... but do they really detract? You would think so, judging by NSMB2 reviews. People are really harping on it, but, as long as Nintendo isn't trying to make overall lives a limited resource, who gives a shit?

And when Nintendo DID try to make overall lives a limited resource, like in NSMB DS (with the checkpointing system), it seemed like most everyone complained about it!

I dunno. It may not be tight game design, but does it really matter? And in this case, shouldn't 'difficulty' be judged by the amount of attempts required per level, rather than the overall amount of lives? And wouldn't the true tension and difficulty come from Coin Rush, anyway?

Smleh. Nintendo probably should have upped the amount of coins required for a 1up, though. But maybe they didn't want to fuck up Mario's traditional economical system just for one game?

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@Guillaume
It could be argued that NSMB DS and Wii DID make them more than decorations, which was kind of an unpopular move, in today's gaming climate.

As far as the actual 'issue', it could just be a statistical anomaly that most of the slew of NSMB2 reviews that I read yesterday mentioned the 1up thing.

But it does seem to me that the real 'difficulty' in this game will come from Coin Rush competition.