We wrote these Would You Rather Questions for the Would Your Rather Game in our mom’s basement. Can’t use Jeopardy questions, can you? So, PLAY, Fool, PLAY! Play SuperGames's best games from the classic sniper shootouts to the magic-wielding ninja fights! Hack and slash your way to bloodbaths and burnt rubber. Kotaku. Track: Propagation.
Super Mario 6. 4 had perfectly paced difficulty. Club. Keyboard Geniusesis our weekly glance at a few intriguing, witty, or otherwise notable posts from the Gameological discussion threads. Comments have been excerpted and edited here for grammar, length, and/or clarity. You can follow the links to see the full threads. Doing It Right This week, I shared some of my thoughts on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the new and improved Nintendo Switch version of the stellar Wii U racer. Down in the comments, the conversation turned toward the legacy of the Wii U and its handful of excellent first- party games. One of those releases, and arguably the one that kicked off the console’s best run, was Super Mario 3. D World, but when it was brought up, Statue Of Limitationsmentioned thinking it was too easy. This started a great discussion about how difficulty has been handled in the Mario games. Dr. Flim. Flam led the way: Mario games are designed so that it’s relatively easy for anyone to beat the story. Extra stars, stamps, and levels are for the more dedicated, and a select few levels are real tests of reflexes and overall skill. I know New Super Mario Bros. U was a lot harder for me, and that doesn’t count the even tougher pseudo- expansion, Super Luigi U. I liked the overall difficulty curve of Super Mario 3. D World just fine, but I’m also not great at most games. Unexpected Davedelivered a detailed appraisal of Super Mario 6. I really loved the difficulty curve in Mario 6. You start out in the castle grounds, which is an almost completely safe environment. That allows you to teach yourself the basics of movement: running, jumping, climbing, and swimming. There are signs to help you, but there’s no directed hand- holding (apart from the intrusion of the Lakitu Bros. There’s no time to stop and admire the scenery, because the cannons are constantly shooting down at you. In order to get to the top of the mountain and throw down with King Bomb, you’ll need to learn how to be nimble and quick. If you miss a jump, the game is still somewhat forgiving (you’ll lose health instead of dying instantly) but only to a point. The stars in this level are worth the same as the stars on Rainbow Ride or Tick- Tock Clock, so the game refuses to coddle you. If you stick with Bob- Omb battlefield, the next task it gives you is the Koopa race. This tests your basic movement skills a little more rigorously: You trace the same path as you did in Star 1, but now there’s less room for error. If you miss too many jumps, you’ll fail. Next you’ll learn a few more valuable lessons about cannons and red coins before you “need” the wing cap to go any further. This forces you to finally leave Bob- Omb Battlefield and venture elsewhere. The next few levels teach you some new tricks and have one or two really nasty challenges, but you should be able to reach the first Bowser level with minimal difficulty. Beating the first Bowser level is another matter altogether, of course. It’s full of all kinds of danger, and it foreshadows what kinds of challenges you’ll face in the castle’s basement stages: fire, moving platforms, and zero tolerance for carelessness. Once you’ve got the first key, you will inevitably need to do some very nasty challenges in order to open the upstairs door. You can skip stars (or even entire stages) that you find particularly annoying, but you’ll have to push yourself out of your comfort zone eventually. Then once you get to Dire, Dire Docks, the game starts to self- reference. You get Water Level 2. Snow Level 2. 0, which incidentally doubles as Lava Level 2. The game throws some advanced mechanics at you in Tiny/Huge and Wet/Dry worlds. Once you finally unlock the top level, you have a choice. You can try two insanely difficult levels, Tick- Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride, or you can go back and dig deeper in the levels you’ve partially cleared already. The game lets you experiment, and find your own way to 7. Beating Bowser for a third time has a sense of finality; there’s no pressure to get all 1. And if you do, the reward is minimal. It just makes it easier to beat your coin high scores, or go back and replay your favorite parts. And Wolfman Jewhad this to add: The number of “main” levels with bottomless pits is surprisingly small (Whomp’s Fortress; Cool, Cool Mountain; Hazy Maze Cave; Tall, Tall Mountain; Tick Tock Clock; Rainbow Ride) but slowly increases over time, which makes sense. They’re much more perilous in 3- D than 2- D. Each new kind of level—interiors, ice, water, desert, fire—introduces its ideas to you in ways that are safe enough to experiment. But you can see each of the early worlds have these cute little spaces just for that purpose or to introduce fun one- off ideas. This design isn’t just to teach you about learning Super Mario 6. D. And I also think it’s really important how the game plays with verticality. You can see it right from the start with Peach’s Castle, but you’re not really allowed to move higher beyond smooth elevation, which is still exciting. Climbing is your first mission in Bob- Omb Battlefield, though, and I think it’s important that it, Whomp’s Fortress, and Big Boo’s Haunt are all about spaces you primarily have to ascend. The basement levels are pretty much all straightaways, with Shifting Sand Land and Lethal Lava Land being more hazardous versions of those playful “garden” areas with their odd ruins and fences. And then, the top floor is based around both working in conjunction, with only three levels being primarily vertical or horizontal. The vertical orientation is the most striking element—and probably the hardest to fully grasp—so it makes sense to prioritize it first with smoother, softer ledges and basic “hill” shapes before the later levels get outright vertiginous. There are no spindly walkways like Clanker’s Cavern from Banjo- Kazooie, and most interior spaces are built to accommodate the camera first and foremost like the large hallways in Hazy Maze Cave and Big Boo’s Haunt. But space slowly becomes less stable as levels have more gaps than ground—Rainbow Ride being the ultimate example of this—with the Bowser levels adding useful difficulty bumps to provide a memorable challenge. He’s Not Heavy, He’s Ryuji Who would’ve thought a power- ranking billed as “inarguable” would inspire so many arguments? That’s what happened in the comments of this week’s installment of Clayton Purdom’s Persona 5 Game In Progress review, as he laid down his takes on all 2. Butterbeanoffered some more nasty words for Yusuke, but stuck up for Ryuji, the first friend your character makes at his new school: From a character perspective, Yusuke is the worst member of the party. He’s an oblivious, pretentious, bland creep who spends a lot of the game trying to convince Ann to pose nude when she has made it abundantly clear she has no desire to do that. It was played for laughs at first, and admittedly led to a funny sight gag with Ann showing up in 2. I also remember being repulsed at least three times by how he spoke to women. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I remember having some “What the fuck?!” reactions to some of his lines. He’s the worst. Ryuji’s constant yelling can be really grating, but at least he’s a ride- or- die friend who you know will have your back no matter what. Yusuke has virtually no redeeming qualities. And Deasim offered up this brutal assessment: I maxed out Ryuji’s confidant link super- fast, and then spent the rest of the game being an absolute dick to him. I seriously treated him like shit, and always picked conversational options designed to make him feel bad and let him know that I think he’s stupid. I never defended him when the rest of the group piled on him, and even when he made a good point, I refused to acknowledge it for the sake of contrariness. But he always came back, and told me I was cool. Sheer guilt at my mistreatment of him, and sadness at how bleak his life must be forced me to acknowledge that yes, I probably am his best friend. Poor bastard. Meanwhile, several commenters, including Drinking With Skeletons, pointed out one underdeveloped character that would’ve made for a great confidant: Lala Escargot should’ve been a confidante—straight up. She’s charming, is one of the few adults in the game to both respect your character and understand healthy adult- teen dynamics, and she offers you the best part- time job in the game. I don’t know what she could offer as a confidant—maybe alternate costumes that let your team learn different skills than they normally would? Thank you for reading and commenting. We’ll see you all next week! The Best Speedruns From SGDQ 2. A lot of people played video games very quickly last week, raising $1. All of the speedruns at Summer Games Done Quick 2. Final Fantasy VII (starts at 1. Yes, I watched this entire eight- hour run. No, I do not regret anything. This is a solid eight hours of precise play, cool tricks, and great commentary—not to mention neat observations on Final Fantasy VII minutiae that you might not have known before. Super Panga World (starts at 1. Super Panga World is a Kaizo- style ROM hack of Super Mario World that would be impossible for most normal people to beat. Fortunately, runner Dodechehedron is not a normal person. This is some truly incredible platforming, performed in less than half the estimated time because Dodechehedron is just that good. Swordless Zelda: Link to the Past (starts at 7: 4. Probably the funniest and most entertaining run of the week, especially if you don’t want to sit through eight hours of Final Fantasy. Andy breaks the hell out of Zelda: Link to the Past here, beating every dungeon in the game without once using a sword. So many weird tricks. Chrono Trigger (starts at 1. Longtime RPG speedrunner Puwexil gives us a master class in how to beat Chrono Trigger in just over three hours, thanks to tricks and glitches. Great commentary, great routing, great video game. Super Mario Series Warpless Relay Race (starts at 3. Watch three teams compete to beat five 2. D Super Mario games in less than three hours. The precision it takes to knock through all of these platformers is impressive, and the runs are fantastic. Super Mario 6. 4 1. Stars (starts at 1. It’s always fun to watch people break classic games, and Super Mario 6. Speedrunner Cheese. One Man Portal 2 Co- Op (starts at 1. Who needs friends when you’ve got two hands? Speedrunner Azorae somehow performs this Portal 2 co- op run entirely by himself. Cave Johnson would be proud. Am I missing any really good ones? Drop your favorites in the comments and we’ll bump’em up.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
November 2017
Categories |