Super Mario World

Introduction

After Mario, our portly italian plumber, defeated the mighty Bowser and rescued the Princess Toadstool (For the second time). Our hero has decided to take a vacation on Dinosaur Island. Bowser has capture the princess and Mario has to save her by finding his castle and defeating the large, armored, turtle, man, thing. Marvel as Mario jumps on enemies and… jumps to avoid other enemies and obstacles. (Jumping is kind of his thing, but when I think of it Mario seems like a man with a hammer to whom all problems are nails.)

I never really considered how difficult it is to describe what this guy looks like. He’s sort of a turtle… but not.

Development

I was able to find shockingly little amounts of information about the development of Nintendo’s signature charactered launch title for their new system. I can say that it was lead and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the Mario series and The Legend of Zelda games. It took him three years to make the game with a team of only 16 people. (Even with studios having small dev teams, this team feels really small to me.) This was the first game to include Mario’s faithful steed, the dinosaur Yoshi. It was impossible for Yoshi to be rendered satisfyingly or for the mechanics to function on the NES. Miyamoto said, “We were finally able to get Yoshi of the drawing board with the SNES.” Miyamoto’s other words on the work as a whole were, “The game is incomplete, and got rushed a little at the end,” hoping that the system would allow more story and emotional connection with the player, but more on that later.

 

Super Mario World was released on November 21^st of 1990 against F-Zero, Mega Man 3 for NES, and Ultima VI: The False Prophet for PC.

It seems so alone with nothing near it in the great ocean. I now notice that it’s only got 5 colors or so.

Nostalgia

This game was the common denomenator for all of the kids that owned a SNES or knew someone that owned an SNES because it came with the system. I played this game with my father, with my cousin Zack, and any friend that stopped by and wanted to. I could go to school and ask anyone whether they preferred the flying and gliding power of the cape or the fireball shooting powers of the fire flower and they’d know what I was talking about. This sparked a debate with my father that was so strong, he preferred the cape and I prefered the fire flower (It was only because I couldn’t figure out how to glide right, but I wasn’t willing to tell him that.)

My grandmother even played this game! Hell, she’s the one that told me how to find the Top Secret Area, a place with ever spawning mushrooms, capes, flowers, and Yoshi. I never asked her how she found it and I still don’t know. Although, now that I think about it, she may have purchased it to coax the grand children into being more eager to visit her home in the middle of the country. We may not have been the best grand children.

I really like the music in this game. When I figured out that it was all the same melody but performed in different styles it blew my mind! The ghost house music scared me so badly that I had to have a parent in the room when I played those levels.

This was the first game that I 100% completed. I found every single level and beat the secret stages hidden on the star road. (A feat that I can’t accomplish today. Hell, I still can’t find the Green Switch Palace for some reason). And I was able to do it all by the seed of my own wit and with some playground hearsay (Alright, I admit. My father helped me out sometimes. Even if it was just a “check out that part of the map.”). When the color pallette and character sprites changed cemented in my mind that I must have done it all. I think this was the first experience that if I did all the things then I got cool stuff. Which would lead me down a road of trying to do everything in a game to see what cool (Now irrelevant, considering that I had done everything) stuff I would get.

That being said, I don’t really have any moments of supreme triumph besides that. I don’t remember jumping off the couch when I beat Bowser for the first time. I don’t remember being low on lives and super stoked to have taken out a boss. I don’t remember feeling really clever that I had found the hidden area in the middle of the ocean. I don’t have this sort of report with the game and I feel like I should.

And then when I put all the areas together and see all the enemies I realize, this place is really weird.

The Gush

I can see what Miyamoto meant when he said that the game lacked story and emotion though. It doesn’t really improve on the “Bowser captures the Princess” plot that Super Mario Brothers 1 and 3 had. I still don’t know more about the Princess or Bowser as characters. I don’t know why he keeps kidnapping her and I don’t know why Mario feels obliged to save her. (Wait, I know. He’s doing it all for all those sweet pecks on the cheek!)

When I was five years old I was content to jump around and swim and explore and even though I can’t remember where all the stuff is I’m not compelled to look for it again. I’ve tried playing it through to completion since and I just can’t continue. I beat the second boss and then I’m just done. I can’t find it in me to continue. There’s no spark of childlike joy.

Maybe it’s because I beat the game 100%, I already know that I did it. I know that I’ve done everything in the game, or close enough to it for my liking. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the gameplay, I’m an older player and I’m looking for something new and/or interesting. Jumping just isn’t enough any more. Maybe it’s because the bosses aren’t very memorable, I remember Bowser and the first boss and that’s it. (I remember Reznor as well. But come on, you fight those guys four times or something).

That’s a really small planet. No wonder Mario can jump so high, less gravity.

The Verdict

Super Mario World is a classic. It’s got tons of secrets and a great variety of gameplay. But I can’t bring myself to play it any more. I’ve got my fuzzy (Both fun and distant) memories and I can’t yearn for more from it. The game is good, but simple. So simple that it’s sort of lost my interest.

 

Next Week: Shadowrun, for the Sega Genesis.

Speed Racer: My Most Dangerous Adventures

Speed Racer: My Most Dangerous Adventures

I have no idea what’s going on here. Spike wall? Car in Lava? None of this happens in the game anyway.

 

Introduction

Speed Racer is a race car driver and he… races cars. With his trusty (and totally unfairly tooled up) vehicle, the Mach 5, he races because… that’s what he does. It’s in his name! He’s a racer with speed! What do you want from me!?

 

See! It’s in the title screen! Everything we need to know!

 

Development

There’s a weird thing when it comes to old games that didn’t survive the test of time, it’s really hard to find information about their development. Either no one cared to record it in detail or someone swept this under the rug. That being said, Speed Racer MMDA was developed by Accolade in 1994. And that’s it. I can say that it was before the downturn of most Accolade titles but I’m really at a loss to say more about the development of the game. So I’m going to talk about the show instead.

Speed Racer was originally a Japanese manga/anime that was about Speed’s pursuits to win vehicle races and prevent things that might jeopardize his family or vehicle. It was localized in 1967 and required major dubbing and heavy rewrites for the story to make much sense. Most of the voice acting was performed by the producer of the project, Peter Fernandez. One of the larger issues facing the localization was trying to fit all the dialogue into the limited amount of lip movement leading to some ridiculously funny fast deliveries. Speed’s major rivals are the aptly named Captain Terror and Racer X. Racer X is actually Speed’s older brother that was thought to be dead but keeps an eye on his family. (Why does he hide his identity? That’s a very good question)

Speed Racer: My Most Dangerous Adventures was released in November 1994. It was up against Donkey Kong Country and King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride.

 

Pop Racer (on the far left) never appears in the game. And what is wrong with that monkey, looks spooky to me.

 

Nostalgia

My exposure to the show was a single Racer X comic that my cousin owned. Racer X’s vehicle, The Shooting Star, is parked in a dusty old way station. Racer X is leaning against the vehicle holding a revolver looking all bad-ass. There wasn’t much racing, there was a lot of fighting and gun-play. This is what I was expecting from a Speed Racer game. This is not what I got. There was fighting, no gun-play. And a lot of racing in between me and the little combat I could find. My father loved racing games, F-Zero was one of his favorite titles. So I would ask him to play through the racing sections and I would play through the platforming and combat sections. I’m not sure which of us got the rawer deal.

This game was so hard. Unfair levels are hard. Everything was trying to kill Speed, mice, other drivers, toxic sewer waste, spear throwing tribal people (Only mildly racist), and snow. I eventually got stuck chasing Captain Terror up to the peak of Mt. Doom to save Speed’s girlfriend. I could barely see through the blizzard overlay. The controls were so slippery that I kept falling off of platforms, often to my immediate death, but sometimes just do heavy damage because Speed suffers from falling damage (Accolade likes their falling damage, first Bubsy now this). One night, when I was screwing around with the password screen, I sent the password to the Mt. Doom level and the usually cinematic was replaced with Racer X telling Speed, “I’ll take care of this.” I was so pumped. This time I would beat the level because I was fucking Racer X! No more of this dying shit, I’m too cool for that. I played for four hours and even considered leaving the system on overnight in order to keep playing as Racer X, who I believed gave me a considerable advantage. I was wrong however, as far as I can tell there’s no mechanical difference.

Despite the difficulty, I really liked this game. There was finally a game that my father and I could really play together. The music was made of pure ear-worms, tracks are still stuck in my head.

 

Check out these stunning visuals!

The Gush

So, I tried playing through this game again a few days ago. The introduction is unskippable, so much for speed. The music doesn’t match up with it and the music overall hasn’t aged well. There’s only one track for the racing sections and it’s sort of lackluster. The whole racing section overall is really hastily done and just plain hard. It doesn’t look good and all too often Speed ends up in second because the first place driver can only be passed if the Mach 5 pops a turbo boost (At least I wasn’t able to).

I was able to finally scale Mt. Doom on this return to the game. The music for the platforming fighting stages is actually really good. Unfortunately the controls and the mechanics are awful. Speed literally slides after he finishes running which will more than likely cause him to fall off of platforms. His punch attack is so ridiculously slow that it’s impossible to hit enemies with it. His kick attack is so fast that it doesn’t even have frames of animation, his leg goes from at his side to straight out. That might sound powerful but Speed gets damaged by anything, enemies will sometimes just run into Speed and can drain all his health before he can throw a kick. To top this all off Speed makes the stupidest noise I’ve ever heard every time he gets hit.

I feel like such a chump because Mt Doom is the penultimate stage and I was so close to the end so many times. And at the very end Trixie is tied to a pole with a winter hat on and says, “Just in time Speed, I was starting to get cold up here.” This brought to mind how impractical it is for Speed to be climbing the mountain with nothing but a blazer.

I gave the final race a shot. The first time I tried to play it the game glitched so hard that there were just vehicles driving around in black space. I had no idea where I was or what was going on. The second time I played through it Captain Terror got passed by one of his own henchmen. That’s what a final boss does, lose to his underlings. The race seemed really unfair. There are all these very small jumps that prevent the Mach 5 from turning so it will often careen off the track with very little ability to return to course.

 

There are 4 colors on this game over screen. Whatever, It’ll get seen a lot.

Verdict

This game is worse than I remember. There are so many obstacles in the driving and the platforming, that come out of nowhere and can’t be avoided. They have to be memorized and that’s just unfair to the player. The visuals aren’t compelling or interesting most of the time and the whole presentation is just unimpressive (I’m looking at you unsynced introduction).

 

Next Week: Super Mario World

Mega Man X

Intro 

The year is 21XX and the world is in disaray. The brilliant Dr. Cain discovered the mysterious robot, Megaman X, in the ruins of a century old laboratory. Having activated this shockingly sophisticated machine he replicates the technology to make new robots. These robots however begin to disobey orders and start hurting humans. Dubbed Mavericks, these renegade robots have to be destroyed by Maverick Hunters.

 

The moody lighting and the perpetual frowns of the enemies set the scene.

 

Development

When the Super Nintendo was released, it was a common practice to create upgrades and new spins for old series. This typically involved putting the word ‘Super’ in front of the title of the game (Super Castlevania, Super Mario World, Super Turrican, or Super Robot Taisen Gaiden – Masou Kishin – The Lord of Elemental). Megaman X was the new game for Super Nintendo meant to reboot the Mega Man series and it’s got an ‘X’ in the title, so you know it’s got to be cool (So cool it doesn’t even need ‘super’ in the name). The jump to the SNES was not seemless. The new powerful technology left Capcom a little lost. The new sound chip allowed more advanced compositions and the artists were shocked with the much more advanced and diverse pallet at their disposal. The increase in technology was almost paralyzing.

The main name associated with the development of the the Mega Man series is Keiji Inafune. He is the most vocal of the Megaman team but he is only the lead artist, not a programer or designer. There was a lot of debate on what to do with the Megaman X series. Roleplaying games were getting big but Keiji wanted the game to stick to its action game roots. That being said, Keiji wanted to create a giant difference in the main character of the game, thus Zero was created. Zero was originally meant to be the main protagonist, his red toned armor being a stark contrast to the original Megaman’s blue armor. After some thought however Keiji decided not to rock the boat so much and made him a very important side character instead.

This is Zero. He doesn’t use that sword until the 3rd game for some reason.(What’s the hair for?)

The villain in this game is also completely different from Dr. Wily, the villain in the original series. Wily has a quality that makes him difficult to hate, he’s cowardly and bumbling at times. He turns to dirty tricks instead of true ingenuity. Sigma on the other hand was not going to be like this. He was designed to be bitterly evil, vicious in combat, brutal in tactics, conniving in strategy, and utterly undying. Wily surrenders when he’s cornered, Sigma persists when he is “destroyed”. Sigma was also able to be destroyed because he’s not a human and as we all know, if it doesn’t have flesh then it’s not really violent.

Megaman X was released in December of 1994 against Heretic for the PC, Master of Magic for the PC, and Donkey Kong Country for the SNES.

Nostalgia

Holy hell, this game was a huge part of my childhood. When I started it and couldn’t get past the first level for a few days. I had a difficult time figuring out how to jump up a wall. When I first played I figured that these were men in robot suits, so I didn’t figure that wall jumping was possible. I was so amazed that I had learned this skill all on my own. The opening fight with Vile and his giant robot suit. I was so terrified. He moves so fast and hits so hard, I had no idea how to defeat him. I died 3 times before I got caught by his stunning net and the game continued. I remember seeing Zero blow off the arm of Vile’s suit and jet in to the rescue. I saw Zero’s blond hair streaming through the air and thought, “That’s the character I want to be. How do I play as that guy?” I played through the introduction a few more times trying to defeat Vile’s giant robot suit but it’s an impossible fight (Litterally impossible, X is supposed to lose).

This game was pretty tough, so tough that I used to ask my father to help me with it sometimes. He was the one that taught me that certain bosses were weak to other boss’ attacks. He called out, “Use the boomerangs on the Chameleon there.” That blew my mind! I thought that the weapons were just useful for hitting certain targets, not for completely wiping out bosses. My father and I would also look around, trying to find all the secrets, all of the health increases and Emergency Tanks. I would bring him in to read some of the words that I didn’t understand, like the weapon names (I get how Shotgun Ice is a weapon but Chamelon Sting still eludes me) and the uprgrade dialogues. We journeyed together, defeating all 8 bosses and getting to Sigma’s lair. I remember watching Zero’s death but I was in such denial that I thought he had “teleporter out” as opposed to fading away. But it was around this time that my father got a little out of his league, so was I for that matter. I remember reaching Sigma once at that age and then I got trashed by Sigma’s dog no less (My friends and I agree though, that dog is the hardest part of that fight). I would pick it up occasionally but I never thought about getting to the end, I never thought about beating the game. I had been defeated by his dog, not even Sigma himself. I thought I just wasn’t good enough.

I gave it another shot though when I was about 14. I was nearly twice as old and more than twice as skilled. I remembered so many thing I’d thought I had forgotten, armor locations, health power ups, boss weakness, they all came flooding back. I had all the passwords in the manual but I played through the game anyway. I got to Sigma’s tower again and this time I was old enough to read the dialogue and understand what was going on. Zero was dead and I got mad. I realized that I couldn’t let this stand, that I had to destroy the villain responsible. Back to Sigma’s chamber I went. I fought the dog, I beat the dog. I fought Sigma, he pulled out a lightsaber, I thought my brain was going to explode from the sheer awesome of destroying a robot jedi. The sheer awesome got knocked out of my head after I died two or three (five or six) times. When I finished him off I used my last emergency tank of health just to make sure that I’d finish him. But it wasn’t over yet. His head rises into a giant machine that fills the whole background and I called bullshit. I proceeded to get horrifically destroyed. It was one of my first gaming failures, it was one of the first times I got to the very final fight and then gave up because it was too tough. I didn’t get vengeance and I wouldn’t until I was 18 or so when I gave it another chance.

 

Storm Eagle’s stage opens up after the fight inside tears the ship apart.

The Gush

There’s so much cool stuff in this game. The fact that shooting down Storm Eagle’s jet causes it to fall and destroy a lot of the damaging environments in Spark Mandrill’s power plant was such an interesting idea to me. Finally beating this game created such a huge rush in me. I felt like I had conquered a part of my past, a part of myself that was weaker. It tells me that I’m better than I used to be. And that’s the point of the game really. It’s all about X becoming stronger and that’s sort of what it means to me too.

This game is amazing. Sometimes I take a Sunday to myself and beat it. I’ve got the boss order down, the armor pieces, the health pieces, the E-Tanks. I’ve got everything in my head. I look back on those days when I was defeated by Sigma and laugh. I crush him beneath my boot and see how far I’ve come as a gamer and then I remember that I’ve got a blog entry to write and a job to go to tomorrow and wonder why I stayed up until 10 playing this game when I should have gone to bed an hour ago. This game has a way of making the player to want to beat it. X’s story is one of rising in strength to defeat his opponents and it really brings the player along for the ride.

But this game is hard, it’s unpleasantly difficult at times. It took me three stages of my life to beat it. It also took me weeks to find all the armor, health, and energy tanks when I was a kid. Maybe that means that I suck at videogames but it seems more like it just takes more effort than its really worth.

This is what a thematic hook looks like. See Egoraptor’s Sequelitis series for more. 

The Verdict

This game is incredible. It was great when I was a kid and it’s still good now. I’m not being blinded by nostalgia at all when I go back to play and beat this classic.

 

Next Week: Speed Racer for the Super Nintendo.

Super Mario Brothers 2

Introduction 

This is gonna take some telling. I’m going to explain this like no one ever played it. Mario is an italian plumber who, with the help of his brother Luigi, saves the Princess Toadstool and her legions of mushroom people from the insidious giant dinosaur, turtle, wizard Bowser (Usually called Toads). The game begins with Mario falling out of a door in the sky. Forget all that other stuff. This time Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Toadstool are working together to save a dream world from a giant frog tyrant by the name of Wart. Use Luigi’s totally busted jumping powers, Toad’s speed and ability to pick things up real fast, Toadstool’s ability to float, and Mario’s powers of mediocrity to throw vegetables and enemies at other enemies and save the land of Subcon. (Get all that? No? Neither did I. This game is so messed up, but that’s a story for…. right now)

Yeah, it’s basically like this.

 

Development

In Japan, Super Mario Brothers 2 is a similar game to Super Mario Brothers 1. Mario runs, jumps, gets mushrooms, almost everything between the two games is the same. But the game is a lot more difficult. The levels are more harshly designed even some of the mushrooms damage Mario instead of giving him the power to take an extra hit. Nintendo of America found the game to be frustratingly difficult. And so it was never released in the United States until the Super Mario All-Stars Super Nintendo pack was released, where it was known as Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels. Super Mario Brothers 2 was released in Japan in 1986.

Yume Koujou: Doki Doki Panic was developed by Kensuki Tanabe and was originally created as a prototype for Mario Brothers 2 and involved a lot of vertical platforming and picking up objects and enemies to destroy other enemies (Apparently the game was originally supposed to be 2 player, allowing players to throw the other player). Yume Koujou: Doki Doki Panic was released in Japan on July 10, 1987. When Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels wasn’t to be released in the states Nintendo turned Doki Doki Panic back into the Mario game that it began as and released it in the United States October 10, 1988.

 

Super Mario Brothers 2…

…Doki Doki Panic. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

 

Nostalgia

I originally played this game on the Super Mario All Stars pack and I was shocked and amazed at how different it was from the original Mario Brothers. I didn’t understand why jumping on enemies didn’t destroy them, I didn’t understand why there weren’t any coins, I didn’t understand why I was throwing vegetables at birds or why giant birds were spitting giant eggs at me. I also didn’t care much. I learned very quickly how the game worked. Some of the deeper systems like heart generation and Invincibility Star appearances worked but that didn’t matter.

I usually played as Luigi because he jumped the highest. I liked jumping high, I liked bouncing around, so this was the guy for me. It was playing this game where the idea that Luigi was my prefered brother came into play. He was taller than Mario and he could jump way higher, so much higher that he can reach hidden areas. Why was Mario the hero? I just didn’t get it.

This game also taught me the meaning of fear. This guy here is Phanto. I’d pick up his key and his eyes would burn a most sinister red. He’ll chase the hell out of you if you pick up a key. He’ll chase Luigi to the ends of the earth until he drops that key and decides to come quietly. It also can’t be destroyed, I remember getting so upset that I couldn’t throw the key at it or anything.

Oh god, it’s back. It never left. It will never leave. Take all my keys! Just go!

The only reason I beat this game is because I found a bunch of level skipping pipes and skipped myself to the final world. In order to warp I have to find a potion from a vegetable patch, throw it to make a door, pray that the pipe I make the door next to is a warp pipe, open the door, enter negative world, see if the pipe is a warp pipe (Did I mention that this game was weird?). It took me weeks to find all of the warp pipe locations. I remember staying up until 9, passed my bedtime when I was 8 or so, in order to beat the game. Frantically running through Wart’s castle, getting totally trashed by everything. But Wart was embarrasing easily. I didn’t care though, I was so psyched.

 

Original graphics

All Stars graphics

 

The Gush

This game is so unlike the original Mario game. There are no coin boxes, mushrooms are acquired by using potions to create magic doors in the right location on the stage. The mushrooms are all in predetermined locations. If I knew where the mushroom was then that was cool but that was almost never the case. It became a giant game of memorization. There’s no real rhyme or reason to where they’re placed. You just have to get lucky and I think that’s lame.

One of the complaints that’s usually leveled against the game is that there are only 4 bosses and they get reused again and again. Nearly every level ends with the player fighting Birdo, he/she shoots eggs and you pick up the eggs as they fly through the air and hit him/her with it. That’s only so compelling so many times, like once or twice. I ended up using so many warps that I don’t even remember these boss enemies. I remember fighting a hydra that spit fire, I think.

Two words: Ice physics. I hate the ice worlds in this game, especially as Luigi. His jumping controls are already really slippery so he gets put on ice and things go completely out of control. I usually ended up switching to Toad so that I wouldn’t have to be in constant anxiety everytime I walked or jumped (So… did anything really).

The only way to get more lives in this game is by playing a slot machine game at the end of levels. It took me forever to figure out how to get coins to play the game. If I grab a door potion and throw it near some vegetables then plucking those vegetables in negative land will produce coins instead of vegetables, who thought this was a good idea? Something like lives shouldn’t be a gamble, or at least not a difficult one. If I’ve got 30 coins or something then that’s fine but I’m usually lucky to get 5 or 10. Keep me in false suspense because with that many tries I’ll get enough lives to continue. But the coins are never where the mushrooms are so I feel like I’m trading between lives to continue the game and hits to continue the level. It’s just frustrating.

This is Wart. Phanto is yards more menacing than this guy.

The Verdict

The Gush for this game is really short. There aren’t any real moments that stick out in my head. This game can be beaten by speed runners in 9 minutes and that’s ridiculous. I’m not nearly that fast, but between all the warps that I used and all the deaths I amassed it couldn’t have taken me more than an hour when I hit my stride.

There’s nothing that really stands out for me, except that slot machine thing. The only prominent memory was arguing with my father over which character was better (He always played Mario and I kept saying that Luigi’s ridiculous jumping powers made him better).

The nostalgia in this game is strange for me. I was super pumped when I was a kid, but I can’t harken back to it really. When I look back on Super Mario Brothers 2 I don’t really remember what was so great about it. It’s weird, it introduced a lot of elements and characters, and it’s decently fun at points but it just doesn’t stick out for me

 

Next Week: Megaman X