Alt. post titles:
Your most powerful weapon is made of triangles (Star Fox LP)
Star Fox: Seizure Approved!
Furries in space ship polygons. Let’s Play Star Fox!
Continue reading “Fox McCloud’s Bogus Super FX Journey [Intro and How-To + Part 1!]”
Super Mario RPG – 20 Years Later
This game is an interesting and very important part of history. A landmark partnership between Square and Nintendo would see them go on to… well, do nothing, because Square fucked off to Sony after this game. You’re welcome. Nonetheless, it spurred an entire legacy of Mario RPG games, including the immediate follow-up Paper Mario, and 5 games in the Mario & Luigi series. When Square changed their ways, some of the Super Mario RPG staff actually left to form Alpha Dream, who are still creating Mario RPGs to this day. Even though Super Mario RPG was the very first Mario RPG, I had never played it until now because it never had an original SNES release in Europe and Australia.
Thanks to the Virtual Console, I picked this up on Wii U and had an absolutely wonderful experience discovering it for the first time in 2016. The art style did not look that impressive to me in screenshots, but it feels so much better when you get into the game. Once you start playing, everything comes to life like a beautiful story. The game is very well-designed and it struck such a chord that I got completely immersed and beat the game over the past week. So what’s so good about it? Let’s get into our first battle.
Glass Houses
Recently Capcom held a GDC panel discussing Monster Hunter that included the following slide:
This led to the usual jeering at other localization efforts, namely Nintendo of America’s Treehouse and Fire Emblem, and the cheering of Capcom and 8-4’s 100% accurate and meme-free work on Monster Hunter. The only thing that would make this incredibly awkward is if somebody found a list of all the weird memes and pointless references 8-4 made in their translations, exposing the people citing this GDC panel as mindless, unlearned morons so stupid they can’t Google.
Gamers are truly against censorship
We should continue supporting them everyone!
Splatfest – Splat to the Future (EU/AUS)
Night has fallen, for the first time in weeks. That means it’s finally time to slee- no, it’s time for SPLATFEST! I made my way to the plaza and couldn’t believe my Inkling eyes.
Blast ‘Em Bunnies – Turnip Trauma
Bunnies everywhere. To the left. To the right. In the sky. Under the ground. They’re getting closer. PEW PEW PEW, come on, come onnnnn. MORE BUNNIES, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? PEW PEW PEW and I’m dead.
Wave Race 64 – Return of the Champ
My name is Ryota Hayami. You might remember me as the two-time Wave Race world champion, but that was a long time ago. As a young kid I was insatiable and wanted to win every competition I could find. The sights were fresh, the scene was encouraging, and everything felt so new. Lately I’ve been kicking back and enjoying my new life as a fisherman. It’s a nice relaxed lifestyle, but I still think back to the glory days quite often. Sometimes I notice the waves ripple and it reminds me of when I was 18 years old, fighting for victories on my Jet Ski. The Jet Ski scene has changed a lot since then. Jet Skis of the modern era are quite complicated designs yet “easier” to ride, and for me that completely takes the thrill out of riding. Technology is so advanced now that the Jet Ski does everything for you, with auto-correction and elevation control becoming the standard. As a result, all the big dollar manufacturers were winning year after year, and there wasn’t much demand for good riders. Being a good rider now simply means showing up to as many PR events as possible. Not my life, man.
As fate may have it, I wasn’t the only person who longed for the glory days. On Friday morning I received a phone call from Kawasaki asking if I was fit for riding. They understood the struggle of true riders today and wanted to bring back the old feel. A tournament was to be held as a test to see how many people would support a change in Jet Ski design proposed for the 2017 season. They called it a “Virtual Console” championship and they have brought back all the old Jet Skis, while securing the rights to all the old locations. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Is this a dream? “No sir, we are serious about this. We have everything in place but the riders. We need you.”
Super Metroid – Sub-Hour Speedrun
I’ve been getting into Super Metroid more after the 3DS release and set myself a personal goal of beating the game in under an hour. I’ve already done this with Metroid: Zero Mission and had a great time finding the fastest route. With Super Metroid I had done what “felt” like a speedrun, but it’s a different kind of speedrun to Zero Mission. A lot of tricks and skips in this game are very difficult and non-traditional. This is due to Samus’s movement being more complex, and a lot of open environments that don’t stop you from doing crazy things. My current best time was 1 hour 19 minutes, and on 3DS I managed to get 1 hour 27 minutes on a refresher course through the game. My main motivation came when I realised there was still a lot about the game I didn’t know. How do you shortcharge? What other items can I skip? Are there better ways to fight the bosses? Can I do the Zebetite Skip?
Super Metroid – New for 3DS
In the recent Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced SNES games for the N3DS would be available immediately with Super Mario World launching the service on the same day, and more to follow. In Australia, one of those early games was Super Metroid and I grabbed it ASAP with the dream of finally being able to play the US NTSC version of the game. That’s right, all SNES games on the EU / AU 3DS eShop are the 60hz American versions, making it the first time Super Metroid and Link to the Past have been available here in 60hz. Even though I’m pretty happy with the Wii U Virtual Console, for some reason we’re still stuck with the PAL versions of a few games. In my experience it’s not that big a deal for Zelda, but Super Metroid is a much more action-focused game, loaded with tons of precise tricks and wall jumps you can not afford to miss. So not only was I keen to experience SNES games on 3DS for the first time, but also discover Super Metroid in its original 60hz form.
EA developing for NX – Kimishima’s Konditions
Recently EA have spoken in secret about the Nintendo NX and their lack of plans to develop for it. They outlined a bunch of things that Nintendo is required to do in order to be blessed with EA’s fantastic library of quality games. To sum it up, they want Nintendo to “provide a market for sports games” by throwing millions of dollars on sports advertising. They just want a userbase that will buy sports games. Sound fair?
Continue reading “EA developing for NX – Kimishima’s Konditions”
Splatfest – Gotta Splat ‘Em All! (Pokemon Blue vs Pokemon Red)
I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was
To splat them is my real test, to claim the turf wars
I will travel across the ink, letting off inkstrikes
Teach Pokemon to understand, the freshness that’s insiiiiiiiiiide
POKEMON, GOTTA SPLAT THEM ALL!!
Yeah!! The humans may have been useless, dumb and weak, but they had some pretty fresh entertainment in their day. Pokemon Blue and Red are popular videogames of their era that have recently gained popularity in the retro scene of Inkopolis. These games are not quite as impressive as Squid Jump or Squid Racer, but they have their own charm that has attracted large numbers of Inklings to the arcades. Even though the humans who made these games were wiped out, cartridges were found washed up on shores and we’ve managed to recreate the highly complex arcade cabinets that would have played these games. Inklings have been training Pokemon to stay fresh, with battling and trading becoming common place as Blue and Red trainers help each other complete their Pokedex. Today however, we are fighting for our favourite version and the only thing that will be traded is turf.
Continue reading “Splatfest – Gotta Splat ‘Em All! (Pokemon Blue vs Pokemon Red)”
Super Mario Maker – 6 Months Later
Shortly after the launch of Super Mario Maker I did a write-up to share my experience with the game after the first week. It was an exciting time as we all learned the tools and discovered how much fun the concept is. However, it has evolved a lot since then with new tools added, some structural changes and a much larger community. I feel like enough has changed that another write-up is necessary, so Go-a-let’s! … Wait, I got that around the wrong way… drag this… move that. Let’s-a-go!
Gaming Paralysis
It’s Sunday afternoon, I have no pending deadlines, the weekend chores are done and my partner has offered to cook dinner. I have hours ahead of me I want to dedicate to playing a game. I go to pick one and… can’t. A paralysis of choice. I have too much to play and if I’m not decisive, I’ll fritter away the next three hours, playing nothing, with only a vague recollection of internet memes to remember the day by.
Stuck in the Middle
There’s quite a lot of discussion on the internet in the past few days concerning the censorship of video games, pressure from so-called “Social Justice Warriors,” and pressure from so-called “GamerGaters.” The crux of this discussion appears to center around the latest installment of the Fire Emblem series, Fire Emblem: Fates, although there has been other recent controversies concerning games like Dead or Alive Extreme 3 and Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water.
Concerning Fire Emblem: Fates, a subquest involving a character named Soleil, who seems to be a female of a bisexual orientation (1 of 3 possible for humans, at least before Tumblr existed), could be romanced by an avatar character of the player’s design. The context of this romance appears to be that Soleil seems to get weak-kneed around cute girls of her type, which lessens her effectiveness in war and impedes her quest to become “smooth,” in her (fan translated at this point) words. The player character concocts a magic potion that makes the imbiber see people in opposite genders (1 of 2, at least before… oh, I already did that joke…) causing Soleil to see people in the opposite gender that they are. This medicine is supplied to Soleil in clandestine means, which to say, her drink was spiked. Hilarious hijinks ensue. This is obviously squarely in 90’s sitcom territory, or something out of the romantic comedy manga Ranma 1/2. The outcome is comical, and at the end the misadventure allows the player avatar to get closer to Soleil and say that she finds interacting with the player character “fun,” regardless of the unawareness of her medication. Who could possibly object?
Splatfest – Barbarians vs Ninjas (EU/AUS)
HYARRGHHH!! ROOOAAAARRR!! HNNNNNNNN!! Splat what? What fest? GO AWAY, I DON’T CARE!!
Continue reading “Splatfest – Barbarians vs Ninjas (EU/AUS)”
Pietriots 