Super Mario 3D Land is a gateway game to other Mario titl...

[robometal cowboy]

Super Mario 3D Land is a gateway game to other Mario titles, says director
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"We thought of setting the difficulty level about as low as we could go realistically for this game because we saw this as an entry point to the Mario games for a lot of people. So the way we see it is someone would pick up Super Mario 3D Land and play that, and then maybe they would move onto Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario Sunshine or Super Mario 64 after that.

Speaking as a Mario game fan personally, I should admit that I had trouble trying to clear the first two Super Mario Bros. games. So for me, I wanted to create a game that I could at the very least clear. Even if it meant using Assist Blocks, I was able to clear this one, of course.

Even though there's still a little bit of good challenge in worlds 7 and 8, people have at least the option to adjust the difficulty for what feels appropriate to them. If that means they need to challenge themselves to find all the star medals in a certain levels, they can do that. But we're not forcing people to do something at a very high level of difficulty all the way through." - director Koichi Hayashida

A statement like this makes me wonder just how many kids/adults are playing Super Mario 3D Land as their first Mario title. That must be an interesting experience!

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[Chaoxys]

I'm wondering if this means that the next one will be a little harder then. I mean, they can't make each entry a starting point for the series right?


Well they could but I kinda hope to see more challenges in the future.

[Mirr0rR3flection]

Ｔｈｅ　ｎｅｘｔ　ｏｎｅ　ｈａｄ　ｂｅｔｔｅｒ ｂｅ ｈａｒｄｅｒ.

This game was too easy.

[Jerome]

From this and his other interview, it doesn't even seem Hayashida was able to get through any of the NES Mario games, kinda like how Aonuma never even got very far in NES Zelda. Pretty weird that the main guys now in charge of the Mario and Zelda series don't even seem to like their early entries much. Hmmmm, I guess that helps explain why I don't like the direction those series have been taking recently.

[MrGameBoy]

I actually wish this attitude towards game difficulty could be seen in more games. I felt the Mario Galaxy games and Kirby's Epic Yarn were not only accessible but also rewarding for relatively seasoned players. While I do like a good challenge (I love you, DK Country Returns... ), not every game has to balls-out hard.

@Jerome
But didn't this interview state he "cleared the first two Super Mario Bros. games"? Assuming he played the Japanese versions, Hayashida did finish the (infamously tough) Lost Levels, right?

While the 2D Mario and Zelda games were good for their time, playing them now reveals (for me) how primitive they were in feel (with Super Mario Bros. 3 and maybe World as exceptions). I don't know if I'm the only one, but I felt the controls, especially for 2D Zelda games, to be uncomfortably more stiff and limiting. And despite the easy-to-understand controls, the games weren't exactly the most inviting, with NES Mario platformers' lacking the ability to save progress. If you're willing to, can you tell me what qualities you like in the Mario and Zelda franchises? I'd really like to know. (If the response is too long, please message me. )