AKA Mario Slam Basketball in my area, but I imported a US copy because that’s all I could find. A weird localisation choice, because the theme song has audible vocals saying “3 on 3”.
So I’m following up the visually daring Strikers with this entry, which at first glance seems pretty conventional. It’s got all the Mario staples, but the courts are well realised and varied, each with their own hazards to be aware of. There’s also the novelty that later on you can unlock some Final Fantasy players and courts, a crossover element that comes due to the game being developed by Square-Enix. This was a selling point for me, along with the surprising inclusion of Dixie Kong; an all-Kong team is possible, and glorious!
So this is a 3D basketball game controlled entirely with swipes on the DS touchscreen (and the L button). This works fairly well, and the mechanics are robust enough to reward skill (or at least exploiting the AI, which I found necessary to unlock the elusive Ninja). At times the challenge was high enough to get me in quite a tizzy, but it kept me trying again with its quick-fire matches and my eventual triumph was quite satisfying.
As expected of a Mario sports game, it’s no vanilla simulation. Panels can be run over when not in possession to grab items like shells and banana peels; you know the Mario Kart drill. When you’re dribbling though, the game is keeping the ball and bouncing on those panels to accrue coins. Baskets don’t just give you 2 points; no, 20 is the baseline, and each coin adds points. A full load of 100 with one of the special shots (unique to each character) can give you 140 points in one basket. Beating the opponent is not hard, but to get a tourney’s unlocks you need to stay 200 points ahead.
It was fun getting through these unlocks, changing up my team, and braving the dangers on each court. The game’s well made and it looks very nice. Lovely pixel art sprites bounce on the select screen, the portraits are attractive and expressive as is the game’s official art, and the courts have a nice visual identity with lots of detail on the sidelines. Have a scroll through this page, it’s neat. Even the Final Fantasy characters were made to fit right in, which can be an issue when worlds collide. It’s a gem on the DS, another reason why it’s one of my favourite consoles ever.
The Ubisoft guest characters of Academy of Champions, low-res pixel style!
I played this soccer game recently, and regrettably couldn’t get far enough to unlock these and experience the novelty of this low-key Ubisoft crossover myself. The back of the box has a shot with most of these bar Jade; this picture can be seen on a retrospective that one of the developers published, wherein they themselves seem to have forgotten she’s in the game. But thanks to BG&E fansite Beyond Good & Evil Myths I was able to find this shot, to see how she looks in the game (despite the name, her presence is not a myth). Mm, BG&E was great…
Rayman, Rabbid, Jade (Beyond Good & Evil), Thief (Prince of Persia 2008), Altair (Assassin’s Creed 1), Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell)
Now that I’ve played Ubisoft’s semi-crossover cartoony casual soccer game, let’s see how Nintendo’s equivalent of the era stacks up. Mario Strikers Charged (Football) is a Western-developed Mario Sports game, the sequel to Mario Smash Football/Super Mario Strikers on the Gamecube. Next Level Games, the Canadian developer, has since worked on other titles for Nintendo, but for an early effort of theirs this is very well made.
The thing that most stands out about this title is the visual design. The official artwork is totally radical and extreme, dudes. All the usual Mario cast members have been given an overhaul and an attitude. We’re playing street soccer, with padded armour uniforms and no rules. The courses are grungy and dangerous, the menus are futuristic with glowing lights everywhere and holograms. It’s a tremendously refreshing take on the Mario universe.
Matches are dynamic, with a robust set of tricks to keep the pace up. You’ve got two types of tackles, super moves for scoring multiple goals at once(!) or wiping out opponents, and even Mario Kart-style items to throw. It’s faster and more exciting than Academy of Champions, that’s for sure. And despite the unskippable animations each time a captain performs a Megastrike, it’s worth it to see Peach grow wings, Mario’s eyes glowing as he’s wreathed in fire, or Donkey Kong charging electricity before slapping 6 balls at the goal. The awesome excess of it is quite pleasing.
I also like the way it handles teams. Your team captain is your “main character” type, and has the flashy moves and a unique item that sometimes comes up. You supplement the team with 3 mooks, like a Boo or a Hammer Bro, which is good for inclusion without being such a “waste” of a character slot as seen in many other Mario spin-offs. These sidekicks have their own attributes and special shots which makes it customisable and a varied play experience. Finally, the goalie is always a Kritter, a rarely seen but appreciated use of a Donkey Kong character to flesh out the game.
So there’s a lot to like about the game. Unfortunately I did not finish it, simply because of the difficulty curve. I wanted to at least unlock Diddy, but although the first cup of three was almost laughably easy, the second one stopped me in my tracks completely. I backed out to change up my team, only to learn that I had to start over with the first cup again, playing about 10 matches I’d already done. I’m sorry, Mario Strikers Charged (Football), but you’re asking too much of me.
With only three cups, it also seems that content has been reduced from the previous title, at least on paper. The online multiplayer seems to be a big back-of-box feature, but of course that’s gone now with the WFC. The Challenges mode was a nice addition but also becomes brutally hard and there’s only a dozen of them. So that was it. I really love what they’ve done with the presentation and the feel but I would like a “reduce difficulty” switch, please. And I wish Nintendo would allow experimentation like this a bit more often. It’s wild and fun.
New manual scans! Some recent video game acquisitions of mine have not previously had their instruction booklets uploaded to the Internet, so here they are for future generations.
This year I pledged to play (or at least experience to some degree) every Rayman game. Happily, I did and enjoyed most of them very much. As a victory lap for this big catch-up on the series, I replayed Origins, which introduced me to that world in the first place. The PS3 version has a few minor advantages compared to the Wii version I’d played previously, and since it had made such a good impression on me I wanted the best version, but the Wii one is perfectly serviceable if you still haven’t played it.
I really love this game. In casual conversation I tossed around the phrase “game of the decade”, but that would be a disservice to Legends which while slightly less pure does have improvements. Taken as a unit (which is unfair but I’m doing it), the Origins-Legends combination is very high up in my all-time favourites list.
Probably due to my time in Legends’s Challenge mode, my skills with this engine had improved, to the point that I managed to fully and completely clear this game. All Electoons, all time trial trophies (and PSN trophies), all medals, the lot. (Getting medals in some of the shooting levels required the gracious cooperation of my wonderful wife!) The satisfaction is pleasing (tautologically!).
I’ve been hesitant to “go there” in the past, but Rayman Origins is, to me, a work of art. Its aesthetics are unparalleled, the soundtrack is a constant joy, the feel of playing it is simply sublime. It’s extremely well made, accommodating to co-op play, and an excellent revitalisation of the Rayman characters and world. But nobody wants to hear me gush about how much I love awesome games. Where’s Rayman Adventures already? I never thought I’d be jealous of New Zealand of all places!
After I discovered that my copy of Yoshi’s Island DS was a nonfunctional pirate copy, I wanted to replace it. Which meant I had to play it through again. Also, I’d previously gotten the port of the original Yoshi’s Island to GBA and hadn’t played through it. So I did both at once, rapid style. For once I played without going for collectibles or secrets.
Playing like this is somewhat unnatural for me, and I feel that I didn’t appreciate the artistry of either game as much by rushing through them, but it was liberating to not worry about trinkets and baubles. Speeding through can be exhilarating.
Experiencing the seminal original (even if this port suffers from the smaller screen size) alongside the attempted follow-up really highlighted how YIDS falls short. It’s well documented that the soundtrack is dull, the graphics a mixed bag, and the level design not a patch on its predecessor. Still, it has charm aplenty and it’s still overall not bad, even if it frustrates with gimmicky obstacles and sudden cheap difficulty. My mind was also made up: Yoshi’s New Island is a big step down even from YIDS. The same team made both games, and they got worse.
As for Yoshi’s Island itself, it’s just great. Again, my nostalgia bone is kicking in hard; I’ve deeply internalised the games I grew up with and they will never fail to make me feel, well, good. But it has qualities that anybody can enjoy, I reckon. A sheer work of art, and fun too if difficult at times.
I love this! A good reminder to follow my wife’s blog for her art project: drawing each and every Pokemon, averaging one per day. She’s drawing them in reverse popularity order, as determined by how often they’re searched for.
Since there’s so many types of Teensy in the Rayman series, I thought it would be fun to draw them. I left out a couple like the crownless Minimus and purple hat Teensy from Rayman 2, because they have the same torso. Murkins are unused in Rayman 3 but show up in Hoodlums’ Revenge. The Photographer is unused in Origins but has concept art. The Robo-Teensy on the end is also unused in Origins and doesn’t have a sprite so I made one up based loosely on the colours of the robot enemies in the game. Also some of these names may be inaccurate, I got the from the RaymanPC wiki.
Grand Minimus, Otto Psi, Romeo Patti, Gonzo, Sylkin, Murkin, Griskin, Tufkin, Nookin, the new Magician/fake Mr. Dark/Ales Mansay, the Photographer, Green Teensy, Goth Teensy, Teensy Ray, GlobTeen, Teensy Queen, Teensy Wizard, Ninja Teensy, Flaming Teensy, the First King, Teensy Sorceror, Teensy Hermit, Golden Teensy, Robo-Teensy
I recently realised there were just a few things left to cover before I can really wrap up my playthrough of the “classic” Rayman games. The final two pieces of software are somewhat similar to some of the educational games made in the Rayman 1 era. I’m just going to talk about them real briefly because come on, I want to play Origins so badly!
Rayman 3 Print Studio
A simple program that was produced around the release of Hoodlum Havoc itself. It was also bundled in with 2 and 3 in some later collections. It allows you to arrange pictures, text, and graphic elements to make collages in a number of templates, such as greeting cards or bookmarks. The pictures are renders and concept art from 3 and apparently also from 2, including for example a previously unseen concept of Ly (although that could have been from the planning stages of 3, I don’t know). Not super educational I know, but creative. If you’re desperate to know more, just go here or see it in “action” here.
Rayman Raving Rabbids Activity Centre
This neat little application includes most of the print studio functions of the above, but with stuff related to the first Rabbids game. It also has a handful of minigames that recall those of the first title, as well as a simple painting tool. When I found out about this game I was delighted that despite so much time passing, the educational Rayman 1-based games were being revived in some way. The truth is though that the minigame format had really been converted into the main game, in a much more comprehensive way. At least it has a few other functions, and the 3 minigames it contains are actually unique to this program. Also the title screen has the massive, imposing Rabbid mech as seen in a few places outside of the lead Rabbids title. Read more here or watch this.
And that is truly it. With this, I tie a nice big bow around the entire pre-Origins Rayman series. It was quite a ride, with a lot of quality titles: 2 and 3 were very good 3D platformers, and several of the handheld games were enjoyable. As I suspected though, Origins was a triumph that surpasses anything that came before, also bringing a revitalisation of the franchise that offered great spinoffs as well. But the older games have certainly earned a place in my heart, and I do plan to go back at least for the PS2 port of Rayman 2. The chronicle of my look back at the Rayman series is here. Thank you for reading.
As part of an attempt to play a bunch of Rayman games, I branched out a little to this Ubisoft casual soccer game. It turns out I didn’t get far enough to even see Rayman. I didn’t feel too bad giving up on it though, as its relevance to the Rayman world is even less than the second and third Rabbids games, which I’ve decided to ignore.
I’d describe this game this game as “Harry Potter but with soccer instead of magic”. It’s based around a solo campaign mode where you play a soccer-loving boy/girl who has been selected for a wonderful, special boarding school all about soccer. Instead of Dumbledore we have Pele, yes the famous Brazilian football star Pele. Instead of Slytherin House there’s the rival Scythemore Academy. They serve as constant opponents in the campaign, and often use dirty tricks to skew the odds. There’s also a neat plot twist whereby your contract was faked and included a forced transfer to their school in third term.
I also got slight Psychonauts vibes from the game, with its cast of cartoony fellow students who each have requirements if you want to recruit them. The campaign is structured by terms, with each day having a few activities to get through including training, matches, shopping for new items, quizzes, etc. There’s a variety of drills that play out like minigames but they generally use a common control scheme so it feels cohesive. These allow you to upgrade your character, but only at certain times.
The forced activities structure feels limiting and although you can go back if you fail a milestone match, I just found the first one in third term too difficult. With no access to my trained squad, only myself, I couldn’t customise enough to overcome the two-goal penalty. Am I going too in-depth? What I mean is, it got hard and upgrading is slow. Also my skills apparently hadn’t improved to the point where I could score goals reliably, especially as the opponents got tougher. That’s when I realised that all that was standing between me and playing Rayman Origins, one of my favourite games of the last decade, was a concession that this game had beaten me.
Although the game can be frustrating to play and inconsistent in its difficulty, it has appeal. The characters are cute and the look of the fields is impressive, with colourful and eventful backdrops that change as a match progresses. Not to mention the curved playing surface which evokes an Animal Crossing world. The school hub also has some visual character.
Its status as an Ubisoft crossover also was a draw for me. Characters like the Prince of Persia (2008) will turn up, and apparently later Rayman, Jade (Beyond Good & Evil) and Altair from the first Assassin’s Creed, although I didn’t get to see them. There are costume options such as Rayman gloves or Jade’s camera that you can wear. It’s just too bad this stuff is mostly saved for late in the game, as the only way to unlock it for multiplayer use even is to progress the campaign. What’s more present are Rabbids; running the shop, and serving as opponents in a variety of drills, it’s nice to see them integrated into the world and it even makes sense with the later Rabbids games.
I can’t really recommend this game. I know I’m more persistent than a lot of people with sticking with games, and who knows this game might hit you in the right spot, or your kids for that matter. But I wanted to play soccer with Rayman, and I just couldn’t do it, and it lost its fun factor for me. At least it looks nice, and they don’t shoehorn in too many motion controls (Wii Motion Plus support is optional… heck, it might help to play better but I ain’t trying it now). DNF
Thanks to Shizumon and the other mangaka, Konami, Castlevania Realm, Castlevania Wiki, and my friends who supported this endeavour. Please share this post around to any fans you know!
[Comic] Pachislot Akumajo Dracula III official 4koma, unofficial scanlation
For my final Castlevania comic release, here’s my translations of the 4koma that were published on the official site of Pachislot Akumajo Dracula III. This is the third slot machine game based on the Castlevania series, this time set during Castlevania III using Trevor’s Curse of Darkness design, and guest-starring Alucard with a new 3D model inspired by his Symphony of the Night look, and a brand new look for Sypha. It’s still a fairly exploitative gambling machine, though.
But! We got some good gags out of it. After skipping the second game, Shizumon is back with some nice comics. Thanks to Castlevania Realm for archiving them. I think Dracula is singing the theme song of the game in the first strip (there’s some impressive production values with these; each of the three has a full soundtrack release), which I chose to leave in Japanese because the song itself is and because it would have been really hard to change it all; besides it doesn’t need to be translated for the joke to work. Right? Anyway enjoy, and stay tuned for a final post linking to all my Castlevania scanlations in case you missed any.
solidfalcon asked: Thank you so much for translating the Castlevania comic strips, they are hilarious to read. XD
You’re quite welcome! It makes me feel warm and fuzzy to get appreciation. And stay tuned, there is just one more batch of Castlevania comics incoming, then I’ll do a big post with links to all of them in case anyone missed any.
[Comic] Pachislot Akumajo Dracula official 4koma, unofficial scanlation
Konami has been cutting back on real games and focusing on gambling. But they still produced some comics even for a Castlevania-themed slot machine. This is a slots game with interactive cinematic scenes, some of which include gratuitous erotic content, based on Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (Trevor Mode). The new character Angela supports Trevor and heals him when necessary.
These Shizumon comics were on the game’s official site in Japanese, and I’ve translated them. They used some obscure phrases related to Japanese gambling so translation was difficult! Luckily most of the cutscenes it references can be seen in its trailer. Thanks to Castlevania Realm for archiving the raw comics.
[Comic] Castlevania: Curse of Darkness official 4koma, unofficial scanlation, Part 2
Again the 10-photo limit means I have to split this up. These comics by Shizumon originally appeared in Japanese on the official Curse of Darkness website for Japan, and I’ve translated them. Thanks to Castlevania Realm for archiving them. Part 1 here.
I love the idea that Isaac doesn’t normally have tattoos, Dracula just drew them on for a laugh. Or St Germain regretting his time powers.
