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.