Nintendo 64 #1: Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64, the first 3D installment of the Mario series, was the game that changed everything. There had been 3D games before this one, but they were mostly on the fringe systems like the Jaguar, 3D0, and at the time Playstation. Sure you could play some 3D polygon games if you felt like spending 500 dollars and ordering all your games out of the back of magazines. Mario 64 was the first one us regular people got to play. When Nintendo got involved we knew that 3D games were for real.

Now before I get into the gameplay too much, I want to spend a little time talking about the early days of N64. I can never remember a console coming out with so much debate and controversy. It was right during the time everyone was switching over to discs. However, before the Playstation finally broke out there had never been a successful CD-Rom based system. Nintendo saw this and decided to go with good ol' cartridges. This caused no end to the gripes in the video game community. I still hear complaints about it to this day. It helps to have a little context though. Nintendo started developing the system in 1993 when cartridges were extremely successful. Even when it was released there were more people out there playing Genesis than Playstation. I'm sure if Nintendo had waited a couple of years than they would've made a cd based system. However, the N64 was still a rousing success even with the small library of games. There were complaints, but everyone I knew was playing it, and that has a lot to do with Mario 64.

After playing through it again I noticed that Mario 64 changed much more than just the perspective. Early Mario installments had been mostly action based. You went from point A to point B while fighting monsters along the way. Mario 64 changed this. Developers now could put in a greater variety of tasks to complete, and the series became much more puzzle based. You now had mysterious stars to find with each one being found in a different way. Half the fun was figuring out the new puzzle. In fact, all the old Mario conventions seem to be put in as afterthoughts. Is there really a reason to go around collecting extra lives? The only difference between a regular death and a game over is where you start on the map. Extra lives only save you a few seconds of your time. Then again, we did want to see what all of that looked like in 3D.

I also think it's interesting how deemphasized the monsters are. I'd say that each level has about a third the enemies that the previous games had. This is probably both because of the new focus on puzzles and the difficulty of getting all the monsters into the new 3D world. It seems like the main purpose for monsters is to help you get 100 coins. This actually makes killing them even more fun than on the older games. The one downside is that in the place of monsters they put in about a thousand of those orbs that shoot fire. Was it really necessary to put those near every ledge and precarious spot? I guess they wanted to make sure we kept moving even without koopa troopas to dodge.

I also noticed this time through how lonely the game is. Other games in the series take place in lively worlds. Even if you can't visit the people you feel like there is a lot going on. In Mario Sunshine you can't go ten feet without splashing a tourist in the face. This game takes place in a lonely castle with only a few Toads who appear out of nowhere to keep you company. I know that Mario goes to other worlds, but this feels more like a temporary trip out. The real world Mario inhabits is lonely and made of stone. This really makes it feel like it is Mario against the world, and I think it is an interesting stylistic choice.

So as usual I had a great time playing this one. It had been a few years since I had really sat down and played it, so it didn't feel that familiar to me. I did go ahead and get all 120 stars as a tribute to my youth. I remember when my brother, my dad, and myself were all competing to see who could get 120 stars first. I can't remember what order we finished in, but it sure was a lot of fun. For the record, the last star I got was 100 coins in Tick Tock Clock. That's a fun level, but it sure is easy to fall down dead.

So 15 years later it's easy to see the flaws in this game. It has all those fat polygons and awkward camera angles. I would actually say that it feels more dated than the older Mario games with maybe the exception of Super Mario Land. However, there is more of a reason to play this game that just nostalgia. In 1996 this game was all about the eye candy. Everybody wanted to get their hands on it just to see those rippling pools and fat goombas. When you play it now, though, you realize how much was put into making this game fun to play. Nintendo could've just put in a bunch of stunning visuals and not worried about the gameplay. I still think the games's biggest accomplishment is that with all the new technical achievements the gameplay still came first.

An error

I was just looking through my blog and I noticed that the picture I have for Super Mario Land 2 is actually the cover of Super Mario Land 1. I'm surprised nobody caught that one. Am I the only one nerdy enough to pick up on something like that? Anyway, that was certainly worth making a post about.

The year in review

Well it's been exactly a year since I started this blog. Since then I've lost forty pounds, got glasses, and grew out a giant mustache. Okay so I only did two of those things, but I'm gonna let you figure out which ones. My original premise for this blog was to play for a year and see how many games I could beat. I'm not going to end the blog, but I am going to stop and look back at my stats. First here's how many games I beat.

NES - 34
Sega Master System - 1
Super Nintendo - 2
Turbo Grafx - 1
DS - 1
Sega Genesis - 4
PS2 - 1
Sega CD - 1
Wii - 1
N64 - 1 (but I haven't written about it yet)

47 games

Of those games I beat 16 for the first time. As you can see, it was a very NES heavy year. That is the system that I have the most games for, and also the one I've had the longest. I beat all the easy ones last year though, so don't expect me to do that well this year. In the coming year I will probably play more 16 bit systems and even some modern games. I might also profile some Atari games that don't actually end. I'm still trying to think of how to do that on here, so bear with me.

Well here's the notable games for the year. I couldn't think of that many categories, so this shouldn't take so long.

Game I had the most fun playing through:

Dragon Warrior 3 - This game was simply an amazing experience, and one of the richest on the whole NES. I had such a sense of accomplishment after it was over that I couldn't hardly play games for a while. I knew nothing would be as satisfying as DW3

Game I had the least fun playing through:

Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble in Wackyland - This game was boring, tedious, and way too easy. It's fun if you like to play the same levels over and over again. I know that I don't unless they are very fun. Well at least I only had to play it twice. Hopefully I'll never have to play it again.

Game that was surprisingly hard :

Mike Tyson's Punch-Out - I figured that since I had done it once I could do it again, but it turned out to still be a big challenge. I still have endless amounts of trouble with Mr. Sandman. It was great to play an old game like this and still get a good challenge.

Game that was surprisingly easy:

Life Force - This game is known for being hard, but this time I just breezed through it. I remember playing this game for hours and hours when I was young, and now it takes me twenty minutes. It's still a good game though. I guess I just have it memorized.

So that's it for my year in review. This blog has been fun to write, and I hope some of you have enjoyed reading it. I guess 47 is the number to beat, but I'll probably be happy if I can get half that. I guess you'll just have to keep reading to find out. How's that for suspense?

Super Nintendo #2: Final Fantasy 2

If nothing else this blog gives me an excuse to play through my favorite games again. It might seem like a waste of time if I wasn't writing about them afterwards. I know, most people would say that video games are a waste of time in the first place but what else am I gonna do?

There are few games I hold in higher regard that Final Fantasy 2. This was the first turn based RPG I ever played. I got it on Christmas of 91 along with my Super Nintendo. F-Zero was the other game we got that day. It was nice that our parents were so concerned that we had a variety of games to play.

This game would eventually become my favorite thing in the world, but at the time it made no sense. It was different than any of my other games. Back when games started up instantly I was shocked that the prologue took so long. It was almost eight minutes before you actually got to play. The fighting made no sense either. The monsters didn't even move. How could the be taking away so much life? Once I found out that you could run I ran from every battle. I think I got to the second or third boss and then gave up on it because my level was too low and I didn't know what that meant.

So I let my cousin borrow it for a year or so, and by the time I got it back I was a much mature eight year old who was ready for complex stories and thoughtful, deliberate gameplay. I was instantly hooked after that, and still to this day RGPs are my favorite type of game. I know that makes me sound like a nerd, but in my universe the nerds are the cool ones. It's all about context.

Of course the things I loved about this game are the same things that kind of bug me about RPGs today. I would say that at the time this game had the most complex story of anything on a console at that time. You had dead people coming back to life, good guys becoming bad guys becoming good guys, an occasional trip to the moon, and a brooding protagonist who sees the errors of his ways. As a kid I was completely engrossed. I wanted every game to be this complicated. It also took me upwards of 50 hours to beat it. I wanted every game to take this long. I would make up games in my head that fit this formula even if they weren't in the same genre. I would think of fighters that had 50 selectable character, or platform games that had a hundred levels. Maybe I was just ahead of my time.

All of this was great about FF2, but now it's 2011 and just about every RPG is overly long and complicated. Most of them don't even get started for a couple of hours. The action gameplay in Kingdom Hearts is fun, but for the first hour you're just walking around a tiny island looking for supplies. By the time I'm finished with that I hardly even want to play anymore. Final Fantasy VII makes you play for close to 10 hours before you even get to the overworld. In Dragon Warrior VII you play for close to four hours before you fight in your first battle. Luckily that game is amazing so I can forgive it. The biggest offender might be Final Fantasy 13. That whole game plays like one big prologue. It seems like after every room you're interrupted by character development. I really just want to run around, gain levels, and find hidden treasures.

So it's a little ironic that I look back at Final Fantasy 2 and long for its simplicity. At the time it was the cornerstone of video game storytelling. It had a slower pace than just about any other game, but it was completely engrossing. I spent my free time drawing overworld maps and thinking about how cool Cid was. I had my group of friends at school who would get together and talk about what level we got our characters to the night before. Today this game still plays great. It has great music, great characters, and it is easy to learn and get hooked on. It laid the groundwork for practically every RPG that came after it. At the time I hoped that this was the future of gaming. For better or for worse I was right. I just hope that someday I can figure out why I enjoy level gaining so much.

Game Boy #2: Donkey Kong

I don't know if you remember this, but back in the mid 90s playing old games was not something that people would easily admit. When the SNES and Genesis were in their prime most people would get made fun of for still playing the old 8 bit Nintendo, and the Atari was just a strange old curiosity that everybody's uncle had hidden away in his closet.

Of course the kids of the mid 90s are now the adults of today, and there's no end to the amount of nostalgia they will take in. Because of this, practically every old game franchise has gotten a modern adaptation. Maybe modern day versions of Rygar or Toejam and Earl weren't really necessary, but we've got 'em. Prince of Persia got so popular during its modern day run that it even got made into a movie with Jake Gyllenhaal doing his best Persian guy. Trust me, you don't want to see his worst. There are even some modern day revivals that keep the classic style graphics. The mere thought of this would've made a 1994 kid throw up. It was in this climate that Nintendo released Donkey Kong on Game Boy.

Even over 15 years later I think that this is a very special and important game. I was one of the last kids in the world to give up on the NES. My parents didn't make us sell off our old systems like so many others did, so I had a hard time saying goodbye to the old games. I still thought they were great. At the same time I could see the world changing around me, and I thought that in the near future people wouldn't even know of games like Berzerk, Q Bert, and Donkey Kong. Thankfully Nintendo showed us that not only were the old games still fun, but they could be expanded into whole new concepts that worked great.

So the Game Boy version of Donkey Kong shares the same name, but it is only the same as the arcade classic for the first four levels. After this Mario has to pursue Donkey Kong over 9 large worlds. There are a total of 101 levels in this game which would've been impressive on the more powerful SNES let alone the puny Game Boy. This game is an action/puzzle game where in each level Mario has to find a key and unlock the door. Sometimes this is more about outrunning monsters and sometimes it is more about puzzle solving.It has many elements of the old DK games. Mario has hammers, dodges barrels, and collects Pauline's accessories for bonus points. He also has moves that make it feel more like a Mario game. It is a great mix of styles and genres.

I had this game for years before I actually beat it. The first time was when my brother got in a car accident and we had to drive to the hospital to be with him. I think he was happy that something productive came out of his accident. This time through I had less trouble overall, but I'm happy to report that it was still quite a challenge. I died plenty of times, but I always wanted to try the particular level one more time. It has a high replay value for an action game because there are so many levels that you're likely to forget a bunch of them.

So a few months after this game Nintendo released the highly successful Donkey Kong Country on the SNES. Suddenly Donkey Kong started appearing in all the Mario spin off games as well. Then, other obsolete characters started returning. Today the classics have a place in just about every gamer's heart, and they will likely never disappear. When this game came out, though, just admitting that you knew who Donkey Kong was could get you beat up on the playground. Everyone always wants to grow up as fast as possible and throw away everything from their pasts. DK's creator Shigeru Miyamoto has done many great things in his life, but I think that the greatest may be never letting us forget how much fun we had as kids.

Game Boy #1: Super Mario Land 2 - 6 Golden Coins

The other day I found myself with no more games to write about. I like to always have about three in my backlog just in case I get in the middle of a lengthy game and have nothing new to write about. Well, I've been playing Dragon Warrior 4 here lately, and it's taking even longer than I anticipated. It's taking me so long that I completely ran out of games. Luckily I've been saving my Game Boy for just this situation. If you ever want to beat a bunch of games quickly, just get out your trusty ol' Game Boy. This is especially true in the early days of the system where games were usually just dumbed down versions of regular console games. It appears that the system was expected to be played by little kids riding home with their parents. As such, they didn't want the games to last more than a half hour. Unfortunately, I don't have that many Game Boy games, so I won't be able to fall back on it for very long. I guess I'll just have to get to work and play through some real games.

The first one I played through was Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins. I don't have the original Mario Land, but I have played through it. I have to say that the sequel is a vast improvement. It's also one of the strangest Mario games out there. At first I thought that it was some less popular Japanese game that they changed into a Mario game, but as it turns out it is a real Mario game, but it wasn't created by Shigeru Miyamoto. I guess this only makes this a sort of real Mario game, but at least the effort is there.

After the straight ahead gameplay of the first Mario Land, I was very happy to see a world map on this one. The game is split up into six worlds each containing a golden coin. Once you get all six coins the door to the castle opens up and you reach the final level. This game is still about one-third the length of Mario 3, but it is still pretty long for an early Game Boy game. Also, unlike Mario 3 it has a save feature. They finally got that one right. Anyway, the basic gameplay will seem quite familiar, but there are some quirks to this game that make it unusual.

First of all, the items are slightly different. Instead of 1-up mushrooms you get hearts for extra lives. I know that this seems like a small thing, but in the world of gaming it's like turing the tri-force into a square. I'm guessing this is because it was hard to distinguish between mushrooms when there weren't any colors. Also, if Mario gets a carrot in this one he sprouts bunny ears out of his head and can fly. Just like a real bunny. Okay, so I don't know why Mario was always using non-flying animals to fly back in those days. I guess this is more plausible than a raccoon, but only slightly. This is the only game with the bunny ears, and although that's not too much of a loss they were kind of cool. It was more of a hover than a flight, so this led to some interesting situations.

Also, you don't get an extra life when you get 100 coins. This is probably the biggest departure in this game. Instead you save up your coins and play bonus games with them. Well, it's actually just a slot machine that sometimes gives you a bunch of lives. You'll need to save up those extra lives too, because if you get a game over you have to go fight the bosses and get back the 6 coins again. This is the one annoying thing about this game. Luckily, it's not too hard to get a bunch of lives.

The most significant thing about this game is that it's the first appearance of Wario. It's sort of a humble debut for a character that would appear alongside Mario in about a hundred games and become an icon in his own right. Wario is a straight up villain in this game who seems to be getting power from his hat. He has really weird eyes and almost looks like a puppet. Wario was much better after he became more of an anti-hero and star of his own games. I know he knocked koopa troopa out of Mario Kart, but if it had to be anybody I'm glad it was Wario.

I'm surprised about how many words I was able to come up with about this game. It's a fun old game, but nothing to get too worked up about. It's pretty easy overall, but the last level is hard so that makes up for it a little. It seems like anytime I get into a Game Boy mood I will play a couple rounds of this one before moving on to Pokemon. It sold very well when it came out, but it's a somewhat forgotten game today. I love that the world's most famous game character still has some dusty old corners to explore.

Nintendo Wii #1: Super Paper Mario

I hope that I have labeled this one properly. Isn't it the first Wii game that I've written about? Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm actually starting to have a large blog, so it's getting to be a little more difficult to keep up with.

So, Super Paper Mario is up. This is a game that I wanted to play for a long time, but I was waiting for its inevitable price drop. I expected that to happen sometime in 2008. Well here it is 2011 already and the game is still priced like brand new if you can find it in a store at all. In fact I looked it up on Amazon today and it's not even in stock anymore. You have to buy it second hand. Luckily I took the easy way out. I let my girlfriend buy it for me for Christmas.

It you've never played any of the Paper Mario games before, they're the ones where Mario is really flat. They are typically RPGs, but this one changes up the formula a little bit. It's actually a hybrid of classic Mario gameplay with RPG elements. The gimmick in this one is that Mario is able to flip the world from side scrolling to 3D whenever you push the A button. This helps you find countless secrets, but it also leads me to my biggest complaint about this game.

I've probably talked about it on here before, but it drives me crazy when a game requires you to keep switching items every five seconds. This makes me think of games like Crystalis and Final Fantasy Adventure where every monster seems to require a different weapon to kill it. This causes otherwise fast paced action games to feel like they're in that old fashioned slow motion mode where your special controller kept automatically hitting pause over and over again. That sure was a pointless controller feature. Maybe I'll talk about that one later.

Super Paper Mario is one of the biggest offenders of menu screen mania that I've ever seen. Remember that 3D feature? Well it only lasts a few seconds at a time. So if you want to find everything you'll be doing that a lot. Also, you've got four characters to chose from. Each one of them has some special skill that makes them a requirement in certain areas. It's not uncommon to switch between them every couple of minutes. So that's a return to a menu screen for each of these plus the changes for when you want to go back over sections of the level with 3D Mario. In addition to this you have all these little things following you around called Pixls. They have their own special skills. One is a bomb, one throws things, and so on. There are close to a dozen of them. Guess how you switch between them? That's right, a menu screen! The menu screen doesn't take very long to get to, but it's still a hassle going back to it over and over. It would've been much better if they would've made the Pixls controller moves instead of selectable characters, or if they would've let you toggle through characters on the game screen, or even let all of your characters turn the world 3D. At least there aren't transformation screens when you switch between characters. This isn't a Final Fantasy X-2 scenario thank goodness.

Besides that one major flaw, however, it's a very good game. It's certainly one of the best early Wii games. The gameplay is certainly very clever, and the reduction in towns to visit make it more acton based than the other games in the series. It also has a storyline with much higher stakes than your usual Mario game. There's no princess to save this time. Mario is trying to stop an entire world from being sucked into oblivion by a crazy count with a romantic past. As you progress the black hole keeps getting bigger and bigger which gives this game a real sense of urgency. I know that the world's not really going to fall into oblivion, but it's done so effectively that it still makes me a little nervous when the ground starts rumbling.

So what surprised me about this game? Well the length was a bit of a surprise. After a quick start I was expecting it to only take about 15 hours, but it ended up almost twice that. I was surprised by the variety of levels. All the advertisements I saw for this game showed a fairly typical SMB1 style level, so I was expecting all the levels to resemble New Super Mario Brothers. Thankfully there was a great amount of variety in both the designs and tasks. There were still puzzles to solve and characters to meat, so this kept the game interesting.

It seems like there are only two categories of Wii games. There are the above average ones which there are probably about 50 and the awful ones which number about 500. Has anyone out there played a Wii game that was just okay? Those games might exist, but I've never seen them. Super Paper Mario is certainly above average. Actually, it's probably one of the better games on the system. If this was a couple years ago it would be a shining beacon among all the crappy Wii games. Luckily the system really came into its own in the last couple years and there are now many very good Wii games to chose from. However, even with all the recent successes this one is still a standout. I just hope you like menu screens.