Too Much Awesome » Games You Should Have Played

Games You Should Have Played: Zelda II

Chris Pranger — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:00:43 +0000

Every series seems to have its Black Sheep. For one reason or another, the go-to answer for the worst game in the Zelda series, besides the Zelda games on the CD-i of course, tends to be Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Why exactly does this title get so much ire from gamers and the Zelda community? Was it such a bad game? Should I be talking about it as a Bad Game That Should Have Been Great? No, and it’s because I truly believe that Zelda II is a Game You Should Have Played.

Don't let that nose fool you; Link is a stone-cold badass here.

I got Skyward Sword at the end of November as a birthday present and since then I’d expect to be utterly finished with it, what with it being a month removed from my first getting it and it being a highly-anticipated Zelda game. And yet, for some reason I’m not playing it tonight. To be frank, I haven’t played it for over a week, and I’m not even half way through it yet. Instead, I took a two-week diversion to replay Zelda II on my 3DS thanks to the Ambassador Program.

For a Zelda game, the plot is actually somewhat original compared to other entries. Not only that, but no Zelda game since has replicated the gameplay style. Instead of the top-down perspective seen in the original Legend of Zelda or A Link to the Past, Zelda II is an action sidescroller. Link gets an item in each temple, but it can’t be used other than on the overworld map to break boulders or see in caves. The items are actually just pretty unimportant other than a means to access the next temple.

The whole game here revolves around a very simple combat mechanic. Link can stab with his sword while standing or crouched, plus can learn an upward and downward thrust attack. Beyond a few basic magic spells (you’ll get really friendly with Heal pretty quick), that’s about all you’ll need to know, but mastering the combat is a trip that’s vastly rewarding.

And you'd better master it quick or you're going to get rawked.

It’s all based on the risk/reward system, perpetuated even more by experience points. For the first and only time ever, Link can level up, thus getting more health, magic, or sword strength, but in order to level up you have to earn enough points before running out of lives. Lose all your lives and it’s game over, meaning you lose all the experience points you haven’t banked. So then, should you press your luck and fight through some Darknuts in the next temple, or play it safe and level grind in the woods on weaker enemies?

Going back to that plot, things are kind of strange here. Ganon is dead and only makes an appearance if Link gets a game over as Ganon’s followers are trying to resurrect him using Link’s blood. I mentioned how dark that was a while ago, yes? Okay. The point is, there isn’t even an ultimate villain that’s trying to kill Link or threatening the land. Princess Zelda, the original that the legend is based on, is asleep and needs to be awoken via the Trifoce. Link has the Triforces of Power and Wisdom as collected in the previous game, but the Triforce of Courage awaits him at the end of this one. Stranger still, Link doesn’t pick up a new piece or gem or medallion or anything when he beats a temple. Rather, he places a stone into a statue, effectively making this the only Zelda game of knowledge where the point is to leave the temple with less than you took in.

I really like the idea of the whole game not being a quest to defeat a boss character, but an extended metaphor for showing courage and conquering one’s own dark side. The clencher is the final temple known as the Great Palace, probably the single hardest Zelda dungeon ever designed due to the sheer brutality of it all. After slogging through the toughest enemies of the game, you finally reach the bottom and fight the terrifying Thunderbird, the guardian of the Triforce of Courage. Upon destroying it, you move into a room where a little man, possibly the Old Man from the first game, separates you from your shadow. And Dark Link is born! The fight is unbelievably difficult, especially after just coming from a boss fight and the death march through the Great Palace (unless you know the trick of crouching in the corner and stabbing at his knees).

Trust me on this one: The combat is solid and if you're dying too much, it's your own fault. And because Zelda II is stupid-hard.

Only after defeating his literal dark side can Link possess the entirety of the Triforce and awaken Princess Zelda. Think of the annoying fetch quest for the Triforce shards in The Wind Waker but elongate it into the entire story and remove the annoying fetch quest part. Making the plot essentially feel like a side quest from another Zelda game actually makes this more enjoyable for me since it’s so far outside the norm. Hey, variety is good sometimes.

Seeing as how this is an NES game made by Nintendo, you have more than enough methods to currently play it. If you don’t have access to the original cartridge, which itself is easily found for under $10, you can download it from the Wii’s Virtual Console, try and find it on the GameCube’s special Legend of Zelda Collector’s Edition disc, snag it on the Game Boy Advance, or most recently unwrap it via the 3DS’ Ambassador Program (perhaps you’re a member and just haven’t downloaded Zelda II or played it yet). So many ways to play it, no excuse not to.

And that’s really all there is to say. It’s a challenging title since it was built back in the days of Nintendo Hard, so don’t expect to get very far without some basic skills and a walkthrough. Beyond that though, don’t miss out on this gem just because you keep hearing it’s the “bad” Zelda game. It’s not. It’s one of the better Zelda games. Now Phantom Hourglass, boy, there was a bad Zelda game. Discuss.

Too Much Awesome Feature Guide [Updated]

Chris Pranger — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:00:07 +0000

We here at Toy-TMA do a lot of writing. Sometimes we do more writing than usual, but we’ve been very good about creating content every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at a consistent pace. Thankfully, a lot of our favorite articles have been viewed over and over again, and even have comments in staggering numbers for a site of our size. However, there are equally a staggering number of articles we’ve thrown ourselves into and week after week never see them on the Top 50 Content list from our analytics. Perhaps the problem is that we don’t have a ready-made guide to help you see what’s our there to read? That’s my theory, therefore here is the Too Much Awesome Feature Guide.

We're a good bunch here, and here are some of the best things we've produced for your enjoyment.

Games You Should Have Played:

The concept is simple enough. Take a game we’ve played and loved and tell other people why they should also love it. This feature began with Ocarina of Time and is still ongoing. What new Games You Should Have Played can you expect to see? Super Mario 64 is demanding a write-up, as is Twilight Princess and Act Raiser. Look for those in coming months.

Super Mario Sunshine

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

Beyond Good & Evil

The Sly Cooper Trilogy

Batman NES

Golden Sun: The Lost Age

Tomb Raider 1 & 2

Golden Sun

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Donkey Kong Country Trilogy

Final Fantasy III SNES (VI)

Super Mario Galaxy

Super Mario Bros 3

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Bad Games That Should Have Been Great:

Take the concept behinds Games You Should Have Played and reverse it. These are games that are misguided in some tragic way, becoming examples of a great concept or lofty promises being released with as a final product that leaves much to be desired. What other Bad Games That Should Have Been Great are in our future? Hard to say, but No More Heroes has a lot to talk about, so keep an eye out for that one.

Pokemon Battle Revolution

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

Metroid: Other M

Smash Bros Spinoffs

Turtles In Time: Re-Shelled

Star Fox Adventures

Fable II

Dead Rising

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

God of War III

Resident Evil 5

Retrospectives:

Sometimes there are series that demand a full talk or an older toy or game that we really feel needs to be looked at again in further detail, mostly from our personal perspective. That’s where our retrospectives come from. What’s up next for a retrospective? The Star Fox series has been asking for the spotlight, and thus it shall soon be retrospectified.

Model Trains

Stuffed Animals

He-Man

Return of the Jedi Battle at Sarlacc’s Pit board game

Waterworks

Brian’s Memories with Hot Wheels

The Game of Life

Mille Bornes

My First Diecast Car Convention

Wrestling Toys

Origami animals

Remote controlled envy

X-Men Under Siege Board Game

Marvel Legends Action Figures

Smash Bros: A Retrospective

My Little Pony: A Retrospective

Guys and Dolls: A Male’s Retrospective Of Barbie

Cereal Toys Retrospective

Apples to Apples Retrospective

Backyard Toys

Tonka Trucks Retrospective

Games Pieces Do Not Actually Talk: A Guess Who? Retrospective

Creating My Own Sagas: Dragonball Z Action Figures

Guide to Collectible Star Wars Action Figures

Go Green Machine! A Ninja Turtle Video Game Retrospective

More to Catch: Pokemon Toys Retrospective

Twenty Years and Still Going: A Simpsons Retrospective

Sweet Memories of Childhood Cars: A Matchbox Retrospective

The Glory of G.I. Joes: A Retrospective

The Privileged Childhood: A Power Wheels Retrospective

Still Leading The Way: A Hot Wheels Retrospective

Just Don’t Panic: A Retrospective on Catch Phrase

Like Capture The Flag With Bombs: A Stratego Retrospective

The Plastic Wars: a Retrospective on Army Men

All Out War: A Risk Retrospective

A Retrospective on Trivial Pursuit the Board Game

Victory Never Tasted So Sweet: A Candy Land Retrospective

That Cluedo That You Do: A Retrospective on Clue the Board Game

I Am Scattegories and You Can Too: A Scattegories Retrospective

Computers Must Be Stopped: A Short Chess Retrospective

The Yo-Yo and Why You Should Have One

Build Yourself Some Fun: a Brief LEGO Retrospective

Get Out of Jail for Free: A Brief Monopoly Retrospective

Video Game Retrospectives:

Rare: A Retrospective

Metroid: A Retrospective

My Pokemon Team Over The Years

Zelda: A Retrospective

-Part 1

-Part 2

Crash Bandicoot: A Retrospective

Mario: A Retrospective

Let’s Think Deep:

Our long-form discussions, Let’s Think Deep is a forum for us to discuss issues that we’re feeling regarding whatever we feel needs to be thought deeply about. What is currently up for Deep Thought? The future of gaming is a big topic, probably appearing sooner than later. Be watching for that.

Books and Games

Nintendo Explained By a Lifelong Fan

The PSN Blackout

You versus the world

The Download Conundrum

Wii Regret

I Get Your Genre: First-Person Shooters

The Mind of a Fanboy

Kinect and What It Means

The Great Zelda Schism

The Used Games Dilemma

The Virtual Utopia

The Moral of the Story

Rethinking Remakes

Achieving Perfection

Motion Controls In Games

The Perfect Video Game

What Makes a System Good?

Dante’s Inferno and It’s Place In The World

Articulating Articulation

Schrodinger’s Zelda

Tips From a Grandmaster:

We like to think we’re professional gamers here, but we’re not. Still, every so often we come across a game we feel mastery in to a level that has us begging to share our wisdom. What games will we discuss next? Smash Bros and Mass Effect are showing strong indicators of getting a full Tips article, so be ready for those.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (Part 1)

Super Mario Bros 3

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Batman: Arkham City

Comic Book Club:

Video games aren’t our entire world, even if it feels that way some months. We’re big on comic books, so much so that we want to share some of the comics that have really stood out as examples of stellar work. What Comic Book Club books will be selected for the future? Certainly Batman Black & White will make an appearance, as will the masterpiece manga Akira, plus the Marvel Current Continuity Retrospective needs to be resolved, so stick that on your radar and check back for their arrival on the list.

Marvel Current Continuity Retrospective:

-Avengers Disassembled

-New Avengers

-House of M

-Marvel Civil War

-Marvel Civil War Aftermath

Usagi Yojimbo #141 (Issue 200)

Avatar The Last Airbender, The Lost Adventures

The Walking Dead

Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld

Scott Pilgrim Book 6

Ex Machina

Superman: Secret Identity

Chickenhare

Scott Pilgrim Books 1-5

Bone

Marvels

Authentically Awesome Anime (Triple A):

Gus came up with this a while ago after he decided that we talk about anime but not nearly as much as we should. Therefore, Triple A came about. What’s likely to appear? FLCL will be there soon, as will Akira and Samurai Champloo, so watch for those.

One Piece: New World Review Part 1

One Piece: New World Review Part 2

Digimon Tamers

Death Note

One Piece

One Piece 500th Episode

Samurai 7

Pokemon, the First Three Movies

Page To Screen:

Gus started another brilliant segment a ways into this last year that really struck a cord with me where we cast the live action version of an animated property, though we haven’t touched on it since. That will change soon! Expect us to cast a live action version of Akira (the right way), Dragon Ball (the right way), and even Pokemon.

One Piece Part 1

One Piece Part 2

Casting for a Live Action Movie

Forget-Me-Nots:

Kyle starting this one, being an article aimed squarely at a toy from our past that we want to talk about. Not just any toy, but our toy, our specific toy that is ours and no one else’s. What can you see us taking a trip down memory lane with next? Perhaps Z-Bots, but that’s an article for another day.

Yu-Gi-Oh Cards and Anime

Pokemon Trading Card Game

Video game board games

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Figures and Zords

Chutes and Ladders

Mutating Michelangelo

Halloween-Turned-Toys!

Tie Fighter Computer Game

Lone Ranger Action Figure

Daredevil Action Figure

TMNT Pizza Power Board Game

1987 Ghostbusters Firehouse

How To Guides:

Sometimes we get the chance to cut loose and dispense advice. This is one of those times. Here are all the times we’ve given you advice on the important things in life. Coming soon: How To Create Video Games.

How To Do Nothing

Doing Halloween Costumes Right

How To Create Your Own Hot Wheels

8 Frequently Asked Questions About The Power Rangers

How To Survive Black Friday

How To Lose With Dignity

How To Operate A Touch Screen Properly

How To Game Correctly

Game Rentals: The Poor Man’s Guide

The Dragonball Z Technique Guide

How To Beat Your Friends In Board Games

Lists:

This is the Internet in 2011. That means a fair number of lists are expected and to a certain degree required for a website to go on functioning. What lists are coming up soon? Keep a look out for 10 Examples Why Mario Games Are Darker Than You’d Think to appear sometime in the next year.

5 Games Lost in the November Rush 2011

The Best [And Worst] of Nolan North

5 Games To Play In The Dark

Top 5 Most Wanted Plot Devices for Avatar The Last Airbender: The Promise Part 1

Five Franchises That Should Get a Sandbox Spinoff

Five Aspects of Otherwise Great Anime That Brings Them Down

10 Weird Items from Oriental Trading

Five Remakes We Should Have Seen at E3

5 Things From Avatar I Wanted To See But Didn’t

Ten Games That Changed Everything

Five Aspects of Avatar Everyone Gets Wrong

Top 5 Franchises That Should Get a LEGO Spinoff

Five Games I’d Like To See On The 3DS Without 3D

5 Games That Would Work Great With The 3DS’ 3D

Ten Aspects of Otherwise Good Games That Bring Them Down

Seven Tragic Video Game Love Stories

Top 5 Franchises That Should Get An SSB Spinoff

Toys of 2010 that were just plain bad ideas

In Response to Game Informer: 10 Underdogs That Defined A Generation

A Toy List For The Financially Gifted

5 Toys From 2010 I Wish I Had When I Was Your Age

Crash Bandicoot, A Retrospective Part 3: CTR

Gus Townson — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:00:49 +0000

It’s been a whole year and a half since my very first guest article here at Toy-TMA, and I realized that I have some serious unfinished business to attend to. I debuted on this site with a Retrospective on the classic Crash Bandicoot Trilogy, which still stands as my all time favorite video game trilogy to date. That alone would be enough to make its creator, Naughtydog, one of my favorite game developers ever, but their fourth (and final) installment to the franchise would cement Naughtydog as my own personal Valve: i.e. a developer that can do no wrong as they consistently provide a high standard of quality in everything they produce with yet a single flop to their resume. The game in question would not be another platforming adventure, but a kart racer. Crash Team Racing released on the original PlayStation in 1999, and to this day it has no equal.

For those who wish to read my Retrospectives on the first three Crash Games before proceeding to this one, follow the links below.

Part 1 Crash Bandicoot

Part 2 Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex Strikes Back, and Crash Bandicoot Warped

: Buckle up, Mario Kart purists. This could get hairy.

Yep, I said it. Crash Team Racing (CTR), I repeat, is the greatest Arcade Style Racing Game ever made. As I speak, I already know that hundreds of you out there are calling blasphemy on me, refusing to believe that anything can possibly be superior to any product that features Nintendo’s supreme mascot on wheels. Well all you blindly loyal sheep, I’m gonna tell it to you straight. Yes, CTR came out two years after Mario Kart 64. Yes, it is a by-the-numbers copycat of everything Mario Kart 64 did [with a big scoop of Diddy Kong Racing mixed in], only with the characters, environments, weapons, and tunes of the Crash universe. Yes, it’s a PS1 exclusive that was an obvious cash-in because Sony needed their own version of what Nintendo had on the N64. That much is true.

But you know what else is true? For someone who has played both extensively throughout his childhood (AKA, Me) it became quickly obvious which one was the more superior game. CTR had more characters, more tracks, more battle maps and play settings, better controls, better visuals, better music, better voice acting (by which I mean it HAS voice acting) and an entire single player adventure to top it all off.

Case closed. Hook line and Sinker. Check and Mate. Done and Done. [Pranger's Note: And that's why Crash Team Racing is still so popular toda- oh wait...]

[Yes, because Popularity has always been synomymous with Quality. I'm sure the box-office sales of Scott Pilgrim vs. The Expendables are a perfect example of that.]

: And Crash takes the lead in a landslide victory!

Now that I’ve got that little rant out of the way, let’s talk about the game’s story. So Crash and Co. are all riving up for the big Grand Prix when they get a very unexpected guest. Yup, after beating all the mutated animals, mad scientists, and machine enemies to a pulp, Crash gets his very first extra terrestrial encounter, and his name is Nitros Oxide.

: Despite his name, he does not laugh that much.

Now, is it just me, or does he remind anyone of Sebulba, the pod-racing champion from Star Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace? Which is especially odd, given this game predates The Phantom Menace. Anyway, Oxide here claims to be the fastest racer in the galaxy, and he comes to Earth with a proposition.

“It’s a little game I like to call ‘Survival of the Fastest.’ Here’s how we play. I challenge the fastest driver on your planet to a race. If your driver wins, I’ll leave your miserable little rock alone. But if I win, I’ll turn your entire globe into a concrete parking lot, and you’ll all have to be my slaves. Get ready to race for the fate of your planet.”

As silly as that may sound for a plot device, it is a perfectly plausible way to establish conflict in a universe such as this one. Especially given that in a bit of deleted dialogue, it is explained that the planet Mars has no life on it, because Oxide passed by it on his way toward Earth and left it a desolate wasteland. It also is a perfect explanation why Crash, Coco, and all their friends would be out go-karting with Cortex, N.Gin, and their other former adversaries. If Crash and friends want to save the world, and Cortex and minions want Oxide gone so they can conquer the world themselves, it makes perfect sense why they would all be duking it out to see which of them is best fit to race for the planet. [Pranger's Note: I'd just like to point out some odd histories here. Crash Team Racing came out in 1999 with a space alien demanding a racing challenge. 1997's Diddy Kong Racing had a...space alien...challenge people to kart racing...hmm.]

[Okay fair enough, but with Wiz Pig, it was never really explicit where his motive came from in all this, or why racing him was entirely necessary. The excuse we were given for his actions was "He's bored." Oxide, on the other hand, was a derainged, cranky, senile old coot whom even the people on his own planet (given a name, Gasmoxia) thought he was freaking nuts, thus why he left in the first place. Plus, it's also unexplained why in a universe where powerfull forces like Donkey Kong, King K. Rool, Gruntilda, and the Panther King all exist, that the resistance that is able to take Wiz Pig down is comprised of Elementary aged kids, 75% of which we never see in another game.]

Anyway…In the end it is up to the player to choose who he will play as, and ultimately make the Earth’s champion. And of course, given my fondness to a certain “Most Epic Evil Minion in all Video Games,” you can probably guess whom I went with.

: Time to toast some rubber, mate.

For a company’s very first attempt at a racing game, Naughtydog managed to create a point perfect engine for CTR. They didn’t try to add gimmicks like poorly handling hovercrafts and airplanes as a shallow attempt at trying to look innovative. [Pranger's Note: Nope, they just took the concept of one popular kart racer and the framing narrative of another.] [Which I already confessed to above.] They just made their core driving physics as sharp and fluid as possible. There was a great sense of speed in the way the karts moved, especially thanks to the bountiful amount of ramps and turbo pads scattered evenly across each track. Not to mention this game has just about the easiest and best handling power slide system I’ve ever seen. Sure, all kart racers have power sliding now, but this game still does it better and more visceral than anyone. And never once was there a lag in the animation. It just felt right.

Each character has varying traits that make them play unique to one anther. Polar and Pura have the best agility and handling, which makes them good for beginners. Coco and N. Gin have the best Acceleration for a slightly higher challenge. Tiny and Dingodile have the highest top speed but are difficult to handle, making them fit for most experience players. Then you had Crash and Cortex, who were good well-rounded racers for the intermediate crowd. Each of the following seven unlockable characters fall somewhere in one of these four brackets, though you’ll have to test-drive them out for yourself before you can analyze their strengths.

There are 18 racetracks in total with seven battle maps. Every character, including the unlockable ones, get their own themed map, which are all richly detailed with obstacles straight from the first three Crash games. One fan favorite in particular is Hot Air Skyway, which is basically our own personal version of Rainbow Road, as it is up in the sky and there are very few railings to prevent you from falling off. The only difference is that Hot Air Skyway isn’t a mess of neon colors splashed onto the screen. It’s an actual track that allows you to SEE where you are going. So that means if you fall off, 90% of the time, it will be your own fault.

: This just ain’t Cortex’s day, is it?

Of course in classic arcade racing style, there are item boxes scattered throughout the tracks. They will provide a huge variety of weapons for offense (heat seekers, rolling bombs, electric orbs), defense (TNT crates, Potions, Force fields), speed (turbo boosts) and the Aku Aku mask (Uka Uka if you’re a bad guy) which is the CTR equivalent of Starman, thus making you a temporarily invincible speed demon that takes out anyone you hit. Adding to the item system is Wampa Crates. By hitting these crates and collecting enough wampa fruit, you become “Juiced Up” and any items you collect become stronger and more accurate (TNT become Nitro crates, Bombs have a bigger blast radius, Aku Aku mask lasts longer).

Each of the characters also have their own unique set of sound bites and catchphrases. The audio is a little dated, so it’s occasionally difficult to pick up what they are saying, but not too often. There was this one time during the final boss fight (or race as it were) with Oxide where he calls out one of his sound bites to me, “Say goodbye!” immediately followed by me, playing as Dingodile, firing my triple heat seeker item at him, making direct hit, and Dingodile saying one of his own sound bites, “Goodbye!” As I pass Oxide and take the lead.

True bliss right there. Timing on that one couldn’t have been more perfect.

"If you ain't first you're last."

If there was one small complaint I would make about CTR, it is about the four-player vs. mode. It works excellently, but in order to play it you needed to buy a multi-tap adapter because the PS1 (and PS2) only had two controller outlets. It wasn’t too pricy, but because that peripheral was needed in order for the game to read more than two controllers, it is impossible to start up four-player on the downloadable PSN version on the PS3. That is a bit unfortunate, though it’s hard to knock the whole game down for it, because there is so much content with battle modes, time trials, CTR Challenges (collecting the letters C,T, and R hidden in a track and still getting first place [Pranger's Note: Similar to collecting 10 silver coins and still getting first place perhaps...?] [Yeah, but much more clean and not as unecessarily complicated]) here is a racing game that is just as much fun and challenging to play in single player as it is with friends.

: To the victor.

As what many cult followers hail as being the last definitively awesome Crash Bandicoot game ever made before Naughtydog would ultimately sever all bonds with Universal Studios, leaving their high spinning superstar behind, I cannot recommend this title enough. Crash Team Racing is currently available for download for $5.99 on the Play Station Network and for Free for those with Plus Memberships. You want speed? They don’t come much faster. You want tracks? They don’t come much sharper. You want an all-star gathering of the entire cast of the Crash Bandicoot Trilogy (save for two or three omissions) celebrating an critical breakthrough in Gaming Icons made right here in the states? CTR brings the goods. You’re welcome.

And on reflection, perhaps the supposedly hypothesized Uncharted Fortune Racer game might not be such a bad idea after all.

[Pranger's Note: I realize I came down hard here but understand that I have nothing against Crash Team Racing. I do, however, have something against calling out fans of other series for no reason, hence why I felt compelled to put a bit of perspective into place. Please though, go enjoy your game for the fun experience it is, not for the experience it is when compared to anything else.]

[And I appologize for seeming so forward in my defence. I have nothing against Mario Kart or Diddy Kong racing. They have influence a lot of games, like this one and I appreciate them greatly for it. What I am against is having one of my favorite games in the entire world constantly mocked for 12 whole years of being a ripoff of a game that only existed for only two years prior. There are miles of shallow, bland, half-baked uninspired knock-offs in video games. Crash Team Racing isn’t one of them.)

Games You Should Have Played: Super Mario Sunshine

Chris Pranger — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:00:36 +0000

I am, quite simply, a Mario fan through and through. There hasn’t been a Mario game I haven’t liked, even Mario spin-off games like the Party series or any of his sports titles (perhaps not counting Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games). But after playing Super Mario 3D Land and loving it, I started to hear rumblings from the Internet about his other great games. Naturally, the classic 2D games were mentioned, as was Super Mario 64 and the pair of Galaxy games. But Super Mario Sunshine was missing, and if it were mentioned at all it was as an example of a bad Mario game. How could this be? Well, as Mario’s #1 fan it’s my duty to break through the muck and say loud and clear that Super Mario Sunshine is without a doubt a Game You Should Have Played.

Hey those guys have trees growin' out of their heads. What the heck am I playing?

Let’s set the stage for why some people just weren’t happy with Mario’s GameCube outing. The year is 2000 and people are excited to see what the GameCube can offer. During a tech demo, and if knowledge serves me correctly it was the same tech demo that showed what Link and Ganondorf could look like on the ‘Cube (please don’t quote me on that!), a video detailing a supposed game called Super Mario 128, the proposed sequel to Super Mario 64, was teased. Being the usual characters that gamers are, our first and only assumption was that the tech demo was a definite statement of the game’s existence, showing over a hundred Marios running around, traversing spherical platforms. Naturally, we were confused when we instead got Super Mario Sunshine.

To quell some fears regarding Super Mario 128, while the game was scrapped, the concepts certainly were not. A number of other games were born from the ideas it created, such as Pikmin, Twilight Princess, and Super Mario Galaxy. And also, according to Nintendo, Super Mario Sunshine, a game that couldn’t actually run on either the PS2 or Xbox due to the amount of colors its graphic used (fun facts!).

Man, we really need to stop obsessing over tech demos already.

The basic plot of Sunshine is actually a lot different than most Mario games. No, not so different that Peach isn’t kidnapped and Bowser isn’t the Big Bad once again (that never changes), but the overall game is a drastic shift away from any other Mario game to date and stands alone as something wholly unique. All Mario games include the usual grass levels, water levels, snow/ice levels, fire/lava levels, sand levels, and underground levels, plus perhaps a castle, fortress, or haunted house for good measure. Sunshine, thankfully, does not include any of these as we know them.

Instead, Sunshine gives us a tropical village, a beach, a harbor, an amusement park, a scenic waterfall, a hotel, a village suspended by gigantic palm trees, and a resort island as the hub world. Can you catch the theme here? Everything takes place on the vacation hot-spot Isle Delfino and revolves around that one unified theme. It’s like Mario just went on holiday and we all got to join him.

I absolutely love this concept and need to stop and let it sink in. Mario is one of those characters that people whine on about never changing his formula, never switching things up or doing things different. Sunshine was a very clear attempt to try something different than every other Mario game, both with the setting and the gameplay mechanics themselves, still completely unique again to Sunshine. People forget that everything was different- not bad different but just different- and as a result Sunshine was one of Mario’s least successful adventures. Why would anyone wonder why Nintendo hasn’t taken any real risks with him since?

You're darn right!

Speaking of that gameplay, this time around Mario is joined by a sentient hydropack named FLUDD that dispenses useful information while also acting as a spray nozzle, a hoverpack, a jetpack, and a propeller. Water and graffiti are at the center of everything as Mario is mistaken for someone who’s been painting the island in sludge, easily cleaned with a few squirts of water. The platforming is drastically different than most Mario games thanks to the hover feature of FLUDD (no longjump here), but that doesn’t mean the game is easy.

Oh man, the highlight of the game comes when you encounter your first secret level. Each stage had one or two, placed in a cave or open doorway or some such, and when Mario jumped inside he’d be teleported to a place that can only be described as Platforming Hell. FLUDD would be taken from you (eliminating your hover feature safety net) and you’d be expected to get to the end of some of the most difficult Mario stages in his long history. Each level would be just a series of elaborate challenges suspended over insta-death that’d push you to utilize Mario’s primal skills with triple jumps, flips, wall jumps, and careful timing. These challenges were just straight up hard, and they’re worth the price of admission all by themselves. Plus, a snazzy a cappella version of the Mario theme plays during these stages, and who doesn’t like that?

Still, the game isn’t without some drawbacks. For one, this is the only Mario game that contains a fully voice-acted script, meaning that Peach, Toadsworth, and sadly Bowser all have full speaking voices. Bowser Jr is cringe worthy, but when Bowser chimes in with what sounds like someone doing a mocking parody of the character, things go from uncomfortable to just plain painful. At least there isn’t a whole lot of this going on, so it’s by no means a deal breaker. I’m just saying Bowser sounded better in the Super Mario Bros Super Show.

Also frustrating are Blue Coins. In all other Mario games, Blue Coins are just coins that count for 5 coins or something similar, but here you must collect 10 to get a Shine Sprite (the Power Stars of this game). There are 120 Shines Sprites, just like Super Mario 64 had 120 Stars, but 24 of those Shines come from these Blue Coins, which are hidden everywhere in levels to the point of being ridiculously difficult to find. Some are hidden in obvious places, but then others pop out when you spray random objects, forcing you to spray everything like you have OCD. That was a bit much, but yet again, not enough to ruin the game for me.

Have you ever seen Bowser so sad? I think it's because you weren't playing the game.

Even though Sunshine gets a bad rap, a lot of Mario mainstays come from the little island including the Piantas, the Noki, Shadow Mario, Petey Piranha, Toadsworth, and even Bowser Jr. You can see the influence reaching to the Paper Mario series, the Mario Kart series, and even into some of the sports titles besides continuing trends set up here in the Galaxy games. Nintendo certainly hasn’t just abandoned the memory of Super Mario Sunshine, despite what many may believe.

Were I to come up with a hypothesis as to why Sunshine has such a bad reputation, I think it would come down to two reasons colliding head on. The first is that this was the Mario game on the GameCube, a system that only Nintendo hardcores seemed to love (such as myself, which is why it’s my favorite system). The second is that the game breaks away from so many Mario traditions that it’s a bit jarring at first. I mean, neither Koopas or Goombas even make an appearance, or a large handful of other classic Mario enemies, so longtime fans may have felt like this one didn’t technically “count” or something, especially owning to the cornerstone of the game being FLUDD and cleaning pollution from the game.

If the water backpack mechanic was broken then I could understand the frustration, but it was awesome, so what the heck was the problem?

I think it was just unfortunate timing as the game is gorgeous to look at, even by today’s standards, has a soundtrack that’s severely under-appreciated as well, and was bold enough to try something very new in a series that’s been and still is regarded as formulaic to a fault.

Don’t let this absolute masterpiece go to waste. You’ve got a perfectly serviceable GameCube built into the Wii, so head out and find Super Mario Sunshine at a used games store. It can’t possibly be too expensive. Go play and enjoy. Besides, are there any other Mario games where Mario wears shades and a Hawaiian shirt? I didn’t think so.

Games You Should Have Played: The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Gus Townson — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:00:08 +0000

One thing I would like to make clear here at Toy-TMA is that I am just as excited for the next big Legend of Zelda title as anyone. It would not be much of a stretch to say I was first hired here by my editor Mr. Pranger to write as an advocate for Sony fans. This is very true. I love my PS3 and its exclusive library of high quality games I can’t play on anything else. Yet I personally consider myself just as much a Nintendo fan. In fact, dare I say, I am probably more anxious for the release of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword than I am for any one of Sony’s several big releases, (though it is a very close race between it and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception). Most people would never know this about me, seeing as Mr. Pranger has always in the past, and most certainly this holiday, be covering any new Zelda/Mario/Kirby/etc properties. Therefore, I’ve decided to share my own thoughts on the Zelda series by recommending the game I’ve been playing in preparation/anticipation for the release of Skyward Sword. A game I know Chris will never dedicate a whole article to. So I will. [Pranger's Note: I have since changed my ways and come to appreciate The Wind Waker, so such snark will probably only yield a Master Sword to the face.] Oh… well then great, let’s begin.

: Nintendo took a risk with this one. For what it’s worth, I approve.

Power.
Courage.
Wisdom.
Long ago, the three virtues of Hyrule held the world together in harmony.
Then, everything changed when the Demon King Ganon attacked.
Only the Hero of Time, Master of the Triforce of Courage, could stop him,
But when the world needed him most… he vanished.
A hundred years passed, and my crew and I discovered a new Hero of Time,
A Wind Waker named Link,
And although his wind waking skills are great,
He has a lot to learn before he’s ready to save anyone.
But I believe Link can save the world.

Unlike my editor, I am a relatively new Zelda fan. Sure, I have been familiar with the franchise for a long time, but it took a while before I actually sat down and gave it my undivided attention. I played all the way through my first Zelda game, Ocarina of Time, during my freshmen year of college five years ago. Immediately I was hooked. Instant classic. Soon afterwards, I moved onto my second game, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Despite all controversy surrounding it and how it quickly became known as, how my old college buddy Kevin put it, “The freak of the series,” the transition from Ocarina to this felt perfectly natural to me.

[Sidenote: Don't get my friend Kevin wrong, as he loves this game. Likewise for his then-girlfriend-now-wife Alexz, who is an amazingly stunning artist in her own right. Both wonderful acquaintances of mine that celebrated their first year anniversary just yesterday, and more relevantly, helped fuel my love for this game long after I completed it.]

: A beautifully crafted yet solemn opening depicting the rise and fall of the Hero of Time didn’t hurt.

Ironically enough, Wind Waker opens with a retelling of the events of Ocarina of Time, where upon rescuing the land of Hyrule from Ganon and being returned to his childhood (where the events of Majora’s Mask will take place), Link disappears from the future timeline, leaving the world defenseless upon Ganon’s inevitable resurrection. Fast Forward a hundred years and the land of Hyrule is completely submerged under water, while the legends surrounding the Hero of Time have become just that: Legends. People’s only reminder of a time and land long forgotten is a small tradition of forcing young boys to dress in the Hero’s trademark tunic and cap upon their thirteenth birthday.

Enter our protagonist.

So if I’m to understand this correctly, the dark, serious, badass Link from the Ocarina/Majora era mysteriously “disappears” just as the world re-enters peril, and in a hundred years, once Hyrule has gone to compete hell (or in this case, Davy Jones’ Locker), his duty as the world savior is inherited by his future life, who just happens to be some random light-hearted carefree boy who is handed this destiny before he could have ever conceivably been ready for it. Oh, and he can bend air. Yeah, that sounds awfully familiar to a… certain favorite show of mine, eh?

: “No one laugh at what I’m about to say… I think that kid might be the Avatar.”

Now, I fully understand longtime Zelda fans’ desire to continue the series down deeper more mature routes. With the exception of Metroid, Zelda is Nintendo’s only other dark franchise, and while I have not played all the way through Majora’s Mask yet (one of Chris’ favorites) I am aware that the themes and tones it established set up the series to go down some strange and scary places. But for today, I should really only speak for myself, and personally I loved this new Link. He was cute, funny, expressive, when we first meet him he’s got like surfer dude hair and beach clothes, and he lives with his family in one of the only two remaining human populated towns on the surface. In Ocarina, Link started off already a bona fide woodsman, as well as an outcast, and his events are set in motion because… a glowing ball with wings and a talking tree told him to. In Wind Waker, Link’s adventure sets in motion because his little sister gets taken away. I myself am the oldest of four, so that I can totally get behind.

The two complaints everyone has heard a million and one times about this game are about the visuals and the sailing. To start, I am in the middle of my second playthrough now, and still, five years later (eight if you count the games’ actual release) after I got my bright shiny Blu Ray system on my Dad’s Plasma TV, this game still stands as one of the best looking games I’ve ever played. Visually, Graphically, Aesthetically, however the heck you want to put it, this game has aged better than any Zelda title to date. Honestly, I do believe we have the stylized cartoony art style to thank for that. A huge aesthetic flaw in many last-gen games was that the more they tried to look realistic, the more the graphical limitations of the time showed through, and the more they looked fake. Wind Waker is just beautiful to look at. The colors are so rich and vibrant and little things like how ocean waves and explosions are depicted are so pleasing.

Now for the second complaint. Despite micromanaging the wind being a little tedious, I got really into the sailing of this game a lot. The scale of this game’s world is grand. You’d see a small dot on the sea’s horizon and watch as it got bigger and bigger; it was so addicting. I could spend hours searching across the ocean for stuff to do, goodies to unearth, sea monsters to fight, and getting every square of my map marked off. And once you were done, you could learn a tempest move that could teleport you anywhere just a league away, if not instantaneously.

: “I’m gonna make a map of the world, be the world’s greatest swordsmen, AND be King of the Pirates!”

So in essence, the two most frequent negatives concerning this game aren’t really negatives as far as I’m concerned. Not only that, once those two hurdles are overcome, the rest of the game is pretty much familiar territory. The controls from the N64 era were translated to the GameCube almost seamlessly. The dungeons are all unique and varied and there are side quests galore. Your sidekick comes in the form of your animate ship, the King of Red Lions, who is just about the most perfect combination of Navi and Epona. He tells you what you need to do once, then trusts you to get there on your own time, all the while serving as your transportation. It’s also cool how he can take certain items you find on your quest and give them a second function by attaching them to his sail.

Which brings me to another love of mine, the game’s supporting the cast. Other Zelda titles I’ve played, I meet maybe one or two side characters that I really care about and the rest just feel kind of bland. In this game, it felt like everyone I met was bleeding with personality. The dialogue was genuinely funny too. The Ritos in particular, the Bird-people of Dragon Roost Island, became one of my all time favorite species of the entire Zelda mythos. There’s even a few dungeons where Link gets to “possess” some of the side characters whom you get to momentarily play as and use their abilities to help solve the dungeon’s puzzles. I also like how this is the first game where Zelda actually fights in the final confrontation with Ganon. Yeah, they totally played up how Shiek was suppose to be this badass ninja in Ocarina of Time that would fight along side you, but in the end, all she did was show up right before every dungeon, dump some exposition, get her ass kicked once by the shadow boss, teach me a new song that will teleport me to a place I’m already at, then disappear again before I even start the dungeon. Kay thanks.

: “Don’t mess with me bro. I roundhouse kicked Ganondorf.”

The overarching story of Wind Waker, while primitive and somewhat juvenile compared to other Zelda titles, feels at least consistent with a nice sense of progression. Both the Master Sword and Link’s musical instrument were weaved into the story excellently (two facets that ended up feeling very forced in the plot of Twilight Princess, as if they had to shoehorn them in somewhere because they are a requirement). Another strong point in the story was how they put effort into giving Link actual motives and reasons to traverse each dungeon, beyond just “look for such-and-such mcguffin.” All joking aside, I truly stand by the parallels I made to my favorite show, Avatar the Last Airbender. Both stories open with a dark melancholy intro of the world’s predicament. They then proceed to begin the adventure on a fun, lighthearted tone. Slowly but surely their plots thicken and grow more perilous over time. By end, each story gives us an epic and satisfying conclusion that proves just because something is made for children doesn’t mean it can’t be deep, moving, and just as fun for an older audience. And while this does not segue at all, it’s worth mentioning that were it not for Wind Waker, my all time best character on Super Smash Bros. Brawl would not exist. So thanks for that.

: “This is how I smash, bro.”

For someone who owns just about every console Zelda game in some form or another, several of which I still have yet to complete, it says something that of all the games, the one I chose to revisit in preparation for Skyward Sword is undoubtedly the black sheep of the series. [Pranger's Note: The officially sanctioned "Black Sheep" of the Zelda series has been designated Zelda II: The Adventure of Link according to Gaming History. Carry on.] My rational behind this is that while Skyward Sword is technically classified as a prequel to Ocarina of Time, its brightly colored cell-shaded art style and game play mechanic of flying birdback across a sea of clouds to small islands scattered throughout the sky make it sound more and more like a spiritual sequel to this game. How much the final product will actually feel like that when it’s released to us this November, only time will tell.

Until then, there you have it. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the Zelda adventure that launched its own cult following. Why not go play it in the meantime?

Games You Should Have Played: Majora’s Mask

Chris Pranger — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:00:35 +0000

At this exact second I am waist deep in Ocarina of Time 3D and while playing it, my favorite game of all time remade into a game I’m still thrilled about, something very odd happened: I thought of how good Majora’s Mask was. In fact, the more I play Ocarina’s remake, the more I hope that Majora’s Mask gets the same 3DS treatment. So while I’ve mentioned ever-so-briefly Majora’s Mask in the past, I believe it’s time to give it the proper respect and devote an entire article to exactly why it’s such a good game, and, despite my love of Ocarina of Time, I will freely claim that Majora’s Mask is the Best Zelda Game Ever. Bold statement, I know. Let’s get into why Majora’s Mask is a Game You Should Have Played.

Those of you looking for an example of the video game Master Class, look no further.

I don’t feel I’m spoiling anything by giving away Ocarina of Time’s ending, so I’ll just go ahead and do that. Once Link successfully seals Ganon away in the Sacred Realm with Zelda’s help, he’s teleported back to the past before everything even happens in the first place. Upon arriving in the past, Navi, his companion for the entire game, says nothing and mysteriously flies out of the Temple of Time’s window (side note, this means that the Spiritual Stones wouldn’t really be needed to gain access to the Master Sword/Sacred Realm as you could just, I don’t know, go through the open window?). Finally, Link meets up with Zelda again, just as before, but no one says anything as the screen freezes and says “The End.”

Majora’s Mask picks up essentially right where Ocarina leaves off. The game mentions that Link is in search of an old friend, and while the friend is never explicitly named, it’s implied that he’s looking for Navi. Also, he’s a kid again, which just adds to the strangeness. And beyond that, he’s riding Epona, something that’s truly baffling seeing as how he couldn’t ride her in Ocarina of Time while he was a kid.

His search for Navi is halted by the Skull Kid, and thus begins the first reason why Majora’s Mask is so great: It is able to appropriate characters from Ocarina and flesh them out far more than they were originally portrayed. This is the main reason that, looking back, I’m just amazed at what Majora tried to pull off. The characters from Ocarina were wonderfully detailed and full of personality, but so few of them were ever used for anything more than just little NPC’s in towns to make them feel a bit fuller. Shopkeepers are simply shopkeepers with no story or history to them whatsoever. But story is where Majora takes over and shows the entire series how it’s done.

Hey Skull Kid, I'mma break that smug mask of yours if you touch my horse and ocarina again.

Just about every character has a story that Link can discover. Character models from Ocarina of Time appear in Majora’s Mask with actual motivation and, at times, tragic stories to tell. Anju, merely a character present to ask you to collect her chickens in order to earn a bottle during Ocarina, now has a story that lasts the entirety of Majora where her fiancé has gone missing and her life is spiraling into depression as a result. You can almost tell that Ocarina’s development team liked this batch of characters so much that they decided to set MM in an alternate dimension just so that the characters could be used again in a game that let them breathe.

However, we can’t talk about Majora’s Mask without mentioning the aspect that a lot of people can’t get past: The whole game is on a time limit. The Skull Kid, being in possession of Majora’s Mask, is causing the moon to slowly fall. That gives you three days to stop it from crushing Clock Town and destroying the land of Termina completely. During gameplay you can see a little clock at the bottom of the screen alerting you to how much time you have left, though it is possible to control time a little bit using the Ocarina of Time, which Zelda has given to you since you left Hyrule. You can play the Song of Time to go back to the beginning of the first day, play the Song of Double-Time to jump ahead 12 hours, and the Song of Reverse Time to slow the clock down to a crawl.

As a result of the clock being ever diligent, the game feels that much harder, plus, you can’t just save wherever you want, another aspect that adds to the difficulty. A certain amount of planning must be taken to accomplish anything in the game, especially side quests, a Zelda mainstay. Instead of just deciding to go exploring, you have to be aware of the time to ensure that you won’t have your adventuring cut short unexpectedly. Hunting for Rupees is great, but if you don’t have enough time to get back to the bank and deposit your money before teleporting back to dawn of the first day, then you’ve just wasted your efforts (item quantities and story-specific items are stripped from you whenever you go back in time).

There is, however, no escaping this guy. He will kill us all in our sleep.

Thankfully, the game gives you a handy journal that lists 20 different people around the land that are in need of your help, along with time-specific plot points mapped out so that you know when and where to be. Some of these are rather simple, such as just being in the right spot at the right time in order to meet someone and get a new mask. Others, like Anju and Kafei’s plot, require the entirety of the three days to resolve.

Oddly, while one of Majora’s strength is taking aspects of Ocarina and going further with them, another one of its strengths is doing away with Ocarina’s conventions entirely. Actually, a lot of Zelda conventions get thrown out the window with the main game consisting of just four dedicated dungeons rather than the standard eight or Ocarina’s nine (counting Ganon’s Tower). This means a lot of time is spent in between the dungeons learning more about the world and the characters involved. Also, neither Zelda nor Ganondorf play important roles at all, with Ganon being entirely absent. And despite this smaller number of dungeons, it still takes me longer to play through Majora’s Mask than Ocarina of Time.

The truly quirky thing about MM is how all of the wonderful things I’m saying would probably be false had OoT not preceded it. Majora built upon everything Ocarina started. They’re really just a continuation of one another, but the saddest part is how the core of the story- Link searching for Navi- is never resolved. In fact, The Wind Waker goes so far as to say that Link never returned to Hyrule, suggesting Link failed in his task.

Oh God failure!

Everything about Majora’s Mask is steeped in darkness, but not the kind of darkness that feels spooky for the sake of spooky. Nope, Majora’s Mask has the ability to be just a bit “off” to the point that the subtle creepy things are that much more powerful. Also, FREAKING GHOST CARTRIDGES!

There are a number of ways to play Majora’s Mask at this very moment. It originally came out on the N64, but it was ported to the GameCube in the Legend of Zelda Collections’ Edition disc and is also on the Wii’s Virtual Console. I’m still hoping for a 3DS remake, but I’ll get into that more once my full review of Ocarina of Time’s remake is completed.

And in the meantime, creepy stuff like this will be happening.

And there you have it; I’m all done with Majora’s Mask. Have you played this one? And if so, did you like it or not? Leave a comment and let me know. Otherwise, without friends, someone might go a little crazy and try to crash the moon into a city, and we all know that someone is me.

Games You Should Have Played: Beyond Good & Evil

Gus Townson — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:00:29 +0000

Recently, we have been experiencing a huge overhaul in HD remakes. Last year, Sony gave us the God of War Collection and the Sly Collection, and is set to deliver an Ico/Shadow of the Colossus and God of War Origins collections in the near future. At this year’s E3, Microsoft also debuted their Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary remake. While I’m not one to be a Nazi about game companies rehashing last generation titles for an easy cash in (especially when they are at a discounted price, come with achievements, and are for systems that aren’t backwards compatible), but even I can sort of see kind of a moot point to re-releasing games that in retrospect aren’t really that old, were already popular, and did well in their original release. What I would like to see are more HD remakes of last-gen games that I missed out on. Games that were lost and would benefit from having an updated version. Beyond Good & Evil HD, available now on Xbox Live and PSN for a measly $10, could not be a more perfect example of what I was looking for.

A legit number of sales on the remake wouldn't hurt either.

Beyond Good & Evil comes to us from Rayman creator Michel Ancel. Developed by Ubisoft back in 2003, it was released for the PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, and PC. Despite being available on so many platforms, the game never received so much as a second glance on the shelves as it proceeded to become one of the biggest disasters (sale wise) of the industry. No one bought it, save for maybe X-Play host Morgan Webb. I myself will confess to barely even knowing about the game eight years ago (okay so I was 15, but still). I finished my first run of the HD remake just this last weekend, and now, I just feel this swelling sense of grief that something so humble yet so intelligent and filled with potential was shot down. It’s like Earthbound all over again.

Anyway, unplesantries aside, lets talk about just what makes this game so promising. Beyond Good & Evil takes place in the future on the lush planet of Hillys, where humans and anthropomorphic creatures coexist together, and not a single soul questions it. Our story focuses on a young woman named Jade. She’s no one special, just another citizen who happens to be a photographer and runs a shelter for a small group of orphans. At the beginning of the game, said shelter becomes one of several victims of a raid by a parasitic alien race known as the DomZ. As any respecting mother figure would, Jade’s protective nature spurs her to seek out answers to why the Alpha Sections, the military force of Hillys, is not doing anything about these attacks. With her Uncle Pay’j by her side—a diminutive, pudgy-but-brilliant mechanic who also happens to be a pig (I SAID no one questions it!)—Jade gets the attention of the IRIS Network, a covert underground agency who wishes to hire Jade for some field missions as they could use her skills in photojournalism. While a little hesitant at first, Jade’s meeting with IRIS Agent Double H eventually convinces her to join IRIS to help them gather evidence of a secret government conspiracy by the Alpha Sections.

: The rarest most exotic trio in the video game kingdom. Quick, take their picture!

Aside from being the only woman I’ve seen to successfully pull off green lipstick, Jade is easily one of the best realized leading female protagonists in any video game. A few months back, she was listed, and quite deservedly, in Game Informer’s Top 30 Characters Who Defined A Decade. Furthermore, of those 30, only six in total were female, if that puts it in perspective. There is something about Jade that feels very real. Her motives are selfless and empathetic. She has friends in town. She catalogs animals as a side job. When she goes on missions, whether it’s with Pay’j or Double H, she works best co-dependently. She saves others just as much as she gets saved herself. Sure, she can fight in tough spots, but she has realistic limits. It’s not like she can lay waste to whole battalions. Any more than two guards at a time can become too much for her. The emotional turns for Jade as the story progresses are very believable and even touching at points. Though I will say, we are left with a lot of questions concerning Jade’s character toward the ending, but that’s just a huge hint that this game was always intended to be the first of a trilogy that never got off the ground. And yet, not having the big picture almost makes her more intriguing. I can see why die-hard fans have been praying for a sequel for so long now.

: “Pay’j, that thing is disgusting! Quick, let’s take its picture!”

As for the game itself, it at first feels like a classic action adventure romp, conveniently of the same generation as some of my favorite action adventure series, like Jak and Ratchet and Clank. The visual style is very similar to those titles as well, however the gameplay has more in common with the Zelda genre than a platformer. There is a much stronger sense of exploration. The game is not as linear or strait forward as most adventure titles nowadays, and progressing through the game will take some actual thought. It does not hold your hand in how to unlock the next path. Your co-op partners have abilities and knowledge as well as your own gadgets, and all of these elements come into play in transgressing the world. As I said before, while there is a bit of fighting, the majority of Jade’s field missions involve gathering evidence. As such, there is quite a bit of stealth involved and taking snap shots. Even the side missions are engaging. I myself got easily distracted just looking for secret passages that lead to hidden pearls, or simply roaming the world taking pictures of all the different animals.

While the game is not without its faults, the most potent of them are staples that all 3rd Person games from the early portions of last gen were plagued with: an occasionally awkward camera, some repetitive sound bites, the usual. There has been some notions that the final boss fight can be infamously hard. While I did die several times on that part, I wouldn’t say it was the most difficult thing in my life. Just make sure you found all the Health Packs and you store up on energy restores, and you should be fine. Another complaint is that the story lacks the moral ambiguity that the title “Beyond Good & Evil,” alludes to. My only argument for this is that the game, at its core, is less about the waring factions and more about Jade following her own sense of right and wrong. That, or the title was intended to make more sense with the continuation of the story (as I said, it was planed as a trilogy).

Speaking of which…

: Hey, so all that praying did pay off.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 has been labeled “in development” since it was first teased back in 2008. This year, developer Mike Ancel requested that gamers be a little more patient as the project is in fact on their to do list, but was put on hold during the development of Rayman Origins, a game that whole-heartedly has my approval, and is in the final stages of production set to release this November. Furthermore, there is talk about them experimenting with new technology, and rumors of Ubisoft possibly looking toward the next generation of consoles to release the sequel, so… perhaps a Wii U title? Or for Sony or Microsoft’s inevitable new consoles? Difficult to say.

Anyway, there’s really no point worrying about a sequel yet when the good lot of you haven’t even played the first one anyway, so… get the heck on that! Currently in development or not, I can assure you that the success or lack-thereof will be a big deciding factor whether its sequel finally gets off the ground. Please don’t let disaster strike twice. This is a game that everyone who loves games should have played eight years ago, but I will settle for playing it now. If you have either an Xbox Live or PSN account, do not hesitate any longer. It’s only $10. ANYONE can spare $10 on a cult classic. If you’re a Wii owner, then your best option would be to find a GameCube copy of the original somewhere online or at an antique game store not called GameStop.

Just some ideas.

Minecraft, my new addiction

Brian Vaughn — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:00:13 +0000

Minecraft. You’ve heard about it, read about and maybe even tried it. Minecraft is to PCs what Angry Birds is to the iPhone…a simple game that everyone talks about and can’t stop playing. I took a glimpse at Minecraft several months ago and wrote it off. Now, however, I’m changing my tune.

It might not look good, but…

By all rights, Minecraft shouldn’t be any fun. Even with its retro-charm looks, there’s nothing spectacular about the game play and for all intensive purposes, there’s nothing to do. There’s no explicit goal. So what’s the big deal about this game? Why are so many people playing it? I’ve decided that it takes a special person to be able to enjoy Minecraft. I’ve also decided that the free version of Minecraft does not do the game justice whatsoever.

This looks simple enough, right?

The free version of Minecraft is basically nothing more than a sandbox. You’re dropped into a barren world and you’re allowed to do whatever you want, which is more or less limited to building with blocks. This is great if you just want to play around with virtual Lego bricks, but that wasn’t enough for me so I gave up on it. I need something more than just brick stacking to get me to spend my money. So what got me to drop $20 for Minecraft? Good old fashioned peer pressure.

The game within the game

I was talking games with a friend and he mentioned that he had been spending a lot time with Minecraft and even setup his own Minecraft server. I picked his brain a bit, explaining that the free version didn’t offer much, and he agreed, but he then pimped the game enough that I was willing to take a leap of faith on his recommendation. The idea of a shared Lego sandbox was interesting to me. Stacking bricks alone might be too boring, but stacking with friends…much better. The funny thing is, my friend didn’t think I would enjoy Minecraft at all as it doesn’t really fit my gaming MO.

You wanna get nuts? Lets get nuts! (crafthub.net)

The paid version of Minecraft starts the same as the free version but I quickly discovered that this full version is more of a “game” than the demo. I started with some basic block stacking in efforts to build some sort of fort but then the land got dark. The moon rose and it was night time, and night time is a bad time. Once the sun goes down, zombies and skeletons run amuck and without any sort of shelter or a weapon I died almost instantly. Frustrated and pissed, I hopped online to find one of the few hooks Minecraft offers…you need a guide.

In other words, you can’t play Minecraft without the Internet. There are no in-game guides, quests, or NPCs to talk to at the tavern. You have nothing but instinct, which apparently in my case just isn’t enough. Thankfully, since I was entering Minecraft quite a bit after its popularity peaking, there are a treasure trove of Minecraft resources to be found online. Wikis, charts, videos and even mobile apps are all available to make your Minecrafting experience all the better…and if you resist, you won’t have any fun. On my home PC I’m fortunate to have two monitors, so one screen is open to the Minecraft encyclopedia while the other has the game and it’s a lovely combination. As you dig through your Minecraft world and come across a new item or brick you just hop online and find out what it does and how to use it.

Inventory and resource management at its most challenging.

Congratulations, you just killed a sheep and acquired two blocks of wool! Now you scurry online to find out what this wool is actually good for, only to find it’s not really good for anything. Well, you can dye your wool different colors but it doesn’t serve any useful purpose. It isn’t used to make clothes or trade for gold or anything. Just about every item or resource you find in Minecraft follows the same formula. Some resources are used to create basic weapons and tools that actually serve a purpose but in large you’re just creating more and more blocks with which to build.

Build and survive

There in lies Minecraft’s genius. Minecraft is a game about aesthetics. It’s a creative game and if you don’t enjoy a little creative thinking and defining your own goals, then you won’t get any joy out of Minecraft…but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any challenge. I mentioned the day/night cycle of Minecraft, and that alone is your biggest constraint during play. You only have a limited amount of time to spend above ground before it gets dangerous. Of course, if you build weapons and armor, your chance of survival increases, but in order to make items you need blocks and that means digging. Lots of digging. After all, the game is called “Minecraft” and that means you’ll be exploring lots and lots of mines and even creating them. As you dig you’ll collect different bricks that are then used to create other bricks, vehicles and (useless) items. Not only will you have to mine the crap out of your world, you’ll need to build safe houses all over the place to store your inventory…it really becomes quite a chore keeping things straight, but that’s part of the fun.

They mostly come out a night, mostly.

Minecraft is as much about resource management as it is about landscape architecture. In my first week of playing, I’ve found myself starting to plan my urban sprawl. Much like Miner Dig Deep on Xbox, Minecraft plays to my need for order and Zen-like routine. However, that means it’s twice as devastating when you die and respawn virtually naked. Your world and buildings are saved but you have to rebuild all your weapons and tools…unless you smartly store and inventory your items. See…there is a challenge. The best tip I can give a new player is to pick an item you want to create and starting looking for it. I suggest the clock.

Like to build and dig? Give it a try

I admit that Minecraft isn’t for everyone and I thought it wasn’t for me, but after a few hours with the full version I was hooked. The single player mode is enough for me, but the multiplayer option is a lot of fun too. You connect to Minecraft servers and walk around other worlds seeing what other players have done. By visiting a few public servers I was able to learn a lot about building strategies and saw items I wanted to create. However, even without multiplayer servers, the internet guides alone are enough to keep you exploring and digging like Indiana Jones.

The only problem with Minecraft is that games like this typically run out pretty quickly as you seemingly discover and do all there is to do. Luckily though, Minecraft is still in somewhat of a beta development state, which means updates are coming out all the time adding new features and new items, so you know there will be more stuff to do in the future. And if that’s not enough for you, the Minecraft community has tons of add-ons, plugins and themes that can change the game entirely. Minecraft really puts the player in control and that’s just what I like.

Want some more game recommendations? Check these out:

-Lightning and Fire and Ice, Oh My: A Review of InFamous 2

-Games You Should Have Played: The Sly Cooper Trilogy

-Batman on the NES, an unsung classic

Games You Should Have Played: The Sly Cooper Trilogy

Gus Townson — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:00:32 +0000

“There are two different kinds of thieves in this world: those who steal to enrich their lives, and those who steal to define their lives.”

For those of you who haven’t heard this, than clearly you have not watched The Italian Job and you are missing out. However, if there was a video game character that best personified this philosophy, it would be none other than Sly Cooper, master thief and hero of the short lived yet much loved Sly trilogy on the PS2. I have spoken briefly on Sly in the past, recognizing him as one of the 10 underdogs that defined the gaming industry in the last decade, but to be honest, until recently, I myself had only played one of the games in his series. Having been busy with both the Jak, and Ratchet and Clank series back when I had my PS2, Sly just kind of slipped by me.

But since then, Sony was so kind as to release The Sly Collection for the PS3, and now that I’ve gotten the chance to play through the series in it’s entirety, I can say with high audacity that all three installments of the Sly Cooper franchise are definitely games everyone should have played.

It’s like a living, breathing graphic novel.

Sly comes to us from Sucker Punch (Not to be confused with Sucker Punch the movie, of which I reviewed last week), a western based development team who first entered the gaming industry in 1999 with a scarcely known platformer, Rocket: Robot on Wheels for the N64, and are now famous for the PS3’s open sandbox superhero title, InFamous (of which the sequel is set to release this June). The Sly Cooper Series is a part of what I like to call the Post Golden Age of 3D platformers. It took all that was fun about previous games like Banjoo Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon, and went a step further by creating even sharper controls, crisper animations, more richly detailed environments, and better engaging storylines with colorful writing and stellar characters, (or is it the other way around).

As for himself, Sly comes from a long family of professional thieves that go back as far as history can remember. Said history of the Cooper’s theatrics, their secrets, and all the skills they have culminated over time, have been recorded in a special journal, The Thievious Raccoonus. Tragically, at the age of eight, Sly watched, hidden in a closet, as a rival gang known as the Fiendish Five broke into his home, killed his parents, and stole his family heirloom. (You know, for kids.) The now orphaned Sly was moved to Happy Camper Orphanage, where he met his two best friends, Bentley the turtle, and Murray the hippopotamus. Why? Because trios are badass, that’s why.

The story begins in Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus, with our trio, now all grown up, on a mission to recover all the lost pages of the Cooper’s family heirloom, and put a stop to the Fiendish Five and their infamous leader Clockwerk from ever hunting down the Cooper legacy ever again.

This guy would creep out any small mammal.

The story continues in Sly 2 Band of Thieves, when the mechanical remains of Sly’s nemesis are snatched up by yet another group of baddies, this time known as the Klaww Gang. Sly, Bentley, and Murray once again must scour the globe to snatch up the Clockwerk parts and destroy them before this evil can once again resurface.

But the adventures don’t end just yet. In Sly 3 Honor Among Thieves, Sly discovers the location of the Cooper Family Vault on an island occupied by the maniacal monkey mastermind, Mojo Jo—I mean Dr. M. To get to it, he must gather a team of world-class thieves to pull off the biggest heist of his life.

Between the thieving raccoon, wrestling hippo, turtle in a wheelchair, RC combat expert mouse, psychic koala, scuba diving iguana, and the kung-fu-firework master panda, this is clearly the most fearsome band of thieves you’ll ever see.

But so what if the plots are interesting, the writing is a breath of fresh air, and the characters bleed gallons of personality and charisma onto the screen? What good are any of these elements without a game to back it up? Well it’s a good thing that Sucker Punch has found a way to combine platforming, stealth, and combat and make them all equally fun. Sly is incredibly agile, and the controls are so intuitive and easy to learn- climbing up buildings, running across wires, shimmying along narrow crevices- that it all feels like second nature. His signature cane is a multipurpose tool that allows him to swing across hooks and pickpocket guards, plus it acts as his ever-so-trusty whack ’em tool.

The first game is easily the most linear of the series, with a set of hub worlds containing a group of themed platforming levels with a key at the end (and other collectables along the way), a slightly advanced version of the classic Crash Bandicoot series. The second and third games, however, had much more variety to the missions, spreading them out through vast open world stages, much of which shows where a huge amount of inspiration for InFamous came from.

It’s also very important to note that while these games carried on the spirit of a single franchise quite consistently, they were always developing the gameplay appropriately with the characters, creating more and more variety. While you are playing Sly for the majority of each game, in Sly 2, there are several missions where you play as Bentley and Murray. Playing as Bentley lets you use an arsenal of gadgets to avoid guards, like sleeping gas and proximity mines, while playing as Murray lets you go berserk and pummel through just about anyone. In Sly 3, you get to play as all seven of the characters above, plus an eighth character that I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned yet.

Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox. If she can’t make a furrie out of you, nothing will.

Throughout the entire franchise, there is this consistent B Plot involving Carmelita, a Spanish-American detective that plays a foil to Sly, constantly chasing him and his entourage across the globe to bring them to justice. She has her own back-story involving her father that leads to her extreme black & white outlook on crime. What’s funny is that in the process of chasing them down, she ends up arresting nearly every single crime boss the Cooper Gang defeats along the way. There are moments in each game where she, never knowing what the gang is really getting themselves into, gets captured herself, leading Sly to save her, causing her to return the favor in each final confrontation. To get the elephant out of the room, yes, she and Sly have an ambiguous romantic relationship. Does he use it to get away in the end? Yes, in some of the most sneaky and almost cruel ways possible, leaving Carmelita to easily be the more sympathetic of the two.

And that, in a nutshell, is the reason why I love the Sly Cooper series as much as I do. There is depth here in the story and characters that you don’t often see in many cartoon style platforming games. Yet at the same time, the gameplay itself is so fluid, coexisting with the story almost perfectly. Is it challenging? Not really. Sure, you’ll die a couple times, but no more than you would in any other platformer.

So, for all you fans of platforming, adventuring, and just plain fun who have yet to give this paragon of quality from the last generation a proper play through, don’t miss out another minute. The Sly Collection, consisting of all three games, optional move support and 3D, plus a sneak peak at Sucker Punch’s next project, is currently available for a PS3 near you. You will not find a better deal or time better spent. At least for a while.

Want more games you should have played? How about these:

-Games You Should Have Played: Tomb Raider 1 and 2

-Games You Should Have Played: Golden Sun

-Games You Should Have Played: The Donkey Kong Country Trilogy

Batman on the NES, an unsung classic

Brian Vaughn — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:00:47 +0000

In 1989 the first good Batman movie was in theatres and I had a full blown case of Batman fever. Along with my Batman breakfast cereal, Batman piggy bank and my Batman frisbee, I had the Batman game on original Nintendo. Like many NES games of the time, it was a blind leap of faith when I bought the game, but it turned out great.

Beautiful cut scenes and great gameplay, Batman delivered.

Quick, to the Batcave!

New Nintendo games were a rare occurrence growing up. Fifty dollars was a lot for your average 10-year-old, so when it came to buying new release games, you had to try and choose wisely. I figured I couldn’t go wrong with Batman. I remember getting the game for Christmas at Toys R Us, back when you had to take the ticket up to the front of the store. I had never played Batman before but it looked great and hey, it was Batman!

Thankfully, Batman turned out to be a great game. It looked good, sounded great and played well. The soundtrack has to be one of the best from the NES era and is one I still listen to today. The game also had awesome looking cut scenes based on the Tim Burton movie, but otherwise shared little from the film. In the game, Batman came equipped with a trio of weapons and the ability to to do wall jumps; what more do you need?

Well, whether you wanted it or not, this game was a challenge. Despite there being only five levels, each one came with its own unique difficulties and bosses. Like many games of the time, Batman was a play-and-repeat platformer. You play, you die, you try again…and again. It was all about memorizing patterns and levels but even then it was a challenge. Your jumps had to be perfect and you had to do a decent amount of ammo management.

The Joker to my Batman, The Firebug.

Getting professional help

I had Batman for a couple years before I completed it, and even then I needed some help. There was no real internet to speak of at this point in 1992 and I didn’t even have a computer yet. This was still prime time for Nintendo Power magazine and if you wanted answers, you had to go direct to the source. Out of pure frustration, I fired up the old typewriter and asked The Big N for some tips. I managed to make it to the boss that was right before the Joker and just couldn’t figure it out. His pattern was simple enough but I kept getting stopped and wasting all my lives.

Nintendo’s reply was short and sweet and pretty much told me you had to have full ammo to beat the boss, The Firebug, to then move on to the Joker. However, just because I knew how to beat the boss doesn’t mean it was easy to accomplish. You still had to make it there and then hit the guy without missing. Eventually I got it and made it to the Joker, only to get wiped out pretty quick, but I had finally beaten the Firebug and the end of the game was in sight. After more numerous attempts I defeated the Joker and there was much rejoicing.

Holy cut scenes, Batman!

It’s funny how momentous finishing a game was on the NES. Especially in a game like Batman where there were cut scenes rather than just a “Congratulations” message. Once I beat the Joker I remember putting my controller on the ground so I wouldn’t accidentally hit a button and skip the ending. I knew I might never be able to accomplish this again so I wasn’t going to miss it for anything. I watched as another movie-inspired cut scene showed the Joker fall from Gotham Cathedral, followed by your standard issue staff credits, all to the awesome 8-bit soundtrack.

Even today, I’m not sure if I’ve ever completed Batman again. I’ve gone back to play it a few times since then and never even made it to the last level to take another shot at the Joker. I still have my Batman game cartridge and even though I can play the game on any number of emulators, nothing beats throwing it in my NES and giving the game another run…I just have to make sure I have my Nintendo Power letters handy.

Want more recommendations for Games You Should Have Played? Check these out:

-Games You Should Have Played: Golden Sun: The Lost Age

-Games You Should Have Played: Resident Evil 4

-Games You Should Have Played: Mega Man 2

Games You Should Have Played: Golden Sun: The Lost Age

Chris Pranger — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:00:36 +0000

I’ve talked about Golden Sun for the Game Boy Advance before. It was the last game spotlighted in my feature, Games You Should Have Played. Since then I’ve had a chance to play through and complete the sequel, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, a direct continuation of the first game picking up exactly where the story leaves off. In doing so I’m now able to come to a shocking conclusion: The Lost Age is one of the greatest sequels to one of the greatest underrated games ever. And that’s why Golden Sun: The Lost Age is a Game You Should Have Played.

How do you outdo one of the best underrated games on the GBA? Let's find out.

When we last left off, I was talking about the adventure of Isaac, Garet, Mia, and Ivan to stop the four lighthouses of the world from being lit. By the time the first Golden Sun wraps up, two of the four lighthouses have beacons atop them, shining brightly as glorious failures. Then, right before the credits roll, the four hop on a ship and set off for the next stage of their journey.

This is where The Lost Age picks up, except you aren’t playing as the four from the first game. Rather, you start as Felix, Jenna, and Sheba, characters that appeared sparingly in the first game. Felix is Jenna’s brother, back from the dead and apparently set on a course to light the lighthouses despite being warned not to, whereas Jenna and Sheba were taken against their wills and forced into the conflict. The three set out to finish their task, but to do that they’re going to need a ton of new Psynergy to accomplish this goal. Eventually they meet Piers, a new character, to round out the group of four.

The game is immediately familiar for those who played the first title. None of the mechanics have changed in the slightest. Each character has a limited number of inventory slots, meaning that they can only carry a select few items like weapons or armor or healing potions, forcing you to be a bit choosier as to who has what in their possession and what Djinn they have equipped as this will affect what Psynergy they have access to and how effective they’ll be in battles and so on and so forth. None of the core mechanics change at all, even down to the littlest thing, like setting shortcuts to the L and R buttons for Psynergy outside of battles or the method of dealing with curses and downed party members. The Lost Age doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but rather gives it a long stretch of land to really show what it can do when it has some space to get rolling.

If you're not paying attention, you'll have sworn you had just sene this game...

I don’t have exact numbers, but I’d say The Lost Age is a little less than twice as long as the original Golden Sun. I felt a much greater sense of freedom to explore the world since relatively early on you acquire a boat that lets you get to half of the world via the vast ocean. Sadly, there were a huge number of times where I had absolutely no clue where I was supposed to go, forcing me to check online to make sure I wasn’t just going around in circles. I still don’t see that as a bad thing though as I much prefer an RPG that’s so large it’ll take a while to figure out where you need to go next. Then again, I’m the sort of gamer who enjoys finding something new around every corner, seemingly of my own accord and curiosity.

As is standard with the Golden Sun games, these diversions certainly pay off with major dividends. Going off the beaten path down a side passageway usually leads you to an incredibly powerful weapon or a new Djinn, making the rest of the game feel easier, or at the very least like you’ve been playing smarter. Plus, each special weapon has its own Unleash Attack completely unique to that weapon, and while the first game had a handful of awesome Unleash Attacks, The Lost Age has some that look and act even better. I’m particularly a fan of Megiddo, an Unleash Attack that sends the character into the air to slam a giant fireball down to earth onto your opponent. The sense of power the game accomplishes is amazing.

Hellz yeah!

Something I didn’t really mention in my discussion of the first game but that becomes abundant here is the lack of grinding you tend to put yourself through. As the world opens up to you, just searching around will send you into a handful of encounters, enough so that you’ll be gaining experience and money at an alarming rate, meaning that very few boss battles are a real problem in terms of needing to grind. Rather, a lost battle typically means you need to rethink your strategy of Djinn usage or Psynergy selection. The only real exception is the final battle. That boss pulls so many shenanigans it’s not even fair, but then again that’s what a good final boss does, am I right?

Everything here just feels better. The music is even better than the first, offering some tracks that I’d find myself going out of my way to listen to. I’m partial to the ocean battle track, or even the standard battle track. But as I said, everything just feels better here with more to do by far. I kept getting new Psynergy powers that allowed me to access even more areas and still I was never entirely sure what I’d learn next.

Probably the point where the game takes a drastic change is relatively late in the game where I will certainly be giving spoilers away by telling you. You ready? Here come the spoilers!

Seeing Judgment return as a summon isn't the spoiler. Judgment just doesn't want you to be ill prepared for spoilers, that's all. Also I spoiled it earlier anyway.

Eventually your new party runs into your old party from the first Golden Sun, a reunion that does two very cool things. The first is incorporate your old party into your new party, effectively making your new team consist of eight members instead of just four, though there can still only be four out at one time. The second thing that happens is Isaac talks, and pretty casually at that. I was jarred just a bit when he first spoke because this was the main character from the first game, a typical silent protagonist, a role that Felix takes up here as odd as it feels since he spoke so freely in the previous game. However, allowing Isaac to speak pleased me on a level I didn’t expect, mostly because his dialogue didn’t feel stereotypical of the “hero” character. Instead, he sounds like he gets it, making him one of the few characters in a dialogue scene not asking “What’s going on?” I loved that.

Overall, it’s tough to recommend just The Lost Age. Don’t play this one first. Just don’t. You’ll get vastly more if you play Golden Sun first, then follow this right up. Between the two you can easily manage over 60 hours of gameplay, assuming you aren’t going for full completionist work, and that comes at a price of probably under $30 for the pair of games. You really can’t go wrong here.

You'll most likely thank me later.

So who out there has already played The Lost Age? Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on the series. You know, go ahead and do it even if you haven’t played either game. Does this sound like the type of game you’d be interested in? I want to know. And with that I’m off to let Pokemon absorb my life for a little while now that Golden Sun isn’t soaking up all my DS’ playing time.

Want to know more of some Games You Should Have Played? Check these out:

-Games You Should Have Played: Tomb Raider 1 and 2

-Smash Bros: A Retrospective

-Games You Should Have Played: The Donkey Kong Country Trilogy

Games You Should Have Played: Tomb Raider 1 and 2

cassandrapoe — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:00:59 +0000

When I find myself excessively bored, frustrated or just in need of a little stress relief, I turn to videogames. I’m sure pretty much everybody does these days. We all have our junk-food favorites- games we’ve beaten a hundred times and keep going back to even though we know all the rhythms and secrets, just because we can, because they’re there, because they’re as familiar as an old pair of comfortable slippers.

Now, I don’t consider myself a regular gamer- I’m casual at best – but even I have a few go-to games for this kind of thing; Katamari Damacy and its sequel, We Love Katamari, which Chris has talked about some before, Megaman 2 and 3, and Tomb Raider 1 and 2 for the Playstation. Occasionally, maybe Jumping Flash 2 as well.

Even with all the graphic issues that plague the early Tomb Raider games, like the flickering and distorting textures, weird camera issues, blocky figures and stiff, weirdly rotating flat-plane background elements, there’s something that just puts me at ease whenever I pop the disc in and boot up Lara Croft’s world.

It’s not hard to believe the game is 15 years old now – the first game has aged really poorly and feels old – but in 1996 an all 3D environment with a 3D woman at the center of the screen (even if all you saw of her 98% of the time was a badly pixilated backside) was still a phenomenally risk-taking idea. In 1996 and 1997 Lara Croft was the virtual queen of the world- appearing in news media, television, doing commercials, comic books, theme park rides, and being idolized in fatuous coffee table books by Douglas Copeland – everyone was salivating over a few lines of code and texture wrapped over a 230-polygon wireframe. (Compare: the most recent version of the character model was counted at 32,000 polygons.)

Never mind that she was originally not even going to be female in the first place. That’s neither here nor there, now. Never mind that she was all triangles and her chest could scar you for life if you tried to hold her; never mind that geeky analyses of her body weight ratios to her chest done at the height of the media blitz said that she wouldn’t be able to stand upright, let alone perform complicated rolling dive maneuvers – CORE and Eidos had a monster hit on their hands- $14.5 million in profits in the first year of release. In 2006, in time for the ten year anniversary of the game, the Guinness Book of World Records called Lara the “Most Successful Videogame Heroine” of that year.

Why? If the game had terrible physics and a dodgy camera and texture mapping issues and seams in the levels big enough to make game-breaking exploits out of, why was Tomb Raider the insane success that it was?

There’s been tons of arguments about Lara Croft as sex symbol, Lara Croft as feminist icon – whatever. People tend to pick their side and then argue it into the ground. For me what works about Tomb Raider is the utter lack of competition and time-pressure – the freedom to explore at length, in detail, every nook and cranny of the artificial world.

Tomb Raider has only a few mechanics where time and speed are the issue in game play – mostly involving swimming in underwater tunnels and manipulating certain traps, doors and floor patterns – but by and large the game presents the feeling of a big world that you are free to explore at utter leisure.

Boss encounters and enemy encounters are not only sparse but incredibly easily controlled. Most boss and mini-boss encounters are quick and dirty. The game’ll throw you a handful of wolves, an unexpected bear, a couple of guys with Uzis. The game doesn’t punish you if you take a couple of hits, climb to higher ground and snipe at the dumb things from a safe distance – most enemies are incredibly sluggish, stupid and slow as thrown bricks, and Lara’s autolock function allows you to track them from across the room even if you can’t see them and autofire if they’re dumb enough to move back into a clean line of fire – or just plain run away to another part of the map to catch your breath, heal yourself, find new ground and regroup.

The enemies go down real easy, and once you take them out things get quiet again. Atmospheric. It’s just you and some eerie, low-key mood-setting music-that-isn’t-quite-music, the sound of your own footsteps, some wind effects maybe, and the sense that the world is yours. The game encourages intense exploration with a few ‘secrets’ planted per level. Most of the time these are just extra clips of ammo, health packs, and occasionally a stone icon. A lot of boss fights can be kludged around. In the Lost Lands level, when you’re supposed to be having a big, dramatic running gun battle with the T-Rex it’s just as easy to outrun them, make it to the bridge or a cubby hole in the level, and snipe and laugh. I pull the stealth-kill dickery all the time in TR and the game doesn’t deduct points, lower my score, or tell me I’m doin’ it wrong.

The relief of not having a ticking clock to beat or another player to fight against or any sort of major rush-rush element within the game is incredibly freeing. Many games include ‘beat-the-clock’ scenarios that feel hyper accelerated, thrown in just to be there. You can leave Lara standing out in the open in the middle of nowhere for 30 minutes and nothing happens.

And while it’s completely fair to accuse Tomb Raider of having ridiculously circuitous and pointless puzzles when you have to traverse a level seven or eight times in total to find four keys to open a doorway with four separate locks- what ancient civilizations are bored enough to rig up a stupid system like that? Didn’t the Egyptians have anything better to do? – the strange vistas that you open up, and all the tunnels and climbing and jumping somehow seem worth it in an indefinable way.

Even better, the game’s own glitches, including the legendary ‘corner jump bug’ where you can literally fling yourself halfway up the level by positioning yourself correctly and jumping just right to get to places you couldn’t normally get, actually adds value to the replayability of the game. It’s pretty entertaining to get up in a spot you’re not supposed to be in and stand there smugly looking down. It feels like you’ve broken a rule, and in a game where you already have permission to do pretty much anything you want to the environment, that’s saying a lot.

Tomb Raider’s one of the rare games where it really is about the journey, and I think that’s the secret of why, even now, the game holds a mysterious appeal. It’s completely noncompetitive, a private little world just between player and machine. I wish desperately there were more games like it out there.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go take a nice long swim in the Cisterns. Just gotta snipe those alligators first…

Cassandra writes about media and randomness at her blog, and still gets a kick out of the Midas Glitch in Tomb Raider 1.

Want mroe Games You Should Have Played? Check these out:

-Games You Should Have Played: Golden Sun

-Smash Bros: A Retrospective

-Games You Should Have Played: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Tips from a Grandmaster: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (Part I)

Sharayah Pranger — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:00:41 +0000

If you’ve been reading this site for a while, it’s no secret that Chris (whom I just happen to be married to) is good at videogames. As someone not particularly skilled in this area, it’s convenient for me to keep him around to kill the stupid final boss on his first try (you know…the one that has already killed me twenty times in a row). I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that he will always be better than me at videogames. That’s okay, one of us has to be literate. But today I am here to talk to you about the exception to the rule. That exception is called Yoshi’s Island, and I am awesome at it. Because this game is so amazing and I am so great at it, this first article will only cover the basics of the plot, one special secret, and some helpful tips for getting a perfect score. In Part II I will talk more about defeating specific enemies and tips to navigate some of the trickier levels.

Taking place years before Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island tells the story of the Yoshis and their quest to reunite Baby Mario, dropped by the stork smack into the middle of the island, with his twin Baby Luigi, who was captured by the evil magikoopa Kamek. Mario is carried on the back of a different Yoshi through each level. If touched by an enemy, Mario floats up into the air in a bubble, wailing and screaming as a timer counts down. Once the timer reaches zero, Baby Mario is snatched up by Baby Bowser’s minions and the game is over.

Egg-shooting is one of Yoshi’s primary defenses. He makes eggs by eating enemies with his long tongue, (he can also collect them from egg boxes or egg-shooting tulips) and can carry up to six eggs at a time. He can also carry keys or Huffin Puffins, duck-like creatures that show up in a few levels and act like boomerangs, shooting a short distance and circling back. Also they look ridiculous.

See? Ridiculous.

Egg-shooting is a skill- several levels require you to calculate angles in order to hit an item that is otherwise unreachable, and the final boss of level 3 (Naval Piranha) is defeated by shooting an egg at the opposite wall so that it bounces back to hit his weak spot.

I’ll let you in on a secret though. If you are careful, you can kill Naval Piranha before Kamek enters and transforms him. As you swim into the cavern, don’t immediately jump onto the white platform. Instead, swim forward a little ways until Naval Piranha comes into view, then swim back and jump up toward the very edge of the platform. As soon as you touch the VERY edge of the platform, shoot him with an egg! You’ve got to be quick because if you go too far, Kamek’s entrance is triggered. If you are successful, Kamek will fly onto the screen and scream “OH MY!” since you’ve beaten the boss! (However, I only recommend this if you are afraid you might get hit and risk losing some points- I would beat this boss the normal way simply for the awesome music in this level!)

Of course I am very clever and I know many more secrets about Yoshi’s Island; secrets that would make your hair stand on end and your toes curl, but heck if I’m going to just give them to you. Instead, I have a series of tips that will help you to navigate the game, ideally with the full 100 points achievable in every level, and find the secrets for yourself!

1. Each level has a total of 100 points available for your completionist pleasure. 20 of these are red coins cleverly disguised as regular gold coins. But here’s a little something: you CAN tell them apart. I SWEAR they are a fraction of a hint darker than the surrounding coins, and if you can learn to tell the difference, you can find the red coins every time. (Either that, or I have played this game WAY too many times and have memorized the locations and convinced myself that I can see them. We’ll go with the former.)

Hey! Shyguy done steal my coins!

2. 50 of the aforementioned 100 points are flowers- there are five hidden throughout the level. They are pretty easy to find because they’re big and cute, but WATCH OUT- in a few castle levels there are fake flowers called Dizzy Dandies that may fool you at first. PAY ATTENTION and you will realize that they are shaped a little differently and have an angry face like this- >:( Angry face= get the heck away.

3. The last 30 points are the most infuriating, in my humble opinion. They are made up of stars. These cute little smiling stars not only add to your final score, but they determine how many seconds you have if Baby Mario gets knocked off your back before the dang toadies get him. That horrible timer will count down starting with the number of stars you currently have, and will get more frantic as it gets closer to one. I hate it. It will always default back to ten, but you need 30 for a perfect score. You can get those extra twenty stars from Winged Clouds, by hitting a POW block near enemies, by dropping an enemy or egg into a red tulip, or by hitting an enemy with a red egg. Each level will give you multiple opportunities to replenish your stars, but if you are careless you can mess up your chances of a perfect score because unlike flowers and red coins, you can’t just go back and find the ones you missed.

4. For cases like depleted stars, it’s excellent to know about the prizes you can win from minigames! Some of these minigames are within levels (you will need a key to open up a locked minigame hut), some you can play at the end of a level if you hit a flower at the finish ring, and the others must be unlocked after beating an entire world with perfect scores in every level. These minigames will give you prizes like 10 stars, 20 stars, ice, fire, and green melons, and POW blocks. You can access these items by pressing start during the level and selecting the item you want to use (except while fighting a boss, of COURSE). I can’t even count the times that a 10 or 20 star item has saved my butt at the very end of a level when I am 8 stars short of that tantalizing perfect score and have completely exhausted all other resources.

Four points short.... somewhere an angel just lost its wings.

5. Investigate all suspicious spots, nooks and crannies, etc. Often as not you will find an Invisible Winged Cloud that could contain stars or even extra lives!

I could keep going for pages and pages, but I’ll go ahead and stop there or this will have to be called Novel from a Grandmaster instead. A game focusing on the adorable dinosaur made famous in Super Mario World may at first seem trivial to the serious gamer, but it is at times a tremendously difficult game as well as visually delightful, audibly enchanting, and extremely unique. Anyone who loves the classic Mario games will…well, if you really love the classic Mario games then you have no doubt already played Yoshi’s Island, but if you haven’t, go do it! You won’t regret visiting this island. Check back soon for Part II, In Which We Discuss the Most Awful Enemies (among other things).

Want more Tips From a Grandmaster? Check these out:

-Tips From a Grandmaster: Super Mario Bros 3

-Tips From a Grandmaster: Super Mario Galaxy 2

-How To Beat Your Friends in Board Games

Games You Should Have Played: Golden Sun

Chris Pranger — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 13:00:08 +0000

Since I haven’t been keeping up with Games You Should Have Played as much as I’d like to, and since I’m currently replaying said game currently mentioned, I want to hit more in-depthly on a title I’ve spoken only briefly about in the past: Golden Sun. It was one of the five Game Boy Advance games I suggested make excellent additions to your DS-playing habits (assuming you still own a DS capable of playing GBA titles), so let’s talk about why Golden Sun is a Game You Should Have Played.

Cooler promotional art there never was.

In the early days of the Game Boy Advance, there was a lot of room to demonstrate why exactly an update to the holy handheld was required. Game Boy games were typically simple; even the RPG’s they yielded tended to be shallower then the SNES counterparts. The Game Boy Color gave us color (obviously), but beyond maybe the Pokemon games, there wasn’t much depth to handheld titles.

Camelot, a company previously known for making the Mario Golf and Mario Tennis titles, had a chance to try something extremely different than what they were known for. Instead of an arcade sports title, they made an RPG called Golden Sun, a game with enough flare to justify purchasing the GBA specifically to play it.

The main drive behind upgrading from the Game Boy Color to the Game Boy Advance was the processing power behind the colors and effects the system could generate, colors and effects the previous generation couldn’t possibly handle. What Golden Sun demonstrated within the very first minutes of the game was enough to say, “Yes, this is where handheld gaming is going.” And that’s even before the battle screens appeared.

Mm-mm, that's just tasty right there.

I was amazed when I first got into a battle and saw the level of detail in the characters, backgrounds, and even attacks. Golden Sun is gorgeous in presentation. You’d be hard-pressed not to say it’s stunning work laid out on a GBA screen. Not only does it show off how far superior it is to the GBC, it shows how it’s superior to even the SNES. Just watching the summons would push me over the edge of awesome. Go watch Judgment get called forth and tell me it isn’t one of the coolest attacks ever to make it into video games.

At the heart of every RPG is the story and Golden Sun certainly has one that got me curious. The game starts with Isaac and his best friend Garet running about in their village of Vale as a great tragedy occurs that forces Isaac to lose his father and his friend Jenna to lose her brother, Felix (wink wink). The story picks up three years later after Isaac and Garet have been training with the use of Psynergy, the energy force the game calls its magic system. They enter Sol Sanctum and get tricked into retrieving four elemental gem stars required to light the four elemental lighthouses of the world, an act that will supposedly destroy everything and be very, very bad. Supposedly. I think.

Sort of reminds you of Avatar...doesn't it?

While the story is somewhat slow and fairly basic at its core, there is a certain curious quality about it. I played the game to completion when I first purchased it, but as I remember correctly, I only completed two of the four lighthouses before the credits started rolling. Why? Because there is a sequel, The Lost Age, in which the story is resolved. I haven’t played that yet, much to my distress, but that will soon change as my wife recently found me a used copy for my birthday. My point is, Golden Sun as a stand-alone title leaves you begging for more, even though my first playthrough had me clocking over 40 hours. That’s a serious chunk of time for a GBA title.

Those that have played Golden Sun aren’t going to try and sell you on it based purely on the story, or even the graphics; they’ll try to sell you on the Djinn. Djinn are magical creatures you can collect throughout the game to the point that each of the four main characters can equip seven. The Djinn can be used in battle, each with its own special technique. The trade-off is that the Djinn provide stat-boosts for the characters, as well as abilities for the particular class the character happens to be. The more Djinn, the better the class, and the more varied the type of Djinn you have equipped, the more varied the class will be. When you use a Djinn, however, that stat boost and class change will be lost until it’s reequipped, done so by performing a Summon attack. Summon attacks require between one to four Djinn of the same type, allowing you to make use of the most devastating attacks in the game. Once summoned, the Djinn will then recharge and become reequipped to the various characters.

It’s this constant balancing of equipped and stand-by Djinn that make for a unique battle style in Golden Sun. While you may really, really want to use your Djinn and save up a few to unleash Judgment, you could be costing your character vital stats in the middle of the battle, or worse, forcing him to lose some of his key Psynergy such as Cure Well or Ragnarok. Even better, mixing around and playing with the Djinn combinations can become rather enjoyable since you can play it safe and dull (like I did) and use stack like-typed Djinn upon the characters with the same elemental type, or you can find grand combos that provide cooler attacks than ever before. Golden Sun provides a lot of room to experiment, room that players have seemed to enjoy.

No way! That totally IS Avatar!

My last little thing to mention regards naming the characters. I am a huge proponent of being allowed to name characters within video games whatever you’d like, permitting you to create your own narrative rather than just the one the game provides. It gives you the chance to forge a deeper connection to the story and the characters than you may otherwise have. Oddly enough, Golden Sun permits you to rename Isaac, but not the other characters…unless you know a cheat code. I happen to know said cheat code. I’ll leave you with the knowledge that if you’d like to rename the four playable characters, plus three others, enter Up, Down, Up, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Up, Right, Down, Left, Up, and then Select while you’re on the screen where you can name Isaac. If done correctly you’ll hear a slight “ping.” You’re welcome.

So there you have it, a true Game You Should Have Played. Dark Dawn, the third game in the series, just released at the beginning of this week, so you might as well spend some time catching up before you dive head first into a righteously excellent game. I’ll leave you to comment on whether you’re a Golden Sun fan or not, but please, no spoilers here! I’m the only one allowed to spoil things!

Want more Games You Should Have Played? Check these out:

-Homeward Bound: More Earthbound For The US

-Games You Should Have Played: Super Mario Bros 3

-Games You Should Have Played: Final Fantasy III SNES

Think While You Have Fun!: Yahtzee

Kyle Martinak — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:00:03 +0000

Since writing an overview of poker for the uninitiated, I have noticed how commonplace it is to find someone who has not played the traditional board games that populated my youth. But I think everyone is familiar with Yahtzee.

Origins and Comparisons

The official game began as an activity aboard a Canadian couple’s yacht in 1954 (dubbed “the yacht game” and later amended to Yahtzee). They soon asked their friend Edwin Lowe (a toy enterpriser) to make some sets of the game that they could use as gifts. Lowe agreed, in exchange for the rights to the game. By 1956, Yahtzee was being marketed as a thinking-man’s dice game.

With such a simple concept, aren't you a little frustrated you didn't think of it first?

Yahtzee bears many resemblances to “Generala” and “Yacht,” dice games from different areas of the world. A consistently popular game for families, Yahtzee was owned by Lowe until Milton Bradley bought his company. Currently, Hasbro owns the game, and estimates 50 million sets sold each year.

So Many Dice

Ironically for me and my recent article, the concept of Yahtzee came from a type of “dice poker” game, and consists of five dice and a scorecard. Players attempt to roll a three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, full house, straight, or a yahtzee (all five dice are the same amount) in order to score higher. The poker-themed combinations are recorded on the lower part of the scorecard, while the higher portion scores you on the sum of the dice. Sorry, no bluffing. That’s called Liar’s Dice.

And this is a wholesome game; there's no room for liars.

The best part of Yahtzee for mathematicians is the probabilities and score possibilities that come from the five dice, three-roll setup. The maximum score is 375, but if the players are using Yahtzee bonuses it can be as high as 1575 points. The lowest theoretical score is 5, but that would require some special strategies of the player.

Since every turn in Yahtzee is three rolls, the probability of a yahtzee (five of a kind) in one turn is 1 in 22 attempts. When thinking about specific yahtzees (like five 2’s), that extrapolates to 1 in 75.

My History with Yahtzee

As a small child, I had no idea such a game existed. I called it the Mickey game, because my family’s set was a Disney collector’s set with Mickey Mouse in his sorcerer getup all over it. In fact, the dice had Mickey in the sorcerer hat instead of 5’s. I didn’t really know the rules until later.

Math was never, and shall never, be my strong suit. But I do remember learning my multiplication tables on the dice from a Yahtzee set. First we would play a fun game, then my father would ask what 5 times 5 was. I initially answered, “It’s a yahtzee. I win!” But I got better.

Even ol' Spud Head seems to know the value of Yahtzee.

It was later still that I applied my mad Yahtzee skills to a casino table. Yep, that family-friendly game taught me the initial concepts of poker, as well as how to calculate the probabilities of craps. Essentially, craps is just Yahtzee with an unnecessarily complicated betting system.

Value of the Game

With all the substandard board games out there today (“Twilight Scene-It” anybody?), I still take comfort in two particular classics: Scrabble and Yahtzee. One teaches vocabulary and spelling, while the other is an entire class on statistical math.

Yahtzee is a game that kids will find fun because of the dice, but as they get older it will become more fun because they are thinking, and Lowe originally marketed Yahtzee as the “Fun Game that Makes Thinking Fun!”

Maybe Lowe should have played more Scrabble. Yahtzee sets go for $10 to $20 depending on the vender and the version. Look for my personal favorite, Elvis Yahtzee, and the elegant Super Mario Yahtzee.

Want some more about classic games? Check out these articles:

-“Ain’t” Is Not a Word: A Scrabble Guide For The Lazy

-Like Capture The Flag With Bombs: A Stratego Retrospective

-Computers Must Be Stopped: A Short Chess Retrospective

Forget-Me-Nots: Tie Fighter

Kyle Martinak — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:00:28 +0000

Computers were nothing more than an advanced video game system when I was a young boy. My brother had his sports games (“NBA Jam” mostly) and I had “Star Wars: Tie Fighter.”

Doesn't that just make you want to start playing right now?

Released in 1994, “Tie Fighter” was the sequel to “Star Wars: X-Wing” and was the first Star Wars game that put you in the role of the Galactic Empire. They may have been bad, but the game was nothing short of awesome, and I submit it as the best flight simulator ever.

The game put you in the day-to-day life of a faceless TIE pilot, who goes through training and simulations before earning medals and promotions in actual space combat. Along the way, you are given secret objectives for your missions by a mysterious cloaked figure, and you work to thwart a plot against the Emperor.

The really well-done aspect of “TIE Fighter” was the 3D designs of space battles that consoles could not do at the time. Instead of side-scrolling, rail-shooting, or any other overt video game design, this old CD-ROM gem put you right in the middle of space, and you could move thousands of miles away from a fight, or crash right into a star destroyer. Dogfights were now tense, with both combatants working to get behind the other to vaporize him.

As far as variety in plot and gameplay, I was always a fan of the enemies. Instead of just shooting at Luke Skywalker and the other Rebels, the protagonist of “TIE Fighter” was preventing civil wars, acting as a customs agent for smuggling, and chasing down space pirates. It shined a new light on the villains: peace-keepers.

Now that's just snazzy right there.

Controlling this game was largely tedious without a decent joystick. The best combination was using the joystick for movement and firing, while using the keyboard for other systems. You could dial up the shield power, engine power, etc. and hit the eject or lightspeed buttons at any time on the keyboard. It felt like a real set of flight instruments.

The reason this game is a Forget-Me-Not for me is the fond memories I had of blasting Z-95 Headhunters until bedtime. There’s also a much darker story.

In the summer of 1996, my parents hosted a weekend barbecue to celebrate the local air show. My uncle, in a fit of euphoria over “TIE Fighter,” inadvertently messed up the computer is some strange way. He merged my game with my brother’s, and suddenly there were dozens of players with blue turbo-powered sneakers wandering through space. My spaceship was firing orange balls instead of green darts of energy. And John Williams music was replaced by a strange combination of his classical score and techno beats.

My dad corrected the error, and my game was mine again, but I never forgot about the terrifying images. I wish I could play that game, just one last time.

Because it was an MS-DOS based game, it is hard to find, and even more difficult to install on a modern computer. If anyone can find it in an easy way, I would be much obliged.

Looking for more forget-Me-Nots? Check these out:

-Forget-Me-Nots: Lone Ranger Action Figure

-Forget-Me-Nots: Pizza Power Board Game

-Remember the 1987 Ghostbusters Firehouse Playset

How about Star Wars? We’ve got more of that, too:

-The Force Unleashed II Preview

-Kyle’s Top 10 Most Unattainable Toys

-Your Guide to Star Wars Action Figures

Smash Bros: A Retrospective

Chris Pranger — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:00:19 +0000

Ooh, I'm getting antsy just thinking about Smash Bros. I should go play instead of writing this.

The idea of all my favorite Nintendo stars fighting each other in one big game was a concept I never imagined would become a reality. Even now I’m a little skeptical that it really exists, and furthermore, that it’s straight-up awesome. But somehow Super Smash Bros is a real thing and for that I couldn’t be happier. So to start a Monday off right, how about a Super Smash Bros Retrospective? That’s what I thought.

Super Smash Bros (1999):

How can you not be anything but excited when you see this box?

The essence of the first Super Smash Bros can easily be captured in the classic game commercial set to the Beatles song, So Happy Together. Mario, Yoshi, Pikachu, and Donkey Kong are holding hands as they skip through a field. Then without warning Mario sweeps Yoshi’s legs and they all start fighting. The commercial is perfect, and as a kid every time I saw it I knew I needed Smash Bros on my N64.

My first encounter with Smash Bros was once again from Nintendo Power with its usual hype train. All I needed to know was that Mario and Link would fight against Fox and Pikachu and I was addicted. I read the Nintendo Power articles over and over again, hungry for my Smash Bros. I even went out and preordered the game through Hollywood Video’s game kiosk, the precursor to Game Crazy (Lord rest their souls). Unfortunately, I was quoted a price that was awesome, ($35), but then waited and waited and waited and still, the game did not come in. I had to wait a whole week after it came out before my Hollywood Video got the game in. “Alright, that’ll be $50.” Uh-oh, he must have misspoke. Nope, the price was set and the first guy just screwed up. I went to Toys ‘R Us and got a copy with a coupon for $45. As soon as I got home it was time to try out my new favorite game ever.

It seems so simple now, doesn't it?

The very first character I tried out was Link in the arcade mode. The controls were entirely foreign to me, especially the jumping mechanic. I had to relearn all sorts of things for Super Smash Bros in order to just proceed through the game, but after a week or so I was starting to get the hang of things. I hadn’t played many fighting games before, but I could see why I definitely liked Smash Bros better: Battle length. Most fighting games had matches that usually lasted under a minute, maybe two if you were really pushed, but otherwise there was no such thing as an epic fight. With Smash Bros, you didn’t whittle down your opponent’s health but rather inflicted damage in order to make it easier to throw them further, leading to the ultimate goal of knocking them off the stage. I loved this concept, plus each character played differently, so I was almost never bored.

My friends and I would get together for four-player matches every few sleepovers, going nuts with the 12 characters and nine levels. We got our money’s worth for sure. And after we’d played for long enough, we’d just set four computer characters to fight each other as we did a running commentary, naming each character after someone we knew from school. It was simple fun and we thought nothing could be better. One of my best friends at the time, Derek, was also my arch nemesis, so whenever we played he was Fox and I was Pikachu. I let him borrow my game for a week and when I got it back I realized Fox’s character stats placed him at the top, showing that he’d spent all week killing Pikachu over and over. I wouldn’t stand for that, so naturally my next week was planned out for me. Life just couldn’t get any sweeter.

Super Smash Bros Melee (2001):

Best follow-up to anything in the history of ever.

When the GameCube was announced a whole bunch of excellent games were announced along with it. But for me there really was only one game: Super Smash Bros Melee. A new Smash Bros game on a better system? AWESOME! I started seeing commercials for it at movies theaters and on TV and soon I was psyched once more for a game I hadn’t even played yet. I didn’t need anything more than the knowledge that the original 12 characters were back, plus more, equaling 26 characters total (Sheik and Zelda counted as two characters). Also, 29 levels instead of nine? Double the items? More moves for everyone? Sold.

I preordered Melee as soon as possible, knowing that my GameCube’s purchase would be overly justified once Melee was mine. Sure enough, I brought the game home and went to town, though initially I was at a loss because I had to relearn the controls yet again. No matter, a week later and I was mastering the game more than I ever thought possible.

And mastering it properly never felt so sweet.

Melee added a lot more in terms of, well, everything. Everything got better. I was almost sad since I knew I could never go back to the original N64 version now that Melee had entered my life. I did pretty much everything I could as a single-player playing alone, honing my skills against opponents that I never played against because, sadly, so few other people seemed to own a GameCube. At this time everyone I knew had gotten into Halo, so I was left in the cold.

Until strange things began happening. At the end of my Freshman year of high school I was told about a Melee tournament happening at a festival our school did during the last week of classes. I practiced against a casual acquaintance to better my skills and I realized, “Wow, I’m actually really good at this game.” The tournament began and I did what anyone else would have done: I pretended I didn’t know how to play the game. My first opponent scoffed and killed me once, thinking the match was going to be super simple. Then I laughed and said, “Just kidding,” and proceeded to utterly destroy him. I was unstoppable, up until the final match against Jeremy Lynn, the deaf kid. His brother was hosting the tournament and the final match pitted me as Adult Link against Jeremy as Mr. Game & Watch, a character I’d never seen anyone use well. My usual tactic of trash talking and mental psyching didn’t work against Jeremy since, well…connect the dots for me. Regardless, after a grueling match I came out victorious, taking the only happiness the deaf kid had in his life (also, I beat him in chess later in the week, just because I’m an evil man). Oh don’t get me wrong, a month later he came over to my house and spent two hours demonstrating how I completely sucked at Melee compared to his unrelenting talent, but it didn’t count on the scoreboard. I was the official school champion.

For good measure, I made sure to kick fox's butt on principle alone.

I retired from Melee for a while until my Senior year when I met two of my closest friends ever, Trinh and Thomas. The three of us met in Japanese class but decided to start playing Melee as often as possible, creating a massive rivalry between we three. It turned out Trinh was unbeatable as Fox, and Thomas played a mean Marth, but in three-person matches I’d rule with Adult Link. Allow me to regale you with my greatest moment ever:

Trinh and I were in a heated battle for first-place, fighting at our usual favorite, Final Destination, he as Fox and I as Link. On a side note, it should be pointed out that in terms of character tiers, Fox and Marth were numbers one and two, whereas Link was near the bottom, and yet I still managed to go toe-to-toe with them, so eat it best friends of mine. Anyway, the match was coming to a close and it looked like Trinh was going to outdo me. He knocked me off the stage and as I fell I realized I’d never make it back. However, a Blast Barrel was rolling off the edge. Seeing my one chance I aimed toward it as it fell, hitting it right as it was about to exit the screen. The three of us assumed I had exploded, but it was actually the barrel blasting me straight up. I Spin Attacked to the corner, leapt at Fox, and sent him flying off to his own defeat since Trinh was so amazed he could hardly move. Single greatest game moment of my life, and there’s no way I could ever recreate it.

Super Smash Bros Brawl (2008):

That fire you see here represents the explosion of joy in my heart when I heard about Brawl.

Among the Wii titles I got excited for, the word “Brawl” came up a few times, letting me know that Melee would have a sequel and that it’d be bigger and supposedly better than the first two by a long shot. I watched the teaser trailers over and over and sunk into the pattern of religiously checking Smash Bros Dojo for nightly updates, drip-feeding me information about the new game. Who would be back? Who would be new? And what more could they really add? I was about to be blown away yet again.

The newest addition was the Final Smash, an ultimate move for each character useable whenever someone acquired the Smash Ball, an item of untold power! And I really mean that, too. Some Final Smashes, like Marth or Zelda’s were instant KO’s if they hit, whereas Mario, Sonic, Fox, and a mess of others had Final Smashes that owned multiple enemies way too effectively. Did is sway the balance of the game? Absolutely, but I was in love with it.

It also made you feel like a jackass if you got caught in a Final Smash, as it should.

To celebrate the eventual release of the game, of which all Smash Fans were forced to endure push back after push back of said release, I held one final going away party for Melee, a Last Chance Melee Smash, as I called it (because I’m oh so clever sometimes). A good long night of Melee was followed by a trek to my local Game Crazy store at midnight to get the new game and start playing that very night. The pilgrimage caused some annoyed gamers, but dang it, it was symbolic of my endless struggle waiting for this game.

It was no shock that the amount of content in Brawl was staggering. The unbelievable fan service Nintendo paid to diehards was worth every single unhappy moment I endured as a GameCube loyalist all those years ago. Just the soundtrack alone was phenomenal to behold. The first Smash Bros had maybe a dozen songs, total. Melee had closer to three-dozen. Brawl had over 300. GAH. Throw in 40 characters, yet more items, and user-generated stages and that’s a wrap: Best game on the Wii. The game even went out of its way to repair the problem of wave dashing that nearly broke Melee for me. I got good in Melee, but I could never be as good as the game-breaking moves that some players figured out. I’d watch those matches on YouTube and just think, “Wow, that looks so unfun to play.” Wave Dashing in Brawl, gone. Yeah, replaced by something else, but at least a progression was made.

Make Nintendo's best game ever: Mission Complete.

Brawl wasn’t without its faults though. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why Mewtwo was missing. He was a tough character to unlock in Melee and even tougher to master, but he’s totally absent in Brawl. Plus, while the local multiplayer is one of the best experiences of any game in recent years, the online component is awful beyond respite. You can just skip it, unfortunately.

Silly monkey. Now go find Mewtwo!

Now comes the real question: What happens next? Will Brawl be the end for Smash Bros games? As the creator of both the original and Brawl, Masahiro Sakurai, mentioned, his goal was to make the best damn game he could, as if it was definitely going to be the last of the series. That doesn’t rule out another game, especially not now that the 3DS is on its way out, but there’s nothing on the horizon to give Smash Fans hopes of the next big game with Geno, the return of Mewtwo, and every stage from every game in addition to all new stages. It’s asking for a lot, but they delivered last time, so why not here?

Like you didn't all want this, too.

And I’m spent. My love for Smash can only take me so far since, well, there are only three games to the retrospective. So tell me, are you a Smash Fan as well? Or do you hate the game? Can you destroy families with Zelda’s Shiny Kick like I can? Or do you have a different character you end lives with? Time to share your memories of Smash. Don’t make me Shiny Kick you in the face.

Want to read another retrospective? Take a look at these:

-Games You Should Have Played: The Donkey Kong Country Trilogy

-More To Catch: A Pokemon Toys Retrospective

-The Plastic Wars: A Retrospective on Army Men

Games You Should Have Played: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Gus Townson — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:00:09 +0000

Thank the gods Leonidas and his 300 never ran into THIS Persian Prince.

“Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the face of time, and I can tell you: they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm. You may wonder who I am or why I say this. Sit down and I will tell you a tale like none you have ever heard.”

As much as I wish I could say this line was true, unfortunatly I have seen a Disney Movie of the same name a month prior and am very aware of the tale. However, after taking a little trip to it’s roots I couldn’t be more happy with my time traveling experience, literally.

Have The Time of Your Life…Figuratively Speaking

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a 3D platformer adventure game released in 2003 for the GameCube, PS2, Xbox, and the PC, so there are more than enough options of where to find this game. Made by Ubisoft, the same team that brought us the recent hit series Assasin’s Creed, newcomers may notice just how much new platformers like AC or even Uncharted have been inspired by this game. But even now seven years later, when it comes to agility and acrobatics, this one still takes the cake.

Running across walls while narrowly avoiding spikes never gets old. Ever.

I cannot stress enough how well the platforming is done in this game. Seriously, it’s like they extracted the exploration mechanics of the original Tomb Raider, then encased it in gold. Leaping, climbing, crawling, somersaulting, wall jumping, wall running, pole swinging, pole balancing all feel incredibly intuitive. The level design is made specifically to test your reactions with every new obstacle, and they progress in difficulty at a very fair pace. The whole time-mechanic in the game helps soften the frustration you may have in certain tricky parts. If you miss a jump, simply hold the rewind button and try again.

More Than a Pretty Control Scheme

For a game with such a strong focus on game play, the story is incredibly well crafted as well. A villain named Vizier (the guy that conveniently looks and acts exactly like Jafar from Aladdin) tricks The Prince of Persia into plunging the Dagger of Time into an hourglass, creating a sandstorm that turns all the people of Azad to monsters. The only three unaffected possess magical objects. Vizier with his staff, the Prince with the dagger, and Farah, the Princess of Maharajah, with her medallion. The Prince and Farah quickly make a pact to transverse the labrynths of Azad to return the Sands of Time to the hourglass and undo the damage he has done.

What you do you prefer? Magic carpet ride for two? Racing through temples fighting off hoards of Zombie Sand Monsters?

While there are only two real characters in this entire game (plus the villain Jaf- I mean Vizier), they are both done excellently. The Prince is basically an arrogant jerk, but we quickly learn it’s a façade to hide his true insecurities about his lost father and feeling he may or may not be developing for a certain princess of a town he’s now responsible for sacking and cursing. Farah is quite possibly one of the greatest female companions I’ve seen in a video game. Unlike other games where it feels like a tedious escort mission, Farah never feels completely reliant on you. She has her own motives as the story progresses, but to avoid spoilers, I won’t say no more.

So… the platforming’s an A+, story’s an A, characters are an A, graphics and level design are all an A. But nothing’s pefect The combat unfortunately is a C. It’s kinda cool at first to slow down time, turn enemies to sand sculpures, flip over them, chop them in two, or any combination of the four, but you quickly learn all there is to learn and they just end up becoming tedious interludes between the platforming and puzzle parts that are actually fun. Not only that, the enemies get larger and larger in numbers and they become a far pain to dispatch. The more you get frustrated the more you die. Just be thankful that by the time all those fights are over, you get to the final boss Vizier and he’s only one guy so he’s cake. Sorry to spoil that for you all, but I figured you all could assume a plot point like “the bad guy is the final boss.”

To be quite honest, it actually wasn’t that bad.

It’s been a month since Jerry Brukheimer’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time arrived in theatres. Since then, it has garnered praise as “The first genuinely good movie to be based on a video game.” (Moviebob) As for myself, I was actually very pleased with how well the elements of the game were adapted to fit in the structure of a film. To be fair, only the very beginnings and very ends are a whole lot similar, but the complex hero/heroine dynamic, the action, sense of adventure, mixed with the magic of time was all there. As for which one I prefer? The movie does a fair job, but definitely the game.

If you won’t take my advice for it get this. Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, the Gordon Ramsay/Simon Cowell of game criticism, has declared that the Prince of Persia Sands of Time trilogy is “the greatest franchise of the last console generation.” I must confess that I feel absolutely embarrassed to be seven years late to such a wonderful feat. To make sure nobody else suffers from the same fate, I strongly recommend to all who haven’t done so, defy the future and pick up this game.

Tips From a Grandmaster: Super Mario Galaxy 2

Chris Pranger — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:00:12 +0000

Want to know how to beat every inch of Mario Galaxy 2? Read on my friends.

Welcome to my first attempt at offering tips and tricks to a popular video game. For me, I’ve always felt as if I was a fairly good game player, but I was never sure if that translated to teaching. We’ll find out today as I offer Tips From a Grandmaster for one of the best games of the year: Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Nintendo Wii.

Before we begin, know that I’ll be giving away a handful of spoilers about the game. Namely, all of them. I’m going to tell you every little secret you may encounter and I’m going to do it very quickly and unforgivingly. I will tell you what you get for collecting 120 stars, what you get for doing what comes after that, and your ultimate reward. Hopefully I’ll also be telling you how best to play, but that’s all speculation on my part.

This is your final spoiler warning.

Bowser will have none of this spoiling. Leave now or feel the burn of a spoil.

Okay, now that it’s just us devoted Mario Galaxy 2 players, let me jump right into saying that I’ve now successfully 100% completed Super Mario Galaxy 2. Overall it may just be my favorite Mario 3D platformer now due to how spot on everything about it has been. But there are still some unfortunate downsides that I will address, specifically limitations you’re going to have to find ways around in order to proceed at the Grandmaster level. We ready to begin? First, the basics.

Collecting all 120 Power Stars isn’t too difficult in the long run. I’d say that the more difficult levels tend to be ones where motion controls are required, such as gliding or using the giant rolling ball (I LOATH those levels). Get those out of the way first so as to alleviate stress later on. Two trains of thought dictate that when coming to a particularly difficult star you either A. Take a break from that star and go onto something different, or B. Struggle through it until you succeed. I’m very much of the second option, but that doesn’t work for everyone. Sometimes the best course of action is simply shutting the game off and allowing yourself to unwind for a bit.

Once you’ve collected all 120 stars and beaten Bowser yet again, you’ll learn of the Green Stars. These will double the number of stars in the game. Take stock of your skills at this point and above all take a break. It can be soul crushing to see Trickster Comets hit every single level again, right after you’ve just “finished” the game in your mind.

So it's basically a star, but it's green. Pretty simple concept to wrap your head around.

The basics of Green Stars are fairly simple. Green Stars in a level are proportional to the number of Power Stars in the level, meaning either two or three. Green Stars do not have a special condition to appear. Rather, they’re floating out in the open, waiting to be grabbed. They will not be inside boxes, chests, balloons, or enemies.

Most important to know for Green Stars is their distinctive sound. They make a sort of shimmery glowy noise when you are near them. This will be your big indicator as to their location or if you’re close to them. Sometiemes it works best to take it slow in a level and pay close attention to everything you see or hear. Many Green Stars will be painfully simple to grab. The very first Green Star in the first galaxy is pretty much right above your head, more or less, requiring a backflip at most to collect. Others will be downright nasty to grab.

My general rule for Green Stars comes down to going in order of your least-favorite galaxies first and working backward to something simpler. This will reduce your stress, as I mentioned earlier, and allow you to motor through some galaxies faster. I started collecting Green Stars from the S World first and worked my way back through all galaxies with gliding or ball rolling, then through boss levels, then all galaxies with two stars, then World 6 and so on. I ended with the Puzzle Plank Galaxy, my favorite for one reason or another. If you prefer to start simple and work your way towards more difficult galaxies, start in World 1 and move upwards that way. Nothing says you have to go in order though, so use that to your advantage.

And nothing said you had to like these stages either. They're unfair and I hate them.

Okay, now that you know how you’re going to be proceeding with the Green Star Challenge, you’ll need to know some techniques the first 120 stars didn’t teach you. Here they are:

This dude in now your best friend. Get used to it.

Get Comfortable With Luigi: You can switch between using Mario and Luigi at any time on the starship once you beat Bowser the first time. They play slightly different with the main change being jumping height. Luigi can noticeably jump higher and further than Mario. However, Luigi has less traction and takes a bit of extra time to stop, making precise movements tricky. Once you get the hang of Luigi, you’ll prefer him to Mario due to the game-breaking jumps you’ll be capable of. A vast number of Green Stars are placed in locations that seem only Luigi will have the jumping ability to hit, so you need to know how to use him and get really chummy because he’ll be your go-to guy for the second batch of 120 stars.

Sometimes you gotta break a few Yoshi eggs when baking a cake.

Learn How to Sacrifice Yoshi: Up until the Green Stars, I had never been in a situation where I needed to jump off Yoshi in order to get a little extra oomph to my jumps. Knowing the proper time to dismount from Yoshi to gain a little extra air is vital to collecting Green Stars since most galaxies with Yoshi in them place the Green Stars floating over an empty void reachable only with some well-timed flutter jumps and a hasty dismount/spin. Yoshi is your friend but you can’t get every star without dropping a few Yoshis to their untimely demise. Get used to this fact and learn how to dismount, a skill as simple as performing the backflip while on Yoshi.

It's fluffy. Learn to love it. Make that fluff an extension of your body.

Savor the Cloud Suit: It seems like a fairly simple rule of thumb that whenever a Cloud Suit is available in a level, you’ll be expected to utilize it to its fullest to get at least one Green Star in said level. Many times you’ll be asked to reach a Green Star only reachable with the Cloud Suit, meaning you have to know how to make really far leaps and create a cloud at the correct distance. Whenever you find a Cloud Flower and gain the Cloud Suit, don’t waste your clouds all willy-nilly. It is very likely you’ll be required to use all of those clouds at some point in the level. The Melty Molten Galaxy is a prime example of this. If you don’t save at least one or two clouds for late in the level, you won’t be able to get to one of the Green Stars. Be comfortable with the extra floatiness of the Cloud Suit and know when to spin and when not to spin.

Master the Triple Jump: You won’t have to use the Triple Jump until the Green Stars, but then it comes up a number of times. Green Stars will routinely be seen hovering just out of reach above your head. A backflip/spin won’t give you enough air, or even a summersault flip/spin. This is where the mastery of the Triple Jump is critical. The game won’t ask you to do a Triple Jump in any place that doesn’t allow for the running start, but it still demands careful timing. Practice in places where you aren’t likely to die from screwing this up. Once you have the rhythm down you should have less of a problem getting some of the more difficult Green Stars like the first Green Star in the Stone Cyclone Galaxy.

Line Up Your Shots: The Triple Jump is useful for gaining air, but the Long Jump/Spin combo will gain you the most distance, especially with Luigi. Problem is, some Green Stars are located outside your line of sight. You’ll frequently encounter instances where you can’t turn the camera to see straight, either, meaning you’ll have to manually look around to see where the Green Star is shimmering. Once you know where it is in relative distance and height, look for some markings on the ground to help indicate where to jump from. You’ll frequently find straight lines leading you right to the star, allowing you to have a better idea how to aim.

Hey, sometimes things get tough. You'll get over it. Sometimes ghosts chase you. You'll get over it.

Accept Failure: Some of the Green Stars are unfair, simple as that. I’d wager at least half of them are floating over an empty void, meaning that if you miss your shot you’re looking at one less life in your stash (or ‘stache). It is really easy to blame the camera in most places. Do that. It’s easier to accept that the camera is faulty rather than you as the player. Learn to accept when Green Stars are placed in a vague place in what appears to be an optical illusion and realize that you’ll need to just try again and again until you line the shot up perfectly. I can’t tell you how many times I was so dead sure I landed on the star from a crazy jump but fell right past it. Try again and you’ll get it eventually. It’s a pain, but learn to deal and you’ll be fine.

Come To Terms With What You’re Trying to Accomplish: Here’s where the End Game spoiler comes in: You aren’t getting anything from finding all 242 stars in the game. After collecting the 120 Green Stars, you’ll unlock the final galaxy, the Grandmaster Galaxy. This is a tough galaxy, and rightfully so. Once you collect the 241st star, the 49th Comet Medal, and accrue 9,999 Star bits with the Bank Toad, the final star will appear. It is a Daredevil Run of the Grandmaster Galaxy, meaning you have one hit point, no saves, and almost no chance to beat this one. I must have died fifty times just trying to collect this one single star. And what did I get for my trouble? You get three things, beyond the satisfaction of completing the game.

First, Roselina joins your starship. She will now sit on the starship and offer her thanks for having nothing left to do in the game. You don’t get to play as her or anyone else. She just sits there and says “Thanks” every time you speak with her. Secondly, you get a message on your Wii message board that shows a picture of your 242 stars lined up, saying basically, “Thanks for playing the game!” from the development team. Lastly, you unlock the death counter for your profile, letting you know how many times you died while playing the game. This isn’t a reward; this is an insult. “You won! Congrats! Yeah, but by the way, here’s how many times you died. Try harder next time.” Unacceptable. Worst completion reward to any game I’ve played in recent memory.

Look, Rosey, I like you and all, but your thanks isn't gonna cut it. Even Peach had the decency to bake me a cake.

But that’s the thing to remember: You aren’t pushing yourself to find every star because you’ll get anything. You need to understand that the whole point of you collecting everything in the game is so that you can say, “Yes, I did everything in this game.” Nothing more, nothing less. Once you understand this, the game is yours to make or break.

And that’s pretty much all I can say about Super Mario Galaxy 2. Any further Grandmaster questions can be directed to the comments where I will get back to you as soon as possible with an answer. Good luck and Godspeed young Mario star travelers.

Zelda: A Retrospective Part 2

Chris Pranger — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:00:07 +0000

Changes were in store for my beloved series. Would it mean the end for my love?

When last we left off, I was swooning over the storytelling prowess of Majora’s Mask and specifically, how dark the tone of the game placed the series. My hopes for a new Zelda game were high and I was eager to hear what would happen next. Before a real console sequel though, we’d be getting a little handheld detour first.

Oracle of Ages (2001):

If this looks a lot like Link's Awakening, that's because it looks a lot like Link's Awakening.

Nintendo Power did its usual thing of hyping me up for the new Zelda games, but this time things were different. Oracle of Ages was for the Game Boy Color, but it wasn’t being released all alone. It was one of two Zelda games released at the same time, so I was skeptical as to the true intentions of this noble little game. I still went out and rented Oracle of Ages, an odd thing to think about since renting Game Boy Color games was extremely rare. Anyway, I rented the game and played it, not thinking too much one way or another. This was another one of those cases where I needed to return once I was a little older and a little wiser. Sure enough, upon closer inspection I found Oracle of Ages to be an excellent game that specialized in the puzzles Zelda games are known for. But wait, there’s more.

Oracle of Seasons (2001):

Is there any wonder why I loved these two games?

Oracle of Seasons was released at the same time as Oracle of Ages, and while they had different core stories and different styles with Ages being more puzzle-oriented and Seasons much more about the action, it was the effect gained from playing them back-to-back that added an extra oomph to the experience. The reason being is that once you played one game, didn’t matter which first, you’d get a code to input in the other game when you started a new file. You’d get to begin the game with an extra heart and characters would reference your exploits from the other game, making the world feel more complete. Even better, these characters would give you a new code to input in the first game, unlocking new weapons and upgrades and such that could then be unlocked in the other game. And after beating the second game, you’d get the chance to fight with Ganon once more, tying things together so nicely. I was really amazed with how cool the whole package felt. Do not buy just one of these if you choose to play them. It’s required that you play both.

The GameCube is Announced:

But all was not well in Hyrule and lands beyond. A great schism was approaching. Nintendo had announced the GameCube and with it showed a now infamous tech demo that’d lead fans astray. The culprit? This image:

If you were a Zelda fan, this got you so jazzed it hurt.

The assumption was that this and a few other images shown in Nintendo Power were actual footage from a new Legend of Zelda game being developed for the GameCube. And why wouldn’t we believe that? It only made sense, plus it looked so much like Ocarina of Time but with better graphics. Except something was wrong. After seeing these images, Nintendo wouldn’t say anything for what seemed like a year until finally we got a look at the new Zelda title on the GameCube. And that’s when fans got mad.

Wind Waker (2002):

Goodbye Zelda series you knew and loved. Hope you like cartoons and sailing.

It is important to note that my opinion of The Wind Waker is this: It is an extremely great game, just a very bad Zelda game. I, like many other Zelda fans, believed the images previously seen in Nintendo Power were what to expect from the new Zelda title, so when a year later we see the equivalent of a cartoon penis pretending to be Link, we were miffed. And no, this wasn’t all fans, and even some fans that were miffed eventually didn’t have a problem, but the general feeling was that Nintendo had betrayed us somehow, regardless of their intent.

Despite any negative feelings due to a misunderstanding, The Wind Waker is a really great game. The art style is pretty darn cool and the controls are spot-on. But the tone doesn’t feel like a Zelda game. Sure, there are races from previous Zelda titles and landmarks mentioned, but overall it just didn’t feel that much like the games I grew up with. It just felt…foreign. And foreign isn’t a bad thing necessarily, unless of course I just wanted a true follow-up to Majora’s Mask with the same sort of mature themes done tastefully. This new cartoon style only pointed me to believe that the dark, sad atmosphere I had been touched by in Majora’s Mask would be replaced by this vibrant color scheme, as if to wash over any real emotion that could potentially occur. The cartoon-style Zelda games would continue to be decent, but they’d never come close to the expectations fans asked for Majora’s Mask’s sequel.

Four Swords Adventures (2004):

I assure you, it's a fun game, just yet another bad Zelda game.

And then something really odd happened. Four Swords Adventures was released on the GameCube to an audience that was mostly unaware (read: indifferent) to its appearance. I for one couldn’t muster a shred of interest when I read about it. I ended up playing it, as always, and all I could say was, “Wow, this is just Link to the Past 2.0.” Once again, it wasn’t a bad thing, per say. It was just another Zelda game that didn’t deliver where the fans were concerned. Art style, yes, it was yet another gorgeous title in the Zelda franchise, and once you got past how it broke with all Zelda conventions it was actually very enjoyable. But as I said, it just wasn’t what fans were asking for, and the multiplayer aspect that Nintendo was pushing for the title wasn’t available unless every player owned a GBA and a GBA-GameCube cable, of which I personally had the needed equipment but had no friends that did. I’d still recommend Four Swords Adventures if you want a simple, cheap game to pass the time in between larger titles.

Minish Cap (2004):

Good, the classic style gameplay. Fine, make it cartoony, just give me back my classic style gameplay.

Something had just broken inside me when it came to the Zelda series. My favorite games were still holding up, but the new releases were failing to stir any desire to fork over the money immediately and buy the next game. Minish Cap was one such example. Oh sure, when I finally played it I found that it was amazing, just as the rest of the Zelda games, but sadly the art style reminded me of Wind Waker. I’m not a snob, I assure you, but that art style doesn’t invoke joy from me. To me, the Wind Waker art style represents a movement away from anything serious within the series, meaning that ultimately the game is the adventure-genre equivalent of a Mario title, by which I mean the ultimate thing at stake is the same over and over again. Princess Zelda has been kidnapped and Link must go through a number of dungeons to get her back. No surprises, no real thrills. Great gameplay and dungeon design, but it feels like empty calories. I don’t feel as if the narrative if progressing towards bettering me as a Zelda gamer or rewarding me for continuing on in the series. All the older titles did, but now something feels like it’s missing. I needed more than trading Kinstones to keep me interested anymore. Would Nintendo ever satisfy fans like me anymore?

Twilight Princess (2006):

The Hero had returned at last.

Things were bleak in my eyes, and then the miracle that is Twilight Princess was announced. Suddenly I was more excited for a video game than I’ve ever been. That pure rush of excitement hit me and I was ready to experience a new Zelda title in the vein of my favorites. But a trailer wouldn’t be enough to satisfy. I’d watch it over and over, waiting for my game, MY game, to finally come out. But therein slept yet another problem.

Twilight Princess would be pushed back again and again until finally it became a launch title for the Wii as well as a GameCube game. I was confused about that, but I was already buying a Wii, so Twilight Princess was a no-brainer for a launch title. It’s still the version I recommend. And Twilight Princess is really recommended. The tone was darker without being overly serious, the story was pretty cool, and all the new elements were excellently added, such as the motion controls. I felt like a very powerful character once I had the bow in my hand, aiming with pinpoint accuracy. This was the game I’d been waiting for, no question. But in my ravenous greed for a new Zelda title I devoured it too quickly, beating the majority of the game (minus some tedious side-quests) in a little over 20 hours. I could only speculate where the series would go from here.

Phantom Hourglass (2007):

Crap, I spoke too soon. We're on a damned boat again.

And then the cartoon style of Zelda came back with a vengeance just to spite me. Phourglass appeared and as soon as I heard it was a DS title I was happy. I thought it would be like the older Zelda titles I enjoyed such as Link’s Awakening or Oracle of Ages. Then I heard you’d use the stylus to control, exclusively. That made me beyond sad. I don’t mind touch controls when they work, but I didn’t see any need to change basic movement and sword swinging from the tried and true D-pad/A button combo. It didn’t matter, I would still play Phourglass, and so I did.

Following directly after The Wind Waker, Phourglass had Link and Tetra/Zelda on an adventure that felt entirely unnecessary. A ghost ship appears and separates the two. Link must go find her through a series of dungeon-related events, accessible via boating. As I mentioned before, this just felt like empty calories. It didn’t feel like the series progressed anywhere but rather decided to fall into a rut. Repetitive gameplay, dull story and setting, and the first Zelda title not to add a single new weapon/item. Seriously, bow, boomerang, bombs? We’ve seen those before! Twilight Princess gave us things like the Spinner, the Ball and Chain, and the Double Claw Shots, but Phourglass couldn’t think of anything. How sad. I was painfully happy when Link saved Tetra in the end and the credits rolled, because it meant I never had to play this one again.

Spirit Tracks (2009):

If the characters in the artwork look like they don't care, that should be a pretty clear indication, shouldn't it?

Silly me, I had to play Phourglass again, except it was called Spirit Tracks this time. You’ve read my review detailing my numerous frustrations with Spirit Tracks, so there isn’t much more to say about this title. When it was first announced it seemed like it had to be a joke. Link on a train? Was there really nothing left to do with the Hero of Legend? At least it added new weapons/tools whereas Phourglass hadn’t, but these new items included the usual variety of bombs, bows, boomerangs, and the obligatory “odd” item, the pinwheel, an item I loathed because it required I used the microphone. Blowing into the DS microphone is NOT enjoyable in any game I’ve yet played. Even worse, the final boss fight felt nearly impossible due to the awful touch screen sword mechanics. I’ve never cursed so much while playing a Zelda game, a very bad sign. All Zelda fans could do was look to the future and hope, knowing that Nintendo had promised a new Wii Zelda sometime. But when would we know more?

Skyward Sword (2011?):

I'm ready for this game to knock my shorts off. It's got a lot to live up to.

This year’s E3 showed us our first true look at Skyward Sword, the official name of the new Zelda title for the Wii. It’s not out yet (obviously), but Nintendo has claimed it should be out around 2011. I’ll believe it when I see it happen, but the sooner the better. The last “good” Zelda game was in late 2006, so I’m ready for something new and something now.

Skyward Sword has a slew of screenshots, plus some gameplay footage and an excellent trailer showing off what we can expect. And what stands out the most? The art style. It looks very much like Twilight Princess but with a cell-shaded sheen, almost a hybrid between Twilight Princess and The Wind Waker. Naturally, this worries me. Has the precedence been set to ease the series once more toward the cartoony style? To me, this means a movement away from a deeper Zelda experience and a push toward more empty calories. The console Zelda games have always been excellent in one form or another, each very different from the last, but the cartoony-style Zelda games have a very repetitive feel to them. What also scares me is the decision of Skyward Sword to use motion controls for every action now, similar to how stylus control was forced work for the DS titles. Is the Zelda series officially dead to me? We’ll have to wait and see.

So what comes next? Where will the series take us in the future? Nintendo seems pretty keen on remaking Ocarina of Time for the 3DS, but that’s just a remake, nothing new. Will we ever hear Link truly speak? Will Ganondorf stay trapped or dead? I’m hopeful for what comes next, but how about you? Do you still love the Zelda series no matter what it does next? Or are too jaded at this point to care? I’m done with all my memories so now it’s your turn to pontificate about one of gaming’s oldest and dearest franchises. In the meantime I’ll just sit here and pray to Din, Nayru and Farore that Skyward Sword is awesome.

Need more retrospectives? Take a look at these:

-Mario: A Retrospctive

-Rare: A Retrospective

-Go Green Machine! A Ninja Turtle Video Game Retrospective