Metroid and the Not So A-MAZE-ing Mirror

I get it now.

So, due to the 3DS Ambassador Program I played Kirby and the Amazing Mirror and Metroid Fuison in succession, though have not finished either, and now I understand two things. Why I didn’t like games with mazes in the past, and why those games are liked by so many. That many now includes myself.

So here’s the prologue. I didn’t like the Metriod series. After seeing a Let’s Play done by NintendoCapriSun (NCS) and subsequently having no idea what I was doing after trying in from my ambassador program, I didn’t think these games were going to be for me. Now, by no means did NCS do a bad job with his Let’s Play. But after seeing the entire game and then still having no idea what I was doing, I was a bit discouraged. I tried going around, I think I got an energy tank and a missile upgrade, maybe, but I wasn’t getting anywhere fast and decided to stop.

Next came Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. Now, before I get into this, let me say that contrary to these two posts, I really, really like the Kirby series. Seriously. It’s one of my favorite.  We just happen to be discussing some of my not-so-favorite titles. Here’s a quick rundown to show you what I mean.

Kirby Games in order of Favoriteness (1=Best)

1.      Kirby and the Crystal Shards

2.      Kirby Squeak Squad

3.      Kirby’s Epic Yarn

4.      Kirby Super Star Ultra

Now, those are just the ones I’ve beaten. Kirby Returns to Dreamland seems to feel like it’s going to go somewhere above 3, but I’m not quite sure yet. Amazing Mirror however…

Amazing Mirror didn’t really live up to my expectations. First I accidentally missed a tutorial level. I just went back and checked and no, it doesn’t really explain anything. So, back when I started the first time, I went into the little mirror and to my surprise I found myself in an expansive maze. After walking straight to the same boss twice, I found I was underwhelmed.

After giving it another go a few days ago and the today I decided on a different game to take me though my 4 hour ride home from family Christmas stuff. I chose Metroid Fusion.

And no joke, I had a Paragoomba Shift.

Today.

You see, Metroid Fusion is now my favorite Metroid game. More impressively than being my favorite of two, it got me to understand how a game with a maze layout should be designed. Let me explain.

As per usual for me, I’ll start my example with Mega Man. This kinda design is right up my alley. Using the smallest sections of the games in question that you can give a property to, in the case of Mega Man a Robot Master level, let’s see how the game gets you from point A to point B. In Mega Man it goes like this. “Here’s point A, point B is to the right. Go that way and you’ll get there.” In Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, it goes “Here’s point A. There are 8 point B’s out there. After you find one we’ll bring you back here” In Metriod it goes “Here’s point A. Beat the game.”

However in Metroid Fusion, the game gives you a very clear idea of what your doing. Like this “Here’s point A, here’s point B. There’s a bunch of stuff between point A and point B, but here’s a rough idea of it so you know what you’re doing. Oh and by the way, here’s why you’re going to point B.”

Strawman argument? Perhaps. But it’s how I feel. Now there’s certainly nothing wrong with the Mega Man example. In fact, in general I prefer that kind. However, that’s simply not how the Metroid series is designed, and I respect that. And I think the way Metriod Fusion presented it was the best I’ve seen so far.

Whatever the case, Metroid Fusion has restored my interest in the Metriod series. I’ll be trying out the 2^nd and 3^rd installments eventually, but now, I have a gigantic spider to blow up for robot parts.

I’ll show you the spoils some other time.

Yessiree The Backloggery

The Backloggery. I’ve mentioned it in almost every post so far, so I might as well tell you what it is.

The Backloggery is a website designed to help gamers work on diminishing their backlog, the long list of games you bought but never finished. By putting in all of your games, you begin to realize what you’ve been skipping out on and can see just what needs to be done.

Now obviously, this is definitely a website for completionists, those who must collect every single minikit even though you never look at the 10 piece creation it unlocks. The Backloggery allows you to see your progress and show it off to friends or even just passers-by, a quality one doesn’t always have within the sanctuary of an apartment, college dorm room, basement, bedroom, or Starbucks. Well, maybe a Starbucks.

Now, this is what the Backloggery is basically designed for, the “primary function” if you will. Now let’s look at what you can do with your very own Backloggery account.

1.      A Go-to for a list of games you have.

You see, some people have a lot of video games. A lot. Sometimes, it’s hard to keep track of what you have, what you rented one time, what you used to have, and what you beat at a friend’s house. However, after one time of plugging in your video game collection into the Backloggery, your entire game collection is easily categorized based on platform and completion status, and you can search for them using other qualities such as region, ownership status, and your personal rating of the game. This brings me to my next point.

2.      Mini-Review Site

For each game you can put in a little blurb on your progress. While you’re supposed to just use it to tell people how far you are in a game, a lot of people use it to express their opinion on their games. You can use this to refer people to your opinions on games without having to restate your opinions, or you can use it simply to get your  point of view out there.

3.      Watch people play video games.

The people who run the Backloggery often host livestream sessions of them playing video games. Unfortunately for me, their schedule is a little out of my loop, so I don’t check in very often. But if livestreaming is your kinda thing, then by all means give it a shot.

4.      Social Networking

Using the Multi-tap function, you can receive messages when your friends do things on their Backloggery. Then you can talk about it. Cool Beans.

And that’s the gist of it. I hope one day to make a video tutorial on the basics of the Backloggery, but for now you’ll just have to settle for my vague description of it. But give it a check out, you probably won’t regret it.

Fourtune Cookie #1: Kirby Super Star Ultra

Ah yes, welcome to Foutune Cookie, where fate decides a game for me to talk to you about. Why is it called Foutune Cookie you ask? Because I use the Backloggery's Fourtune Cookie option, a progam that picks one of my games at random, to pick a game for me to talk about. I'll talk about the Backloggery in a day or two, but now, Kirby Super Star Ultra.

Before we discuss Kirby Super Star Ultra, henforth to be refered to as KSSU, it must be noted that I have never played the original game, Kirby Super Star. I had no attatchment to the game, which I belive many people do. I say this because out of all of the handheld Kirby games I've played enough to form an opninion on, this is my least favorite.

Now, I use the term "Least Favorite" lightly, because by no means is this a bad game. I just feel it's a little lackluster is all. Perhaps my viewpoint is afflicted by expecting too much from it, because it is a remake of a game, and if I had to judge the original based soley of this game, I'd have to give it major credit for how much variety and magnitude was put into the game. But nowadays, well, the sheer size of the game isn't as impressive. And much of the additional content added looks larger than it is.

Okay, let me explain how the game works. KSSU gives you modes to play, early one you're given a few and as you complete them you get more modes until you eventually unlock them all. One of the problems with these modes is that a lot of them "based" off each other. Revenge of the King is a harder version of Spring Breeze, Meta Kightmare Ultra is basically the main games with Meta Knight instead of Kirby, meaning your playing the entire game with a beefed up sword ability. Begining to see a pattern here?

But there's certainly much more to this game than these negitive points I have with it. Many of the main features of the game are creative ideas that are fun to try out. The Great Cave Offense is a pretty fun twist on Kirby with a Metriod/Zelda-esque them of finding treausers using certain abilities in what's basically a maze, though the maze is sort of funneled in a large circle to keep you from getting hopelessly lost. There's also Milky Way wishes which has you collect powerups throughout the course of the title and once you collect them you can use them at your leasure, the challenge being that you can't take powers from the enemies around you and are stuck with what you have collected. Unfortunatly, once you get about half of the abilities and the sense of being nearly indestructable since you'll never lose a power because it can be resommoed at will, things get a little dull as you try to find those last powers that really wouldn't be that helpful compared to the aresenal you have now.

The Areana is a fun place to battle all the bosses with limited health refills. This is probably the most challenging part of the game because, let's face it, platforming is pretty negligable when you can fly infinatly. Then you get to the True Arena where you fight stronger versions of the bosses, which I have yet to beat. There's also the Helper to Hero mode where you do The Arena but instead you fight with one ability throughout the entire thing. However, this mode is indentical to The Arena outside of this and after about one or two playthoughs you'll probably feel a sense of repeditaveness and may give up unless you're the competionist type.

Have I failed to mention the Helpers yet? Well I should, because they are absouletly without a doubt... kinda cool. The AI on these guys is about as good as you'd expect, and they can be helpful. They'll do extra damage to that boss and you can use them as a backup abilty in case you lost the one you were using. But be wary, cause if you want to snag an ability from an enemy you'll have to work fast or your helper will destory them in a beserk fit of rage! Or at least fight as he's programed too.

What is more than kinda cool is the multiplayer. Oh yes, it's been around before Yarn and Return to Dreanland. However, unlike those you're going to want to play with someone who has their own copy of the game. I say "want" instead of "need" because technically you can play multiplayer without two copies of the game, but you can only play on one DS, which means your friend is going to have to look at your screen while pushing buttons on their own  DS, and you can only play on Spring Breeze, which is basically the KSSU's tutorial mode, which is really short.

However, if you DO have two copies of the game, well, things get interesting. You can now play any part of the game with a freind standing in as a helper. ANY. PART. There is no limit to this whatsoever. The partner plays as a helper, so you'll have to summon them yourself, but after that? Smooth sailing. There is nothing more fun to do with this game then boot it up with a freind and wail on enemies  with your newfound co-op skillz. It also helps you with harder sections of the game and is really, just a great time.

Anthing else I have to say about the game is pretty small. I like the new boss in Milky Way Wishes for Meta Knight, but I'm still confused why he blew up the Haleberd. Gourment Race is fun but really short. I like some of the continuity established within the game, like the return of one of Dynablade after you help her. The cutscenes are pretty cool and can be epic. I love the Masked Dedede theme. I think Kirby's a little to big and bulky and he controls  a little clunky compared to the other handeld games I've played.

All in all, that's pretty much Kirby Super Star Ultra. If you were a fan of the original, then you'd probably love this one too. It's definatly a good starting point for a newer Kirby fan as well, as this shows you the basics while still providing newance within the title. If you have a freind with the game you'll definatly have a blast playing it with them. To me, the test of time has weared on this game a bit, but it's still good and worthy of the Kirby name.

Now if you'll excuse me, it has become tommorow as I wrote this, so I'll put hyperlinks in here at a later date.

Meet JoeReviewer

Hello Internet! My name is JoeReviewer. You can call me Joe, but not Reviewer, cause that's too generic.

Anyways, welcome to Paragoomba Shift. I hope you've enjoyed what you've seen so far, whether you're seeing this place for the first time or if your from the MYSTICAL FUTURE! But enough about that, let's talk about me.

If school has taught me anything it's that it's nearly impossible to speak about oneself without sounding conceded, so given how incredibly awesome I am this may sound a bit pretentious, so apologies en avance.

Okay, focus time. Who am I? I am but a mild-mannered person who plays video games and thinks he's got some important things to say about them A.K.A. this blog. As far as these games go, I'm really a Nintendo guy, but I'm not afraid to dabble into other markets and I do own a PS3. As far a PC games go, I'm not well versed mainly due to the fact that around the time of this post my 4 year old computer has about as many Giga Bytes left as it has years owned. Perhaps I'll go into more detail at a later date, but for now if you're really curious then you can check out my Backloggery to see what I got. More on that place later too.

Hmm... What else? Oh, I run my own Youtube channel where I post my random adventures while I play games. I like to show off simple things that are part of playing a game, not just a polished play-though (although I'm not opposed to such). I also work on a collaboratory channel called Yashichi, who may feature a few faces you'll see around the blog. Well, not their faces per se, but you know what I mean.

I'd say I'm a nerd I guess, though not in front of the public. Not because I'm embarrassed but more that people would think that my statement was a problem. As such most of my interests are kept on the "downlow", as the kids say, in my everyday life. I can tolerate immaturity, as long as it's intentional and not viewed by the immature as "sophisticated". Despite any complaining I may have, my life's pretty good 'round here. It's not perfect, but then again, few things are. I also can be very skeptical, but at the same time I often give people the benefit of the doubt. It's a situational thing I guess.

This is falling apart into random tid-bits, but we're not going to break continuity!

I hate thunderstorms. I use the internet often. I have an old jacket I wear throughout the year. I'm pretty good at editing videos. I sometimes throw a little French into my speech to mix things up. I live in the EST time zone. No you don't get anything more specific than that. I like Mega Man, Kirby, Mario, and sometime Legend of Zelda. I've run out of things to say for a bit so I better stop now or I never will.

Thanks for reading and don't worry, soon we'll get to the good stuff around here.

Welcome to Paragoomba Shift

A Paradigm Shift, most simply defined as a change of perspective, or a change from a universally held viewpoint to an new one. Though the term is mostly used to describe abstract scientific views, we laypeople can simply use it to describe a change in perspective.

And the keyword there is change. There are many interesting things to say about what was before, as well as many things to say about the end result, but the most interesting things to be said lie with the change. Think of it this way: The beginning of a video game, you're introduced to the concepts, your limitations, what's expected of you. It can be fun viewing all those things for the first time, and it can be hard to deal with it too. However, at the end of the game, you get to use all those powers to your fullest to finnally conquer.

But the real magic happens in the middle. Your journey is what makes the game, and what makes it fun. You go into the depths of what the game has to offer, find out just how much can be done, and improve yourself as the game gets harder. You didn't beat the game because you saw the end credits, you beat the game because you went through the whole thing.

And I just lost the game, but that's beside the point.

But yes, here at Paragoomba Shift I hope to look in the middle along with what has come before and what has come after. Put much less flowery than I seem to have taken to describing throughout this, looking at old games/consoles/anything else that could be interesting in conjunction with newer versions of that / list and not favoring one over the other. It also includes looking at what actually made that change happen, cause not much really happens by chance.

I guess that's the gist of what we've got here. I don't necessarily intend on sticking verbatim to the themes here for every single post, but rest assured they will always be kept in mind. I hope this blog will help others to look at things from a new perspective, including ourselves.

Read the much less philosophical and more self indulgent description of myself tomorrow.

Let's Get Things Started

This is a place-holder post while I get some touches up around this new blog. It's like moving into a new house or room, you gotta tweak some things before you can really be comfortable calling it your home. I think the actual blog kick-off will start sometime later, hopefully not as lodged in the holiday season.