<i>Is there some subjective way in which Zelda is harder than Mario</i><p>I may not actually understand what you&#x27;re asking, but the obvious answers are objectives, and time limits.<p>In the classic Mario games there was a clear goal for every level, and you had a time limit to make it there. So you could hypothetically try every possible combination of buttons within the time limit to see which ones succeed.<p>Zelda has no time limit, and the goals must be discovered.