[Intentionally Wrong]

I've been trying to respond to this. My first approach was to try to break down the platformers I've played into several different categories and identify what works and what doesn't work for each category. I wound up with two categories that corresponded roughly to "Mario games" and "everything else". That's a bit useless.

Let me instead say that my patience for obstacles in platforming games has to do with how difficult it is to navigate the obstacle and how appropriate the obstacle is in the context of the game.

Consider Knytt. The Knytt is very mobile; it can run pretty quickly, jump, climb up or slide down walls, jump from walls--there isn't really any terrain that's a hassle to deal with. Like many games, Knytt uses landscape architecture to typify its regions; lots of open or flat space in villages, steep hills in the deserted areas, single-block irregularities in tunnels and hills... Two great examples of this kind of design are the rocky spires a few screens to the left of the Ico-inspired castle, and the underground lake just down and to the right from the village of humans. These areas aren't exactly difficult to traverse, but because their obstacles are so flavorful, I find them cool and memorable.

Because Knytt doesn't contain any kind of map, the only real difficulty comes from the world's layout. Go through the wrong one-way passage and you'll find yourself in a maze-like series of tunnels which cycle back around in a circle; it's much easier to wander through this cycle over and over again than it is to find the exit. These mazes bump up the difficulty, but they don't really do it in a satisfying manner--it's not a challenge to use your abilities in the right way; it's a challenge BECAUSE of a LACK of an ability, and so it's frustrating. They don't add much aesthetically, either, and in consequence I can't remember where they are. I think one might be beneath the rock spires I mentioned earlier? Maybe.


The point I'm flailing away at here is just that arbitrary structures become more interesting when they're put into some sort of coherent organization and in some way recognized.

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The Mario games use a kind of "mechanical platforming" model, where most of the obstacles and platforms have their own rules: this can be jumped through, this can be bumped, this can be broken, this can be entered, and so on. Interest and challenge comes from novel combinations of these elements; the physicality of the rules leads to a visceral game experience. I only become critical of the design if I'm not being challenged.

(I'm not sure whether this last bit is relevant or not; it's a leftover from when I was trying to categorize platformers. Maybe someone will find it useful.)
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JSNLV is frequently and intentionally wrong.

[Intentionally Wrong]

I think a lot of Castlevania's recent problems come from trying to make large, winding maps with extremely detailed graphical tiles--which, for the sake of efficiency, wind up being the size of entire rooms. This is fine for low-impact rooms like save points; when your entire level is made up of these things, it becomes a little tiresome.

Cave Story is still my number one game for using level design to convey a vivid sense of place. With varying level structures, integration between levels and hubs, revisiting levels to find new level architecture, and excellent use of graphical decorations, the world of Cave Story is the most memorable two-dimensional place I've ever explored.

(And to think, I'd never have played it if it hadn't been for the hard work of Gideon Zhi here and Shih Tzu! Thanks again!)
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JSNLV is frequently and intentionally wrong.