario’s limit, sometimes you’re having to awkwardly jump to platforms below you, or hit blocks just right so you don’t immediately suicide and can then get on top of them later.

It’d probably be fine if you didn’t have to generally play through the entire fucking level just to get back to the bit you fucked up! Unlike the classic argument for this (“you’re getting better at the game each time you have to run to the bit you got stuck on!”) here you’re already good at Super Mario Bros. so used to it, generally, that you’re bored of it. And then you do a bit that uses a muscle you’ve maybe never used.

This is probably fun to some people, and I’m sure it was fun to a room full of Nintendo game designers in 1986, but it’s not for me. I mean they really are taking the piss at some points (like 8-2, where the exit is actually completely hidden without a bit of luck or foreknowledge.) 

Some people–many people–are still happy when Dancing Queen comes on the radio. It’s possible you’re one of the people for whom more Mario is always a good thing, who consider the slippy inertia and brown graphics as good as a warm bath. If you are, this is largely more Mario, just sort of unfair in a way that is only rarely interesting.

Will I ever play it again? The Lost Levels, originally Super Mario Bros. 2 “for Super Players” truly was for the super player in that if you could finish it without using warps you got an extra world–where you only got one life. And if you beat the game eight times, you got four extra worlds. I will have a noodle on the SNES port of this one day but I just don’t feel like I need to see any of those extras…

Final Thought: The Lost Levels stands out to me as a situation where an American video game executive actually was correct, which even as I type it I can’t really believe it. Howard Phillips, Nintendo’s product analyst, gave such poor feedback to this that it was decided that it shouldn’t be released in the US.

I don’t think Phillips was thinking this way, but The Lost Levels represents a moment for the Mario franchise where it could have faced stagnation and irrelevance. Nintendo of Japan was thinking in the past. Think of Lode Runner, a series that really doesn’t come up in conversation at all, but in the early 80s was a phenomenon. Sequels and remixes were released endlessly, in a flood, doing nothing but creating more and more difficult and obscure games that you couldn’t even begin to play unless you were a Lode Runner master. I myself remember trying to get past the first level of Hyper Lode Runner on the Game Boy as a kid and never managing it.

It would be possible to hypothesise, actually, that in being forced to remix Doki Doki Panic into Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3 as a true evolution of the platform game as a whole was begat.

Not that I’m saying that’s what happened or anything. Just interesting to think about.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up digital copies of exp., a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[grinbrothers]

Splatoon - Rest In Peace Wii U's Online: Souldin Special!

In tribute to the Wii U's online services last day, premiering at 9PM BST on 8/4/2024! Nanka escapes a kraken, witnesses an inkling plunge to the watery depths, and gets lost looking at a map.

Nanka with Wii U Gamepad by KymmaFox: https://twitter.com/kymmafox Nanka with Sign by ShySamArt: https://www.deviantart.com/shysamart/art/Commission-Nanka-966702081 Music from Eternal Radiance by Visualnoveler. Splatoon is exclusive to the Nintendo Wii U. Check out BeeLy1011's channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMkA-vIz65khU5unv9dG-fw

Date Made: 7/1/2024 to 28/1/2024 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@grinbrothers Tumblr: http://grinbrothers.tumblr.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/GrinBrothers

[hifi-walkman]

It's really sorta crazy to me that Splatoon is a core nintendo game, not just a core nintendo game, but a game by EAD, the core nintendo team. It feels more like it should come from R&D1's weirdness, or a second party studio like Retro, Hal, or the Rareware of old. But no, this alternative, very gay, online shooter, about squids in the post apocalypse is made by the same team that makes Mario.

[thefreecheese]

The Free Cheese Episode 505: Donkey Kong

This week on The Free Cheese, jump, man. Donkey Kong returns in 1994’s Game Boy release, making its debut on The List in this episode. We talk about the game, its creation, how it created new moves for Mario, and where it ended up. Reviews Joe Donkey Kong is a perfect Game Boy game and exemplary in creating an experience designed for portability. I view my time with Donkey Kong like I would…

[n64retro]

F-Zero X (Nintendo EAD, 1998)

[n64retro]

Super Mario 64 DS Nintendo EAD Nintendo DS 2004

[posthumanwanderings]

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Fairy Fountain (NoPlay)

[gamercats-fight]

FINALS: [REDACTED] from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective vs Judd from Splatoon. Who's going to win?? You decide!!

Need help picking? Check down here!

[REDACTED] - CAPCOM - 2010 - Magic black cat:

-He is DEAD and has GHOST POWERS. He can TIME TRAVEL. He has a LOVING CAT DAD as his OWNER and the only family they have left is EACH OTHER. I would go into detail but that would involve spoiling the best mystery game ever written. You should play Ghost Trick. This stupid cat has not left my brain in months. He's haunting me. Which is fitting because he is a ghost. Did I mention he's a ghost cat what is cooler than a ghost cat.

-most special little guy in the world. hes HUGE spoilers for the game btw but um. yea <3

-Because [REDACTED] is the true Schroeder’s cat, he is both dead and alive at the same time and has really cool ghost powers. Also, he can’t read!

-If you haven’t played Ghost Trick, I tragically cannot tell you the spoilers, but this cat is sweet and determined and got a sad man through some rough times.

-I played the game on stream for my friend and they said he reminds them of their own dead cat bc they look alike. A vote for [REDACTED] is a vote for Riley!

Judd - Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 - 2015 - Anthropomorphic tuxedo cat:

He survived an apocalypse and is apparently immortal

[genobeat]

North American Box Art - Super Mario Sunshine

[the2dvgstages]

"Armos Knights" - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past