MiloScat

March 2, 2014

I’ve been sitting on this for a while, because I’ve been trying to gradually track down the final Nester comic that was missing. But thanks to a generous Retro Mags member, the colleciton is complete! And so I present to you, the Internet, the ultimate Howard & Nester collection!

This is the only place where you can find the entire Howard & Nester run, the Nester’s Adventure run, and the special mini-comics from other sections of the magazine in one place. The otherwise excellent Howard & Nester Archive at hn.iodized.net/main.htm lacks the Nester solo comics, as well as a few particulars and the most recent anniversary comics.

I decided to take this concept and ramp it up to its final conclusion: putting together these main comics with any and all appearances of the characters elsewhere in the pages of Nintendo Power, along with coverage of Nester’s appearances in Pilotwings 64 and Nester’s Funky Bowling, and Howard’s more recent revelations and projects. That makes this collection the best source currently on anything textually relevant to the characters of Howard and Nester. I don’t have quite the personal experience to go into detail on the context, but that’s beyond the scope of this project.

For example, within this collection you’ll find out all about Howard and Nester’s adventures together, their parting, and their solo projects afterwards. You’ll meet Nester’s whole family: his mother, father, twin sister, and even his son eventually. You’ll also see their association with the magazine itself and something of their roles at Nintendo.

I’m sure what’s in here will be far more than most people will care to know about, but that’s me. I love to see things to completion, find every scrap and collect it. If you just want to read the main comics, they’re here. But if you’re bored and want to see a few further shenanigans with the public faces of Nintendo of old, you can go deeper.

Please enjoy this, whether you remember the 80s, or 90s, or just want to know what your weirdo elders were exposed to. Share it around. And keep playing those games!

Download the collection here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/m40oys4fpc8gljc

10:04pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwu18xbsFR

(Notes: 6)

February 13, 2014

Review: Metroid Other M (Wii)

Alright, here we go. I borrowed this game along with Jungle Beat from a friend, because they were two games with a strongly negative reception in their respective fansbases, yet admittedly had their positive aspects. I was curious, almost curious enough to spend money to buy them myself. Having played them now, I’m quite glad I didn’t.

Not to get ahead of myself, but this one had the wider bad blood of the two. Its instant derailing of Samus’ character after almost 25 years is held as its greatest crime. I’ll add my own crimes to the list during this review, but between it and Jungle Beat, I preferred this one, the latter two thirds of the game were more fun. Inferior to previous 2D Metroid and the Primes in my opinion, but it had things going for it. Let’s get the crap out of the way first though.

Anywhere on the Internet you can find the criticisms of this game, especially the story-related elements. However, we can’t ignore the gameplay shortcomings: Enemies take way too long to deal with early on, the charge is so slow and they take so many hits. Action is broken up frustratingly with unnecessary shifts in control: slow-walking from a zoomed-in perspective or looking aimlessly around in first person. In the moment too, switching from the uncomfortable sideways-Wiimote to pointing for missiles is clunky, so much that I barely bothered with it. Finishing moves were poorly explained so I had trouble pulling them off, and half the time they didn’t “finish” them anyway.

Enemy designs were ugly and overcomplicated, and their names were just hideously unpronounceable. I guess it made them seem more alien? The environment concepts were interesting but they, along with the setting and premise, were shamelessly ripped off from Fusion. Music is basically nonexistant, and the ambience I either ignored or was drowned out by sound effects so aurally there was really nothing there.

The premise is poorly executed and the symbolic posturing is so, so hamfisted. It cannot be overtstated how poor the writing here is, and the monotone voice acting does not help matters. There are several main players who are not characterised at all, then killed off with little fanfare or consequence. The major plot points of the first half trail off to nothing more than implication, and while environmental and implied storytelling is a strength of the Metroid series, contrasting it to the extremely in-your-face storytelling applied elsehwere leaves a lot of impact to fall flat.

Samus’ boobs are too big and her suit has heels. Heels, people. Her eternal monologuing inspires dread. And not Metroid Dread, hopefully. I wouldn’t normally use phrases like ludo-narrative dissonance but, uh, Other M has got it. I wanted to watch the cutscenes but at the same time I didn’t want to. And the whole thing ends on an anti-climax.

On the other hand, uh, running around feels good. Whew, I’m all ragey from that. Should have started with the good stuff. Well, it looks pretty. The map’s pretty good and the part of the game where you go around hunting items was fun enough for me to get 100%. Must be because there’s no talking, no plot, no forced sections. The abilities you get make you feel powerful, although by the end you could say overpowered, possibly because the enemies don’t really ramp enough I guess? I like the implementation of the speed boost and stuff with the level design. I also liked some of the environmental concepts with holograms, but there wasn’t enough of it.

Basically I’d agree that it’s a big misstep in the series. I chalk it up to the interpretation of Samus, the ludicrous excuses they put up for the gameplay constraints (the authorisation system gets too much hate probably, but it’s partially justified), and the one that surprised me was the almost complete ignoring of the Prime games. This is a very Japanese product, and you get the feeling that the arrogant and possessive Sakamoto didn’t care for what those Westerners did with his baby. So he made this? Really, this? I blame him for a lot of problems with the game, mainly because I like a figurehead to point the blame at, like Miyamoto. In some ways it competently evokes an extension of the 2D games into a pseudo-3D setting (it’s 2.5D really, maybe 2.75D at best), but in others it’s going against that. So I don’t know what its goals are.

I’ve seen the game for $10 and if you’re able to ignore very large aspects of a game to focus on the good parts, it’s worth it for that. The fighting is different to any Metroid before it, but the exploration feels pretty Metroidy. And the concept of telling a more in-depth story is interesting, but executed very poorly. My wife couldn’t bear to be in the same room as the game because of the talky parts. But it pretty much ruined the series for a few years, and the follow-up has to be good. That’s why some people wanted Retro to have another go (shut up, Tropical Freeze is gonna be awesome!). I like being up on all the happenings and lore and gameplay of all my favourite series, so I needed to play this. You don’t have to. Thumbs down not ironically

12:01pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwu17EQXun

Filed under: review team ninja metroid other m metroid wii nintendo

January 28, 2014

New Play Control: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (Wii)

Haha, more platformers. Up front: I didn’t like this game. Rare for this blog, but this is one I couldn’t bear to spend money on, but when I saw a friend had it I was eager to borrow it. In the Donkey Kong fandom this game is quite maligned, and I had to find out for myself whether it was truly a stain on DKC’s legacy or a genuinely fun game that in hindsight had a misguided direction. Spoiler: stain.

Now, to be fair, the game as originally intended involved exclusive use of the bongos, a unique control scheme that could have made for a fun experience, I’ll grant. But aside from fundamental design issues, the NPC release hugely nerfed mechanics and changed things around, for the worse I feel. It’s the only NPC game that made significant changes to content, but the changes suck. The clap is much weaker, and directional, and its functionality has been split between two inputs. A new health system replaces the purely beat/point-driven scoring system, again splitting the focus and diluting the point. I guess the addition of barrel cannons is fine, because it’s purely cosmetic, replacing some weird plants or something. DK coins were added, or something that looks a bit like them, bringing with them an utterly unnecessary limited lives mechanic that is both irritating in modern games and tacked on in this case where it wasn’t before.

Using a more traditional platformer control scheme just makes you long for responsive gameplay to go with it, but the physics remain from the much less direct bongo control method. The combo system is innovative and interesting, but perhaps I just couldn’t master it because I just found it more frustrating than not, when I had a few actions built up but the game’s floatiness and unresponsiveness caused it to fall flat.

The most grating thing about Jungle Beat to DK fans is its very intentional disregard of past elements of the series. An infamous interview at the time described the other Kongs and characters as “not fresh”, stripping it back to simply the characters DK and “the banana”. At the time irrational internet Rare hate was at its height, so DK fans were extra defensive and critical of the perceived direction that NCL was taking with the series that had seen such classics. So not only were many mechanics thrown out the window, DK’s personality was brutalised, leaving him with seemingly only selfish motivations, and anything we liked about the series history was either thrown out or replaced with a thinly-veiled expy (the new animal buddies are shameless ripoffs of existing buddies).

Fortunately this hateful attitude, for whatever reason, was eventually overturned with Retro’s excellent Donkey Kong Country Returns and upcoming Tropical Freeze. So we can look back on Jungle Beat now without depression for the future. But when I did, I found a lackluster game. Perhaps the comparison was unfair on Jungle Beat, but I simply didn’t have fun playing it. The boss fights were either repetitive or unfair QTEs, DK’s presentation was unlikeable, and when I found I couldn’t play all the levels in the NPC version without getting perfect runs of all previous ones, which was a real kick in the nards.

Of course, I should calm down. There were actually good points. The environments were often interesting and varied. I feel like the mechanics could have been fun with more patience, practice, and in their original form. The narrative was nonexistent but piecing one together yourself can be interesting with the new enemies and characters. Oh the sound was pretty awful. Oops, good stuff: um, some good set pieces, and the beating stuff up thing was involving in a visceral way.

I also don’t care for score attack mechanics, especially not when the simple act of gameplay seems a chore to me. The game’s built around getting a multiplier (satisfying when you can build one up), and getting as many bananas and hits before you land on the ground. You do maneuvers and stuff to stay up or bouncing around. The most fun parts were when you could pull off a good string in a part of the level designed around it. But mess it up and you have to start the set of three levels again. The health/lives mechanic also undermines this score run structure.

Is it any wonder we were worried about DK’s future when we see his face in this game, showing off, grinning hideously as he violently crushes a bizarre series of wildlife? No context, no familiarity to latch onto… The implied narrative was too vague to tie together this series of unconnected environments, entered through a basic menu. DK smacks a few dudes and then beats his chest, and it’s over. And what do we have left? A number. Too small. Do it again. Well, no, I won’t.

I’m glad I played this though, so I can plausibly refute any claim that it was in any way a good idea. Afterwards I watched a speedrun, and that actually was kind of cool. Mastery of the mechanics and optimal paths makes it smoother to watch, but I’d never get there playing myself. The clean break in the franchise also leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Games such as Jungle Climber and even Returns later incorporated some basic minor elements from this game, such as sounds, poses, or Returns’ post-boss beatings. Incoporating other things such as the characters here into later games would also help rehabilitate its image to me, and I would welcome that, but the basic fact is I didn’t enjoy playing it. I can’t recommend the NPC version due to its changes, and shelling out for the original, with bongos, would at this point be a pricey proposition. In fact, my advice would be to watch the speedruns of user piepusher11 on Youtube, to get the experience of how the game is meant to be played (he does exploit one or two glitches to skip bits, though). It was an interesting experiment in game design, but offensive to DK fandom and to my perspective not much fun to play.

Also too many names were untranslated from the Japanese. I hate that.

12:01pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwu15fE9bA

Filed under: donkey kong review donkey kong jungle beat wii nintendo

January 26, 2014

Super Princess Peach (DS)

I bought this one for the wife, because she wanted to try a platformer that was maybe a little easier/more lenient, with a female protagonist. Turns out she still didn’t really like it, she’s just not suited to the genre. Actually getting it was an ordeal, the first copy we picked up was a cheap fake that didn’t work. The manual was a poorly-produced piece of work that seemed to reproduce a review of the game, and the card was misshapen. We had to drive back down just to return it.

I was very interested in the game, for one of the reasons I find Paper Mario fascinating—it’s a collecting point for some of the obscure Mario series elements that the bland main series ignores, especially enemies from Yoshi’s Island (my favourite Mario game by far). Its existence adds a lot to the Mario universe, not least of which is Peach’s capabilities. Exhibited here are mainly her umbrella combat skills (shown in SMRPG and Smash) and emotional control (she can turn them on and off at will). Plus Toad (yes, The Toad…probably) is playable in minigames and that guy needs some spotlight.

Anyways it’s done by TOSE, who are a little hit and miss but this one seems to follow in some ways their Starfy series I think, which is supposed to be good (from what I’ve heard). There’s a big bunch of unlockables and collectibles which I love. Although I still had lots of game to go by the time I bought everything in the shop, and accumulated way too many coins.

So this is like an action platformer, with levels that tend to branch occasionally. I found this frustrating as I wasn’t sure which way was the right way, got a little lost and often missed sections. You have a generous health bar, and an MP gauge that drains (quickly) with your emotion powers. These can be extended, and refilled easily enough. Said powers are used to pass obstacles and find hidden areas and stuff.

It is a fairly easy game (for me) but the controls do have some complexity, and as I said the levels can be confounding. Some of those “change the mechanics up with a vehicle” sections are tedious, too. All up though I had a great time here, running around, hitting Goombas with an umbrella, upgrading my powers, clearing out levels. The boss fights are good and the mishmash of different Mario games (mostly World and Yoshi’s Island, I think) was gratifying.

I’m currently playing the Superstar Saga RPG by AlphaDream and it has a similar feel, and even a graphical resemblance which makes me wonder about the development. I love the style by the way, and I’ve seen a few fangames that transplant a similar look into platformers that manage to utterly shame Miyamoto and co. Similarly, I’ll always dislike Peach being damseled when she kicks so much ass in this game.

It’s perhaps not for everyone but the Yoshi’s Island comparison I brought up earlier extends to the gameplay too, with the exploration, variety of mechanics, and environmental interaction that are fundamental to that game’s play. I’d feel ok to place this spiritually in the Yoshi lineage, in fact. As such I have high esteem for it, and being associated with such a great lifts it up, while being different enough to not suffer overly in comparison. Sure it’s a little simpler and the execution more flawed, but I had fun here and so will any fan of the flipside of the Mario universe. Oh and Perry=Mallow, think about it. I posted about this earlier. Look it up.

12:01pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwu15RZp7B

(Notes: 2)

Filed under: super princess peach tose ds nintendo review mario

December 4, 2013

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

Time for some quick-fire reviews! First up is a game I borrowed from a friend. I previously played Galaxy 1 and it was pretty fun I guess, so I gave the sequel a go to see what they added that was worthwhile.

The answer is not much. It’s pretty much the same thing again, with a few new bells and whistles and tweaks and so forth. For some reason though, I actually 100%ed this one. I guess it strung me along and kept me going better than the first one. Could be the new level select mechanism. At first I was against it as a menu-driven NSMB-style surgical removal of flavour, but the Starship Mario was a reasonable “hub” on its own, especially with the extra friends you accumulate as you go on. Plus it just made your progression easier to grok quickly, and after all this is just a Mario game. Better that they drop the pretensions of ambition and be honest to the relentlessly gameplay-driven design.

You can see my SMG1 review I guess for the basics, although I don’t remember all the specifics of what I said. SMG2 changes up things very often, so it’s stimulating but there’s no consistent theming except within a galaxy.

Uh, I didn’t like Rosalina’s reduced role, her character as presented in these games doesn’t deserve all the fan attention she gets, although personally I think she’s cool and I’m glad she’s part fo the “main” cast to some extent now. She really is just another princess though. Lubba is pretty cool, I suppose. What is he, like some Luma that just kept growing but decided not to turn into a planet or something? Sure.

I liked the wide availability of Luigi, and I used him as much as I could. Speaking of green things though (themed paragraphs wahey!) I hated the green star idea. Only after you completely finish the game and get everything, thus being satisfied and experiencing everything it has, it makes you go back and do it again and search the levels for secret stars in areas that you’re now bored of. The secret stars should have been obtainable from the beginning, that way you can find them while searching for regular stars. I think this was a dumb choice and so ignored that post-game stuff entirely.

I also found a curious thing. I unlocked the boss rush galaxy of the SMG1 bosses, and realised that I’d missed some of them while playing that game. Funny how so many are technically optional, since you can just do levels in any order.

Now even more than before I’m trying to do really short reviews so I’m not so daunted by this blog, so I’m leaving it at that. I think if you’ve played the first one, this one is more of the same so take that as you will. Which one I would recommend depends on your tastes. This is more streamlined, maybe some level themes are more underdeveloped but others are more so, and it has Yoshi. The first is somewhat more of an open experience, edges out this slightly in the plot department, and I suppose the gameplay is more focused? I dunno they’re running together in my mind at this point.

Oh and it didn’t change my mind on main series Mario in general. In terms of the whole series and its progression, I’m very apathetic. It’s fun and all for a while but you should know that I’m not running out to buy 3D World. Regardless, thank you so much for to reading my blog.

12:02pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwu10CW8fA

(Notes: 1)

Filed under: review super mario galaxy 2 mario wii nintendo

September 15, 2013

Lylat Wars (N64)

As I mentioned earlier, before I went away and between bouts of 3D platformers, I popped in the classic Star Fox installment on the 64, known for legal reasons in the PAL territories by the (admittedly more imaginative, less lazy) title, Lylat Wars. I also mentioned something about Mega Man lore, but that didn’t pan out in retrospect. So don’t expect that. Expect this!

Lately I’ve noticed that my tastes tend strongly towards platformers, so I feel good when I play something decidedly different. The Star Fox series has been many things, but only two installments (plus the 90%-done-but-cancelled Star Fox 2—there’s a ROM online) are autoscrolling rail shooters. And yet, because they’re the original and popular ones, everything else is derided as not really Star Fox. Anyway this one’s a “real” one so we don’t have to worry about that until I get around to Command later.

This is one of those games I played so many times in childhood, during that impressionable time, that I can practically play stages by muscle memory—especially on the more fun tracks. You see, each run through takes you on a varying track through the system, visiting certain planets and skipping others. However, I was finally defeated by the unlocked Expert mode, where Fox dons sunnies to resemble his dead/black hole’d father, oh and his wings break off in the slightest breeze, removing your laser upgrades. It’s extremely frustrating.

I found that I was only around 5 Expert medals short of 100%ing it, thereby unlocking the on-foot mode in multiplayer. We never played it much, it wasn’t much fun, and said mode turned out to be pretty lame. But y'know, it’s the principle of the thing. Accomplishing that goal was surprisingly intense and exciting! It, again, as I’ve said before, tested my memories and my new skills, sometimes to the brink of nasty angry feelings about stupid dumb games. But damn if I didn’t blitz Sector Z on my first try! Great feeling.

So why do I love this game? It wasn’t just that I had to try to love the few games we had, because we had some real duds (Superman 64, that SNES cricket game, I’m looking at you guys). I think in a lot of cases the superb, tight play control has to do with long-lasting enjoyment. Of course, the content has to be there too and the fact that multiple runs can vary so much is a big plus there. There’s also little spots of charm that can add so much: the little waggling portraits, the campy voice acting, the impressive boss designs.

The essence of the game is score attacks and trying to better your runs. But the levels are so dynamic and interesting that you just love to replay them. The frustrating bits just make victory sweeter, although I can’t say that I didn’t dread some levels much more than others—certain ones are definitely more fun. But they did stitch it together with some cool plot, stated and implied.

Anyway I think the game’s aged well, which I guess is good news for the remake. Although I heard the extra detail made the (retained) short draw distances jarring. Plus, then they lose the polygonal models which they made seem intentional, and ended up being quite iconic. Either way, it’s a true classic of the 64, and I finally beat it down. Now you all know it’s coming, say it with me: “Press Z or R twice!” Ah, so quotable. Ok, real ones: “Yippeee! You did it!” “My Emperor! I’ve failed you!” So good. Ok, Mission Accomplished. It’s time for us to go now.

10:20pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwuv5detb

Filed under: review nintendo n64 star fox argonaut software lylat wars

July 21, 2013

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

My way of playing this game went like this: I started playing concurrent with Twilight Princess, then stopped this so I could focus on that. I went back to this later, spent a while trying to get a feel for the game. Then I decided to do all the plot first, and get the good sword. Then do sidequests. I got bored of the sidequests so I went straight to the finish.

I feel like my playthrough isn’t exactly the intended way to play. But still, I’m happy with how it went. I really wanted to know what sort of direction they were taking the Zelda series on DS, since they were quite different to any other title. It turned out to be quite simplistic, and getting around the overworld by train (or boat, in Phantom Hourglass) was a big focus. This is one of the reasons I wasn’t always totally enthralled. As it went on, the oft-stated tedium of this travel became more apparent to me. And when the sidequests were always about ferrying things and people around in the same way, and were sometimes a bit vague, I got sick of them when I made it my task to do them.

I mentioned that the whole thing was quite simplistic. Not always a bad thing, there was less getting lost in areas (the good maps on the other screen helped), and the control process was streamlined. My feelings on the controls really picked up when I realised that you could hold L instead of tapping the touchscreen button. I have all these fingers and buttons, might as well use them in an action game! But the dungeons did steadily ramp up in complexity as the game went on.

As for the Zelda formula, it was fortunately diverted from a fair bit here. There was a progressive intermediary central dungeon, for example, and Zelda was even with you the whole time, even if her body this time had been kidnapped. Your standard MacGuffins this time were Force Gems, a cool callback to Four Swords Adventures, of all things. There was also some experimentation with items, with the blowy wind thing and the whip.

I don’t want to get too mad about this, but the translations differ between regions in an absurd way. NOA and NOE did mostly completely different translations, changing names and plot details willy-nilly, resulting in lnaguages with two official translations (English, French, and Spanish). What does this mean for canon? How can a fan reconcile these differences? It annoyed me because I’m OCD and stuff. Bleh. Whatever.

Finally, I should mention that the final boss inventively uses many of the tricks of the game in a multi-stage fight, but the second-last stage was annoying. You have to deflect all these rocks in a row in a very long pattern, and if you miss one you have to start again. The whole phase has just one pattern, but with the controls it’s hard to do. But like I said, the rest was good and a good culmination, and the last section of the Tower tests all the other stuff you’ve done that isn’t covered here.

All in all, Spirit Tracks is quite interesting. It’s a bit more experimental than most Zeldas, appropriate for a handheld game. Like other portable titles in the series, there’s no Ganon, no Triforce, no Master Sword. It (and Phantom Hourglass) have a unique control scheme. It’s not dependent on other games, but takes a few elements from them that are fun to notice. Spirit Tracks never got a whole lot of attention, as Phantom Hourglass was a bit divisive and its separation in plot from the series probably harmed it in popular terms. I was glad to play it though, even if like I said I had to decide to finish it rather than do 100% of everything, because the training around was tedious. But now I can move on to other things, and there’s a few in the old DS backlog here. So long!

3:04pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwuqBAdp9

Filed under: review nintendo ds zelda: spirit tracks

June 10, 2013

Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)

I’m taking a break from refreshing E3 speculation sites to write a blog post. Who cares about new games when we have great old ones we can still enjoy! Well, Twilight Princess is only 6 and a half years old, but it is (kinda) 2 generations ago now. I got this game for my birthday, from my older brother. At the time I was trying to decide between it and Skyward Sword. The contrasts are interesting, but not something I’ll go into here as I’ve developed something of an irrational aversion to that game, for a large amount of small reasons. Having not played it, I also imagine the worst about the experience—a mechanism that helps me cope with not owning and playing every game I lay eyes on. On the other hand, here’s a game I have played: Twilight Princess, and I did enjoy the experience.

Approaching this game as I did probably gave me a very different set of expectations to those players who seized it brand new, full of expectations and concerns about the direction of the franchise and the new hardware that the game had been accommodated to (it was developed for Gamecube originally, then ported to Wii with added motion controls and released simultaneously on both). I mentioned earlier that my first impressions were occuppied with the jagginess of the visuals. That’s one factor of revisiting slightly older games that were still striving for what has arguably been executed better since with more experience. However, it is true that this quickly becomes a non-issue as you play and adjust.

In fact, it’s the most realistic Zelda that exists, as I believe SS went back a bit on the cartooniness spectrum. Not that that’s a bad thing, but being of the generation that reveres Ocarina of Time, the increased fidelity of the world and the detail were very helpful to the immersion factor. I’m sure Miyamoto would say the motion controls helped too.

Since I bring it up, the comparisons with Ocarina of Time are inevitable and apt. I think since its phenomenal success, so groundbreaking and different at the time, subsequent 3D Zeldas have spent perhaps a little too much effort trying to recapture it, and in popular opinion this one most of all. I think though that there is enough to make it unique while being in recognisably the same world, the balance was struck very well here.

Where to start. How about the shipping, get that out of the way. While Wind Waker mercifully avoided it, this game embraces pairing Link up with different gals over the course (again, like OoT). Ilia, Zelda, Midna, oh and Hena too. The ambiguity and the confusion was very well summed up in the final sequence, though. This didn’t carry through too much in the game, though. A very tricky problem, developing relationships in a subtle and effective way through gameplay. I must admit though, I did have a little fun filling in the blanks in my mind. I haven’t made up my mind about it one way or another, which is for the best I think. I prefer not to be a rabid single-minded ship captain.

Now that I think of it, the game did a pretty good job conveying emotions most of the time. They worked hard on the faces to bring that through, and it really helped. There were a lot of memorable characters, like the Resistance for instance. They even had a few scenes actually doing stuff, although to me these brief cutscene-only events only served to highlight how static they were functionally. Still, it’s a step forward.

While playing I was helped by reading stuff on zeldawiki or elsewhere, about connections, small details, or fanservice-type stuff. By which I mean it helped with my appreciation of the world I was inhabiting in this game. Knowing that the Yeti mansion probably belonged to Ashei and her father; or the fact that Fanadi, Agitha, and Telma were references to the Sheikah, Kokiri, and Gerudo races despite those races not being represented much otherwise; these facts had me making connections and thinking about the world when not playing the game, which was fun and good. I thought up backstories both for the absence of those races and the presence of those individuals, for example. I’ll tell you all about it sometime.

As for the game itself, it made a good use of motion controls, I thought. You didn’t often have to be too precise, and I wasn’t resentful of the requirement like so many seem to be. I actually prefer it for aiming, which most of the subweapons required. Oh, with one exception (aside from curse you, ROLLGOOOAAAL!!!): thrusting the nunchuck to shield bash never worked for me, it doesn’t work. I always did the spin attack instead. That made some of the sword techniques seem useless, a factor also contributed to by the difficulty in scoring hits on some of the tougher enemies. Fighting them just wasn’t very fun when you only have one or two techniques you can use. Link’s vast array of equipment he always amasses makes it seem like you might have options, but often they only have specific uses which makes half of them seem like junk most of the time.

So the enemies weren’t that impressive, although I liked the Twilight versions. Dubstep birds, I called those Twilit Kargorocs, because they made unearthly sounds when attacking. It was a cool effect, and the visual effects were cool too. Slight tangent here, the pacing of the whole game was a little strange, with the twilight areas being resolved pretty quickly and then a long time without them, and then… oh I don’t know. And the wolf’s abilities weren’t utilised for a long time so i forgot about them. Well, I’m rambling so let’s talk about one of my favourite aspects: the dungeon design.

Specifically, some of the dungeons were absolutely awesome, a couple were a little bland. I loved that after so many Zelda games that had “X Temple” these ones were very flavourful, tonally internally consistent but not externally consistent and just explored some interesting concepts in ways that made a lot of them seem fresh. Of course, again living up to OoT, the Water dungeon (Lakebed Temple I think it was called) was poorly designed and frustrating. But the Snowpeak Ruins just blew me away. It’s an actual mansion, and there’s Yetis squatting there, and you get the map from the Yeti, and there’s snow coming in through holes in the roof! The presentation really impressed me, it felt so natural. Ok this paragraphs a bit all over the place, let’s start a new one.

No wait, I’m not done gushing. Going through those doors in the ruins of the Temple of Time into the sepia-toned splendour of the ancient Temple was breathtaking. The Hyrule Castle courtyard had a great sense of scale, even if it was annoying to get around. The City in the Sky had chicken men everywhere! Meeting the Gorons in the mines was great! Anyway most of the dungeons were great. Great everything is great!

Oh let’s whiplash back to a huge negative which I’ve mentioned before, the money. I was too often at max Rupees and putting them back into chests. There wasn’t enough to spend them on and they gave you too many in a too-small wallet. Other games since (and even before) have spread out rewards with treasures and other stuff, and more things to buy. I feel like the Magic Armour was added later to suck up some money that you always have. I liked seeking out hidden treasures and stuff but too often the reward was just more Rupees I didn’t need.

Anyway next thing. Oh there’s no more next thing? Wrap up? Ok. Well there’s certainly a lot to say about Twilight Princess, I haven’t even mentioned how cool Midna and Zant are as characters yet (super cool) or how the concept of the Twilight stuff is introduced so well but kind of peters out while you’re collecting Mirror Shards, then jumps right back (part of the pacing thing I mentioned earlier). It’s also interesting to examine it as part of the greater Zelda series, but I don’t feel I have the space to do that any more justice. Suffice to say, overall I feel it’s my favourite Zelda yet. Ok, I say that about a lot of games I finished recently but this game is damn good. It takes lots from Ocarina but also brings in so much new stuff, and it does both of these very well. If you loved Ocarina and let’s face it, everyone does, this is great as a follow-up. Ok that’s enough. TP gets 3/3 Fused Shadows, 4/4 Mirror Shards, and one flustered chicken from me.

10:33pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwun0Zw6V

(Notes: 1)

Filed under: wii review zelda zelda twilight princess nintendo

May 14, 2013

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii) & Metroid Prime Hunters (DS)

Whew. My big Metroid rush is over for now. Or is it? Tomorrow, the new Famicom sale game is going up on the WiiU and it’s (you guessed it) Super Metroid. I’d been considering picking that up with the last of my Wii funds, but this is much better. Anyway let’s talk about these other two games, shall we?

What’s interesting to me is how many similarities these games have. MP3 was made by the same developers as the other Primes, Retro Studios. It really changed up the formula that had been established by the revolutionary first game and the evolutionary second. It did this not only with its control scheme that made heavy use of the Wii remote, but also in terms of structure, conventions and scope. It’s the first Metroid game with proper voice acting (MP1’s unused spoken intro aside), it involves moving Samus’s ship and travelling to other locations, planets, and even systems, it brings in a large amount of NPC interaction, and it has a dynamic plot. In most other ways it’s an extension of the first two games, but even then a lot of gameplay things were tweaked: stacking beam weapons instead of selectable, the new Hypermode which introduces a different type of strategy to fights, using the ship to affect the environment, and all the grappling.

When I looked into Hunters though, I found it had got there first on a few of these. Taking your ship between different planets, encountering other Bounty Hunters, a redesigned control scheme for new hardware. On the other hand, while it had a lot less suit upgrades, it actually added a ton more weapons, some a lot less useful than others (I’m looking at you, Volt Driver). The two were developed alongside each other for part of the time, and Retro were consulted on many things by the developer of Hunters, NST. But I’m wondering which company had these ideas first, especially the other Hunters and the planet-hopping. In any case, it was cool to play them together as they had these common elements—it also highlighted how different the execution of them was.

Now we could easily talk about how crummy Hunters looks as an early 3D DS game. I looked past that for most of my playthrough—I guess I’m good at ignoring visual shortcomings when I want to (I played on my 3DS for at least 6 months in power-saving mode—not recommended). Just accept that the textures are super-blocky and play the game. There were other limitations on the smaller system though, such as a noticeable lack of enemy diversity and especially boss diversity. The scans were also very laconic compared to its console counterparts. Everything is just a lot smaller in scale, but again the limitations of the system understandably imposed this to some extent (would it have killed them to make one or two more boss designs though? There’s 2 reused 4 times each!).

So obviously the fidelity of Corruption was much higher. The production values were very high for the most part. Perhaps for such a cinematic game, I was starting to see the long-whined about visual limitations of the Wii, but for the most part it looked and felt excellent. Comparing it also to the other two Prime games in such a short time, it was a big step up. I also loved the variety of environments, and how each planet had a completely unique and at some points beautiful visual design, right down to the style of doors giving a sense of place for each area.

Some complaints: Ship Missile upgrades were useless, the final boss battle was underwhelming, and the Wii remote movement stuff was overused in some parts and underused in others. While we’re here, Hunters complaints: too many arbitrary force fields, not enough weight behind the rival Hunters, I got lost a lot.

But let’s talk about some good parts! I loved those two key differences to the other Prime games that these brought: the planet-hopping allowed a more convincing and interesting reason for different environments, and more unique places that gave a more frequent sense of exploring a whole new space; the greater presence of NPCs reduced the usual lonely feeling of Metroid games, but that was still there—more importantly, it gave the world a lot more depth.

Of course, the heavier emphasis on setpieces in Corruption undermined the usual Metroid thing of wandering around, exploring and backtracking. I think they still managed to incorporate those feelings and experiences very well into this new structure, though. The appearances of Hunters randomly in levels also gave a deeper feeling of sudden excitement and peril, plunged back into cool, steady exploring afterwards. So both found very effective gameplay hooks in there while shaking up the Metroid formula.

Speaking of the Metroid formula, Hunters had no Metroids or Space Pirates. Weird. Still, a compelling story with perhaps not enough justification for when there was an appearance of common enemies such as Geemers (how did they come to a whole other galaxy?). In fact, the stories of both games were fantastic (although obviously the story was a lot more “there” in Corruption).

I’m trailing off a bit so once again I will intentionally end my post before I get really out of hand. But I will say, having now experienced all of the Prime series (except Pinball), um it was fun. Sorry don’t know where that sentence was going. I’m definitiely a bigger Metroid fan now. Luckily not enough to feel bitter about the zero 25th Anniversary acknowledgments. It’s just a B- or C-lister now, oh well. But I’m glad I gave Hunters a chance, it was a very neat little game that was an adequate translation of the Prime gameplay to the system. Curruption was a very enjoyable conclusion to the series, easily my favourite of the three at this stage (maybe after replaying I’ll join the prevailing opinion of the first being best by far… not at the moment though). Really, all the added elements made it such a great experience, a real sci-fi epic. I just hope NIntendo aren’t too discouraged by Other M’s reception, and pull their finger out and make some more great games! Give them to the West again if you have to! And Retro, hire more developers! So that’s that, Mission Completed! (If you read this post in under an hour and picked up all of my references, you’ll now see me in my underwear. Enjoy!)

2:16pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwuky1ZrZ

Filed under: metroid metroid prime metroid prime 3: corruption metroid prime hunters ds wii nintendo retro studios nst review

April 29, 2013

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (GCN)

So I’m playing through some games at the moment, haven’t finished any in a while. Loving the Rayman Legends Challenges App too. But I did recently finish watching a Let’s Play of Zelda Four Swords Adventures, or Four Swords+. I can’t decide which title is less generic. I don’t watch Let’s Plays that often, usually just small parts, but sometimes it’s fascinating to go through the complete experience and get someone else’s take on it at the same time.

I had to choose between two here, and ended up going with Goron50’s one—it had the best quality video, he didn’t talk too much and his voice was ok, and he was doing single player so it was easier to follow when he did everything. In single player mode a GBA connection is not required, and anything that would normally be displayed there is but up on screen in a GBA border. It’s an interesting accomadating technique, and made it very easy to follow in Youtube video format, unlike the other LP I considered which had four players and was confusing, especially as only the main screen was shown and not the GBAs. I did, however, switch to ShadowMarioXLI’s 4-player one afterwards, for a look at the Tingle Tower minigames and Shadow Battle deathmatch mode.

As for the game itself, it was actually very interesting to me. It’s often overlooked, not least because of its peripheral-heavy and exclusionist control scheme. It feels like a game not worth getting unless you have 3 friends with GBA connection cables. Goron50 taught me though that the game is perfectly playable with 1, and in that mode it’s pretty similar to other 2D Zelda games, but with a very different stage-based structure. You can’t help but feel that you’re missing out on all that the game is trying for, though. Seeing parts of ShadowMarioXLI’s run showcased a lot of shenanigans and fun co-op/competitive tension—not to mention those two whole modes that require multiplayer.

Speaking of missing modes, the Japanese version included, in addition to Hyrulean Adventure (the main mode, in which a post-TP Child Timeline Hyrule has to deal with the scheming of a reincarnated Ganondorf releasing Vaati and numerous “Shadow Links”) and Shadow Battle (a multiplayer competition, with coloured Shadow Links fighting amongst themselves), a third mode called Navi Trackers (originally intended as a standalone game called Tetra’s Trackers). As the beta title suggests, this mode is set after Wind Waker with Tetra and her pirate crew playing a treasure-hunting game with Link, who apparently and without explanation has split into four (even he seems confused about it in the intro). This mode supported multiplayer and single player against Tingle, and featured voice acting, including Tetra and other NPCs voicing a customisable substitute name made up phonetically of two morae (ie characters). This is speculated to be the reason for its removal from international releases of the game, as it would be hard to do outside of Japanese. Pretty lazy, huh? Could’ve just removed that feature, instead of cutting 1/3rd of the game modes out entirely.

This makes the Japanese release, the original intent, seem more like a “Kirby Super Star”-type game, with sub-games that are smaller in scope and more variety. Having that Wind Waker setting included also adds to the feel of the game being a total Zelda mashup—this is one of the most fascinating aspects to me. The menus, some sound effects, some visual effects (eg explosions), some enemies, and the bosses in the main mode are taken from Wind Waker. Many environments, sprites, enemies, and plot details are from Link to the Past. The appearance of the Links and the GBA-displayed graphics (not to mention the gameplay) are from the original Four Swords, and these graphics were repurposed for Minish Cap. The plot involves Shadow (Dark) Links (Zelda 2, Ocarina of Time), Vaati (Four Swords), and Ganondorf (Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess) who transforms into pig Ganon with trident (Link to the Past, Zelda 1). This game, much more than others in the series, takes elements from other Zelda games in a good way.

Also the NPCs. As an actiony arcadey stage-based game, they did well incorporating dungeons and towns. You find such people as Deku Scrubs (Majora’s Mask), Gerudos (Ocarina of Time), and Gorons. More important NPCs include the Six Maidens (Link to the Past), Kaepora Gaebora the owl (Ocarina of Time), Great Fairies in their Wind Waker appearance, and Tingle (Wind Waker). It just seems that it has a larger amount of reused or repurposed elements and characters from other titles, rather than making its own. In this case, I really liked that as a Zelda fan. Sure, they can’t do that all the time but for this game to have that role makes it totally sweet.

After talking about that, the best part to me, I’ve lost enthusiasm for the rest of the game. If I get bored and stop, sorry! I’ll try. So the game obviously relies heavily on the difference between the TV screen (the main area you’re in) and the GBA screen (for sub-areas such as a cave or building). It’s based around the four people in the same area but doing different acitivities. Now it might seem obvious to ask why this wouldn’t work on the WiiU, but each person needs their own screen to be equal, so they can all be in sub-areas or have information the others don’t to encourage co-operative sharing (or competitive taking all the loot). So a single Gamepad is good for asymmetric stuff as they’ve shown and talked about, but this experience is very symmetrical.

It’s a rather inventive use for the GBA-GCN connectivity, but one of the big problems with this stuff is Nintendo has these wacky ideas that never really go anywhere. So you’ve got maybe 2 or 3 games that use this cable in a really cool way, but man that’s not worth buying four of them! So it’s a good idea, but there wasn’t a widespread use of it and it was optional. But now there’s all this stuff built into the WiiU, and you know they’re not going to use it when everyone has it! Ok, now I’m stereotyping Nintendo.

My point is, this is a very niche game. Which is a shame because it’s got cool ideas, it just has so many requirements to get into it—including being a big Zelda nerd to get all the references and stuff, just another requirement kinda. But having acquired all the necessities, is there really enough game here to justify it all, especially with Navi Trackers missing? I mean, maybe there’s not enough content given all the hoops you have to jump through for it. It is a different kind of content to your standard Zelda game, with menus into stages and minigames rather than exploring a world. But what is Hyrule Field but a big menu anyway?

I digress. The fact that there are two ways to play this game is cool. Many gameplay aspects are unique and interesting. The sheer amount of Zelda stuff mashed together is a total delight, even when they don’t mesh together perfectly (eg the Wind Waker boss art style clashes with other sprites). I regret not having the hardware/friends to be able to play the game myself, but the amount of conditions makes it impractical. The way the game feels so much like Link to the Past but with upgraded graphics and sound, and cool zooming effects makes me wish Nintendo or others would try a 2D revival-type thing like this with more polish and utilising modern stuff to expand on that experience, instead of going whole-hog into 3D or new control schemes or whatever. People like retro games, you could make some great stuff by shooting for that feel but enhancing it in other ways. Not like Megaman 9 and 10, though.

Ugh, I’m not getting my point across. I guess stuff like Donkey Kong Country Returns is kinda like that, but this game is all (mostly) 2D sprite art, but more high-fidelity, with zooming out in large areas and sweet water effects and stuff. I feel like you could take some great ideas from this game, and I haven’t seen them done that much elsewhere. Or maybe I have I don’t know. I guess the really specific instance of explicitly Link to the Past-style graphics but enhanced without overblowing them into 3D or something is what I’m talking about. The new 3DS Zelda is an example of that, not that I’m saying it’s bad, it’s just another way to do it.

Sigh. Anyway I should end this rambly, incoherent post before it gets, uh, too ranty. This game is cool, watch a Let’s Play some time. You don’t have to watch all of it. Sorry I went off the rails there. I’ll get this writing stuff down some day. Until next time, may your sword always be filled with the power to repel evil.

5:20pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwujoV9EC

Filed under: review zelda nintendo gcn zelda four swords adventures

April 10, 2013

Picross NP Vol 1-8 (SNES)

It seems like most of my family love Picross. I certainly do. It’s more interesting than Sudoku because there’s more variety possible, while still being purely logic. Once you really get a handle on the rules and intricacies it becomes very satisfying to smash through a puzzle while you’re in the “Picross Zone”. The other great thing about it is you get a cool picture at the end, with either nice, awkward or heavily stylised pixelart. Depending on your game, this will also be colourised or even animate at the end.

Another big draw for me in Nintendo-licensed Picross games is the Nintendo-themed puzzles. Picross NP did that so much better than other ones I’ve played, as instead of the lazy and boring way of replicating 8-bit sprites on a puzzle grid, they featured new, original pixel art renditions of characters, even ones that were already pixel sprites.

I’ve played through the Normal mode of Picross DS, to get to the Extra section with the 8-bit sprites. Too much Mario. 3 rows of it to be precise! Leaving only one row for Samus, Link, Ice Climber, and Excitebike. Getting there was awesome fun, though. Having said that, often what you filled in was very hard to distinguish until they colourised it for you, meaning you wouldn’t know until the very end what it is you were making. From my experience, the older games in the series had puzzles that were simpler in shape so you could guess.

Let me get the angry part out of the way. The PAL regions’ version of Picross DS was abysmally under-supported compared to the US and Japan. I’m talking downloadable puzzle packs. We got 2 packs of 5, they got 100 and 60 packs, respectively. I felt so cheated.

So I emulated the highlights of what they got. First, recap. Mario’s Picross for Game Boy, 1995. All regions got the cart release and later 3DS VC release. Mario’s Super Picross for SNES, 1995. Japan only for cart, Wii VC release for Japan and PAL (untranslated, and they charged more for it. The cheek!) Picross 2 for Game Boy, 1996. Japan only for cart and 3DS VC. Picross NP for SNES, 1999. Japan only, released in 8 volumes via the Nintendo Power cartridge rewriting service. Picross DS for DS, 2007. All regions got it, PAL got shafted in the DLC department. DLC, for reference, included many puzzles from Mario’s Picross, Mario’s Super Picross, and all 8 volumes of Picross NP. Picross-e and Picross-e2 for 3DS eShop, 2011-2012. Japan and PAL.

So the USA has had less games released, but a much better version of DS. The reason for that (and less for PAL too) is poor sales of the first game outside Japan.

Ok, so what I decided was the touchscreen interface was best. If I had to use the inferior button interface, I would only bother with the puzzles that were really interesting to me, namely the Nintendo IP puzzles in NP. The other 3 have some too, but mainly sprites—NP, as I’ve said, had 12 puzzles in each of 8 volumes with redrawn Nintendo characters, animated after solution. Awesome~!

The properties were covered with one per volume: Pokemon, Yoshi’s Story, Kirby, Lylat Wars, Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Wario Land 2, and Donkey Kong Country. For more information see here. (They erroneously claim the games were distributed via Satellaview, but their puzzle lists are accurate.) The last 3 volumes had slightly different presentation in the menus, and of course all had many more puzzles apart from “Character Mode” but that was the only mode I concerned myself with.

It was, as I predicted, totally cool. As you go on, you could try and guess who it would turn out to be based on the theme, and then at the end the whole thing was coloured and the characters started doing a little animation loop. Very cool. I tried to make a gif, but it was so hard and it didn’t work and it got blurry and distorted.

As I said, the button interface was inferior. Much easier to make mistakes and just less natural. There were other interface issues, or rather, the DS and 3DS versions have made many improvements over these older ones. Like automatically greying out the row numbers when you fill a row, you had to do that manually here. This version also counted down and failed you after half an hour, instead of counting up and just not registering a completion after an hour (they let you finish the puzzle but it didn’t count). So actually doing the puzzles was a worse experience and just made me wish I’d been able to do the same puzzles, but with the improved interface, rules, and controls of DS. Sigh. I got used to it though and was soon racing through them.

Of course, the interface of NP was not without its charms. Its different presentation was novel and colourful, compared to the rather flat DS one. The puzzles were presented on book pages, with a character-approproate background for the NIntendo puzzles (in vol 1-5), and the cursor was alternately a crayon or pencil. Of course, DS had a series of themed puzzle tiles (although the Mario brick one for Extra was unintuitive and hurt my eyes!), and its DLC packs (I assume) all used the Mario’s Picross-style archeological chipping at stone theme. So they each have their unique features.

For that reason, I’m glad I played the Nintendo puzzles in their original form. I still feel cheated but ha! I emulated your games for free! How do you like that, Nintendo! Ugh, I’m a bad person aren’t I?

Yeah so Picross is loads of fun! It’s relaxing to just follow these logic rules for puzzles. There’s plenty of versions of it on the iOS App Store, so go pick one up (there’s even free ones). I was introduced to the concept by “Shady Puzzles” for iPhone. Or get Picross-e, it’s quite good. In that case, if you’re unlucky enough to be American, well nuts to you! Now you know how we feel about Earthbound and countless other games! (Quick note about -e compared to DS: smoother interface, less puzzles, non-animated solutions.) It was so nice to see these cameos, it’s the same reason I like Tetris DS. Enhance the concept with IP dressing. Recipe for success. Ok thanks for reading guys!

12:01pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwuiKSxaE

Filed under: review picross picross np picross ds ds snes nintendo jupiter game freak

April 6, 2013

DK: Jungle Climber (DS)

I don’t remember if I’ve written about this before (my blog’s been going for a while now! woo!) but I went back and cleared Jungle Climber to 100%, so I’m writing about it now. (To reiterate, a game is “finished” when the story is cleared, or I see the credits. “Completed” is 100%, most often according to the game’s metrics.)

This is one of those games that the DS seems to have a lot of; an IP revival of sorts that seems built around a new mechanic. Most of them were trying out features of the DS itself, but this one isn’t actually reliant on the hardware, except for tall stages that span both screens I guess. Anyway, the “difference” or you could say “gimmick” about this game was the peg-swinging central mechanic.

Based on the old NES game Clu Clu Land, the idea is of controlling a character’s arms independently to grab things and use your momentum to change direction based on spinning and swinging. This idea was used in 2004’s DK: King of Swing combined with gravity and physics to make a hybrid platformer-style game, of which this game is a sequel. Compared to KOS, JC fleshes out and expands on a lot of gameplay stuff, and brings the artstyle more in line with the Country games with its 3D pre-rendered sprites, compared to the bright, cartoony flat sprites of KOS (which are very appealing in their own way too).

These two games, developed by Paon, kept the light alive for the Donkey Kong series in its dark years. They were somewhat maligned at the time for their nontraditional gameplay, but at least they were faithful to the characters and spirit of the franchise. This is compared to what we got on the home console, with Jungle Beat throwing the series’ history under a bus and 3 bongo rhythm games with terrible licensed music. And on the handheld front, the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games were muddying the identity of the franchise and DK himself, not to mention the strange gameplay tack that series also took after its first installment. So seeing Paon treat the characters and setting with such respect is something I really appreciate about their games (the third of theirs was Barrel Blast/Jet Race on the Wii). They tried something new, but they made an honest attempt to make it fit in.

And that’s why I like Jungle Climber. The reason I stopped playing for a while, before getting to 100%, was the DS-breakingly frustrating difficulty of the extra challenge stages. Also I was trying to get good ranks on the minigames, which was also infuriating. But getting any rank was enough to score the completion percentage, so I have a C in some modes but I don’t mind! Finally beating those extra stages was satisfying, and I got a cool cutscene!

The peg-swinging mechanic is strange, yeah. And maybe it’s not a “true” platformer. But like any new control mechnism, like when I first started Metroid Prime or Katamari, once I got the hang of it it became very natural. And mastering a new skill is one of the fun things in life, even if it’s so minor as a variation in player control.

The plot of this game is silly (wouldn’t have it any other way), but it’s great how it takes you to so many different places. Each world (island) has its own identity, and the weird dimension stages are also unique—but they can be repetitive (too many mirror stages, not enough farm stages) and their reuse of some environments on islands that have interesting environments is an annoyance. JC handles the progression well though by having cutscenes at the end of each island, where the protagonist group catches up to K. Rool and they have a chat, with sufficient ham and cheese. The world map is really cool too, DK smoothly jumps around the island’s geography between stages, like an extension of the Country’s world maps.

That’s a point where we can compare this to Donkey Kong Country Returns. Returns was an awesome game with totally interesting levels and backgrounds, and smooth platforming gameplay that was quite similar to the Donkey Kong Country series, but pared back in some respects, was a bit lacking in characters and the world map was just tokens on paths (that’s totally a legitimate complaint!). Compared to this game, whose actual gameplay was quite unlike the Country games but did the characters and world very well. Ok I think I’m exaggerating here but there’s aspects of each that are great for a Donkey Kong Country fan.

Compared to the previous game, King of Swing, Jungle Climber is super-tightened up in mechanics and gameplay, it’s a bit less floaty which is good and I think the collectibles are better. Better music too. One factor it falls down on though is the boss battles. KoS by comparison had very interesting boss fights with cool, flavourful characters, whereas JC’s bosses were mostly transformed Kritters which I found disappointing. They also reused a few in JC like the giant robot. Another lesson to be learned: don’t imitate DKC1 on everything, its boss fights were dull and shallow. I just don’t get how they took a step back between the two games—of course, that’s only my opinion.

Well, anyway I had heaps of fun with this game. It has lots of other odd mechanics involving Diddy that are used only a bit, but I guess they don’t overstay their welcome you could say. I think it does a lot of fun things, and there’s plenty to replay levels for with the collectibles.The difficulty is quite steep at times, especially in the final boss battle, but stock up on stuff and turn on the “cheats” to make it a bit easier. The swinging and pegs can actually be frustrating when it doesn’t go your way, but it’s so unique. I’m really glad I could experience it, I think it was my first pick for DS game when my wife got her DS and I borrowed it from her. I don’t regret that decision at all. Actually cos I played JC so much she made me get my own! So yes, I bought a 3DS for Jungle Climber. Anyway, goodbye for now. Jump in my jet and jive, Clive! Ha, Funky Kong.

12:01pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwuh-TBjX

Filed under: review donkey kong donkey kong jungle climber paon ds nintendo

March 23, 2013

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Wii)

So I picked this up again after a long hiatus. Originally the reason was that I had borrowed Wind Waker and Paper Mario 2 from a friend, and wanted to get those awesome games back to him ASAP. So I put my playthrough on hold (halfway through Torvus Bog, I think), which stretched a long, long time as I put off restarting that. But I finally did and finished it.

My initial impression of the game was that it seemed like a mod, or expansion pack, of Prime, rather than a fully developed sequel. The engine is obviously the same, the interactable objects are mostly quite similar, certain enemies are reskins of Prime enemies, the beams are quite simple reskins. It differentiates itself a bit more as you go on though, with some stunning environments, new items and concepts, and a more active plot (rather than mostly inferred through scans, although it has that too).

That’s not to say that building so closely upon Prime is a bad thing. Prime was a fantastic game, still recognised today as a classic and a brilliant extension of the Metroid franchise despite some pre-release concerns. The sequel is less accoladed, but to my mind it’s probably just as good and different enough to be worthwhile playing. Also, similarly to Majora’s Mask, a few changes can go a long way toward the atmosphere, especially in environments. The comparison is apt as both are lesser-liked sequels that share many assets and mechanics, but with a darker tone and new ideas.

Echoes is a little less experimental than Majora’s Mask though, although carrying the Zelda link further, designers who worked on A Link to the Past apparently consulted with Retro to develop the Light World/Dark World concept. It’s well-executed here, with familiar structures but twisted and a dangerous feel to Dark Aether, although the portal loading screens were a little long and annoying.

I realised as I went on that Echoes was a bit smaller in area than Prime, but the dual worlds added to the size, and I feel bactracking was handled a little better. The smaller size and interconnectedness helped this aspect. As I got to know this little world, I felt good moving around confidently.

This feeling was hampered in the long run by a lacking “sense of progression”. Progressing meant collecting items and upgrades, getting MacGuffins, and opening new areas—all well and good, and staple to Metroid. But adding cutscenes and a major NPC (and Dark Samus scenes) was ultimately futile as it was not followed through enough. I didn’t feel as if my efforts were hindering the Ing or helping the Luminoth. I suppose the Dark Samus subplot was handled well, but due to all the explicit scan lore I expected some reflection of the conflict I was currently carrying out on the game world or dialogue with U-Mos, for example. Prime also felt a bit strange in this respect, as everything was implied and I didn’t feel as if I was accomplishing much until the end, which then felt a little flat.

Then again, the restrained and laid-back storytelling (for the most part) is refreshing in this age of Quicktime events and dull cutscenes. Echoes’s cutscenes were snappy and light on text, leaving some more lore/audiolog-type scan stuff for optional finding. This also applies to more retro stuff, but the comparison is more appropriate for this, a 3D first-person action-shooter. Just the tone and pace was so nice and slow and subtle. I liked that.

Combat is, well, it’s ok. At first you have to be careful, as threats are unknown and can do much more relative damage, but as you get to know everything’s patterns and capabilities—and your health increases—you tend to just rush past most creatures. Thus I think the start of the game and new areas that you venture into are more effective in building tone so on. Of course, once you get the Annihilator Beam there’s another shift because it makes it so much easier to just blast through things. So the tonal shifts are a little strange in that way but cool.

I like the sound design in this game. Sound effects are not too loud most of the time, the compositions for the different areas are nice, and part of the soothing change back into Light Aether after a stint in the Dark.

Another positive was the interactions of different groups. The Luminoth built everything, then the Ing corrupted it. The Luminoth then lost the war and went to sleep, waiting for a redeemer. The Federation showed up later and promptly got slaughtered by some Ing. Space pirates also make the scene (with Phazon), but are mainly possessed by more Ing. Finally, Dark Samus wrecks some stuff. Then Samus arrives and has to figure all this out by scanning stuff. It’s a fairly rich world, although the Federation and Pirate stuff is pretty much just in the first quarter of the game, I guess.

Oh by the way, there was a manga produced for this game which the Metroid Database has translated (except the last chapter) here. It focuses much more on the Federation troopers, and Samus arrives before they all die. It’s not bad.

Not sure what else to say, as I actually finished the game a little while ago and (appropriately to my playthrough) put off the review. But yeah it was a sweet game, and on the strength of it I bought Hunters for the DS too, which I will play before starting Corruption as they were developed in that order, although Hunters is set between Prime and Echoes. I really respect Retro at this point, they should hire a bunch more people so they can work on more than one game at a time! Anyway that’ll do so, see you next mission!

5:52pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwugvA4b_

Filed under: metroid metroid prime metroid prime 2 echoes retro studios nintendo wii new play control review

February 26, 2013

Animal Crossing (GCN)

A while ago, out of the blue, a friend presented me with the original Animal Crossing (ok, it’s not actually the original, as it’s the third of four versions of Animal Forest for the Japanese N64… long story). She’d found it in the course of her work at the op shop (that’s the thrift store for you Yanks) and set it aside for me, as a renowned game nerd. I was pleasantly surprised but actually had no interest in the game really.

Seems callous to say that, but it seemed a little pointless to me. I finally booted it up this year, for one reason: to unlock the playable NES games that you could buy for your house. This was partly to stick it to Nintendo’s overpriced and under-featured Virtual Console, as I had essentially got this game for free (my friend paid $5), scoring more than 10 NES games which would cost quite a lot if I lost my mind and bought them for my Wii.

But then, as I’ve mentioned before, a funny thing happened. I named my town and myself, I moved in. I took on a debt to Tom Nook and set about paying it off. I endeavoured to earn more money to upgrade my house, to make room for all the NES games (the basic house can’t contain them all), by doing jobs for villagers and finding things to sell. And somewhere along the way, I became hooked.

I found myself playing the game every day, and forgetting all about the NES games. Eventually I remembered them and, as I’ve chronicled, was disappointed. But for over a month, I played almost every day and got a lot out of it. I found the game charming and compelling. The simplicity of it made it very accessible to me, it was just easy to boot it up after work and mooch around the village for a bit.

For those who don’t know, Animal Crossing is a kind of “life simulation” game, where you directly control a single avatar and do various tasks in an environment with no specific goal. Like the Sims, but with cute cartoon animals and stuff. There’s a lot of calendar and time-based events too (it’s all real-time).

Getting to know each villager, discovering new ones moving in, witnessing some random events, fishing and digging up fossils. It was fun just living in this simple community, and I developed a routine for each day. The goals of upgrading my house and Tom Nook’s store kept me motivated.

After a while, I began to lose that motivation, especially after I learned that the store couldn’t be further upgraded without another player visiting. This kind of mechanic in games is very frustrating for a “Forever Alone” such as myself. I also got all the NES games (all the Universal Code ones, anyway), and fit them in my house, so that motivation was gone too. Collecting stuff was fun, but the general lack of Nintendo-related memoribilia compared to later games left me with little desire for continuing that (I fortunately got Kafei’s shirt very early and loved it, got the Master Sword too).

I also felt that I was reaching the limits of what the game had to offer me. Perpetual winter was getting me down, and the way the villagers seemed to not have any sort of continous relationship to me made the social interactions seem hollow. I’d found almost all the fossils, and bugs weren’t showing up for another few months. I unlocked the extra bridge, and experienced New Years. I felt like I wasn’t getting much further, so I stopped.

I feel that the game was too simplistic, a little barebones. I feel that the sequels may have the added features to keep it compelling longer, to get me to the next holidays, but there wasn’t much to this. However, those later games don’t have the killer feature of NES games (which I think is genuinely cool, aside from the emulation video output issues I had). Even the later Animal Forest e+ release Japan got had some extra features that sounded cool, and playing a game with e-Reader support always makes me feel like I’m getting a compromised experience. Not to mention the Island, reachable via GCN-GBA link cable (cursed peripherals I don’t have!). Oh and the whole not having friends thing (at least not ones who own this game).

Having said all that though, for that one month I had heaps of fun with this. Plus now I know about the series, it helps me get stuff other people say and references in Smash Bros or NIntendo Land. I hope to play games from every Nintendo series eventually, a very nebulous goal at this stage that I may act on more purposefully one day. Yeah so it was fun but a little simplistic. I’m not planning on getting New Leaf or whatever it’ll be called here (can’t count on NOE) but I think the evolutions developed between then and now could make it a much more compelling game (although I don’t like the less chibi body shapes).

I give this game 1 month out of 12. Oh yeah and it got annoying running around trying to find villagers for errands, sometimes I swear they were hiding from me. Thanks much for reading, chimp!

Wife’s comment: It was ok for a while but got very repetitive. Finding the balls, ah!

8:14pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwuf1pwCJ

Filed under: review nintendo gcn animal crossing nintendo ead

February 12, 2013

Yoshi series overview

I had occasion to play a bit of Yoshi’s Island DS yesterday, trying to beat the last few secret levels (what a slog!). It reminded me of a post I started a while ago then abandoned. This is v2 of the Yoshi series overview.

So the Yoshi series is distinct from the Mario series, but maybe not distinct enough to get the recognition it deserves. It shares secondary protagonists (Mario, in baby form), primary protagonists (Yoshi, but a bit different), primary/secondary antagonists (Kamek, Baby Bowser, and Bowser). It also shares several enemies, although with a different art style and there are many unique ones as well. These elements are good to tie the series together, but perhaps hold the Yoshi series back a bit. Of course, the other problem it has is its splintered identity.

There are three incarnations of the Yoshi series, separated by recurring elements and characters and by very different art styles. They are (in order of personal preference) the Yoshi’s Island style, the Yoshi’s Story style, and the Super Mario World style (aka generic Mario series style). You can classify games in these categories, and also Yoshi appearances in spinoff games by which one they most closely resemble or draw inspiration from.

Chronologically, of course Super Mario World came first. The art style is “normal”, “generic”, in the early days simple line drawings, and later the weird plasticky 3D CG Mario renders that are so recycled and overused in promotional material and new spinoff games. Yoshi’s proportions featured a longer neck, smaller head, and smaller arms. Yoshi was very popular as a character and appeared in many games and other media, such as cartoons, comics, etc. Several spinoff games were produced to capitalise on his popularity, and are classified as “Yoshi series” games despite appearing before Yoshi’s Island, the first “true” Yoshi series main game. They belong here as they feature the Yoshi before the redesign in YI, and before the time jump too (more about that later).

-Mario & Yoshi (also known as Yoshi’s Egg in Japan and the laconic “Yoshi” in America) is a puzzle game for NES and Game Boy. You play as adult Mario and trap Super Mario Bros. 3 enemies between egg halves to hatch a Yoshi.

-Yoshi’s Cookie involves adult Mario baking cookies and Yoshi eating them in another puzzle game for NES, GB, and SNES. A later re-release for the SNES, Yoshi’s Cookie: Kuruppon Oven de Cookie, added a mode with a world map, controllable Yoshi and recipes for your own Kuruppon Oven (a Japanese oven brand). It was also featured in the Japan-only Nintendo Puzzle Collection for GCN, with a new story mode. This story mode had (mostly) Super Mario World enemies. So there are 5 versions of this game. The cookies also make cameos in several other games, and the game inspired the Puzzle Mode of Tetris DS. The modern versions of Egg in Game & Watch Gallery 3 and Mario’s Cement Factory in G&WG 4 were also inspired by this game.

-Yoshi’s Safari, the greater Mario series’ only rail shooter, used the Super Scope in an adventure with adult Mario riding Yoshi, shooting SMB3 and SMW enemies.

The other class of games in this category is any which have Yoshi as rideable, as a callback to SMW in which you play Mario but ride Yoshi. These also usually use the “generic” Yoshi appearance, which was altered slightly after the release of Yoshi’s Story and has since been fairly constant. These consist of Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and NSMBU. The former two seem to use the unique character of the major green Yoshi, known as “Yoshi”. Ergh. The latter two have several Yoshis in different colours. Pretty much every Mario spinoff is also here (and Super Mario 64 DS), as the featured Yoshi is supposed to be the same one who is friends with adult Mario. However, many contain elements of YI and YS. Basically, specific elements of SMW-style Yoshi appearances are edible berries, adult Mario, little frog-like Baby Yoshis, enemies of “Mario” games, and Yoshi being a supporting character. The proportions and art style are also characteristic.

The Yoshi’s Island style came next, with the first game YI being marketed in English as Super Mario World 2, even though it had very little to do with SMW. Yoshi was the protagonist and main playable character, and he had to protect baby Mario. You actually play as 8 different coloured Yoshis, but they all played the same. This game had many new enemies, but some came over from the Mario series with new appearances. The whole style of the game was hand-drawn, a crayon look, sort of a storybook feel without the more literal storybook elements of later Yoshi’s Story. It was just a really nice look, with pastels and soft colours but also very characterful pixel art for the characters and enemies (unlike SMW’s pixel art, which I think is a bit lifeless). Yoshi took on a shorter neck, larger head, bigger arms, a much more animated appearance, and more colours. The games in this series:

-Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. Established many new design elements for the Yoshi series. The plot involved Kamek (caretaker of Baby Bowser) kidnapping baby Mario and Luigi, who were being delivered by the Stork. The Yoshis (led by a certain green Yoshi) take baby Mario and then go to rescue baby Luigi.

-Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3. A remake of YI on GBA. It replaced Yoshi’s voice effects with Totaka’s voice samples from Yoshi’s Story and added some extra levels, but was otherwise pretty much the same. Oh and it didn’t have the Super FX chip so couldn’t handle some of the EXTREME graphical effects (eg. screen-warping) the SNES original had.

-Yoshi Touch & Go. Basically an early DS game that was built around the hardware capabilities. It’s a sort of retelling of YI in a way, but as a score attack marathon game. Yoshi runs along, you tap to fire eggs. There’s also a mode with baby Mario falling and you draw things to help him, which was adapted from a GCN/DS tech demo called Balloon Trip. I’m not sure if it actually represents a new chapter in the YI saga, but if not then it’s the third game based on the same events.

-Yoshi’s Island DS. The only “true” sequel to YI, it directly follows many of its conventions and styles, unlike Yoshi’s Story. The graphical style is the same, but it introduces more babies for the Yoshis to rescue, including Peach, Donkey Kong, Wario, and Bowser in addition to Mario. The story is weirder, adult Bowser and Kamek travel back in time to capture the babies to stop them thwarting their plans in the future. Also apparently all the babies, including Luigi and a final newly hatched Yoshi, are “Star Children” with DESTINY or something.

-Yoshi’s Panepon (aka Tetris Attack). A spinoff on the SNES, this game was a reskin of the Japanese Panel de Pon with fairies and flowers replaced by Yoshi. It was later released in Japan too. Being released soon after the original YI, it featured many enemies from that game and Yoshi’s design, although it also included the SMW-derived baby Yoshis. So you see how some games mix and match elements. Still, on the whole taking most of its cues from YI puts it here.

To figure out which spinoffs are taking inspiration from the YI style, one of the giveaways is the crayon-style art and soft pastel colours. For example, the Yoshi’s Island stage in Brawl or the board in Itadaki Street DS. Any game with babies is also derived from this, as YI games are the only ones with baby versions, who are regulars in sport games now. Yoshi making and throwing eggs was introduced here, although YS shares this trait. Mainly it’s enemy types, as there are lots of unique baddies or familiar ones with a specific style. This style lent itself well to the Paper Mario series, so you’ll see some guys turning up there. Similarly, Mario Party Advance is a haven for forgotten minor enemies, as is Super Princess Peach. Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time is also linked as it involves time travel to the same period, babies and Kamek. You also get elements in certain modern remakes in the Game & Watch Galleries, such as a YI-proportioned Yoshi in G&WG2’s Vermin, Goonies in G&WG3’s Turtle Bridge, etc. Oh and I almost forgot, WarioWare DIY has a YI-based microgame called Yoshi.

Yoshi’s Story was a big redesign for the Yoshi series that greatly affected Yoshi’s portrayal afterwards. Interestingly, the childish art style of YI is said to be a response by Miyamoto to pressure he received to make the game like Donkey Kong Country’s pre-rendered art. Instead of the “modern” 3D computer-rendered graphics, he went for a simplistic hand-drawn style. It’s ironic, then, that YS on the 64 went all out with 3D rendered character models and backgrounds, and ended up being (in my opinion) pretty ugly, and not as well received. It’s still very cutesy, but the colours are brighter, and everything is very rounded and shiny. Unfortunately the game is pretty awkward to play too, but it has unique mechanics that stood it apart from YI from the directional tongue and analogue egg aiming to the non-linear structure of levels. The style’s not just generic 3D models, though. The game has a storybook conceit in the menus and everything looks crafted, such as knitted stuff, newspaper and cardboard, wooden blocks, pop-ups, clay, etc. It is this aesthetic, and the proportions of the squatter, rounder baby Yoshis, that characterises any game or element in the YS style. It spawned a few sequel-type games too.

-Yoshi’s Story. Baby Bowser has turned the island into a pop-up book, put all the adults to sleep, and stolen the Super Happy Tree. Some newly hatched baby Yoshis have to eat a lot of stuff to become really happy and then beat baby Bowser.

-Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation (aka Yoshi Topsy-Turvy in America). Using the 3D-type art style of YS but an older-looking Yoshi, this game used a GBA title sensor for Yoshi to interact with stuff. No egg-throwing but a fair bit of eating, it’s the art style that places this here. It mixes some painted stylings with lots of cardboard and constructed scenery. Not to mention the story in which adult Bowser is causing trouble, so this time the spirit deity thing of the island turns it into a picture book (again). The structure’s different though, it involves little mission-type things in a level, you have to please different spirits by doing various things.

-Yoshi Demo. This unnamed tech demo for the GBA was based very heavily on Yoshi’s Story. It featured an endless level in the style of YS’s first level, with some of the same enemies but also some new ones. It may have represented a close sequel to YS on the GBA but nothing ever came of it. It’s playable though, so it kinda counts as a game.

-Yarn Yoshi. This recently announced game for the Wii U is looking like a sequel to Yoshi’s Story (and Kirby’s Epic Yarn). The knitted and crafted aesthetic and 2.5D levels certainly place it in this category. Also, no babies.

-Yoshi Cart, a sub game in Nintendo Land. Much of Nintendo Land features a crafty-type art style, with knitted material and handmade costumes and whatnot, so Yoshi’s game in it fits in here. Also, the point of it is to eat fruits, based on the YS fruit types. It contains music from YS and YI, but the fruit and style put it here.

-Picross NP vol. 2. This Japan-only Picross game came in instalments, each of which featured a particular game that was current. Vol. 2 has a series of Yoshi’s Story-themed puzzles, although being pixelated sprites they could arguably fit with YI too. The theme though is YS, and there are some characters here unique to YS.

As I said, many games following the release of Yoshi’s Story incorporated elements such as fruit (bananas, grapes, apple, musk melon, watermelon) and the general proportions of Yoshi shifted slightly to the rounder body shape. His voice is another thing that stuck around in most places, although you still get the old vocalisations in Mario Kart 64 and NSMBWii. Basically, if there’s fruits, no Mario, round-looking enemies in 3D, bright colours, and the Super Happy Tree, it’s based on this game. An interesting part of this category is that the aesthetic is not just a visual choice for the game, it’s part of the story too. The two main games so far have had the island becoming a literal book, and if Yarn Yoshi is anything like the Kirby game, the plot will follow similar lines. Yoshi Cart is also a recreation in Nintendo Land.

The Smash Bros. series is cool because it is such a big crossover. It happens to cover all three categories separately. There are three stages, all called “Yoshi’s Island”, that uniquely belong to one of these. The first instalment’s stage was YS-based, with cardboard and wood stage and the Super Happy Tree. There were also 3D-rendered Fly Guys carrying fruits. Melee had a SMW-based stage with the blocks and pipes from that game, as well as Lakitu and berry bushes. Brawl had the YI-inspired stage, with 2D Fly Guys, a Support Ghost, and watercolour-style graphics.

Now, I mentioned baby Yoshis in YS. I’d now like to present a way for all these games to fit together cohesively. Throughout all, three stages of Yoshi growth are shown. The first is the newborn babies, which are very squat, frog-looking guys that grow up after eating stuff. They first appear in SMW, then in Tetris Attack and more recently in NSMBU. However, this contrasts with the “baby Yoshis” seen in Yoshi’s Story. So YS’s version must be more grown up, as they have more definition and independent ability, although their proportions are shorter than other incarnations. These are then “infant Yoshis”, which grow into “adult Yoshis” with the more familiar proportions that, while the design has changed over the years, are fairly consistent. These infants are, however, seen several times emerging directly from eggs, (black and white Yoshi in YS, baby green Yoshi in YIDS’s end) but mostly from very large eggs. So Yoshis have chance to develop while still in the egg, which can grow to accommodate this. If the egg hatches while still small, the little frog “baby Yoshis” are born.

Now as for individuals, my theory goes like this. The primary Yoshi that is such a big part of the Mario series, is playable independently in SM64DS, appears in many sports games and also SMW, SMS, and SMG2, is now an adult. At the time of Yoshi’s Island he wasn’t yet born. The star of YI, Touch & Go, and YIDS is an older Yoshi, perhaps the father/mother of Mario’s Yoshi. At the end of YIDS, the green Star Yoshi is born. This same one then is the star of Yoshi’s Story, along with some other infants. Baby Bowser knows that this one will grow up to help Mario and hinder him, due to Future Kamek telling him in YIDS. This is why he calls him Mario’s pet, even though this Yoshi has never met Mario before. Later on, he grows up and even becomes the new protector of the island, taking over from his ageing father (the ringleader of YI and YIDS), filling this role when a grown-up Bowser attacks in YUG. Then, Mario visits one of the Yoshi Islands (don’t ask) and meets this Yoshi, in a fateful meeting between Star Children in SMW. Yoshi’s Egg is part of the aftermath of Bowser trapping Yoshis in eggs in SMW, as Mario has to now hatch some more. From there they have many adventures together, including baking cookies and shooting Koopas. Sometimes Yoshi’s different coloured friends from his island come along too.

And that’s the story of Mario’s Yoshi and his father. Ah, but what happened to his father? Another theory I heard goes that the Yoshi Village Leader on Lavalava Island in Paper Mario is that father, older and wiser (and fatter). He has a feather on his head and a brown Yoshi friend who he had adventures with. The evidence is not exactly overwhelming, but it’s the best theory I’ve heard as to what happened to him. (I haven’t played that bit yet, so I don’t know what he says to Mario either).

Well, that was altogether too long. I haven’t said too much about Yoshi before though so I wanted to get out some of the differences between his portrayals, and the styles seem to fall along one of these three lines. Looking at different interpretations of characters is always interesting to me, especially characters I love. I could say a lot more on this subject but I really have to stop. Thanks for reading (or skimming).

12:01pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwudy6uHV

Filed under: yoshi fandom nintendo

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