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Jan 25th, 2008 at 21:07:46 - Katamari Damacy (PS2) |
GAMEPLAY:
While my second hour of Katamari was certainly more frustrating than the first, it was no less fun. One of the major problems I encountered, was that it was very easy to accidentally become stuck. Also, trying to wiggle your way out of whatever crevice you managed to get yourself into wasted valuable time. If you were stuck for too long and happened to bump into larger things in your efforts to escape, you would lose items from your katamari (which you would then have to backtrack and re-collect). A lot of the living objects also tended to move around a lot, bumping into you and making you drop things. The camera angles also made things extremely difficult. They would often zoom right into a wall, which made it very frustrating to try and blindly navigate your way out.
The only other major thing I had trouble with was the time limit. I would often come in only a centimeter or two under the goal and have to restart the entire level from scratch. I understand the limit was the only way to add conflict to the game, but it seemed a little strict for the earliest levels. It was very stressful to try and maneuver the katamari around obstacles, especially when it got larger and unwieldier. It was also tough to navigate my way around the world when I only had a height radius of 10 centimeters or so. However, this could easily be attributed to my lack of directional skills at even 5 feet tall :)
DESIGN:
The design of the game was extremely innovative. The entire concept is ingeniously simple, rolling a ball around and sticking things to it. But the simplicity of it leaves room for all other sorts of genius, such as the humorous characters and dialogue. The game also uses both of the PS2 directional joysticks, which results in movement very similar to the controls of a wheelchair. You have to push one up and one down in order to sharply turn. This happens to work very well considering you're mainly controlling a giant sphere. The game also makes it a little easier by having a few hot buttons that help you charge-roll or flip to the opposite side of the katamari quickly.
The levels of the game are all extremely similar. Even though at the start of each, The King specifically places you in Buenos Aires or The Philippines, they all look incredibly like Japan. The Spain level is even full of Japanese candy, products, and people. The levels are a bit difficult to navigate, but extremely rewarding as you get to pick up larger and larger items. You are also rewarded with little presents that The King leaves for you on each of the levels. If you manage to find and pick them up, you can put them on The Prince at the menu screen. Despite the similarity of the levels, each of your katamaris are categorized differently depending on how much of each type of object you pick up. For example, if you grabbed a lot of stationary material, your star would be labeled "The Pencil Star" or something like that
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 25th, 2008 at 21:34:43.
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Jan 25th, 2008 at 21:06:19 - Katamari Damacy (PS2) |
SUMMARY:
Katamari Damacy starts out with your father, the King of the Cosmos, going on a joyride and accidentally destroying all of the planets and stars in the Solar System. Since the King is a little bit absent-minded (as shown by his ridiculously technicolored attire) he sends you off to Earth to do all of the work in re-creating the Universe. You use a katamari, or sticky ball, to pick up increasingly larger items in order to turn your katamari into a star.
GAMEPLAY:
The game Katamari Damacy couldn't take itself less seriously if it tried. The opening sequence was filled with rainbows, catchy music and singing ducks, and luckily the zaniness transfers over to the actual gameplay as well. You play as the Prince, a tiny green alien, and you are presented with a different, brightly-colored katamari ball every time you start a new level. You start at about 5 centimeters tall inside a random house and must pick up objects in order to reach a specific size goal for the level. The items you have to pick up range from dominoes to mice to vegetables and even people! Not only is it fun to chase down a frightened mouse, but you are also rewarded with a ridiculous scream once you actually capture it. The living things you pick up don't stay still either. It's hilarious to watch a person you've caught frantically try to wriggle away from your katamari. This fanciful and ludicrous feel to the game makes it way more fun to play than if it tried to be realistic in any sense. Half the humor comes from watching your prey try to escape your rapidly growing ball.
The characters are equally as ridicuous. Your main avatar is a miniature humanoid wearing a green suit with a pom pom on the top of his head, and the only name you're given is "The Prince". As your katamari grows it becomes more difficult to see your character, but there is a tiny section of the screen that shows him at all times. If you stand still for a while he'll even start to dance. The Prince has an assortment of "cousins" (in varying colors and shapes, but with basically the same design) that you can battle against in an arena. The most hilarious character of all is, of course, The King of the Cosmos. He is about 300 times your size and lords it over you whenever he can. He wears a giant, cylindrical, psychedelic headdress, a huge white ruff, and tight purple pants. He also has the ability to shoot rainbows from out of his mouth that can transport you to Earth.
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Jan 14th, 2008 at 17:18:51 - Super Paper Mario (Wii) |
GAMEPLAY:
One aspect of the gameplay that I discovered in my second hour of playing is that you can actually play as Peach. This isn't new to the Paper Mario genre, but in the earlier games you controlled her for a brief amount of time during miniature in-between chapters. She also couldn't jump and had no attacks or special abilities. Her chapters consisted of mostly walking around her prison and happening upon certain helpful situations. However, in this game, she is an actual playable character. She has a jump attack and can glide across distances using her parasol, you can access her at any time from the menu and some situations can't be solved without using her.
Another thing I found amusing was that many of the characters display a 4th wall-ish knowledge of the fact they're in a game. At one point, a character was explaining how to do a special attack by pressing the 1 button, and then they commented that the mystic being who watched over everything would understand what that meant. Also many characters throughout the game comment on Mario's magnificent mustache. In fact, some characters will only help him out because of it. Some characters even comment satirically on the earlier Mario games. At one point Luigi states that he's bored and how wonderful it would be if some badguy happened to randomly kidnap Princess Peach.
DESIGN:
This game was extremely innovative because of Mario's new flip ability. He can flip between 2-D and 3-D. The 2-D environment plays out very similar to an early side-scrolling platformer. However, when you flip to 3-D you can avoid enemies, walk around obstacles, find secret paths, and read inscriptions on the other side of things. In one case, there was a giant row of spiked boulders completely blocking the path. Any way across was certain death, but if you flipped into 3-D you could simply walk by all of the boulders because they only existed on one plane. The game relies heavily on this ability and it is the way to solve almost all of the puzzles.
The level design was very clever and borrowed immensely from the earlier Mario games. There is a large number of familiar enemies such as Goombas and Koopas, but there are a fair number of new enemies as well. There are tons of secrets to be found in the 3-D mode and every level has hidden coins or enemy cards that increase your attack power. Some platforms are only accessible in 2-D or 3-D, requiring a bit of thinking to overcome some problems. The music in Super Paper Mario is also very similar to the first NES game. Many of the songs are simply revamped remixes (including the dungeon songs).
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Jan 13th, 2008 at 17:15:59 - Super Paper Mario (Wii) |
SUMMARY:
Super Paper Mario is the third installment of the Nintendo Paper Mario games. Like it's predecessors before it, the game starts with Peach being captured by another nefarious evil-doer and Mario has to save her using his jump attack and other various paper-related abilities. However, this time around Mario doesn't have his trusty hammer, and the only ability he has is that he can "flip" between the 2-D and 3-D dimensions.
GAMEPLAY:
The characters in Paper Mario are just as adorable and clever as in the first two games. There are familiar faces such as Luigi, Toad, Princess Peach, and Bowser; but the game also introduces something called a Pixl. Unlike in the earlier games, instead of Mario having various Yoshi or Goomba companions, he has pixellated rainbow helpers (each with a specific ability). Also, instead of being able to only use one at a time, every one you've collected stays with you and follows you in a line. While this makes it much easier to use them quickly, it lacks the feel of the original games.
The battle system is also completely different. Instead of having hammer and jump attacks that do more damage depending on the timing of a button press, Super Paper Mario plays out more like an original Mario platform game. The enemies no longer have a separate battle screen, they side-scroll across and die after a few jumps to the head. Mario doesn't have any of the special "Star" attacks he had in the other games and has also seemed to have lost his hammer, leaving him with jump as his only attack. This is very cleverly done to mimic the old NES Mario game (including a mushroom that will turn you giant every once in a while), but in doing so, it loses what made the original Paper Mario so successful: a mixture of an old school Mario platformer with an RPG battle system.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Jan 14th, 2008 at 16:44:13.
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mirokulove has been with GameLog for 16 years, 3 months, and 13 days |
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