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.
More platformers. You can tell what I like, huh? This one was a revisit, to get to 100% after finishing a long time ago. This is actually one of the few games my wife bought while the Wii was still hers, before I adopted it. A cute and sweet little game with some deceptively tricky puzzle platforming.
This is a reboot of the old NES game, or perhaps a straight sequel, who knows. It has similar mechanics (feed an amorphous alien jellybeans to transform it so you can get around and beat enemies), and remixes some music, I think—the original is pretty bad so I haven’t exposed myself too much to it. There’s a sequel for Game Boy, but after that Majesco’s ongoing troubles stymied two attempts to bring it back on GBA and DS (there’s screenshots of the DS beta, it looks weird).
Finally they managed to succeed, with the beloved studio WayForward handling development on the Wii. I love the direction they took, giving it a lovely painterly art style, reminiscent of a Ghibli film or Rayman Origins, with super cute character designs. Unfortunately unlike those two things, the attempt to create a naturalistic, cohesive world falls down with the overly functional level design. Lots of straight lines, which admittedly suits some environments like the factory but not others like the forest or caves.
So you can appreciate the absorbing gameplay or the enticing visuals separately, but it doesn’t quite add up. That’s ok though, there’s plenty to love. Failure isn’t punished too bad so the devious puzzles can be attempted many times (as is sometimes necessary) without frustration. They’ve really made the boy and blob appealing characters, with the boy’s vocalisatioins and quite low mobility contrasting with the blob’s silent high energy. Best of all for demonstrating the relationship is the otherwise superfluous “hug button”, scrapped mechanic perhaps, but now just triggers an unbearably adorable animation.
There’s a big variety of possible forms for the blob, and the levels do a good job of giving you different ones and making you use them in various ways. Hunting for the hidden treasure can especially tax your grip on the mechanics of each form. These are also rewarding, as they give you mini challenge levels that often focus on one form’s capabilities. Finishing these then lets you view concept art, which is neat.
Despite its cute look, the game really does get hard if you want to do everything. Just getting through the later levels will also take many attempts. But it is satisfying to do. The most frustrating bits are the boss battles, which can get long and will force you to start over if you make one mistake, as the boy is totally fragile. It’s interesting to have a realistic little boy who can’t jump far and is hurt easily rely so much on the blob. Really reinforces the relationship of the characters.
Since the blob can do so many things, some of the mechanics and physics events are a little janky. I find this factor a little endearing, thinking of the developers as a small team just putting love into the game and overlooking a few things like this. The concept art adds to this feeling, giving you a look behind the scenes. I guess I have a soft spot for WayForward, although I’ve only played a few of their games.
Anyway this was one of the gems on the Wii, that console that apparently had nothing worthwhile on it. There’s not even any badly-implemented motion control, just old-school gameplay with a modern look and feel. It feels indie, and there’s plenty to do and a very engaging dynamic. I’m very happy with how it went. “Over here!” Oh boy, you’re so cute!
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.
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.
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!)
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!
When I heard there was a co-op 2D platformer better than Donkey Kong Country Returns, I was skeptical. But Rayman Origins is clearly my favourite game of this year, in fact it would be my Game of the Year except in came out in 2011. It is so good.
From my perspective there was a lot of hype for it, but that hype is so justified. Ubisoft and Michel Ancel came back and really put a lot of love and effort into making this the next Rayman successor.
Speaking of him, I find it interesting that each of the four “main” Rayman games features kind of a soft reboot. Rayman 2 was so different to the original, and while the third is quite similar to 2 there are few returning enemies or locations. (Although I haven’t played 3 so I’m generalising a little). Origins makes a worthy attempt to reconcile the seldom-revisited characters and locations from the original bright sugary game with the darker tone and characters of 2-3. Before this game, I think making an overall timeline or setting for the Rayman universe would have been a lot more difficult.
Of course, I say this, but the truth is I had little interest in Rayman before hearing about how great Origins is (and it is really great). However, as I like to do with games I get into, I dived deep into the leading fan wiki. I also picked up Rayman 2 for iOS for a dollar for a bit of background there (it was very hard to control, but nostalgic as a 90s 3D platformer). This prepared me for the game pretty well, although in some ways there are just as many new or different concepts to Rayman’s world as previous games had introduced.
Having a bit of context is always good for games with callbacks, and this game had lots. It uses both Lums and Electoons, collectibles from 2 and 1 respectively. Teensies and Globox from 2 and 3 help you out, with Betilla the fairy/nymph and the Magician from 1 as NPC helpers, although I’m convinced it’s not supposed to be the same Magician. Mr. Dark, also from 1 appears finally as the big bad, although I think you would need to have read the blog and the cut script from the demo to make that have more impact.
Incidentally, this development blog often featured characters, concepts and even basic setting that were changed before the final release, making it very interesting to go back and read after playing. The original setting, surviving in subtitle form in the final game, was that of a prequel. As it is it could be set anytime after 2.
Of course, there are many more games in the Rayman series that the “main” 4, but I’ll save that for another post.
Anyway, as for the basic gameplay of the game it’s a smooth-flowing, fast-paced 2D platformer with collectibles and secret areas and gimmicks. There’s also the usual levels with completely different gameplay that are often seen in 2D platformers, in this case side-scrolling shmups. A staple of modern 2D throwback games such as DKCR, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Kirby’s Adventure Wii, etc is the co-op feature. These vary from the more co-operative (DKCR with no collision and teaming up to help each other) to more competitive (NSMBW with tons of precision-destroying collisions and trolling). Origins compromises very effectively I feel, with no collisions but the ability to use attacks on the other players to knock them around without doing damage. It’s a good system that lets you either help or hinder your friends. Naturally, I played most of the game single-player as my brother and I now live in different states (we had loads of fun with DKCR last year).
Rewards for getting more collectibles are fairly satisfying, more Lums in a level gets you more Electoons, which unlock more levels (often) and character skins (less often). The skins are a great idea that other games should do way more often *cough*NSMBW*. Even DKCR could have used Funky and Dixie as swaps, but I digress. There are also optional challenge levels, and if you do them all, a final super-hard level in a unique environment (seen in the game’s intro). This was good as something to work for, and plenty challenging for me. There’s enough levels generally too that the single one as an end reward was enough.
But let’s talk about the best aspect of the game by far, and the one that always leaves me smiling and happy. The sound and visual design were just beautiful. The cartoony/painterly art style is wonderful, and the ridiculous music was a joy to listen to, one of the few straight game soundtracks I can listen to outside the context of the game. The characters are all exaggerated and funny, and most of them speak Pig Latin in silly voices which is very endearing.
But let’s wrap up. Rayman Origins, as I’ve said, is my favourite game I’ve played this year. It’s just so well-designed, every aspect. From the look to the sound to the very solid gameplay, it’s just great to play. There are of course one or two niggles like mid-air attacks cancelling momentum, the majority of skins being Teensies, or the large amounts of plot and dialogue that were cut which I at least would have enjoyed. But as a game, and as an installment in the Rayman universe, I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. It certainly breathed new life in a big way into the Rayman franchise, which had stalled after the Rabbids overtook his popularity. Fantastic, big hand to Ancel and Ubisoft. Thank you for making a game I love so much.
Wife’s comment: “It was too hard, but the flying bits were ok. It was pretty.” I managed to get her help with the shmup sections, it makes them much much easier with 2 people, even with an inexperienced gamer.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot, I played the demo on 3DS, DO NOT BUY. From my experience and what I’ve read, the 3DS version is a really crappy port. Slow interface, gameplay elements too small and blurry, overall a lazy port. Get a console version for goodness sake! I have no idea how the Wii version compares to the HD consoles, but it was perfectly fine for me, absolutely no complaints RE: resolution or anything.
Recently I had kind of a bad time for about a week and a half. I sometimes have anxiety attacks or feelings of inadequacy that go through stages. I guess it happens to lots of people. Fortunately, I have things that can help me out in these times. Faith, loved ones, and video games.
So for that reason and general tiredness, I didn’t play much games for a little while. But this weekend I jumped right into some stuff with a vengeance. I played through a few worlds of Little Big Planet 2 (still on loan), but mostly this weekend was Pikmin. I clocked half the game in one day.
So previously, my bro (hi bro) had bought me Pikmin 2 a few birthdays ago. Great present, as was Donkey Kong Country Returns from my other bro the previous Christmas. Both of these came at a time when I wasn’t super interested in video games at that stage, and they along with some other notables (SSBB and Okami) brought me right back in, to the point where I’ve been in the thick of gaming culture since. So I’ve completed Pikmin 2, I think. But importantly, I’d played a lot of it and developed skills.
That was a necessary preface because I thought Pikmin 1 was quite easy. I think going about it the other way around would be a really great experience, as Pikmin 2 (although not one of the sequel games that picks up near the top of the difficulty curve of the previous, and assumes the previous as a prerequisite) builds on a lot of the concepts developed in 1. Playing them in order would also give you a good introduction to the world and characters, particularly Olimar. His introspective musings on his situation and the things he encounters are truly one of the highlights of both games. More on that later.
So it was easy. I sort of expected that I would find it so, so I was very supportive of my wife having a go. She played through the first few days, maybe a week I guess in game until it got to the point that it was too hard and stressful. I don’t blame her, the Forest Navel was quite hard compared to later stages, it might have been better swapped with the spring. And the final level was just a puzzle-type thing, I would have liked to see more areas like that actually.
Anyway, I took over at that point, and played a bit more and polished it up in a marathon on Saturday. My impressions were good, but it shows that it was such an early title, and perhaps could have used more content? The execeution was brilliant, though. And even the plot was handled very well, for Nintendo. It’s a fine game, worth buying for the low price it is now, but perhaps not the high initial price. The sequel is leagues better and as I can attest, stands on its own.
I was playing the New Play Control! version, which from what I can tell had loads of improvements, unlike a few games in that series that were apparently simple control updates, or like Jungle Beat which radically changed gameplay (and was apparently the worse for it). Improvements like yellow Pikmin holding bombs when whistled, and throwing them at enemies. Or Pikmin surviving longer on fire. And the day rewind system. Not to mention widescreen support. This is good, and in my opinion that rerelease brand should have lasted much longer. On the other hand, another way to fix things is sequels—in this case, the whistle was better in Pikmin 2, although the first game seemed a little better at handling extracting lots of dudes at once from an Onion.
Now seems like a good time to talk about the Pikmin series as a whole. It’s not just two games, you know. The NPC! versions of both games are greatly improved, as I mentioned (and the US is only just getting 2 that way, without NPC! branding. So slow NOA!). Also, Pikmin 2 has lots of brand name products and other treasures that are different between regions. So there are different iterations of the same 2 games. The 3rd is also on the way for WiiU, and looks great. However, there are 5 other additions to the Pikmin universe that I, as an avid completionist, consider important.
1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl. This game did a huge service to many Nintendo franchises, by remixing songs, making stages, showing off artwork in stickers (trophies were slightly less impressive, they were only existing renders which led to over-representation of some series), and of course making new, highly-detailed character models for the fighters. Brawl also took some liberties with characters for playability, so Pikmin & Olimar are much larger than they really are, and also Reds & Yellows were granted the ability to produce fire & electricity, instead of just surviving it. On the music side, Pikmin tends to be more atmospheric in that regard so Brawl also included the Japanese pop singles released alongside the two games (and a French version). Incidentally, did you know they also bred a new flower species and named it after Pikmin, as part of the marketing? Oh, and Brawl had an awesome model for Olimar, way more textured and interesting than his model in his own game. I don’t blame Pikmin for that, it’s meant to be zoomed out. But yeah Brawl Olimar looks amazing, and he’s high on the tier list. Thanks Sakurai! He’s my main by the way, but people get annoyed cos he’s too good. ;p
2. The Pikmin 2 e-reader game. Oh, Japan. When will you share your goodies with the rest of us schmoes? The Gameboy Advance add-on that read barcodes off collectable cards was incorporated with the GCN-GBA link cable, but only in Japan. So if you get a lot of different cards and scan them in, you can play levels of 3 different puzzle minigames! Apparently. I’ve only seen 1 shaky YouTube video of this, but it looks kinda cool. Since I love obscure stuff like this, I wish they would release it on the DSi store. *sigh* A fanboy can dream. Worse, e-readers can’t be emulated at this stage as far as I can tell.
3&4. Warioware microgames! 9-volt and 18-volt’s stages are the best part of these games for fans like me. Warioware DIY had a game in the non-Japan version (so I guess we got something they didn’t after all) where you throw a Pikmin onto a rock for nectar. The fun part about this microgame was the pixelated painterly art style, one of the best looking games in DIY. The other is featured in Smooth Moves for the Wii: you control the Empress Bulblax from Pikmin 2, rolling to crush Piks on either side of you. This not only let you control an enemy creature, it established that there exist Pikmin of giant size, almost as big as the Empress herself. Canon? Sure, why not! How either of them got into that cave, though, is beyond me.
5. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (GCN). Interestingly, hitting a ball in the rough sometimes caused Pikmin to burst out. How did they end up in the Mushroom Kingdom, since Pikmin ostensibly takes place in a future Earth? Iuno, magic? Mario and logic are essentially incompatible. Canon? Eh, maybe.
Well, I’m glad my review of this gem of a game let me splurge out some obscure stuff like that. So I’ll reiterate that it’s worth playing at least one Pikmin game, but if it was only one, go for the sequel. It has more features and content, as well as more fascinating little quotes from Olimar, and some interaction that wasn’t possible with only one stranded character. But I’m glad I’ve played both. If I main Olimar I should know his whole story I guess. Until next time, friends.
Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love rentals.
I’d like to admit up front that my feelings about the Mario series in general these days could best be described as “contempt”. Since New Super Mario Bros. (DS), I think the series has been pretty stagnant, relying too much on rehashing and nostalgia. Now I’m a fan of nostalgia, but I don’t think interesting things are happening in mainstream Mario. Interesting things are certainly happening in the RPGs and some other spinoffs - I’m a big fan of the Paper Mario series - but I resent Nintendo for showering Mario with so much attention, to the detriment of their other IPs and especially the Mario series spinoffs (DK, Yoshi and Wario).
Having said that, I’d heard too much praise of Mario Galaxy to pass on it. I feel sorry for 3D platformers, they’ve kind of died out after the 64 era and I loved the games in that era. Not Super Mario 64 specifically, I feel that Rare’s games were a vast improvement on that formula so I didn’t care much for it. But hey, Mario’s apparently still doing it while Rare isn’t. That’s a topic for another post however.
When I decided I needed to try Galaxy, I looked around and many shops are still charging almost full retail for the damn thing. All too common with Nintendo’s A titles. I did find the Player’s Choice reprint or whatever online (from the UK) for a fraction of the price, however. I wasn’t completely sold though, so I bit the bullet and rented it. Game rentals are very expensive most of the time, and often short, but when they’re a few years old they apparently become weeklies and the price drops. So I have been playing it to a deadline.
First point: I find it addictive. Perhaps it’s the mission structure, and the fact that they are not too hard or long. Or it could be the fact that I have to return it after a week. I generally like to complete (as opposed to finish) games that I own, because I might as well if I’ve paid for it. I obviously won’t have time with this one, but I don’t feel the need to buy it after playing it for almost a week. So this is why I’ve come to accept rentals. As a result I’ve decided that I don’t need to buy it after all, I’d just overhyped it in my head.
But I’m getting ahead of myself (I often do). I’ll say that Galaxy is fun to play. My wife joined in for a little while as the P2 cursor. Not a great multiplayer mode, I must say, P2 just shoots things and collects star bits. But the single player is solid. Despite the years in between, it seems firmly grounded on the structure of SM64. I never played Sunshine, but I get the impression it had a much more developed world. Galaxy then heads back in the opposite direction, Galaxy 2 even more so from what I’ve heard. Chaotic worlds with no thematic cohesion, sometimes even within a “galaxy”. No plot to speak of. Forgettable characters. Maybe it’s the fact that I was raised on Rare and expect well-built worlds married to good gameplay. A lot of the time Nintendo, and particularly Mario games, are about gameplay first, second and third, and to hell with whatever else makes a game. This frustrates me. On reflection I am annoyed. Of course, while I am playing I just switch off I suppose and have fun.
This is an issue of competing game design philosophies, I feel. Like I said, the game is fun while you play, but there is little to make you think about it while not playing. But there is no reason why a game cannot be fun in this way, but also include other compelling aspects. The medium is not just an endorphin delivery mechanism. Anyway, high horse time over. I think I have to get my big ideas out before I can go into more detail.
So detail. Characters. Mario is boring as ever. And as my wife said, he looks shiny. It’s weird. A lot of promo renders have this problem too, they don’t look real. But yeah, boring. I want to play as Luigi, but you have to finish the game first or something and I don’t have time. I’m glad he has a significant part in the game, though. And his first appearance is in a haunted mansion, which is nice. It’s amusing how he gets lost and just gives up and says “Bro, help me!”. The toads are a nice addition, the concept of them journeying to space to help you, then popping up in various worlds is very cool. I just wish the Red Toad had a blue jacket. The strategy guide says that he is “the” Toad, but I really want Nintendo to give characters more individuality and continuity. He should say to you, “Hey Mario, space is pretty weird huh. Even weirder than that time we went to Subcon. I wonder what happened to Wart anyway…” Peach is just as much a non-entity as always. Not worth commenting on, really.
Which brings us to the most significant addition to Mario “continuity”. Considering she’s been in a few sports games since, Rosalina could be considered quasi-important. I thought from all the fanart that she would have, you know, a character. But she’s just a Peach clone with emo hair, and literally all game the only thing she’s said to me is “Get more stars, then we can rescue Peach.” It’s true I haven’t read the storybook yet, but for goodness sake, develop your characters during gameplay. She could not exist and the game itself would be no different, Polari could say useless things to you as well as being the map guy. And she looks way too much like Peach! It doesn’t make sense! Needless to say, I was disappointed, as I was expecting some depth and story to this game and character and it just didn’t happen.
The game, however is pretty fun, as I’ve said. From the persepctive of strictly the jumping and collecting, it is pleasingly similar to SM64 with the locations themselves being even wackier and often building on established series archetypes. The powerups are a bit weird (spring mushroom? seriously?) and not very fun, but the controls are nice. There are two big problems, though. The camera angles and movement can become very disorienting on the smaller or strangely shaped planetoids. And the game is way too linear. Again, this may be the Rare fan in me talking, but SM64’s worlds were also very open, while this feels very restrictive. I suppose it could be seen as a way of applying 2D level flow to a 3D game, and it is nice and easy to just pick a mission and play through it, but it felt a little off.
I’m going to purposefully finish now so i don’t just talk forever, so closing comments. Galaxy is a fun game, but not a satisfying game. I hope I’ve made clear exactly why, but I am glad that I didn’t pay for this game. I am glad though that I got a chance to play it and experience it. I feel that in some ways it’s an interesting extension of the 3D Mario forumla, but in other ways it has not advanced anywhere near enough. I guess my expectations were high. I’d recommend it, but not at the full price most stores are selling it for. Chances are one of your friends own it, if you haven’t played it, borrow it and have a go.
Wife’s comment: It made me dizzy, so I couldn’t watch it.
