Unless you tested it—at length—behind the scenes, I wouldn’t think anywhere on-screen in World 1-1 would come close to tripping up a modern game engine. Even the Nintendo barely lost its stuff in, 8-1, where you had 2 bullet bill launchers, 2 Goombas (or Busy Beetles) and a Koopa Paratroopa hopping around. Unless you meant something else entirely, and I didn’t catch on lol.
I didn't mean that Super Mario was a complex challenge lol, any simple game would have done, the simpler the better. What I wanted to test was the visual/performance aspect. Besides, Super Mario is the quintessential platformer—if you can make a 3D version of Super Mario and make it look good, then you can make any 3D platformer. That's usually how I test engines; I don't complicate things with prototypes, I do what I already know well so I can focus on what I'm actually interested in testing 😝
When I have time, I'd like to take a look at Defold, since apparently you can already do interesting things in 3D with it, and I'll probably end up doing something similar.
I haven't tried it, but I do want to give it a shot. I've followed its evolution; it's an engine that has gradually been evolving in 3D, which is ultimately what interests me the most. Obviously, you can't expect Unreal Engine-level results, but then again, that's not what I'm looking for either. My dream game would have a stylized design, and right now Defold seems to be achieving some interesting results in 3D games. I think it would be the perfect time to take a look, because it's an engine known for being very well optimized, and it's always good to know about alternatives.