Can we have a conversation about whether or not SM64 is a 'collectathon'?

>>3761619
I would say it's a collectathon, just because you need to do different goals and objectives to get different stars. like collecting 100 coins or 8 red coins.

>>3761619

definitely not a collectathon

>>3761619
I think first, we need to look up the vocabulary definition of the term "collectathon":
…
…Oh right, there isn't one! Meaning, your autistic argument was completely pointless.

>>3761623
Those 2 are the only instances the game is a "collection" game, and also the few levels that have "5 hidden spots", otherwise to get to the stars you need to get from point A to B.

If anything I think SM64 fits the "sandbox" term better than "collecthaton", but it's just easier to call it a 3D platformer and be done with it. The main thing in it is the platforming, and it's 3D, so there.

>>3761626
Retro games are ultimately just as pointless.

what is a game you would absolutely call a collectathon?

>>3761626
Don't reply to me or my thread ever again.

>>3761625
Yes but why not?

>>3761623
>just because you need to do different goals and objectives
I would say that's precisely what makes it a 3D platformer instead. But then, I suppose the two categories are not mutually exclusive. However, I do feel in any case a game must be primarily one or the other.

>>3761628
>If anything I think SM64 fits the "sandbox" term
It definitely did for me, when I was a kid playing it for the first time. I wonder if it was the game, or my imagination back then, or what caused that...

>>3761637
DK64, I guess. I never really got into it because I felt there was too much shit to get.

BK, maybe? As much as I like it...

>>3761639
>Yes but why not?

because the game revolves around platforming, not collecting stuff. even in the coin goals, which btw are completely optional, the coins are acquired through feats of platforming

>>3761631
Only work and no play makes Jack a German.

But really, OP is arguing about a made-up monicker which is defined vaguely at best, like "walkathon". And even if it IS properly defined, the majority will still misunderstand it and everyone will use their own definition.

>>3761619
If you consider Sm64 a collectathon, it's a diet collectathon.

SM64 is largely about the individual levels challenge. You have a level you traverse that changes based on what challenge (star) you picked. You also only have two real collectibles. The stars, which are your progression system, and coins. Coins are pretty much exclusively used to get the 100 coin star and serve no other purpose. They aren't even mandatory, and are more for completionists.

Mario also has his core moveset right out the gate. The only "upgrades" you get are the Wing Cap, Metal Cap, and Invisible Cap through hitting the few switches throughout the game.
This is a lot different than something like Banjo Kazooie, or even worse, DK64.

We'll just encompass it as "Rare". In Rare games, you don't have a singular progression item like stars, you always have multiple. It's not enough to get all the golden bananas, or jiggies (rare equivalent of stars), areas are also gated behind other collectibles like notes or the various coloured bananas. You don't start off with your entire moveset out the gate, and you unlock new moves (buy guess what, using a currency most often) which often are required for collectibles in previous levels requiring a lot of backtracking.

This applies to things like Mumbo Tokens where you have to collect them just so you can collect another jiggy.

Basically, Mario 64 is more of a series of individual challenges you complete to unlock harder ones. Rare games are more about collecting everything you see to unlock more areas to do the exact same things. They're bloated with useless stuff for the sake of length rather than challenge or fun.

I don't even like Mario 64 that much

>>3761651
Yeah. I'm glad you get it. The stuff you get, you just so happen to get, incidentally, as a result of proper platforming. It's not even a reward so much as it is a system for enabling players to keep track of their progress.

>>3761619
It laid the groundwork unwittingly, but the term wasn't coined until Rareware actually invented the collectathon with Banjo Kazooie. It's not fair to call Mario 64 one since it was doing something wholly new, and it was then bastardized into what would become the collectahon. Rare essentially invented the 'thon by shamelessly copying Mario 64 but mmissing the point entirely, making several games that the only point of the game is collecting things, no platforming, no fun mechanics, just collecting.

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Mario 64 is a 3D platformer, and possibly the only one in existence.

You have to understand something: Spryo, Banjo-Kazooie, etc - they are okay games, but they aren't 3D platoformers. They are collectathons. In a collectathon game the objective mainly consists of completing puzzles and exploring, while platforming itself is rare and simplistic. Games like Banjo and Spyro aren't the same genre as Mario 64, where in the latter you have complete control, and are capable of performing much more complex moves, i.e. platforming.

>>3761686
This is a more succinct explanation than my own. Nice work.

>>3761664
>Rare games are more about collecting everything you see to unlock more areas to do the exact same things.
Well, SM64's levels were divided into I think 4 different tiers that unlocked by getting a certain number of Stars.

The /v/ tard I argued with brought this up as evidence it's a collectathon. But like you pointed out, in SM64 that's still quite different to the way other more clear-cut collectathon games implemented the same sort of premise for progression.

I also pointed out that the mere presence of some form of gatekeeping separating groups of paintings in SM64 is not necessarily any indication the game itself is a collectathon. The intent and reasoning behind that is what matters. And I would argue, the game was broken up into smaller sections specifically to foster a sense of structure so that it didn't become too confusing for people playing this unprecedented type of game for the first time. Plus, it provides them with short, medium, and long term goals to work towards, which is an important part of any game.

>>3761683
>collectathon = bad meme

Good "collectathons" like Banjo-Kazooie are basically action adventure games with a greater focus on jumping. They're big on exploration. The collection tokens are there to reward you on your exploration.

>>3761697
They're there to justify the exploration. They're the entire point of the game.

>>3761701
That's not how it works. It was early days of making big complicated 3D levels, so the designers were like, wew we created this amazing thing, players would have a fun time just exploring it.

So they filled it with collectables and made exploration the game since you have to explore to get the collectables.

Saying "durrr hurr you just collect things" reveals a poor understanding of how game design works.

>>3761718
When's your GDC talk?

>>3761686
The Star in mario 64 is essentially the 3D equivalent to the flagpole in super mario brothers, it merely marks the end of an objective

>>3761651
>the game revolves around platforming
There's platforming, but the game ultimately revolves around exploration. You can't have pure platforming and open levels at the same time.

64 would be a best if everything played like the Bowser levels tho.

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Would Sonic have been better off if he had forgone speed almost entirely to emulate the kind of gameplay found in SM64?

>>3761767
too slow

>>3761787
You're telling me if SM64 was exactly the same except it starred Sonic instead of Mario, it would be a bad game?

The games progress is measured in collectable objects.
There are multiple ways to go about collecting these objects which makes progress dynamic.
In my opinion this is what makes a collectathon, a collectathon

Not really because you're not required to gather everything in a level. You only need 70 stars and red coin/secret/100 coin stars can be avoided easily.

>>3761619
>whether or not SM64 is a 'collectathon'?
Certainly not as much as its imitators were (Banjo, Spyro, etc). I can see how the term could apply but it seems it's being "back-applied" to SM64 after being coined for said imitators.

>>3761809
>The games progress is measured in collectable objects.
But the objects themselves are merely tokens of actions - other than the act of collecting them, and this is the key - successfully performed by the player more or less as intended by developers.

The Star for racing Koopa the Quick isn't a measure of your jumping to grab the Star itself after winning the race, it is a representation of your victory over the race itself. It is the flag pole at the end of the level. It is nothing but a logistical tool. Collectively they are a multipurpose system which adds structure to the game in various ways while enabling players to track their progress. That's what they were conceived as, and that's all that they do - the fact that progress just so happens to be measurable by them is an organic side effect of that, purely coincidental and totally irrelevant.

This differs from true collectathons where the collection of such objects for the sake of collecting them, in order to progress, is by design a goal unto itself.

>>3761619
Definitely not, collecting stars is the progression route of the game, but they're just the flagpole in a different form. That's like saying SMB on the NES is a collectathon because you have to reach the flag to progress. The fact you have to reach a certain number before you can get further in the castle is just a mechanic of the game being slightly open world.

Collectathon's are games where you collect things to gain the end result rather than getting there via platforming or puzzle solving. Coins and red coins count in this sense, but as you can complete the game without doing this and the vast majority of the game is platforming & problem solving it isn't a collectathon.

Sonic would be weird with Bowser as the antagonist

It is definitely not a collectathon. The stars aren't things you collect, but rather the goal of each stage, which instantly takes you out of the world. To call the stars collectables would be like calling the end-level flags in the first SMB collectables.

The only things you collect per se are coins, be it the 8 red ones or 100 gold, but that's just to unlock the star. And if coins make this game a collectathon, then that means Sonic is a collectathon too.

>>3761996
One of the main things that made Mario 64 so great, and what still sets it apart from others to this day, is its nuanced movement. Closely tied to movement is physics.

Classic Sonic's greatest asset was always its physics - its fluid, fast, 'pin-ball' physics.

Ergo,
>go back in time
>replicate perfectly SM64's depth of movement (and everything else about the game)
>give it a Sonic-universe 're-skin'
>spruce up and tweak things whereever safely possible to make it even just a little bit faster at times
This may not have been ideal for Sonic, due to the heavy loss of focus on speed, which was never the central focus anyway, but it would have been better than what actually happened.

I would say that it's no more a collectathon than the original SMB. The difference is that in SMB, the player 'collects' flagpoles and Mushroom Retainers while in SM64, collects stars. Basically, whether it's a star, a flagpole, a mushroom retainer, a little shining orb thing, a card, a goal post or a Technicolor lizard, they each serve the same purpose: they're finish lines.

If anything, Pokémon and its ilk are collectathons, as alluded by its late 90s tag line. The fun of these games isn't reaching the finish line. The fun is in collecting things. That's a collectathon.

>>3761798
Mario doesn't control like one would expect Sonic to. It's not just about movement speed, either. Sonic is about bouncing, momentum and speed while Mario is about acrobatics and precision.

I think you could still have a game with similar gameplay to Mario 64, though, but it'd have to control differently. Probably would center around using ball form a lot and taking advantage of hills and curves to reach areas you can't by jumping, or some sort of special jump that can bounce you off surfaces. I don't know why Sonic runs everywhere in the adventure style games. In the first game, in order to go fast, Sonic spin-dashed. A game based on using spinning and level geometry to explore and solve environmental puzzles would be great.

>>3762010
Can't disagree with that. Sounds better than Sonic Adventure anyway (and I liked SA)

>>3761623
by this logic every game is a collectathon

>>3761619
Aren't the stars like the flags at the end of the levels in the older games...

>>3762078
Pretty much. Unless you wanna say you "collected" 24 flags and 8 burnt koopa corpses after beating Super Mario Bros.

>>3762129

>"collected" 24 flags and 8 burnt koopa corpses after beating Super Mario Bros.

That sounds pretty metal.

>>3762139
>>3762129
>>3762078
see >>3762018

>>3762018
>The fun is in collecting things
Or as Penny Arcade put it when describing Diablo III, its enjoyment isn't about having candy, it's about getting candy.

>>3761686


Platforming was rare and simplistic in Mario64 too. In pretty much every other stage than the last few, you just walk and swim everywhere, and then do one or 2 platforming moves to get the star.

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>>3761619
Power stars = not collectathon
Pizza tokens = not collectathon
Crystals = not collectathon
Clear gems = not collectathon
Colored gems = not collectathon

Acquiring things = not collectathon

>>3761690
>>3761690
/v/ and /vg/ are 99% idiots. They're among the dumbest boards on an overall very dumb website. Why would you make a thread on a different board over some /v/tard's word diarrhea instead of just laughing at its obvious wrongness and dismissing it out of hand?

>>3761767
I think the Sonic games actually handled the speed element better in the Adventure games than they did in the 2D series. That Previously Recorded video was right: 2D Sonic penalized you for going fast.

>>3761619
>Can we have a conversation about whether or not SM64 is a 'collectathon'? I hate the term myself, and it might sound like an insipid discussion at first but actually, the other day when some whippersnapper on /v/ started arguing with me about it things got interesting - we ended up talking about the function and utility of Stars in SM64, and its underlying game design principles and techniques. His whole argument was that SM64 was a collectathon by virtue of the simple fact that you need to collect Stars to progress through the game; I contended the game was first and foremost a 3D platformer, and the role of Stars in the game is purely superficial. I'm not sure collectathons were even a thing back when SM64 came out - the term itself certainly didn't exist yet, then.

I would say no! I bought the game for my wii u and from begin on i clear every stage completely with 100 coins.
I must say that this game is really easy and there is collecting stuff but not a collectathon like kazooie.

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>>3761686
Jumping Flash is a pure 3D platformer from 1995.

>>3762614

I'd consider it more of a first-person platformer

It's not a collectathon because you don't need to collect anything other than stars, and stars are basically just end mission markers anyway.

People call SM64 a collectathon to hide the grim reality that it's an open world game about wandering around big empty fields outside of the "floating platforms in the sky" linear galaxy style levels like the bowser levels, tick tock clock, and rainbow ride

Have to think about it in terms of the meaning behind the collectibles.

In Mario 64, you collect (120) Power Stars, which are rewards for completing challenges. Although the goal of the game is to defeat Bowser, the challenges are the real point of it, and the Power Stars are essentially just markers to show which challenges you've completed. There are 100-coin and 8 red coin challenges, but these are a minority and are subservient goals to obtaining more power stars and basically aid in the general exploration of the stages. You're pretty much being rewarded for hanging around the playground, which is a wholesome goal.

By contrast, look at a game like Donkey Kong 64. Golden Bananas perform a similar purpose to Power Stars, but the responsibility is now split among colored bananas, coins, several different types of ammo, blueprints, fairies, and some other shit I'm sure I'm forgetting. Most of these things aren't just there for show; you have to make sure you're keeping up with most of these items just to make steady progress along all avenues. And you get checklists for most of them. That's what makes a collectathon.

>>3761619

But first we gotta go over .5 a presses

>>3762219
If you don't know got to play the game correctly, maybe.

>>3762682
>got
Meant how.

>>3762183
This is accurate. 4chan is entry-level, plebeian bullshit across the board and the gamer boards are easily the most aggressively stupid, but we come here because we like calling people faggots and the mostly unmoderated free form discussion. You lose when you start engaging /v/ and /vg/ users on a rational level, however.

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>collectathon
This name is so boring, why can't we call it a collectathlon? Makes much more sense.

>>3761664
>I don't even like Mario 64 that much
Way to ruin your otherwise absolutely correct opinion.

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>>3762161
Wrong. You can do thinks slowly, but you can always parkour through the entire thing, and that's the difference. You can't parkour around in Spyro, DK or BK.

It's like Mario lets you play it as a baby-easy puzzle-solving game if you want (that's how I beat it when I was a kid), but allows for more freedom of movement if your interest is in really moving around and enjoying the game's 3D capabilities.

>>3762167
Crash is another game with really good mechanics (Warped, that is), too bad it's 2.5 and the really 3D ones are shit.

>>3762707
By specifying Warped, I assume you like crystals, clear gems, color gems, and relics altogether.

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>>3762714
I do. And those are fun. But you can clear the game just by beating every stage/boss.

Warped has more responsive/reliable controls is what I was focusing on, though. Maybe that's why it's so fun to timetrial and collect all things in that game.

Same goes to CTR, this one surpassed Mario Kart in my opinion. But SM64 is still my favorite game of all, in terms of controls.

>>3762718
i wonder what his farts smell like haha

>>3761741
Except you then have to go back into the same level and get a different star.
It's the same trappings as any other collectathon, but with the extra step of having to leave a level and re-enter before you can get the next collectable.

>>3762727
The game would be broken because some star objectives change the layout of the level or triggers some kind of event. This is why you need to reset the level and re-choose. I hope you played the game before.

>>3762727
>Except you then have to go back into the same level and get a different star.
Are JRPGs collectathons then? Should stage never be revisited in order to avoid being labeled a collectathon?

>>3762726

rotten dinosaur eggs

>>3762634
I think your mistake here is thinking that being a collectathon or first person excludes a game from being a 3D platformer.

I think people are assuming that being a collectathon is inherently bad, something you don't want your game to be, an undesirable trait.
Calling your beloved Mario64 a collectathon isn't in any way implying the game is bad, you know. Mario64 is definitely a collectathon or at least a proto-collectathon, since there's no denying that collectathon games were all derived from it, unless there's another definition of collectathon that I'm not aware of.

>>3762732
Kicking the player out to the hub is a primitive method to handle the problem and it gives SM64 some languid pacing. A more competent developer would have employed ways of incorporating those events into the level without resorting to it.
Hitting switches, talking to NPCs, completing objectives, etc. could all have triggered the events and world alterations. All simple shit that other games were doing before and around that time.

>>3762703
>why can't we call it a collectathlon? Makes much more sense.
No it doesn't. A collecathlon would be a collecting contest. A collectathon is collecting a bunch of things for an extended period of time.

If there's no competitive elements or ffs even any multiplayer then there's absolutely no reason to use the -athlon suffix. Collectathon is completely accurate. "Collectathlon" wouldn't be in the slightest.

>>3762703
>>I don't even like Mario 64 that much
>Way to ruin your otherwise absolutely correct opinion

What I've never really liked Platformers.

I never said it was bad, just that I don't like it.

I like Mario Sunshine better, how triggered are you?

>>3761619
this is pure autism

>>3761619
The only thing you collect are stars and they are also story relevant.

I wouldn' t consider it a collectathon.

>>3762727
yeah but its really just doing the level with different parameters and shit, you arent going back in to really do mass collecting. See in Banjo Kazooie and DK64 you would return to levels as well, but it was to collect several different things. It was just "go back and get the banana a different way", you had to go back and get all the different bananas and crystals and blueprints etc, same with BK. You had to get the notes and the feathers and eggs and jinjos and pages and shit. In mario youre just going back to get the star which is only at the END of the level and thats the only collection item that matters. coins are just health unless its a redcoin level which again are just essentially a subtask to get another star. The redcoins go away after the level. Thats what people dont get. In the other games the collectibles stay with you and youre totalling up a large number of different ones. In mario only the stars stay and thats at the end of the level.

In short, if you are stubborn about calling mario a collectathon youre just being extremely pedantic about the definition and cant rationalize how it works in proper context of reality

>>3763382
Except there are way more stars than what you need to beat the game. And you have to collect red coins and normal coins on each level, to collect their stars. You literally have to collect to collect.
There's also the fact that collectathons wouldn't exist without Mario64.

>>3763510
>You literally have to collect to collect.

100% optional. you literally don't have to literally collect a single coin

>>3763548
>It's not a collectathon because collecting is mandatory
>But it's also not a collectathon because collecting is optional

>>3763550
>>It's not a collectathon because collecting is mandatory

where did anyone say this?

>>3763567
This thread.
The main argument against it being a ct is that collecting stars is mandatory to clear the game.

>>3763568

they're mandatory (70 of them), but they're not collectables so it doesn't matter.

>>3761686
The early Crash Bandicoot games are 3D platformers as well

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>>3763349
The whole point here is "marathon" implies doing the same thing over and over, but the "-athlon" suggests several different tasks being performed.

>>3763342
Is there any evidence about what you're saying? As in the game handling problems by going back to the hub, instead of just switching events?
Because I think it's deliberate, not a workaround. Stuff like the pyramid's roof, for instance, are already detachable 3D meshes from the start, but having different stars allow you to play the stage and still have the pyramid whole, while also allowing you to take a quicker approach to entering the pyramid - going to a star where it's already been blown up.

>>3763358
>I like Mario Sunshine better, how triggered are you?
I haven't played it, people say it's the only one to retain a bit of SM64's tight mechanics, so I'll forgive you.
I've played Wii, DS and WiiU titles thogh and they suck ass, all levels and no parkour makes anon a dull boy.

>>3763612
2.5D.

>>3763342
Bullshit, it was one of the first fully 3D games ever and a launch title for a brand new console. Explain how in the actual fuck you expect them to implement King Bobomb and Koopa the Quick, for an off-the-top-of-my-head example, and have it not lead to issues when both of them and Mario end up on top of the mountain all at the same time? It seems to me that designing the whole game like that would have been a never-ending nightmare from a debugging/QA standpoint. Incompetent developers couldn't have produced a masterpiece like SM64.

>>3761639
>you need to collect a lot of stuff
>you jump through platforms in 3D environments
I don't see why it can't be a 3D Platformer collectaton

>>3764220
>>you need to collect a lot of stuff


but that's not true at all

>>3764220
Is it called collect-a-ton? No, so just collecting a lot of stuff isn't enough to define it.

>>3764246
ur a collect-a-ton

>>3761619
what the fuck is a collectathon.

fuck you and your autism we should deport niggers like you

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>>3766103
>Donald Trump sings bill to deport illegal immigrants, suspected terrorists and people who consider Super Mario 64 a collectathon

I love you guys.

>>3761619
I don't know. There are times where you are doing a race or have to beat a boss, and then you get the star. I think that the term itself is stupid and doesn't have a definite meaning. It is a pejorative that really is used to label a game where you are only walking to a point to gather something without much else to do. I wouldn't consider SM64 a collectathon.