Were early 3D Mario Games really that Less Linear?

At least, barring Super Mario 64 itself?  Because while Super Mario 64’s ‘complete any star in any order’ thing was indeed the most ‘non linear’ the 3D game series has ever been, I think a lot of people are really overstating the non linearity of Sunshine and the Galaxy series when attacking Super Mario 3D World.

Let’s take Super Mario Sunshine for instance.  Does it have some degree less linearity?  Sure, it at least has a hub world in the form of Delfino Plaza that has various secret levels/shines you can find.  But apart from that, I’d say the game is probably the most linear, restrictive 3D Mario title in the series.

Think about it for a minute.  That whole ‘do shines/stars out of order’ thing?  Pretty much entirely gone in an instant. Oh sure, there’s exactly ONE shine sprite you can skip (the one that appears after beating the Goopy Piranha Plant boss in the first mission of Bianco Hills, since you can make your way past and up the windmill to fight Petey Piranha instead), and there are maybe two or three secret shines you can hunt down in levels that don’t require to pick specific missions to access them.  But other than that, the game’s about as linear as Galaxy is, with none of the benefit of the world truly ‘changing’ or the innovative platforming challenges.

And to add to this, the game doesn’t let you skip a single mission.  Okay, that’s not entirely true, you can skip exactly seven of them since the eighth shine sprite in every ‘world’ is optional.  Because you have to beat Shadow Mario in every single area in the game to cause Delfino Plaza to flood and unlock Corona Mountain.  That’s an amazing amount of choice you have there!

Above: You have to play through all this to see the final boss.  In every world.   Picture by Kobayashi on Youtube.

Really, the game is arguably one of the most restrictive 3D titles in the series, with the non linear appearance pretty much an illusion all round.  How is this any more ‘open world’ or ‘non linear’ or ‘more interesting’ than Galaxy or 3D Land?

Oh, and let’s look at Galaxy 1 and 2 for that too.  Most of the levels are obviously as linear as the ones in 3D Land (and the likely ones in 3D World), so what’s the difference? You get a Star instead of a flagpole?  Because from a pure gameplay perspective, that’s literally the one difference between Mario Galaxy and 3D Land.  Heck, that’s arguably true of Super Mario Sunshine 2, the Shine Sprites there are hardly so great in number that they don’t basically act like glorified flagpoles at the end of a level.

Even the more open world areas are no exception here.  Okay, you might if you’re lucky be able to find a secret star thrown in somewhere after a mini game (or being held by Luigi), but what exactly do most of them even have to do or find?  Beach Bowl Galaxy is arguably the most empty level in the game simply because the structure leaves Nintendo absolutely nothing to actually put it.  Oh it looks nice, but that’s about all it does, since secrets are basically non existent.  Starshine Beach?  Even worse, it’s like a Mario 64 or even Sunshine level with about twice the space and half the content.  Is that really better than linear level design?

Above: Two beautiful looking open world levels… with zero interesting content.

So take the generally restrictive mission structure from all Mario games since Super Mario 64, add the empty sandbox styles worlds from said games and when you think about it, 3D World isn’t really that much different from Sunshine or the Galaxy series.  In fact, I think people blaming linearity for 3D World’s reception is kind of missing the point, the issue was arguably just that the game didn’t look ‘fancy’ or ‘detailed’ enough for the 3D Mario die hards.  Because let’s face it, that’s all it really comes down to.  It didn’t look as ‘spectacular’ in the first ever trailer as the Galaxy games did, so let’s whine about it being a ‘rehash’ instead of accepting our reasons for criticism might be a bit shallow.

Guess it’s like Paper Mario Sticker Star and Super Paper Mario and how they got slammed for being ‘linear’, despite using much the same system as Thousand Year Door.  All the latter managed to do was basically disguise it better by having a more interesting world and more interesting characters.

So yeah, keep this in mind.  Super Mario 3D World ain’t that much more linear than the other 3D Mario games were, nor particularly more restricted.  It’s just those earlier games looked more impressive for their time and fooled a significant amount of people in forgetting they had fairly little content to back it up.