Tag: nintendo

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Game Ramblings #144 – The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD

More Info from Nintendo

  • Genre: Action RPG
  • Platform: Switch
  • Originally Released On: Wii

Playing remakes is usually a bit weird. They’re typically a mix of nostalgia with enough of a new platform benefit to make replaying worthwhile. Skyward Sword isn’t necessarily different in that regard, although I think a lot of people’s opinion of the original was not great. This one on the other hand benefits from some core things being reimagined – because the Pro Controller is a thing, there’s now a control scheme for this game that isn’t simply motion waggling. While that was a big change that benefited the game a lot, it was interesting seeing where other parts of the game have aged better than others.

The input changes are the obvious focus of this remake, so it’s also the obvious place to start. Waggle sword has been replaced with right analog sword, and in isolation its an interesting and powerful change. The game was able to keep some of the direction based mechanics in an easy to use form factor (ex: scorpion boss requiring specific direction claw strikes). It still has spots where it felt like the responsiveness wasn’t quite there if I didn’t flick at the right speed, but it was a marked improvement over the Wii Remote input system. Nunchuck thrust shield bash has been replaced by a simple click of the left stick. Not having to lift off the movement controls or swing my arms around was a huge boon to shield bashing, and led to me using it to a far greater effect than the original game, despite the fact that my timing still sucks.

On the other hand, having two sticks dedicated to movement and combat means that the camera system is the odd man out. On the one hand, having to hold a button to use the right stick as a camera is still a significant improvement over the original game and other single-analog Zelda experiences. On the other hand, I’m not really entirely sure why they didn’t have an option for a simple L/R camera rotation system. With ZL target locking, having vertical camera movement isn’t super important. Not being able to move the camera at the same time as swinging was definitely a hazard during boss fights to the point where the camera button was frustrating in those situations. It felt like a weird way of trying to blend modern camera systems with a game clearly not built for them when there was likely better intermediate solutions.

On the general gameplay front, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I ended up enjoying the overall meta game. In my original playthrough, I remember being frustrated that there was so much re-traversal of areas that you’d already been to. Compared to previous Zelda games, it felt like a cop out to minimize content production. I don’t know if it’s because Breath of the Wild was so fundamentally different, or that I’ve been playing a whole hell of a lot more Metroidvanias in the last decade, but this go around I really enjoyed it.

Part of this playthrough for me was that I was a lot more intentionally completionist than I typically would be. I was making mental notes of areas that I couldn’t get to, treasures I didn’t have the right tool for, paths I couldn’t make my way through, etc. Because of this, I also had a checklist of new things to do when revisiting an area. Sure there was always a cool new section of the regions to visit, but I also had other things to do – grab heart pieces, grab rupies, grab bugs, get those item upgrades – so revisiting an area never felt like a chore. I think ultimately it comes down to me just playing games differently now than I did at the first release of this game, and the overall meta game setup just hit better for me this go around.

What didn’t hit so well with me was The Imprisoned trilogy of boss fights. The amount of times this thing fell just right to completely block the path, or fell just right to knock me off a cliff DURING ITS OWN CUTSCENE to my doom was obnoxious. I actually died in the second fight because I flippantly started it at low health already, got knocked off the cliff all three times when it collapsed, and died. These fights just didn’t age well, and it was entirely down to bugs.

The other bosses generally worked much better. Some of my frustration with them stemmed from odd camera difficulties that existed in the original game, so in a lot of cases it was expected frustration. I ended up dying my first go around in the final fight against Demise because my shield bash timing was quite frankly that bad. Some of the Ghirahim stuff was mechanically weird in ways I didn’t remember (ex: hold sword to the left as a distraction then QUICKLY do a swipe from the right to damage him?????). By and large though the fights are generally as good as other 3D Zelda games, even if they have the same typically three phase pattern in all of them.

The thing I think I’ve got out of this is that I can recommend Skyward Sword a lot easier than I could before. I always really adored the original game, but I was cognizant of the fact that it was a hard recommendation. The controls were just too inconsistent. However, that’s mostly gone away and the rest of the game has aged well enough that I think it’s worth playing. It’s an interesting transition point between Twilight and Breath where it’s still got the linear dungeon path, but starting to move into some open worldish stuff and upgrade systems, and despite the odd controls it’s a lot of fun to run through. It being readily available on a very popular system also isn’t going to hurt its case. If you’re looking for that classic 3D Zelda itch, you probably won’t do better any time soon.

Also, the cat dog bird thing is a jerk.

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Game Ramblings #131 – Bowser’s Fury

More Info from Nintendo

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: Switch

I’ll make this simple – Super Mario 3D World is still fun and still worth playing. If you buy the cart just for that game, you’ll be happy. However, Bowser’s Fury is easily the more interesting part of the package. It’s an entire experiment in what Mario could be as an open world game. Some of it works well, some of it doesn’t, but it’s an interesting look into what the future of the series could potentially be.

It took me a while to really put my finger on what this game felt like, but it hit me that this feels like playing Super Mario Galaxy, minus the gravity manipulation. As you run around the world, you hit cat gates that act as the entries to individual objective areas. Each of these areas acts similar to a galaxy in that you go through it multiple times to get shines, and each shine has its own little modifications to the environment of the section. Where the magic comes in is that there’s no load times. You finish a shine and can go wherever you want. The next time you come back to the area, a new shine is available and the modifications to the environment in the area are already active.

From a general game rhythm perspective, it ends up being a sped up version of Galaxy. It’s such a small functional change, but not having to drop out of the world speeds up the game so much. You finish a shine and just keep going. There’s no transition back to an overworld or hub. There’s no waiting on loads and title screens. You just run and go. It helps that some shines are also available for partial credit as you run around doing others. For example, each area has a cat badge collection shine that can be finished at any time, including in the middle of working on other shines. It all feeds back into keeping the player moving as much as possible, rather than having to hop back and forth.

This kind of feeds back into what I talked about in the Ys IX ramblings, but this ends up being a game that just keeps you moving, and it’s what I’m most excited about in a potential open world Mario game. Super Mario Odyssey did a great job of packing the individual worlds with a ton of stuff. While those worlds were big and fun, they were also distinctly separate. Taking the scale and scope of things to do and packing it into a future open world (maybe an entire open Mushroom Kingdom?) is something that I never really thought was possible. After playing Bowser’s Fury, I think there’s a nugget of possibility there.

On the other hand, the Bowser part of this experience is just kind of average. As a mechanic tied into the story it serves its purpose but it just isn’t that fun. Bowser pops up periodically to basically just fuck shit up. He throws a bunch of crap around that basically serves to annoy you and then you either fight him as giant Mario or he goes away after a short period of time. There’s also a number of shines that require Bowser’s fury attacks to break some blocks and give access to shines. It just ends up feeling like an unnecessary distraction from the exploration. In general I’d expect this to not exist in a larger open world Mario game, so I’m not overly worried about its existence, but I could deal without the player friction it causes.

However, the boss fight portion of it is fun. Fighting as giant Mario vs Godzilla Bowser is really cool. Mechanically, it’s not that far off of normal Mario fights, but suddenly being as big as an entire level section is fun. Picking up a giant rock spear and chucking it at Bowser is fun. Trying to whack him out of a side spin with your cat attacks is fun. Like most Mario boss fights it isn’t complex, but it’s extremely satisfying.

This is distinctly an experiment. It’s absolutely a pack-in for the port of Super Mario 3D World, but it’s a fascinating way for Nintendo to experiment. They can sell the main game on its own, but still get a lot of player feedback in a way that doesn’t allow for failure. If people don’t like the experiment, no harm, they still have the main game. However, if people do like the experiment? You gave them a great bonus experience and got a ton of good feedback.

Given how well this one turned out, I wouldn’t be that surprised if the next Mario is open world. This one felt instantly recognizable, but new at the same time. Having a very Galaxy-style environment setup without load times is fresh and interesting in a way that surprised me. I could live without the Bowser mechanics, but give me a game with the rest of this experiment and I suspect I’ll be a happy camper.

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Game Ramblings #119 – Super Mario 3D All-Stars

More Info from Nintendo

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: Switch
  • Originally Available On: N64, Gamecube, and Wii

Replaying these three all at once is an interesting experience. They’ve each got their quirks, and to some extent some have aged better than others, but there’s still a lot to like here 15-25 years later. There’s a common mechanical thread that you can see through each of them and you can see the lessons learned in how the next game has improved. That process of iteration gave us three great games, and ultimately led to Super Mario Odyssey, which is arguably the best of the 3D series.

Of the three, Super Mario 64 has aged the worst. That’s not to say it’s a bad game, but it definitely feels like a 25 year old game. Mechanically it ends up just feeling kind of stiff. All of the new 3D moves are there – your triple jump, side somersaults, wall jumps, ground pound – but they aren’t quite there yet. Jump distance is still a little too dependent on your speed, the threshold for side somersault is still a little too tight, the difference between diving forward and doing a jump kick is still a little too vague, but the thread is there to future games.

The biggest problem at this point for Mario 64 is the camera though. It’s just not good. It wasn’t particularly good when it came out, and compared to modern 3d platformers it’s pretty rough. The mix of some camera control for the player and some forced rotation from the level just feels really bizarre. The games that do it best today are ones that either go full player control or full level control and stick to making those feel smooth. To some extent though, I think it’s hurt by playing on a modern gamepad. Playing on the N64, the different levels of camera depth and direction at least felt correct in that you press a button and a single action occurs. On a stick, there’s a large mental hurdle to get over when holding the stick off to the side doesn’t just smoothly rotate the camera. I don’t particularly care that they didn’t go actual remake on this one from an aesthetic level, but having the camera redone as a modern camera would go a long way to improving on the game as it exists.

Sunshine is where things start to really age better. The mechanics are just that little bit tighter across the board to where actions do what you want consistently without being either too loose or too tight on their requirements. The level goals are a little bit more clear, with a nice introductory cutscene before you start off giving you some clue as to where to head. The levels themselves also have a lot more variety, since each goal is tailored to the specific star, rather than having a sandbox level to get any star at any time.

On the other hand, there are definitely some things where it hadn’t quite reached modern smoothness. Kicking the player out of a level into the hub when they die instead of resetting the star is a weird point of friction to the experience that carried over from 64. The lack of checkpoints is similarly unfortunate, especially given they have checkpoints at the start of the handful of areas where they take away your water pack. This one is especially weird because giving more checkpoints would have allowed them to increase difficulty throughout instead of having sort of low difficulty with longer segments. As a whole though, Sunshine is still a really fun and really playable game.

Galaxy is where it all comes together. If this game came out today instead of 10 years ago, it would still be an instant classic. Mechanically, it’s extremely tight, having reached the peak of iteration on the core 3D mechanics at that point. Lives became so abundant that the stale mechanic of game over became near impossible to hit, which ultimately led to lives going away in Odyssey. There’s checkpoints all over, letting each segment of a goal be more interesting on its own, rather than having to be smooth enough for the player to marathon through the entire thing. The gravity manipulation added on top of it is still engrossing, and it’s something I wish we’d have seen used more often in the years since. Playing through this is one of the few times in recent memory that I’ve played a remaster or emulated port that I simply fell into, rather than seeing the warts.

It was also surprising to me how easily the Wii pointer controls moved over to the Switch Joycon. The pointing isn’t 1:1, but it still feels extremely natural. Given they also have a reset button, it’s also comfortable, which is a huge change. You find a comfortable resting point, hit the pointer reset button, and you’re good to go. The sort of flicking motions you do to grab stars is extremely natural, and now that the spin jump is on a button, you don’t accidentally do that all the time either. It’s a minor change to the overall gameplay, but it goes such a long way to improving the experience over the original.

When playing these, it’s easy to see how much Super Mario 64 influenced the future for the Mario series. The move set alone is in everything Mario related at this point. Triple jump, wall jump, and side somersault are instinct moves in Mario games, and not just in 3D. The New Super Mario Bros games inherited just as much of the bloodline of Mario 64 as it did Super Mario Bros 3. These games were hugely influential on release, and are just as worth playing now.

Would I have liked to see Nintendo do something more than an emulated port for these? Sure. Am I disappointed that we got these anyway? Not at all. Playing through these games is still a treat, even with some of the age spots that are showing on them. There’s been a lot of 3D platformers in the 25 years since Super Mario 64 came out, and the three in this package are still right up at the top of the list in terms of their pure playability. Having them in one spot, and more importantly, having them easily on the go is a great package to have out there, regardless of how little things have changed.