The Armchair Game Designer

Welcome to “Things That Need To Die”, in which I thoroughly ream the gaming industry for its perennial laziness.

Super Mario Underwater Levels

Super Mario games – the core games, that is, not the endless array of tangential spin-offs – are almost always consistently fun (though nobody can really blame Miyamoto and company for the oddity that was SMB2.) There is one notable exception to this consistent track record however: Mario’s foray into the world of deep-sea diving, in his much-maligned underwater levels.

Ironically, while the rest of Mario’s core mechanics have innovated and progressed over the years, the underwater gameplay mechanic has actually regressed and gotten worse. The few underwater levels in the original Super Mario Bros. were a decent change of pace from the usual running and jumping, and didn’t radically alter the control mechanics.

Jump forward to the latest core Mario game, Galaxy, and the contrast between land- and water-based gameplay is stark and maddening. Mario controls like a drunken submarine when swimming, often lacking precision in his movements and causing many more camera battles than had occurred ashore. Add to that the addition of an air requirement (present only in Mario’s 3D outings) and underwater sections can become an exercise in struggling not with the intended challenges, but in trying to aim for water bubbles and star pieces.

Things get admittedly better when controlling a shell submarine, but the shell allows only constant movement. What’s worse is that the Mario team feels compelled to continue adding more and more underwater levels to its design as time goes by. Isn’t it time that someone at Nintendo got the memo that nostalgia for its own sake does not make for good gameplay?

How can they fix Mario’s scuba hobby? One solution would be to remove underwater levels entirely, but this seems like sort of a cop-out. A better idea would be to alter the current mechanic in a fresh way. My suggestion? Have Mario turn into a miniature submarine whenever he comes in contact with water. The sub would act much like the Koopa shell in that it would be in constant motion, and would require only three controls to operate. One control could fire (limited-supply) torpedoes, another could offer a temporary speed boost, and holding yet another would temporarily stop the sub’s motion to allow for more precise directional aiming. First, this would drop the air requirement, a gimmick that only serves to add an artificial time constraint. Second, it would open up some new gameplay. Constant motion is something that isn’t really a factor in other Mario challenges, and given the free-motion possibilities of water, it could allow for levels that require more three-axis awareness.

It’s obvious that the Mario teams have some incredibly innovative thinkers on-staff. So why can’t they innovate their way out of one of the few flaws in their gameplay?