The 'Shroom:Issue 100/Critic Corner
Director's Notes
Written by: Crocodile Dippy (talk)
Before I get into the main festivities, I just want to pay my respects to a deeply passionate and important figure in our beloved games industry; Satoru Iwata, who was the president and CEO of Nintendo for a good thirteen years between 2002-2015 until his passing at the age of 55 just last week on July 11th. I have a love-hate relationship with Nintendo, due in no short part to the almost cult-like fanbase, but this genuinely hit me in the gut hard… Iwata was always passionate about the fun and life-changing experiences video games can offer to us, and like Reggie, was always able to make gaming an exciting, funny, and colourful environment to be in. Gaming has lost a great trooper today, and it’s with the utmost respect that I honour his passing. You were a great man, Satoru Iwata-san; you continue to live on in our hearts. See The 'Shroom staff’s tribute to Satoru Iwata for more.
So to move on from that; happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday, dear hideous blue Australian sniping electric rat thing! Happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Haha, you bloody pikers don’t know the half of why such an occasion deserves to be shouted from the heavens, ordained as a sacred day of worship and reverential contemplation in awe of the magnificent Crocodile Dippy! For on this very day, yes the very release day of this issue, I have finally stepped over the line of semi-adulthood into the realm of true adulthood, as I am officially now 21 years old! Which would mean a lot more to me personally, but Australians are allowed to legally drink grog at the age of 18, so I’ve been pissed out of my brains for three years already! Jokes on you lot!
So on a more serious note, THANK YOU to all our wonderful writers and readers who have helped us reach this momentous 100 ISSUE SPECIAL for The 'Shroom! So hard to believe that this whole project started as such a small and silly idea from the wacky mind of HK-47 (talk) back in late 2006, to become a massive, multi-facet machine fuelled by the love and effort of the MarioWiki’s fantastic community! Critic Corner, if you may remember, started in Special Issue 64 as among the big special changes made for what’s been considered our best release yet. I proposed the idea after noticing an increasing interest in review sections, and after a great deal of work, we got it going steadily into until-now the most stylised team of The 'Shroom. I’ve been around for most of that time, aside from late 2013 and all of 2014, and I am so glad to have you all with me to keep Critic Corner and The 'Shroom in general alive and beautiful for everyone.
Several sections have been added and/or moved here into Critic Corner, including Character Comparison, Game Comparison, Location, Location, Graphic Novel Reviews, and Television Series Reviews, which are all open to be filled in over at our new and improved sign-up page! Check 'em all out!
Anywho, we have a massive writer turnout this month, which is fan-bloody-tastic! Yoshi876 (talk), Pyro (talk), FunkyK38 (talk), and myself, have all done our best to ensure our sections are particularly special for you today, and we have Marshal Dan Troop (talk) writing Virtual Console Reviews on a permanent basis now, with Nabber (talk) as his editor, so look forward to that every month. One-time guest sections have been provided by Henry Tucayo Clay (talk), MrConcreteDonkey (talk), and myself, which has all added up into the highest quantity of sections Critic Corner has ever seen. I’m so proud to be here on this occasion. We also have a lovely reformat for y’all, done by Twentytwofiftyseven (talk) and me, and a stunning portrait of my adorable self, drawn by Gabumon (talk). Don’t get the gag in the portrait? Clearly, you are not a Team Fortress 2 fan. Last but not least, we have Smiley the Hun (talk), who graciously drew me a beautiful celebration for my birthday. Thank you so much, you adorable little muffin.
Hey, don’t let me keep you any longer. Enjoy the show, check out all the amazing content we have for you today, and please, have a fantastic time. That’s what we’re here to provide!
Section of the Month
| CRITIC CORNER SECTION OF THE MONTH | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Section | Votes | % | Writer |
| 1st | Character Review | 11 | 55% | Yoshi876 (talk) |
| 2nd | Crocodile Style Reviews | 7 | 35% | Crocodile Dippy (talk) |
| 3rd | Fangame Review | 2 | 10% | Pyro (talk) |
Yoshi876, to everyone’s great surprise, displays his fondness for Yoshi.
[read more]
Funky is the hero that the ‘Shroom deserves, but not the one it needs right now.
[read more]
MCD hits and runs the people responsible for taking away what Should Have Been.
[read more]
Character Reviews
Yoshi
It's the big one. 'Shroom Issue 100, so for the Character Review I thought I'd treat you folks to what will probably be an extremely biased review seeing as it will be of my favourite character in the series, Yoshi.
As an idea, Yoshi came about following the release of Super Mario Bros. in 1985, as Shigeru Miyamoto stated that he wanted Mario to have an animal companion on his adventures. Unfortunately, graphical limitations kept us from meeting this companion until the release of Super Mario World on the (then) new console, the SNES. However, this is the only time Yoshi is actually important within the main series Mario platformers, here they were required to get keys to progress further into the levels which created a fun gameplay mechanic. But after that, he and his species were just relegated to certain levels and all they do in those is eat enemies and nab the occasional star coin.
In the platformers, Yoshi is seen more as a member of a species rather than an individual, but in the 3D games, this is thankfully an entirely different story (not counting Sunshine, or whatever the hell they were thinking for Galaxy). Whilst his appearance in Super Mario 64 is just simply a shoe-in, all he does is congratulate the player and give them more lives and a make a grammatical error, he took on a lot more important in Super Mario 64 DS, where he is the key character; without him, Mario would still be trapped. This was absolutely amazing, gone were the days of shite speech giving, and here were the days of full playable appearances in main series games. Yeah, no. In Super Mario Galaxy they decided all Yoshi was worth was a cameo, and whilst this was fixed for Super Mario Galaxy 2, it was still a massive kick in the nuts that a character was simply relegated to a freaking planet.
Yoshi would go on to make various appearances in spin-offs, but these are kind of annoying as yet again his individuality is called into question. How can we be sure that the scared shitless Yoshi in Mario Tennis Open is the same guy as the smug Yoshi who appears in Super Smash Bros. Melee? You can't, really, which is a shame with the overall character; for his design they should have given him some unique crest or something that makes him stand out from the rest of the crowd. The only time a possible Yoshi has appeared as a single entity is in the Super Smash Bros. Brawl mode The Subspace Emissary, but like with Super Mario 64 this feels like a shoe-in, Yoshi serves no overall purpose to the plot, and it feels like he's in the mode because he's a character in the game.
Many of you are probably waiting for me to throw my hat in and get cracking onto the Yoshi's Island series. Well here's that part of the review. In these games, Yoshi is given nothing other than being a peace-loving block alongside his species, which totally explains why they kill an entire island worth of creatures and ransack their castles. That's basically it, in a series that focuses entirely on Yoshi and his species the developers do nothing to stand him out from the crowd, or give any meaningful form of characterization, which is one of the biggest mistakes in the overall Mario series.
Overall, character wise Yoshi gets nothing. He's a kind dinosaur that helps out small children when they need him. That's literally it. However, there is one thing to note that is very interesting; various bios have depicted him in a relationship with Birdo, who according to varying sources is transgender. This makes Yoshi one of the most accepting characters within the franchise, which arguably makes him the kindest out of the whole Mario bunch.
Anyone who knows me, should know my thoughts on Yoshi, he's my favourite character in the entire franchise, even though he less characterization than unfinished characters in my unfinished novel. I like Yoshi so much that not even the childish incarnation who gets confused by simple arithmetic in the Super Mario World television series put me off. I wish there was something that'd make him stand out in the spin-off rosters, but as long as he continues to make appearances there I will continue to choose him until the end of time, and beyond.
Marioverse Reviews
Written by: Crocodile Dippy (talk) (featuring Ironclad)
| Yoshi’s Wooly World | |||||||||
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| Developer | Good-Feel | ||||||||
| Publisher | Nintendo | ||||||||
| Platform(s) | Wii U | ||||||||
| Genres | Platformer | ||||||||
| Rating(s) |
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| Available From | |||||||||
- Everyone
- Three years and older
- All ages
- GeneralThis probably won’t earn me many fans around these parts, but I must confess that I haven’t bought a new Mario platformer since 2007, and haven't played a new one since 2010. I mean I’m sure they’re still alright and fun in their own way, but they all began to look the bloody same to me, and after launching into space there’s really not much else the chubby bastard can do to keep my interest aside from trading his overalls for baggy sweatpants, turning his cap backwards, and making wicked diss rhymes against Big Bow$ah and his hype man posse. However, the extended universe games tend to be a different kettle of fish entirely, partly because they tend to do a bit more to keep things fresh and interesting, but more importantly, they don’t release 50 of them every bloody year… unless it’s Wario Land, you were taken from us too soon. The years hadn’t been kind to Yoshi, however, since his last two attempts to prove he’s not just Mario’s personal taxi service have been… well, let’s not mince words here, quite shit.
But if there’s anything I have a deep fondness for, it’s pretty fabrics, and Nintendo’s certainly no stranger to using their children’s art and craft sets as design bases for their games, as testified by Paper Mario and Kirby Canvas Curse. Yarn, however, seems to be something they have a particular affection for, which I choose to believe is because the humans at Nintendo are just a front for a team of business-savvy cats, but whatever the reason has resulted in the phenomenally mediocre Kirby’s Epic Yarn and now Yoshi’s Wooly World, which is the game within my firing line today. Following in the standard Yoshi affair, Kamek kidnaps a bunch of Babies/Yoshis leaving the remaining Yoshis to skip lunch and rescue them, although this one does feel a tad morbid given the Wool Yoshis are torn apart to be repurposed into frivolous building supplies for the self-proclaimed king’s ivory tower, an allegory for corporate contracting in third-world countries.
In fact, a lot about the game feels airlifted from previous titles, with the core gameplay primarily being the typical platform-based drive-by egg throwing simulator we’ve come to know from Yoshi just with a knitted reskin, but there are some notable differences. Foremost, there are semi-transparent platforms and objects that require you to throw a yarn ball – the game’s replacement for eggs – at them in order to make then tangible, which most often just allows you to progress through the level but occasionally leads to secret areas. Yarn balls also serve the purpose of entangling trickier enemies to leave them helpless, or to annoy the hell out of your mate when they’re just trying to collect a flower.
Oh yeah, there’s two-player co-op in Wooly World, a curious choice given most co-op games are fixated with having four players running around screaming profanities at each other, but a choice that I certainly welcome. One of my biggest problems with New Super Mario Bros. was how all the players had friendly collision, causing players to constantly bounce off each other into hazardous shit in what I’ll dub “The Friend-Losing Factor,” and while Wooly World still fails to discriminate between friend or foe the same way Rayman Origins does (Rayman master race), it’s so much more easily managed with just two players. It helps that you’re provided with your choice of a ridiculous amount of different Yoshi patterns that help distinguish you and your mate efficiently, especially the Poochy Yoshi which can only be explained as an orchestrated effort to concentrate cuteness into a lethal weapon. It’s so fluffy.
Yeah, this game is very cute, almost shamelessly so. The knitted art style lends itself well to giving even the ugliest Yoshi enemies a sweet appearance, which almost makes it a shame to slaughter them so cold-heartedly… well except the Blargs, fuck those guys. Amiibos can be scanned to provide more Yoshi patterns for use, a cute prospect that I never partook in because I’m a hoarder who refuses to take my precious, sexy Captain Falcon figurine out of its original packaging. There are also Yarn Yoshi Amiibos, also tailor-made to be unfairly cute, which I didn’t buy because getting a hold of new Amiibos is like finding an animal that doesn’t hurt you in Australia, but I do know they add a function similar to the pointless Double Mario feature from Super Mario 3D World. You know, that trite mechanic they introduced so even lonely berks like me can pretend they have friends.
Yoshi’s Wooly World is, as you would expect, easy as sin, even granting the option of a casual mode for babies and scrublords alike, which isn’t really a huge problem in and of itself despite my frothing desire for more Dark Souls-style whipping to keep me in check. The developers pride themselves on the game’s difficulty being personally managed, with the core experience being a breeze while all the collectibles being where the real challenge comes in, which would hold more weight if said collectibles weren’t bloody obvious. There are the usual flowers which grant a bonus level in each area if they’re all collected, but there are also stamps for boring dads, and pieces of wool for sweater-knitting grandmas. Actually, stamps just give you stickers to be used on Miiverse and thusly were of no interest to me, while wool grants you more Yoshi patterns.
Thing is, they’re all usually in obvious locations anyway, such as pipe-accessed areas or behind scenery which can be unravelled, and the Power Badge feature provides several power-ups that make it even easier to find said collectibles. Oh yeah power badges, by the way, are Wooly World’s way of holding your hand even further by offering benefits and power-ups before each level at the cost of the game’s currency, beads. They range from fairly small things like bringing our lord and saviour Poochy into the level with you (who kindly barks in the direction of nearby hidden wool, like a caring God), to big things like preventing you from falling to your death for the entirety of the level. All of which fails to acknowledge that the biggest difficulty in the entire game is dealing with your asshole co-op partner, especially when that person is your brother and he wishes to see everything you love burn.
None of it honestly costs that much in the grand scheme of things, especially if you’re playing co-op and thusly able to collect more beads, and I found the game easy enough without the power-ups so the only one I ever consistently used was bringing Poochy in because POOCHY. I do like the bosses, though, since they actually have an escalating difficulty curve and are all really nicely designed, especially the literal hot dog whom I now choose to believe is the satanic counterpart to our beloved Poochy, and that shall be canon. They do phone it in a bit with the mini-bosses, however, since they just bring the same Monty Mole and Paratroopa back with a helmet and/or cannon to try to spice things up, and it’s honestly more than a little dull. “Reused bosses, reused bosses everywhere,” as one Miiverse comment accurately quipped.
I do really like the aesthetic, however, since it’s inarguably the most visually appealing game I’ve played on the Wii U thus far. Its visuals are very easy on the eyes and have the kind of colourful dynamic I love to see employed with HD graphics, certainly a step up from the hideous pseudo-crayon bullshit of Yoshi’s New Island. Level structure is solid enough and throws enough novel ideas at you to keep things interesting, and the inclusion of non-linear levels speaks strongly to the Metroid fan within me (RIP, we knew you well…), even if they can be a bit confusingly structured at times. Musically, this game is top notch with both a very mellow acoustic tinge akin to smooth jazz rhythms or light Terry Riley-style ambient beats, which makes it more hilariously jarring when you enter the lava levels and are met with blasting rock jams in your face. There’s even a track that sounds so much like Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and it’s every bit as glorious as you’d expect.
So in conclusion, I really like Yoshi’s Wooly World; it’s cute, very pretty, and is just generally a great deal of fun, with plenty of replay value to keep players coming back. It’s one hell of an improvement over both Kirby’s Epic Yarn and the last few entries into the Yoshi series, and certainly ensured that the Wii U was not, in my eyes, just the Splatoon platform and that’s it. I do find myself a bit disappointed that even the extra content fails to quench my thirst for a more intensive experience, but then again, the idea of having to go all Battletoads on a level with my brother throwing his shitty little yarn balls at me all day is probably going to become my new idea of hell.
Fangame Review
| Nuclear Throne | |
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| Developer | Vlambeer |
| Publisher | Vlambeer |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Genres | Roguelike |
| Rating(s) | N/A (still in Early Access) |
| Available From | |
| The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth | |||
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| Developer | Nicalis | ||
| Publisher | Nicalis | ||
| Platform(s) | Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita (PlayStation Network) | ||
| Genres | Roguelike | ||
| Rating(s) |
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| Available From | |||
- MatureThe news came out that Satoru Iwata was dead as I was writing this. Rest in peace, Mr. Iwata; you were a great man.
It's the 100th issue?!?! Holy crap, I've been here for a long time. I remember the 50th issue. I wrote something for that. I've been in the 'Shroom for 50 issues...I find that hard to believe.
To commemorate this momentous occasion, I'll be reviewing not one, but two games! Except one I already reviewed. The one I reviewed before, however, took the form of a stupid complaint list that probably no one read. Let's get the previously reviewed one out of the way first, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.
Uh, yeah. I'm not sure if I've made this opinion clear before, but I don't like Rebirth. I will not deny that it is a huge improvement over the original in some categories, especially the technical and graphics departments, but I'm superbly sour about it for a number of reasons. Mostly the prerelease. Edmund constantly sugarcoated everything and blatantly lied about certain things on top of that. Then Rebirth came out and there were way too many stupid decisions that hurt my opinion of it; but first, I'll try to list the positives.
The game looks absolutely fantastic, and the art style in general is far more polished than the minimalistic Flash game that now looks ugly by comparison. It has a lot of neat details, like bugs crawling around, and a lot of neat lighting effects, especially in the Cathedral. The controls are great, and the game runs extremely smoothly (provided you have a lot of the effects turned off, saying from my experience). Some items that were horrible in the original were made much more valuable here (Brimstone, Chocolate Milk, Cat-O-Nine-Tails). Some of the new items are pretty good (Dark Bum) to amazing (Pyromaniac). Neat ideas like upgrading the shop were presented. However, a lot of Rebirth's flaws lie in its execution and other new content.
Dear god, are the new enemies and bosses mostly terrible. Some are fine (the poop family), but a lot of them are extremely annoying in the case of enemies, and have way too much health and annoying attacks in the case of bosses. The Adversary and The Cage have insane health compared to other Depths/Necropolis bosses, and both have random, hard-to-dodge attacks. Wizoobs (the ghosts), Walking Hosts, and Cod Worms (the hiding worms) tend to just sit and be invincible.
3 out of 4 of the new characters are pretty bad. Lazarus' gimmick will really only help new players, and even then Lazarus' revived form is extremely weak. You have only one heart container and the item you gain from it is an...on-hit item...? What's the logic in that? Azazel is stupidly overpowered and boring to play as - its low-ranged Brimstone is hardly an issue when it will murder everything in seconds. And I don't even need to say anything about The Lost. Everyone hates him.
Some items have absolutely no benefit and only seem to be there because of their (non-existent) awesome synergies; I'm specifically thinking of Strange Attractor and Tiny Planet. Other items seem to believe that you're always willing to commit suicide on a run (Bob's Brain, BBF, D100, D4, Missingno., Experimental Treatment). The game is also plagued with silly/stupid/dumb/horrible design decisions. The donation machine breaking mechanic only serves to stagnate your progress, and the whole thing is a crapshoot. How Meat Boy and Bandage Girl work is awful - the Horsemen are a crapshoot, even if you have Book of Revelations. The Dark Room is severely unbalanced and the Chest is favored by everyone. A notable amount of the tracks are just ambiance and Latin chanting.
I think I'm done complaining about this. I still recommend it to everyone, but I was let down by it. Am I excited for Afterbirth, the upcoming expansion DLC? No.
And now for the new game! It's a Steam early access game called Nuclear Throne. It's a top-down roguelike where you play as a bunch of characters trying to reach the Nuclear Throne. You collect XP to level up and choose abilities, and find guns and other weapons to kill enemies. It's actually pretty fun.
There's a daily run feature, which is always good to have in a roguelike. Another plus is that you unlock almost all of the characters extremely quickly, so you have lots of options early. I'm personally a fan of Y.V., who has a higher rate of fire than all the other characters, and Chicken, who starts with a melee weapon and can survive for a few seconds after your HP hits 0. I actually saved myself once with this mechanic, surprisingly.
There are quite a lot of options in terms of weapons; you can obtain bullets, shells, explosives, etc. to be used in various kinds of weapons. I'm the type of player that tends to prefer melee and rapid-fire weapons, and there are plenty of options for that, including screwdrivers, wrenches, sledgehammers, and machine guns. There are other types as well, such as weapons that will shoot bombs that go off after a while. I accidentally killed myself with an explosive weapon once. LEARNING! And since it's in early access, it's constantly being updated. I'm looking forward to playing more of this! I'd recommend it if you're a fan of roguelikes.
And, uh, that's my anniversary section. I feel like I'm not doing a good enough job. Uh...oh well. Happy advance birthday, Dippy. Bye!
Crocodile Style Reviews
Written by: Crocodile Dippy (talk)
| Splatoon | |||||||||
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| Developer | Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 | ||||||||
| Publisher | Nintendo | ||||||||
| Platform(s) | Wii U | ||||||||
| Genres | Third-person shooter, platformer | ||||||||
| Rating(s) |
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| Available From | |||||||||
- Everyone 10+
- Seven years and older
- Six years and older
- Parental guidanceAlright, so we have ninjas, pirates, and zombies on the list of things nerds are waaaaay too into and probably need to see a counsellor for, and now I think we can safely add cephalopods as a bullet point now as well. Between Octodad, that creepy as sin Handsome Squidward thing, the entire Japanese animated porn industry, and now Splatoon, the sea-dwelling invertebrate are slowly taking over the internet to create yet another page in the Edda of the Hopeless. Although those last two points intersect to an alarming degree, which is sad when you think about it because we all kind of saw it coming, but really Nintendo, you could’ve tried to help the situation a little bit by not giving the little squid girls shapely hips that sway more aggressively than a paper bag in a hurricane.
The rather... questionable ethics of the now-aged fandom aside, here’s Splatoon, Nintendo’s first serious attempt at creating a dedicated online shooter in what essentially amounts to glorified paintball but with ink instead. You are put into the shoes of a customisable kid called an Inkling, with the ability to instantaneously transform into a squid at will and swim through ink, which sounds like Charles Dickens' wet dream. While I’m tempted to just throw the game in the bin for not allowing you to play as the objectively superior octopus instead, the apparent reason for this is because the game’s story concerns the Inkling’s power source, the Zapfishes, being stolen by the villainous Octarians, whom no one seems to take seriously probably because they look like if The Purple Tentacle was turnt the fuck up.
I have no shame in saying that Splatoon, with its youthful energy and hip and urban thematic design, is the dopest shit I’ve seen since Puffer the Beatboxing Pufferfish. This game is more 90s than the actual 90s were, with hoodies and sports-brand sneakers reigning as the supreme fashion sense, overlayed with a rich score of cheery pop punk guitars and scratching turntables, and even the final boss music is a glossy bubblegum pop tune. It all evokes a strong “too cool for school” attitude which, as a 90s kid, gives me a sense of nostalgia that makes me feel utterly sick to my stomach. But in a good way! And I don’t care what anyone says, but Crusty Sean is officially my new favourite Nintendo character, and I will fight you.
We'll start with the single-player campaign, because if you’re selling a game for full retail price it better damn well have something I can do offline to keep me from interacting with other human beings for an extra few short, beautiful hours. Splatoon's story mode feels like a Super Mario Galaxy romhack with a gun awkwardly thrown into the mix, which I knows sounds like a joke but the emphasis on platforming through sparse, floating collections of incongruent assets, and rocket launching yourself to the next area once everything is left dead, puts me in the same headspace as Super Mario Galaxy. The progression is linear and the levels fairly short, reminiscent of other dedicated multiplayer games with tacked-on single-player modes like Call of Duty or Battlefield, but without the rampant destabilisation of foreign nations. Lacking any collectibles or hidden areas does kind of stab replay value in the heart, and the whole campaign is easier than your mum, but it certainly makes for a nice break from streaks of bad online games. Also to Splatoon’s credit it certainly tries its damndest to keep things fresh with a steady introduction of new enemy types and gameplay mechanics, such as turret sections or ink tightropes so I could live out my dream of being a circus squid, and any story campaign that ends with a space rave against a samurai octopus DJ is certainly a bit of alright.
Of course, the primary selling point of Splatoon is in its online multiplayer, of which the most apparent comparison would be Team Fortress 2, both being heavily stylised cartoon-ish shooters with an unhealthy fixation with throwing tacky decorative shit on your character until they look like a fucking mandrill at a rave. Except here, the clothes actually have practical use by giving you stat upgrades, instead of just being a fashion statement for idiots. Given my previous agonising experiences with Nintendo’s Wi-Fi connection, the online functionality is actually surprisingly stable, as I only very occasionally got connection errors, and if there was any lag then damned if I ever noticed it. This is supported by the game’s effective segregationist stance on lobby searching, ensuring my connection’s stability by only putting me in the playpen with fellow beer-stained British rejects, or overly skilled blokes with Japanese names that I’m going to assume were dick jokes.
You are put into a team with three other players with the goal of marking the most territory in Normal play, and enforcing land ownership over zoned areas and evicting anyone who isn’t the same ink colour as you in Ranked play, earning experience points as you play (with more awarded if you win) which increase your level and upgrade your clothing accordingly. There are a variety of weapon choices to pick from, including the standard rapid-fire gun, sniper rifles, mid-range ink-bomb launchers, close-combat brushes, and those motherfucking rollers, all of which possess secondary abilities that you’ll only use every other game, and special abilities of varying usefulness that can only be acquired after inking a certain amount of turf. It’s actually nice seeing different weapons applicable to different scenarios, and the satisfaction of seeing your squad roll out with a perfectly balanced loadout and bring the motherfucking ruckus to the enemy team is equated only to the sweet touch of pavlova on my tongue.
Given my Wii U handle is The Sniper, I dedicated myself to the art of blowing people up, especially those bastard rollers, from the safety of my perch like the cowardly scumbag that I am, which was easier said than done because aiming is dependent on the Wii U's gyroscope. While it’s nothing new that when compared to the precision you get from using a mouse on PC, shooters tend to communicate poorly to consoles and even worse to motion controls as seen in Metroid Prime 3 and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Splatoon’s approach was particularly disastrous since trying to aim precisely with the Wii U’s constantly jerking gamepad felt about as intuitive as spitting goldfish into a glass cup from the cockpit of a helicopter.
This was enough to make me lose my cool a multitude of times, which is of particular note given I am a distinctly calm gamer who didn’t complain even once during my entire Bloodborne playthrough. It’s this overwhelming uncertainty of whether the patch of ink where my body used to be was my own fault or because the camera has a grudge against me, and it’s really frustrating; I mean at least in Dota 2, your 10 deaths are most definitely your own damn fault. Even the games where I brought my A-game often resulted in a loss, because Splatoon is still a team game at its core and if your mates are exploding left, right, and centre and not getting anything done in return, then no amount of MLG-level play is going to salvage that mess. It can be easy to forget the teamplay aspect due to the lack of effective communication in the game, which I understand was to combat the gruesome abusive behaviour that often plagues competitive gaming, but give us a better chat wheel than just “To me!” and “Nice!”
But I think my biggest problem with how the multiplayer works is in its matchmaking system, where I was witness to twitchy, fresh-off-the-block players as low as level 5 being pit against teams of max level 20 players. This isn’t aided by Splatoon going the Call of Duty route of placing an unfair advantage on players who have been playing longer, opening up a well of better equipment to higher levelled players that just throws all fair balancing out the window. Ranked play is a little better with a minimum requirement of level 10 and a numerical school grading system to create the illusion of a balanced system, but in reality it’s about as balanced as a vegan diet when they still don’t address the level disparity beyond a gate of “you must be THIS tall to ride!”
However, this is not to devalue the core gameplay itself which is absolutely spot on and a true bloody rippa. While it’s not nearly as deep as other competitive games, it honestly doesn’t really need to be since it’s coherently packed together nicely and, much like Awesomenauts, provides a nice distraction from the more intense online titles I’m used to. If you can get past the infuriatingly twitchy controls and rubbish matchmaking, then you’ll find even the worst teams are made up for by the rounds where you successfully splat the entire enemy team, smearing their discoloured oozing ink on your face to ritualistically assert your dominance over these lands, striking terror into all who dare follow in your unfortunate victims footsteps. Stay fresh!
Shoey's Shoetacular Reviews
Written by: Marshal Dan Troop (talk) (edited by Nabber (talk)
Hello 'Shroom readers, my name is Shoey, and I would like to welcome you to my new 'Shroom section SHOEY’S SHOETACULAR REVIEWS (technically it’s a continuation of my old Virtual Console Review section, but nobody remembers that so whatev's). In this section, I will be reviewing video games (shocking, I know), but I will mostly be sticking to Virtual Console titles because I feel that they get less attention because they technically weren't new releases, with the occasional modern game as well. So without further ado, let me reveal the topic of this month’s review!
This month, I will be reviewing Super Mario Land for the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Super Mario Land is an 8-bit platformer that was originally released as a Game Boy launch title in 1989. The plot of this game is that Mario has travelled to the nearby kingdom of Sarasaland to rescue the land’s monarch, Princess Daisy, who has been kidnapped by the mysterious alien invader Tatanga (who is my personal favorite Mario villain). So obviously the plot isn’t all that good, but hey what did you expect from an 8-bit platformer? So now with plot out of the way, let’s move on to gameplay (yep that’s right, almost 3 years later and I’m still bad at transitions.)
Gameplay-wise, Super Mario Land is similar to the original Super Mario Bros. , with Mario having only his basic moves such as jumping and running. However, there are some differences in the two games - for instance, instead of fireballs bouncing left and right, Mario instead fires Superballs which bounce off walls and can go in any direction. Another difference is that instead of flagpoles, the game has two end rooms; the first you can enter with no problem to beat the level, but the second one requires you to do a little platform challenge to get to it and allows you to play a little minigame to earn extra lives and power-ups. But perhaps the biggest difference is that this game contains two shooter style levels where Mario enters vehicles (a submarine and an airplane) and fires torpedoes or missiles at enemies in order to defeat them as the camera autoscrolls. I rather like these levels (with the submarine one being my favorite level in the game), and I wish that they would bring these back in modern Mario games. Another thing to note it that this game doesn’t have any swimming levels, with that mechanic replaced with the submarine. As for the basic mechanics, the jumping is fairly good but it seems like the momentum can be a little wonky which can cause you to miss jumps because Mario won't jump far enough. It also sometimes seems a little random as to whether or not you will be able to make it. But other than that, the jumping is solid, and since jumping makes up most of the game we shall now move onto difficulty/ length.
One of the only real flaws in this game is that it’s not very long, consisting of only 4 worlds with 3 levels each. The game can be completed in about 30 minutes if you’ve beaten it before and maybe a little over an hour if you haven’t. To put it in perspective, I’ve probably beaten this game 7 times and I’ve only played for a total of 6 hours and 44 minutes. The levels aren’t that hard, either, and most of them are short. Although on your first attempt they can be difficult, after a few goes they won’t cost you more than a few lives. One thing to note is that the game does feature a hard mode after you complete the game (a mode which I’ve never really used), and in the Virtual Console version you can actually save in this mode by creating a restore point (unlike the Game Boy version, which doesn’t allow you to save). With the length out of the way, let’s move on to the graphics.
The graphics are black and white 8-bit graphics that look pretty much like what you would expect to see in a Game Boy launch title. I personally like them and I think the backgrounds in some of the levels have good aesthetic appeal: in the third world, there is a cave level which contains waterfalls, and the basic ground has a more rugged rock-like texture. An interesting thing to note is that it’s possible to change the colors from black and white to the original green colors of the Game Boy. While playing, all you have to do is hold L and R and then press Y, and BAM, you have yourself a green-colored Super Mario Land. Overall, though, the graphics are basic like you’d expect, with some nice touches such as sphinxes in the first world’s last level (the Egypt world) and tiki heads in the third world’s last level. Now that we’ve finished with graphics, let’s move on to the music.
This game doesn’t have very many songs, but each song (besides the third world’s) are fairly boppin' and make me excited to play the game. My personal favorite song is the world four song which has an Asian style feeling and makes me happy to listen to it. I think the music really complements the levels, and unlike the music in most handheld games, I actually listen to it. My one real complaint is that they changed the star music from its iconic song to the Can-Can. But overall, I think that Super Mario Land’s soundtrack continues the Mario series' tradition of great soundtracks.
Overall, I think that Super Mario Land is a solid game. While it's annoying that it isn’t very long, I find the game to be very replayable and very easy to just pick up and play - I’ve found myself picking it up just to kill a little time and being compelled to finish it. I like that it mixes things up a little bit with its shooter style stages, and I think that the music is solid, and even though the jumping can feel a little off at times, other than that there aren’t any real mechanical problems. Super Mario Land isn’t perfect, and it isn’t the greatest Mario game, but it’s a solid game that you can get some good enjoyment out of.
Final score: 7.5/10
Graphic Novel Reviews
| Batman: Year One | |
|---|---|
| |
| Author | Frank Miller (writer) David Mazzucchelli (artist) Todd Klein (letterer) Richmond Lewis (colorist) |
| Release date | 2005 |
| Genre | Graphic Novel; Superhero |
| Pages | 136 |
| Available From | |
|
DC Comics | |
For this exciting issue of the 'Shroom, I decided to review something as equally exciting and chose Batman: Year One. I hope to make this review column a mix of books of different genres and graphic novels of different publishers as well, so here’s the first of the latter!
Year One is a graphic novel that collects the story arc of the same name that ran in DC Comic’s Batman from issue 404 to issue 407. It’s supposed to be a reimagining of Batman’s beginnings after Frank Miller’s previous work on the comic arc of The Dark Knight Returns. This particular comic arc received critical acclaim, and many have said that it’s some of Miller’s and Mazzucchelli’s best work of their careers. I heard about this one on a list of important graphic novels that all comic book fans should read, and picked it up myself.
First off, I’ll cover the art. For someone like me, who grew up with the curvy, vibrant style of Archie Comics, this book is a major style shift. Even when reading Batman stories, I usually prefer the style of Bruce Timm, but I’ll get to that in another review. Year One has a dark, edgy style of linework by Mazzucchelli, and the colors are all very subdued, matching the darkness that one usually associates with Gotham City. You won’t find any bright colors here, except for the yellows of headlights and the white of the snow, and even those colors are looking a bit dull. Again, this isn’t my usual preferred style, but it matches the subject matter at hand perfectly. Simply put, the art here is really beautiful, and it really sets the tone for the story Miller is telling.
On the subject of subject matter, then, I’ll say that this isn’t a comical Batman. If you liked Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, you’ll like this one as well; in fact, Batman Begins is loosely based on this arc. The story focuses largely on the Gotham beginnings of Batman and Lieutenant Gordon, who has just moved to the city with his wife to start a new job in the politically-corrupt Gotham City Police Department. Gordon goes through all kinds of moral dilemmas, as his tale becomes nearly as dark as Bruce Wayne’s is, and much of the comic is about him trying to get settled and clear out the near never-ending corruption in the city. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll see other Batman regulars like Selina Kyle, Harvey Dent, and Alfred pop in and out. You won’t find much humor in this one, and of the little humor that is there, it’s dry and gritty, appropriately enough.
There are a few different copies of this particular graphic novel out there, but the copy I have (and most of the copies sold nowadays) are the Deluxe edition, which you can get in paperback and hardcover. It comes with ‘behind the scenes’ content that shows beginning sketches, inkings, deleted scenes, scripts, and multiple pages and covers from the story’s first release in the comic books. Also included is a short story by Mazzucchelli (right, by the artist, so it’s fully illustrated in comic form) about the legacy of Batman and what they hoped to achieve in Year One.
Bottom line here: Batman: Year One is a really incredible story that you should read. It plays out like a modern-age crime drama, with the traditional Batman touches everywhere, and fans of Batman and comic books in general shouldn’t miss picking this one up.
