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Jan 30th, 2007 at 23:56:55 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) |
After defeating the dragon, I wandered around the map some more, looking for more clues as to what I was supposed to be accomplishing. After going in between the green, forest-like half of the map and the barren (as far as I can tell from the NES' graphical rendering capabilities) mountainous part of the map, I found the old man to whom I was supposed to deliver what looked like some document, I made the delivery and received the first clear instructions of the game. I was instructed to take another message to an old woman. I finally found this old woman who accepted the message and then tried to sell me potions, and told me to find an old man near the graveyard. All the while, I was hounded by enemies who could burrow underground and surprise me as I was walking, by falling boulders, spear-throwing soldier-like enemies, a submarine-like enemy who shot fireballs from any nearby body of water, and countless insect-like creatures. I found one part in particular, near the upper right part of the map, where there was a lake in the middle, a door into a cave on the opposite side, and some centaur-like enemy patrolling the perimeter. I was at half-health by this point, and took several tries to defeat this guy. I eventually got him with some bombs I had picked up somewhere earlier in the game. The body of water allowed the submarine enemy to keep lobbing fireballs at me, making the task of defeating the sword-minotaur even more challenging. Once I made it to the cave, I found an old man who told me that if I could master the sword he had in front of him, I could have it. However, I never got any input on how he wanted me to do this, and never managed to get the sword.
There was something in this game that led me to believe that the copy I was using was corrupted. In the mountain region, there is one staircase that, when ascended, leads to a plateau higher in the mountains with no enemies present and one exit on either side. Once on this plateau, I found that I had trouble leaving; no matter which exit I tried, I ended up coming back to the same place from which I had started. This did not let up until I had tried to leave with each exit several times, including the one from which I had just come in. Judging from the look of the map window, I might have actually failed to reach certain parts of the map as a result of what I believe to be a glitch. Either that, or this game's programmers had a sick sense of humor.
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Jan 30th, 2007 at 23:38:15 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) |
Up until this point, I have only ever gotten into more recent incarnations of The Legend of Zelda, like the SNES version (instant classic) or Ocarina of Time for N64. My initial reaction was one of surprise. Where I was used to some strictly narrative element between registering my name and beginning gameplay, I was instead dumped unceremoniously into the game, with no clear message as to what my objectives in this world really were. So, I wandered around the map for a while, hacking my way through enemy after enemy (getting myself killed over and over) until, by chance, I found a doorway in the side of an old, halloweeny-looking tree that led me into a seried of underground rooms. There was a puzzle that did take me a bit of work to solve. I had to find several keys and unlock a series of doors. Killing some of these enemies proved difficult, as they required several blows, and I was running low on health. Finally I made my way to whom I presume to be the boss: a large dragon that shoots 3 fireballs, all of which fly out at diverging angles. These made it quite hard to get in close enough to land any effective blows on the dragon adversary. Once I finally defeated the dragon, I was rewarded with a much-needed health recovery, with an augmentation of my maximum health capacity.
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Jan 29th, 2007 at 22:12:30 - Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES) |
The second miniboss in world 3 offers a nice addition to the usual challenge of stomping on a quick-moving enemy's head 3 times. Unlike previous mini- bosses, where I was able to wait for him to stop flying and land on the ground where I could more easily hit him, this one did not land without pointing his spikes upward, meaning that not only were my blows ineffective, but they in fact caused harm to me. Fortunately, this change in the enemy's strategy was met with a slight change in the landscape. Two platforms in the middle of the room helped me get a higher jumping platform so that I could more easily do damage to my adversary.
I've started to really appreciate the way that Mario can get a real, good long jump even without the super leaf, by holding down the "B" button and sprinting until the little meter at the bottom is full, then jumping. This has helped me bypass a lot of obstacles and enemies, and when combined with the superleaf has enabled me to fly really high into the air and find little bonus shortcuts, lots of coins, and other neat bonuses.
The final boss for World 3 got really tricky for me, because by the time I got to her, I would have sustained so much damage that I was left in regular Mario form, and therefore vulnerable to any attack. This made maneuvering around the hoops she threw quite a delicate procedure. I couldn't help but notice a change in this boss' attack from the previous two bosses. Whereas those two attacked by throwing a group of three rings, this one threw them one at a time, and instead of disappearing off-screen, they continued bouncing around the room, therefore never ceasing to be obstacles. My most common mistake was trying an attack and then landing right in the spot where one (or, more often, three) hoops were converging.
While I think this game's cutscenes are charming at first, it does become apparent that they are pretty much the same, save for maybe some different colors or different sprites for the King in both his transformed and restored forms. While I do think that this probably had to do with limited space for data in the NES cartridge, I still must say that it wears thin after a few go-arounds.
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Jan 29th, 2007 at 21:19:13 - Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES) |
There are benefits to having parents who didn't let you own any video games or systems as a kid. Such undisputed classics like Super Mario Brothers 3, while somewhat familiar, are just unfamiliar enough to be fresh and new. The gameplay for this, like other mario games of its era, is very simple 2-D sidescrolling motion. Mario is able to do all the standard Mario moves, such as jumping on enemies to destroy them and gaining new abilites with powerups like the red mushroom (always a favorite,) the fire flower, and the 1-up mushroom. There are plenty of new powerups in this game, such as the Super Leaf, which gives Mario the ability to fly, and a variety of suits that give Mario some exciting special abilities, like the ability to swim underwater with ease.
Another affordance offered by the game is the menu that you can access from the map screen by pressing "B." This menu gives the player the option of selecting a saved power-up. I found that this made it easier for me to strategize for difficult levels that might require some extra advantage by picking the special ability most suited to the level ahead. For example, in levels that involve lots of swimming, I selected the frog suit before starting to maximize my ability to move through the water.
I noticed one flaw in the graphics while fighting the mini-boss in world 3. When he flies up in front of the windows, you can see that the lines that define his wings and other details are transparent, which look fine against the dark background of the walls, but look light blue and a little glitchy with the windows.
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macuna has been with GameLog for 17 years, 3 months, and 1 day |
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