kettunen Posted March 30, 2016 Posted March 30, 2016 First post. Goose bumps and high expectations. Better just get it out of the way then: I'm 36 years old and haven't ever beaten the original Super Mario Bros. despite having owned the NES and other consoles since. Or Castlevania. Or Metroid. Or Mega Man. Yes yes, thought about buying the car and changing the wife instead of whining about a lost childhood identity. But I'm not into them and so very fond of the current one, so there goes that option. She’s also a gamer and they are keepers, aren’t they? But seriously though: Have any of you guys found that a certain "resonance" has to be found with a game for it to be enjoyable? That merely going at it, and finding new gears within yourself to learn the game technically, isn't enough. That mere competence doesn't provide enjoyment. Or have you struggled with resonating together with a game, yet been able to find it satisfying at some point? I had a hard time allowing myself to do this but after about two weeks (an hour or two on most days), a pattern of failure at mostly the same points in the middle of Super Mario lifted its finger at me in a solemn salute. Namely the castles at 5-4 and 6-4, and the level 7-3 with the Cheep Cheeps. The brute force of repeated attempts couldn’t deny the necessity of a step up on the skill ladder. Some “Oh cry, oh sob” and an appropriately subdued sofa pillow later Restore points came to mind. I haven't beaten the game and don't mean to beat the game by scavenging the Restore points. The idea was to accelerate the learning of the game. Having tested my ideas, I was going to put the pieces together by doing proper runs. But in breaking apart and practicing the final world, a numbness set in. Seeing the patterns of the enemies and the solutions to the moving puzzle that is completing the level, there was just no enjoyment. The point of the game seemed to settle down to two ideas: 1) solving the complete puzzle in motion and 2) the tension of being dropped to the beginning upon failure. Learning improved greatly but also something died while the game itself became clearer. To be fair, the parts that had gotten easy enough to be reliably cleared had also become boring even before poking the hard parts with the Restore point scalpel. I just didn't seem to enjoy having gotten them, and now moving through them with concentration and ease. But understanding the hard parts failed me also. Some design decisions felt to be relying on that fear of failure. Lacking that fear, the practice mode attitude revealed the slightly randomized patterns that turned boring once faced with the calm observations of a practice run. First post. A bit long, rambling. As such they come sometimes.
S.C.G Posted March 30, 2016 Posted March 30, 2016 For a first post - indeed a first thread - I find this to be an excellent example. Welcome to our humble yet well-established forum @kettunen also, N-Europe is a lot like the Hotel California... you can check out any time you like but you can never leave! Now that's out of the way, onto the subject matter! So you are in your Thirties and you've never beaten the original Super Mario Bros. well that's OK, I've recently entered my Thirties and I've yet to fully complete a single game from various long-running series including *Castlevania, **Final Fantasy and even ***Fire Emblem! On the subject of games needing to have a certain "Resonance" I completely agree, if I'm simply not feeling anything from a title then I really struggle to continue with it if the game fails to grab me on any level. Then on the other side of things, you need to have something which motivates you as well I feel, titles like Zelda are good at this as you have these amazing adventures to go on in order to complete your quest; on the other hand you can play certain titles you were really fond of back in the day, yet you might not enjoy them quite as much but certain things keep you going such as the promise of rare items... I touched on this with one of my favourite games of all time in a recent Throwback Thursday article which you might find interesting... http://www.n-europe.com/features/throwback-thursday-15-phantasy-star-online But enough of me plugging stuff from our esteemed home page which you're quite possibly already familiar with and back to the topic in question! It is certainly still possible to beat games legitimately, this seems like a silly statement perhaps because of course games can be beaten as that's the whole point but these days with Restore Points on the Virtual Console in particular - which I'm more than familiar with in my line of work, perhaps too much - they are an ever-tempting alternative to just ploughing through the old-fashioned - and still the best - way, though I must stress I tend to use them more on titles I have legitmately beaten in the past so if I need to get through something quickly for a review, they have their uses. Certainly by using these modern tools of convenience you can test out various theories so they are interesting to play around with, as for getting to the end of a difficult game though I think it certainly helps if you are inclined to finish it because the motivation is still there and always has been from the start but there has to be a point for certain titles where you are merely just learning on particular section just so you can get past that "one bit" but once that obstacle has been overcome I'd imagine in most cases the game would become fun again, for a time... until the next trial. I wish you the very best in your quest though, indeed I look forward to hearing about it in this thread as I'm sure many of our other forum members will and I hope that we will witness many more engaging threads just like this one from yourself in the future. : peace: Anyway, back to the Mushroom Kingdom with you for now as it needs saving! Remember these key pieces of advice told to us through various games over the years... It's dangerous to go alone - so check back on the forum if you desire advice or just a break - Never give up! Trust your instincts! - wise words indeed which I'm sure many of us live by - and of course... The princess is always in another castle... until she isn't and you've beaten the game of course. :awesome: *Well there was Lords of Shadow but that really doesn't count for much of the series. **Again I would say that Crystal Chronicles on the Nintendo Gamecube really doesn't count as it's more of a spin-off. ***Though in fairness, we didn't really gain wide-spread access to this fantastic franchise until little over a decade ago but still... ample time for me to have potentially finished one!
Rummy Posted March 31, 2016 Posted March 31, 2016 I too second S.C.G's sentiments, a great thread to start off with and let me also extend a great welcome to our community @kettunen! Personally, I've replayed a lot of old Mario games, often more than once - but SMB1 and Lost Levels have always been a bit of an exception. I just find them frustrating, and not aged well. For their time - sure, great games. Now though? Not so much. I've less time and patience for the 'bastard-hard' approach, even if Mario doesn't meet it, but the constant trial-and-error learning that used to be used to make a game longer just doesn't work for me now - when I was a kid with more time in the world I'd played them through completely as part of All-Stars, but I've just never had an urge to go back to them particularly - any time I have it's been straight up warp cheating to World 8 any way.
kettunen Posted March 31, 2016 Author Posted March 31, 2016 Thank you both for the generous comments. It's nice to make a bit of a splash coming in, having only lurked about for so long.
Recommended Posts