smashed bros.

it’s kind of silly that the first game i played at all thoroughly on the n64 i got off of ebay was super smash bros. since i played the gamecube sequel super smash bros. melee to the ground. as is my wont, i’ve played bits of several other n64 games, but even though it’s been only a few months since i got over my SSBM obsession, i still found myself intrigued by the n64 version. there were some enticements: the previous owner of the game hadn’t unlocked 3 of the 4 extra characters, so i tackled that first. then i finished all the bonus stages, which in the orig. includes the “break the targets” rounds as well as “board the platforms” rounds which i enjoyed even more. it was interesting to see the differences in the moves; the biggest differences were that you don’t power up smash moves by holding down the A button and there are no special right + B moves (they’re the same as the standing B moves). my hands got used to the new controller fairly quickly, and although the controls aren’t as smooth as SSBM i found that they were just as satisfying and at times they added a sort of deliberateness that made good hits even more satisfying. there were quite a few moves i’d either forgotten or are different in this version, and some moves are more powerful or less powerful between versions. and with all the characters in melee i found the shorter roster in SSB made me focus my attention on characters i’d either ignored or never gave enough time to (which come to think of it was prob. most of them b/c in melee i played as zelda/sheik a lot of the time). all in all, good times, and i could easily play it for longer but i should shelve it in favor of finishing some other games i’ve had lying around. (although now i want to pick up melee again to compare the two from the other direction.)

i’ve been enjoying using ign’s collection feature (a bit obsessively actually), which lets you build up your list of games w/ your ratings (although i think it’s a bit silly to give games ratings that aren’t integers so i don’t bother). it was hard to decide how to rate SSB. melee gets a def. 10 from me, but it’s not quite fair to compare the two since SSB came out first and originated so much of the greatness. in the end i gave it the benefit of the doubt (i.e. a 9 instead of an 8). this reader review from ign gives some interesting context of how different SSB was from the other fighting games around at the time. thinking back i remember how strange it first seemed to me to have damage percentages and not hit points, but now of course we all see how perfect it is.

to wrap up, here are some other SSB-related links i dug up:
- there are several good SSBM guides around, but this is the best SSB site i’ve come across
- a guide to the soundtest
- the wikipedia article has some interesting details and trivia … like i hadn’t known you can use the warp pipes in the secret level! i’m going to have to try that tomorrow

oh, and one last thing: i’m still waiting for the day that i’ll have nintendo-playing friends! some day i’ll be able to play SSB and SSBM with someone other than myself! sad, i know.

mario papered

i actually finished paper mario: the 1000-year old door before i finished luigi’s mansion, but i had rushed through the ending and hadn’t really done any of the sidequests (i.e. the trouble center). so i went back and did quite a few of them (inc. getting the extra character that i hadn’t known about — which i highly recommend doing sooner than later b/c it leads you to finding a lot more star pieces). but then it was just too much of the same so i didn’t bother being a completist. another deterrent to playing more was that after you beat the game enemies only ever give you 1 exp. pt if you beat them, so it takes ages to get upgrades. if i had known that i would’ve held off finishing the game; as it was the ending took me a few tries b/c i didn’t take the time to go through as many battles as i should’ve.

all in all the game was just so-so for me. the battle sequences were def. lively, and in general the game made fairly good use of the standard RPG elements, but as others have noted the game gets bogged down in a lot of text. i didn’t think the scenes w/ peach added much (although i def. enjoyed getting to play as bowser, minimal as that was), and in general the characterization was too “flat” (haha). but seriously, yes it’s mario which does not usually require a story, but it’s an RPG and there were only a few characters i felt any interest in at all, and in general the pace of the game was just too slow. there were some clever non-RPG moments near the end that made me look forward to the platformer super paper mario that’s supposedly in the works, much more than i look forward to another mario RPG. even so, i’m sort of interested in what the other mario RPG’s are like. prob. won’t hit the orig. paper mario any time soon, but the mario and luigi game on the GBA (superstar saga) was developed by a diff. company and might be worth looking into. also, the orig. mario RPG (seven stars, on the SNES, developed by square who of course does the final fantasy series) might be worth tracking down as well, although apparently it’s fairly rare — although coming up soon on the virtual console so i hear, so i might just get it there … whenever i get around to getting a wii! not sure yet if i’ll ever pick this game up any time soon. i came across an entertaining blog entry that chronicles one person’s account of the pit of 100 trials that piques my interest in doing it myself, but not having many 3 1/2 chunks of time to spare i’m prob. going to hold off on that … until i retire at least haha.

as usual ign.com is a good place to look for a guide (although this one has one noticeable gap in particular, namely character bios). … hmm … what should i play next … ?

mario rescued

finished luigi’s mansion yesterday. this was another one of those games i’d started ages ago, got past the first area, and then decided to pick up later. the most common complaint about this game is that it’s too short, but i found it to actually be a good length. there’s only so much they could have put into the game in terms of mechanics with the vacuum cleaner, and if it were any longer it woud’ve just been the same kind of thing. as it is i didn’t bother trying to track down the last 2 ghosts, and wound up getting only a medium ending (apparently 4th out of 8 possible endings). the controls were a bit awkward for me at first which will prob. be a bit difficult for a really young player, but overall it wasn’t very difficult. worth playing? i’d say so, esp. for fans of mario and company. it’s a game that def. has its charms if not a whole lot of staying power or replayability. it would be fascinating to see what nintendo would add if they did a sequel, but that seems highly unlikely. the most we can hope for is another game that stars luigi on his own.

after you finish there’s a slightly harder mode which this guide covers in detail. and once again ign provides a nice guide.