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Mar 6th, 2008 at 00:09:35 - New Super Mario Brothers (DS) |
Game Log Entry #2:
Game Play 2:
After another two hours of playing this game, I couldn’t help but obtain a slight addiction to the game. Getting Mario through the levels over and over again, sometimes performing better, sometimes worse, and sometimes even discovering new rooms within a specific level is really exciting. There’s also the cute graphic and music to motivate me on too. I have finally reached the big castle in the first map and have even unlocked a few of what I call “Mushroom Toad Super Houses” to play the little side games and gain rewards of sustenance to aid me through the levels.
Having introduced my roommate, who has pretty little background with videogames, to the original Super Mario Brothers before, I was curious to see what she thought of the New Super Mario Brothers game for DS. We’ve developed a weird social interaction with the game where we both related to the frustrations of completing each level. We also found enjoyment though our verbal outcries and descriptions during the game. One of the comments she made about one of the levels that got me laughing was, “Whoa…colorful mushrooms! This is LSD land!” when Mario got to a level that involved giant mushrooms and brightly colored backgrounds, then pondered on what type of person could come up with such…bright colored mushroom-filled fantasies. I found it particularly amusing how when we encountered a swimming level where the screen scrolls, she exclaimed, “Nooo! How can that be possible?! He died being pressed against the screen! This is illogical! On top of that, how come he falls off the screen every time he dies?” In a way, we have developed an odd social connection and amusement with Mario through the lack of logic and the weird oddities the game has. I cannot wait until we play Katamari Damacy and hear her comments about it as well.
Design:
There are certainly new designs and featured innovated from the original that I enjoyed immensely in this game. My favorite thus far is the introduction of new power ups. I grew a personal fondness to the blue turtle shell that Mario is able to slip himself into and spin around furiously, annihilating all enemies in the way. There’s also the impenetrable and protective use of the shell that adds as a definitely plus. Despite which, the game doesn’t fail to create a challenge by giving that wonderful blue shell the horrible flaw of incontrollable spins, where Mario is immediately deflected from bumping into solid objects that are not enemies, like walls and pipes, making it easy to go off track and fall off a cliff. Mario also walks slower with the shell on, which only makes sense, and is limited a little bit in his jumping abilities. Another aesthetically pleasing power up that I enjoy is the giant yellow mushroom, where it makes Mario into a GIGANTIC Super Mario, walking through and crushing everything in his path. Like all good things, good things never last where the mushroom has a limited time use, which stinks, but hey, there's that aspect of challenge that can't be neglected in game design.
Another addition to this Mario game is the feature of what I call the “butt slam” (sorry) that Mario is able to perform. Rather than always going under platforms to jump and collide with the bricks or boxes, Mario can also just jump on top of it to trigger the same thing! There's definitely more flexibility enabled in the game, Mario can also jump off walls too, which gives the player a lot more freedom to reach higher places.
The new designs and features were very pleasing to play with. The visual image of the game was also fantastic. Though the artwork is 3D and definitely has higher quality graphical imagery than the past 2D Mario, overall the game works in very similar ways with a 2D path of right, left, and jump. It’s a new and improved version of Mario that still retains its classical feel.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Mar 6th, 2008 at 00:19:53.
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Mar 5th, 2008 at 23:26:07 - New Super Mario Brothers (DS) |
Game Log Entry #1
Summary:
The New Super Mario Bros for Nintendo DS is a platformer game that takes the original Super Mario Bros to a new level with 3D graphic art that features new level and gameplay designs. Play as either Mario or Luigi in their classic venture to rescue the princess Peach from Bowser and his gang!
Gameplay:
Having played the classic 2D versions of Super Mario Brothers 1, 2, 3, and even Super Mario World, I was quite ecstatic to finally try out the New Super Mario Brothers. It's been years since I've last touch a platform game (aside from the last "Blast to the past" Super Mario Brothers gamelog submission), and it's really surprising how similar, yet different the new game is. One of the new features I particularly enjoyed was how Mario remained to retain his familiar happy-go-lucky characteristics. Even better is that since the graphics have gotten better, Mario has become a lot more expressive and became even more enjoyable to play.
The game was definitely interesting to play. I noticed that, as far as game realism goes, the game physics in Mario has gotten a little more sophisticated. Now it is actually harder to maneuver Mario around the platform and at certain times I noticed that he even seemed a little clumsier to control. It was definitely different from the original game of Mario, and I couldn't help but feel that pace of the game play has actually gotten a little slower because of which.
I found the first hour of the overall gameplay to be fairly enjoyable, despite the fact that I had to redo a lot levels as I was getting used to the game controls. After a whole lot of cursing at the cute little turtle monsters, I've gotten through the first half of the field, to only find that Princess Peach gets dragged off to another castle. I actually mused myself at the funny way of how she just stood there at the end of the boss castle battle to only let one of Bowser's minions grab and take her away again. It was the epiphany of stereotypical female damsel in distress and vulnerability, with added sound effects and clear graphical imagery this time. In a way, by actually being able to see Peach at the end of each castle battle, it actually gives me more motivation to go on because of a false hope that I am so close to rescuing her, rather than receive a "Thank you Mario, but our princess is in another castle!" notice. That's just depressing.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Mar 6th, 2008 at 00:10:54.
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Feb 20th, 2008 at 22:01:59 - Chrono Trigger (SNES) |
Gamelog Entry #2
Gameplay:
This game is so fun! I have only finally begun to enjoy the true essence of Chrono Trigger’s unique battle system. It is definitely different from your standard RPG games where you have tiny animated sprites all stand neatly in line in one place, and then wait to attack, cast magic, or use items in a turn-based style. Chrono Trigger happened to be different in a sense that you have no idea where your party members will spread to during an encounter, and your position also determines what strategy should be used during the fight. It gave the gameplay something different and innovative, and it also drew me out of my boredom of only “click, click, click”-ing through the long narrations and scenes. There didn’t exist a “skip” option back then, sadly.
At certain times I noticed I selected horrible decisions and methods as to how to go about the battle. Crono has this one move, called “Cyclone”, where at most I could have slashed four enemies at once within a circular field, given if they were in a favorable and close knit position. Instead, I accidentally selected the enemy furthest away from the group, allowing me to only attack one. I was happy when I found the unique skills of the fighters as well. Since I am quite a fan on collaborative special moves, I had to refrain myself from screaming with joy when I not only saw duo combos, but triple combos as well. It is amazingly cool.
Despite the wonder battle style and skills the game gave me, I wasn’t too happy with how stereotype seems to follow us everywhere. The two girls who were in my party are, at the moment, HORRIBLE long range, close range, any range fighters. I have actually not found any good use of them except for maybe a certain fire spell or two, but even so, HORRIBLE. What is truly interesting is the fact that a frog, by the name “Frog”, who just happened to have wandered into my party was much better a fighter than those two COMBINED. I don’t want to sound like I’m exaggerating or anything, but it is interesting. The females have very low physical strength, whereas Frog, a frog, just happened to be able to kick butt. Interesting…Frog is cool though.
Design:
One of the oddities I noticed about the game was the map, where I move from place to place. It is fairly different from most other RPGs in a sense that there doesn’t really exists a town map or area map within the giant world map. I was fairly disappointed when I select a town and only find myself inside a room. One of the most enjoyable parts about a game is giving the player a large field to explore, but if I’m only limited to the world map and room or field, then it takes the fun out of exploring the area around that room or field. When I walk in near what I see is a town on the map, BOOM! I’m inside a bar, or inn, or mayor’s house. There’s no actual town. I want to see the other settings that surround that “event place” or important place that I have to go to in order for progression and events to occur. I felt that the game world was very small and unable to expand itself. But then again, the plot of Chrono Trigger is about time travel and the makers have to make dramatically different fields to match the time I’m in, even if I am in the same area.
I think the game did a very good job in presenting humor and expression to the 8-bit sprites. For instance, during the cut scenes, depending on whichever situations, Crono would be able to look surprised, triumphant, shocked, hurt, etc. It’s actually interesting to see visual sprite expressions in comparison to most others where they’re only able to walk and talk.
The art design for the game (of which I am sure the artist is Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragonball, DragonballZ, etc…) was simply superb. I was sure that I recognized the Toriyama’s artwork style once I saw the cover of the game. Although technically the world field is pretty small, the game field is not. There is time skip to consider, so the artist literally has to redesign each place and setting to correlate with the time skips. The result was beautiful as I travelled between Dark Ages 600 A.D. to Present 1000 A.D. and Future 2300 A.D. The contrast between the world’s geography and atmosphere was simply amazing, from bright, happy present to dark, industrial future.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Feb 20th, 2008 at 22:02:42.
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Feb 20th, 2008 at 16:04:25 - Chrono Trigger (SNES) |
Gamelog Entry #1
Summary : Chrono Trigger is an innovative RPG narrative game where you play as Crono, a young man who ventures through mysterious time warps with his friends Lucca and Marle in an adventure to prevent a catastrophic future.
GamePlay: Chrono Trigger has actually been on one of my “Must Play” list for the past several years after hearing so much praise about it. I was delighted to have found that it was on the Classics lists, giving me a reason to finally play it. The game started out with a stereotypical beginning, where you find yourself in your room, head downstairs, and talk to your mom for the story to begin, very pokemonesque. After playing for around say fifteen minutes, I realized that my character doesn’t have a voice in the game. When interacting with other characters in the game, it is always them who talks, and my character either just listen, or an option bar shows up for me to make decisions for him. I actually enjoyed this style of narration because it allows more openness or room for me to view myself as the main character of the game and give my own perception of the story.
I found the overall gameplay to be very typical, where I just navigate my avatar around until I find something interesting to progress through. It's actually slightly boring and tedious because I don't feel like the game's really letting me interact with it. Then again, it is an RPG where story is everything. I don't exactly know exactly what my objective is in the game yet, but the story so far is interesting. I've obtained two party members so far, one of which disappeared through a time warp due to a teleportation machine malfunctioning. Naturally, I jump through the portal to save my damsel in distress, and WOW. The whole map almost completely changed when I traveled back in time. I notice the interesting things about games. They either have to have really good gameplay, or really good plot. It has to be one or the other, or both! Game plot at the moment just got interesting, and we'll see how much more interesting and intricate it can be.
This entry has been edited 3 times. It was last edited on Feb 21st, 2008 at 17:03:58.
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haruki has been with GameLog for 16 years, 3 months, and 6 days |
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