Your Perspective on the Gaming Market

[Kriven]

As much as I enjoy pointing out how much better the older Mario games are in design, music, game play and well, everything I'm afraid this just isn't the case when looking at your complaint.
It's seems to me to be a much more awful issue: You're growing up. That's it really. As a kid, man I crapped myself every time I got to Bowser in SMB (doubly so if I wasn't Super) but play it now - and it's no big deal, it's just a game. A very very good game. But alas just a game. It takes a lot more for a game to give that sense of wonder to an older person than a kid.

In Galaxy when the boss went berserk the first time I was a bit more careful but I didn't fear it.
When my nephew played it and the boss went berserk - he feared the boss. It was nice to see the magic.

Don't get me wrong, there is a LOT wrong with NSMB (I thought Galaxy was good, haters be damned and 3D Land was Ok) but you also have to remember - we aren't the target audience. And as much as it was nice that SMB 3 was hard enough for the older gamer, was it really for the best? Maybe NSMB being as easy as breathing is better for kids? As they actually get to see most of the game?

Kirby's Epic Yarn and Wario Land Shake Dimension are good examples of how a game can be easy (minus the challenges on Wario) but also fun for an older gamer. I would love for a Mario game to pick up where SMW 2 left off in terms of excellence and be challenging - but I don't think that's the way Nintendo is going. It's no longer making 'kiddy' Mario games, it's making Mario games for kids.

Except that I wasn't talking about difficulty at all. I was literally talking about the emphasis on the animation.

Editing to add: This is literally not an issue about me growing up, and it actually isn't an issue of growing up for a lot of people. I've played a number of new games that have been just as memorable as the old ones, and made me feel as immersed as the old ones. Maro is not immersing me. That's not the fault of growing up, because fucking Klonoa immersed me last summer and I've been balls deep in HeartGold and Spirit Tracks for a while.

Edit2: Sorry for the rudeness, but I'm sick of seeing "Well, you're just growing up" as an excuse for poor design choices when it really isn't true.