The 'Shroom:Issue 113/Strategy Wing

Director Notes
Written by:

Hello everyone and welcome to this month's issue of Strategy Wing. I have a couple announcements to make. I would like to welcome aboard this sub-team. He will be joining me in Party Trick! I have had a lot of fun collaborating with him on the article, and I believe that together we can have it reach new heights. Be sure to check it out!

Additionally, I have a request for you all. Below the Section of the Month Results, I have a survey. I want to know what our audience, writers, staff, etc. would like to see from this sub-team. If you can, please fill it out. Do you want to see more Mario sections? Less? Larger sections? Smaller sections? I'd like to know.

That's all I have for news, but I'd like to once again thank all the writers of this sub-team for their hard work they put into writing their articles. With that, I will leave you all with the issue. Enjoy.

Mario Kart: Wheel Tips Corner
Written By:

Hello 'Shroom racers! And welcome to Mario Kart Wheel Tips Corner, here I plan to give you just some extra tips to help you with your racing, or just some changes in a track that might catch you off guard if you aren't prepared for them. So the lights are out, let's start racing.

Kool Karts
You can't race if you don't have a Kart to do it in, so in this section I'll give you some facts about a Kart, Bike, ATV or even tyres and gliders that you can use hopefully for racing success.

This month's Kool Kart is the Soda Jet. This Kart has bonuses to its speed, air speed, acceleration, air handling, mini-turbo and drift stats. However, its sea speed, weight and off-road stats add negatives instead of positives.

This means that at the start of the race you'll get up to a pretty nifty top speed quite quickly, although as both only add 0.25 don't expect to be rocketing ahead. However, you are quite well set up to rocket ahead, since the increase in your drift stat means you can take corners closer and due to your mini-turbo bonus you'll get rewarded longer for getting the red flames. With the air stats increase you'll easily be able to overtake opponents when in the air. However, they will get the last laugh if the course features primarily underwater as you'll lose speed there, heavier Karts will also be able to easily knock you around and if they knock you into grass or other off-track terrain, you'll be stuck there a while as this Kart cannot cope with that.

What's Changed?
Retro tracks are now a huge portion of the Mario Kart games, typically amounting to half the courses in the game. But usually these courses change some things up, so in this section I'll help you find out "What's Changed" in the retro tracks.

This time we're going to take a look at one of my least favourite tracks, Shy Guy Beach. This track first appeared in Mario Kart: Super Circuit before returning in Mario Kart Wii. There were graphical changes as per usual, but there were also quite a few other changes. More parasols, palm trees and Sidesteppers were added; a banner was placed above the start / finish line as opposed to being left empty; Parasols can be destroyed through the use of certain items, even though they'll pop up again; and the pirate ship cannonballs became more annoying, they now stick in the ground and if a driver is caught up in their blast they'll be flung upwards.

Ace Shortcut
In this small section I give you a way to shave a few seconds off your time, whether you know about it or not. Be warned, most of these shortcuts will require a Mushroom.

This issue I bring you a shortcut from Big Blue.

Now you'll have to trust me for this one, on the water section of the track if you stay on the top path, there's a point where you can hop off the track and when you land you'll have skipped an entire corner.

Let's Play Showcase
Written By:

Hello, 'Shroom readers! Superchao here again, for yet another Let's Play Showcase! While I went with a medium-sized name for my first section, and a pretty big one for my second, this time around I'm going to be talking about someone who I'm very sure you haven't heard of. That would be Gesh86, a German Youtube LPer who likes to focus on the Touhou franchise. While he hasn't established a high profile, that doesn't stop him from playing through what he likes and taking you along for an enjoyable ride. He's one of the most earnest LPers I can think of offhand, picking less-commonly LPed game and having a lot of fun with it.

Gesh's style primarily works on striking a balance between comedic and informative. Rather than just describing what's happening and how it works, he likes to mix it up with jokes about the game, a staple of most LPers. It's hard to explain, but I think his jokes are always pretty solid, more than some other people. In the same way as the MDC or Bidkip, his material doesn't feel forced, but it seems to all come naturally as he talks along. The jokes flow well with the information, allowing you to both learn and be entertained at the same time. With how obscure a lot of his Touhou choices to LP are, explanations are essential, and Gesh explains things just fine!

Of course, since nearly all of his Let's Plays are Touhou, why would I not link a Touhou one as an example? One of his better-done LPs in both quality and discussion is Touhou Koukishin, following the adventures of Sakuya Izayoi and Remilia Scarlet as they pursue mysteries around the world of Gensokyo. It's a pretty solid playthrough, good for both people interested in the series and those who haven't heard of it before. The hack and slash gameplay allows for both tense boss fights and strong enemies, and lulls in the middle that let Gesh talk about the mechanics in peace. It's not broken up by long downtimes, though; any really major pauses are edited out, allowing for a good constant pace throughout the entire playthrough. He does a good job of explaining characters and setting, keeping it interesting for people who don't know the series but not boring people who do. Overall, if you want to see a good cross-section of the Touhou series and a fun hack and slash game, and have some engaging commentary to keep you along with it, I'd recommend it highly.

It's not just Touhou, though. There's some non-Touhou, and some very good non-Touhou at that. This can be easily seen in his LP of Metroid II Return of Samus, that game boy classic where Samus Aran goes through the mysterious depths of SR-388 to eliminate all of the Metroids. It's a pretty good summarization of Gesh's style in a relatively short LP; while each video is only 15 minutes, that doesn't stop him from cramming a good amount of content into each of those minutes. You get his usual joking style, with the addition of some of his own stories about the game. There's really not that much to say about it compared to Kokushin, but if you don't have that much time, I'd say you should go for this one to get used to how he plays through things.

If there's any fault I could name, I suppose it would be that he doesn't stand out majorly compared to other LPers. A lot of the big names usually have a highly distinctive style, but Gesh's can't be easily summed up or defined; it's just him talking as he plays a game. In some ways, though, that might be a help; no pressure to stick to a specific style over just talking as he goes. Either way, I highly recommend giving him a chance and listening to one of the LPs, he's even got a new one in progress if you want to follow along as it goes. Trust me, I wouldn't showcase someone who I didn't think deserved this quality spot!

Party Trick!
Written By:, and

Hello, 'Shroom readers, here. In this exciting second instalment (the previous instalment was last month) of Party Trick!, we'll be looking at some more mini-games that are featured throughout the series. We've already looked at some games from the early eras of the Mario Party series, but today we're going to be looking at some from the middle era of Mario Party. The first one I want to shine light on is Take Me Ohm, a 4-player mini-game from Mario Party 7. The setting is simple: you're in a circular arena with electricity generators around the perimeter of the arena, and there are Thwomps circling the arena that generate beams of electricity when they land on a switch. The idea of this mini-game is to avoid the electrical beams that form and if you're the last person standing or the time limit of 30 seconds has expired, you win cash. A pretty noob-ish mistake in this mini-game is purely focussing on the arena. This is a bad strategy because if you do, you will never be able to properly know where the next row of electricity will be moving around on the arena, leaving you open for attack by your opponents. A good way to counterbalance this weakpoint is to first get a good feel for how fast the beams move, and then use that knowledge in conjunction with looking where the Thwomps land so you can plan your move several seconds ahead of time. This should give you the edge in this mini-game, and earn you a nice win.

Next up is the Mario Party 5 mini-game, Fish Upon a Star. In this very hectic 4-player mini-game all players must manage to survive on a star made out of several small segments that is continuously being destroyed by Cheep Cheep-lookalike flying missiles. These missiles come in two sizes: small and large. The small ones only destroy one or at most two segments, whilst a large one can remove a huge chunk of the arena. One thing you have to keep in mind in this mini-game is that you can battle your opponents by jumping, punching or kicking them. If you punch or kick an opponent, they will be launched a short distance. If you can strategically time it so they fall into the abyss, you will be victorious in this mini-game. But don't think offence can take you so far: you're also going to need some pretty good defence if you want to win this one. What you should do is try anticipating what your opponents will do in any given situation. Make sure you think about which person is the closest to you, and keep an extra eye on them. There's nothing more infuriating than aiming a good attack, only to see you've let your defence down and you're suddenly shoved off the arena because your defence was lacking.

The third and final mini-game we're going to be talking about is Wrasslin' Rapids, a battle mini-game featured in Mario Party 6. The mini-game is set on a raft that floats down a river. Your goal here is to survive by not being tossed off the raft at any point and last to the end of the ride to win the most coins. The controls are exactly the same as literally every mini-game that features 3-D movement in the GameCube era of the Mario Party series. What is more is that you will need to look out for outside obstacles as well. But this is just the standard tips and tricks, and they will only take you so far. What I'm asking of you here is to hone your negotiation skills whilst avoiding your opponents. See, if you're playing with humans you can use this advanced technique called 'talking to your opponents' to try to make them cooperate to evenly distribute the coins at the end. Sure, this may be less fun for the players that just want to kick your ass into the water, but it can help if you're feeling unsure about your reaction times (why you are playing Mario Party and not a jRPG or a Visual Novel if you're worried about reaction times is another question entirely). Regardless of your reaction times, you may now use this ability of betraying everyone else's trust by kicking them into the water. Sure, you'll make everyone else angry, but if you're not making them angry then you're playing Mario Party the wrong way.

Hey there everyone! On my end, we'll be going insane as we take a look at Toad's Midway Madness. This board is in Mario Party 4, and is hosted by Toad. This map takes place in an amusement park, and has plenty of twisting tricks to pull.

Players start in the bottom right corner, indicated by the Start Space. They move left towards the spinning tea cups. When someone approaches the tea cup, they will spin, then exit in the direction that the arrow is pointing. However, the arrow will then switch to the other direction. The arrow can only face two possible directions, and the only way to trigger a switch is to have someone pass by it, or trigger a Happening Space. You will want to make sure to do everything you can to hitch a ride on the tea-cups on the right direction to get to the Star. It does wind down to just luck, but if you happen to have an item to manipulate your dice roll, it can come in handy. For example, if you are far away and it looks as if someone might get on before you, perhaps you could use a Mega Mushroom to barrel through them (just be careful if the Star is right after the tea cups). Alternatively, if you are about to get sent off in a direction you don't want to go in, a Mini Mushroom might be able to save the day. The Happening Spaces directly next to each respective tea cup area is the one that changes direction, so all sorts of crazy things can happen. There's been plenty of players that have been stuck going around in circles the whole game. It's important to do as much as you can to make sure you take the right path.

The other notable feature of this board is the roller coaster. The spaces with an orange line under them are ones that the roller coaster can pass. Whenever the roller coaster moves from one end of the map to the other, all players on that same path will be pushed along. The roller coaster can be in one of two places. It starts in the bottom left below the Lottery Shop. When it moves, it will be in the top right, next to the Boo Shop. The roller coaster will not move unless it has been triggered, and it will stay where it stops until it is triggered again. Basically, it's important to remember where the coaster is, because it can help you get a quick shortcut, or send you back a long way. There are two ways to activate the coaster. The first, is to land on any of the 7 Happening Spaces that there are along the roller coaster's path. The other, is to pay Toad to take you to the other side by passing him at one of the stops. If you take the roller coaster this way, you can also earn some coins along the way. The roller coaster makes a big aspect of this board, so it's a good idea to be aware of what it can do to either help or hurt your adventure.

Finally, let's take a look at the mini-minigames for this board. To play a mini-minigame, you will need a Mini Mushroom. There are two of them on this map. The first one is at the very top left. To get to it, you have to be small to be able to fit through the mini pipe, and still have enough spaces (or another Mini Mushroom) in order to be able to play it. In this one, you will have three rockets to choose from. It will then move on a path and give you a certain amount of coins. The rocket will move straight up, but if it hits a horizontal line, it will move across in that direction. You will be rewarded with 5, 10, or 20 coins. No matter what rocket you choose you still win something, but it's a good idea to get that free 20 coins, as that's essentially the price of a Star. The other mini minigame is all the way to the right, and looks like a carnival. When you enter, you will be on a horse, spinning around a merry-go-round as another wheel spins within that. When you push the A button, you stop dead in your tracks, and the wheel will slowly progress to a stop. You will win whatever item it lands on. It could be just a Mini Mushroom, but it could also be Boo's Crystal Ball or a variety of other items.

That's all! Have a great party, and I hope you're not ruining your friendships too hard!

Mario Calendar
Written By:

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to August's Mario Calendar!! Let's jump straight to the list of Mario-related games released on an August day, which are as follows:


 * August 1st (NA):
 * 1992: Mario Paint (SNES)
 * 1993: Super Mario All-Stars (SNES)
 * August 3rd
 * 2007 (UK): Mario Party 8 (Wii)
 * 2011 (JP): Alleyway (GB-3DSVC)
 * August 4th
 * 1999 (JP): Game & Watch Gallery 3 (GBC)
 * 2011 (NA): Mario's Picross (GB-3DSVC)
 * August 5th, 2015 (JP): Super Mario RPG (SNES-WiiUVC)
 * August 6th, 2015 (EU): Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber (NDS-WiiUVC)
 * August 7th
 * 2010 (KO): New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
 * 2013 (EU): Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES-3DSVC)
 * 2015 (AU): DK: Jungle Climber (NDS-WiiUVC)
 * August 8th
 * 2012 (JP): Mario Open Golf (NES-3DSVC)
 * 2013:
 * (JP): Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES-WiiUVC)
 * (AU): Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES-3DSVC)
 * August 9th, 2007 (JP): Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber (NDS)
 * August 10th
 * 1989 (EU): Donkey Kong Classics (NES)
 * 1994 (JP): Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman! (GB)
 * 1999 (JP): Mario Golf (GBC)
 * 2004 (JP): Famicom Mini: Super Mario Bros. 2 (GBA)
 * 2007 (JP): Super Mario USA (NES-WiiVC)
 * August 11th
 * 1989 (NA): Alleyway (GB)
 * 2000 (JP): Mario Story (N64)
 * 2013 (NA): Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (3DS)
 * August 12th, 2008 (KO): Yoshi's Egg (NES-WiiVC)
 * August 13th, 1991 (NA): Super Mario World (SNES)
 * August 15th, 1995 (JP): Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES)
 * August 17th, 2012 (EU): New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) – Retail (except IT) and Digital (all countries)
 * August 18th, 2012 (AU): New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) – Retail and Digital
 * August 19th, 2012 (NA): New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) – Retail and Digital
 * August 20th, 2015 (EU): Wario: Master of Disguise (NDS-WiiUVC)
 * August 21st
 * 1995 (NA): Mario's Tennis (VB)
 * 2001 (JP): Wario Land Advance: Yōki no Otakara (GBA)
 * 2015 (AU): Wario: Master of Disguise (NDS-WiiUVC)
 * August 22nd
 * 2008 (EU/AU): Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES-WiiVC)
 * 2012 (JP): Yoshi no Tamago (NES-3DSVC)
 * August 23rd, 2012 (EU/AU):
 * Donkey Kong Jr. (NES-3DSVC)
 * Mario Open Golf (NES-3DSVC)
 * August 24th
 * 1995 (EU): Donkey Kong Land (GB)
 * 2007 (EU/AU): Wrecking Crew (NES-WiiVC)
 * 2012 (IT): New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) – Retail
 * August 25th (NA):
 * 2008: Mario Super Sluggers (Wii)
 * 2013: New Super Luigi U (Wii U)
 * August 26th
 * 2002 (NA): Super Mario Sunshine (GCN)
 * 2004 (JP): Super Mario Ball (GBA)
 * 2008 (KO): NES Open Tournament Golf (NES-WiiVC)
 * August 27th
 * 1992 (JP): Super Mario Kart (SNES)
 * 1993 (JP): Mario & Wario (SNES)
 * 2001 (NA): Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA)
 * August 28th
 * 1997 (UK): Game & Watch Gallery (GB)
 * 2000 (NA): Mario Tennis (N64)
 * 2014:
 * (NA): Donkey Kong Jr. Math (NES-WiiUVC)
 * (EU/AU): Mario Golf: Advance Tour (GBA-WiiUVC)
 * August 29th
 * 1991 (EU/AU): Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
 * 2000 (JP): Mario Artist: Polygon Studio (N64DD)
 * 2005 (NA): Mario Superstar Baseball (GCN)
 * August 31st, 2010 (JP): Mario Tennis 64 (N64-WiiVC)
 * August 1996 (NA): Tetris Attack (SNES/GB)

That's it, everyone!! See you next month!!