The 'Shroom:Issue 135/Critic Corner
Director's Notes
Welcome to June! We're halfway through the year sorta (that's July 1st but it's within this issue cycle), and to make it special we're celebrating 35 years of Luigi! Here in Critic Corner we have prepared for you a pinch, a light smattering, a smidgen, dare I say a soupçon of Green Thunder here for you. That's all you need because, ooh, he's potent! In the spirit of Luigi, we're also celebrating other characters who are too often pushed into the background, or overshadowed as just a minion or sidekick, so each team has some different backgrounds! We here at Critic Corner have objectively the most cutest one, which comes from no bias on my part at all. Facts are facts.
For last month's Critic Corner Section of the Month, there is a tie between myself and Alex95 (talk), so thank you for your votes, and keep 'em comin'! This month there is plenty more to vote on aside from the poll at the bottom of the page here; it's time for the Mario Awards, hosted by yours truly and Turboo (talk)! Head on over that way, or check out the wiki's main page, to find the polls to vote on the best and worst of Mario! Be sure to also check out the Community Awards polls to vote on recognizing the achievements made by those in our community and The 'Shroom!! And don't forget, you can vote once each week, just like how you can with the SOTMs here, giving you multiple opportunities to either spread your vote around, or dump all your love onto just one (vote Kamek for M12 Favorite Supporting Character!!!) The sooner you do it, the less I will personally bother you about it wherever I can find you :)
Here's some more links for you to peruse:
- Tournaments for tokens and prizes
- Art Contest
- Ltq's Anniversary Announcements over in Pipe Plaza that goes into more details.
- At some point between now and next issue, this link to Presentation sign-ups will no longer be red!
Enjoy!
Section of the Month
| Critic Corner SECTION OF THE MONTH | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Section | Votes | % | Writer |
| 1st | Anton's Half-Baked Reviews | 8 | 34.78% | Hypnotoad (talk) |
| 1st | Could Have Been | 8 | 34.78% | Alex95 (talk) |
| 2nd | Late Night with Nabber | 5 | 21.47% | Nabber (talk) |
| 3rd | Book Review | 2 | 8.70% | FunkyK38 (talk) |
Could Have Been
Hello everyone! I am Alex95 and welcome to Could Have Been. In this segment, I talk about features that didn't quite make it into a game's final release and see just how the cut content would've affected the game. It's the Month of Luigi, everyone! Similar to the Year of Luigi, but not as well known. There's a new Luigi's Mansion remake coming up for the Nintendo 3DS, something you can read me talk about in Pipe Plaza, so I thought I'd take a look at what went into making the original. So let's jump right in and take a look at what could have been.
Luigi's Mansion was originally planned as a title for the Nintendo 64DD, which you likely know failed almost immediately. It was then designed as a tech demo for the upcoming Nintendo GameCube, showing off the graphic capabilities of the system, and it wasn't long before they decided to turn it into a full game. Before settling on the concept they have now, Luigi's Mansion went through a number of revisions. Originally, there were several types of houses to explore, like an apartment complex, a dollhouse, and a desert; the idea to use multiple mansions was revisited for the game's sequel. It was also planned to make the game 3D compatible, as the GameCube was originally going to have a 3D screen adapter, which was never released. 3D Luigi's Mansion finally came to fruition twelve years later with Dark Moon, and now the original game is getting a remake on the Nintendo 3DS. It may have taken seventeen years, but hey, it finally happened!
Back to the tech demo, it showed off several things that were ultimately never put into the final game. Pretty much the entirety of it was only video, there was no actual gameplay shown. Only the first couple of rooms were shown, the Foyer and the Parlor (later called "Entrance" and "Living Room" respectively). The big door in the Foyer that would lead into Area 2 originally had the same design as the big door above it and there was no mirror; this version of the Foyer can still be seen if the player pauses in the final game. Luigi is also shown sliding down a stair railing, an action he can't perform in the final game. The Parlor is furnished different, containing additional chairs and a window, or with its furniture in a different place. Luigi is shown to be very overly animated, having a cartoon-y running animation and overly long open jaw whenever he gets scared, something you would see in a Scooby-Doo cartoon. There are also a group of blue ghosts that aren't seen in the final game, though they slightly resemble Slimer from Ghostbusters. …It's very possible Nintendo took some inspiration here.
Fast forward to E3 2001 and actual gameplay was shown off, along with the actual game disk itself. Seeing as the E3 demo was fully playable, there is a ton of content to go over here, so I'm just going to highlight the most notable ones. One of the more obvious differences is the way the Game Boy Horror looks. Instead of showing the inventory, it can either show a timer that marks when the demo ends or show a first-person perspective mode, giving the player two ways to look at the screen at once. Several of the rooms had different furniture layouts and additional ghosts, such as the Master Bedroom (known as "Bed room 1"), which had two beds against the window and had ghosts appear alongside Lydia. Speaking of ghosts, there are some unused ones shown here as well. There is a purple Gold Ghost that appears in the hallways, which scares Luigi out of his wits enough that his heart meter drops down to half and he ends up scooting on the floor. Among all these is perhaps the well-known ending for Luigi: When the demo is up, a seriously depressed Luigi appears at the gates of the mansion. It's not entirely clear what this is supposed to convey, whether it just means the demo is up or Mario is trapped for eternity, but one thing's for certain: It's creepy.
Now we've reached the point when the game gets released, but we're not done yet! There's still unused assets to go through that have not been seen before this point and are still in the game's code. The three main generic Ghost enemies all have different colors, with Gold Ghost being white, Purple Puncher being yellow, and Blue Twirler being purple. There are also some… unique unused ghosts, including one called "Elh", which is just this twisted… mess of… stuff. An older version of the Poltergust 3000 is also present, it being larger and on wheels, and instead of Elemental Medals, it would've used specific nozzles, similar to what would become F.L.U.D.D. Regarding the elements, Luigi would've been able to spray water indefinitely, though using fire for too long would cause the Poltergust to backfire. Mario could've also perhaps played a bigger role, as there's a model of him with the straps to the Poltergust 3000, and stretched to Luigi's height. This is likely meant for a scrapped multiplayer mode, which was also brought back for Dark Moon. There also unused dialogue icons for Bowser, Mario, a Gold Ghost, and a Green Toad, as well as name text strings for the rooms in E. Gadd's lab.
What Could Have Been?
Now it is time to wonder just how much these original ideas would've changed the final game. First of all, if the game was actually released for the Nintendo 64DD, it's likely it would not have done as well. Either that or the game would've given the disk drive a boost in popularity, though that depends on how well the game was made at that point. It's also possible the game would've just been left as a tech demo, similar to that Peach's Castle tech demo thing. We don't need to think too hard on how the GameCube's 3D add-on would've made the game look, as, again, both Luigi's Mansion games are on the 3DS, and the multiple houses idea was carried into Dark Moon. I love when things finally work out.
There wasn't a lot shown off in the Spaceworld 2001 demo, but the tone of it would've been interesting to see in the final. The demo definitely looks darker than the final game, lots of blues and shadows, and Luigi's reactions would've been hilarious to see. These very likely weren't meant to actually be in a final game, as it was just a pre-rendered video showing what the GameCube could do, so Luigi's reactions were likely just an exaggeration. However, seeing Luigi interact with his environment, like with the stair-rail-sliding, would've been interesting. In the final game, there is plenty of interaction, like with fake doors, buttons, sandbags, ladders, etc., but seeing Luigi pull off some athletic moves like he could in the main series would've opened up some new puzzles. Being able to jump on command probably would've helped solidify it as a Mario game… you know, despite it already having Mario and Luigi. Seeing the rooms furnished in a different way than the final game shows… likely wouldn't have made a change since we wouldn't know any better, heh.
Now then, the big reveal in 2001. How would this demo have played out if it were released as a full game? The timer would've certainly been limited, what with only fifteen minutes or so to play. Rumor has it Mario becomes lost in the mansion forever after that time is up, so if that were true, it would've definitely set a very dark tone for the Mario universe. Having the Game Boy Horror show two perspectives at once would've been… let's say challenging to keep track of, and there doesn't seem to be any use for showing the first-person perspective at the same time as the third-person one, so I'm glad that change was made. Normal ghosts are also seen assisting the portrait ghosts, which, as far as I can remember, never happens in the final game, so it would've made the fights more difficult had they been. The purple Gold Ghost that scares Luigi in the halls would've been a different level of strategy, as it makes Luigi unable to use his Poltergust and cuts his health to half. There doesn't appear to be a way to defeat it, as one is never shown as it first appears in a gas form before appearing it the standard one, so maybe it could only be avoided? Or maybe an element could've been used against it? And then there's the ending for Luigi, where he stands outside the mansion. Is this the game over screen when he loses his health? When the timer ends? It's certainly not something 6-year-old me would've liked to see back then, I would've thrown the game out the window!
And now for Elh, perhaps the weirdest looking and sounding ghost I've seen so far. It looks like a twisted mesh of goop, occasionally taking a swing at Luigi if he gets near. It's possible it could've been meant to assist Bogmire, due to the two of them appearing to be made from a similar substance. Maybe instead of shadows, Bogmire would call up this…thing? The fight would be even more difficult with a Poltergust on wheels, having to lug that thing throughout the mansion… What was E. Gadd thinking when he built that? Though the idea of different nozzle attachments didn't come about until Super Mario Sunshine less than a year later, they would've worked perfectly here as well. But perhaps they were permanent additions, being able to be switched around at will? Maybe the Elemental Ghosts were used instead to balance the game, if that were the case. And the addition of the element meter ultimately removed the endless water and overheating mechanic, which I think is a great replacement. We don't want Luigi to explode, now do we?
Whoo, this was a long one! But there's still more! There's a lot more images and information I couldn't work into this, so be sure to give a whole look through the cut content of Luigi's Mansion on our list of Luigi's Mansion pre-release and unused content page and the pages on The Cutting Room Floor. Until next time, everyone! See you around!
Wow who knew I still did non-food reviews? I did because I’ve got a backlog of a whole ton of them but they’re significantly harder to approach than just going to the store and shoving whatever is less than $10 inside of my face. The results of my review should come to no surprise to anyone who has attended or viewed the logs of our Awards Committee meetings, but I’ve already committed to doing this because it’s a special issue and this is something flashy to do. I’m also going to try to not do this procedurally like my other game reviews and instead do bulk commentary with references to specific instances. Now, with no more rambling I can think of at this moment, we’re onto the review!
Super Mario Odyssey
Opening cutscene, Mario is defeated. What a wonderful game! Time to turn it off. Since I liquidated pretty much my entire physical game library to purchase a Switch and some games I guessssssss I should continue playing. After heavy internal debate on whether I wanted to mix up the positives and negatives, or find an order to put them in, I decided to start with all of the positives first so I can butter up you, the audience, so when I get to the negatives you already have the factual information that I liked this game to hold within you before you chop my head off. Additionally, there is an astounding amount of content that I could give commentary on, and as such there’s a good chance I will miss giving my forced-fed opinion on it, so if you want me to yammer on about something that I didn’t just feel free to ask me and I’ll tell you somewhere.
Positives
It’s pretty obvious Odyssey is inspired by, or at least takes notes from, Super Mario 64, or at the very absolute least is banking on consumers to invest in nostalgia easter eggs to make financial decisions. Odyssey feels wildly better, likely due to the 20 year difference, but either way there’s similar mechanics and scenarios that just feel much more intuitive and better executed, such as not instantly dying in the quicksand or the camera suddenly shifting angle and deleting all of your momentum and inertia in a combo jump. It’s like a Super Mario 64 where they actually cared about the execution. By the time I was in just Tostarena I could already feel it, that all of the things that frustrated me in SM64 have been seemingly fixed. This feels more like an exploration game that’s a lot more forgiving when you’re trying to figure puzzles out, whereas SM64 was a collectible grab-em-up that failed to be fair or intuitive. It has little things to catch your interest instead of just world after world of barren landscape and poorly mapped graphics. I quickly got stuck in the trap of whackin’ every shrub and tossing the hat onto every pole just to get one coin. There’s great attention to detail, or at least in maintaining the mirage of a living and breathing world, such as the way the flowers and water move around you, the slapping of bare feet in the boxers-only outfit instead of forgetting to change the shoe thumping sound effect, and its endless cues and references to past games. It feels like everything has personality, like it’s an actual world to explore and can thrive without Mario’s presence, barring you don’t sit and focus on every minute detail and begin noticing paths and patterns, as any player hoping to collect every Power Moon will eventually discover as they mentally flip these worlds into collectible dumping zones. I'm noticing quite a bit of foreshadowing and hint-dropping; just small elements and things that the game puts in your visuals but doesn't make overwhelmingly obvious, namely the continual focus on the moon.
For a grab bag of thoughts that I couldn’t figure out a way to work into a paragraph format in about 10 minutes of maintained focus:
- Bowser’s Kingdom seems cool and is probably my favorite design for a kingdom. For a location that is revisited each and every game it was the most alien out of them all. Even though it was a traditional theme, it was turned into something sublime and refreshing.
- Wooded Kingdom is also pretty tight. All of the vertical climbing and hidden interior bits and the dark forest below made what’s kinda a small stage into something that has an incredible amount of exploration potential.
- Pokios are good; captures with versatility despite simplicity is good design, which includes the stretchy leg plant dudes, too. Tropical Wigglers are a close third, getting bonus points for being a Wiggler that I actually like. Goombas were surprisingly fun; being able to stack them looked goofy but it was light-hearted and fun that still served some kind of mechanical goal. Gushens and Hammer Bros. were also neat enough.
- Hitting the cans in New Donk City sounds like the opening to We Share Our Mother’s Health
- Post-game Luncheon Kingdom Peronza Plaza actually fits the kingdom theme with the Cooking Carnival instead of being a nonsense garbage level--spoiler alert for the upcoming section.
Negatives
Because I haven’t tempted fate enough with my review of Super Mario 64, here are the negatives. Organizing this is difficult so here are each point in their own paragraph in some kind of order. The T-Rex is difficult to control, not very responsive, and is too large for the landscape it exists in, and also has a pointless time limit that can be subverted by hopping out and then quickly repossessing it before it magically poofs from existence. This was all a big disappointment because being able to become a dinosaur was a pretty hyped feature, but all it turned out to be was just a clunky vehicle to smash up some rocks. The frog is cute but jumps too high to make it comfortably controllable and I always feel like I’m going to miss whatever cliff I’m supposed to be jumping onto until I remember that this camera isn’t as terrible as 64’s. I also didn’t really get to enjoy capturing Bowser because everything was exploding around me and his only purpose was to smash rocks. I didn’t even know he could shoot flames until I accidentally my controller and things flew out. I’d enjoy being able to do a level I could casually stroll through as Bowser. Pretty much every other capture I didn’t mention as a positive or negative was pretty one-note and not really anything to comment on beyond “I guess it helped me acquire a Power Moon once or twice”.
That bird on Mt. Volbono in the Luncheon Kingdom is literally my least favorite thing Nintendo has ever done, after removing Psycho Kamek from the Superstar Saga remake, of course, which was exacerbated by having to do it multiple times in a world that looked like it was unfinished. Why was it all blocky? Luncheon Kingdom took too long for what amounted to pretty much nothing. It looked like garbage, the boss fight(s) were stupid and pretty annoying, plus the bird's design was just disgusting and stupid enough to make specifically me hate it. Most of the platforming had absolutely nothing to do with food, and was instead a fireball magma-traversing level, in which the lava was some strange pink goop for no reason when they absolutely could’ve made it any kind of hot food that were colors other than bright pink. The entire rest of the stage was just unappealing or downright disgusting. Was it supposed to be soup? Because there was already other soup and it wasn’t pink sludge. The stage didn't look refined enough to really make the gross bird seem like a total outsider ruining anything. Was it supposed to be an outsider? Who knows. It was a gross stage with a gross boss. If it was a picturesque Parisian villa with little cafes and all that everywhere, I could appreciate having a clunky gross bird ruining stuff as the level boss. Imagine, a scene ripped straight from a Monet painting, a Pissarro, Manet, Degas, Matisse, something with life and vibrancy, a fresh environment with playful lighting, a tranquil yet vivacious village at the base of a mountain that looked ripe to be featured as the backdrop to all wide shots to give the Eiffel Tower a break. But it's not, it looks like a garbage-themed level that they accidentally called food, with just one tiny and cramped alley with some fork-people all making the same soup, so it's just an all-around stupid level and I hate it.
Luncheon Kingdom was then followed up by a completely opposite problem of a kingdom, with a cool dragon fight that was super easy and quick in a land that was as barren as it could possibly be, leaving me the most disappointed I’ve been in...probably just a few days, let me be real here, I’ve been having issues getting car insurance and registration stuff sorted out. Like really though, why did Ruined Kingdom have to just be absolutely nothing other than a platform to get to the visually impressive yet underwhelmingly simple boss? I get that the theme is ruins, but why did it have to be medieval Jetson’s ruins? Why couldn’t it be a rip-off of the introductory quest in Skyrim? Why couldn’t there be stuff to explore? Ruins are one of the best level themes in all games and they absolutely blew it with this one, so much that it’s making me mentally deduct full letter grades from my overall satisfaction with this game as a whole.
I was met with extreme disappointment with how little I could actually interact with any kingdom inhabitants in Odyssey. I didn't ever have to actually interact with New Donkers or anyone really beyond the "hey welcome to uhhhhhh here". Some of them said stuff, and I guess there were the repeated Power Moon quests that were the same in each kingdom (wear whatever costume to get in a room, find the missing Bonneter, bring a Capture to someone, etc.), but there really wasn’t anything unique about them except for the Steam Gardeners which were kinda cool I guess. The fact that I could only capture a New Donker for some crappy RC car thing after capturing humans was a marketing point honestly instantly made me feel like I wasted all of my money. I was also a bit disappointed by the size of the kingdoms, especially Metro Kingdom. A few of them felt large due to using the Z-axis, as I said earlier, such as Wooded Kingdom and Seaside Kingdom, but a bunch of them just felt pretty constrained like Cascade Kingdom which seemed to limit exploration and had just basically a single path (or two) to get to where you needed to go. Metro Kingdom is the one I expected to be the largest, as it was based on sprawling New York City, but a lot of the space was taken up by skyscrapers you couldn't enter and had just dull rooftops. Now, this isn't to say that what they provided didn't have stuff to explore, but I just realllllly wanted there to be more to them. It's kinda like wishing you got three scoops of ice cream because the one was good.
Broodal designs are all pretty gross, except Hariet who just looks like some goth lolita friends I have. None of them really do anything and every encounter with them is entirely the same barring minor difficulty boosts like other boss rematches. They really have no discernible personality that couldn’t be hydrofracked out of the Koopalings instead. I did find it briefly silly that they were wedding planners and that was their motivation, but they really had no other substance. What was the deal with Madame Broode? Was she supposed to be the big main boss? Why was she like never around? Why wasn’t she ever seen with the rest of the Broodals? Why did she have no interaction with the plot or anything or anyone? Why was she not part of the Dark Side gauntlet?
These "run fast while not falling off a cliff and losing 10 coins" challenges are annoyingly frequent, along with the "traverse a classic platforming section where you return to the beginning if you mess up slightly once at any point along the path". Luckily they’re not really mandatory to do until you want to 100% the game, but even then the only actual prize beyond showboating and personal congratulations is just a big ugly top hat--the worst of all hats--stuck on top of Peach’s beautiful castle. If anyone has a mod to get rid of it and change it into one of those giant golden bowser pediment gargoyle whatevers, those were really cool.
This is a game to beat within 2 hours and then put it away forever before you get sucked into it and eventually disillusioned from its charm so you can pretend it's a good game for the next 20 years--the true Super Mario 64 experience. It feels like a Gen 6 Pokémon game where they advertised all this cool stuff and then it turned out you could do it only once ever in a hyper-controlled setting and never again ever. I wanted to ride Gogoat more!! I'm really testing audience loyalty with my opinions on video games.
Further Crazed Ramblings of Varying Positivity and Negativity
Now let’s turn to the audience for some deliciously crowdsourced commentary, that I censored by either rewording or complete omission because over a year ago I took a poll of you readers and you said you didn’t like swearing, that I asked a while back before I got 999 moons for me to say if I agree with or not, or to show that I’m not nuts and people think the thoughts that I thunk, or to remind me of some part I didn’t remember hard enough to include in the regular commentary above. Each respective person is color coded for readability, and like half of them wanted orange or purple so I guess deal with it.
02:25 Anton{Politoed} hey everyone
02:25 Anton{Politoed} tell me what your favorite and least favorite parts of Odyssey were
02:25 Uniju ill vote
02:25 Anton{Politoed} be as brief or not-brief as you'd like
02:25 Anton{Politoed} you can also tell me *bleep* you
02:26 Gamefreak75 best part: waluigi costume
02:26 Gamefreak75 steam gardens
02:26 Lord_Bowser bowser's kingdom
02:26 Lord_Bowser moon kingdom
02:26 Gamefreak75 worse: lack of playable waluigi
02:26 Lord_Bowser the new donk city festival
02:27 Uniju my least favourite were the motion controls and the fact that a large part of the game required you to play as captures that were nowhere near as fun as just being mario
02:27 Uniju my favourites were the world design and playing dress up and the sick moves you can do with the hat once you get good
02:29 Lord_Bowser least favorite was the entirety of snow kingdom
02:30 Gamefreak75 oh yeah bounding sucked
02:30 Gamefreak75 as did dark side
02:30 Gamefreak75 like the entirety of dark side
02:30 Lord_Bowser oh yeah dark side too
02:30 Gamefreak75 minus the picture puzzle hint things
02:30 Anton{Politoed} i beat the game and didn't do dark side yet
02:30 Anton{Politoed} wat do to do it
02:30 Anton{Politoed} do I just go back to the moon
02:30 Gamefreak75 you need a certain amount of moons
02:30 Lord_Bowser you unlock it after collecting 250 moons
02:30 Anton{Politoed} ezpz
02:31 Gamefreak75 i think--yeah
02:31 Uniju i like the late game stuff
02:31 Uniju people who are both obsessive completionists and not good enough at the game to appreciate more challenging parts need to stop being the way they are and conform to the way i want them to be
02:32 Anton{Politoed} what late game stuff
02:32 Uniju dark side
02:32 Anton{Politoed} basically i'm crowdsourcing commentary to fluff up my shroom section with in 2 months
02:32 Anton{Politoed} ur gonna be famous
02:33 Uniju :-D
02:34 Anton{Politoed} I made sure to unclick that smiley on mibbit so when I copy/paste this it renders appropriately with the -
02:34 Uniju thanks
02:35 Anton{Politoed} I'll ask the discord peeps later and see how their answers vary
02:36 Anton{Politoed} taking bets now on what the responses will be
02:37 Anton{Politoed} i'm putting my stake in UltraMario being the first to reply with some stupid bastardized twitch emote followed up by an emoji he's sitting in an entire server just to gain access to
((Spoiler alert: I didn’t ask them squat, but UltraMario performed according to prophecy regardless))
02:37 Lord_Bowser metro kingdom x10
02:38 Anton{Politoed} I didn't like metro kingdom much
02:38 Anton{Politoed} I was super hyped for it only for it to end up being like
02:39 Anton{Politoed} rooftop parkour and pauline getting her limelight
02:39 Anton{Politoed} I enjoyed the theme of it and the detailing
02:40 Anton{Politoed} but I was just disappointed with how little I actually had to interact with it
02:41 Anton{Politoed} I get that maybe it's my job to explore what I want to explore but when doing that has pretty much no purpose unless you're one of those people trapped in the task of throwing the hat on everything that looks knobby to get a single coin and maybe once in a while a power moon
02:41 Anton{Politoed} it just feels like more of a waste of time looking at the sights when you could instead just beat the level to find out if the next one has any more engagement
02:41 Lord_Bowser i was mostly disappointed by how relatively small it was
02:42 Lord_Bowser i wish it was more on the scale of something like luncheon kingdom
02:43 Anton{Politoed} GIVE 👏 NEW 👏 DONK 👏 CITY 👏 A 👏 USELESS 👏 OCEAN 👏 OF 👏 STUPID 👏 PINK 👏 NONSENSE 👏 👏 👏 🌋 🌋 🍆 💦
02:44 GBAToad please,
02:44 Anton{Politoed} unova was also a pretty disappointing NYC-inspired location, as well
02:45 Anton{Politoed} it had way too many ports when who honestly cares about nyc's ports except stinky fish people
02:45 Anton{Politoed} and only had like 7 buildings you could enter
02:46 Anton{Politoed} when actual nyc is just a fiesta of skyscrapers with wildly fast revolving doors that you can just waltz into because there's a CVS inside for some reason
02:47 Anton{Politoed} i was in downtown orlando the other day and found a publix inside a skyscraper
02:47 Anton{Politoed} there was also a 7-Eleven in another one, without any gas pumps
02:47 Anton{Politoed} that seems to be a thing here
02:47 Anton{Politoed} 7-Elevens but no gas
02:48 Anton{Politoed} if I want a bodega vibe I want some crusty old world grampa running some corner shack
02:48 Anton{Politoed} not a chain with boiled hot dogs
02:48 Anton{Politoed} this UPSETS me
02:49 Anton{Politoed} what's a corner store if I don't feel unwelcome and at risk inside of it
02:49 GBAToad boiled hot dog stand in pokemon when
02:49 GBAToad thats just a store anton
02:49 Gamefreak75 the only thing i get at 7 11 nowadays is their coffee
02:49 Gamefreak75 both iced and hot
02:49 Gamefreak75 because 90% of the time the *bleep*ing slurpee machine is busted
02:49 Gamefreak75 or pouring out literally water
02:49 Gamefreak75 instead of an icy mix
02:50 GBAToad i misread that as you get hot slurpees and was very confused
02:50 Anton{Politoed} i found out the 7-eleven on the corner near my apartment has a wine aisle
02:50 Anton{Politoed} the endcaps feature barefoot wine so there's just giant pictures of feet all over
02:51 Yuki i liked that one stage with jump up superstar in nude onk city
02:52 Anton{Politoed} yeah that was unexpected and really cool
21:02 Anton{Politoed} so uh
21:02 Anton{Politoed} why does the moon have reused crappy luncheon kingdom assets
21:05 __2257 because thats just the area where they dumped some unpolished challenges
21:07 Gamefreak75 uh oh youre in dark side?
21:07 Gamefreak75 rip
21:07 Anton{Politoed} this dropped the game from a C to a D now
21:08 Nabber oh good anton agrees with me that odyssey's postgame ruins it
21:08 Nabber cool
21:09 __2257 im pretty sure his major complaint was luncheon kingdom
21:14 Anton{Politoed} oh cool
21:14 Anton{Politoed} multi-boss stage with no health packs or breaks and it sends you back to the beginning if you lose
21:14 Nabber LOL
21:14 Nabber have fun anton
21:15 __2257 you can actually just walk back to the ship and heal yourself there
21:15 Anton{Politoed} i'm not
21:15 Anton{Politoed} that sounds like way too much work
21:15 Nabber the ship heals you?
21:15 Anton{Politoed} I'm just going to quit playing the game
21:15 __2257 yes
21:15 Nabber wtf
21:15 Anton{Politoed} odyssey is honestly a stupid *bleep* game and *bleep*
21:15 Anton{Politoed} don't buy it
21:15 Anton{Politoed} about 3 total things are good and you can experience them in a youtube video
21:15 Nabber i remember when i thought playing odyssey would make me feel like i was 10 again
21:15 Anton{Politoed} *bleep* nintendo
21:16 Nabber all things considered i really like odyssey up until post game
21:16 Anton{Politoed} I don't
21:16 Anton{Politoed} time to leave
21:16 *** Anton{Politoed} is now known as Anton{Awaytoed}
21:16 __2257 dont worry nabber
21:16 __2257 even if you didnt feel like you were 10 again
21:16 __2257 i did
21:16 nico anton u can use an amiibo
21:17 nico i did
21:17 nico its bs still
Further expansion:
I would like to have seen each costume provide some new ability, even if it’s really minor, beyond just cosmetic appeal. Super Mario 64 even had all those different hats that did new things, so it could’ve referenced that since there already were a ton of references. Even just a minigame from them would be fine, instead of just restricted access rooms you can only get in if you’re dressed up as a chef or a retiree in Hawaii just to stand still and do an automatic dance for 30 seconds to get a single Moon. Even just different idle animations before conking out would’ve been incredibly nifty. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy being able to have alternate outfits, and would even go so far as saying that they’re my favorite part of the game when combined with taking photos, but there’s really not much loot to be made from collecting Power Moons, regional coins, or regular coins. There’s an enormous amount of Moons to collect for a seemingly endless list of arbitrary and tedious tasks, and there’s no real reward for doing it beyond the feeling of having collected them. The most tactile thing is just some temporary bonus health, and then milking Balloon World to purchase all of the costumes and enough Moons to unlock Dark and Darker Side. Maybe it would’ve been too much more work to program these all in, or would’ve distracted from the whole Capture feature, but it would’ve been something neat that would be extra and add to the charm of the game. Maybe in a sequel?
After hearing everyone complain about how Dark Side sucks I went and bought a ton of Power Moons because I didn’t want to take the time to go and find enough to naturally accomplish it, as well as Darker Side. So, Dark Side starts off pretty abhorrent, with you having to navigate around a bunch of pure grey Luncheon Kingdom veggies, likely to taunt specifically just me. Once you get past that nonsense you shoot up into a giant stone carrot to face the Broodals in a boss battle gauntlet. It was pretty difficult, frustrating, and annoying until 2257 (talk) told me I could just make a trek back to the Odyssey to regenerate health and then it became super easy. After that a whole bunch of Power Moons became available in the form of the bonus levels in every other kingdom but instead significantly more difficult with tweaks such as going Cappy-less, having a more restrictive timer, a change in the landscape, or more enemies flooding the screen. I already really hated these levels a good half of the time I encountered them, so you can imagine how I felt when I came upon these. Actually, you can see right above in that chunk of logs I quoted! Real-time organic, cage-free, homegrown, GMO-free, gluten-free anger. Darker Side was next. Walking into it there’s a bunch of people from every kingdom cheering for you to do whatever thing it is and get to the top of a copy/pasted skyscraper from Metro Kingdom. Turns out it’s an incredibly frustrating platforming challenge that’s really not that difficult as much as it’s just time consuming and aggravating. Spending time to get the extra heart at the beginning only to lose it immediately thanks to it being a 3D environment that doesn’t recognize directional movement and instead flings you two degrees off course into a pit of lava, or a slight camera shift that suddenly wrecks your view and momentum, or rotating upside down bits that arbitrarily decide whether to keep moving in a single direction and flipping into reverse. It’s easily completed with the application of brute memorization, thanks to it having no checkpoints, meaning if you screw up in one part you gotta redo the entire thing. Eventually it becomes muscle memory so over time a part that’s difficult will become easy-peasy and you’ll wonder why you were so frustrated until you look at the clock and realize you just wasted hours of your day.
Best Costumes:
- Boxers, the outfit that introduced the rest of the world to Mario’s nipples, despite real connoisseurs, like myself, already having seen them previously.
- Swimwear, because it looked both cute and goofy, plus I liked pairing the swim goggles with the boxers.
- Knight Armor, because armor looks cool and they made it well.
- Resort Outfit looks good but would be even better if the flip-flops worked how they should instead of being glued to the soles of his feet. I like to imagine this costume as Mario finally being on a vacation, but trouble happens anyways and he doesn’t have a chance to change his outfit, leading to boss battles where the big baddie can hear Mario coming from a mile away because of the flip-flops flipping and flopping loudly through the halls, or is trying to have an evil monologue but keeps getting distracted by Mario slurping on a margarita.
- The Bridal Gown and Veil are amazing, and I’m glad it’s not poked fun at with “oh ho ho a MAN wearing a DRESS?!?! WEIRD!!” and instead is just about “had to change the measurements”
OK Costumes:
- Skeleton Suit is ok, I’m glad they at least made a conscious effort to make the skeletal anatomy as accurate as it could be, but Mario’s nose being a bony structure is suspicious.
- Regardless of me not liking the character otherwise, I appreciate the Diddy Kong costume using Mario’s own bare feet instead of Diddy’s and his gross sideways toe.
- Waluigi and Wario Suits are an excellent inclusion, but the shoes aren’t pointed.
- Invisibility Hat seems good for getting photos of stuff without Mario in the way.
Worst Costumes:
- I get that the Fashionable Outfit is of the Kyary Pamyu Pamyu thing, and that its own caption is aware that the outfit clashes incredibly with itself, but ehhhhh…..
- I also get that the Scientist outfit is another reference, but I could do without the giant Einstein hair, or at least model it better.
- Not really anything else for Worst! There were definitely some that weren’t my particular aesthetic or what I’d want to be bouncing around kingdoms in, but they weren’t conceptually bad.
I’m glad that they had so many references and homages to past games and artwork, but where’s the pumpkin head or Santa??? I also demand a sequel or DLC where I can play as Peach and/or Luigi just to get more outfits for them. Peach’s fashion in each kingdom she went to was top notch.
I appreciate the ability to buy Power Moons to unlock things that require a certain number of them because gosh it can take a while until you get on a roll, and sometimes some are just too frustrating that the only healthy thing to do is put down the game and go enjoy a sunset. There’s an incredible amount of Power Moons to collect and I think it was a smart idea to have a whole ton more only unlock after you beat the game as it gives you a reason to go back and explore each level in crime scene investigation level detail without an overarching plot gnawing at your attention to achieve first. There being so many Moons to collect helped it feel more satisfying than Super Mario 64 and its Power Stars because the gratification was more constant with much less time between achieving them to allow a feeling of defeat to set in. One of them giving you a hard time? There’s 20 more within a 360 degree viewing range to get instead.
I was hoping the co-op two player mode would be something similar to New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but perhaps I was naive and didn’t think much about how that could’ve worked. Instead one player plays as Mario, the other as Cappy, similar to how multiplayer was in Super Mario Galaxy, at least according to other people as I haven’t played that game, either, due to living in a cave. It’s pretty unremarkable and saps away most of the utility and fun from either player by splitting the mobility and powers up. In this mode, though, with Cappy having a higher level of sentience granted by being a Player 2 he is able to fly around for an incredibly longer length of time with pretty open mobility. While this isn’t really any fun for actual exploration or playing the game beyond just doing goofy stuff, I can foresee it having a technical use in grabbing up Power Moons or easter eggs in locations that may be difficult for a single player to achieve without spending hours trying to master a specific chain of actions.
For someone who isn’t speedrunning/race-minded, such as myself, the Koopa races are incredibly unfun and terribly frustrating when you’re up against the golden boy and you’re on attempt number 15 because you messed up a long jump and instead did a backflip for the 6th time in a row, or can’t instantly do a special jump combo. Some people might enjoy it so I guess good on Nintendo for including features that appeal to a range of players, but I really hate it. It's like Portal; I know what to do, I can see the solution, I just can't press the buttons to accomplish it and spending an hour retrying the same part to no success does nothing but infuriate me exceedingly beyond any bit of pleasure I'd glean from eventually succeeding. I tend to beat them only after fulfilling my curse of not being able to accomplish something until I moan about it, and as predicted, I'm not left feeling like I've accomplished something and am instead grumpy and feel like I've wasted my time getting a trinket that I don't even need because I don’t particularly care about showboating getting 100%. Again, some people do, so :clap: for them.
Beach Volleyball the Jump-Rope Challenge are on our award for F12 Worst Game Objective--which you can vote for right now!--for a good reason. Beach Volleyball’s first Moon was pretty easy, but getting to 100 was incredibly monotonous and aggravating, with constantly getting to around 45 and then losing. At some point I just went onto two player mode, validating my future sight abilities as foretold a couple paragraphs back, to have Cappy just hover around at light speed and a hitbox twice his size and the challenge became incredibly easy. It also helps that the ball can hit the ground and it won’t count as a miss until it bounces back down again. At some point the ball stops speeding up and the rhythm becomes almost hypnotic, very much like a metronome, where I can just completely zone out (with Mario himself taking a nap in the corner since he’s not the one playing) and just follow the beat and the ball going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth... Anyways, for the Jump-Rope Challenge, it was really annoying just getting it started, with the ladies just whipping the rope into you before you could even really start and then refuse to start back up again until you left and came back. After weeks of trying it I started looking into exploits, some of which had been patched, but one being a glitch to get one of the giant letters to break out of its confinement looked promising. After failing to get that to work, I could feel mania setting in, and out of pure spite I just did the jump-rope challenge vanilla with pure skill up to like 115. I can see why the dark side of the force is so tempting. Both of these max out with speed boosts at some point, and I guess me having been a music person in a past life (1st part 1st chair alto sax!) helps my with rhythm-based games. Those Stacker arcade games don’t stand a chance against me!
I’m glad there was a Poochy cameo in some portraits, and even appropriately as the being who can survive swimming in the poison sludge, but when there’s a dog you can run and play catch with and it’s not Poochy then honestly what are you doing??
Luigi’s Balloon World
And finally, to satisfy the Luigi theme of this month’s ‘Shroom issue, I’ll blab a bit about Balloon World. My first few rounds trying to pop balloons was a disaster. I didn’t really anticipate so many good hiding spots, the timer being 2 seconds too short for where I needed to go, or for there to be just so many balloons noclipped into the walls. Certain kingdoms that were really awful to play in--such as Snow Kingdom with its limited visibility, death water, and slippery slopes, and also Wooded Kingdom with its deceptive distances, and heights that were too easy to completely ruin a run, and both kingdoms’ shared ability for balloons to be placed in mid-air. Some other kingdoms were marvelous, such as Metro Kingdom and Lake Kingdom which both had distance hints that were easy tells for location and difficulty, making it easy to chain victories. When a special was running in one of those places it made for very quick and easy money, which is what helped fuel me buying every costume and hundreds of Power Moons in just two days. Shoutout to the heroes who placed their balloon just outside the starting circle, and may all though who broke my streaks with glitching their balloons into walls have their systems bricked, food burnt, toes stubbed, freezer door accidentally left open, and favorite show get canceled mid-season with no resolution.
Rating: Collecting several different flavors of Chex Mix and combining them in one large bowl
Explanation: In what was an attempt to combine the positive aspects of so many flavors into one behemoth Mix, effectively the entire thing was diluted to the point of not being able to fully enjoy any of the flavors. It was a massive undertaking and my vaguely negative overall critique isn’t me yelling at them to abandon ship and the concept in general, but rather that it was a good idea in a unique and exciting direction that had many surprises but left more room for improvement. It was an overall enjoyable game and was incredibly refreshing when Mario games were following a trend of being pretty unimaginative and dull; it just had way too many things that were good concepts that were poorly or inadequately executed that teeters on the fence of "wow I wish to see more in a sequel that I will pay for with money!" and "wow I can't believe this cost $60 when it feels like they gave up halfway". I enjoyed that the concept of gathering X amount of Power Moons to proceed to the next level was bolstered by an actual plot to direct me, unlike SM64 which felt more like "here you go, collect X stars to play the same boss level again"; "too ambitious" isn't a thing I want to negatively tack onto the Mario franchise. I may have been mildly annoyed by...basically everything, because I’m kinda whiny about stuff...but I still did play the game to nearly completion, achieved 999 Power Moons, played a heck of a lot of the post-game, and even will be helping to run a Super Mario Odyssey Scavenger Hunt sometime soon for Wiki Anniversary events, so there must’ve been some kind of spark that kept me coming back that other games haven’t had in a while. If there isn’t a sequel or at least this direction not being a one-hit wonder I will be extremely disappointed.
P.S. Despite my vaguely neutral-negative-hopeful rating above, and my hyperbolic crying that the game is actually garbage because Luncheon and Ruined Kingdoms both sucked just that much, you should still buy it because Nintendo will get the idea to make more games like this.
To quote a great poet of our modern times,
“People (...) need to stop being the way they are and conform to the way I want them to be.” --Uniju, April 2018
If you hate what I said and want to call me a big loser stinkface poopyhead, or if you agree with me and want to be all “wowzers, someone else who had similar thoughts!”, or both, instead of tweeting it on your private rage account, feel free to send me a message, make a rebuttal, or, even better, do a review of your own! At the end of the day this is just my opinion and take on my experience, and if you had something different it would be wonderful to read!
As a bonus, here’s a gallery of some more images I wanted to put in this section but either ran out of room in the area I wanted to place it in or just didn't have a place for it at all. For one final complaint out of me, I didn't know that the text overlay on the camera screen would be captured in the photos if I didn't wait for it to disappear until I exported them to my computer, so a whooooooooole bunch of the things I took a photo of were ruined and look sillier than I planned for, and when my favorite thing from the entire game are setting up photos, I don't particularly care for negligence in design that compromises it. Regardless, enjoy:
Me dissociating my way through to June and realizing deadlines are looming.
So cute.
These little 2D platforming bits were a fun gimmick.
Seriously, this could've been Poochy! :(
GIVE ME THE MOONS, BOWL CUT!
Pretty gradients~
New Donk City looked so much better at night.
See, look how MOODY it is!
The duality of man.
Really fun part, definitely filled me with hype.
YAAASSS GAGA
Me when the photos have this overlay on them. Alternatively, THAT'S MY OPINIOOOOON!!
"I'm just gonna hover upside down RIGHT HERE ;~; "
I'm not confused; it's fashion!
What an excellent kingdom design.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
