Replays (SMRPG EP. 03) – A quickie

This session was played on Wednesday 11th of July. Run time: 1:12

Advancing further on, I have gone down in the caves of Mole Town. Although I have not beaten the boss yet, since I am still spelunking, I am advancing steadily. Interesting for me this time was the inclusion of certain characters from the Donkey Kong series, such as a brain-washed Donkey Kong. It is quite funny how many characters of other games tend to appear. I already encountered link sleeping in a bed next to me, but I also know Samus to be doing the same in some other city.

Not much else to critique, but it turns out there has been recently released a little review on the game. I may not concur with everything the guy says, but definitely it is worth a little look into it:

More will be commented next post!

Nai ainur raituvar tietyanna!

A little poem in Quenya. It is based on two of Tolkien’s works, Markirya and Namárië. I may not be a great poet, but I think this one ended up looking nice.

The content depicts the sadness of the elves as they leave Middle-Earth and see that man stays behind. Here he is represented as a deaf folk, unable to listen to the song that ties existence together.

Nai ainur raituvar tietyanna!

Replays (SMRPG EP. 02) – On Grinding

This session was played on Friday the 6th. Run time: 1:12.

The game goes on. I have last session finished the tutorial-like gameplay and have finally set out to my adventure, getting the first star back. The whole business with the shy-guys was quite funny. Before I entered that boss, though, I decided to grind. This is a magical word in the RPG genre, and it has been a very though point in the debate. Compared to normal platformers, the standard RPG is always riddled with the obligatory sections of killing enemies just for the sake of the experience and to get to a better level to eliminate the next boss. Some just don’t like the idea.

For me this mechanic has been a core experience when going into games. I prefer this grinding method, not because it makes me feel better, but because it permits me to relax the mind for a while. I usually end up thinking the most unimaginable thinks while pressing a few buttons and watching my character grow.

There is something to be said about grinding. There are times this can be exaggerated. While it is nice to have now and then a moment of respite and some time to think about the next great philosophy, others just want you to sit on the A button for an eternity to advance. I usually measure the greatness of an RPG depending on the times you will have to grind to unlock the next part of a story. We have to remember that we play those games because of the epic story lines that develop. In other words, an RPG acts often as a book, where you can travel along the story and do mini games, side quests and other things that do not follow the completion, to take a break, while we enjoy our capacity of decision-making that video games allow us to have. Something like a book with distractions for when we get bored of the story without exiting the world that has been so beautifully presented to us.

My general rule of thumb is around three to five great grinding sessions. Too many and the game will be frustrating and boring, showing us how the difficulty spikes are constant and require us to stay in the same areas for too long. My war cry at this moment is always: “Just let me go on with the %&@! story!”. On the other hand, fewer grinding sessions usually speak of an easy game, which flows. Those types of RPGs are fine, since they permit you to continue without stopping, but sometimes make you miss forced stops to appreciate the details around your normal storyline.

An example of a game that has too many grinding stops is Sword of Hope. When I found the second game on my 3DS’s virtual store, I was quite amazed. I only had played the first iteration, and it was quite bad, since I was the only party member who had to fight incredibly tough foes at every turn. It was easier to grind for three hours at each zone instead of being instantly poisoned, paralyzed and then killed of by a group of three enemies. I just downloaded the game to see if there had been some improvements on the formula. There were some, namely the capacity of having one more member with an occasional third from time to time. But the main frustrating elements were still there: grinding, grinding, grinding.

In SMRPG I have now engaged a little session of grinding, just to make sure I could beat the first boss, and it was not too bad. I enjoy the mechanic of paying constantly attention to the game, to get the criticals flowing, and the session did not last longer than ten minutes. Also, I got some new stuff, which made the little effort worth it. My general level is still low, but I think I can manage the game with two sessions of grinding, which is great for an RPG game, easy to follow.

The story is now rolling and Mallow has a “destiny” in front of him. Still, the isometric view drives me crazy. Next session I will have Geno standing on my side, so I am greatly looking forward to it!

Nai ainur raituvar tietyanna!

Replays (SMRPG EP. 01) – “Tutorialling”

This Replay was done on Monday the 6th of June. Total run time: 1:03

So here is the first hour of replaying Super Mario RPG. Basically this means that most of the game I have relived is the “tutorial”, in other words, the whole ‘teaching the player the mechanics of the game’. How this game handles it is quite interesting, since it is not only a text tutorial, but also an experienced tutorial, much like the Mega Man X game on the SNES. But later on that.

I finally sat down to play the first hour of the game, beer in hand and some leftover potato chips from Domino’s, ready to tackle the first memories. It was quite funny for the first moments to see the intro, which tells us the basic story: Bowser kidnaps that dumb princess again, Mario after them. This is quite a misleading intro though, since once you start the game, the real bad guy is this big sword part of the “Smith Gang”.

The real use of this intro sequence is thus, take us into familiar territory. Once I started the game, it replayed the intro, unskippable by the way. It may be a few seconds long, but if this is in the preview video, why not make it skippable? Anyway, it turns out that between the start screen and that video, there is a piece of story, which takes you into familiar territory: rescue the princess. This time around, you get to experiment a bit with the new style of the game, finding some smaller Hammer Bros blocking your way. Then an epic battle with Bowser on two chandeliers, which, as far as I know, is not that normal. Also, to add to the familiarity in this weirdly changed format, Bowser arrives in the clown mobile, or whatever that thing in Super Mario World was. For my play-through, it seemed like a quite natural thing, since I already knew the dynamics, but I must imagine how many people must have felt. The weirdness of the situation, in which the familiar mashes with what will become the predominant way of playing is just unfathomable now, after a few iterations of the RPG-styled Mario.

Quite funny are the graphics. Although not as impressive as they had been a few years back, they still hold this funny charm. Seeing Mario constantly break the laws of physics to silently tell what we already know does lead to some smile inducing scenes, and Bowser’s crying is just to epically funny! The characters acquire here a funny 3D modelling that I kinda miss today, which makes them look pudgy. Yep, definitely a good bunch of nostalgia built up during the first half hour.

After tutorialling (I know it’s not a word!) my way through the first battles, I finally get to advance the story and meet the first character, what I suppose will be the wizard class of my group. Mallow, the not so froggy frog, was forgotten in my first appraisal of the game. Immediately I am on the brink of deciding what each of the characters is supposed to be in an RPG. Is this Mallow, the cloud person, supposed to be my spell caster and Mario my fighter? I definitely am here on a crossroad at the moment. And no, I am not picking up a guide for that. The first time I played it I did not have one, but I got through the game fine enough, even being able to beat the hardest enemy of the game. So why not do it again? Plus, there are a lot of hints on the function of each character.

Mario is the hammer wielding hero, who jumps on the enemies, so he is most probably the fighter. Mallow presents himself by conjuring up storms while crying, which makes him most definitely a wizard in my standards. This is exactly what I like about this tutorial. Yes, there are the boring scripted parts, where Toad teaches you the mechanics in an seemingly unending text, like the timed critical hit and the use of items, but at the same time much is taught to you through the story through subtle hints and association. I have no manual, since I bought the game in a loose cartridge, so I don’t know if there are further hints. But until now the game has been teaching me the basics sometimes screaming in my face, other times just silently letting me watch the details. Besides, I think I never noticed this until now, with a few years extra of playing. Quite ingenious!

Also, the jokes tend to blend in with the story pretty good. The chancellor of the Mushroom Kingdom, a toad himself, bellows “Spores alive!” and one of the powers the big Hammer Bro uses against me is “Hammer Time” which just brings me back memories of baggy pants and constant affirmations of me being able not to touch someone.

The only thing I have found off-putting up to now is the isometric view, which is conjuring up some images of platforming issues, but I think I will comment this later, when the issues arise.

Also, a lot more things have come into my mind, but I diligently made some notes on these and I will bring them up as I progress on the story, so I don’t run out of ideas during the next parts. There is really a lot of gold in this game, which makes my nostalgic factor feel heightened, even after all those years I had not played the game. I am really looking forward for the next hours!

Nai ainur raituvar tietyanna!

Replays SMRPG Ep. 00

Games come and go. Some just appear. Then others stay in our years for decades to come. Nostalgia is something that plagues many of us. And how many times does not this blind us and even sometimes, when we return to that classic game, disappoint us. Some games just don’t survive the passing of time. Mario 64 is one of those that comes to my mind immediately. Yes, it was a great game back in the day, but today the camera alone kills me so much that part of the fun is gone.

 So this is the idea of this series on this blog. I will replay, little by little old games that were part of my childhood, maybe one day one I never played, giving my thoughts on the game while I finish it. the idea is to play an hour of the game and gather my thoughts on it, trying to think not only how this game has changed, but also some random things. Take it as a constant rambling while enjoying an oldie, but goodie.

For this first time I will tike one of my favorites. Super Mario RPG was one of the last (if not the last) game developed by Square back in the days of the Super Nintendo, very well at the end of the console’s life cycle. What followed after that was a painful, yet fruitful departure of the master of RPGs into other consoles. Super Mario RPG in itself was also a departure of the normal game-play style that was normally the meat and bones of Mario Bros., which is the platformer.

I will have to concede here that I played this game much later than originally intended, since It was well at the end of the N64 era that I got hold of a copy of that game and a SNES, since my parents were not big fans of me playing games. But the effect it had in me was great. Back then I was already a big fan of the RPG genre and I had already played a few good ones and a few bad ones, Sword of Hope being one of my strongest memories. The game, even in the light of the new console, looked quite amazing to me. The game itself just was grand. I remember that it was littered with jokes and some interesting references, such as cameos by Link, Samus (whom I did not know back then) and even a Final Fantasy Boss. I got to fight him and beat him, making it one of the few games I had completed. After that I looked forward to playing other Mario RPG installments, being the Game Boy Advance one (Mario and Luigi) the most prominent one.

What do I remember from this game?

Not much really. There was this new character, everyone seemed to love, a wooden figure. Then there was this weird, yet epic alliance between Mario and Bowser, to gain back the castle. One thing that had bothered me though was the level cap that, if my memory serves me correctly, was somewhere around the 30, pretty low for what I was used for. There was also a team of Power Ranger look-alikes. For a teen that hated the Power Rangers like me, every time I beat them it was the source of some satisfaction.

So, yes, the game had a lot to offer and a lot to remember. I even put the game as one of my most nostalgic memories, which is why I got excited when I found a copy at my local retro store. Now that I can replay it, I am just thinking on how much I am going to enjoy it. In any case, I want to share those thoughts, maybe you can agree on this. I hope this review/Let’s play mixture of game will tell me if the game is still good after those many years.

I am expecting to be able to put out at least one article on my replay every week, since my work time swallows up a lot of my play time. Let’s also see how much time it will take me to finish it. lastly, let’s hope you will enjoy those thoughts too!

Nai ainur raituvar tyetyanna!