[misadventurous]

smw is such a potent nostalgia bomb for me. even hearing music from the game sucks me back to being a kid. it's hard for me to divorce those feelings from the experience of actually playing it, and it's a competent enough game that i always enjoy playing it. feels nice to just be able to conquer the game, in any order or style i wish.

still, it's pretty easy and too conservative. reading the game design forum piece on it helped me appreciate the design of it all more, but it left me wishing there was more to the game proper. like mauve said, good potential that was largely wasted in the game itself.

also, while the tightness of controlling mario in smw is nice, it never feels as satisfying as mastery of the fast, friction-y controls from smb/3.