Retro Blog: First Three

Here are the first three videogames that I ever played. After that, I obviously lost count in what happens to still be my favorite hobby to spend time into. And I don't see it ever going away, because it is here to stay, it is innovating and best of all there are so many differences between video games in the available genres and through their environments, controls and content.

In honor of them, I managed to beat all three in 2013 again.

#1: Bubble & Bobble

As far as I can remember, this is the one that started it all.

Bubble Bobble is a different kind of puzzle platformer where two players can play little lizards or dragons that are able to create bubbles to trap their enemies and defeat them then by striking with their bodies.

Consisting of about one hundred ten levels, it’s a game that gradually gets tougher to get through.

Powerups such as the umbrella(skipping several levels) and invincibility are randomly popping up to help out.

You are also able to use the bubbles as semi brief platforms in order to get to higher places whenever you are stuck or need to get that last enemy down. If you do not hurry, a ghostly fiend will chase you down and kill you instantly.

As you cheerfully and peacefully traverse the hostile creatures, halfway through comes Level 57 which is an unexpected torture to overcome that seriously has put off a lot of players getting further, unless you got lucky with an umbrella.

But most of the time does Bubble Bobble do play fair, provides enough variety in level design and keeps things interesting with a score system, a letter system letting you able to see the true ending and the last levels plus the powerups I mentioned previously.

Rating: 7.5

                                                           #2: Mega Man

There's another good reason why this franchise continues to make me excited; I grew up with it.
Mega Man feels like it's from a different era than it's countless sequels, which is evident when you look at the score system and the retro graphics that have these certain mood about them.

As the formula wasn't traditional yet, there are only 6 Robot Masters to overcome, a small fortress and only 1 assist weapon to help you progress, nor are there any E or W tanks. The difficully is harsh at times, but the more you play Mega Man, especially the NES ones, the easier the first title becomes.

I remember sitting with my brother during a party with adults, where we were focused with trying to beat Guts Man's stage. We simply couldn't do it. Those damn platforms triggered our defeat  constantly.

That was the first time I experienced the blue bomber in action. I was 3 years old, but this memory is still intact. It wasn't until 1999 that I beat it for the first time, which was pretty satisfying to experience.

Mega Man remains consistent but not "perfected" so to say when looking at the next two sequels. Still, there's a lot of joy to be found here. It's a nostalgia ride and a simple game, but it surely was innovating back in the day when stage select and absorbing boss weapons were original.

Rating: 8.1

                                                     #3: Super Mario Bros. 3

My 2nd favorite Mario game basically. Super Mario Bros. 3 is a very big game featuring large worlds with lots of levels to complete. It also features a fun throwback multiplayer mode to the original Mario Bros. and it is also a pretty difficult game from Nintendo.

As the pinnacle of the early days of the huge franchise, much alike with being the "third time's the charm" similar to A Link to the Past and Super Metroid, Super Mario Bros. 3's main feature is flying around as Mario using the "P meter" which you must boost up by running first in order to trigger it.

By doing so will you be able to uncover secrets in the sky, make several levels a ton easier and be free like a raccoon. But there are other enjoyable powerup suits making their debut here, such as the Frog Suit and the Hammer Bros. Suit.

There are 8 worlds to platform through, such as the Ice Land, Sky Land and Giant Land. It introduced new enemies such as Boos and Thwomps that are of course familiar to everyone now. And as for secrets, these were a joy to find!

The flute letting you skip whole worlds, the airships with the Koopalings, the Kuribo Shoe and the bonus mini games found on the maps; surely was Super Mario Bros. 3 similar to the first one but radically different by it's content!

It's one of the games that I think that every gamer should atleast beat once to truly feel the Mario magic the best way yet. And it continues to be the most popular NES game to this day, because of expanding upon pretty much everything.

Rating: 9.3

Paper Mario Tetralogy

Paper Mario

Has it been a decade already since this spiritual sequel of Super Mario RPG went retail?

I remember when I skipped a day of school once specifically, calling in sick because I had to continue playing this game at some point. And, admittedly, I also have a confession to make about this(I cried during the credits thinking Mario would never return), plus in many ways I see Paper Mario as the last childhood game I played, before the internet, high school and other new events arrived.

When it comes to RPG's, everyone has their favorite. It is always a massive distinction, resulting into popular ones such as Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger, or underrated ones such as EarthBound and Suikoden II. Despite many of them sharing the same traditional RPG standards, the debates continue to blaze constantly.

I might have truly disliked Final Fantasy X, but plenty of people hail it as one of the best, if not the best in the franchise. Therefore I think that certain RPG's can be very personal for some, and for others very out there.

Paper Mario, for me, is my personal favorite and best RPG. The game's design, content and gameplay are the prime reasons for being so. For being the only worthy RPG and one of the last games released on the N64, it surely was a triumphant way to go.

Intelligent Systems, the incredible first party developer for Nintendo, is responsible for what has become another sub series for Mario. They have an amazing portfolio consisting of series such as Advance Wars and Fire Emblem. 

They took the basic combat gameplay from Super Mario RPG, but decided to change many things considerably. It is no secret that Paper Mario plays fairly simple. For instance, damage charts start at the scale of 10, as Mario will hit not harder than 1 point of damage when the adventure begins.

The world is comprised of paper objects, allowing the player to interact with their "paperistic physics", resulting in both visual as well as gameplay enhancements. As you wander around in this pretty big land, the NPC's, or non playable characters provide not just any dialogue, but humoristic, helpful and curious ones.

It's sequel by the way might have even better dialogue, but the reason why this part of the game is so good is because of how closely it is connected with the gameplay and the world. The story, game mechanics and the controls combining RPG and platform segments just work in harmony here.

It has been the only game in my life where I wept for the future when I was thirteen. I did so, in combination with the charming ending and thinking by myself, when the internet was still unknown territory for me, that this was the final Mario game(the GameCube and Luigi's Mansion for that matter were still unknown to me.) Thinking about it now, Paper Mario was the last game I played before the internet became a part of my daily activities.

And there is so much to see and so much to do. From discovering star pieces to being a postman to experimenting with cake recipes and intriguing badges, opitional boss fights, secret areas, empowering your partner allies even further and more.  

Personally, Paper Mario is my favorite Mario game out of them all. When speaking of Mario platformers, that would have to be Super Mario Bros. 3. But Paper Mario has such a
charm to it, because of its simplicity, it's graphics, it's humoristic dialogue and its sublime soundtrack that it beats out even the best of the traditional platformers.

Rating: 9.6 

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

An explosive sequel with many new fun locations to be found, and the difficulty actually got harder. Mario will have to unlock the mystery of The Thousand Year Door(and beyond!) and battle Grodus's army simultaneously.

As was previously happening as well, Peach will once again have minor parts during the chapters. Bowser and Luigi return as well, but this new world including Rogueport is breathing with interactive events and has such sights to show you that first time players will be in for a massive ride.

I don't recall anyone ever saying that TTYD was a bad game, because everyone seems to like it as their favorite Paper Mario game. And for very good reasons; it's highly replayable, very humoristic and has a rich soundtrack that rivals the original.

Come to think of it, it's in my top 3 GameCube games. The long adventure brings with it new ways of interacting with the paper elements to be found, including moving between very small spots normally inaccessible, rolling up and of course your partners like the previous one have their own attacks during the battles and outside them.

Also returning is a special detective chapter, when you will have to solve a murder mystery, which in reality is one of the many examples I can give when it comes to variety by the content. Each boss battle is once again accompanied usually by very cool battle themes, and the badge system, that offers various effects during battles, is developed even better now.

The references and cameos are too many to count, but so is the original content to be found as well! From a certain boss that steals names to intermissions with Bowser to an audience cheering the contestants during battles, The Thousand Year Door is worthy of being an amazing game to remember.

Rating: 9.4 

Super Paper Mario

Solid mix of a platformer with RPG elements and originality regarding flipping from 2D and 3D perspectives, but a huge consequence was made for this; the difficulty is way easier than the RPG's before Super Paper Mario. 

The bosses are around the same as TTYD's, but the chapters themselves have become less entertaining for me, probaply because I beat this game much quicker than the actual previous RPG's. Not only that, interactions somehow became less exciting as well.

What is done well though is the fact that you can play with the 4 most popular characters, which are Mario, Luigi, Peach and Bowser, each with their own movesets. Alongside your new quirky partners called Pixls, this time you are facing Count Bleck with his interdimensional plans of dominion.

The story and the music wasn't on par, but I appreciate Intelligent Systems for doing something different. The dialogue is still written well, and some chapters were fun to do such as the Bitlands or the Underwhere. Other chapters however can be absolutely frustrating.

Rating: 8.4 

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

The latest entry turns out to have another premise, as stickers have become a general theme where you will have to collect them in order to use them as ammunition for the upcoming battles. It's up to Mario to save Princess Peach from a mute less Bowser once again.

Sticker Star is the first portable version as well, offering some pretty 3D graphics combined with simple and colorful art to blitz your screens. Not to mention the overall theme of a paper world remains a solid tradition to use.

I liked moving the Nintendo 3DS around just to see the stickers shine pretty. Paperization is your new tool available for solving puzzles involving Things, Scraps and normal stickers. Scraps are random peel able objects which must be rotated or switched with locations in order to progress.

Things however are realistic objects such as a bowling ball, a mobile phone, a baseball bat and much more which most of the time can be devastating attacks to use at battles. They are sometimes also needed to progress much akin with Scraps, but when they are needed, it can be cryptic to either find them in the first place, or know which one to use for maximum effect.
 
While the battle system remains the same at it's core most similar to the first two games, stickers being involved as limited attacks means that you will have to collect them in the fields or buy them at shops in order to be able to fight back.

Partners, or even other playable characters have been dropped. Your only assisting character will be Kersti, a sticker fairy who will do the talking for you, offer minor hints and she looks similar to the previous Pixls.

As for the chapters, they have been divided upon into smaller sections in the form of a familiar world map setting much like the many 2D Mario platformers. Okay, I guess there's nothing wrong with that. But what did lower the overall enjoyment I was anticipating is the lack of such overall enjoyment in the first place.

The comedy was minor in amount, the NPC's were mostly toads, the bosses were generic giant versions of normal enemies and forgettable apart from Petey Piranha's reappearance, but perhaps worst of all is that the normal battles are fundamentally not even needed.

You see, you only collect coins and a few stickers each time, not experience points. What personally happened for me is that I ran away from battles more than that I fought them, because there simply was no urgency to do them.

Collecting coins and stickers would be better to do so during the levels themselves and at the end of them. As for side quests, there are optional Things to be found as well as Secret Doors to insert at almost every level, mostly to get more stickers and Things.

The soundtrack was lacking but nothing really bad. Also, because Miyamoto was more involved, original characters have almost completely deliberately been left out because of some reason I cannot remember at the moment. Thus enemy design is all too familiar, much like with the recent New Super Mario Bros. games.

So Sticker Star turns out to be the least entertaining Mario RPG yet, next to Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. The lack of an exciting adventure with fun NPC's, entertaining side quests, partners or playable characters and a better balanced battle system means that it sadly is nothing more than an average RPG at best.

Rating: 7.2

Quintet Quadrilogy

This is an old IGN blog, but I decided to update it because despite being average games, they did leave behind an impression of afterthoughts even to this day. Mostly because of the themes they play around with.

Courtesy goes to Hardcore Gaming 101 for laying the connection between the original trilogy and the fourth title which I recently beat. Technically, The Granstream Saga isn't developed by Quintet but by Shade, who had staff members of the former. Still, I like the title for this particular post.

Soul Blazer

Soul Blazer is where it all started. Well, almost everything, since some things were definitely borrowed from Quintet's previous game ActRaiser, which by the way is also worthwhile to play. You emerge from some kind of godlike altar where The Master informs you of the situation and asks you to fulfill your destiny, which is releasing every kind of souls in the world, be it human, animal or wooden objects such as doors or even vines. 

The action RPG gameplay is fun, but quickly starts to get repetitive as well because of the way the enemies spawn constantly like a precursor to tower defense and how each level in the game starts basically the same and ends the same. There are some memorable songs such as Dr.Leo's lab dungeon, his painting and after listening to it more my personal favorite being the Mountain of Souls. 

The reward feeling is nice for releasing the souls, but even that becomes so repetitive that you either want to drop the game or finish it quickly, like me. In overall, it's a good start, but in the end it remains a decent game with not much to offer other than hacking a lot of enemies, freeing souls and repeating the process.

+Fast-paced hack and slash action RPG.
+Rescue souls in order to restore parts of several villages.
+Challenging moments including some of the bosses.

Rating: 7.3

Illusion of Gaia

My personal favorite out of the four by far. Now why is that, when Terranigma is favored by pretty much everyone else? I will get to that game soon, but first let me explain this. Like HG101 already said, this is the odd one of the bunch, focusing on 1 literal forced route to take only, because once you are done with a town or a dungeon, you will never access that part of the game again in Illusion of Gaia. Quite an unusual game design in the way it is executed, but it works in a way. 

Not only does this contain some very successful songs such as Sky Garden, The Guardian and my personal favorite Angkor Wat, it also has a likable cast that goes through some heavy emotional moments. Perhaps the very reason I talked about that unusual game design before and because of the presented story is why I enjoy reading up on their emotions so much throughout the game.

 
I really like the action RPG gameplay this time, where you will have to defeat every enemy on each screen to advance further or to level up your main character Will, who by the way can morph into 2 other forms as well. It is perhaps the most difficult game out of them all... yeah it is, no question about that. I mean Illusion of Gaia instantly throws at you one of the most difficult first bosses in any game I had played back then as a kid. Mu remains the worst place to be though.

I am intrigued by the established ancient civilizations this game provides, and the brief fantasy history lessons it teaches gamers, also talking about the majority of the dungeons found here, which are awesome and most of them are even based on real life locations.

Backpacking towards these locations in the world is still possible and so far, I have visited Cambodia. There's a strong possibility that a next "dungeon" will also be visited this year, and it would be fun to complete the others as well such as Mu being partially based on Eastern Island in Chile.

Illusion of Gaia has memorable parts. For example, the gold ship part was surreal to say the least. The Nazca Lines being the entry point for the Sky Garden was a nice touch, and who could forget about the Russian Roullete part involving deadly alcoholic drinks?

And with a nice side quest involving finding red gems as well, this is a one of a kind game, where I would had liked to see more of, but I also think at the same time that this story is over and there is no need for continuation.

+Dungeons based on real life locations.
+Large graphics for the sprites, buildings and effects.
+Memorable bosses such as Castoth and the Vampires.
+Likable cast.
+Diversity in enemy design plus 3 different playable characters available. 

Rating: 7.9 

Terranigma

 

Oh, how so very dissapointing. Don't get me wrong, because this game really started off great, full of mystery, a beautiful unfolding plot and good action RPG gameplay. But this game is split up for me into two parts.

First, you start with the awesome part, which contains Crysta, the 5 towers, resurrecting the plants, animals and humans containing several dungeons each and finally the mirage town which turns out to be a zombie infested town in actual reality, a great twist right there during the era of the SNES.

But then comes the terrible part in my opinion, which starts once you get to be introduced to a second Ella at the surface world. Right at that moment, inconsistent parts appear where it would be impossible to know how to proceed at some random points.

Unless you were using a guide to navigate to lessen the frustration, repetitiveness is written everywhere including Terranigma's music, the many similar area's and even the enemies themselves. It really dragged down for what was done at the first half.

Furthermore, the magic system straight out sucks and is pretty much useless EXCEPT for 1 boss battle, the bosses were boring and the backtracking parts were painful as well. I can't recall the exact backtrack parts, but they are definitely there to be found in the terrible part.

Which is all really too bad. Because the reason I decided to go back to this game and beat it as an adult was because of the best song in the game, which is Mountains. You already know what I'm talking about here. Because of that song, I wanted to see beyond the zombie town, which is the point where I got stuck as a kid and never could figure out how to proceed further in the game, yeah.

But even this song was so horribly repeated so many times that it somehow has become a lesser song to listen to. How sad. Terranigma's soundtrack however remains pretty, but it's second part of the gameplay really isn't, with the surface map being revealed as a mirror reflection towards the real world and having all of these towns that can shape their prosperities slightly by your actions.

That isn't really a deal, unless you could excuse the wacky random characters, the cryptic proceedings, the repetitiveness of things and the dull moments. About the only part I liked during this second half was Beruga's Lab.

In overall, in the end, it's a dissapointing game for me. Even after seeing the much loved ending by everyone and understanding it and how the underworld and the surface world work, or how Light and Dark work in this game, I wasn't thrilled by all of it, unlike Illusion of Gaia's ending. 

+Strong themed songs.
+Heavy emphasis upon ideologies.
+Arguably the best resurrection plot of all four games.
-Repetitive at locations and enemies.
-2nd half is almost a complete dissapointment after the zombie town.

Rating: 6.6

The Granstream Saga

 

As a spiritual successor towards the resurrection trilogy from Quintet on the SNES, The Granstream Saga is sadly the least qualified one. The main quirks are the overall story, the voice acting, the length and the rather limited battle system.

It’s one on one fights, in which you are able to attack, defend, dodge, use spells and some special moves. But because of the minor variety in enemy design and the way each tactic is laid out, it turns out to be disappointing. 

Also, the game is very easy, especially when you are able to get the best weapon in the game very early on. What I did like though are the same themes of resurrection and sacrifice that also played in Quintet’s other games, plus I dig the old PSX graphics similar to Final Fantasy VII. 

Eon is an alright hero, but the world and its inhabitants were small and I wasn’t too fond of the supporting characters either. Korky was annoying. However, I liked how the game ended into starting out in what seems to be a different life for the cast. The Granstream Saga is supposedly Quintet’s last game. Rest in peace, you guys made some pretty interesting action RPG’s.

+One on one fights.
+Early smooth PSX graphics.
-Typical early bad voice acting.

Rating: 6.5