I'm having fun with this game, but there's one aspect that is super frustrating about this game: the collectibles.

Not the mere presence of collectibles mind you. I have an unhealthy obsession with collectibles in games, and will not hesitate to find all those goddamn feathers in Assassin's Creed. But in Super Mario 3D World, it feels like Nintendo intentionally put the interesting, challenging, and frankly more fun design aspects into obtaining collectibles, and not the actual completion of the level itself.

This becomes massively frustrating when oftentimes the path to getting a green star requires precision jumping/timing, but if you're unable to accomplish it in the first try, the only option is to kill yourself and start at the beginning of a level or checkpoint. And the argument of "The green stars/stickers are optional! You're not required to get them!" doesn't fly with me when the basic completion of the level is as easy as cake, and it feels like the challenge is cordoned off into the obtainment of collectibles.

My guess is that this is Nintendo's way to make sure kids can still beat the main game, but for people who want to dig deep and unearth the extra challenge, those collectibles are there for them. The things I have to suffer for those goddamn kids. Whitney Houston, you better be right.

I don't agree at all. Finding the green stars was the best part of this game to me, and makes you actually explore levels, as opposed to just bolting through them. It also gives incentives to replay levels when you miss some.

With me the bigger problem is the direction of the Mario games. 3D World (and 3D Land) to me felt like a 3D version of a New Super Mario Bros game and not a proper new Mario game. It was fun with a group but as a single-player experience I vastly prefer the ones before. This just felt like a step back for the games.

I think you are right about them doing this because of kids, but I absolutely love the balance between level difficulty and collectible placement. Idk how far you are, but the last half of the game has incredibly difficult levels without counting the collectible placement. When trying to get all the collectibles, these levels become real bastards(but incredibly fun)

I think you hit the nail on the head about why they design levels that way, but let's not pin the blame on kids. I think it would be more accurate to say it is to cater to people of all skill levels because, let's face it, kids usually have an easier time picking a game than most adults.

I think Nintendo believes that 3D games are clunkier and less intuitive than 2D games, so the design of Super Mario 3D World seems like it was a concession they had to make in order to create a multiplayer 3D platformer that was actually playable. Though, that's just my take.