deKay

Things I’ve been playing recently

Posted on 18/05/2014 Written by deKay

A few things that might not warrant a full post each. Or I’m lazy. Or both! Or neither.

Super Mario 64 (Wii U)

Technically, I’ve been playing this on the Wii U, but it’s actually the N64 game on the Wii Virtual Console via the Wii U. Erm, but anyway.

I’ve not got very far in, and playing it was mainly to entertain my daughter, but I’ve picked up about 15 stars. It’s still one of the best games ever made, and as good as Super Mario 3D World is, this still bests it by a considerable margin. Not bad for a game that’s 18 years old!

Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)

It was my birthday, and the animals threw me a party! And some sent me (terrible) presents. But the thought was there.

I’m now just 4 weeks away from having played this for an entire year. I’ve still got so much to do – I’m nowhere near filling either the museum or my catalogue, and I still don’t have a police station. Still, I did manage to get a new tree stump pattern I’d not managed before. Looks like I might be playing this even after my 365 day stint is up…

Nintendo Pocket Football Club (3DS)

I’ve been promoted to the third league (the one with the football as the logo), and spent the summer training, playing Italy a lot (which gives you loads of cards), buying some new players (some of mine have aged already, and are dropping stats!) and preparing for the new season.

Which started badly as I lost my first game. Thankfully, it was only to the team that had just dropped down from the next league up, so I should still be able to beat everyone else. In fact, I have beaten two other teams already, so things are looking up!

I wish my striker, Jaimie, could manage more than two matches without getting injured though. Useless.

Katamari Forever (PS3): COMPLETED!

Posted on 12/05/2014 Written by deKay

I’ve completed this before, but only in one game mode – “Forever”. Randomly, my daughter asked me to play it again a few days ago (I didn’t even know she knew about it – she was two years old when I last put it on!) and I got a bit hooked again and played through it in Katamari Drive mode.

Which is basically the same game as before, only you move a lot faster.

This makes open levels with lots of things to collect a lot easier, and cramped levels (and those where you have to avoid certain objects) nigh on impossible. Still, I managed it and it was lots of fun because it is Katamari and Katamari is always fun and best and aces.

Lovely. Oh! And *PS3 GAME KLAXON*

Super Metroid (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Posted on 11/05/2014 Written by deKay

And that’s it. Samus saved the day (although, in the end, all she saved was herself – spoilers). The game was completed in 7 hours 40 minutes, and with a collected items percentage of 79. I’m surprised it’s as low as 79%, as although I didn’t attempt to get 100%, I did search pretty much everywhere and only knowingly missed three upgrades – two missiles that I saw but couldn’t figure out how to reach, and a Reserve Tank that I never actually saw. I got all the Energy Tanks though, as I assumed the final boss would be a nightmare and I’d want as much health as possible.

It’s genius, then, that how much health you have is completely irrelevant to the final fight. OK, so shooting Mother Brain Inna Jar is tricky with all the Evil Party Rings of Doom, but they don’t do a lot of damage and Mother Brain herself doesn’t attack until after the jar is destroyed, and it’s at that point health is pointless.

You see, she transforms into a monster thing who unleashes everything at you, and is a rocket sponge. After all my missiles, super missiles and power bombs were depleted, she fired a multicoloured beam that drained me of almost all my energy (see? It doesn’t matter how much you have), then was about to finish me off when Baby Metroid (Oh! How he’s grown! Hasn’t he just? How adorable!) returned having almost sucked me dry not ten minutes earlier before he realised I was his mum. He then latched onto Mother Brain and appropriated her essential juices, before transferring them to me, restoring my health. In the process, Mother Brain reanimated and started attacking Baby Metroid, destroying her. Aww.

Still, I’d recovered by then, and had a new rainbow beam power thing which made short work of what was left of Mother Brain, and then (of course!) a time bomb was triggered and I had to run back to my ship very fast. The end!

Yes, I’m aware I’ve missed out a lot of stuff from between my last post and the final boss. There’s just too much good to say about the game. I loved the pacing, the music and the exploration. There’s always something great about getting a new ability in games like this, that allows you to get past a room you were scratching your head over previously. Slowly building you up to be a virtually unstoppable powerhouse with each upgrade and item.

It may be a game from 1994 (that’s TWENTY YEARS AGO), but it hasn’t aged. The pixels are still beautiful. The gameplay is timeless. Some people said they didn’t think it’d stand up today, especially coming to it now having never played it before (which I haven’t), but they were so very wrong. If this was a new release now, it would stand up perfectly against current titles. One of the best games I’ve ever played. I’m just amazed I’d managed to miss out on it for so long.

Super Metroid (Wii U)

Posted on 05/05/2014 Written by deKay

To my eternal shame, I have never completed Super Metroid. In fact, I’ve never played it for more than the first five minutes. I don’t know why I decided to rectify this situation now, but I did.

Maybe it’s the fun I had with of-the-same-era Earthbound, or maybe it’s a Backlog Fighter/OCD Unplayed Home Screen Games combo prompting me. I’ve always intended to play it, and I’m a big fan of the two GBA Metroid games so I was pretty sure I’d enjoy it. It just never happened. Until now!

So far, it’s been pretty much what I expected – similar to the GBA versions only with bigger and slightly worse looking sprites. I’ve never really played the original Metroid, or the Game Boy Metroid 2, so the intro to Super Metroid was a little lost on me as it (I presume) replays the ending to one or the other of those.

The controls are a little odd, specifically pressing L and R to aim diagonally down and up respectively, but it didn’t take too long to get used to. Not having the map always on the Wii U Game Pad, although never going to happen, is a shame – especially after relying on it so much in Knytt Underground recently.

There’s very little signposting as to where you need to go, so I’ve found that if you’ve not unlocked the map you’ve no idea what lies in each direction so you’re exploring blind. Which is the point of an exploration based game, I suppose, but I get get somewhat lost for ages.

Well, not so much lost, more stuck. I’d descended into Norfair, picked up the high jump, and then couldn’t find anywhere else to go. I couldn’t backtrack as I needed the ice beam to freeze baddies to create steps, I couldn’t go another way because the room was too hot (I later found I needed the Varia Suit here), and another route was blocked as I couldn’t run fast enough. In addition, there was at least one yellow door which I didn’t have a weapon to open. Stuck.

Until I found that bombing (literally) everywhere revealed a few extra areas – netting me the “Spazer” weapon and eventually access to Kraid, who was a lot easier than I was expecting once I saw he/she/it was three screens high. In fact, the enemies have been surprisingly easy so far. Knowing where to go, less simple.

After leaving Norfair though the overheated area, I found some new bits to explore which gained me the Speed Booster and, utilising this in Norfair where I previously couldn’t run fast enough, lead me to the Ice Beam and then another new area – leading me back to the planet’s surface via the Power Bomb, which can open yellow doors. Excellent.

Super Mario Bros 2 (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Posted on 03/05/2014 Written by deKay

Super Mario Bros 2 appeared on the Wii U Virtual Console months ago. I think it may have been one of the 30p games from a year ago. Either way, I’ve not played it since it came out, although I had reached level 5.

Spurred on by playing NES Remix 2 recently, of which Super Mario Bros 2 is a part, I thought I’d best finish up the full game properly, and so did.

It was much easier than I recall from the last time I completed it, which was on the NES soon after release, actually. This is probably because all the hard bits (in particular, the bosses) were part of NES Remix 2 and in some cases were trickier there due to additional rules or being unable to use my character of choice (Mario, obviously).

As a result, I cleared the remaining few levels in about half an hour and saw Wart off without any problems.