descending into the not-too-shallow depths of steel diver

steel diver was one of the 3DS’s launch titles, and seemed to be among the most disappointing of the already-slim first-party offerings. i played through its little-known game boy predecessor, radar mission, last year, and although that game was slim on content it had a certain amount of charm, so i tried to keep an open mind about this game.

like radar mission, steel diver has multiple modes that have little to do with each other, other than that they feature submarines. the periscope strike mode is very similar to one of the modes in radar mission. in it you’re a submarine and you shoot down ships in a fixed 360-degree FPS view, but whereas in radar mission you simply pressed left or right to move around, in this game you actually physically move the 3DS from side to side. this is one of those cases where motion controls really does enhance the experience. you can also use the touchscreen if you want, although it’s much less gratifying. the mode is short and there’s not a lot of depth to it, but it’s an enjoyable side diversion.

steel diver also revisits radar mission‘s second mode, which was a two-player battleship-like board game. in radar mission this mode was almost exactly like battleship, but in steel diver there’s more to do, although all of it ends up being about as mindless. in steel diver you actually move your submarine around and use sonar to detect your enemy’s ships. the enemy’s ships can attack your submarine as well, but basically only have a 1/3 chance of hitting you. this mode also includes more playing fields which add more variation, but clearly it’s nowhere near as complex or satisfying as the advance wars series. still, as a single-cartridge two-player download board-game-type experience there are probably some who would find this mode to be somewhat worthwhile.

the third and easily the most substantial mode is the campaign mode, which is brand new. in this mode you choose between three different submarines (each with distinct characteristics such as size and maneuverability) and pilot it through a series of maps littered with enemy subs and ships and other hazards. the mode is an interesting mix of navigation and battling, and although it only includes seven missions and three bosses, you’re required to beat each mission with all three subs before unlocking the hard mode. there’s also a series of time trials to beat and medals to earn by beating staff ghosts. you also earn decals in timed bonus periscope strike missions after beating each campaign mission that can be “equipped” one at a time and provide a small benefit like increased torpedo speed. so in terms of content, this is all a pretty decent amount even when not including the other modes, and reviewers who have said otherwise probably didn’t play through all of the campaign mode, let alone the hard mode.

the more pressing question, though, is: is the campaign mode “fun”? and here’s where i have more-mixed feelings. it’s easy to see why miyamoto said he waited to create this game until the DS’s touchscreen controls, because the main draw of the game is pushing and pulling levers to steer your sub instead of just using a control stick or D-pad. in choosing this design steel diver joins a range of games, including defender and nintendo’s own drill dozer and donkey kong jungle beat, that wouldn’t have been distinct games without their wholly unique controls. now, in probably all of these cases the games would have been much easier to play with more-traditional controls, and in many cases the gimmick wasn’t enough to offset the otherwise-uninspired gameplay. with its fairly simplistic control panel steel diver feels like it could go either way in terms of the “awkward” controls making the game worthwhile or not, but in the end i found that, although i don’t think i ever felt like i was in any way actually piloting a submarine, the controls were well-designed and fun to use. this quote from the iwata asks article highlights miyamoto’s intentions particularly well:

What I’d like to say is how, to put it in car terms, you have automatic cars and manual cars. Of course, driving an automatic is easier, but you can experience the joy of driving a car better with a manual transmission.
Playing Steel Diver is like driving a car with a clutch. You have to learn how to do it: “If you don’t do this, it won’t move.” “Oh?” “If you don’t do this, it won’t stop.” “Okay, I see.” It’s really fun to do several things at once that you have learned.
I don’t think it really applies to say this game has good or poor operability.

although i was engaged enough to play through the bulk of the campaign mode, i think it’s a stretch to compare the game to a racer, such as f-zero. a lot of the core fun of a racer is its sense of speed, so playing an intentionally slow and cumbersome racer is about as much fun as doing or watching olympic speed walking. water and ice levels in general are annoying, but like the first wave race game, on game boy, although on paper steel diver‘s campaign mode’s gameplay might look unbearably tedious, somehow it all combines to be worthwhile and generally enjoyable. i wouldn’t rank this higher than average and it’s definitely not worth a full $40, but for $5 it’s definitely not a dud and this was certainly one case where i enjoyed a game more than i thought i would.

descend into the not-too-shallow depths of these steel diver links:
- official site. includes info on the game modes and some videos.
- the game was discussed in two iwata asks feature. one as part of a series on the 3DS in general, and one focused on the game itself
- complete list of decals (including a certain nintendo cameo)
- FAQ at gamefaqs
- overview at nintendo.com
- review at nintendolife.com
- entry at wikipedia
- video of the credits

encyclopedia of virtual pets in pokedex 3D pro

one more bit of fluff before i return to slightly more-serious fare. i’d found the free pokedex 3D app on 3DS to be an entertaining diversion, esp. as a complement to the pokemon black and white games, and i thought it would be interesting to try out the “pro” version not because it expands its entries to include all 649 of those little monstas, but because it includes quizzes in a variety of categories as an additional feature. along with the TV series’ “who’s that pokemon” test where you have to name a pokemon based on its silhouette, the game also includes quizzes on pretty much everything pokedex-related you could think of, including evolutions, alternate formes, heights and weights, egg groups, stats, abilities, moves, and cries. identifying cries was one of the more-difficult tasks and has led me to a renewed appreciation of the work that went into them, although being able to match moves to pokemon ended up being the one area that was just too esoteric for me and that i had to resort to looking up to pass. after getting perfect in all the regular quizzes, an additional hard mode is unlocked with additional quizzes. the quizzes were surprisingly fun and addictive, although with obvious limited appeal in terms of both audience and longevity. the app includes all the other features of the original, including AR features, search options, and pretty much all the details you could want to know about the li’l critters. like the original, this functions as a slightly more-portable and attractive reference than a complete bulbapedia wiki page (albeit with less information) and pro players prob. already have all this info memorized anyway, but as a fairly loyal pokemon fan this was a decently worthwhile purchase for me for $5 off, if just to play through the animations of my favorites, although i doubt i would’ve bought it for the full $15. still, for a minimum of a few hours’ entertainment you could do a lot worse, and legions of pokemon fans have probably already fully appreciated this app and justified its creation.

pokedex 3D pro links:
- official site, includes info on unlocking the entries for genesect and meloetta
additional info at nintendo.com
- review at nintendolife.com
- entry at bulbapedia

feet training with personal trainer: walking

i wasn’t expecting a whole lot from personal trainer: walking for DS, but i was interested in seeing how it would compare to the very well-designed pedometer-related activities that are built into the 3DS. the game deserves credit for being the predecessor to the 3DS’s robust features, but although it feels like a distinct experience, it’s also a much shallower one.

the game’s main focus is to record the number of steps you’ve taken every day, but unlike the brain age games and wii fit, there’s no sense of trying to steadily “improve”. the designers attempted to solve this by measuring your “life rhythm” instead, but the lack of a self-improvement motivator proves to be critical and the game suffers from not having a similar built-in sense of progression. as a trade-off the game does a decent job of instead emphasizing the communication aspects: the game comes with two “activity meters”, and the daily reports replay the number of steps recorded at each moment of the day, which does succeed in encouraging conversation among people using the same cartridge. there’s really not much outside of the core measurement and the various charts that you can view, though. in the only other mode of significance you basically spend the steps you’ve walked to unlock useless factoids about subjects ranging from whales to tomatoes, which is about as exciting as it sounds. the game does have the added feature of allowing you to track your dog’s steps (and the activity meters come with a clip so you can easily secure it to your dog’s collar), and it does have the distinction of being probably the only DS title in which you can create a mii (or import one from your wii system). the game also has some barebones wi-fi features, where, as with new super mario bros. 2‘s worldwide coin total, you can see what the total number of steps all players (apparently 111,279 people) have accumulated.

overall this is a fairly basic package, and with a bit more effort could have been slightly more worthwhile. as it is, i lost interest in logging my steps pretty quickly, although, somewhat surprisingly, my partner found it more entertaining for longer (probably b/c he liked showing off how much more he walks than i do). the game is slightly less of a curiosity than the DSiware title sleep clock: record and analyse your sleep patterns (which was never released in north america), but not by much, but it’ll be interesting to see how the upcoming wii fit u‘s activity meter compares.

train your feet with these personal trainer: walking links:
- official site. includes an iwata asks feature
- the game comes with two activity meters, but the cartridge can hold data for up to 4. you can buy additional meters for $14.95 each at nintendo’s online store.
- if you’re curious about the animals you can get compared to in the game, see this thread at gamefaqs. apparently if you walk a ton in one day you can get compared to a pegasus, haha.
- overview at nintendo.com
- the game wasn’t widely reviewed when it came out, but here’s a review at nintendolife.com
- entry at wikipedia

penalties against super mario strikers

i spent some time recently trying to make more progress on super mario strikers for gamecube, but have had to give up. (see the review at nintendojo for more info about the game.) i’d played the game at various points in the last few years, and although i was improving and got through the easiest level, the next level up proved to be painfully tedious. it may just be that i’m bad at sports games in general, but the AI in this game feels egregiously cheap. as you’d expect from a team sports game you only control one of your 5-person team at a time, so you have no control over whether or not your teammates are in a good position for you to do a quick pass and score, whereas the CPU seems to set up such shots without any effort whatsoever. adding to this feeling of chance is the fact you don’t control your goalie at all either. oftentimes you can sneak in a goal by shooting, missing, and then scrambling for the ball and another kick, but this ends up just being a button-mashing frenzy and, again, a matter of luck. the “super goals”, activated by the captains only, also feel somewhat unbalanced. here a meter appears and if you time your button presses well you can earn not only a goal, but 2 points instead of just one. it takes some setup to clear enough space around you to attempt it (usually achieved by activating one of the mario kart-style powerups), but otherwise it just feels like more randomness, as does the random appearance of bowser to wreak havok on the field. the powerups themselves all serve much the same function with minor variations, but otherwise aren’t too objectionable, although as others have noted the difference in the stadiums is purely cosmetic and feel like they could’ve been an opportunity for some interesting variations. i also found it tedious that at the higher cups you have to play 7 rounds, and the default of 5 minutes per round seems similarly excessive (i quickly realized this, and ended up setting the rounds to 3 minutes instead). not to mention that the graphics during matches are unmemorable (although the intros, in which the characters saunter into the stadium, are amusing) and the music is minimal.

the game generally got good reviews and it may be that its multiplayer mode is more enjoyable, but after spending hours on the game without really enjoying any of it i’ve put it to the side for now. i’m hopeful that the sequel is better, but before i get to that i’ll probably try to catch up on the mario tennis series instead.

don’t penalize these super mario strikers links:
- entry at mariowiki.com, includes info on unlockables
- entry at wikipedia

prescriptions filled with dr. mario online rx

the GB edition of dr. mario was so interchangeable with the NES version that i thought i would take a peek at another edition i had on hand, dr. mario online rx for wiiware (which, incidentally, is one of the few wiiware titles you can buy outside of nintendo’s eshop via amazon). in doing so i skipped over the SNES and N64 editions, but i was interested in checking out the new co-op and worldwide wi-fi vs. modes.

the review at nintendolife.com provides a run-down of the other modes, which are mostly what you’d expect so i won’t dwell on them too much here, although i appreciated the ability to do a “hard drop” (press up to make a pill drop to the bottom, as in the modern tetris games) and the game also allows you to see the next three pills instead of just the next one. another unique feature is that you can send a demo version to friends so you can battle over wi-fi. i haven’t tried it out yet, but will def. be making use of it. the game is bright and colorful and i appreciated that it doesn’t have the maddening cheapness at the highest levels of difficulty that i mentioned in my previous post and that the viruses are distributed in a reasonable fashion. i also enjoyed the two new-to-me tracks, called “cough” and “sneeze”, which apparently were introduced in the N64 game under different monikers.

the co-op mode is no doubt inspired by the version that appeared as a stylus-controlled bonus in brain age 2. like that version the game features two nice reworkings of the classic “fever” and “chill” tunes, but this game’s mode is designed to be much more fast-paced. the size of the playing field is significantly smaller than the normal modes, and each stage starts off with only one pill dropping down at a time. this quickly increases to two and then three pills at a time, and then things get really hectic. the levels are designed to be short, and i played with someone who actually knew what she was doing and so we ended up alternating turns until the inevitable mad scramble that resulted when three pieces start dropping down at once. this was a fun, if somewhat shallow, diversion and one that would be even more stupid fun with more people.

the wi-fi mode serves as yet another reminder that my video game skillz are sorely lacking when compared to the rest of the world. this shouldn’t be that surprising, since according to the nintendo channel data the average owner of the game has played it for more than 26 hours (now up to more than 27). as with the game boy game, this has motivated me to spend more time mastering the combo system, but i’m going to have to come back to that since for now i think i’ve had my fill of dr. mario madness.

prescriptions filled with these dr. mario online rx links:
- as with other games in the series there’s an ending after beating the highest difficulty at level 20, in this case the credits roll and you see viruses and mario floating around in what is presumably some sort of petri dish
- the reviews at metacritic seem a bit low, since this is probably the best version of the game yet
- the game was developed by arika, who’s been responsible for many a nintendo remake, including the 3-D classics series
- entry at mariowiki.com
- entry at wikipedia

GB dr. mario makes its case

it had been a few years since i’d played dr. mario on NES. the next entry in the series was the version on GB which was released just a couple of months after its older brother. when i’d played the NES version i’d been somewhat bored at how limited the combo system was compared to classics
like puzzle league, but this time around i spent more time trying to make more-involved combos, in part because you get a familiar little bonus riff if you clear a certain number of pieces at once.

the combo system has turned out to be much more interesting than i’d originally thought, and i was more struck by the considerations of matching both horizontally and vertically than the first time around, although this rendition of the game itself didn’t grab me enough for me to want to invest a whole lot of time mastering the ins and outs of it. the presentation is perfectly fine for a game boy game, in terms of the graphics and sound, but the number of options is quite minimal, pretty much just your basic solo and vs. modes. i beat level 20 on the medium difficulty, but the higher levels of the high difficulty setting were incredibly cheap. i didn’t mention this in my previous post on the NES version, but as with that game at these levels the viruses are stacked so high that it really feels like it’s just a matter of luck whether or not you’ll be able to get the stack down to a point where you can actually just play the game instead of scrambling blindly. i don’t doubt that there are some dr. mario masters out there who can pwn even this level of difficulty, but for the average player it just feels unfair.

not much more to add. the game is a good portable version of the original NES classic, but with a host of modern alternatives this is a game that can be skipped over except by the most OCD of nintendo fans (like me) or those who have the nostalgia factor to contend with.

GB dr. mario makes its case for these links:
- as with the NES version there are little cut-scenes after levels 5, 10, 15, and 20 on high mode. instead of the viruses sitting in a tree and watching objects fly by, in this case they’re underwater and watching objects swim by. if you’re curious, here’s a video of the first three cut-scenes (the objects are a fish, crab, and flying fish) and a video of the final ending, which has an entertaining surprise twist
- review of 3DS VC release at nintendolife.com
- really trippy commercial from the 80′s
- entry at wikipedia
- apparently there was an operation-like board game

muted castlevania: harmony of dissonance

although i’m still not a big fan of it (yet?), i’ve been trying to work my way through the castlevania series. next up for me was castlevania: harmony of dissonance on GBA. it seems that the game is the least liked of the three castlevania games on GBA, and i agree with the general consensus that the game, although it looks more polished (albeit a bit garish) than circle of the moon, is too easy and that the dual-castle mechanic isn’t that interesting. the game was fairly mindless and rote for me and ended up requiring a ton of backtracking, although i got to like it more by the end. there are some nice details in the enemy design that i don’t recall seeing in the other titles (like the skeletons that jump out of the mirrors and the special events you trigger by destroying guardian armors in often amusingly gruesome ways), and the weapon combination system helps make things more interesting (although i mostly stuck to the holy book shield variations). the bosses tended to feel very same-y, though, partly due to all appearing in similarly shaped rooms, long with a low ceiling and two ledges. overall, i would rank this below circle of the moon, which although much more frustrating was also more difficult and thus less mindless. neither of them ended up being particular favorites of mine, although it looks like the next entry, aria of sorrow, features a more-memorable central game mechanic.

muted harmony of dissonance links:
- comprehensive info at castlevaniacrypt.com
- entry at wikipedia
- entry at castlevania.wikia.com