The 'Shroom:Issue XCIII/Critic Corner

Director's Notes (Palkia47 (talk)) Howdy everybody! It’s that time of the year. Yeah, that’s right, it’s Festivus! …Okay, maybe not. But it is Christmastime! And with that, hopefully, we’ll be able to supply you all with a fun and enjoyable Critic Corner! If you are interested in signing up, please contact me either on the wiki or on the forums! I will be glad to assist in anybody interested! To all the readers, wikiers, people trying to escape MrConcreteDonkey’s ruthless rule, I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year, and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season! :D Section of the Month Last month’s winner was Pyro with his Fangame Reviews section, slightly edging out Yoshi876’s Character Review by a single vote, 5-4! Congrats to the both of you! :) Mario Reviews Character Review Yoshi876 (Talk) Yoshi876 ventures into the dangers of Villager…! [read more] Non-Mario Game Reviews Hottest Reviews Around Pyro (Talk) Pyro gives his take on the long-awaited Rebirth! [read more] First Impressions Palkia47 (Talk) Packy replays and reviews a childhood game! [read more] Opinion Pieces Non-Game Reviews

Character Review (Yoshi876 (talk)) Villager The innocent face of someone who's about to kick your ass Ho Ho Ho ‘Shroom readers! Today I'm going to treat you to an early Christmas present, a review of a character I actually like: The Villager. The Villager made his debut in Animal Forest for the Nintendo 64. There, he was the player’s avatar and he has remained such throughout the series. The Villager is able to be customised with different shirts, hairstyles and more recently with different dresses, skirts, trousers, socks and shoes. He’s basically a walking Hollister shop now. I may mention the word "he" a lot in this review, but you can also have female villagers, although other than gender there's no real difference. The innocent face of someone who’s about to charge you extortionate prices at the flea market. The Villager first appeared as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U, something that I was extremely happy about. A character representing a big series that’s never been represented before. And were there any hitches? Not from what I can tell, the Villager is a perfect fit for the environment, and uses many of his abilities, well equipment, from his series. The only complaint I have with this, is that as far as I know, the fishing rod plays no part in his moveset which is utterly ridiculous. It’s a massive part of his series, and in the game which showcases the best Nintendo All-Stars it has no appearance, instead some dumb stick does. The flowerpot also doesn't make sense as it’s physically impossible to break one within the game. I don’t even think these appear in the Animal Crossing series. No Villager, that’s not what I meant by a housewarming party. When Villager was announced as a playable character, the internet took in a different way than most others would. What they did was turn the Villager into a psychopathic murderer. And I love it. I love seeing the cute little Villager suddenly turned into the stuff of nightmares. The once child-friendly series took a sudden dark turn, and it surprisingly works, I can no longer look at the Villager without thinking of a little murderer hiding within. However, I do have one small problem with the Villager, and that is his appearance in Mario Kart 8, maybe I’m an old-timer, but I prefer to keep my Mario games Mario. I’m down for a Nintendo Kart, but I has disappointed when Villager was announced as a DLC character for Mario Kart 8, especially since I was hoping for the return of Dry Bones. Now whilst I dislike this, I find it has little bearing on my opinion of him, and I'll probably be very hypocritical and play as Villager when I get the DLC. Overall, the Villager is a welcome addition to the Smash franchise, but not the Mario Kart one. He looks to be an interesting fighter, and one hell of a meme, and I’m definitely not writing this review with him stood behind me.

Hottest Reviews Around (Pyro (talk)) The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth Developer Nicalis Publisher Nicalis Platform(s) PS4, Vita, PC Genres Rougelike Rating(s) ESRB: - Mature Happy holidays, everyone! I hope you're having a great time. There aren't any fangames for me to review this month, so I'll be tackling a game I've been wanting to talk about for quite some time now - The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth! A game I was quite hyped about, I was one with the Redditers that patiently awaited their pre-loaded copy to be unlocked. I'd like to say the game was flawless, but unfortunately, it's not. Rather than a full review, I've taken on a "complaint list" style. Now Rebirth is not a bad game. It's actually quite good. This is just a complaint list. Let's kick this complaintfest off. -First and most obvious. Who ever thought Azazel was a good idea? Seriously? A character that starts with flying and a short-ranged Brimstone? I thought Rebirth wouldn't have an easy mode! The character is a snoozefest to play as because the game becomes a cakewalk. -There's really no reason to play as Lazarus. There's not really anything too special about him. -The Haunt should not be a Cellar boss. He's just too hard. -All the new bosses with the exceptions of Dingle, Mega Maw and The Cage are bad in one way or another. Mega Fatty has this dumb attack where he jumps up and immediately comes back down, and unless you have lightning fast reflexes you won't dodge it. The Dark One has too much health and is unpredictable. The Adversary has a random, untelegraphed homing laser. The Gate has an attack that follows his minions, which usually results in the laser having strange and random shapes. The Gurglings leave creep, and they're a fucking Basement boss. -The new wall spider enemies have strange hitboxes. -The laser wall spiders start moving before their laser fades away, potentially hitting you. -The devil enemies that chase after you at high speeds and turn invisible and invincible periodically are unfair. -Some new curses aren't very good. Curse of the Maze, Blind and Unknown are just annoyances. -Antigravity sucks. -The chubber enemies (the ones that shoot maggots) are still glitched, somehow. They still do a full hearts' worth of damage. -Teratoma is glitched. It does a full heart of damage no matter where you are. -They didn't fix Ipecac. -A majority of the new challenges are awful. Most make use of an item that disables your tears so you have to rely on other things, like orbitals (Solar System), familiars (Family Man), Guppy's Hairball (Cat Got Your Tongue), or the worst offender, fart bombs + a very slowly recharing Bean (Beans!). Plus there's an Epic Fetus challenge. Who thought that was a good idea?! -The secrets past ~78 are poorly organized. Why is Lord of the Flies last and not Real Platinum God? -It's really hard seeing Mom's foot's shadow when the floor is so dark. -The way to get to the boss rush probably could be more lenient. Right now you need to beat Mom under 20 minutes, but sometimes you get a huge room that takes 2 minutes to beat. It should probably be extended to 25. -Explosions from BFF/Bob's Brain/helpful explosives that aren't Dr., Epic Fetus or Ipecac should not hurt you. -Why the hell are Bad Gas and Paralysis in the "positive" pill pool? -Was it really that hard to add item names in the collection screen? -Purely cosmetic special seeds disable unlocks. That's stupid. -They still didn't nerf The Bloat...but they did nerf the Mask of Infamy. What's the logic here? -Stop trying to nerf Dark Bum, he's fine as is! -Hard mode needs more differences, like new boss attacks. -Wasn't the game advertised in that all items synergized? No, they don't. Example: Monstro's Lung + Mom's Knife. -If you didn't want people to discover The Lost, why did you make an achievement for unlocking him?! -Mega Satan gives you no item unlocks, except Godhead if you beat him as Lost on Hard (correction 2 1/2 months later: no he doesn't). That's it. -Donation machines should not break! It's infuriating when you have tons of money and the machine breaks. -They fixed the offscreen soul hearts bug. *sob* -Unfortunately, spike sacrifice rooms are still worthless. -And my biggest qualm. THERE IS NO REASON TO GO TO THE DARK ROOM! Not only is The Negative inferior to The Polariod in every way, Dark Room doesn't give you free items, is harder than the Chest, and to get to it you must go through a boss much harder than Isaac. What is the point here?! I'm sorry I wasn't able to do something special for Christmas. Oh well. 'Till next time, happy holidays from me!

First Impressions (Palkia47 (talk)) Howdy everybody, it is Pack-man again! I am back for a little bit more of a… first impressions sort of thing. Except this time, it is not on a new game and it is on a game that I have already played for years! The beginning of a legend (‘: The game we are going to discuss today is a game that was a vital part of my childhood in terms of video games. ‘’The Adventures of Bouapha: Spooky Castle’’ was a PC game released in 1998, developed by Hamumu Software and distributed by eGames before it was eventually released as a free-to-play game in 2004. The game follows the protagonist, appropriately titled Bouapha, as he takes on the task of rescuing all of the brains that were stolen from the organ bank! …Yeah, that is the plot. I did not even know that until yesterday. The style of the game is similar to the top-down view that was popularized by the original Legend of Zelda released on the NES. The game basically throws you into the overworld map immediately, which when you first start, is only made up of two areas: a grassy area outside of the castle, and inside the actual castle itself. The only area available to you from the start is the grassy area, which is made up of three levels (which can be accessed from walking into trees…) and a tutorial level. Many of these levels show off the many mechanics and enemies that will be seen throughout the game. The small overworld… safe to say, those are not all the levels! In terms of the mechanics, there are mainly two things related to Bouapha that are extremely crucial and mandatory to the game: his weapon and its power-ups. Bouapha uses a red hammer that can be thrown out as a projectile, similar to the way Rayman works with his fist. He somehow has an infinite supply of these hammers whenever he collects them in levels, but he does not have any when he starts out in a level… I dunno. Logic. If you collect more than one hammer, Bouapha will throw the amount of hammers you are currently in possession of. This means, if you collect one, you throw one; two, two; three, three; four, four. The other important collectable in the game are pants! …Yes, pants. They are actually very blue pants. Collecting pants allows for Bouapha to throw his hammers out at an even faster rate. To make things even better, there is another power-up in certain levels that can allow for the hammers to reflect off of walls and come back… yeah, just imagine having maximum pants, maximum hammers, and reflection. There is one level later on in the game where that becomes a reality, and oh boy it is so much fun :’). There are also weapons that can be retrieved by defeating enemies or they are just lying out on the field in levels. These weapons, which unlike the hammers actually have a certain amount of times they can be used, range from cherry bombs to missiles to flamethrowers… they are not as violent as they sound, I promise. The other key mechanic in the game is Bouapha’s health, which obviously can be decreased by being attacked. His health can be replenished two different ways: clearing the level you are in, and by collecting the Chinese take-out food. The guy’s got good taste in food, what can I say? Also safe to say… these guys used to scare me. A lot. The other big part of this game, as previously mentioned, are the enemies. There are common enemies that you will see from the get-go: zombies, boneheads (skeletons), mumbles (mummies), and spiders. These enemies can easily be killed by a handful of hits from your hammer and pose no real danger or threat to your life. In fact, the zombies are crucial to your progress through the game. In many levels, you must collect the brains to complete the level and move on to the next one, and none of the other enemies but the zombies hold these brains. However, as there is with many games, there are stronger version of these enemies that you will encounter; specifically, the Super Zombie and the Mama Spider. The Super Zombie is capable of causing massive damage, but they must be eliminated in the levels they are seen in due to the brains. The Mama Spiders are quite honestly very annoying, as they are possible for massive damage as well, and killing one results in multiple baby spiders to spawn from inside of it. These little spiders, called “Eensy Weensy”, are incredibly easy to kill, as it takes one hit from a hammer to end them, but the little guys are very, very annoying, and can easily sap some HP here and there. And we will not even get into the final boss… let me just say it is something you will have never seen before in-game, it and its kind. And these guys just annoy me. Also a lot. Overall, the game is very… interesting. Graphically, it is certainly different, but I actually really, really do like the graphical aspects of the game and there are a handful of other games in the series that follow the same style, although they are not free-to-play. The game actually controls very well, and it is very easy to pick-up and get into immediately. It is not a long game by any means, perhaps only lasting one to three hours if you really know what you are doing. There are some frustrating moments in the game, pertaining to particularly two of the castle levels, but they are nothing worth rage-quitting over at all. There are also two really neat easter eggs in the game, one relating to collectable keychains later on in the game, and another is actually a hidden mini-boss in one of the castle levels, so there are certainly some rewarding moments in the game to make up for the frustration! To be quite honest, that is all I can really say about the game. It is so much easier for you to actually play it and experience it yourself, which you can do for free if any of you would like! It is a very small game and is very quick to download, thankfully only being 5.7MB. Here is the link to the game if you are interested in trying it, and the download link is up towards the top-right of the screen, next to the title. http://hamumu.com/game.php?game=SPKY So from me, Packy, I hope you all enjoyed this little look into ‘’The Adventures of Bouapha: Spooky Castle’’, and I hope you all will give it a go and hopefully enjoy it! Thanks for reading, happy holidays, and Merry Christmas! :)

Issue XCIII
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