My Gaming Landscape [December 3rd, 2015]

Hey everybody! Colorwind here and I’ve been playing several different games this past month, including Paper Mario, Yoshi’s Story, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Mortal Kombat 9, Smash TV, Assassin’s Creed, and Mario Golf.

As I mentioned in my recent Discussing post about the benefits and detriments of emulation, I got Paper Mario working on my Nintendo 64 emulator. I’m happy to report that I completed that game, entirely, as in 100% completionist run. It’s not a long RPG compared to others as a 100% run took me 35 hours, but it is a fun one with a lot of charm. The combat is fun and engaging, thanks to the action commands that allow you to do more damage and reduce damage done to you. The graphics are well done, thanks to the paper aesthetic of the world and characters, though they are a bit outdated thanks to the somewhat blurry visuals. Finally, many of the NPCs you meet along the way are charming if one note and it makes your journey enjoyable. It makes you forgive the typically plot of the game. However, this game does have some problems. Most noticeably, every even numbered chapter except for the last is fairly weak. Chapters 2, 4 and 6 all suffer from level design and objectives that reuses designs and requires backtracking respectively. This makes the pacing of the game really segmented. Also, many of the later companions and bosses you run into lack any kind of buildup or development or personalities of any kind. Where earlier characters like Goombario or the Koopa Bros had build up and entertaining personalities, I don’t remember much about Watt or whoever the boss was in the 7th chapter. These flaws prevent me from calling this one of the great RPGs out there, but don’t get me wrong. It’s still a good game. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is better though.

Using the same emulator, I also played through Yoshi’s Story. I’m not entirely sure why I did though. That’s not what I would call a good game, even though I don’t think it’s a bad game either. It’s just so damn simple. Not necessarily easy, as the later levels do get more difficult, but simple to a point that despite the challenge you get later, it doesn’t engage you that much. I will say that because of the way the game is designed, I’m more intrigued by it. You can play through the game in an hour and only play a fourth of the levels, meaning you need to play through the game multiple times. Furthermore, you can finish a level before seeing it in its entirety by swallowing the first 30 fruits you come across or you could get a specific type of fruit over and over again for a higher score. The problem with this is your reward for doing this isn’t particularly good as you just get alternate endings where the last screen is just reworded. I played through all of the levels, and found the hidden white and black Yoshi’s. So I’m done with this game.

I tried to used the emulator to play Mario Tennis as I’ve never really played any of the Mario sports games and I heard that was a good game. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. So I went withMario Golf instead and FUCK THAT GAME! I just fundamentally don’t understand that game at all. I can never get the putting right and I can’t win a match against Luigi to save my life. I’m can see why people would like that game but am just no good at it at all. Moving on, I’ve hadTony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD sitting on my Xbox 360’s hard drive for a long time so I decided to load that up and FUCK THAT GAME TOO! As a big Tony Hawk fan back in the days of the PS1 and PS2, this game does not understand the physics of those games at all. Add in numerous bugs and glitches and you have a game that’s a shell of its predecessors. I raged hard as I played this game and couldn’t do even the simplest commands like wallriding for a long time. Also, this game doesn’t tell you that you can revert. Yes, it was a DLC pack but you can do that in the game even if you don’t buy the DLC. I don’t know when that happened but that’s the case now. Some of the courses chosen is also strange. Why is Downhill Jam here? Why not San Francisco? That course is based on a skating landmark for Christ’s sake! Hell, the course list is short at only seven courses; you could have included both! Either way, this game is a disappointment. I managed to finished all the goals in all seven courses with one character but I’m done with that game for now. I will admit that you can still get enjoyment out of that game and I’ll probably come back to it eventually, but it’s a mediocre title regardless.

I popped in Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition every now and then on my PS3. I just went through the arcade mode with a few characters, played some online matches, and played through some Trial challenges. I thought about getting good with Chun-Li but I think I’ll do that more for a future idea that I have. That tease, tho! I also bought The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on my Wii and thought about playing through it again since I just finished Twilight Princess the month before. However, I’ve just not been motivated to play the game so I’m just going to put it down for now. During the Thanksgiving break, my younger nephew came over and I played some Mortal Kombat 9 with him and I introduced him to Smash TV. He likes this mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops where the viewpoint is overhead and you shoot around with the two analog sticks. So I told how it was just like this game called Smash TV and I loaded up the 360 port that I have. So I played that with him for a bit as well. Finally, I started a playthrough of Assassin’s Creed on the PC on my Twitch channel but no one watched it and the analytics of the VOD on YouTube seem to be bad so I don’t know if I’ll continue that.

That’s all I played this past two and a half weeks. What have you been playing recently? Let me know in the comment section. Peace and Love, gamers and players! Colorwind out.