Super Mario's Invisible Difficulty Settings

From Super Mario Bros. to Mario Wonder, Nintendo has explored and experimented with a genius way to let players dictate their own level of difficulty.

=== Sources and Resources ===

- Sources

[1] New Super Mario Bros: Volume 1 | Iwata Asks

[2] Super Mario World – 1990 Developer Interview | Shmuplations

[3] New Super Mario Bros: Volume 3 | Iwata Asks

[4] Interview with Shigeru Miyamoto | Nintendo Channel

[5] New Super Mario Bros: Volume 2 | Iwata Asks

[6] 9 Things Shigeru Miyamoto Told Us About the New Star Fox | TIME

[7] Super Mario Bros. Any% Speedrun in 4:54.631 *WR* | Niftski

[8] Is it Possible to Beat New Super Mario Bros. U Without Touching a Single Coin? | Ceave Gaming

[9] Super Mario Odyssey Nipple% Speedrun in 7:23.650 | Tyron18

[10] SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses | pannenkoek2012

[11] Ask the Developer Vol. 11, Super Mario Bros. Wonder | Nintendo

- Additional resources

Miyamoto and Tezuka on the struggle of balancing games for advanced players and beginners | Nintendo Everything

Shigeru Miyamoto talks Game Design (1998) | Shmuplations

=== Chapters ===

00:00 - Intro
02:34 - The Three Pipes
04:11 - Making the Game More Difficult
11:29 - Making the Game Easier
17:19 - Seamless Shifting
19:06 - Encouraging Players to Try
23:02 - Case Study: Super Mario Bros. Wonder
27:06 - Outro

=== Games Shown ===

Super Mario 3D All-Stars | 2020
Super Mario Bros. | 1985
Super Mario World | 1990
Super Mario 64 | 1996
Super Mario Odyssey | 2017
Super Mario Bros. Wonder | 2023
Doom Eternal | 2020
Final Fantasy XV | 2016
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown | 2024
New Super Mario Bros. | 2012
Super Mario Land 2: The Six Golden Coins | 1992
Super Mario Galaxy | 2007
Super Mario 3D World | 2013
New Super Mario Bros. Wii | 2009
Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS | 2016
New Super Mario Bros. 2 | 2012
New Super Mario Bros | 2006
Super Mario Galaxy 2 | 2010
Super Mario 3D Land | 2011
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island | 1995
Donkey Kong | 1981
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe | 1999
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels | 1986
New Super Luigi U | 2013
Super Mario Maker 2 | 2019
Super Mario Sunshine | 2002
Super Mario Bros. 3 | 1988
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe | 2019
Super Mario Bros. 2 | 1988
Dead Space | 2023
Fire Emblem: Three Houses | 2019
Star Fox Zero | 2016
Super Mario Run | 2016

=== Credits ===

Music from Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario Odyssey, New Super Mario Bros. U

=== Subtitles ===

[Wsnewname]

I just like how by adding the Luigi guide to those games, Nintendo codified "have your brother beat it for you" as a strategy to their games.

[EthicalAllele]

I loved that you included the section about encouraging players to attempt the more difficult routes. It would have been sufficient to just explain how the harder and easier "pipes" work, but you and the developers of Mario went above and beyond to show us why the difficult pipes matter and how they can provide more value to a player. The Miyamoto quote at the beginning of that section really spoke to my soul.

[amateraceon]

I think we can all agree that the best difficulty setting in a Mario game is “You can now play as Luigi.”

[johng]

0:24 *ESPECIALLY* to someone who’s never played a video game before. One of my earliest memories with any gaming was playing the original Super Mario Brothers for the NES. it was quite a formative experience.

[rg_fella]

8:38
I love how without any further explanation, this makes it sound like being Luigi is just inherently harder than being Mario.

[Mackinstyle]

Now that I have kids, I discovered this about Mario and Minecraft. Allow me to talk about Minecraft for a moment: it has the best invisible difficulty settings I've ever known. Just like with lego, my kids naturally reach for the pieces that they understand. When my oldest was 3, he would make dirt houses. Then he started adding windows. Then he made a basement with a ladder. Then some tunnels. Then added switches and buttons. Then added rail cars. Then began crafting things. Then discovered redstone, etc. He's had this close relationship iwth minecraft for years and it's never felt like he was too young or twoo old for it. And none of this required me deciding "you're ready for the next bit so I'll enable it, or get you to the next area, or buy the DLC." From the very start the game enabled ALL of this, but never skill checked with, "you MUST learn to use x, y, and z, to keep playing." This meant my son could advance to the "next level" whenever he was ready, while never feeling like the game was telling him he wasn't yet good enough. Every other game he plays for a while then walks away from suffers from the same issue: he gets to a point where he can't continue, so he loses interest.

[Clery]

Rewarding the player in making the game easier isn't a "flaw from outdated older Mario games". It's actually a feature as the player considers he earned it. Zelda games are entirely based on the principle to make the game progressively easier in earning more life, better weapons and new abilities. That is called reverse difficulty and the ultimate feeling to grow invincible and able to go everywhere is incredibly satisfying.

[SpartanXVII]

Jan Misali just off screen having a stroke when GMTK declares he's played "every mainline Super Mario game"

[CheesecakeMilitia]

I think the Star Coin "added difficulty" concept from New Super Mario Bros actually dates back to the Dragon Coins in Super Mario World. In the original SNES release, collecting all 5 nets a 1-up. But in the GBA release, Super Mario Advance 2, all 5 Dragon Coins are tracked in the stage progress screen just like Star Coins. I wonder if this was a limitation of save RAM storage, since Yoshi's Island (like original Banjo Kazooie) saves a "score" instead of individual collectables found per stage. It's actually pretty interesting that 3D collectathon Mario ended up influencing 2D Mario in such a way. Congrats on the 200th episode, Mark!

[cellusDS]

14:55 "slightly unsettling" is putting it mildly - I remember being at 110 stars or something before seeing Cosmic Rosalina for the first time and it seriously scared me until I realized why she appeared. At that point, I was at the home stretch, super comfortable with the game and just cleaning up (not aware that there were 120 green stars in the postgame), so this character caught me completely by surprise at a point where I wasn't expecting new characters.

[pufthemajicdragon]

Congrats on turning 200!
Right around 22 minutes you mention something that's a **real** problem in video game design: Game rewards (particularly character leveling) intrinsically makes the game *easier* to play as you progress, inverting the desired difficulty curve. It's a huge problem in RPGs and strategy games, where the longer you play the more powerful items and skills and abilities you collect that make the game easier to play. This ends up requiring the game designers to implement artificial difficulty to try and keep the games balanced.

I play a lot of MechWarrior 5 and one of the best mods for the game (YAML) has introduced an "upgrades" feature. This feature locks you out of being able to drop heavier battlemechs until you buy the mech bay upgrades. You can't repair or refit certain items until you buy the repair bay upgrades. Other upgrades reduce the cost of repairs or reduce travel time. These upgrades end up having a positive feedback loop where the more upgrades you have the easier it is to play the game and get more upgrades until the game has become so easy that it's boring.
I love the mod and the upgrades feature, but it inverts the difficulty curve - making the game far more difficult to play for new players or new games, but so easy that it becomes banal for late game experienced players. (MW5 can be pretty flexible with this because of its open world difficulty zone design, and because mods can increase late game difficulty to improve late game balance.)

Dealing with that inverted difficulty curve requires very careful game design to ensure that each of those "upgrades" (or character levels or higher level items or spells or abilities) also opens up higher difficulty gameplay, while also keeping the escalating power levels from turning into an WoW-meme mess of stupendous nonsense.

This inverted difficulty curve problem is especially prominent in games (such as Oblivion or Skyrim) that deal with it by leveling opponents alongside the player. Leveling up doesn't feel very meaningful because all of the same enemies have also leveled up with you.

This inverted difficulty curve problem is worth its own video and I'd love to see you examine it in depth!

[bregowine]

Gotta love the deep dives whenever you cover Nintendo’s mastery in the craft. We have been quite fortunate to enjoy that consistent quality out of such a developer in our time

[Artista_Frustrado]

- i love that Iwata quote when you contrast it with Mario Maker's Luigi assist showing up 2 deaths in, Luigi I'm thankful but I'm nowhere near stuck yet, chill Lil' bro
- also the Easy mode characters are a great idea, except in Mario U deluxe the 4th player was forced to pick either Toadette or Nabbit

[NightFore]

What I like about most of these "difficulty settings" is that by using different levels, bonuses or whatever, you don't feel bad, instead it makes the game more fun and easier to explore.

The game doesn't slap you in the face for being terrible, but instead rewards you for playing.

[KhushalBadhan]

17:25 you missed, in 1985 mario, in first stage, you can enter the pipe, collect coins and appear at almost end of the stage. Or you can skip the pipe and get 1 up and have to dodge enemies and holes.

[scragar]

I think the switch palaces in SMW were not just about making the game easier, there's a few places where they're part of the expected route, and some secrets require glitches to access without them.
I think the game developers intended them to be more of a reward than a crutch.
This is also evident that a few levels featuring them need to be beaten to unlock the relevant switch palace, if they were just to make the game easier they wouldn't be useful in a level you need to beat to unlock the palace, you're clearly already able to beat that level. But giving a cape power up before a secret exit that requires flying under the exit is a pretty good reward for exploring.

[ErinTheEnby]

I honestly wish more games did difficulty like Celeste does it.

There’s an assist mode that lets you toggle settings ranging from simply pausing when you dash to make sure you go the right direction, to making you literally invincible. The amount and way you make the game easier is completely up to you.


But on the flip side, you can get into the optional challenges immediately. There are strawberries and B-side, and even the winged golden strawberry if you want an extreme challenge - all in just the first level.
The challenges also have a huge range in difficulty, ranging from regular strawberries that are just barely harder than usual gameplay, to the golden strawberries and Farewell (an optional level past the main story) that can take even the best players hours upon hours to do for the first time.

The incredibly customizable difficulty settings make it fun for everyone, whether you enjoy an _extremely_ hard challenge or aren't too experienced with games and are mainly just there for the story.

[joshcantype]

Something I noticed about Odyssey when watching differently skilled players is that the same level can have multiple "main paths".

If a level presents a goal with a large gap between you and the goal, a skilled player will work out that they can combine all of the different jumps with precise timing to get over the gap and get to the goal in record time. A less skilled player might not realise and explore around the level and find a much easier route to the goal. The same puzzle has multiple difficulty levels in disguise that invisibly gets tailoured to how familiar you are with the game.

[purrspctiv]

15:56 the White Tanuki suit also appears in 3D World!

[Kriae]

Note that you can't 100% New Super Mario Bros Wii nor Super Mario 3D Land if you ever see (not even use) a Super Guide Block for the former or an Assist Block for the latter. You'll still be able to have five stars on your save file but they won't be sparkling.
New Super Mario Bros 2 and U aren't as punishing. In the former you can restore the sparkles by beating a level you triggered the assist in by yourself, and in the latter by simply not using it (which means that you don't have to reset your game if you trigger it).