Yzz
Like Like
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There is no doubt that Mario has always been the gold standard of platformers. Any other platformer, whether 2D or 3D, will be pitted against the game design and feel of both old and new Mario games. There is however one area where Mario platformers have been a little bit hit and miss, which is the way these games treat you if you approach them with a completionist mindset.
Ever since the original Super Mario Bros. Nintendo has designed these games to appeal to different types of players. If you are a slow inquisitive player the game will reward your behavior with more lives (since you will collect more coins and 1-up mushrooms), hidden power-ups, and perhaps more important of all: the Warp Zone. The faster, more actioned oriented players will benefit more from the star power-up (maybe getting lives in the process) and will add their short completion times to their scores. In SMB3 the two main power-ups, the fireflower and the tanooki, are tailored to the slow and fast player respectively. However it wasn't until Super Mario World when the games started to shift their design to be more attractive for players who like exploration and collectibles.
The first three SMB installments had an arcade progression, where you couldn't revisit already completed levels and the game restarted after reaching the credits, but this changed in SMW with its less linear design. Revisiting levels was a big feature of SMW, as doing so allowed you to find secret exits (some of which are required to reach the credits) and to complete your Dragon Coin collection. Unlike its predecessors, the biggest challenge in SMW wasn't reaching and defeating Bowser, but to collect every single Dragon Coin out there.
EDIT: the Dragon Coin challenge only applies to the GBA port, the SNES original doesn't keep track of which coins you have collected.
Now if you have played SMW, you probably know that achieving 100% completion can be quite the painful task. This is because of two reasons:
Yoshi's Island
Can you spot the secret?
Yoshi's Island has the same collectible system as SMW, where you need to get every single collectible in a single run to 100% a level. The most controversial aspect of YI are hands down the red coins, which look extremely similar to the abundant, good 'ol yellow coins, resulting in needle-in-a-haystack scenarios. A lot of the challenges of 100%ing YI can be softened with items like the magnifying glass or the star packs, but what these items cannot solve is the fact that some collectibles are in places that are impossible to find without a guide (pic related).
Super Mario Sunshine
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in video game form. If you want to reach the credits you'll experience a nice vacation game with some awkward moments. 100%ing Sunshine, on the other hand, is only second to The Lost Levels. SMS has no shortage of awful levels and although some of them aren't THAT bad, others have this sweet trifecta of janky, hard and punishing which will make you ask yourself: "what were they thinking?".
Super Mario 64 DS
It's Mario 64 with the annoying 100 coins and flying cap levels, but with 30 more stars. A somewhat reasonable challenge.
Super Mario Galaxy 2
SMG2 has one of the hardest Mario levels in The Perfect Run, which requires you to beat the hardest level on the game without getting hit. There's also the 120 green stars before that, which don't require to beat the same levels over again like in SMG1, but still feel fillerish at times. Other than that, I think this game and SMG1 are the most reasonable to 100%.
Super Mario 3D Land
Just like SMG2, SM3DL has a super difficult level at the end, but I believe most people don't consider said level as brutal as The Perfect Run / Grandmaster Galaxy. One of the easiest / less tedious games to 100%.
New Super Mario Bros. U
The NSMB series is filled with super hard levels, but the "Don't. Touch. Anything" challenge stands above all and it's an amazing candidate for hardest official Mario level.
Super Mario 3D World
SM3DW has a very meaty post-game that ends with a very hard green star challenge and the very well-known Champion's Road, the most challenging level in any 3D Mario and perhaps the entire 3D platforming genre (barring poorly designed / janky crap like some Sunshine levels).
The thing with 3D World is that there are these seals you have to collect, and five of them require you to finish every single standard level, including Champion's Road, with a particular character (finishing every level with Peach gives you the Peach sticker, and so on). If you somehow manage to have three of your friends beat all the levels and then hold them hostage for an entire afternoon to finish Champion's Road, congratulations! you only have to beat every level only one more time. If you are a lone wolf you have to beat every level FIVE times to get the 100%. It doesn't help that Champion's Road gets even harder if you pick Toad.
Super Mario Odyssey
SMO has some very annoying moons, like the one that requires you to jump the rope 100 times. Most SMO levels are pretty vast and have tons of moons in them, some of which are very well hidden. There's also Darker Side, serving as this game's super hard last level, but I don't think it comes close to being as hard as Champion's Road.
What are your most memorable moments while trying to 100% these games? Which of these games have you 100% completed?
Ever since the original Super Mario Bros. Nintendo has designed these games to appeal to different types of players. If you are a slow inquisitive player the game will reward your behavior with more lives (since you will collect more coins and 1-up mushrooms), hidden power-ups, and perhaps more important of all: the Warp Zone. The faster, more actioned oriented players will benefit more from the star power-up (maybe getting lives in the process) and will add their short completion times to their scores. In SMB3 the two main power-ups, the fireflower and the tanooki, are tailored to the slow and fast player respectively. However it wasn't until Super Mario World when the games started to shift their design to be more attractive for players who like exploration and collectibles.
The first three SMB installments had an arcade progression, where you couldn't revisit already completed levels and the game restarted after reaching the credits, but this changed in SMW with its less linear design. Revisiting levels was a big feature of SMW, as doing so allowed you to find secret exits (some of which are required to reach the credits) and to complete your Dragon Coin collection. Unlike its predecessors, the biggest challenge in SMW wasn't reaching and defeating Bowser, but to collect every single Dragon Coin out there.
EDIT: the Dragon Coin challenge only applies to the GBA port, the SNES original doesn't keep track of which coins you have collected.
Now if you have played SMW, you probably know that achieving 100% completion can be quite the painful task. This is because of two reasons:
- Unlike most modern platformers with collectibles, SMW requires you to collect every coin in a level during a single run if you want to 100% said level. This means that if you finish a level and miss a coin, you can't simply replay said level, get the missing coin and obtain the 100%. Now, it's true that many games are designed around this rule, however...
- Some of the Dragon Coins aren't positioned in a way that presents a fair challenge to the player, sometimes resulting in unfun trial-and-error scenarios. The most blatant example of this is a Dragon Coin that is on the middle of a pit and can be missed very easily, requiring the player to restart the level only to catch that coin.
Yoshi's Island
Can you spot the secret?
Yoshi's Island has the same collectible system as SMW, where you need to get every single collectible in a single run to 100% a level. The most controversial aspect of YI are hands down the red coins, which look extremely similar to the abundant, good 'ol yellow coins, resulting in needle-in-a-haystack scenarios. A lot of the challenges of 100%ing YI can be softened with items like the magnifying glass or the star packs, but what these items cannot solve is the fact that some collectibles are in places that are impossible to find without a guide (pic related).
Super Mario Sunshine
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in video game form. If you want to reach the credits you'll experience a nice vacation game with some awkward moments. 100%ing Sunshine, on the other hand, is only second to The Lost Levels. SMS has no shortage of awful levels and although some of them aren't THAT bad, others have this sweet trifecta of janky, hard and punishing which will make you ask yourself: "what were they thinking?".
Super Mario 64 DS
It's Mario 64 with the annoying 100 coins and flying cap levels, but with 30 more stars. A somewhat reasonable challenge.
Super Mario Galaxy 2
SMG2 has one of the hardest Mario levels in The Perfect Run, which requires you to beat the hardest level on the game without getting hit. There's also the 120 green stars before that, which don't require to beat the same levels over again like in SMG1, but still feel fillerish at times. Other than that, I think this game and SMG1 are the most reasonable to 100%.
Super Mario 3D Land
Just like SMG2, SM3DL has a super difficult level at the end, but I believe most people don't consider said level as brutal as The Perfect Run / Grandmaster Galaxy. One of the easiest / less tedious games to 100%.
New Super Mario Bros. U
The NSMB series is filled with super hard levels, but the "Don't. Touch. Anything" challenge stands above all and it's an amazing candidate for hardest official Mario level.
Super Mario 3D World
SM3DW has a very meaty post-game that ends with a very hard green star challenge and the very well-known Champion's Road, the most challenging level in any 3D Mario and perhaps the entire 3D platforming genre (barring poorly designed / janky crap like some Sunshine levels).
The thing with 3D World is that there are these seals you have to collect, and five of them require you to finish every single standard level, including Champion's Road, with a particular character (finishing every level with Peach gives you the Peach sticker, and so on). If you somehow manage to have three of your friends beat all the levels and then hold them hostage for an entire afternoon to finish Champion's Road, congratulations! you only have to beat every level only one more time. If you are a lone wolf you have to beat every level FIVE times to get the 100%. It doesn't help that Champion's Road gets even harder if you pick Toad.
Super Mario Odyssey
SMO has some very annoying moons, like the one that requires you to jump the rope 100 times. Most SMO levels are pretty vast and have tons of moons in them, some of which are very well hidden. There's also Darker Side, serving as this game's super hard last level, but I don't think it comes close to being as hard as Champion's Road.
What are your most memorable moments while trying to 100% these games? Which of these games have you 100% completed?
Last edited: