2D Mario games in general aren't made for tight platforming where you'll die often since it takes a long amount of time for the game to even restart the level. Same thing with levels that are "one mistake and you've lost".
Normal games usually give lee-way in the form of being able to be hit multiple.
One thing that's frustrating about SMM2 is that it has a lot of these cool power-ups that completely change up the gameplay, but that are lost as soon as you're hit. This makes it really tedious to create levels based around such items since theoretically, every time you include an enemy or anything that can hurt the player for that matter, you'd need to include a pipe that periodically spits out that item, or just take really good care to .
Or for example hurting yourself with the bombs that you can create with the Link-Power-Up. I like the implementation of different characters in SMBX more, where you can select "Link" and you'll stay link for the entire time, not turn into Mario when you get knocked down to your last hitpoint. Now while a character select screen might be unviable in SMM2, I think one good compromise would be a way to mark a Power-Up (one's that change up the gameplay as the Link or P-Balloon) as permanent Power-Up, making you unable to loose it once you collect it. You could then either treat Mario with that Power-Up as small Mario, making him die in one-hit, or make it so that he can still collect Mushrooms or any more advanced form (fire flower, tanuki leaf, etc.) to make him grow if he's small and give him an additional hit point, but still let him only have the permanent Power-Up he had before. You could additionally add a Power-Up that removes Mario's current permanent Power-Up and let's him pick up other Power-Ups again (I think a special version of the poison mushroom would work quite well for that!).
The same permanent Power-Up idea could be applied to things you can wear, like shoes or helmets or dry bone shells.
While the World Maker at first is flashy and fun to see, it's really quite limited and can only really serve as a way to connect levels together so that you can make your own official Mario campaigns. We have a level editor with a smaller grid and many elements - why can't we have the same for the world editor?
I like the charm that a good overworld can give, and it's a really
Even a smaller grid such as in the style of SMB3's overworld would give a lot more creative freedom with pathing, decoration and - depending on how many decorations are available -.
Other common ideas I've heard from around the web and support:
- Secret Exits - These would add a nice amount of depth
- The ability to replay levels & go to previous worlds - At least a higher cap of total levels
SMBX or Super Mario Sandbox blow SMM2 out of the water in this regard, allowing for more details, no silly limit of the amount of levels or amount of pipes as well as secret exits.
It's polished, stuffed to the brim with fun and interesting combinations of items and the amount of elements is just so cool to see. There's so many fun types of level that can be created with all the tools it offers