What's your opinion on hidden blocks in SMB1? Personally,

they do a bit of work to telegraph them actually. That one being placed between a bush and a hill is a bit of psychological play and actually teaches the player how some are placed in positions quite like that.

They aren't unfair and are a nice bonus. They are also not necessary, as such a fairness factor isn't a real concern.

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>>3835807
>That one being placed between a bush and a hill is a bit of psychological play
Hm, never noticed that. But what about these 6 ones in the middle? They only have coins, but I'm not sure how you'd even assume they're here.

>>3835807
>They are also not necessary

This is the only reason I don't dislike them in the series. It's nice to hide a bonus for players that have a sharp eye but they should never be required to beat the level, game, etc.

The end is somewhat related
https://youtu.be/5HZzJswiiCE

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>>3835785
watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2wGpEZVgE

You are either good enough and don't need (= you know how to jump).
Or you have no feel for the game and by accident get secret.

And if you are super retarded and don't know that you need the controller to play, they show it to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cDD55kZ17Q

Also, with this knowledge back in the day people took more effort to explore the game getting more bang for the buck. I find this totally ok, having a reward for exploration is never wrong, and you never need them to win the game.

>>3835839
That's the worst one I've seen so far. Don't get me wrong, this one is "secret" and absolutely not a requirement… But if you don't know about this one, you miss the warp zone, and it's a huge bummer.
I'm glad Nintendo didn't take it much further than that though. They knew where to stop, or I'd be really paranoid about all these invisible blocks.

>>3835843
>And if you are super retarded and don't know that you need the controller to play, they show it to you:
Hm, never bothered to watch this. Nice.

What about SMB2JP/Lost Levels though? From the back of my head I vaguely remember some invisible block needed to jump over a pit, might be wrong here but still.

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>>3835861

SMB3jp was the very first mario maker level and miyamoto found kazio-esque level creating trés fun... and since they thought the "tard americans" were to stupid to comply to this level of strategizing the west got SMB2USA. AS far as I know it was even promoted over there to be more complex and that it's for skillfull mario players, so they'd reinforce solving the puzzle it presents you with everything you learned from the first part. Don't forget, games weren't supposed to be solved in one setting, people should revisit week after week and get a bit further (That's kinda how all games worked).
But to get back to OP's question, in casee of SMB2jp where you need hidden blocks to progress without any notice of their location is pretty stupid and artificial difficulty (at least make some form of hint implemented into the game, so the player at least knows what he is looking for).

>>3835873
Hm, thought. Looks like I gave SMB1 a bit too much shit, it applied to 2JP more. My apologies.
That one warp zone block though… Pretty unfair, if you ask me.

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>>3835889

To be fair, you see excactly that there are three blocks there out of order, so it's a very special corner in the game. You will automatically wonder if there isn't something special there and jump around until you get a hidden block. From the underground levels before it has been established (if you explored a bit) that you can hit the top ceiling of blocks and even run above them, so in your back head you will be always looking for possibilities to get up there to cheat through the level. The trick to that whole scenario isn't not finding the blocks, but to do them in the right order so you get a chance to bump the block wwith the vine in it. And after you fail for the first time you still don't know what's up with that situation, but you'll be intruiged and want to play again to find out, actually a smart move if you ask me. Also it's the biggest secret in the game (getting to the last level), so they had to make it trickier than the other ones.

But i remembered there is another hidden block you have to find, it's in 8-4 to get to a floating pipe which leads to bowser.

On another note, I was trying to think of another instance in the franchise that has tricky hidden blocks.

SMB3's only situation I can think of is in world 7 (I think) in one of those pipe-walking munchers-levels where you jump from a pipe only to fall into a pit with a parakoopa without being able to progress. You can either go down the left pipe to swim back to an earlier pipe, or you get past the the koopa to get into the right pipe (which has a power up). In the process of dodging the koopa you are forced to jump, revealing that there is a hidden block bridge you need to create to progress, which gives you a mini-quest to handle the koopa while doing so. Other than that i really can't think of other hidden block situations you need to do.

SMW has no instance at all that requires you to use hidden blocks to prgress, only the secret blocks (and that's for the special levels).

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>>3835926

Same goes for SMW2, Mario 64, etc... So really the only hidden block shitfest is SMB2jp, and I'm not even sure how much it relies on it, it's been quite long since I played it

>>3835785
Love them!

>>3835926
The blocks are in the shape of a kana particle(へ)that can be used when describing travel.

Warp Zone へ go. The shape is a hint lost in translation, so to speak, as well as funtioning as a semi-arrow point.

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>>3839130

woah.... cool. Did not know that, thx for telling anon

>>3835926
>But i remembered there is another hidden block you have to find, it's in 8-4 to get to a floating pipe which leads to bowser.
Well, you will most likely have found some invisible blocks before it, and you know that pipes lead you forward, so it isn't too farfetched to expect the player to try to find a way to reach that floating pipe when they can't find any other way to proceed.

>>3839130
Hmm, while that helps, I think it sort of points to the roof, and not to the vine, at least when you're playing the level for the first time. Especially since the vine gets very hard to reach if you open all the invisible coin blocks to spell the word out.

Then again, when you've played the game enough times you will always try to find hidden things from the blocks, so I think a normal player would find the vine sooner or later.