Illusion of Length: An Analysis of the Pacing of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

              A few days ago I spent some time watching a speed runner I enjoy watching play Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for the first time. He speed runs Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario, yet has never played a Mario & Luigi game. So it was fascinating seeing his unique perspective on the series with his background, but I noticed some things during his playthrough that got me thinking.

You see, a lot of the reactions he had to the game and its events mirrored my own, and those particular reactions are ones that I rarely get from video games and stories in general. For example, he mentioned that the game feels quite long, a similar feeling I got despite its short length, hm. He also noted that there were a few times in the game in which he thought he was at the end of it, only to find that there’s more to come, and again, this is a strong feeling I got from the game. And I wondered, why is that, and do those ideas connect? 

            Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is a short game compared to the other Mario RPGs. The average time it takes to beat it is almost shorter than all the other Mario & Luigis, and a time shorter than that of all the Paper Marios. Yet, when I first played through this game, it felt like the longest Mario RPG I’d played, and did so for a long time. So it stands to ask, what did Superstar Saga do that made it stand out and have this trait?

            Let’s start with the Mario RPGs in general. A common trait the stories of the Mario RPGs share is a quest to collect 7 or so of a special star like item. As a result of this, the player knows how far they are in the game, how many more star pieces to collect, etc, and can make a rough estimate on how far they are through the game.

            Yet the Mario & Luigi series has always gone against this idea. True, they all feature parts of their game in which you must collect a certain number of sacred items, but often they don’t last long at all and are in no way a good indicator at how far you are in the game. This is especially true of Superstar Saga, where the star collecting quest takes roughly two of the games thirteen or so acts. But if the other Mario and Luigis also possessed this trait, then why does Superstar Saga feel different?

            Superstar Saga does an interesting thing with its story that none of the other Mario RPGs really do, which is that it has super climactic moments that feel like the end of the story, without actually being the end. To my knowledge this is actually a pretty common thing in Japanese styled RPGs, as I can recall a few in another video game in which I remember feeling it was much longer than it actually is; Tales of Symphonia.

            So if this is the case, then why does this trait have us perceive the stories as longer? Well I don’t know for certain, but I think the pacing has a part to do it. Recall the famous pacing curve, the curve of pacing in storytelling that most, if not all stories follow, as I think this will help to solve the answer. If you don’t know what it is, then feast your eyes on it:

            Look at this lovely thing I made in excel ( :p ). This is the common chart that all stories follow in their pacing and how intense they feel. You slowly grow as big tense moments come to place, then after a big climactic one you ease things down, have some explanation, slow moments to let the players catch their breath, and then slowly ramp things up again, ending on a more dramatic moment then the last one. It’s a classic formula all stories follow to keep people interested without being too slow or too quick.

           

            But it’s not only true of storytelling, this curve is also core to all game design. Mario games for example feature levels with easy challenges, then they get harder, harder, and have a very hard finish, and then the level ends, and the start of next level goes back to being easy before ramping up. The end of the world ends up being the most intense moment (hypothetically), and then the next world continues that trend all the way up to the final level. It’s how RPGs work as well with a real tough boss to test your abilities, and then back to regular easy enemies before testing you with a mini boss, and then another intense boss! And this classic formula proves the test of time in how often it’s used.

            And then there’s Superstar Saga. Because Superstar Saga doesn’t follow this curve completely, choosing to instead have super intense moments that feel like the finale, it’s interesting to think what sort of effect this has on the player’s experience with the game. So to find out, I went ahead and made my own very rough probably not accurate chart for the pacing of Superstar Saga, splitting the game into roughly 13 acts:

         
              As the graph shows, Superstar Saga has two moments that go way up in the tension and drama such that it feels like the end. Granted, one of them isn’t too far away from the actual finale, but the point stands that at these points, it’s not uncommon for the player to think this may actually be the end of things, as I know I did on my first play.

            And as you look as this graph compared to the one post above, you can’t help but notice that…….while the one above looks like one long journey, doesn’t the giant spike in the middle of the Superstar Saga make it look like……it’s two journeys?

            And that’s precisely my point. I may be wrong here, but I feel like through our own enjoyment and viewing of storytelling, the intense dramatic moments tend to stick with us the most. This is why endings are often the moments of stories that get the most discussion and thoughts put into them, as they are what the viewer remembers the most, since it had the most intense and dramatic moments. They are in some ways what the entire story was leading up to, so it makes sense that we would remember these moments the best.

            So if that’s true, then it stands to say that……would this mean that the more a story has moments that feel like the end of it, then this story would also have more moments that the player remembers very well? And if the player can remember more moments of the game distinctively, rather than recalling an entire area as just one short play, then does this not mean that the player would remember the whole game as being longer than it actually is?

            Indeed, I think this unique pacing structure Superstar Saga has is what makes it feel longer then say, the Paper Mario games, where you always know where you are in the journey, and it’s clearly one journey. Another thing to note is simply the number of acts. As I said above, I can roughly divide the game into 13 parts, 13 areas, 13 worlds! That’s a heck of a lot more than the traditional 8 worlds of the Super Mario games and the 8 chapters of the Paper Mario games. Because Superstar Saga’s story is often changing and about the player running to new areas and encountering new abilities, the game feels much longer, since you’re always doing something! There’s hardly any tedious backtracking, areas aren’t super long and huge given this is a Game Boy Advance game, so you can fly through them pretty quickly.

            And it’s this design choice that makes Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga have this illusion of length. Because it’s constantly throwing things at you, constantly changing the story, areas, etc and is full more then one super climactic finale esque moments, the game as a whole feels a lot larger than it actually is, and the game is able to achieve this illusion of being very long whe in actuality it isn’t. It’s a pretty cool and interesting mechanic to use in both storytelling and game design, and I can see why it might be popular in story heavy games like JRPGs, as it’s an excellent way to make your story feel longer than it actually is. Go Superstar Saga for being the Mario RPG that did the best job at this.