Well well, it has been a while... I think it's time for me to get myself up to date I reckon...
New Super Luigi U
So… I decided to kick off May by playing a brand new Switch game! For once, here’s a port of a Wii U game that I actually haven’t played!
Ahh yes, a fine Wii U Switch game!
New Super Luigi U really came out at a bad time back in 2013. Coming off the back of not one, but TWO new New Super Mario Bros games; was I up for thirds? Hell no! I had my fill; hell, I had my fill with NSMB2, let alone NSMBU!
So, I tried to play this back on the Wii U, but I just couldn’t do it. I was sick to my stomach of Mario and couldn’t take another bite, no matter how wafer thin it might be. Fast forward to 2019 then and I think I’ve finally managed to digest all of that Mario overload from 6 or so years back! Let’s finally give NSLU a proper go eh?
While this is really an expansion pak to the original NSMBU, using all of the same art assets, music and engine as before, all of the course layouts are completely new. Of course, that isn’t the whole story, because every new Mario title has to have a gimmick to call its own; and NSLU is no exception. In a pretty neat twist, all of NSLU’s courses are truncated in terms of length and the player is given a set time limit of just 100 seconds for each and every course! Add on the classic slidey Luigi physics from Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels and you’ve got yourself something that plays pretty differently from other Mario titles.
My biggest complaint with NSMBU always lied in how the game just lacked any sort of unifying vision or focus with its level design. It felt like the game was made out of obligation, as its courses were laid out in a slapdash and haphazard manner. They lacked flow, they had no driving vision to call their own and it felt as if they took NSMB Wii as a base and just chucked on more of everything. It never managed to capture the magic of the Wii title, nor did it really have anything to truly call its own; and returning to it briefly on the Switch (briefly before starting NSLU) only re-confirmed my opinion of that title. It was an unnecessary game that lacked the masterful design of its forebearers.
This is where NSLU differs most from the base NSMBU game. Unlike NSMBU, NSLU actually HAS a vision! It HAS a focus with its level design! And it (mostly) succeeds at delivering it! It is not content to crib its best ideas from the past, but rather it takes all of the base elements from NSMBU and turns it into a much more refined and focused experience. It trims all of the fat from the previous title’s level design and crams in as much as possible into levels that are often less than half the size; making the experience much more fun in the process!
That’s not to say that all is perfect though. For all it does well, it still falls afoul of some of the trappings of its forebearer, with some levels that lack in pacing (where even 100 seconds feels too long!) and I don’t quite get the feeling that they make the most out of the 100 second restriction with the exploration aspects of the game; with some levels still feeling quite vanilla. Overall though, this game manages to (mostly) bring back the focused level design that was so sorely lacking in NSMBU and is a far better game for it.
It’s also a corker in multiplayer, as all players scramble for the end of each quickfire stage! Though it is here that I have a complaint with the Switch version… as Nintendo decided, in their infinite wisdom, to disallow players from selecting both Buckenberry (Blue Toad) and Ala Gold (Yellow Toad) at the same time, for some godknowswhat reason! This means that if you’re playing 4 player, one player has to play as Toadette, and that means that you get 100 seconds added to the timer! Beautifully defeating the entire point of the game! Way to go Nintendo!
Props to Nintendo for making Peach canonically Bi though. Good stuff!
Overall I wouldn’t put it on the same level as NSMB Wii, or SMB 3 and SMW, but it’s a huge step up from the base NSMBU. They did a good job of taking a mashed up set of raw materials and tempering it into a fine sword. May good level design cut through the darkness for years to come!
Yoshi’s Crafted World
Ok, fine. Here’s an actual original game for Switch (bloody hell, it only took two years after launch for one to finally come along!)
Ok Labo was pretty original at least
Sequel to the Most Adorable Game Of All Time, Yoshi’s Crafted World has a lot to live up to. The illegally cute Wii U game was a great return to form for a series that had long lost its way since the original SNES Yoshi’s Island and even its controversial N64 sequel. Yoshi’s Wooly World was a solid title that I really enjoyed; though it subscribed to a sleepy pace, it was a game that was surprisingly chill for a platformer, yet never ended up being boring.
Yoshi’s Crafted World then follows on in the same vein as its Wii U predecessor, with the same chill and sleepy pacing and focus on exploration. This time though? I think they might have gone too far in that direction… as it crosses the line from chill, to sleep inducing.
The game’s pace is so slow that it may well become a cure for insomnia. This actually makes it a pretty good co-op game for people who aren’t long-time game players, as it’s very friendly to newcomers (especially in Mellow Mode, which is basically a sedative in video game form). The level design ultimately fails to live up to its potential though, as it ends up just trying to be too much in one form. This game’s development history is actually pretty interesting, and telling, in how developer Good Feel struggled to make the most of its flipside concept. You can really tell how the game was originally designed to allow players to play every level both back and front, but they simply had to abandon the idea late into development as it just proved too challenging to make an interesting level that could be played both forwards AND backwards. The result is something that doesn’t quite satisfy either way around unfortunately.
Likewise, the music also doesn’t excite; with now-freelance composer Tomoya Tomita skipping a Good-Feel game for the first time since the company’s founding. While there’s nothing offensively bad in here (certainly nothing like what you heard in Yoshi’s New Island or Yoshi’s Island DS!), there’s also nothing to get excited for either. It’s all… just so… zzzzzzzz….
Zzzz… wha?... huh?... oh… yeah, it’s not a bad game, it’s just… so… zzzzzz…..
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
So after being put to sleep with Yoshi, I decided to scare myself awake by returning to a DS classic! Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is the 2005 follow up to Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow on the GBA, and like a good direct sequel, it takes the existing gameplay of its predecessor and expands on everything that worked well, while trying out some new ideas of its own.
You know what they say? Bigger is better!
This game is fantastic! Revisiting it only reminded me of why its one of the best entries in the series, with its excellent level design, fun gameplay gimmicks (shut up! I love the stupid Magic Seals!), awesome boss battles and rockin’ music! There’s a ton to love about this game!
It also makes very pragmatic use of the second screen for the map (you can also choose to display the character’s stats as well, but unless you were wasting your time by pointlessly grinding your stats? I don’t see why you’d ever use it). A much appreciated feature that would go on to become the standard for both of its DS follow-up entries.
It’s not perfect though, with too much of a reliance on cryptic BS and random drops for my liking; and the laughable choice of Saturday Morning Anime artwork portraits, done in a misguided attempt to appeal to a younger audience.
This box art was flawless though
Overall though, it’s still one of the best in the series, and while I don’t like it quite as much as its GBA predecessor, Aria of Sorrow, it’s a fantastic time all throughout! @Hero-of-Time, hurry up and get this game already!
Super Mario Maker 2
It has a single player mode, so it counts dammit!
Big Red and pals agree with me here
The Super Mario Maker 2 Story Mode is basically a glorified tutorial about how to use each individual course maker part. It also looks to teach some basic level design principles; alongside its excellent manual! (No seriously! If you haven’t read the in-game manual, do so! It’s great; and it’ll make you laugh too!)
It’s not a proper 2D Mario game and it doesn’t try to be. It’s a fantastic tutorial wrapped up in a lot of great Nintendo charm that just so happens to be a lot of fun. I ended up playing through all of story mode before actually starting making original courses of my own and I’m glad I did; I had a good time. But of course, the true fun of Super Mario Maker 2 is in making your own courses so…
Go try out my courses! Oh and don’t forget to like & subscribe while you’re at it!
Castlevania Bloodlines
So my Mega Drive Mini arrived and I FINALLY got a chance to play Castlevania Bloodlines! At long last! The MD game I always wanted the most back when the Wii VC was alive and kicking… the one that got away…
Fast forward about 10 years later and the game has FINALLY been re-released! So! Was the game worth all of the wait?
Hellhound Yes!
Castlevania’s sole original SEGA outing is a strong entry into the classic Castlevania series, with a cacophony of creative creatures, lavish level designs, and brilliant bosses. Compared to its other 16 bit contemporaries, Bloodlines is remarkably straightforward; with classic gameplay that is more reminiscent of the original NES Castlevania and (especially) Castlevania 3. You won’t find heavily branching levels, multidirectional whips and experimental ideas here; but rather you’ll find classic Castlevania action wrapped up in a glorious tech demo of the Mega Drive’s graphical capabilities, with each level being filled with all sorts of crazy raster effects that show off what the system can do.
The decision to have two main playable characters also takes a cue from Castlevania 3, however; unlike that game, you choose between two characters from the outset and can play through the entire game as either one. This was a bold choice, as it meant that every stage needed to be designed around two characters’ different movesets. While the two characters don’t differ all that wildly (certainly nothing like Castlevania 3 or Portrait of Ruin (more on that later) ), the designers did a great job of designing stages that encourage the use of each character’s unique moveset.
The music is also important to note, not because it’s great (which it is, of course! It’s a Castlevania game!), but because it was the first Castlevania game to be scored by Michiru Yamane; the woman who would go on to become the series’ main composer from then on (as well as its spiritual successor, Bloodstained). Many of the series’ iconic themes would be first heard here, such as The Old Sinking Sanctuary, and much of its audio iconography would be solidified here.
Bloodlines also does something pretty unique for a Castlevania title… by taking place almost entirely outside of Dracula’s Castle/Transylvania! Spanning across the whole of Europe, the designers stuffed a lot of variety into its level and set-piece design that takes inspiration from a multitude of European locales (the most obvious perhaps being the leaning tower of Piza; complete with trippy rotation effects!). I love the per-stage gimmicks each level has (special shout out to the hall of mirrors in the final stage, I literally have no idea how they pulled that off on the MD!) and its approach to setting variety and multiple character gameplay wouldn’t really be seen again until 2006’s Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin; a pseudo story sequel of sorts that draws a lot of inspiration from Bloodlines in particular.
While Bloodlines doesn’t re-invent the wheel, it serves as a solid microcosm of what makes the series great. While it’s not the best game in the series as a whole, it’s probably the best “generic” Castlevania title, for its excellent level & boss design and pitch perfect pacing that embodies what I love about the classic pre-Metroidvania Castlevania titles as a whole.
Special shout out to the hilariously titled PAL version, which comes across like a cheesy 80’s serial drama. Also shout outs to its hilariously heavy-handed censorship too.
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
So after I beat Castlevania Bloodlines, I decided to have another round of Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Just like I previously mentioned the last time I played this game and posted about here, I feel that this is very much a game of ups and downs.
This level is AMAZING
This level is not…
I feel that the game kinda runs out of steam once you get about 2/3 of the way in; and it doesn’t quite have enough new gimmicks and ideas to sustain its running time. The highs are high and the lows are low; but it’s still a great game overall.
Contra Hard Corps
Ahh, here we go! Here’s my other Mega Drive Virtual Console white whale! The follow up to the utterly sublime Contra 3: The Alien Wars, only this time, it’s on the Mega Drive! But there’s some interesting baggage this time that I feel shows that there’s more than meets the eye with this game…
Giant robot channels his inner Sabin here
Releasing in late 1994, Contra Hard Corps is the first entry in the series to hit a non-Nintendo console; and also the first game in the series to see a release following the famous split within Konami as many of its biggest talents splintered off to form Treasure. Perhaps most famous for Gunstar Heroes, released in 1993, Treasure had made their mark on the industry in spectacular style; showing up their former colleagues at Konami by beating them at their own game.
Konami were pissed, and they wanted revenge.
So in comes Contra Hard Corps, a shot fired straight back at the traitors who deserted them and showed them up with Gunstar Heroes. This game would show them how action games are REALLY done and how they would push the Mega Drive beyond what anyone thought possible; a claim that would be backed up with a 16 MEGA POWER cartridge! Twice that what Gunstar Heroes had! (speaking of which… Castlevania Bloodlines only had an 8mbit cartridge, the same size as what Super Castlevania 4 used three years prior. Surprisingly small considering that Castlevania was Konami’s flagship series!)
While I don’t feel that Contra Hard Corps ends up matching Gunstar Heroes, I do feel that it’s a great entry in the series that comes pretty close. It’s really surprising though, just how much it’s reminiscent of Treasure’s seminal work though; with its multi-sprite bosses, multiple characters with differing abilities and its multitude of weapons that often resemble those from Gunstar Heroes (the laser beam chaser in particular is awfully suspiciously close to what Treasure did one year prior…). Even many of the bosses ended up reminding me of those from Gunstar Heroes (the Virtual Zone boss reminding me both of Seven Force AND Black’s Dice Maze with its trippy visuals). The set-pieces are also just utterly bonkers and all pretence of the semi-realistic world you saw in Contra 3 is jettisoned in favour of utterly OTT fantasy action. It’s clear that they had a single minded goal to beat Treasure and reclaim the action gaming crown back for themselves.
In their focus on pushing the MD though, I feel that the gameplay actually suffers somewhat for this. Not because of any slowdown or anything of the sort, but rather because the game is just too fast! All of the enemies are stupidly fast and twitchy and the screen scrolls much faster than in prior Contra title; giving you very little time to react to what’s going on. In addition, the game runs with a big border across the top of the screen (likely to improve game performance; Gunstar Heroes did the same thing), but unlike that game, Contra Hard Corps has an annoying habit of having bullets fly down at you from above very quickly with little time to react. This all serves to make the game incredibly difficult! To compensate for this, Konami decided to do something new for a Contra game and (perhaps in another bit of inspiration taken from Gunstar Heroes) allowed your character to take up to three hits before kicking the bucket…
… unfortunately this does not apply to the western release… as Konami felt that they needed to do something to curtail the (then) healthy rental market, by taking away the health bar and reverting back to one-hit-deaths; without making any other adjustments to counterbalance the extreme difficulty. As an added kick in the teeth, they also decided to give us limited continues (5 in the US version, 4 in the PAL one) AND took away the Konami Code cheat to give you extra lives! Fuck you very much Konami!
Better get used to seeing this screen…
Make no mistake, this is a much harder game than Contra 3, as it constantly floods the screen with enemies without giving you time to react. I also feel that it just isn’t quite as well designed, with too much of a focus on showing off the tech and not enough focus on balancing the game; and also a strangely large amount of… waiting; there’s quite a few sections that just drag on for too long where you can’t actually really do anything until the game decides that you can now attack. That’s not to say that there isn’t still a LOT to love about Contra Hard Corps though; with fantastic set-pieces, brilliant music, creative boss design and tons of stage variety, despite the lack of top-down gameplay sections.
The game also does something very clever in the way it presents its stages, which gives it a lot of extra replay value. Throughout the game, typically at the end of a stage, you are given a choice of what your character should do next in the story; where your choices will bring you down a different branching path in the story, complete with unique stages! Do you choose to chase down Deadeye Joe, or do you choose to head to the lab to save the scientists? It’s your choice to make and it does a great job of encouraging repeat playthroughs as it allows the developers to keep the game to an arcade-like pace, while increasing the number of stages you can play throughout without bogging down the pacing!
Each character also has a completely unique set of weaponry that really sets them apart in a way that Gunstar Heroes never did (or indeed, any other Contra title). As a result, each character plays wildly differently and it’s well worth playing through the game multiple times as each different character (shame the dialogue is shared between all four characters though).
Overall, it’s a fantastic entry in the series, delivering ridiculously over-the-top white knuckle action from start to finish! It’s not quite as good as Contra 3 or Gunstar Heroes, but it’s pretty damn close!
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Switch)
Link comes for Yoshi’s crown as he fights for the coveted title of Cutest Game on Nintendo Switch! This remake of the classic Game Boy title naturally comes along with a huge set of expectations and the dreams of many a weary eyed Zelda fan. But I came at this remake with a different perspective than most people, because for me, this game has another role to fill. To me, this isn’t just a remake of the beloved Game Boy classic, but rather, it represents an alternative future; one that encompasses a potential path forward for the series’ future.
Castaway! You shall have no spoilers here!
I’m sure that many of you will know that I have much disdain for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and what it represents for not just the Zelda series, but for Nintendo as a whole. So when I saw that Link’s Awakening was to be remade, I came at it with a sense of trepidation but also hope. Hope that the classic handcrafted design that I had come to love from Nintendo and the Zelda series had not actually been cast asunder, like driftwood upon salt water; but that the old ways could not only still live, but even thrive.
In that respect, I am of two minds with this remake then. On one hand, I don’t feel that Link’s Awakening actually needed to be remade. The original GB/GBC release was near perfect in its original form and never did I feel a burning need for it to be remade. On the other? We needed a remake of Link’s Awakening; we needed it now more than ever. Why? To show people, in a post BOTW world, in the age of Minecraft, in the age of GAAS, in the age of procedurally generated open-world titles, the value of a classic, handcrafted experience that represents some of the best handcrafted game design that our history has to offer. And Nintendo needed it to prove that they still understood and valued classic handcrafted game design; the way of game making that they made their name off of.
Link’s Awakening is everything that I feel that the Zelda series should be. It is constrained, tightly packed and lovingly crafted. It is the opposite of everything that Breath of the Wild is. And the same is (mostly) true of this remake as it is delightfully faithful to the original game. The same brilliantly crafted world, colourful characters and wonderfully crafted gameplay is all here and accounted for. Nintendo made good on their promise and here they prove that they still care about making classic handcrafted single player experiences (even if Greezo actually did most of the real work here).
I actually appreciated most of the changes made to this remake. The new map system is a straight up improvement, especially the new pin marking feature, as is the expansion of Link’s inventory and button controls (I really appreciate not having to constantly open and close the menu to swap everything all the time!). The small changes made throughout the game to enemy and boss attack patterns are universally positive, as well as the expansions and additions to the gameplay; such as the expanded fishing pond, the changes made to the river rafting game & the trendy game, and the expanded selection of secret seashells and pieces of heart to find. It’s all very well done and it feels like a natural extension of the original game. They’ve also done a brilliant job of capturing the visual and audio design of the original, recapturing what made the original GB game so unique (especially with the hand animated opening and ending cutscene!) Great stuff!
While I vehemently disapprove of the new autosave system, and how much of a blatant concession it is to modern players who demand homogeneity and will have previously been introduced to the series through Breath of the Wild, it thankfully does not come at the expense of the original experience. What does come at an expense though, is the removal of the separated screen scrolling, as it ends up harming the original game’s intended level design cues and is also a likely culprit for the game’s unfortunate performance issues on Switch (a shocking lack of polish that I used to expect from Nintendo; something that sadly betrays the game’s intentions as a return to form). However, these are ultimately minor issues that do not prevent the game from being a shining ray of hope in this most dark of hours.
No lyrics!! No Voice Acting!! THANK HYLIA!!!!
Link’s Awakening doesn’t replace the original Game Boy game for me, but it does extend the original game in some very thoughtful ways and is ultimately the best version of this game. I love most of what they did with this remake; and the Chamber Dungeons are a nice bonus feature, but all of this is ultimately superfluous. I don’t feel that this remake ultimately makes any major improvements that change how I feel about Link’s Awakening; and that’s fine. Link’s Awakening is still one of the best entries in the series and represents some of the very best of classic Nintendo. In this modern era though? That is like finding an oasis in the harshest desert, as it serves as a beacon of hope for Nintendo’s future. Despite Breath of the Wild, despite Super Mario Odyssey, despite Nintendo’s mobile games, despite everything that has happened to Nintendo within the last three years and despite everything that the industry has become; Nintendo have not forgotten their roots. That is the biggest gift that I could have been given.
May Link’s Awakening be representative of Nintendo’s future. Don’t let traditional handcrafted game design die. Please let this old man’s dream come true.
Luigi's Mansion 3
Click me if you dare!
And with that, I’m up to date!
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