Super Smash Bros. Brawl Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/28/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Developer: Hal Laboratory, Sora, Game Arts

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): Fighting, Beat em' Up

Platforms: Wii

Release Date: January 31, 2008

There were plenty of reasons to be excited about the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo’s third 3D home console expressed that Nintendo was not interested in joining the rat race of making game graphics indiscernible from flesh and blood human beings in cinematic constructs like their competitors Sony and Microsoft. Instead, Nintendo decided to define its brand with stark innovation for yet another gaming generation. Either this decision was due to the company’s artistic integrity still burning like the eighth day of the lit menorah, or they hung up the towel on market domination after seeing how badly the PS2 and Xbox bulldozed the Gamecube in sales over the prior five-year period. While Nintendo was still willing to exceed gaming expectations, they were now careful not to alienate a considerably large portion of their audience like they did with their previous system. In fact, the Wii’s radical foundation served as a vessel to rope in large swathes of unlikely demographics who before the Wii wouldn’t be caught dead playing video games. The Wii’s signature motion controls were fluid, responsive, and surprisingly functional in emulating tons of peripheral objects. Grandparents everywhere were magnetized to Nintendo’s newest creation, seemingly making themselves unaware in their state of elatement that they once decried video games as the prime gateway for degeneracy and overall loserdom for their grandchildren’s generation. While not receiving as much flack for my hobby from my grandparents was a lovely aspect of the Wii’s appeal, the motion controls were not the console’s chief selling point for me. Whether or not the Wii was a console with a unique gimmick at its helm was ultimately superfluous to me. Since the Gamecube, I have purchased every subsequent Nintendo console on the basis of each of them releasing a new Super Smash Bros. title. When I flipped through the pages of the July 2006 issue of Nintendo Power reporting that year’s E3 coverage, the first glimpses of Super Smash Bros. Brawl struck a powerful chord of anticipation that I hadn't, not then or since, resonated as strongly with me with anything else.

I also had to hold that sense of anticipation for a long time after that because Nintendo kept blue-balling me with a series of delays. Brawl was granted a more lenient window of development time compared to Melee, much to the relief of creative director Masahiro Sakurai, who could’ve succumbed to a stress-induced aneurysm during the strenuous development cycle of the previous game. As much as I value the mental well-being of this brilliant man, pre-teen me still pouted and groaned at every announcement that Brawl was still in production. Finally, in early 2008, Sakurai added the finishing touches to his next masterwork, and voila: actually playing Brawl was a tangible prospect, and it was so close to me that I could taste it. Once my wistful dream became a reality after yearning patiently for two years, Brawl fully delivered on my wild expectations and became my cardinal game when I got a hankering for some Smash Bros for a lengthy stretch of time. I briefly returned to Melee on occasion, but Brawl simply offered more content to keep me enamored with it.

However, I seemed to be in the minority as others who waited for Brawl with bated breath absorbed the fresh lark of the new Smash Bros. experience on the Wii and quickly reverted back to permanently playing Melee, saying sayonara to Brawl indefinitely. You see Brawl is the first Smash Bros. entry that fans labeled as a regression in overall quality. The wonderful accident that was Melee inadvertently became the pinnacle of Smash Bros. fighting mechanics, much to the chagrin of Nintendo who wanted their collective IP kerfuffle to be as approachable as humanly possible. The less strained development time gave Sakurai the opportunity to shape Brawl into the Smash game that Nintendo wanted, which probably would’ve been an agreeable product if Melee hadn’t blown off the hinges of accessibility to give free rein for hardcore fighting game fans to flourish. Funny enough, Brawl’s legacy was legitimized via a now-defunct fan-made mod titled “Project M,” which is essentially Brawl with the mechanics of Melee. Since that mod was unsurprisingly eradicated by Nintendo, fans are simply content with Melee or any of the newer Smash titles since Brawl’s release. I find Brawl’s negative retroactive reputation to be unfair. Admittedly, Melee is the superior fighting game, but to claim that the franchise’s potential peaked at its second entry is ridiculous. At its core, the prerogative of Super Smash Bros. is to celebrate Nintendo as the most recognizable brand in the gaming industry. Because the company has a storied history and keeps releasing titles of IPs new and old between the years of each Smash Bros. game, Brawl’s obligation to chronicle Nintendo’s recent achievements still meant that the game inherently still had something to offer.

What better way to expound on the previous Smash Bros. title than to add more characters into the fray? At this point in the series, one could argue that Melee included all of the remaining essentials that should’ve been represented in the first game, plus a handful of esoteric relics and exclusive eastern characters thrown in to befuddle us, westerners. While every new inclusion to the Smash Bros. family is a blessing (except for Pichu), the types of characters in consideration tend to fall into a select number of categories. Firstly, there’s the matter of new prime protagonists to represent the IPs that have been created since the release of the last Smash Bros. title. Sadly, Olimar from Pikmin seems to be the only representative here from an IP that debuted on the Gamecube. Characters that emerged on the Gamecube from pre-existing franchises such as the westernized Fire Emblem protagonist Ike and Link’s cel-shaded self from The Wind Waker make their first appearance, but is this really all the Gamecube has to offer in terms of new IP representation? Personally, I’d be over the hill if I got the chance to whack Mario with the power cord of a proportionally-sized Chibi Robo, but I digress. Wario technically counts as a representative from the then-new WarioWare franchise, as his base look is his biker-clad outfit as opposed to his yellow and purple garb that mirrors Mario. Secondly, there’s the initiative to expand the presence of a franchise of a Smash veteran who’s been acting as a lone wolf up until now. Meta Knight and King Dedede are no-brainers from Kirby, Wolf from Star Fox fills in the much-needed presence of Nintendo’s antagonists in the roster, and how long can Donkey Kong go without having his little buddy Diddy Kong by his side (Fun fact: Diddy is also the first Smash character not to have been made by a Japanese developer. True shit)? Pokemon’s presence in the roster was already quite abundant, but the addition of a Pokemon Trainer plays with a loophole that lets the player shift between Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard on one character slot. Pokemon Nintendo evidently fumbled awkwardly around adding more characters from Metroid as their solution was to shift Samus from her distinguishing power suit to her exposed Zero Suit from Metroid: Zero Mission, whose skin-tight material leaves nothing to the imagination (but I’m not complaining!). Thirdly, the position of unearthed, obscure artifact joining the likes of Ice Climbers and Mr. Game and Watch is Pit and R.O.B., a protagonist from the NES who hadn’t been graced by Nintendo’s light since 1991 and a haphazard NES peripheral respectively. Lucas manages to fit every category simultaneously as the most recent character of the bunch at the time and the second character from the Mother series from a Japanese exclusive title that no one in the west is (legally) allowed to play. Tsk-tsk, Nintendo, you fucking tease. Brawl also marks the first Smash game to omit a few fighters from past titles, namely redundant clones such as Dr. Mario and Pichu. I guess Mewtwo and Young Link were replaced by Lucario and Toon Link as more updated representatives. I’m terribly sorry if Roy was your boy in Melee, though.

Already, the Brawl lineup of playable characters surpasses Melees in both quantity and quality. In addition to increasing the stacked roster by the three tenets, Brawl surpasses the potential of Melee’s cast of playable characters by adding a fourth category that really pumped everyone’s nads. For the first time in Smash Bros. history, third-party characters were assorted into the mix. This remarkable new privilege enraptured all of us eager Smash fans as the possibilities seemed extraordinary, but everyone’s expectations were at least reasonable back then. The two visitors to Nintendoland with VIP passes were Konami’s Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid and Sega’s blue wonder Sonic the Hedgehog. Finally, the fans of Nintendo and Sega could duke it out as their system of choice’s mascot and settle the score. In execution, however, these star-studded visitors weren’t treated with the same level of love by the developers as their own children. Snake’s projectile-latent moveset is more obtuse to operate than any other character’s, and Sonic repeating his classic spin dash for at least three attack variations is the epitome of undercooked. It’s a damn shame, but their novel place in the game is still welcome for obvious reasons.

If every Smash Bros. game is an updated exhibit of Nintendo’s growing lineage, then Brawl was sorely needed in this regard. It’s almost hard to believe that Brawl is a Wii game, or perhaps conversely, it’s hard to believe that Melee is a Gamecube game. Releasing at the Gamecube’s infancy meant that Melee could only chronicle all of the Nintendo releases before the console’s launch, with a few properties from fellow early releases like Luigi’s Mansion and Animal Crossing featured as trophies as “sneak previews.” An entire console generation had passed and then some between Melee and Brawl, so there was a plethora of material to include, even if Nintendo would have you believe that the “lukewarm reception” of the Gamecube era bankrupted the company. While the entire roster may not bolster the past six years accordingly, Brawl’s new stages carry the sense that much has happened since Melee’s release. The entire hub of Isle Delfino, Mario’s mishap-filled vacation destination from Sunshine, is fully displayed via a floating stage with platforms stopping periodically like the player is being given a grand tour. The eponymous setting from Luigi’s solo adventure is seated on a perilous peak as the characters fight in its murky mezzanines. A number of rooms are detailed exquisitely, and knocking at its support beams will make the eerie estate crumble like the house of Usher. Sailing on Tetra’s pirate ship in a cel-shaded sea and being interrupted by the stampede of King Bulbin on the Bridge of Eldin speak for both mainline Zelda games on the Gamecube, and the cylindrical stage of the tutorial boss from Metroid Prime makes a distinction from Prime to the other Metroid titles. The stage itself is kind of lame, however, with the grotesque Parasite Queen in the background as the stage while it occasionally flips.

Now that I mention it, Brawl has the most divisive batch of new stages out of all the Smash Bros. titles thus far. I’d consider “The Pirate Ship”, “Delfino Plaza”, and “Pictochat” to be some of the finest Nintendo-themed arenas for their characters to fight in, but too many of Brawl’s stages are egregiously designed in one way or another. The auto-scrolling of “Rumble Falls” is just another case of the maligned “Icicle Mountain” from Melee, and it’s not any better when the screen is scrolling horizontally in the depleted-looking World 1-1 replica of “Mushroomy Kingdom.” I’d be hard-pressed to refer to the loyal Donkey Kong arcade tribute “75m” and the psychedelic “Hanenbow” as stages because they lack any solid ground, and I’m an unapologetic Poke Floats defender. “New Pork City” takes the sprawling design aspect from the “Hyrule Temple” stage and bloats it to the point where the characters are microscopic under the scope of the dystopian city. Both Norfair and Spear Pillar have hazards that are far too deadly to dance around. No wonder everyone seems to love the simplistic aerial Animal Crossing town view stage “Smashville.” The only new stage that emulates a chaotic Smash stage well is “WarioWare Inc.” which integrates the random microgame lobby from the series with a Smash stage ingeniously.

Several people have already aired their grievances about Brawl's obvious shortcomings, so I’ll keep them brief. Yes, the combat is floatier and fosters defensive play to a fault. Also, I’m sure the person on the development team who conjured up the bafflingly ill-conceived tripping mechanic has been fired and tried for his crimes as harshly as the Nazis in Nuremberg. I share the same negative sentiments with both of these controversies, but my specific qualm that has gone unnoticed by most pertains to the items that were introduced. Adding new characters will always be acceptable, for the player can only play as one character at a time. However, in the case of adding more tools into the mix, the controlled chaos of combat oversteps its bounds. Running into a Bob-omb in Melee made everyone panic but now, Mario’s enemy is joined by the Smart Bomb from Star Fox, whose impact is more extensive than the blunt force of the walking explosive. Wrecking Crew’s hammer is also joined by its more bourgeois brother, the Golden Hammer, which comes with its own separate gag and jingle along with dealing far more damage. The Pokemon selection that appears has been updated to feature Pokemon from both Ruby/Sapphire and Diamond/Pearl, and the number of legendary types with overpowered attacks has only been added onto to increase the likelihood of having to duck and cover from their deadliness. On top of the Pokeballs, a new item called an Assist Trophy appears in an opaque trophy stand to aid the player in battle when summoned. The only difference is that the figure that pops out could be a character from a number of franchises, such as the original iteration of Andross, Ness’s nerd friend Jeff, and even characters whose franchises aren’t represented in the roster like Isaac from Golden Sun. It’s a consolation prize to be featured in a Smash Bros. game despite their relative insignificance. Like the Pokeballs, many of these Assist Trophies are far too capable of doing massive damage, and I’m convinced some like the screen-dominating Nintendog and Mr. Resetti were included to troll the player. Not a great pitch for the new idea, Nintendo.

Among all of these new items used to blast Nintendo’s characters to kingdom come is the cherry on top of the chaos. Once or twice in battle, a floating Smash Bros. logo will materialize and float aimlessly around the stage, accompanied by the gasps of the audience to signify its immense power. Catching the logo and breaking it open will unlock a character’s “Final Smash,” a super move that deals an astronomical amount of damage when the player presses the B button. Some are a wide burst of energy like Mario’s inferno and Samus's cannon blast, others are controlled manually like the three Star Fox tanks and Wario’s stronger garlic-chomping alter ego, and some need precision like Link’s Triforce combo and Captain Falcon running you down with the Blue Falcon. Others such as Donkey Kong’s tepid jam band bongo playing and Luigi’s psychedelic dance feel like the developers slapped some of these onto the characters without any real consideration. My overall point with the new items, especially the Final Smash balls, is that the use of items can now give one player an unfair advantage over the other. One could argue that this was the same case for the items in the previous games and that discussing the items in a Smash Bros. game is superfluous because only scrubs keep them on. As someone who didn’t mind the items in small doses, the alarming rate of easy-to-obtain weapons of mass destruction is unfair. It's another mark of the developers making Smash Bros. more frivolous, but I’m never amused when I lose my winning lead to one of these damned things.

Besides the standard brawling, if you will, is a bevy of extra content that supplements every Smash Bros. game. Classic Mode is still a random roulette of characters until the player reaches the apex point of Master Hand and possibly Crazy Hand, Event Matches set up scenarios with a specific context, and All-Star is a tense bout in defeating every playable character between rounds, now organized in series order instead of randomly like in Melee. A multitude of trophies is still curated in a menu, although the means of unlocking them take the form of a high-stakes minigame involving using the player’s accumulative total of coins as ammunition and shooting the trophies that appear on the board. Stickers act similarly to trophies as a catalog of Nintendo characters, but they are far less interesting. Target Test, Home-Run Contest, and Multi-Man Melee Brawl all return, but each is either a watered-down version of itself or adds nothing of value. Anything extra that Brawl adds to keep the player involved that wasn’t in Melee tends to be quite underwhelming. The Stage Maker feature sounds promising, but all it provides the player are the most rudimentary shapes and hazards possible. I bet Nintendo never figured that the player could still render a stage shaped entirely like a cock and balls with the little resources they gave them, which was bar none the most popular custom stage design. Masterpieces showcase a number of older Nintendo releases that involve the playable character’s past adventures, and it offers a solid selection of games. It seems cool while you’re in the moment until you realize that Nintendo isn’t going to give these games away for free, so they yank the player out of the demo faster than chewing gum loses its flavor. Why bother at that point?

All of these halfhearted modes that Brawl adds are fully compensated with one “extra mode” featured in Brawl that cements its legacy among its fellow Smash Bros. titles, and that’s the Adventure Mode, titled “The Subspace Emissary.” If I had to wager a guess, this colossal campaign was the reason why Brawl’s release date was frequently postponed. What was the amusing novelty of a crossover between Nintendo’s characters that shaped the identity of the series has transcended its place as a simplified fighting game into something of a cinematic, epic crusade with Nintendo’s characters at the helm.

It’s difficult to summarize the plot points of the Subspace Emissary’s story despite how grandiose a scale it sets itself on. This is mostly due to Nintendo’s characters persisting on the minimal yelps, cries, and squeals they all emit as opposed to spoken dialogue. Exposition throughout the whole campaign is expressed through mostly silent Peachisms (solving a skirmish with a cup of piping hot tea), Captain Falconisms (murdering a tribe of Pikmin in a flashy, cloddish manner), Warioisms (farting and picking his nose), etc. to further the plot. Still, I think I can detail the events eloquently enough to make sense of them. The villainous characters in Nintendo’s universe are executing a diabolical scheme to obliterate the world with an arsenal of black hole time bombs. Ganondorf and or Master Hand seem to be at the top of the excursions' villainous chain of command, overseeing the process from his dark domain. Meanwhile, other villains such as Bowser, King Dedede, and Wario are using a cannon whose arrow-shaped projectiles kill all of the Nintendo heroes that would stop their evil deeds, or at least immobilize them indefinitely into trophies and round them up. The first instance of this is when Meta Knight’s Battleship Halberd looms overheard and rains down the Plasmid grunts for Mario and Kirby to fight. A veiled figure called the Ancient Minister sets one bomb that engulfs the arena into a black void of nothing. Wario also uses the cannon on either Zelda or Peach as Kirby escapes with the one that survives. This conflict scene is essentially what occurs at each moment in the story, only with a different pairing of Nintendo characters (ie. Samus and Pikachu, Diddy Kong and Fox, Lucas and Pokemon Trainer, etc.) as all of the groups eventually rendezvous by circumstance. Also, each of the villains realizes how dumb this mission is and joins the rebellion. I can’t criticize the plot too harshly given the intrinsic flaws of a plot that involves all of these different characters interacting with each other. However, the sheer notion of all these characters interacting with each other in this context is also the campaign’s charm, even if it is fan service.

I love the Subspace Emissary or at least the overall execution of its gameplay. The 2D axis the series has always implemented for fighting translates into the beat em’ up/2D platformer as smoothly as slipping on a sock. Defeating the army of unique enemies never feels unnatural, but it does wear on the player after a while. The Subspace Emissary takes approximately ten hours to complete, and fighting the foes that the developers crafted for this campaign overstay their welcome after they halt progress to kick them into the dirt for the umpteenth time. Some call the Plasmids and their fellow allies in the evil army to be generic, but the large variety of them keeps their encounters relatively fresh. That being said, I’m not giving the same clemency to these levels. I’m not convinced that these levels all encompass a “Nintendoland” where all the characters reside. All the spirited and wondrous backdrops found across Nintendo’s library are subtracted into dull depictions that rely on the most base level of tropes to vaguely recreate something of a familiar Nintendo foreground. Even worse, the ending section, “The Great Maze,” is an amalgamation of every level that takes about half the length of the total campaign. It goes without saying that this section is a total slog.

Fortunately, a greater sense of inspiration in The Subspace Emissary is with its bosses. Unlike the unrecognizable legions of foot soldiers scattered around, most of the bosses will strike a sense of intimacy. Petey Piranha captures Peach and Zelda at the beginning, Porky (yes, his real cannon name) will bully Ness and Lucas in his spider mech, and Ridley will be fought twice in his normal form and his metal coat of armor from Metroid Prime. Is legendary Pokemon Rayquaza considered a “villain?” If not, the Loch Ness Monster Pokemon of the lake still makes for an engaging boss. I still like the bosses the developers made for the game because, like the others, they still offer a challenge with a diverse move set to learn and overcome. At the very end of the campaign, we learn that all the Nintendo villains were nothing but red herrings, and the vengeful God-Like being of Tabuu was pulling the proverbial strings. He displays his omnipotent might on everyone which makes him seem unbeatable. That is until Sonic the fucking Hedgehog pulls a Deus Ex Machina before he deals the final blow. I don’t care if this trope is contrived and stupid, this is the only way to introduce Sonic in his debut Smash title. Then, the player has to vanquish the malevolent force, and he’s no picnic. He’s a damage sponge with many unpredictable forms, one being a series of flashes that will kill the player on contact. Once he’s defeated, the land reverts to its normal state, signified by the shot of a shimmering sunset by a body of water.

We all need to stop pretending that Melee didn’t have any faults and that Brawl was a misguided sequel that couldn’t surpass “perfection.” Super Smash. Bros Brawl was a logical step in progress for a Smash Bros. sequel, and the mark of a successor in a series based on recounting the celebrated history of the most successful video game company of all time needs to up the ante. Nintendo’s attempts to craft a more casual experience by slightly altering the gameplay isn’t a big detractor (except for tripping. What the fuck were they thinking?) because it still reproduces the appeal of Smash Bros. However, Brawl might signal a point where it would’ve been wise to show restraint in the additions, and the more involved stages and lethal items should be subtracted the same as the clone characters were from the roster. As of now, Brawl is a unique outlier in the series because the ambitious Subspace Emissary campaign, or at least something of its caliber, wasn’t recreated for any of the future titles. As flawed as the campaign was, it still hits a zenith point of crossover potential that no other Smash game has recreated. Ideally, every subsequent Smash Bros. game is intended to be bigger and better than the previous ones but no matter how they augment future releases in terms of content, I will always return to Brawl, the black sheep of the series, for this reason.

Super Mario Galaxy Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/20/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Super Mario Galaxy

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: Wii

Release Date: November 1, 2007

The mark of 3D Mario’s evolution seems to be distancing him from the setting of the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s not as if Princess Peach’s magical monarchy is restricted to the 2D X-axis, nor does it have to be endemic to the warped, bulbous aesthetic that represented the antediluvian era of 3D gaming seen in Super Mario 64. Still, Super Mario Sunshine didn’t simply render Mario’s visuals more efficiently on the Gamecube’s hardware just to make the Mushroom Kingdom look clearer like the player received a pair of prescription contact lenses. Mario’s stark evolution between his N64 and Gamecube outings was so monumental that the developers felt the need to celebrate, making Super Mario Sunshine a holiday in every context of the word. When Mario’s next adventure on Nintendo’s subsequent console, the Wii, debuted early in the system’s lifespan like the previous 3D Marios, Mario did not return to his homeland like any responsible adult eventually does after their vacation. The plump plumber now fancies himself as somewhat of a globetrotter now, expanding the vast parameters beyond the familiar backdrop of the fungal domain that served as the traditional environment for so many Mario titles. The Wii was Nintendo’s first case of a radically implemented peripheral paying off in spades, and their flagship franchises needed to reflect the glory of their success after the Gamecube somehow failed to meet the same sales numbers of the N64. Mario’s next adventure after Sunshine did not repeat the premise of a vacation gone awry in another typical frivolous locale like a ski resort or a city in Europe. As Nintendo would most likely attest to, the guy who originally coined the adage “the sky’s the limit” obviously existed far before space travel was feasible. Super Mario Galaxy is the peak of Nintendo’s ambition for a Mario setting, as they put the plumber in the boundless reaches of the cosmos.

While Super Mario Galaxy is Mario’s first foray into the final frontier (in the mainline Super Mario series), Nintendo is no stranger to crafting an IP around science fiction’s quintessential setting. Just use the event match “Space Travelers” from Super Smash Bros. Melee as a reference for how many franchises Nintendo has already oriented around space and its infinite possibilities. However, the overall consensus Nintendo seems to convey with their bevy of intergalactic IPS is that flirting with the unexplored vastness of space is a harrowing prospect. Visiting an alien world leaves someone in a constant state of peril in Metroid, while the inverse of aliens landing on Earth’s soil in Earthbound spells a disorienting, reality-bending destruction for the third planet from the sun. The asteroid belts are the center of galactic warfare in Star Fox, and the futuristic racing in F-Zero surpasses the recommended speed capabilities for the general welfare of a human being. Kirby’s depiction of outer space is more pleasant, but the twee, Candyland aesthetic of Dreamland is perhaps too removed from reality to maintain a tangible boundary in the realm of science fiction. Overall, Nintendo’s sentiment regarding humanity’s hypothetical peak of colonialism is that attempting to tame the spectacle of space should be approached with extreme caution. Nintendo shares the same contemptuous attitude for outer space that Werner Herzog had for the humid wilderness of the jungles in the Amazon, but this negativity could not be conveyed in a Mario title. Making the young, general audience of Mario feel pangs of existential dread while looking up at the night sky is counterintuitive to the lighthearted appeal of Mario that makes him Nintendo’s golden boy. In order to maintain Mario’s image, Nintendo had to reassess its outlook on setting its characters around where the stars call home. From a more positive perspective, nothing is more strikingly magnificent than outer space. The immeasurable parameters of the cosmos are alluring to anyone who thirsts for adventure. Realistically, any mortal man would naturally perish in the untamed, empty void of space without a painstaking amount of preparation, and there’s only so much area we can cover. Still, the thought of gallivanting around the cosmos jubilantly tickles a primal center in man and makes him feel like a futuristic conquistador. This elated sense of romanticism for space travel that we are still striving for can be achieved vicariously through Mario, and the spectacle of it all is what Super Mario Galaxy revels in.

The Star Festival is not a Mushroom Kingdom tradition any of the Mario lore from previous titles has elucidated on, yet it is the momentous event that sets the scene in Super Mario Galaxy’s introduction sequence. Mario is invited to the ceremony taking place in the castle’s plaza by Peach, who also wants Mario to check out a peculiar creature not seen around the Mushroom Kingdom. This event is of course interrupted by Bowser and his Koopa army, as par for the course in establishing a Mario game’s narrative conflict. Take a wild fucking guess what Bowser and his air fleet are here to do. If your answer was anything else but to kidnap Peach, you are beyond saving. Not only does Bowser fail to deviate from his usual evil schemes, but he dips back into the idea pool from previous executions of kidnapping Peach. Bowser extracts the entirety of Peach’s Castle out from the earth with the tractor beam of a giant UFO, which should ring familiar to Paper Mario if that series is canon. Instead of only keeping Peach’s royal estate suspended above the clouds, Bowser penetrates the planet’s stratosphere to keep Peach at eye level with the stars. One would think Mario already being on the scene would nip Bowser’s newest attempt in the bud, but a particularly skilled Kamek blindsides Mario and sends him rocketing off into the night sky. When Mario awakes from his defeated stupor, he finds himself beside the creature that Peach wanted him to see: an incandescent star-shaped blob known as a Luma. To Mario’s surprise, the floating pillow is more articulate than one would expect, as it brings Mario to a blonde woman wearing a silky nightgown named Rosalina. Rosalina is the leader and matriarchal figure of the Lumas, and their space-traveling capabilities have been deterred by Bowser snatching up the power source that Mario must retrieve. At this point, I can confidently state that the general plot of a mainline Mario game is superfluous to the game’s overall appeal. As long as the premise behind Bowser’s annual princess snatching is fresh, Nintendo can get away with setting the same ol’ point of conflict they’ve stuck to for every iteration of Mario.

Before I discuss Super Mario Galaxy’s strengths in exuding the majestic aura of outer space, I feel as if there is a planet-sized elephant in the room that might bother some of the more obsessive-compulsive crowd. While he’s obviously a fictional character, Mario is still a human being with the same anatomy as a real person (albeit rendered cartoonishly), so how can he gracefully fly through endless anti-gravity like he’s Peter Pan? Shouldn’t his eyeballs be overflowing with blood while his head inflates like a balloon until it pops from the physical pressure? I’ve never personally witnessed the effects of space exposure on someone, but I’d be willing to bet that this is the most likely scenario. The answer to this question is that Nintendo figured no one would notice or care about the semantics. Mario has been swimming underwater without needing to ascend over the surface for a breath of air since the first Super Mario Bros., and we’ve never questioned whether or not Mario houses a pair of gills under his hat. While Mario resembles a human, Nintendo’s intention for the grand champion of video game characters is to act as a mustachioed vehicle for fantasy wonderment that forsakes all realism. That druggy joke everyone makes about Mario’s universe is simply Nintendo attempting to present an elated sense of splendor appropriate for all ages. Super Mario Galaxy arguably sets up the pinnacle of Mario’s ecstasy initiative given the overwhelming scope of traveling throughout the universe with nothing but the clothes on his back. The game’s presentation needed to be especially accommodating to the player to fit this grand spectacle. Super Mario Galaxy’s presentation doesn’t make biblical, sprinting leaps in improvement over Sunshine, but the level of refinement it does add is still readily apparent.

Then there’s the case of the other elephant in the room that might make people skeptical of Super Mario Galaxy’s technical prowess. As one could assume with a Wii title, motion controls are incorporated into Mario’s control scheme here. Before this revelation causes enough revulsion to deter them from playing the game, I can assure you that the system’s idiosyncratic gimmick does not compromise on 3D Mario’s significant evolution that was much needed since Super Mario 64. Naturally, Nintendo seemed to have the greatest understanding of how to practically implement motion controls for the games on the Wii as opposed to the countless amounts of shovelware that polluted the system. Surprisingly, the trick to unlocking the functionality of this fanciful piece of hardware is to keep things simple, as seen in the control scheme of Twilight Princess at the console’s launch. The analog stick on the nunchuck works as well as any other controller despite its intermittent relationship with the Wiimote, and every bit of movement with Mario is slick and responsive. Mario can still execute the same level of acrobatic agility that made him a joy to control in Sunshine, even with the unorthodox Wii controller. The diminished gravitational pull of outer space does not affect the grace of Mario’s triple jump or leaping backflip, nor does it change the crushing impact of his signature ass stomp. The slide maneuver that Mario performed in Sunshine is no longer available, most likely because constantly using it has caused a serious case of crotch burn. Instead, Mario reverts back to both the leap and the crouched super jump seen in Super Mario 64, with the considerable advantage of the Wii’s presentational prowess to make the execution incredibly fluid. The point of uncomplicated innovation with motion controls is a new attack. By swiping the Wiimote like a baton, Mario elegantly makes a 360-degree spin that knocks out any enemies in his vicinity, with a brief cooldown represented by the small Luma icon that gave Mario this ability. With a new frame rate standard that is as smooth as the wax from a Koopa’s shell, the already sprightly Mario has never felt so adept in his physical capabilities, even with the additional aspect of a gravity-challenged environment. The only awkward thing the player still has to contend with is the camera, as the player is relegated to the nunchuck’s Z button that only centers the camera to Mario’s front instead of offering the fully analog control featured on the Gamecube.

The introduction sequence where Mario makes sense of his surroundings sees him sets a misleading precedent. A wide shot juxtaposes the grassy sphere that cushioned Mario’s fall with the immense void of space, leaving the player with the impression that Mario is hopelessly lost. While this existential scene may suggest that Nintendo has reverted back to their prejudices, the tone quickly changes for the duration of the game when Mario reaches the game’s hub. As I’ve always expressed, an effective video game hub should serve as a placid nucleus at the center of the more chaotic areas that surround it. Galaxy’s predecessor on the N64 was the architect that established the design and atmosphere appropriate for a hub, and Galaxy’s delivers on the same standard. When Mario arrives at Rosalina’s Comet Observatory perched high across the starry, astral stratum, it’s but a dim, hollow shell thanks to Bowser seizing its power source. Though the faded stillness might evoke a sense of eerie tranquility, it’s not indicative of the observatory’s peak effectiveness as a hub. As Mario collects the Grand Star power sources, the individual sections of the observatory regain their luminescence. Once every area is restored, the player can fully see the magnificence of the observatory. Essentially, it’s Peach’s Castle from Super Mario 64 in space. The grounds of the observatory may exist around the exterior coldness of outer space, but it still manages to exude the same aura of coziness. Rosalina and the Lumas have built the living essentials around this traveling space palace that one would find in Peach’s castle, such as a kitchen, library, bedroom, garden, etc. If Mario accidentally missteps into the ether of space here, an undisclosed safety net will encapsulate him in a bubble and bring him back on solid ground. That level of security and base hominess, especially considering the hostile environment it lies in, gives the observatory the status of a space sanctuary. On top of that, how can a place surrounded by the Squishmallow-esque Lumas be anything but comforting?

The observatory also streamlines the level placements compared to the ones in the previous 3D Mario games. In both 64 and Sunshine, the player oftentimes had to be exceptionally observant in spotting where some levels were, such as the insides of Boos and indiscernible walls in 64 and the tops of shine towers in Sunshine. Here, Rosalina charts the amount of Power Stars Mario has collected at the center of the observatory and how they coincide with progress. Around three to four different levels are found in the igloo-shaped rooms that serve as the observatory’s homey places of relevance. Guiding Mario up to the blue star on the ceiling shows the handful of levels in relatively close orbit to one another. Restoring power to the next room of the observatory is a matter of collecting enough stars to unlock the boss galaxy and grabbing its Grand Star. Unlike Sunshine which forced the player to earn most of the stars from each level to progress, Galaxy allows the player to collect any of the Stars from any arbitrary source. Thank God, because this was the largest detriment that Sunshine implemented that deviated from the sound method of progress in 64 that didn’t need to be changed. Reverting back to each main collectible sharing equal value shows that Nintendo learned its mistake, and Galaxy is more approachable as a result.

I claimed that outer space was a perfect setting for a 3D platformer game while discussing the strengths of the Ratchet & Clank franchise. The immeasurable breadth of what exists outside Earth is too incomprehensible for our feeble human existences, so ruminating on the possibilities verges into fantasy territory. Ratchet & Clank took full advantage of this in providing the 3D platformer archetype of a wide variety of level themes that took place on the game’s myriad of different planets. As clever as working around this tired trope was, Insomniac’s PS2-era IP was still technically copying the template that Super Mario 64 pioneered. Super Mario Galaxy naturally uses the realm of outer space to channel its birthright as a Mario game and provide a diverse range of space levels just as Ratchet & Clank did. Super Mario Galaxy’s various levels run the wide gamut of classic 3D platformer levels such as the obligatory fire and ice themes, and the “Freezeflame Galaxy” combines both as a self-aware nod to how commonplace the contrasting elements are featured in these kinds of games. “Dusty Dune Galaxy” carries on the Mario tradition of a desert level, with Dry Bones and the cacti' enemy Pokies as the appropriate sand dwellers. The sunny “Beach Bowl Galaxy'' might be the sole continuation of Sunshine’s tropical vacation theme. Still, Mario couldn’t potentially fall off the resort if he swam too deeply in the ocean waters, unlike this celestial beach. “Ghostly Galaxy” manages to emulate that haunted mansion level seen in previous Mario titles, and “Space Junk Galaxy” touches on the subject of space pollution. “Toy Time Galaxy” is one of my personal favorites because the childish, Lego-like aesthetic is just darling. While each of these levels is obviously unique to one another, one consistent trait between them all is the prominent backdrop of the cosmos. The broad reaches of outer space never leave the player’s peripheral vision. Whether the background color is light or dark, the infinite scope of space makes the foreground seem like an insignificant rock in a universe with billions of others. The space setting compliments the empty graphical space that made so many levels in Super Mario 64 look surreal without that context.

Super Mario Galaxy also whittles down the areas of a 3D Mario game with linearity. The galaxies of the game boil down to two different points of design. Most of the platforming involves hopping across a series of airborne planetoids placed with the same verticality. Once Mario reaches a more distant section of a level, a Launch Star will blast Mario further with one shake of the Wiimote, guiding his flight with the same level of accuracy and elegance as his initial arrival. The final objective at the end of the path will be obvious to most, so referring to the title of the objective is unnecessary, unlike the previous two games. Across the three or so star missions, the level will slightly change its layout to lead Mario to a different objective. This change-up means that while the level always offers more to discover, the linear trajectory to each Power Star feels more contrived. Even areas with a more freeform plateaued design like “Honeyhive” and “Golden Leaf Galaxy” still provide formulated clues to lead the player in the right direction. The indirect collectathon format that Super Mario 64 implemented was what defined 3D Mario, but it seems like Nintendo deviates further from this design philosophy with every subsequent entry. The linear design of Galaxy reminds me more of the classic levels from the 2D Mario games, something that Nintendo could now achieve in their third 3D generation that the primitiveness of the N64 would’ve fumbled on. Also, clearing one narrow objective is still more appropriate for the boot-out system that Galaxy still carries over.

The boot-out system now will only eject Mario from a level once he’s completed his mission and collected the star. For the first time in a 3D Mario title, checkpoints have been applied to each level, probably on account of how linear each of them is. The checkpoints are not defined clearly by a symbol or icon, but Mario will still be resurrected in a wanton section in the level upon dying. On top of this, Mario most likely won’t die too often because he either invested in adherent footwear, or the gravity in space is ironically more gripping than it is in either the Mushroom Kingdom or Isle Delfino. All Mario has to worry about here is sometimes misjudging a jump from one piece of space rock to the next and facing the vacuuming wrath of the black hole situated somewhere in each level, the great and physically questionable mediator of the cosmos. Mario’s health bar has been lowered to fractions of three, but coins that regenerate Mario’s health will consistently spill from enemies. In addition to Galaxy lowering the stakes of danger, the game will also grant the player an abundance of extra lives. Star Bits, Galaxy’s celestial currency that looks like space Dippin Dots, will add an extra life after collecting only fifty of the dinky, colorful space flakes, which Mario can scrounge up simply by waving around the Wiimote’s cursor. Peach even sends Mario a care package of five 1-Up shrooms whenever the player starts playing the game again. Peach is so prepared for being kidnapped at the point that she is sharing her hostage rations with Mario. It goes without saying, but Super Mario Galaxy is far easier than the previous two 3D Mario games. Considering Mario’s titles are intended to be relatively stress-free experiences, Galaxy’s diminished difficulty feels more suitable.

But what about the thrill of a challenge that every video game should provide regardless of their high accessibility? Astonishingly, Super Mario Galaxy still offers this in a bevy of opportunities, but not along the normal route of star collecting. Off the beaten path of the main planets are those with only one objective that can supplement the star total if the player finds it necessary. Plenty of these come with feeding the jovial “hungry Lumas” enough Star Bits to make their own “big bang” and become a new level. Feeding these gluttonous pink globs comes recommended because it’s the only way to expunge the overflowing amount of Star Bits in Mario’s wallet. A common source of extra challenge is the periodic occurrence of the various comets. The additional layer of challenge coincides with the type of comet in orbit, which ranges from racing Shadow Mario, completing an old task with a time constraint, beating a boss in one life, etc. Those few who felt bereft of Luigi will be excited to know that gaming’s most famous second fiddle at least has a supporting NPC role of seeking out Power Stars in inconspicuous corners. Looking around outside the intended avenue in some levels will net Mario a “secret star,” and the total three will create a green Launch Star to propel Mario to the three most challenging stars in the game. Whether it be balancing Mario on a ball, a manta ray, or keeping his bubble from popping, each of these unyielding endurance tests will require extreme proficiency with the game’s motion controls.

While Galaxy approaches 3D Mario’s level design with a radical divergence, it reinstalls plenty of attributes from 64 that Sunshine had omitted. Sunshine’s intention was to literally and figuratively take a vacation from the Mushroom Kingdom and along the way, the fresh environment felt perhaps too alien from Mario’s core hallmarks. One aspect removed from Sunshine was the various power-ups like the invincibility star and the fire flower, for the latter would contradict the utility of the water nozzle fuzed to Mario’s back. I am happy to report that both of Mario’s signature temporary boosts are back for both plow through groups of enemies and to light torches respectively. The developers even added an ice flower to complement the fire flower where Mario can skate on water like a snowman Jesus. Besides the power-ups with fleeting periods of use that were standard in 64, Galaxy recalls a time before the 3D era when Mario could wear a power-up like a costume for as long as possible before it dissipated upon taking damage. A mushroom with black and yellow stripes will transform Mario into Bee Mario, who can stick to honeycomb walls and fly for a short period depending on a stamina gauge. A translucently white mushroom will test Mario’s mortal coil as a Boo with Mario’s mustachioed visage instead of the wide, gnarly smile of the deceased Mario enemies. Boo Mario can endlessly float and make his form immaterial to pass through solid bars. Mario must avoid light as a Boo, and be careful not to touch any water as Bee Mario unless they want the power to be prematurely stripped from them. Spring Mario is the last one to round out the trio of new forms, and the rigid mechanics make it feel more gimmicky than the other two. Whether or not you find these suits adorable or they’re phobia triggers (relating to ghosts and bees, but I’m sure there’s some weirdo out there who runs away screaming when they see a Slinky), one can’t deny they provide another layer of variety to a game that already revels in diverse gameplay.

Sunshine also seemed to jumble Mario’s combat to a confusing degree. Sure, spraying down enemies with F.L.U.D.D. like rioters in the streets was effective enough, but the high-octane hydro pump was mostly intended for cleaning and uncovering secrets under the sticky mess. Truthfully, there weren’t too many enemies situated around Isle Delfino to really highlight the fighting potential of F.L.U.D.D. For some reason, the infinite reaches of space feel more like Mario than the vacation resort. Either Bowser invited his entire fleet to join him on his mission of galactic conquest, or Goombas and Koopas are part of every Mario ecosystem except on Isle Delfino. Bullet Bills will furiously tailgate Mario, and the stone behemoth Thwomps will still pulverize Mario if they catch him under their infuriated gaze. I’ve just now realized that I’ve already mentioned a smattering of staple Mario enemies absent in Sunshine beforehand, which shows the extent that the developers took to remedy the lack of familiar Mario foes featured in the previous game. Hell, the Cataquacks make their return to again hastily catapult Mario, solidifying them into the Mario enemy canon.

Because F.L.U.D.D.’s primary function wasn’t combat, Sunshine’s bosses were always a tad disorienting as a result. They always required unorthodox means of disposal that tended to verge into unnecessary circuity. Bosses in Galaxy are obstacles at the pinnacle of a few Power Stars routes. Like every other aspect of the game, they are all an assorted bunch, and all it takes to defeat them is a variation of Mario’s own innate abilities. The evil Beyblade Topmaniac only needs to be jumped on and batted into the circulating electric currents surrounding the arena. The mean, mighty Monty Mole, Major Burrows, needs a little earthquake caused by Mario’s posterior to unearth him and stop him from chasing the poor bunnies from beneath the ground. The swinging of the black Bomb Boos to erode the rocky exterior of the phantom Bouldergeist reminds me of flinging Bowser by his tail in 64. Bosses like Bugaboom and Baron Brrr require the use of the new power-ups to defeat, but only in conjunction with Mario’s natural talents. Each boss also takes a measly three hits with slight increases in difficulty between them, signaled by a fuming rage that signifies an increased level of aggression. They’re all quick bouts as well as opposed to the many instances of waiting we all had to endure with Sunshine’s bosses. Bowser Jr. and his father trade-off as the apex of each room’s solar system. Bowser Jr. will present a new machine or other foe and taunt Mario from the sidelines, the standout being a towering mech in which climbing up its skyscraper legs channels Shadow of the Colossus. Bowser’s three duels are practically the same with Bowser adding another move with each following fight to prolong it marginally. The paths up to Bowser harken back to those from Super Mario 64, which include the most engaging platforming sections involving the manipulation of gravity. Big or small in significance, the big baddies across the universe finally provide substantial boss fights in a mainline Mario game.

Underneath the action of jumping from planet to planet is a layer of emotional depth seldom explored in the mainline Mario games. As exhilarating as it is to easily soar through the cosmos as Mario is, there is a sense of sentimentality to man’s relation to the grand scope of the universe. Once Mario unlocks the library, Rosalina is seen reading an illustrated children’s book detailing her backstory of how she came to the position of the Luma’s leader as a little girl. Chapter by chapter, a younger Rosalina becomes more comfortable with the alien atmosphere of space thanks to the company of the Lumas, but her homesickness makes her yearn for her old concrete life on Earth. She finally becomes content when she comes to terms with her old life perishing to no return and finds new happiness in her new status. It’s optional to read along with Rosalina, but it comes recommended because it aids the impact of the ending. Once Mario stops Bowser at his final fight and thwarts his plans to craft a galaxy in his image, catastrophic damage is done to the universe. A black hole of an impeccable scale swallows the remains of Bowser’s newest failure, and the entirety of all that exists seems doomed. However, a Luma sacrifices itself to create a fission of new life in the old one’s place, a rebirth of life. I’m not sure if it’s the image of Mario floating in the light ether of new existence, but the whole scene caused a lump to warble around in my throat. Returning back to the Mushroom Kingdom as pristine as it was before the beginning events may be a cop-out of sorts, but I still felt as if Mario went through the same rebirth arc as Rosalina did in the process. Only the first Paper Mario made me feel stirred up to this point, and I expect Mario spin-offs to be the only games to resonate emotionally.

Super Mario Galaxy’s ethos isn’t really to quell any anxieties relating to space travel. Mario’s breeziness through the final frontier is not indicative of Nintendo's attempt to condition future space imperialists to show that conquering the cosmos is an easy task. Rather, Mario’s ease in every aspect of the game is Nintendo perfecting all of 3D Mario’s attributes. Ironically, the mainline Mario title that implements motion controls is the smoothest and most agreeable he’s ever been in a 3D outing. Mario had finally come full circle in the third dimension to deliver on the same presentational and mechanical expertise he did when he was rendered with pixels, and here I thought there wasn’t much to improve on after Sunshine. Mario’s mark of accessibility is directly intertwined with Galaxy’s flawless performance. Many may argue that linear levels and a constant bounty of extra lives aren’t an improvement, but I believe it shows a more direct focus on what 64 and Sunshine established. The extensive amount of variety in the game from the areas, power-ups, enemies, and bosses will always keep the player intrigued. All the while, the gorgeous, cinematic depiction of the cosmos and the bittersweetness of existence beneath it all made my jaded, cynical heart melt like chocolate. If something as wholesome as Mario doesn’t cause that sensation, then what is he really good for? If space travel is the peak of human accomplishment, then the same can be said for the Mario series.

Ufouria: The Saga Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/12/2023)

[Image from giantbomb.com]

Ufouria: The Saga/Hebreke

Developer: Sunsoft

Publisher: Sunsoft

Genre(s): Metroidvania

Platforms: NES

Release Date: September 20, 1991

It’s always fascinating to search for and discover the hidden gems buried beneath the surface. One might cynically chide someone for making this effort and attest it to gaining some sort of nebulous hipster cred. I believe most people who take off their proverbial floatation devices that the general public provides and sink deeper into the water do so to achieve a more well-rounded perspective of a medium’s history or a specific genre they enjoy. The unearthed gleaming jewel in this context is Ufouria: The Saga, or Hebereke as it’s known in its native Japan. Back in early 2018 when Nintendo decided to close the Wii Shop Channel’s doors, I scrambled frantically to seize the waning opportunity to purchase all of the rarities that the vast catalog bestowed. The appeal of downloading Ufouria on my Wii wasn’t only due to the fact that this port was the only (legally) available release in North America, but because the “Metroidvania” tag caught my attention. Everyone knows the Adam and Eve of the Metroidvania genre are Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night, so discovering a “foreign” game fitting the tag that predates both games by at least a whole generation immediately spurred my sense of curiosity. I was still skeptical of Ufouria’s general quality given that the first Metroid game had convinced me that the design philosophy of the Metroidvania genre could not flourish on the primitive hardware of the NES. Ufouria is indeed guilty of having plenty of rough snags in its gameplay and presentation, but the overall execution of what we’d come to associate with the Metroidvania genre is surprisingly solid.

“Alex Kidd on acid” should’ve been the tagline for Ufouria: The Saga. The similarities between the game and Sega’s pre-Sonic hit on the Master System fall on their bright aesthetic and more methodical approach to a 2D platformer’s pacing. Those comparisons end when Ufouria takes the twee, childish whimsy of Alex Kidd and dips it head first in a lysergic liquid and totally trips balls. A group from the land of Ufouria gets lost and separated in a strange land, and one of the four friends must retrieve the rest of them and set a course back home. Although the premise is simple, I neglected to mention that the savior is a snowman searching for a dragon, a ghost, and an anglerfish. Also, it’s worth mentioning that some of the platforms that the snowman must hop onto to hold his ground are colored faces that look up with a deranged, closed smiles. Some platforms lend a hand in letting the player climb upward by providing a drooping strand of saliva viscous enough to hold, and the creatures that offer flight assistance look like the abominable lovechild of a chicken fetus and a Teletubby. Enemies range from blobs, clowns, detached lips with long tongues, frog statues, crows that drop anvils, etc. The consistent factor with this eclectic range of enemy types is that upon defeating them, something that resembles a molested-looking pillow pops out from their remnants which the player can use as a projectile weapon. By my interpretation, it might be the soul of the enemy, but it’s hurting my brain attempting to make sense of it. If not for the complications of using licensed music, an 8-bit rendition of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” should play on a loop throughout the game. The hallucinatory, Japanese weirdness of Ufouria is a charming factor that makes it aesthetically interesting.

Ufouria’s cast of strange characters is the crux of the game’s Metroidvania design. Following the path of least resistance the beanie-wearing Bop-Louie can traverse will lead to a battle with one of his friends, whose hostility towards him stems from amnesia. Once Bop-Louie literally knocks some sense into them, they join the party for the duration of the game. Once unlocked, each partner can use their distinctive talents to uncover the hidden areas that Bop-Louie cannot access. Freeon-Leon’s scaly, orange body is the only one adhesive enough to naturally walk on the ice without slipping, and he can swim on any water’s surface if a pool lies between gaps of land. The cool Mr. Shades uses his weightless, incorporeal form to glide across gaps, and the bulbous Gil’s gravitational grip on the water allows him to submerge himself in any body of it like he was walking. Bop-Louie isn’t made irrelevant by his friends either as he is eventually granted the ability to scale up any surface like climbing a ladder. All of them also have specific extra abilities for either traversal or combat. For example, Bop-Louie can retract his head like a spring to hit enemies at a distance, and Gil’s egg-shaped bombs that he coughs up are essential to breaking the brick walls that inhibit the end-game collectibles. None of the characters stop being useful, as they are all distinctive enough to provide a special service (even if Gil’s swimming ability is more proficient than Freeon-Leon’s). I wish I didn’t have to keep pausing the game to select one but considering how primeval the notion of playing as multiple characters was in the NES days, I’ll accept the slightly inconvenient process. At least it’s less tedious than the character swapping in Castlevania III, whose glacial shift felt so long that it should’ve been accompanied by elevator music. The big question of why the designs of Bop-Louie and Freeon Leon have been changed in the international versions from a penguin and a guy in a catsuit is unclear. Perhaps a human being wouldn’t have been as weird, and kids would find an adorable penguin with a detachable head to be unsettling as opposed to the more…biodegradable, transient snowman?

In the first Metroid on the NES, the game’s sense of directing the player through an environment with a nonlinear world design felt a little too amorphous to uphold what would become the Metroidvania design philosophy. I thought that Ufouria would be subject to the same lack of form, as I attributed Metroid’s sparseness to the unadorned hardware of the NES. Fortunately, Ufouria proved to me that developers didn’t need a successive console generation for the Metroidvania genre to blossom to its ingenious potential. Ufouria effectively arranges its progression into something readily recognizable as a Metroidvania title. An arrow will point out the path the player is intended to travel on when the game begins, which would compromise on the subtleties that make the genre so enticing. After a certain point, the game leaves the player to their own devices, so the first few moments of hand-holding can be forgiven for an early title. The game makes it abundantly clear which of the four characters is applicable to an obstacle or situation, and a map is even offered as a navigational aid. The map may be primitively rendered with gray blocks representing the layout but considering the Metroid genesis point of the genre didn’t offer one, it’s a monumental leap in progress.

Ufouria’s inaccessible jaggedness stems from a few choices that are as bizarre as its presentation. Evidently, one of Ufouria’s biggest influences was the first Legend of Zelda, and these apparent influences did not translate well. Checkpoints are essential to the world design of the Metroidvania game, as finding these places of respite are great rewards for exploration to relieve the player. Ufouria offers a password system, which I find especially inappropriate and dysfunctional for this kind of game despite its ubiquity in the NES era. However, this isn’t even the prime grievance relating to the game’s method of saving the player’s progress. When the player dies, they are transported back to square one where the adventure started, with everything done up to then still saved at least. It works in The Legend of Zelda because the land of Hyrule was small and densely mapped. In a game like Ufouria, however, where the world is vast and requires the select talents of four different characters, walking back to the place where the penalty was enacted is such a slog. The player’s maximum health can be enhanced with items found on the field similar to Zelda’s heart containers, but collecting one does not fully replenish those containers. The player will most likely find themselves around the starting, depleted level of health, and the nuggets of health that spawn out of enemies only increase it by the quantity of a crumb. It isn’t a problem as the enemies are facile products of the environment rather than animalistic savages. That is, until the final boss of the game, which finds the player having to grind immensely to fill those containers in preparation.

Ufouria’s combat is just as unyielding. The player can always throw the perturbed soul cushions, but a simpler way is to channel Mario and flatten enemies like pancakes with their feet. What the game doesn’t tell the player is that they must hold down on the D-Pad to engage the stomping position, lest they take damage. It seems simple, yet how the player intended to figure this out and not see it as a penalty is beyond me. It oversteps the practice of trial and error a bit. Even though this is the more straightforward method of disposing of the land’s wacky inhabitants, pillow-throwing is the only way to dispose of bosses. Jumping on the heads of the naked, wide-eyed, big-lipped purple bosses to then chuck the hefty bag at them takes place for all the bosses, even though each one of them is intended for each of the four playable characters. Even the final boss is a slightly deviated variant of this. The process becomes too formulaic to hold any real engagement.

Ufouria: The Saga surprised me in more ways than one. The Japanese producers at Sunsoft probably thought that the bizarre presentation and progression of the early Metroidvania that hadn’t been solidified quite yet would be too disorienting for us North Americans, so they deferred it from our soil until the game was a peculiar relic of gaming’s past. While this decision most likely prohibited the title from achieving considerable success, I’m somewhat glad that the game serves as a point of reference in the evolution of one of my favorite video game genres. Despite it being released before Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night, I wouldn’t classify Ufouria as a “proto-Metroidvania” game. While the fabric of Ufouria still shares the rudimentary properties that stain the NES era, it’s incredibly impressive that everything in its foundation still sustains the modern definition of a Metroidvania. With its offbeat quirks and charming outlandishness, this NES oddity shouldn’t be forgotten.

Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/8/2023)

[Image from igdb.com]

Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk

Developer: Nikita Kryukov

Publisher: Missing Calm

Genre(s): Visual Novel, Horror

Platforms: PC, Switch

Release Date: August 26, 2020

Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk. The repetition of the tongue twister title sets a disorienting precedent for this unnerving experience. On paper, the game is a simple task of directing a young woman on what should be an effortless quest to procure a bag of milk from her local market. However, the execution of this task is fraught with complications due to the young woman suffering from a debilitating mental illness. We, the player, are privy to the extent of her illness by seeing her world through her warped perspective, which strongly resembles the anxiety-inducing, blood-red tone of the Giygas battle from Earthbound. The few beings she comes across on her mission are crudely designed and barely enunciate anything close to human speech. The disconnect to reality presented here signifies how severe the girl’s illness is. Then again, any setting in which one can purchase milk in a bag is inherently bizarre as is, but that’s the extent to which an unreliable narrator can pervert one’s own perceptions.

The course of the game is conducted like a visual novel. Selecting a small variety of responses progresses the girl through the task. In contrast, a chain of negative responses results in the girl’s mental status caving in on her and prematurely ending the game. The player is either the girl’s consciousness or fourth-wall-breaking guardian angel who should have the girl’s best interests in mind if they want to see the full extent of the game. Maybe this is because I’m not familiar with the visual novel genre, but I wish the game provided multiple outcomes depending on the player’s responses. Unless you’re an insensitive clod, it's obvious which responses will garner a positive reaction. My internal gamer wanted the process of choosing a response to be like a minefield, and perhaps a different outcome could’ve commenced instead of treating some responses as failures.

Milk Inside’s biggest appeal is definitely the presentation. The hauntingly surreal atmosphere and tone is an effective visual means to convey the experience of cognitive dissonance of someone afflicted with a mental disorder. Some may argue that artistic choices verge on embellishing the struggle that forsakes realism. However, in the time of Covid-19 when this game was released, is it that far-fetched to believe that the girl in Milk Inside couldn’t mirror someone from the real world? I certainly felt like conversing with people was akin to them reciting binary code to me after my forced fourteen-month asocial hibernation period. The game succeeds in one aspect, but the sparseness of the gameplay and story leave me somewhat empty. Milk Inside is a short mood piece, and at least that mood will resonate with the player.

Shovel Knight Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/7/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Shovel Knight

Developer: Yacht Club Games

Publisher: Yacht Club Games

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: PC, Wii U, 3DS, Xbox One, PS4, Android

Release Date: June 26, 2014

Here’s a pressing question for all you gamers under the age of thirty: do you actively avoid playing games from the pre-3D era because of their lack of availability, or because their foundation is comparatively primitive, and therefore jarringly inaccessible? The reason can’t be because these games are locked in an archival vault, for they are commonly ported to modern platforms. It must be due to the prevailing notion that video games have an arbitrary expiration date. C’mon, fess up. I’m not saying everyone born after the early 90s shares these predilections, but there seems to be a widespread viewpoint among younger gamers that vilifies games that predate their own conception, especially those of the early pixelated 2D period released before the late 1990s. A sneering distaste for the classics isn’t as pervasive with films or music. Zoomers will attend theater screenings of 2001: A Space Odyssey high as a kite and emphatically detail their “transcendental experience” to their peers with a Pulp Fiction poster in the background of their dorm rooms. No one is delusional enough to place the prequels or Disney Star Wars films over the immortal original trilogy regardless of their age. Maybe it’s because I spend too much time on the internet, but I’ve noticed that discovering older music artists via the world wide web is a more common practice among teenagers now than it was when I was in high school. Older video games, on the other hand, are treated with the same reaction of revulsion as if they were being forced to eat their brussels sprouts. Admittedly, as someone born in the early 3D era, many of the industry practices and comparatively primitive facets of game design can verge on being excruciating. I can count merely a handful of games that were released before I was born that are among my personal favorites, as there is only so much pain I can handle before my spirit shatters and I am in dire need of a relaxing bath with some chocolate ice cream for comfort. Conversely, there are plenty of those whose gaming prime was this jagged era, and the shift to 3D left them bewildered. They’ve assigned themselves to the role of gaming elder statesmen, whose repertoire is cryogenically frozen to the time before the medium became polygonal. After a certain point where the gaming industry reached a point of proficiency with 3D visuals to an almost cinematic extent, games that resembled those of the primeval pixelated years started popping out of the indie woodwork. One of the first breakout titles in this new wave of old-school revival games was Shovel Knight, a 2D side scroller that arguably bridged the generational gap of gamers.

Honestly, Shovel Knight’s mission was not to create perfect harmony between the two contrasting factions. The prerogative of Yacht Club Games was to convince the youngins in their Call of Duty Team Deathmatch lobbies to respect their elders, or at least respect the pioneering craftsmanship their elders laid out in the vein of a fresh IP. Even then, Shovel Knight didn’t have any of the desirable qualities that would’ve enticed these kids, as Shovel Knight is as willfully retro as a jukebox in an off-road diner. Shovel Knight audaciously traipses around with an 8-bit fur coat and pixelated platform boots to flaunt its influences. Its style is shameless, and its intentions are unmistakable. Shovel Knight could’ve fit comfortably in the vast NES library, and anyone who didn’t know any better would see the game and assume that a buried, obscure gem (probably a game that was once exclusive to Japan) has been dug up and ported to modern consoles. While only the most open-minded of adolescent gamers would give their attention to Shovel Knight, one would think that the champions of the old gaming guard would salivate at the prospect of a new game that encapsulates a bygone time that makes them comfortable enough to step out of their cocoon of nostalgia. However, Shovel Knight’s unabashed throwback identity could veer into being an 8-bit pastiche. The tropes and overall aesthetic of Shovel Knight are comprised of games that were over two decades old at the time, so the familiarities are sunken deep into the annals of video game history. Why would an “old school” gamer play Shovel Knight when they already have access to the hundreds of games that Shovel Knight liberally borrows from? Shovel Knight is like a Frankenstein’s monster composed of the decayed bits of gaming’s ancestors, but this statement doesn’t imply that Shovel Knight is derivative. Even though Shovel Knight is a remodel of a product that’s perceived to be “out of date,” decades of progress elevate its stature above its influences.

For those of you who have plenty of experience playing pixelated titles released before the fifth generation of gaming, you’ll attest to the fact that the visuals of the NES looked rough for more reasons than the 8-bit pixels. Not only did the chunky graphics resemble nothing akin to real life, but the fuzzy, static overlay of the cubical CRT TVs was also an unattractive visor that accompanied it. Sure, the use of CRT TVs persisted far into the 2000s, but the hazy drawbacks of the television technology were especially a discordant display in an era where objects and characters were rendered by rudimentary shapes and colors. Thankfully, the developers didn’t resort to that level of grating authenticity, as the general visual fidelity is up to par with the high-definition standards of current times. Unlike attempting to screen a real NES on an HDTV, Shovel Knight showcases the absolute apex of 8-bit pixel art. Color pallets unfeasible on the NES flourish beautifully in the characters and every trace of the scenery, and the subtleties in the sprite work retain a sense of refinement that keeps the lurid look of the game from overflowing and becoming a pixelated Argento film. Characters are expressive despite their intentionally simplistic physical features and there isn’t a single object that inadvertently gets muddled in with the contrasting colors making it indiscernible. One could argue that Shovel Knight’s visuals don’t accurately evoke those of the NES because it would be impossible to render something as proficiently striking on Nintendo’s first home console, and they’d technically be correct. My stance on this claim is that the revamped, NES-esque presentation gives the 8-bit graphics more credence as a legitimate visual style instead of being synonymous with graphical insufficiency.

Something else ubiquitous across the NES era was the designation of video game protagonists as mascots, charismatic characters to represent the brands of their companies. This practice made video games seem like a medium catered to children, but now it’s a quaint facet of a more innocent fetal age of gaming. The titular character Shovel Knight could’ve been believable as a plucky representative among the Captain N crowd, as enough personality oozes out of his pores to make his armor rust. Aesthetically, the cerulean warrior masterfully combines the ideal mascot balance of badass and adorable like the plethora of animals that were popular at the time, although the latter characteristic might be attributed to his dwarfish physical stature. Shovel Knight is noble, jolly, and ready to face any type of danger to protect and serve his kingdom. He’s the archetypal knight from medieval lore, powered by a strong sense of chivalry and divine duty. We never catch even a glimpse of what Shovel Knight looks like beneath his horned headpiece, but all of us can readily assume by his personality that he’s devilishly handsome with a twinkly smile that makes all the noblewomen swoon.

His choice of weapon, the shovel of his namesake, may seem like a handicap compared to the traditional sword and may imply that our hero is of lower class status in the kingdom’s caste than the average knight. That, or it's indicative of the modern indie circuits pension for wry quirkiness that would’ve escaped the audience of 8-bit gaming’s prime. Despite the weapon’s silliness, Shovel Knight proves that the shovel is mightier than the sword (this comparison doesn’t work the same way as the classic adage does). All of the kingdom’s evil is vanquished easily with the whack of our hero’s weird weapon of choice, and it's also very accommodating to Shovel Knight’s flexible range of movement. Shovel’s Knight’s basic attack with his weapon is a two-handed scoop that takes some elbow grease, but the true testament to Shovel Knight’s agile potency is the stabbing aerial move where he can deal damage to enemies by hopping on them similar to Scrooge McDuck’s move in the licensed NES classic DuckTales. The shovel’s shape also allows Shovel Knight to bat most projectiles Besides being the object his persona is associated with, Shovel Knight’s trusty gardening tool feels as natural and as deadly as the Master Sword or Simon Belmont’s whip. Speaking of which, Shovel Knight also has full access to an assortment of additional secondary items with a similar function to the ones in Castlevania. While the medieval setting may warrant these secondary weapons to also share a similar religious theme to Castlevania’s, Shovel Knight’s secondary weapons are non-secular tools referred to as relics. To supplement the shovel’s lack of projectile range that isn’t defensive, Shovel Knight can use items like the Flare Wand and Chaos Sphere to fling fire and ricocheting energy balls. The Dust Knuckles allow Shovel Knight to dig through the dirt, and the Phase Locket makes him invulnerable for a brief period. Like in Castlevania, these relics are activated by pressing up on the controller’s D-pad, and their use coincides with the amount of magic fuel that is easily collected on the field in blue magic sacks. Shovel Knight is smooth and incredibly capable, which is ideal for a 2D platformer protagonist.

As capable as Shovel Knight seems, he is but a shell of his former self. The enigmatic knight is actually past his glory days and isn’t as strong as he used to be. You see, Shovel Knight’s full potential has been split in half due to the disappearance of his partner, Shield Knight. Given the multiple contrasts of Shield Knight’s striking red and Shovel Knight’s deep blue, the offensiveness to her defensiveness, and their opposite gender roles, the “two halves of one whole” dynamic is apparent in their relationship. Unfortunately, their ties were severed by a cursed amulet that awakened the wicked Enchantress, the main antagonist of the game. With the power of the amulet, the Enchantress sealed Shield Knight in her dark, imposing Tower of Fate, leaving Shovel Knight in a crestfallen state of grief. Shovel Knight even dreams of her coming to her rescue every night as he sleeps by the fire, an interactive psychological facet of how losing her haunts him. The impetus that stimulated Shovel Knight out of his rut is the formation of the “Order of the No Quarter:” a coalition of rogue knights under the leadership of the Enchantress, who have used their position of power to corrupt the land and put its governable status at an imbalance. Shovel Knight’s comeback is a valiant quest for justice and to retrieve his life partner, and it’s going to be especially daunting as his first solo effort. At its center, Shovel Knight’s plot is not only the oldest of heroic narrative arcs, but it's also one of the most common premises in 8-bit video games (Mario, Zelda, etc.) However, the fact that Shovel Knight’s lack of confidence without his partner subverts the trope of the herculean savior who seems a little too capable on his quest to save a girl whose relationship with him isn’t entirely motivated by sex. It adds a layer of depth to the tired hero’s journey arc and the hero/damsel in distress roles.

Shovel Knight’s 8-bit influences step beyond the aspects of gameplay and aesthetics. I’ve briefly mentioned the tinges of Castlevania and DuckTales, but Shovel Knight’s inspiration stretches beyond only those few NES titles. Once Shovel Knight finishes the first stage, the map layout of the land will signify the extent of how much Shovel Knight scrounges up from the NES’s rich tapestry. The world map sees an icon of Shovel Knight moving around a series of lines that connect to the pronounced areas of interest. As Shovel Knight progresses on his quest, the ominous fog, most likely a byproduct of the Enchantress's toxic influence, blows eastward until her foreboding fortress is revealed. The next section of the map is unlocked in increments of three, subtly establishing a difficulty curve that comes with progress. Immediately, the map’s design should signal a sense of deja vu because it strongly resembles the way in which Super Mario Bros. 3’s individual worlds are structured. The differences between Shovel Knight and Super Mario Bros. 3’s maps are more than similarities in the visual department. Among the main levels across the map are places of interest that transport Shovel Knight to quaint little urban settlements reminiscent of the offroad towns from Zelda II. Instead of arriving at these old-world Burroughs to plunge his proverbial shovel into the town’s elegant wenches to restore his health and magic, Shovel Knight peruses the various wares to aid him on his mission. What else would the truckload of shiny jewelry that Shovel Knight finds in the levels be used for? Shovel Knight can pay to increase his magic at a witch’s cauldron, and increase the maximum capacity of his health by trading in a meal ticket to a cook seated next to the witch. A blacksmith situated the next town over can craft a colorful collection of armor, whose attributes are more varied than increasing general defense. Shovel Knight can finance the business aspirations of a group of entrepreneurs inside a hat store, and trade in music sheets to an excitable bard for a small sum of money. Neither the map nor the integration of village pit stops is wholly original, but the combination of both adds interest to Super Mario Bros. 3’s map, while the grid-based map adds a level of organization to the overworld in Zelda II.

Shovel Knight’s makeup is a tasteful mix of many NES games, but its primary influence is evidently Mega Man. Besides their armor sharing the same ocean hue, the blue bomber’s impact is seen in Shovel Knight's main level design. Like each Mega Man game, Shovel Knight’s levels are themed after elements relative to the coinciding boss that our hero faces at the end. Because the Knights are as an eclectic bunch as the Robot Masters of each Mega Man game, the player can expect the levels to exude the same amount of diversity in both the aesthetics and in level obstacles. The gothic stage of the Spectre Knight sees sections of total darkness with nothing but Shovel’s Knight silhouette as a visual frame of reference. The volcanic, underground caverns of Mole Knight’s stage have asymmetrical platforms made of igneous rock whose volatile properties ignite a chain reaction of decimation like a lit fuse which Shovel Knight must pay attention to. Some themes and their features like the underwater buoyancy test in Treasure Knight’s stage and the moving conveyor belt platforms in Tinker Knight’s stage are more directly taken from specific Mega Man stages, but Shovel Knight’s advantage of being on more powerful hardware allows these tropes to flesh out longer levels with more pronounced environments. Add the paused scrolling (with quicker frames) for good measure and Shovel Knight exudes the same standard of pulse-pounding action that made Mega Man so appealing.

The bosses themselves are also something Shovel Knight stripped from Mega Man’s notebook. Besides the way in which their encounters come across at the pinnacle of their themed levels, the fact that Shovel Knight shares the same title surname as they do makes the connection all too obvious. Similarly to how Shovel Knight’s advantages flesh out the levels, the same treatment is given to the bosses. At each boss encounters, Shovel Knight engages in a theatrical bout of venomous verbiage with them, biting his thumb at them with great contempt for their patronage of the evil Enchantress. Not ones to take Shovel’s Knight’s caustic tongue lightly, each knight acerbically responds in a myriad of ways. The King Knight is a foppish coward who usurped the throne of the land’s king to raise his entitled ego. The Propeller Knight is a romantic sky chaser with a vaguely French inflection. The Plague Knight can’t help but cackle with every sentence, and the fuzzy giant Polar Knight grunts at Shovel Knight with frost-bitten stoicism. There are also the bosses Shovel Knight faces on the map that is also brimming with personality, namely the Black Knight; a Protoman-type rival of Shovel Knight’s who is the Enchantress's most valued puppet. Their admirable level of character depth is also accentuated by more involved battles that include multiple phases. Mole Knight will burrow into every angle of dirt to catch Shovel Knight by surprise, while Spectre Knight will turn off the lights after a certain point to veil himself and his giant scythe. My favorite boss in this regard is Tinker Knight, who is the only boss whose multiple phases have two different health bars. The pathetic wrench tossing of the geeky shrimp is meant to lull the player into underestimating his might, as he brings out his colossal, cyberpunk mech as his second phase that could mirror one of the bosses from a section of dr. Wily’s castle. The knights of Shovel Knight are more fleshed out and interesting than the plain Robot Masters of Mega Man who vault over Mega Man’s head with their blank expressions.

Getting to the bosses shouldn’t be a taxing excursion, for Shovel Knight dials down the difficulty of a typical NES title to accommodate a modern audience. With standard damage, Shovel Knight’s health bar can take the brunt of most enemies' attacks with minimal knockback compared to the dramatism of Simon Belmont. The common casualties of bottomless pits and spikes that litter the screens of the hardest NES games are still here, but it’s the penalty leniency that separates Shovel Knight from its influences. Checkpoints are implemented regularly as reference points of progression, and all Shovel Knight loses upon dying is an amount of money subtracted from his total. The money is even represented by floating sacks of varying sizes and can be retrieved. To most NES enthusiasts, this soft penalty signals a lack of respect for the “NES hard” standard that made the early eras of gaming invigorating. Fortunately, I have good news for all of the detractors. The player can make Shovel Knight much harder by smashing the glass orb and claiming the treasure inside, sacrificing that checkpoint for the remainder of the level. The player has the choice to levy their skill and play accordingly, and it’s a brilliant trade-off.

Even for inexperienced players who would rather not take that risk, the difficulty curve eventually catches up to every player in the end finally approaching the Enchantress. Like Dr. Wily’s Castle, the witch’s towering domain serves as a climactic trek to the final boss with its own sublevels to exude the immense scale of the architecture. The Tower of Fate is also substantially harder than any of the knight’s levels, appropriately fitting for the finale of the game. Every section includes the hardest of level tropes seen across the previous levels such as the scaling ascension in Tinker Knight’s stage and the shadowy inflection of Spectre Knight’s. Shovel Knight fights a physically corrupted version of Black Knight, who is harder than any of the regular ones. In Mega Man tradition, there is also a boss gauntlet involving a randomized roulette of the other bosses in the scene of them sitting at a round table. Shovel Knight has the ability to fully heal between rounds, and is given a choice to save all the knights from plummeting to their untimely deaths. I chose to lend them a hand because I liked them as characters, something I would feel apathetic about if a crew of Robot Masters was in the same dire situation. The Enchantress fight that caps off the adventure involves working with Shield Knight to conquer her, and it’s here where their powerful relationship is put to the test in action other than a narrative component. Shield Knight ultimately sacrifices herself to save both Shovel Knight and Black Knight in his moment of clarity, which makes for a much more emotionally resonating ending than leaving destitute Dr. Wily on his knees.

Shovel Knight is the greatest NES game that was never released on the system. Even in the case of Super Mario Bros. 3, the undisputed champion of the era, Shovel Knight still blows it out of the water. I suppose it still isn’t fair to compare because Shovel Knight is sprinting on a path that was paved with a painstaking effort by its godfathers, and is wearing airtight tennis shoes as opposed to the uncomfortable wooden clogs that the others were forced to wear. If Shovel Knight doesn’t credit Mega Man, Zelda II, and Super Mario after it wins first prize, it should be booed and pelted by rotten tomatoes. Of course, Shovel Knight already showcases a heavy amount of respect and gratitude in the overall product. Shovel Knight is so tight, fluid, varied, pretty, and fun that I can’t imagine an older gamer sticking their nose up at it or a younger gamer having difficulties. Shovel Knight is not nostalgia bait because even with the thickest of rose-tinted glasses, any experience playing a game on the NES was never this solid.

Mega Man 2 Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 2/27/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Mega Man 2

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: NES

Release Date: December 24, 1988

I failed to mention this in my review of the first Mega Man but when I first played the blue bomber’s debut title, I didn’t like it. I am a child of the 2000s, which means I grew up accustomed to the frills that came with 3D gaming such as save features and reasonable difficulty curves. My earliest gaming experiences were the cumulative product of burgeoning change that made gaming smoother and more accessible for everyone, and this rate of progress has only become even more apparent since then. It’s not a cardinal rule that the parameters of one’s gaming repertoire should start at the base of when they started gaming to the current day, so why does playing games before one’s debut generation not come recommended by many? I’ve fervently argued that art and entertainment of yesteryears should be at least considered or at least respected by those whose existence came after the piece’s release date, for it can still retain its essentials that stand the test of time. However, my experience with the first Mega Man as a child tested my laurels and made me skeptical about the overall quality of “retro games.” That allurement of Mega Man’s that I alluded to struck me while reading about his classic titles in an issue of Nintendo Power sometime in the 2000s. The NES Mega Man titles still grabbed me with their promise of high-octane shooting action and tight platforming despite their primitiveness. What I didn’t anticipate was the game throttling me around like a rag doll, leaving me bruised and battered. Each of the Robot Master’s stages was uniquely punishing, and finally learning a comfortable sequential order to defeat them didn’t matter when I faced the sun-colored brick wall known as The Yellow Devil. Instead of throwing in a tear-soaked towel, something curious caught my eye about its sequel, Mega Man 2. Ironically, the optimal title in the classic Mega Man series for optimistic beginners is not the first title, as Mega Man 2 is considered by most to be the grand champion of the series. In just one following entry, the rudimentary snags that made the first Mega Man so excruciating were remedied to an exceptional degree.

On the surface, Mega Man 2 doesn’t improve on its rough template too much with considerable deviation. Our charismatic robot boy sees himself on another valiant quest to defeat the deranged Dr. Wily and his league of themed Robot Masters and save his futuristic world from total chaos. The key difference this time in relation to the first game is that Dr. Wily has cooked up this new batch of Robot Masters himself and there are eight of them instead of six. Once again, the player has the choice of routing Mega Man on a course of destroying the robotic menaces, while briskly being directed towards a sensible trajectory depending on the elemental powers Mega Man absorbs from them. Mega Man 2 is not a reboot disguised as a sequel like the Evil Deads of the world, but it is an indication that Mega Man has solidified a formula that will persist with each entry. The problem with the first Mega Man was obviously not a case of an ill-conceived idea falling apart at the seams. Mega Man needed some significant sanding down and refurbishing in order to bloom as the exemplary 2D platformer series on the NES. The effort to polish Mega Man was not a painstaking overhaul, but the slight improvements made a world of difference.

Unlike the three Super Mario games on the NES, the Mega Man series did not receive a new coat of pixelated paint with each new title. At first glance, Mega Man 2 is a carbon copy of the first game from an aesthetic standpoint. However, one can discern a substantial amount of detail by squinting at the graphical intricacies in the fine mineral textures in the pixels. This level of refinement is displayed as early as the game’s pre-menu introduction which sees a sprawling, futuristic metropolis in evening shade, with the deep color palette perfectly capturing the tone of the scene. Scrolling up the skyscraper sees Mega Man standing on its roof sans his helmet, and the wind of the high altitudes ruffles his black hair. It’s the most indelible image of the game and quite possibly the whole series, and it sets a precedent for how the game has improved upon Mega Man’s visuals. For one, Mega Man himself has been treated to a subtle hint of refinement that many might not catch. Mega Man’s pixelated outline is no longer as pronounced as an unplucked eyebrow, as it has been shaved down with an 8-bit thin razor. Along with the blue bomber, the foregrounds, and backgrounds of each stage look like they’ve been on the operating table in the year between Mega Man 1 and 2. They’ve been transformed to more appropriately fit the theme set around the specific Robot Master. Metal Man’s stage has a crop of rotating gears to set the scene of an industrial factory. Wood Man’s stage is an auburn color with a wavy, timbered texture to simulate venturing through the insides of an immensely-sized tree in the forest. The background of Flash Man’s stage is bright and glitzy, aptly enough for the Robot Master who resides in it, and the sweltering atmosphere of Heat Man’s stage radiates strongly off the red brick walls enough to make Mega Man sweat, (if he had those glands, anyways) as opposed to the stage of the warmth-themed Robot Master from the previous game. Stages in Mega Man 2 feel much more immersive thanks to the great strides in detail compared to the empty blue and black backgrounds and globular foregrounds of the stages in the foreground in the first game. Mega Man looking less like he has a thick layer of filth around him is also a bonus perk.

The overall level design in Mega Man 2 is as intricate as the visuals. In the first game, most of the levels were focused on precision platforming, whether they be trying to keep Mega Man’s footing over a pit of perilous spikes or falling into the abyss. While that’s still a prevalent aspect of Mega Man’s level structure here, the focal point of each stage in Mega Man 2 is also better centered around the theme of each Robot Master. Accompanying the clockwise rotation of the gears in Metal Man’s stage are conveyor belt platforms, a reasonable trope of factory settings that either accelerate or slacken Mega Man’s movement in the undesired direction. The urgency of Quick Man’s stage is highlighted by an infamous section involving a series of energy beams that jet out of every corner of the screen, disintegrating Mega Man on impact if they catch him. Many abhor this section because of the unpredictability of where the beams will appear and how rapidly they zoom out to blast Mega Man in the face from potentially anywhere. While I can understand their grievances, the tense reaction time needed to avoid the beams evokes the thrill of being chased. Once Mega Man plunges into the lake below the gorgeously roaring waterfall of Bubble Man’s stage, we learn that Dr. Light was insightful enough to equip Mega Man with a resistance to water. Even though his robotic pride and joy can withstand being submerged in the drink, Mega Man’s buoyancy is tested by the physics of his standard jump being manipulated. Acclimating to the rate of movement underwater and adjusting it to avoid the stinging, deadly-as-spikes sea urchins takes some time to master. Keeping afloat in Air Man’s stage is reminiscent of platforming challenges where Mega Man falls to oblivion in Mega Man 1, but the course of the cloud platforms and the drill barriers of the strange tiki heads is consistent and easier to learn. Reappearing block sections make their return in Heat Man’s stage, and their patterns are much less unhinged and demanding compared to the asymmetrical, almost avant-garde patterns seen in Ice Man’s stage. Inhibitors while climbing ladders in Crash Man’s stage don’t knock Mega Man down to the previous screen, and enemy placements can be detected far in advance before they pounce. Returning attributes to Mega Man’s stages have been made much more manageable, and the variety of the new attributes offer a fair challenge without seeming like irritating gimmicks.

If one couldn’t tell from their names or descriptions of their levels, the eight new Robot Masters are another ragtag crew with an eclectic range of physical differences. While these differences are apparent, the player must once again surmise a logical matching of their powers to inflict on one another like a more puzzling game of rock, paper, and scissors. The reasonable path in the first Mega Man game was based on elemental tropes like earth, wind, fire, and ice, but the characteristics of the Robot Masters in Mega Man 2 are less conspicuous. No, the rhyme scheme between Flash Man and Crash Man does not correlate with their weaknesses. The path to Dr. Wily that defeating all eight Robot Masters leads to involves more clever consideration. Examples include using Air Man’s multiple cyclones on Crash Man because turbulence can cause a crash, clogging up Air Man with Wood Man’s leaves like a jet turbine, and Flash Man stopping time to halt Quick Man’s speedy maneuvers. Or, you can do what everyone does and seek out Metal Man first, for his Metal Blade weapon is a force to be reckoned with. The projectile saw blade can be tossed in eight different directions, deals twice the damage of the standard blaster, and barely expends any amount of energy. Imposing it on most of the Robot Masters also tends to make the health bars plummet like the 1929 stock market. You know the old adage not to bring a knife to a gunfight? I have a new saying: do not bring any weapon against the Metal Blade, for you will be smote by its power. For those who do not revel in the almighty awesomeness of the Metal Blade, they tend to argue that the pervasive use of this item compromises on the utility of each weapon, but I was feeling too righteous and badass while using it to care. Besides, the other weapons have their own uses as well, whether it’s a matter of the game forcing it on the player or not.

Mega Man 2’s considerable leap in quality may boil down to the developers making the experience easier, which may draw some contempt from NES purists who might contest the game’s legacy and mock players like myself who couldn’t handle the consistent onslaught of torment the first game bestowed. Considering how abundant the amount of energy/health items and extra lives are on the field of Mega Man 2, their arguments aren’t baseless. However, I don’t think Mega Man 2 is a breezy cakewalk to Dr. Wily’s domain. I’ve already expressed that the challenges leading up to him in the Robot Master’s levels involve considerable skill to surpass. The developers have made a substantial effort to balance Mega Man’s difficulty by aiding the player through the rudimentary regulations of the NES era. A password system is instated instead of expecting the player to finish the game in one sitting, the most primitive form of saving progress that did not persist past the pixelated eras. Password systems at least put one’s progress into consideration, but writing down a jumble of codes on paper is not my idea of being accommodating. Because losing one’s progress is still a harsh reality in Mega Man 2, the developers offer a smattering of aid trinkets to keep the player in the fray. Among the excess of automatic replenishing items, Mega Man 2 sees the birth of the series staple Energy Tank, with no relation to the item of the same name from Metroid. Mega Man pops these cerulean cans as Popeye does to spinach, and they revitalize his health to its maximum capacity. Mega Man can carry up to a total of four at a time, and the precarious placements these tanks are placed in offer a risk-reward incentive. The awkward implementation of the “optional” Magnet Beam from the first game has been reconfigured into three support weapons, and each of them serves to mitigate the hazardous and or tedious sections of the game far more comfortably than their prototype. Dr. Light also rewards Mega Man with one of these support weapons after a certain number of slain Robot Masters, cementing their importance and assuring that Mega Man won’t be hopelessly stuck *ahem.* Mega Man’s developers aren’t rewriting the NES rulebook, but I appreciate that they’re willing to bend it a bit to express concern for the player’s well-being.

Unfortunately, good intentions ultimately fall flat when those performing those noble deeds don’t think things through. Once again, a Mega Man game eventually accelerates headfirst into an impervious wall. Actually, in this context, Mega Man 2’s impenetrable force is more like falling down a one-hundred-foot well. Also, this impediment occurs at Dr. Wily’s Castle, but at least it isn’t as early as the first section while crossing the fortress’s lawn. Up until the fourth section, Dr. Wily’s castle seems to have reduced its security measures. The first section greatly utilizes the three support items, and the dark arena with the sparse, airborne grounding in which Mega Man fights the dragon is tense enough that one slip will signal Mega Man’s doom. When the arena itself is the boss of the second section, it makes the player use the Metal Blade more shrewdly, and the third section allows the player to practice more underwater jumping. Then, the fourth section comes along to ruin everything. The boss that awaits Mega Man in the final stretch of the fourth section is not another cybernetic behemoth, but a series of five electrical domes situated along the walls parallel to the arena. These domes are impervious to everything in Mega Man’s arsenal except for the Crash Bomber, and nothing before this would’ve warranted using this weapon. Even if Mega Man’s Crash Bomber meter is full, his attempt to blow out all of these domes will most likely result in failure. The Crash Bomber can only be fired seven times, and four of the five domes are protected by Crash Bomber walls. Eight shots exceed the total energy capacity of the Crash Bomber, so the player must consider a more analytical strategy when destroying the domes, almost like a puzzle. However, it’s unlikely that the player will anticipate something this cerebral in an action-intensive 2D platformer, and considering an approach to this bizarre boss fight while the domes are also firing energy balls at Mega Man is disorienting. After the player is unprepared for this demanding duel, depleting all of the Crash Bomber’s energy gauge will result in a stalemate. Leaving Mega Man without any further recourse will ultimately force the player to restart the entire game, making all the progress up to this point all for naught. Regarding the fiddly circumstance surrounding the Magnet Beam, at least the player can die and come back fully prepared. Here, the player is left crestfallen in a void of defeat that takes drastic measures to escape. I don’t think the developers deliberately designed this boss to hornswoggle the player, for I can use the dozens of aids they implemented that were intended to help the player survive as evidence of their altruism. All this boss needed was some serious beta testing, and the fact that this remained overlooked is egregiously inexcusable.

The Dome boss dilemma could’ve been solved via the Energy Tanks replenishing both health and energy. In fact, this would’ve been a convenience at other points in the game, namely in the section that follows if the player managed to surpass the seemingly unsurpassable. Similarly to the first game, Mega Man will have to face a gauntlet of the eight Robot Masters, only the player somewhat has a choice of the order to tackle them in. The Crash Bomber isn’t necessary during this battle royale, as the designated Robot master Quick Man is the most vulnerable to the traditional blaster out of the eight. Even if the Dome boss taught the player a lesson in conservation, the Wily Boss that follows will make that a moot point. The energy of every weapon doesn’t replenish after completing a level, and guess which of Mega Man’s weapons Wily’s floating ship is weak to? The fucking Crash Bomber. Even though other weapons will deal damage to Dr. Wily’s aircraft, the barrage of undodgeable orbs from the airship's cannons make this a match of conflicting damage output that should ideally end sooner than later with the Crash Bomber. The final fight against Wily’s alien form which turns out to be an Oz routine is made into a facile joke with Bubble Man’s weapon, but what if the player expunged all of the weapon’s juice while fighting Heat Man? Not every weapon has the sustainability of the Metal Blade, you know. If the game isn’t going to grant the player a refuel item for the energy meter, then it should at least fully restock every weapon after the level is completed. Sounds reasonable, right?

It hurts how close Mega Man is to 2D platforming perfection. Forget for a second about the incredible strides the game makes to dwarf its predecessor in every conceivable fashion. Mega Man 2 is almost the golden standard of the NES library, ascending over its contemporaries by crafting a smoother, more accessible product that still provided a steep challenge that wouldn’t alienate the masochistic NES audience that took pride in playing games equivalent to eating a bowl of nails. To everyone’s dismay, that damned NES-era abrasiveness made another unceremonious appearance in Wily’s Castle, and a betrayal hasn’t cut as deep since Fredo fucked over Michael . Even the most seasoned NES enthusiasts find that particular section to be harsh. While Mega Man 2, unfortunately, exudes undesirable qualities that show the series needs more time baking in the kiln, I can still forgive the notorious point of no return that was inflicted upon me. You see, everything leading up to that point finally met my expectations for Mega Man that were almost dashed by the consistent punishment that the first game dealt. Mega Man 2’s well-ordered execution of the prevalent 2D platformer genre erased all narrow preconceptions I had for games released before my time. For that, I am eternally grateful.