After I discovered that my copy of Yoshi’s Island DS was a nonfunctional pirate copy, I wanted to replace it. Which meant I had to play it through again. Also, I’d previously gotten the port of the original Yoshi’s Island to GBA and hadn’t played through it. So I did both at once, rapid style. For once I played without going for collectibles or secrets.
Playing like this is somewhat unnatural for me, and I feel that I didn’t appreciate the artistry of either game as much by rushing through them, but it was liberating to not worry about trinkets and baubles. Speeding through can be exhilarating.
Experiencing the seminal original (even if this port suffers from the smaller screen size) alongside the attempted follow-up really highlighted how YIDS falls short. It’s well documented that the soundtrack is dull, the graphics a mixed bag, and the level design not a patch on its predecessor. Still, it has charm aplenty and it’s still overall not bad, even if it frustrates with gimmicky obstacles and sudden cheap difficulty. My mind was also made up: Yoshi’s New Island is a big step down even from YIDS. The same team made both games, and they got worse.
As for Yoshi’s Island itself, it’s just great. Again, my nostalgia bone is kicking in hard; I’ve deeply internalised the games I grew up with and they will never fail to make me feel, well, good. But it has qualities that anybody can enjoy, I reckon. A sheer work of art, and fun too if difficult at times.
Who likes Yoshi? If you’re like me, you’re looking forward to the release of Yoshi’s New Island next weekend. We don’t know whether Arzest’s work this time will be as flawed as Yoshi’s Island DS, but either way I’m getting excited for it. To celebrate the first new Yoshi game in 8 years, here’s a huge comic release from my scanlation division, the first English release of these previously German-only comics.
These two comics were published in 1995 and 1998, for the releases of Yoshi’s Island and Yoshi’s Story, in special edition supplements to the official German Nintendo magazine, Club Nintendo. The first, Yoshi’s Island, is a directly game-inspired primer for how the gameplay works, although obviously with a lot of chatter and humorous moments. If you’ve read my DKC2 translation, you should know what to expect (although there’s even more explanation of game mechanics in this one). The Island comic also includes a little preview page from the magazine before the main thing starts.
By the time of the Yoshi’s Story special, the comic supplement style had changed to include multiple short comics that, in this case, are pretty tangential to the game itself. More silly and surreal, closer to a lot of the comics printed in the magazine itself.
Story is the stronger package, because it’s more amusing and has new, wacky storylines. But Island is still good and focuses on the singular main Yoshi and his reactions to the various challenges that crop up on his journey. They’re an interesting contrast on how the style changed over the years.
This was a lot of work to put together. Both comics are quite long, and were done over a period of time (with a break in the middle). But I knew I wanted this done in time for the new Yoshi game. My old collaborator Caramelman started to help me translate Island, but got busy and I struggled through the rest. Later I got in touch with the coordinator of the awesome Supper Mario Broth, who is familiar with German. They translated Story very well for me, and even provided fresh, high-quality scans! They also provided some tips for improving Island. As always, my helpful wife did a spot of proofreading and drew the credits page art for Island. A part of Story also calls back to a previous Club Nintendo comic, which had been previously translated by Opentrain (now at opentrain.theyear199x.org). I pulled their translation pretty much verbatim for that part, so thanks very much to them.
Said part brings up some inconsistencies, like how the Yoshi in question was an adult but is now a child(?). Bet hey it’s just a comic, you should really just relax. You may also notice if you’ve ever played Island that the Chatterbox that plays the role of secondary character who advises Yoshi spouts some blatant lies about game mechanics. You can’t grab floating coins with your tongue, and coloured eggs won’t just break on a wall and release items! So don’t listen to him all the time.
If you’re playing the Holerö game at home, look out for a couple of examples here. It’s the secret word for these comics, essentially a kinda made-up greeting that is often said by various characters. If you haven’t noticed it before, look out for it.
Well that’s it, this is the biggest translation project I’ve released so far. A gift for Yoshi fans everywhere. If you like it, send me some appreciation here or at my twitter, twitter.com/Miloscat. Also check out www.suppermariobroth.com for some sweet Mario (and spin-offs) content. Thanks to them, and to Caramelman and Opentrain for making this possible. Share it around and enjoy!
UPDATE: I found new scans of the Yoshi’s Island comic. They’re not massively better quality so I’m leaving the originally translated pages, but there were also extra pages not present in the first scan. So now there’s 11 extra pages in the YI special!
It’s been a nice week, a bit busy at times. And my lady went away to Melbourne for a meeting. A lonely night. Didn’t have time for a bachelor night of video games though, because it was bible study night. I have done some gaming though, and I’m going to tell you about it. You don’t have to read it, but I’m sure going to write it.
Spirit Tracks had stalled a little after the Water Temple, but I pushed through the Sand Temple, so now I have all the items including the Bow of Light, all the Songs and the better sword, so now I can do some sidequesting! Yay! The game’s fairly easy so I didn’t feel I needed sidequest help, and now I’ll be able to do it all. Thing is, I still really don’t understand how the warp gates work. Oh well train travel doesn’t take too long and there’s plenty of rocks to shoot on the way. I was expecting buying new train parts to increase my speed or something, but they didn’t. Seems pointless.
My completion of Lego Harry Potter 1 on iOS is imminent! I got 100% of items and stuff today, I just want to get the last few Game Centre achievements. The final level I had to do, the Chamber of Secrets, made me tear my hair out as I ran into a few little bugs and crashes that made me restart the level all over, after going through most of it and getting all the items. Very frustrating, and I have to do it again for an achievement. By far the worst level for bugs and stuff, the rest of the game is not too bad. Plus apparently the game doesn’t support multitasking, or at least it takes all my memory, so I lost another half of the same level again. Bleh.
Speaking of bleh, guess what I beat in three days? That’s right, Super Mario 64. How’d you guess? I’m playing all 5 of my 64 3D platformers in order—well, an order I made up, anyway. Roughly it’s the evolution/destabilisation of the genre, kinda. Hard to explain. This is my plan: Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Conker’s Bad Fur Day. That’s that generation right there. It’s up to you to decide where the peak is, but BFD being last is fitting as it’s a deconstruction/parody of the genre at that point. DK64 should probably be between Kazooie and Tooie, but I wanted those two back-to-back.
So SM64. Ugh. I just, just don’t get how it’s lauded so highly, why it’s the top of so many lists. The game is argh, it’s awkward, it’s barebones, it’s frustrating. A glorified tech demo. It has it’s good points I’ll admit, some good platforming at times and long-jumping around is fun. Exploring and collecting is still inherently fun. But the game is just so flawed. And I’m not giving it a free pass like so many do because “it was the first” or “it’s a pioneer” or something. Structurally, the engine, the presentation, there are problems here.
So I’m not saying I didn’t have a good time, but it was constantly tempered by the game’s shortcomings. Because I know what came later, I’ve played those other 4 games I mentioned and seen how they improved on it at such a basic level. I don’t care if they wouldn’t have gotten made without it, the same excuse will not make me enjoy the original Legend of Zelda either. It doesn’t change the game itself to say that it’s foundational, without also being an exemplary example of the genre (which other games can claim). This is all just my opinion, of course.
A funny side effect of playing it though, is that it made Galaxy seem better in hindsight. I still had problems with that too, it shouldn’t have aped the design of SM64 so slavishly (at least it seemed that way to my overly critical eye). But the comparison makes Galaxy seem a lot more developed and polished. So that was weird. Makes me sad that they didn’t continue developing the concept. Look at the new 3D Mario just announced, 3D World. It’s a translation of 2D gameplay to a 3D space. I’ll take my now “retro” collectathons, thanks. I won’t say any more about it, it’s not worth a full review (ooh, ouch!).
So I’ve soothed myself by starting Banjo-Kazooie, and am now 3 worlds in (100%ed them). It’s a joy. I don’t have to tell you how great this game is. Oh wait, maybe I do. The music is lovely and sets the mood well, transitions smoothly and is super catchy. The play control is excellent, you never have trouble just navigating. The worlds are very well crafted, and feel naturalistic but also present interesting challenges to the player (well it’s been a bit easy so far, but it gets harder). And it’s just full of personality! All the items talk to you, every character is either charmingly cute or charmingly snarky, the worlds are colourful and unique. God, listen to me. Blowing this game’s trumpet. It’s fun, ok?
Well, moving on. I finished Yoshi’s Island on the GBA. I managed to show my wife the last boss, which I always found to be the most impressive single part of the game, and the ending. Great stuff. Now playing the extra levels, which are almost all new to me. I think I played the Poochy one before, but it’s hard to say. It’s very similar to the Looooooong Cave, but shorter, so yeah. This run I mainly played quickly to get through the levels, since I’d just played them on the SNES. So I’ll have to do some extra collection later to unlock the other extra levels. They’re wacky, they got to go all-out with designing more crazy levels since they’re optional. At times they remind me of Yoshi’s Island DS because they’re also quite hard at times.
Yeah that’s about it right now. I did buy a few new games, just little ones. The way things are it’ll be a while before I play them. Bean’s Quest for iOS, it was on Good Game a while back and is $1, Marvel vs Capcom 2 for iOS was on a $1 special. I wanted to play as Mega Man/Roll, despite not liking fighting games, and especially not Street Fighter. Eh it was $1. Also the local pawn shop was having a sale, but the only thing I was remotely interested in was Viva Pinata DS. Cheap so I took the chance, I’m curious to see Rare’s only semi-successful new IP after the Microsoft buyout. At the same time I got Pokemon + Nobunaga’s Ambition for my wife, and she’s having a blast with it so far. Makes me feel good to see that.
Well it’s not exciting but that’s my gaming life. Thanks for reading!
Very busy week. Seems like I’ve been spending more time looking at E3 stuff than playing games. My impressions over all are pretty similar to most people, I think. Microsoft was awful and the Xbone looks like a bad thing for gamers. Sony was boring as those two usually are but had some impressive rebuttals to Microsoft. Nintendo was perplexing (3D Mario and Mario Kart 8 look pretty but the gameplay and other choices are questionable), mind-blowingly exciting in parts (Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and Smash Bros trailer including Mega Man!), and covering old ground in other parts (third party and indie stuff, and their other games).
I am so happy about Smash and new DK, but I keep getting more disappointed with Wind Waker HD. No new OR restored content, Tingle Tuner removed and replaced by an admittedly interesting implementation of Miiverse. It seems like the only thing they added were new item button options and a “go fast” button on the ship. You really need more than that to make the Triforce quest not boring to people (I didn’t mind it, I liked the ship). The Tingle thing was the last straw to me. There you are with all these control schemes and one has a screen on it, just like the GBA! You show the GBA-GCN connection in the trailer! Then you just cut the whole thing out to tack on a feature you can access any time with the Home button. In its original form, the Tingle Tuner was an interesting way to get a second player involved for an “asymmetric” experience. Well Nintendo, isn’t that your magic Wii U word? Ridiculous. That turned me off, and I think not restoring the content they planned but had to scrap for development constraints in the original will lose others. And rightly so, what’s the point of a remake if you remove content? All the other Zelda remakes have had an extra dungeon or a Master Quest (except BS Zelda, which was actually smaller, but the graphics were leagues better). Anyway enough Zelda ranting.
So excitement! Donkey Kong looks simply amazing, and I squee’d like a fangirl when I saw Dixie. Other details like the level archetypes, the cool new baddies, just how nice it looks, and the coup of securing David Wise for music are making it shape up to be a must-have for me. For the baddies, the worst case was getting Tikis back, we all wanted Kremlings back, but this third option is intriguing. A rumoured fourth character is also cause for speculation and interest. Another great piece of news about this is Miyamoto’s supposed lack of involvement! Great stuff! Keep your meddling hands off, Shiggy! In case you don’t know, he enforced the weakest mechanic of DKCR, the blowing. He also ruined Sticker Star :’(
And Smash. What can I say, I knew I was going to get both versions even before I knew anything about it. Mega Man is the best news, even if the reveal was spoiled by the Wii U’s eShop front page, which is where I went to watch the Direct. I’m drinking in every little detail that leaks out, and loving it.
I don’t think I need to say anything about all dem Mario games. That’s what the masses are drooling over, I just think they look bland. Good thing for Peach to be playable again, but why Blue Toad not proper Toad? Sigh. Dream Team looks good, still haven’t decided about that one.
I approve of the strategy Nintendo has been easing into, with regular Directs instead of blowing a massive load once a year. So E3 will get less relevant, to me anyway. But enough E3 rubbish. What have I had time to play?
Since I haven’t written in a couple weeks, a few things actually. Did I mention I finished Doodle God? And I’ve completely sworn off Rockman Xover, haven’t touched it since. So on my phone I’ve opened up Lego Harry Potter 1 again to complete it (it’s quite easy once you’ve unlocked the automatic spell caster thing). Good times, the handheld games seem to be a little more baked than the console ones. Having said that, I have fallen through the world several times and had a few crashes. Ok I guess they’re not too different. ;)
Since my SNES died, I tried emulating Yoshi’s Island to check how hard those Super FX graphics are to emulate (rumoured to be the reason YI is not on the VC). Turns out Snes9X handles it perfectly, Nintendo is just lazy. I did notice it seemed to run fast, then I realised I was emulating the 60Hz American version, rather than the 50Hz Pal one I was used to. No big deal though. I then went though the GBA remake, also emulated. If you recall, I got to the second-last boss before the SNES stopped, so I still had a bit of game to go. Plus the Advance version has a new set of secret levels, and I don’t think I ever originally unlocked the first set on the SNES version (too hard for my childish skills). It’s inferior in a few ways. First, the sound effects they added (voices for Yoshi and Shy Guys) sound out of place, and others are modified and lack the impact of the original. Second and more importantly, the screen is much smaller while the sprites are the same size, which is a huge bummer. It’s harder to see hazards or items you need to get, you can’t take in the environments as much, it’s a very claustrophobic experience. But hey it’s Yoshi’s Island, the quality shows through and I really want to get to those extra levels.
On the console front, me and the wife started a new co-operative game. Lord of the Rings: War in the North got our attention as a sidestory to the main events of the books/movies. It interests me as an example of the Western action-RPG genre that is so big now, and also as a local two-player game whose difficulty can be toned down, in addition to the lore and universe stuff. It’s really good for both of us, me being kinda new to the type of game and my wife being, well, “not a gamer” per se. We’re playing on easy and both loving it. Setting up a game is tricky and unintuitive but the menus in the game are quite good. The gameplay is pretty standard I think, but that LOTR touch makes it engaging. The cutscenes are quite uncanny, in the “Uncanny Valley” sense, but at least I can give my guy a sweet mustache and customise his hairdo. (I’m the ranger btw, Everbloom is the elf mage). It’s one of the things the PS3 has allowed me to enjoy, which I appreciate. You can’t be a Nintendo fanboy forever (well, you can, but I found some other things that are good too).
And that’s about it. I’ve got some posts on game series and lore and fan theories and stuff in the works, as well as some scanlations ticking over in the background. So er, expect posts in the future on this blog. Thanks for reading!
Hi everybody! I’ll get the sad stuff out of the way first: this week my SNES bit the dust. My beloved childhood friend, this dusty old console. It was a little unreliable even then and these past few weeks getting it to start has been touch and go. I figured out to wedge that wedding invitiation in the cartrdige slot to ensure contact, but now, for some reason, it seems to have died entirely. I was booting up Yoshi’s Island in the evening (after playing it a while during the day) to show my wife the Raphael the Raven fight (very memorable), and it just futzed out. On the title screen the sounds started making low groanings and repeated watery sounds. I reset to find that all three save files had been wiped. After that, repeated resets just gave a black screen, freezes on the title screen, or a garbled green mess.
I guess the poor thing’s time has come. I still hadn’t got a chance to play multiplayer Tetris & Dr Mario one last time. I take solace in the knowledge that SNES games are oh so easy to emulate. I think we have that pretty much perfect now, and it also allows you to find the best version of the game from different regions and revisions, and apply mods if need be. There’s no hardware or controller issues either as the control scheme is so simple and digital. I still feel a sense of loss, though.
So what else has been going on? Well, I’m nearly done with Twilight Princess. Yesterday I clocked the Palace of Twilight and the Cave of Ordeals. And I’m powering through Spirit Tracks too. I think there’s some interesting comparisons to be made there. Perhaps later, but for now I will say I like the currency system of Spirit Tracks much better. Finding random different tresures around the world is more fun and satisfying than just rupees everywhere. Especially since I quickly reached the maximum rupees in TP, whereas in ST there’s also a lot to spend them on, with quiver upgrades, heart containers, potions (which I use more often in that game), more minigames, etc. Too often in TP I find myself opening a chest, having to put the rupees back because my wallet’s full, then equipping the Magic Armour for 10 seconds to drain my rupees, because I don’t want to leave unopened chests. That’s not good.
I haven’t played too much else due to a staff retreat that took a lot of my weekend. I tried to play Spirit Tracks on the way there on the bus, but there was so much background noise that the microphone was constantly triggering, and I was up to a bit with heavy microphone use and flute playing. So I had to stop. I’m also reading the first volume of Akira Himekawa’s Ocarina of Time manga adaptation, thanks to an awesome birthday present of the Himekawa manga box set—10 volumes of Zelda manga in English. So great!
Really struggling with titles here. Oh well. Kind of a slow week too, but there were a few big highlights. I was occupied for some of the time with seeing friends and family, so that was nice. In terms of games it was more of the regulars such as Rayman and the same iOS distractions.
However, I did coax the SNES into life several times to play one of my all-time favourites, Yoshi’s Island. I think the supertitle is stupid and misleading so I never use it. It holds up. I do notice some slowdown now and then, some frames dropping that I’m sure I never did before. The level design and so forth is something that I’m also more aware of as a mature gamer with analytical skills, and it’s really good in those terms. (I’m also following along in my playthrough with Reed’s (or Rodanguirus’s) excellent analyses on nintendo3dsdaily.com.) References to other Mario games are also there, while as a child this was pretty much my first Mario game without that context. I still loved it then and I love it now. It’s a similar feeling to my BC Kid experience, my muscles remember everything. Playing the game for me is literally child’s play. It’s one of the reasons the DS sequel was fun for me, familiar mechanics but new levels and harder overall. And while that sequel was somewhat lacking in execution, this is very polished.
An amusing side effect of me playing this game is a large wedding invitation sticking out of my console. You see, the plastic is a bit loose on the old thing and the cartridge isn’t always in contact with the, er, contacts on the interior necessary for the thing to function. So it has to be wedged forward slightly to ensure it works, necessitating a physical card stuck behind the cart. I might try this for future games too, might not need so much blowing and reinserting.
So that’s fun and I’d really like for my wife to see why these games I loved are great. Perhaps nostalgia is too big a part, or maybe she’s not enough of a gamer, but she’s not too interested. Can’t blame her really. I’m not one of those people who gets annoyed if people don’t like the same things I like. But I do like to show her anyway.
Speaking of that, and something I forgot to mention last week, we did find a game that we love playing together. We regularly play Little Inferno and Royal Envoy 2 on her iPad, and also Puzzle Agent until we finished it. This week we were having a go at Botanicula, which has such a great atmosphere. From the makers of Samorost and Machinarium, which I think I played with her help. This time she initiated it and controlled it for the most part, with me looking on and making suggestions, etc. It’s really the way adventure games were meant to be played, or it seems like it. Many of the challenges are not skill-based, so it works. Often adventure games do seem to include arcadey segments, and this was no exception. That was my time to shine.
So the game looks and sounds fantastic. It’s chock full of unique, weird little characters that you briefly interact with. Some let you progress, some just do a weird thing and you move on. The sound design is adorable and really imaginative, with all sorts of quirky musical and sound effects. I’m coming up with lots of adjectives here to say that it’s a really imaginative indie game, basically. As for the game, it’s a point and click adventure game. Very similar to their previous ones I mentioned earlier, especially Samorost. Your character is a party of 5 little plant people, like a seed and a mushroom and stuff, each with their own skills. You just click around and stuff happens. It’s great! It’s got a rich world and a recognisable story which is told completely non-verbally. Anyway it’s very compelling and it was gratifying to be able to play it together.
What else… I started playing Spirit Tracks. The latest Zelda game, apart from that silly Wii one. Just kidding, I’m sure Skyward Sword is great! Spirit Tracks is… quite different to most Zelda games, which is a good thing. The DS games are like a totally different thing, not 2D Zelda, not 3D Zelda. Completely touchscreen controlled, which is well executed I think. The dungeons are quite short, and have a few large rooms instead of many small rooms. The enemies have started getting more interesting and the items are cool too, although I’m glad I have the boomerang now and don’t have to keep blowing all the time, it was making me dizzy. I thought the game itself would be short, but I had a peek at some stuff on the Internet and was excited to find there was more to the game than I thought, I think it will start opening out a lot more soon.
It’s just great to see the formula shaken up a bit. Zelda as a series is quite rigidly formulaic, so it’s the standout games I love the most, like Majora’s Mask. Twilight Princess is good too as I’m playing it, who knows what hindsight will bring though. Having said that, this game apparently closely follows the formula established by the other DS game, Phantom Hourglass. But I haven’t played that and there are only two, plus this one apparently does it a lot better. Anyway I really like being in that Zelda world but having a whole new way to interact with it, by tapping things and the trains and all that. The setting started out a little boring actually, with the empty-feeling castle and town, but I really warmed to it once I found the Anouki guys in the snow area, they were well written and I liked the forced interaction. I also look forward to meeting people in other lands, such as the Gorons, and fleshing out this world of New Hyrule in my mind.
Well that’ll do for this week. I seem to have followed my plans from last week pretty well, but I kinda forgot about Run That Town and I didn’t have my friend over, I met him somewhere else. Didn’t make any TP progress either but that’s life. Oh and I still haven’t given up on Rockman Xover completely. Oh well.
Who likes Yoshi? If you’re like me, you’re looking forward to the release of Yoshi’s New Island next weekend. We don’t know whether Arzest’s work this time will be as flawed as Yoshi’s Island DS, but either way I’m getting excited for it. To celebrate the first new Yoshi game in 8 years, here’s a huge comic release from my scanlation division, the first English release of these previously German-only comics.
