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

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

yoshi to the rescue in yoshi touch & go

with the exception of the brilliant first title, so far i’ve found the yoshi series to be fairly lackluster. on the surface the next entry on the list to tackle, yoshi touch & go for DS, looked like it was going to be an even shallower experience. unlike the previous three games which are all essentially platformers, this one’s an arcade-style game that features the typical variations, including score attack, time attack, marathon, and vs. modes.

the game was released just a few months after the DS’s debut, and it was clearly designed to show off the new hardware’s dual-screen, touchscreen, as well as microphone capabilities. each mode has two sections: one in which baby mario slowly drops from the sky to the ground and you trace clouds to guide him to safety, and the other in which yoshi, in a more typical platformer fashion, carries baby mario horizontally, swallowing enemies and fruit and chucking eggs to clear a safe path and rack up points. both sections, especially the second, prove to be surprisingly robust, and once you get into the groove you can last for quite a long time in the endless marathon modes, although it doesn’t seem like the difficulty increases noticeably as you proceed within a playthrough. the game does provide a nice balance between the benefits of conserving eggs vs. using them up in order to reach a higher score, and unlike warioware: touched! it’s enjoyable even now, years after the novelty of touchscreen mechanics has worn off.

it’s surprising how enjoyable the game is. although it has only a few modes it will take you some time to beat all the default high scores, and by that time you may have become addicted to the simple but tactile gameplay. it’s unusual to see such a straightforward arcade-style game such as this, which makes it a somewhat refreshing experience. it would’ve been interesting to see the mechanics applied to an entire platformer game, but i suppose that niche was more ably filled by the excellent kirby: canvas curse. despite its modest offerings the game was fairly well-received by critics when it was released, and although i wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorite games ever, it’s definitely one of the more compelling entires in the yoshi series that i’ve played so far.

yoshi’s rescued these yoshi touch & go links:
- FAQ/walkthrough
- positive review at videogamecritic.com
- craig harris’s glowing review at IGN
- entry at mariowiki.com
- entry at wikipedia

ranking the mario kart series

next up in my series of posts where i rank series that i’ve played all the games in is the mario kart series. (incidentally the previous posts looked back at the mario and metroid series.) i played the series pretty much entirely sequentially over the span of four years, and although the first entry didn’t really grab me, its sequel, mario kart 64, is what made me a believer and a fan. the first entry in the series was the first of its kind and started a whole genre, and the series continues to be hugely popular. it’s gotten a lot of flak in more recent years, though, for becoming more casual: all too often the first-place driver will suddenly find her/himself in last place at the last moment of a race. but it’s still a lot of fun, and in general i appreciate that even if you make a mistake you still have a chance of winning the race.

here’s a look back at the series via my ranking of the seven games in the series. for this post i’ve enlisted the help of alienjesus to provide a contrasting opinion. so without further ado, 3 … 2 … 1 … GO!

the mario kart series
as ranked by geozeldadude and alienjesus
#	geozeldadude’s list	alienjesus’s list
1	mario kart 64 (N64): as i mentioned, mario kart 64 is really what made me become a fan of the series. although it’s prob. among the easiest in the series, like many sequels it took the core concept and greatly expanded it. the tracks went from the almost-completely flat tracks of super mario kart to ones that had bumps, jumps, and steeply angled twists and turns, along with many more moving obstacles to contend with including penguins, cars and trucks, boulders, a train, and a giant yoshi egg. the game introduced new types of course locations that have been built upon ever since, including farm, desert, stadium, jungle, and city tracks. the balance of items feels “just right”, and i think many people would agree that it’s one of the standout entries in the series, if not the best.	Mario Kart DS: Definitely the best Mario Kart. This is the game that perfected the series, and got everything right. The physics felt perfect, with well judged steering and a better sense of speed than most Mario Kart games. The item selection was better balanced than others in the series (I’m looking at you MK Wii and Double Dash), and the track design was at its peak – Tick Tock Clock, Desert Hills and Airship Fortress are some of the greatest tracks in the series. Add in bonus challenges, the first major appearance of remade retro tracks, 8 player possibilities and the series’ first online mode and you’ve got an amazing game that manages to improve on a classic formula.
2	mario kart wii (wii): i’m torn about this choice. if you read my post at the time, i was extremely frustrated by how the profusion of items makes the whole experience chaotic and obnoxious in the single player grand prix mode. of all the games in the series i’ve played this one the most, though, thanks to the wi-fi modes, which my nephew and i regularly use. it’s simple for us to race together, and it’s been interesting to see how accurate the VR (vs. ranking) is. although many people quickly gave up on the motion controls, i think they’re what makes the game a wholly unique experience and i don’t consider them to be a handicap. the game took the 3-D tracks of mario kart N64 and took them even further by adding in trampolines, more ramps and boost pads, and half pipes. it features quite a few now-classic tracks, including mushroom gorge, coconut mall, DK summit, and koopa cape; it looks great; and the number of characters and karts/bikes is an added bonus. although my first experience with the game was more frustrating than fun, nowadays it’s clear to me that it’s one of the definite high points of the series.	Mario Kart 7: This one seems hit and miss for most, but I love it. Whilst the underwater mechanic never did much for me, the new gliding mechanic works great and a well judged glide can put you way ahead of the pack. The reduction back to 8 characters from the Wii game’s 12 is much appreciated, and causes a little less of that ever-present Mario Kart rage when you get ruined by items on the last lap. This is also helped by the reduction in the number of items to use. The character selection is odd, and not all of the tracks are hits, but there is a nice selection of unique tracks like Shy Guy Bazaar to keep things fresh. Plus, the new three stage tracks are a nice change of pace.
3	mario kart: double dash!! (GCN): this game gets a bad rap, and there are probably several reasons, including the “double” mechanic which is somewhat useless as a 2P experience. i never tried that myself, but as a single-player feature it adds strategy and adds to the game’s uniqueness. people also seem to complain about the return of character-specific items, which i thought was a nice change for the series. the tracks really didn’t feel that unique, but the game looks great and it brought in a few of my favorites to the series (birdo, waluigi, daisy, plus the creation of toadette). i’m probably ranking this game a bit high, but i always appreciate it when developers try to do things a little differently.	Mario Kart: Double Dash!!: This one was a real favourite of mine when I was a teenager. The track selection may be one of the smallest in the series, but it’s full of classics like Baby Park, Wario Colosseum and Yoshi Circuit. Some people don’t like this game’s comparatively heavy physics, but personally, I love them, and always go for the heaviest cart. The mix-and-match character selection allows for everyone to choose a weapon or character set-up to suit their tastes, but the character specific weapons tend to be a bit overpowered and chaotic. Even so, it still manages to be significantly less frustrating than the Wii game’s never ceasing bombardment of pain, and sits pride of place in number 3 on my list.
4	mario kart DS (DS): this is the first of the handheld titles in my list. the handheld games in the series have always felt like they closely followed the mold of their console predecessors, but mario kart DS did have some things to set it apart. it features a mission mode, which does a pretty good job of expanding the overall experience. it was the first to feature a wide variety of retro tracks (the GBA iteration included all the SNES tracks, but the DS edition draws from all the previous entries in the series). it was also the first to introduce wi-fi matches, although that mode was pretty much a wash for me since winning relies on snaking, which i find completely pointless. i could’ve easily put this third in my ranking, but i just didn’t find the experience to be as memorable as double dash due to the tracks being too closely based on the N64 tracks (with the exception of delfino square, which remains a favorite).	Mario Kart 64: This one was a tricky decision for me. Honestly, I’m not that taken by most the N64 game’s track design, which tends to be a bit sparse, nor its slow physics and odd feeling power boost system. With only 8 characters and 16 tracks it also tends to feel a bit lacking in content compared to the later games in the series. Why did I rate it at number 4 then? A few reasons – first of all, despite there only being 4 of them, this is the game with the absolute best battle mode arenas in the whole series (with Double Dash coming in second). Block Tower and Double Decker are classics that never fail to break up friendships. Secondly, though most tracks feel a bit bland, some of the more interesting ones are classics – Yoshi Valley comes to mind straight away. Finally, this is the last game in the series where weapons were more toned back – even the blue shell, which debuted here, was far better balanced here than it ever has been since.
5	mario kart: super circuit (GBA): next up would be mario kart: super circuit. the first handheld mario kart, this game felt like a step back for me since all the tracks were completely flat like in the original SNES game, and even despite that fact they weren’t very memorable. the game was the first to introduce a rankings system, which increases replayability (as well as insanity), but in the end i think what gives this game the edge is that instead of just being a remake of the original SNES game, it’s basically a remake with double the amount of content, which is a pretty sweet bonus.	Mario Kart: Super Circuit: This is the game that fought MK64 for the number 4 slot for me, and I’m sure several people with think I’m nuts to not have this one in last. The game has some weird slidy physics and loses out on the multiplayer front too – it’s pretty tricky to find 3 other people with the game and link cables who will want to play this with you nowadays. However, some of the tracks in this entry to the series are among the most creative and interesting in the series, yet most have never made it into one of the retro cups of the more recent games – Sunset Wilds, Cheese Land and Ribbon Road. It’s also the last time we saw the Boo weapon, which I sorely miss. Nothing was more fun than stealing your friends own red shell and nailing them with it.
6	mario kart 7 (3DS): i find it surprising that quite a few people have called mario kart 7 the best in the series. i found the game to be a huge bore in the single-player mode due to its astoundingly low difficulty level. the addition of gliders, underwater sections, and customizable parts is hardly noticeable, and although i appreciated that they toned down the number of opponents and thus the amount of items that get thrown at you every second compared to the wii edition, there’s just too much time where nothing interesting is happening at all (this is exacerbated by the addition of tracks that are one continuous course instead of multiple laps). the “lucky 7″ item is more confusing than fun, and i found the new tracks to be entirely ho-hum. it’s possible i’ll get more into the game the more i play with others and over wi-fi, but right now it’s easily one of my least favorite in the series even though it introduces lakitu, one of my favorite new playable characters to the series.	Super Mario Kart: The original, but certainly not the best. Whilst still an enjoyable game, Super Mario Kart has been improved on so much that it feels severely dated nowadays. Ignoring the obvious slidy physics, the tracks feel short and limited, and way the game plays in split screen even in single player is irritating. The worst aspect of all is the way the game deals with CPU characters using weapons though – not only can they activate them at any time, but they also tend to be unique and overpowered exclusive abilities. Having one of the Mario Brothers as your main rival and constantly activating his invincibility is a pain in the neck. Certainly worth a play, but more of a novelty these days.
7	super mario kart (SNES): the game that started it all, but also the game that is the most inaccessible and unforgiving by modern standards. i basically haven’t touched this game since i played it four years ago, but the amount of rubberbanding by the AI is a common complaint (although i didn’t have too much of a problem with the fact your opponents get unique weapons and you don’t). at the time i also hadn’t really mastered drifting, but now that i have it should be interesting to give this one another go.	Mario Kart Wii: You probably all saw this coming; I’ve been bashing this game enough during the article for it to be pretty apparent. The worst aspect of Mario Kart Wii is that it’s not a bad game – the courses are decent enough (Koopa Cape, Mushroom Gorge and Maple Treeway are awesome), there’s a nice and big, if odd selection of characters (Baby Daisy? Why?), the 12 player battle mode is chaotic fun and the online multiplayer is pretty well done. The problem is that you’ll be too busy getting constantly slapped around the face to care. With more overpowered weapons, more item blocks, more characters to use them and a new way of dealing with CPU characters’ items, it’s not uncommon to go from first to last in this game as you get pummelled by every weapon possible all in a row. What’s worse than going from first to fourth because of a Blue Shell? Going from first to twelfth because of a blue shell, a red shell, a bob-omb, a star and a bullet bill in the space of 10 seconds, with a thundercloud left above your head to boot. Bah!
8	-	Mario Kart Arcade GP 1 & 2: Throwing these in here just for a mention to be honest. I honestly don’t know if I think these are worse games than Mario Kart Wii, because I haven’t played them enough. What I do know is that from the little I’ve played, the tracks are dull, the turning feels weird, the items are odd and they really feel more like Mario Kart knock-offs than real Mario Kart games. There’s supposedly a third on the way which includes the glider mechanics from Mario Kart 7. I don’t imagine it will be any more interesting.

interestingly enough, it looks like alienjesus and i agreed pretty closely, with only our opinions of mario kart 7 and mario kart wii being drastically different. anyway, thanks to him for helping out, and for two more contrasting opinions, see this article at craveonline and this one at digitallydownloaded.net. don’t know when i’ll actually get around to replaying the entries in this memorable series, and hopefully it won’t be too long before we hear more about the new entry, for wii u.

bouncing around kirby’s block ball

it had been a long time since i’d played a breakout style game, so i recently played through kirby’s block ball for the original game boy. (in terms of the timeline, the game was released in mid-1996, after kirby’s dream land 2 and before kirby super star on SNES.) i’d played alleyway, also for game boy, quite a few years ago, and at that time i’d mentioned that according to wikipedia: “Years later, the game’s designer Gunpei Yokoi would reuse much of Alleyway’s source code (such as paddle behavior and adapted physics engine) for the Game Boy game Kirby’s Block Ball while working with Shigeru Miyamoto’s team.” the game has a completely different feel, though, and the games don’t share much in common beyond them both being successors to ye olde breakout.

kirby’s block ball adds several key mechanics included, no doubt, to try to distinguish itself from other breakout successors such as arkanoid. like arkanoid, block ball adds powers, although not to the paddle itself but to the ball, activated by pressing the B button. the powers are inspired by the kirby games and are required for destroying certain blocks, although there are only four and they don’t feel particularly necessary. one of the bigger differences is that in some stages instead of controlling one paddle that moves across the bottom of the screen as in the other games you control as many as four paddles, one on each side of the screen. another big difference is that some bricks can only be broken when kirby does a “power bounce”, achieved by pressing the A button right as kirby hits the paddle. the power bounce also grants kirby extra speed, and invulnerability if he hits the spikes that border the stage. having to control more than one paddle and constantly press the A button to do the power bounce makes the game’s controls much fussier than other breakout-type games. others may enjoy the extra engagement, but i found the power bounces to be repetitive and tedious.

the game features ten stages each comprised of three normal stages, a sub-boss battle, and a boss battle. boss battles are exactly what you’d expect without much in the way of surprises, and each level has a high score target (called a “borderline”). in order to see the final stage and the actual ending you have to achieve the high score on every level, a feat that i quickly gave up on. the main reason for that is in order to get the high score you pretty much have to execute the bonus rounds in the levels perfectly. these are triggered by hitting a certain item and then clearing the rest of the level within a short amount of time, which proved to be overly difficult. of course a more-motivated player would actually try to improve her/his control over the ball, but even after playing through all the levels i didn’t feel particularly adept at making the ball go where i wanted it to. the game also features four mini-game type bonus levels that were more enjoyable, but don’t appear very frequently. so all in all, despite the always-cute kirby trappings, this wasn’t a particularly fun or memorable take on breakout. hopefully some of the other kirby spin-offs will impress me more.

bounce around these kirby’s block ball links:
- review of 3DS VC release at nintendolife.com
- page for the 3DS VC release at nintendo.com
- entry at kirbysrainbowresort.net, which includes scans of the instruction manual
- entry at kirby.wikia.com
- screenshots of the ending, at vgmuseum.com

guarded reaction to fire emblem: awakening

i’m more than a month behind, but here’s the first of my catch-up posts. the fire emblem series has long been one of my favorites, and although copies were initially scarce apparently due to delays with shipments i was able to pick up my pre-order of fire emblem: awakening for 3DS from gamestop just a few days later than its actual release date (along with the pre-order bonus art book).

the game has gotten some of the best reception of any game in the series to date, as evidenced by the glowing reviews and the fact it’s had “the best first month sales in the entire history of the franchise, shifting 180,000 units since its launch”. as a long-time fan there was a lot i was looking forward to for this, the 13th entry in the series, especially since the previous game in the series, a sequel to shadow dragon on DS (itself a remake of the very first fire emblem game) didn’t make it outside of japan.

i can see why the game has been popular, as it’s significantly more accessible than other entries in the series. it’s the first (outside of the previous japan-only release) to feature a “casual mode” whereby characters who fall in battle aren’t lost forever, but just for the current map. this mode is entirely optional, though, but the bigger change is that the game has a world map which allows you to fight optional battles for as little or as much as you want to grind for experience and gold. i don’t know why i found this to be such a problem since i loved sacred stones which featured a similar mechanic, but i think one of the big differences is that in that game you couldn’t get really good items like stat boosters and special weapons from the map shops. in awakening not only can you buy special items and weapons whenever you want, but you can also receive them through spotpass and through free and paid DLC.

awakening also allows you to change classes however much you want (resetting your level to level 1 of that class but for the most part without making you lose your increased stats), which means you have unlimited level ups. part of the fun of the fire emblem games thus far has been optimizing your strategy to make your character as powerful as possible by the end of the game and by the time s/he reaches level 20 of her/his final class, but this game is so open-ended that that aspect of the game has been lost. as a result, the game also lacks a ranking system, a feature from earlier games and one that greatly increases replayability.

skills have been an aspect of the game for years, but because of the emphasis on reclassing the game takes on a more final fantasy tactics-like feel but without nearly as much variety in the skills or in the classes themselves (although new skills have been introduced to the fire emblem universe, only a small subset, such as galeforce which allows you to attack twice in one turn, are clearly superior, so much so that they seem overly advantageous). part of the reason the classes have lost some of their uniqueness is that more classes have been added and previous classes adjusted to make reclassing more viable by adding more overlap in the abilities of each class. for example, falcon knights can use staves in this game, which makes it easier for players to reclass a character into or from another class that uses staves since then that character won’t have lost her experience with that weapon type. similarly, the bow knight can use bows and swords, again, making it easier to reclass him/her into a class that uses swords and another weapon, or bows and another weapon. the net result, though, is that the finely tuned balance of classes in previous games is somewhat muddled here.

as i mentioned, the spotpass and paid DLC also make the game more casual since they provide powerful weapons, skills, or characters. a ton of characters from all the previous games in the series are available to recruit via free spotpass DLC, but they’re the characters pretty much in name only since their character models don’t actually look much like them and they only have a minimal amount of unique dialogue (and in some cases feature completely different attributes such as their class). the paid DLC seems pretty useless to me beyond providing advantages to your playthrough even beyond the ones the game and the free DLC provide; they generally include a new map with only a few snippets of dialogue, although i probably will get the ones that include more actual conversations. there is a series of side stories offered as free spotpass DLC that feature unique recruitable characters related to the main game and serve as a sort of epilogue and are much more worthwhile, however.

despite this litany of complaints, i did play play the game obsessively for more than 50 hours and definitely enjoyed some of the brand-new mechanics, namely the dual system whereby two characters can either pair up to create a “superunit”, or fight next to each other and not only give added bonuses like extra avoid as in previous games, but also join in with a follow-up attack or completely guard the other unit from an attack. awakening really emphasizes one of my favorite parts about the series, which is building relationships between characters. i was looking forward to the marriage system, which was previously seen in the japan-only seisen no keifu (aka genealogy of the holy war), and it’s impressive that the developers allowed so many possible pairings. this leads to a huge number of support conversations (although this comes at the expense of exploring more of the same-sex relationships). the children generally tend to be a bit immature and whiny (and outside of unlocking support conversations aren’t really worth using since by the time they arrive they’re much more underlevelled compared to their parents), but it’s fun to see the series explore parent/child and, to a much lesser extent, sibling dynamics and to have different families moving as a group around the battlefield, each member gaining advantages from fighting alongside the rest of his/her family. in order to expedite the marriages, support conversations unlock at a much faster pace than the rest of the series, and it doesn’t seem like certain pairings are harder to get than others. in the previous games it was satisfying to finally earn the highest support rank for the most unlikely pair before the final battle, but, again, that aspect of the series is lost in this game.

in terms of other, more-minor complaints, i got to like the character artwork okay eventually, but i never got into the 3-D models, which look very cutesy and final fantasy crystal chronicles to me since everyone has short bodies. the sound samples for each character helped bring them to life (although got rather repetitive), but the story feels fairly generic even by fire emblem standards and chrom just isn’t a very memorable main character. still, the gameplay is as solid as ever and the characters are still fun to use, and i have a feeling i’ll like it more when i play on a harder mode. although as a long-time fan i feel a bit disappointed overall at how much more accessible this entry is, but if the overall net effect is to bring new fans to the series and thus ensure its continuation (and evolution) then i’m happy to enjoy the game for the characters and new dual mechanics and will wait to see if the next entry can surpass some of my favorites in the series.

oh, and in case you’re wondering, here were my main units: chrom/sully, kjelle/lucina, ricken/miriel, sumia/avatar(M), donnel/maribelle, gaius/tharja, and noire/laurent. gaius was completely useless (a thief who can’t dodge? ugh), and ricken, tharja, and avatar were similarly weak. my MVPs were definitely miriel, sully, donnel (he often got every single +1 possible on his level ups), and kjelle, and noire was worth using because she’s pretty hilarious. her S-rank with laurent is really creepy, though. and of course henry was an easy favorite (his A-rank convo with lissa is really cute haha).

guarded fire emblem: awakening links:
- official website, includes wallpapers
- serenesforest.net is still my #1 fire emblem resource. don’t leave ylisse without it.
- iwata asks feature

10-year-old boy’s top picks for wii co-op and vs. gaming over wi-fi

i’ve been playing a couple of hours of wii over wi-fi with my currently-10-year-old nephew most weeks for the past couple of years (since he was about eight), and i’ve been meaning to post what his favorites have been. the options are fairly limited, but we haven’t been bored yet. my nephew’s much more of a social gamer than a solo one, and in general he’s very easygoing and not picky, but based on the frequency we play certain games he seems to prefer some games over others. here’s the run-down:

1) at the top of the list is mario kart wii. although i found the game to be more infuriating than fun at 150cc, the game has several advantages over the other wi-fi games on wii, the main one being that instead of just two-player matches against each other, we can play against up to 10 other random opponents. it’s a bit humbling to see how bad i am at the game compared to many others (although i wonder how much more time they’ve put into it, and i do have the disadvantage of always using the wii wheel), but both of us place high enough enough times that we don’t get too frustrated at how badly we’re getting beaten, despite our low overall ranking (measured by the VR score). it’s a little annoying that we usually can’t join each other’s current race right away, even if the other person hasn’t actually started racing yet, but aside from that the always changing competition and variety of tracks, karts, and characters keep this one pretty high on our list.

2) next up would have to be super smash bros. brawl. i’ve waxed poetic about the game several times already, but my nephew likes experimenting with the huge number of characters. the game was easy for him to get into, and his skills have continued to improve fairly steadily. we usually play a 2 vs. 2 team-up against the computer, but every once in a while we mix it up with a 1 vs. 1 match or a multi-man brawl. it would’ve been nice to have been able to have a 2 vs. 2 team match against random opponents, but it wouldn’t be as fun as mario kart wii‘s matchups anyway.

3) in third would probably be tatsunoko vs. capcom: ultimate all-stars. i got this for him this past christmas, but already we’ve had a lot of fun with it. it’s his first experience with the street fighter series, and the simplified single-wiimote control mechanism makes it almost as easy to get into as brawl. it’s still generally more complicated than brawl so it’ll be interesting to see which he ends up preferring, but there’s a nice variety with the characters (although we still haven’t really figured out why some characters seem so useless). i personally would rather play brawl, but i’m interested in spending more time with this game myself.

4) a more-distant fourth would be animal crossing: city folk. i personally would rather play this than some of the other wii wi-fi games, but i can see how a 10-year-old boy would prefer something with a bit more action and competition. we don’t play it that often, but whenever i do he’s always perfectly happy to do so and enthusiastically runs around shopping, fishing, and bug catching. i probably get more out of it than he does, and in part thanks to our sessions together i’ve reached some milestones since my post a year and a half ago including just a few weeks ago finally paying off the last of my mortgage and finally finding the last fossil (i’m still hunting for two more pieces of the robo series). it’s not his first choice, but he seems to fully enjoy it regardless.

5) rounding out the list is excitebike: world rally. the game is perfectly enjoyable, but as a wiiware title it just doesn’t have the depth that the other games do. part of why we don’t play it that much is that, despite holding it in extremely high regard, i lost interest in it after i got all the highest medals. but wi-fi matches against random players is fun (and it’s not difficult for us to get put into the same room), and my nephew gets caught up in playing more matches so that he can unlock the next color (not sure why he finds that so appealing, but he does). a perfectly good, albeit limited, alternative to the other games mentioned.

the number of wi-fi co-op games on wii has been a bit disappointing, but there are still games we haven’t spent much time with yet. we’ve played pokemon battle revolution a few times, but he’s not inclined to play it solo in order to unlock better pokemon. i also got him mario strikers charged for christmas, so we’ll probably be trying that out before too long

and to finish up, for some additional suggestions here’s a list of recommended wii wi-fi games that was the first hit i got from a search online.