"We'll be donning out catsuits and playing with each other in Super Mario 3D World."

Matt, I love ya dude, but not like that.

Great review as always, but your complaint about the Cosmic Guide is misguided. What the Cosmic Guide does is giving you a Bronze Star which doesn't add up to your Power Star total, and therefore you can't unlock later stages with them. Players can't be lazy and experience the contents of the whole game by relying on the Cosmic Guide, it's just a way to show them what they're supposed to do, but then expects them to do it on their own.

"In the next video we'll be donning our catsuits and playing with each other..." o.O

Wait tutorial, slow down - how do I press this... this... "A button"? How much pressure am I supposed to exert with my finger?
For the long jump, am I supposed to hold down the button for 2,3 or (bear with me here) 4 entire seconds?
This is all too confusing - what do you think I am, a god damn rocket scientist?

"Their series become somewhat rigid, with certain conventions becoming deeply ingrained for seemingly no reason"

The mindset that killed Paper Mario.

Oooohhh.... you press 'A' to jump! That's why I was stuck on the very first level for the last 6 years. Damn it, Nintendo, WHY DID I NOT GET THAT INSTRUCTIONAL DVD???

"Where can we POSSIBLY go after space?"

Nintendo: ...SPACE AGAIN...WITH YOSHI

"Donning our cat suits and playing with each other"
Matthew pls.

It's a shame you never did Mario Odyssey. That game is incredible.

I would love to see this guy make a couple of comeback videos for Breath of the Wild and Odyssey. Regardless, his Mario and Zelda series should seriously be required material in any game design course.

I've been watching all of these videos again. Also reading the comments. There seem to be a lot of people saying "aha, this is why this Mario game is the best/worst!"

I think my biggest takeaway from these videos is that all the Mario games excel in different areas. They all do their own thing, and all are worth playing. SM64 brilliantly transitioned the series to 3D. Sunshine expanded Mario's movement in a huge way, and at the same time made Mario easier to control. Galaxy and Galaxy 2 had amazingly innovative level design. 3D World has an absurd amount of polish.

All of them are some of the best the 3D platforming genre has to offer. Even Sunshine, the game that many are quick to call the worst of the 3D Mario games.

Also, kudos for having a very balanced view of all the games. You compare them where it's applicable, but you never say "this game is better", you always say "this game does this one thing better".

I remember how excited I was for SMG2. Honestly I don't think I could ever be that excited for something ever again, I was hyped beyond anything.

2:35 I'm sorry, I'm confused... How do I jump, again? :P

Do people lack critical thinking or what? I wasn't exactly a genius as an 8 year old but spamming different buttons, holding them down in different combinations and just generally pissing around with the controller was the first thing I did if I got stuck. That said though games back then had a thick manual to tell you everything about it.

I personally see Galaxy 2 as roughly equivalent to Galaxy 1, but with much larger ups and downs. The best parts of Galaxy 2 were far better than in Galaxy 1, but the lowest points were far worse; mostly due to the Green Stars and grinding Star Bits for Grandmaster: The Daredevil Run.

12:14 this transition is 👌

I'm seeing a lot of these comments saying the cosmic guide doesn't actually give the player the star, which makes this sort of irrelevant. However, I'd still like to add a third point to your list of arguments for it: video games are meant to be enjoyable. For me, repeatedly losing the same level over and over again ceases to be fun, especially when I kmow exactly what's meant to be done but my hands just won't do it consistently. It's a good challenge at first, but trying for too long with no reward is ultimately frustrating, and it even sours the victory at the end. Instead of feeling triumphant, my response is usually something like "fucking finally." And it feels deeply unfair that I can't progress to the rest of the game without getting past this one insurmountable hurdle.

Because of that, I don't mind something with a bit of hand holding when you're well and truly stuck. It's offering a chance to return to the fun stuff for frustrated players, while those who want to conquer it themselves can simply ignore that aid. Plus the option to move on to something else makes it much more likely that I would come back to that challenge later to try again.

I always surprised there was a sequel at all really  even if it was originally meant to be a special edition.

But It's a shame 3D World is a step backwards in creative terms.

As much as I loved SMG2 the first one will always have my heart! I don't know, something about SMG2 just didn't have that sense of adventure, I completed it so fast I didn't really get a chance to like any of the worlds. They all just seemed so, empty and constricting. I found that I didn't want to stay in the worlds for very long unlike in SMG1.

I like the talk about the Cosmic Guide here, but I think I'm on the side of throwing it away completely to never hear from it again because I feel Nintendo already shuts physically disabled gamers out with some of their hardware and refusal to allow the player some flexibility.

I think it can be argued that the Wii Remote/Nunchuck in general isn't very disability friendly, I would know being a disabled gamer. There's games on the Wii that I just flat out can't play, occasionally only coming to that realization after already having paid for the game in hopes that I could find a work around. Mario Galaxy 2, fortunately, was not one such case as I finished the game to completion despite not having the ability to simultaneously grip two controllers. However, Zelda Skyward Sword is a game that's literally impossible for me to play, and it's very unfortunate considering I like a lot of the conventions of that game. I feel that Nintendo neglects the disabled gamer quite a lot with their hardware designs, whether that be intentional or not it's shitty coming from a perspective that's played Nintendo games heavily since early childhood. The rumored patent on the NX has me just as worried, I was relieved when the Wii U launched because I could actually play the games on it, but if the NX is anything like what that patent shows then I might be forced to sit out of another of their hardware generations.

It's truly not fun, I've even considered writing to Nintendo about coming up with alternatives or being more proactive about the ability to customize control schemes, which is a feature I greatly appreciate on my PS4, it allows me to play FPS games properly despite my very limited reach and mobility.