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Post by cheat-master30 on May 1, 2011 19:05:37 GMT -5
www.waluigious.com/2011/05/isle-delfino-sucks-as-location.htmlYes, I tore apart Isle Delfino as a place. But hear me out here, there really are two problems with it as a setting. 1. It has no 'action' feel to it. Super Mario 64 had an epic feeling and a constant feeling of danger in many of the levels. If you screwed up, you were DEAD. No FLUDD to the rescue, and in many later levels, no ground below you to cushion the fall. Which reminds me... how many bottomless pits and hazardous substances are there in the game? Not secret levels, the main areas? Answer? Two plus Corona Mountain. Even those weren't too bad, them being the deadly river in Bianco Hills that only has a purpose in mission 5 or so (and even then, if you fall in it, you're doing the mission horribly wrong anyway), and the pit on the outside of Pianta Village. Oh, even that pit is used in what... maybe about three of the missions out of eight? It's probably the only Mario game in existance where outside of secret levels, you'd have to be trying quite hard to actually die. Unless your name is Yoshi. The other issue is that Isle Delfino feels a bit empty and lifeless from a historical/cultural perspective. Think about, how many missions show you the cultural aspects/traditions of these islanders? Maybe two at max? History? What history? Pianta Village is supposedly a historical area of interest or something, but it's barely qualifiable as a village, and has no elements that would constitute even 'architecture'. Where are the ruins? The old religious buildings? The temples? The castles? Anything which could date prior to modern times? The variety is even worse, you don't have any of the many obvious areas they could have put in (see article), and 'beach' seems to be the stereotypical area theme. Come on, real life holidays are more exciting that this! You actually see interesting sights, explore in land and have a few days on the beach, in a week or two. They miss many standard holiday locations, and forget to put in even some of the most well known possible ideas (come on, this is a perfect location to have pirates in some sense, like Donkey Kong Country 2 and Wario Land did) It'd certainly make more sense as a Bowser related plot that having some mole shoot paint balloons and bullets at everything every now and again, or having a ghost manta ray attack a hotel resort. Oh, and yes, as I say in the article, something about Delfino Plaza just doesn't seem right. Modern cities in tropical countries are usually more developed, while old style ones like they were probably intending to make tend to be located on fairly steep cliff edges for defensive reasons, not on a perfectly flat piece of land that looks like the location of a 'constructed community/city'. Both types tend to have more interesting building designs. Who agrees?
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Post by thedude3445 on May 1, 2011 21:49:23 GMT -5
Meh, I really liked SMS personally. That might be nostalgia talking since I haven't played it in years, but I see no problem with any world accept Gelato Beach, due to the levels not taking any advantage of the awesome features except the 8th star, and Bianca Hills didn't fufill, IMO. Pianta Village was really fun, whether it was actually a village or not, lol.
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Post by Sarisa on May 2, 2011 1:23:58 GMT -5
Hmm.
Instead of a castle, use a fort(ress) so you don't have to deal with new political elements implied by "Castle" - Mario castles need royal occupants.
Religious buildings push the Mario envelope, IMO. The only known religion is Star worship, it's prominent only in the RPGs, and star shrines are only in specific areas closer to the stars. They are more like old, particularly holy Shinto shrines than synagogues, churches, or mosques, which implies that they're not there as an arbitrary gathering place for the ritual community but to mark a sacred location for individual worshippers to visit and community gatherings for festivals. If Isle Delfino doesn't have any spots particularly close to the stars, there would be no call for religious buildings.
Safaris imply large wildlife; you're not going to find herds of wildebeest or prides of lions on a little tropical island. There's a reason the Komodo dragon is endemic to itty bitty islands of Indonesia; they're too small to support a breeding population of tigers!
Are you sure you see flat-roofed buildings in areas of high rainfall? I thought premodern flat roofs were only used in semi-arid and arid areas - the sort of places it's practical to build out of mud. Looking at the rest of the island, it looks like Corona Mountain's rain shadow has to be out to sea east of the island (which implies that the Isle Delfino map has south at the top ... or that Isle Delfino is very far north, north of 30 N ... or that the sun rises in the west ... or that the Mushroom Planet is significantly larger than Earth with the same day length ... or that the Mushroom Planet has much shorter days and nights than Earth ... or Nintendo didn't think this through much). With Delfino Plaza receiving a lot of rain, it needs those sloping roofs.
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Post by cheat-master30 on May 2, 2011 11:33:05 GMT -5
Perhaps it's an old castle where the royals don't live any more, like most modern day castles. That would also sidestep the political element.
The star thing is irrelevant, because Mario Sunshine has Shine Sprites as the 'mystical power', not stars. This is already implied by the Shine Gate, so some building to worship those wouldn't be too unbelievable. It'd be interesting to have a case where its not based on Shinto too, like the Zelda series has in it's sort of religious buildings (temples, temple of time, etc)
Safaris imply large wildlife; you're not going to find herds of wildebeest or prides of lions on a little tropical island. There's a reason the Komodo dragon is endemic to itty bitty islands of Indonesia; they're too small to support a breeding population of tigers!
That's a good point, but Mario has barely even been realistic here. Small islands in real life wouldn't support Petey Piranha's species, Gooper Blooper, Eely Mouth, those turtle things in Pinna Park, the Manta Storm, Wiggler (s), Could a real life Isle Delfino support this guy (even one of them?)?
Could a small planet with no life support this?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZaBCU-WLts
[/youtube]
At one time, multiple of those things must have existed there. How I don't know.
How about the DKC bosses?
Heck, Kerozene for example must have been about 200 foot tall at minimum:
The series, heck, that of most Nintendo games has far worse problems to deal with than a few real life animals existing on an area too small to deal with them, since they've got fifty plus foot long/tall monsters that would have to eat many times their own mass in food and couldn't be supported on any kind of island. I don't think a safari or whatever would be too far fetched.
Good point about the roofs, but it doesn't excuse the fact the town is somehow completely flat, completely square and looks like there was no history other than one day someone said 'let's build a perfectly nice city here for tourism purposes'. Maybe Americans don't notice because that's how their towns and cities tend to start, but over in Europe (especially the UK), they tend to be built in no real pattern and with buildings just springing up wherever. Towns and cities are just added to over hundreds or thousands of years, and because of this, roads tend to go off in all kinds of weird directions, the houses are often close together and the town itself is usually built in a rather weird location rather than any type of flat land. Heck, considering the canals and boats, why not make Delfino Plaza a bit more like Venice?
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Post by thedude3445 on May 2, 2011 19:40:07 GMT -5
Blame it on graphical power 8)  |
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Post by Sarisa on May 2, 2011 20:56:26 GMT -5
A Shine Gate building sounds good. I didn't bring up Shinto because I think they're consciously emulating it; I brought it up because the game designers are Japanese, and when they think about putting in holy places at all they're more likely to use a Shinto pattern than a Jewish/Christian/Muslim pattern.
You've made your point about ridiculously large animals. If they're trying to be realistic - eh, they never are - they could have put Corona Mountain a bit to the left and the area to its right would naturally be a nice savanna.
Interestingly, most Chinese cities and ancient capitals of Japan are built on a grid. Although I suspect the real reason is that it's much easier to program and for players to navigate. Confusing players in the name of realism never ends well. The canal idea sounds neat, though.
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Post by cheat-master30 on May 2, 2011 21:02:19 GMT -5
A Shine Gate building sounds good. I didn't bring up Shinto because I think they're consciously emulating it; I brought it up because the game designers are Japanese, and when they think about putting in holy places at all they're more likely to use a Shinto pattern than a Jewish/Christian/Muslim pattern. That's a good point, but even then, a shinto reference in a place like Isle Delfino seems a bit out of place. That's a great idea. Then again, actual stuff in the centre of the island would be nice in any form. Ah, so it might be a cultural thing. Makes sense why I guess. But what of all the other ideas I raised? Ships? Pirates? Volcanoes? Jungles? Ancient ruins? Could any of those improved Mario Sunshine? |
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Post by cheat-master30 on May 3, 2011 17:26:16 GMT -5
That's a good point, although I'd guess only the Piranhas are mechanical, with Kingfin being more based on magic somehow (it's basically a bigger Fishbone). Hence the explosions/sparks and weird noises.
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Post by Koopalmier on May 4, 2011 7:12:35 GMT -5
Don't you learn by talking to everyone in the game that these new "animals" weren't there before ? Even the giant Koopas that made Yoshis hide away ?
I assume all bosses are just made from goop (and they aren't single characters), while Electro-Koopas and these giant Koopa things appeared on the island some times ago (what's sure is that they aren't supposed to be there).
Ships, pirates, etc. don't really fit the atmosphere IMO. Although Shadow Mario attacking Delfino Plaza with a bunch of ships would've been interesting.
I also agree a mountain/volcano level and a jungle level would've been nice ideas.
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Post by cheat-master30 on May 4, 2011 20:44:08 GMT -5
Don't you learn by talking to everyone in the game that these new "animals" weren't there before ? Even the giant Koopas that made Yoshis hide away ? I assume all bosses are just made from goop (and they aren't single characters), while Electro-Koopas and these giant Koopa things appeared on the island some times ago (what's sure is that they aren't supposed to be there). Ships, pirates, etc. don't really fit the atmosphere IMO. Although Shadow Mario attacking Delfino Plaza with a bunch of ships would've been interesting. I also agree a mountain/volcano level and a jungle level would've been nice ideas. Wait, why wouldn't ships work? I understand pirates, but most tropical islands do have cruise ships go by. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_shipHeck, as the article mentions: You could even tie in pirates and cruise ships in one. But remember, my ideas are few, and I bet we have all kinds of interesting ideas about what settings should have been in Mario Sunshine, right? |
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Post by Koopalmier on May 5, 2011 15:28:00 GMT -5
This is a tropical island, but it's closer to a giant summer club than to DK Island, you know.
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Post by cheat-master30 on May 5, 2011 17:39:38 GMT -5
True, it's not like DK Island, but it beggers belief to have a tropical island and no real boats of any kind.
But how about a ruins/temple area, or a more interesting layout for Delfino Plaza? Seems plausible.
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