Should the 1-Up Mushroom just die?

[Fawful Fan]

Really, think about it.

The only real threat of losing all your lives in games anymore is to be sent back to the title screen.  And then you just select your file again and continue playing.  Is there really a point in having this coin-eating arcade tradition continue to pursue on home console games?

I remember the first time I 'died' in Donkey Kong 64.  I was a bit surprised at first that there was no life counter, but then I liked it.  There's no need to tediously rack up on lives just so you don't technically 'lose' the game.  The only real penalty for failing a mission is that you have to try again.

But I can see how some people may want to keep 1-Up Mushrooms around for nostalgia.  Do you think maybe 1-Up Mushrooms can stay around, but just have a different role?  Maybe they can fully recover the playable character?  Well, either way, it doesn't look like 1-Up Mushrooms will be dying anytime soon as they show up in the trailers for New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

[Turtlekid1]

Oh, come now.  Lives are a classic element of just about any Mario game I can think of, and the system has always worked well in my opinion.  So no, they shouldn't just die.

[Toad]

Ha! Irony! 1-Up Mushrooms dying! You are a riot!

[ShadowBrain]

No, but there should certainly be less of them than there's been in recent titles.

[penguinwizard]

The reason I don't want 1-Up mushrooms to die is that in some games... no wait, when you die you go back to the beginning of the level anyway... well, for hard games I like 1-Ups just because I die several times before getting through a world, and I hated Mario games that didn't have continues because you'd start all the way at the beginning if you lost all your lives.

I appreciate the idea of game overs being "you suck too much to continue playing, go play the earlier levels to build your skill hmm?", but when a game is really difficult, those 1-Ups are lifesavers. They allow me to continue using naive approaches to squeak through levels based on brute force (see: beating the end boss of Gnat Attack in Mario Paint by wailing on him before you lose all your hands, as opposed to dodging his attacks).

I guess I misinterpreted the question. If there were no 1-Ups and games kept putting you some sane distance back whenever you continued (pick up at the same location you died, for instance) AND games didn't force repeating cutscenes on you, then I'd be happy. Because sometimes I like to think I didn't get a game over because I sucked, it's that I was really trying and I just didn't have enough lives to make it through.

And for your information, I found The New Super Mario Bros. to be a difficult game. Mario slides too much and has too rigid of motion. Maybe it's because I played it on an emulator with a slow framerate (I forget what it was, 20 or 30fps, it was playable at any rate). Surprisingly, the abundance of 1-Ups wasn't enough to prevent me from dying every few minutes.

But I would like to see an end to 1-Ups and other powerups placed in sadistic or hard-to-reach locations. The time it takes to get those tokens and possibly re-dying in the process isn't worth it. Unless you're really low on health and you know you suck at fighting whatever enemy's coming up next. There are some times I seriously doubt it's possible to get that 1-Up without dying. Makes for good daredevil moves though.

[Luigison]

On a related note, back in the day the most useful 1-up to me was in SMB World 8-2 because I didn't know the continue code and sucked at World 8 levels.  A few years ago I used a lot of 1-ups when SMA4/SMB3 GBA came out because I was rushing through to unlock all the levels (including e-World levels) in time to give the cart to one of my brothers as a gift.  In modern games the lack of a true "game over" and the use of save files makes the 1-up mushroom almost obsolete. 

[jdaster64]

IMO, New Super Mario Bros. wasn't very difficult at all to play through, but some of the Star Coins (notably the third one in the seventh castle) are in very precarious positions.  Nevertheless, I've yet to see a Game Over screen while I was playing.  The same could be said about Super Mario Advance, especially with the added challenge of having to play through levels with a cap of two to three hearts in the Yoshi Challenge.

And yes, that 1-up in 8-2 is quite invaluable.  I find the Super Mushroom even more so, though, as it drastically reduces the chance of dying in the last half of the level.  To this day, I have at least moderate trouble finishing 8-3 and 8-4 without a powerup (although not to the extent of SMB2j).

[Turtlekid1]

I didn't find 8-4 terribly difficult, but 8-3 with all its Hammer Bros. definitely made 1-Ups a luxury.

[Super Caterina!]

NO WAY.

Then it's also cute and I like the sounds it makes when you get it! *-*

[PghPens]

I don't see this happening. Even if they were to be placed on hiatus, they would likely be returned much like the fire flower was after a period of absence.

Let's use Super Mario 64 as a good save-based game example of why the 1-Up mushroom is still useful. Suppose you are in Lethal Lava Land and are trying to get the fifth star (one of two inside the volcano). When you re-enter the painting, you are placed directly into the volcano and no longer have to find a way inside. Yes, there are wing caps and shells available to get there, but some players (especially younger ones) may have trouble with coordination and need to try many times to reach the inside of the volcano. By accumulating 1-Ups, the player may have, say, five chances to reach the inside (instead of one). There are other moments, in both 64 and subsequent games, where the same thing happens (it's nothing new, either--even the original SMB had the midpoints in each level).

Also, some of the more recent Mario games (64, Sunshine, and Galaxy) have required the player to go to a particular area far away from the starting point, which often is a hassle for those who are very focused on the level at hand. I think we've all had to do this at some point or another. In this case, having extra lives is a blessing.

If there were no 1-ups, we'd be stuck with the following alternatives:
-Start the game over from the beginning (not really an issue with the way modern games use saves, but think about, say, playing on a GameCube without a memory card)
-Give the player infinite lives a la Super Princess Peach, taking away the challenge for more experienced players
-Make the player go to a far-away area every time they die (think about some of the places in Sunshine for an example)

The current system works fine as it gives a nice compromise between helping out and adding to the challenge--the challenge of the level and also to accumulate these mushrooms is still there, but there are still consequences if the player dies too much.

[Turtlekid1]

Taking away the lives system doesn't take away the challenge at all.  Look at Jak 2, or Ratchet and Clank 2, or just about any of the Metroid games (admittedly, dying in the first Metroid still had its consequences).

[Tv_Themes]

I go on a hiatus to find a thread titled as a tribute to me!? Whenever I get tired of TMK, at least I'll leave remembered.

Wow, and I thought the "Should _________ just die?" fad ended in July.

[penguinwizard]

Should the "Should ____ just die?" threads just die? Maybe this will be the last one.

Eh, for anyone crazy enough to try to get those hard-to-reach 1-Ups in certain games, they probably deserve the extra lives. Which is backwards. Other games, like the Mario series, gives you 1-Ups for daring to explore. Like the 1-Up underneath the platform (or was it behind a pillar) in Bowser in the Sky in Super Mario 64.

[nightstar699]

No it should not. it did nothing to deserve death.

[PaperLuigi]

Yes it did. It provided Mario with an extra life when Mario tried to commit suicide.