@RogerRoger I liked the review - especially the behind the scenes shenanigans regarding EA. At first I thought, what there was a Sonic RPG but on reflection... of course Sega tried a Sonic RPG! I don't think simplicity is a downside to a game as long as it is engaging and knows how to make it work which it sounds like this does.
Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot
@RogerRoger really nice review of sonic chronicles. It's a game I've always wanted to try out but just never got round to! I think I had it in my eBay watch list earlier this year but couldn't get it for cheap enough. Are the touch controls compulsory out of interest? Or can everything be done by buttons too? I just wonder if it is a game better played via emulation on a TV. Somehow I doubt it would be on the Wii U VC, at least you can set the monitor portrait on those releases and use the touchscreen on the game pad...
I really like the sonic supporting cast, especially when it was more varied. They sort of just started adding hedgehogs for a while though (Shadow - cool, Silver - OK, Classic Sonic - can we have a different animal please lol). I wonder if Blaze the Cat was the last non hedgehog character introduced into the main-ish line games that sort of-ish stuck around. Except the custom character of sonic forces I suppose.
I actually really like (liked; haven't read the new comics) the Archie comics and the derivative Saturday morning cartoon that's based on it. It's amazing how much narrative complexity and emotional depth they wrangled out of a universe centered around a blue hedgehog. I collected the comics as a kid, and have thought about tracking down whatever volumes exist of it now. Although it was serialized almost as far back as I can remember, so I imagine reading all of it is likely a Herculean feat!
And yeah, Digital Devil Saga 2... it's still a solid, interesting game, overall, like the first was, but Atlus is one of my all-time favorite game developers, so anything that's not A+ work is going to disappoint me a little.
Currently Playing: Fields of Mistria (PC); Cookie Clicker (PC); Metaphor: ReFantazio (PC); Overboard! (PC)
@Ralizah I have finally finished doom 64! It's pretty good and I had a read of your review too!
One of the highlights for me was definitely the music. It was brilliant, just really scary. I know they had to tone down the music because of the lack of memory on the N64 cartridge but what they came up with, though vastly different, was excellent. I know I mentioned the constant senses I had when playing doom 1 and 2, this one felt more like Doom 1 where I had the constant sense of dread or indeed "doom". It was very scary and the music really helped with that, especially the track that @RogerRoger mentioned in their reply, with what sounded like screaming babies was terrifying, in a good way.
I think also, the level design is really tight. It's almost like they played on the limitations of the N64 and created stuff where you had these overly complex puzzles all set in a small area because of the lack of memory on the N64 cartridges. It's a good thing though, often limitations or what might seem like an overly restrictive brief can focus a person's artwork into a better product. Free reign can often allow work to dawdle into unremarkability.
That is what plays on the weaknesses but of course the N64 was better in a lot of ways which resulted in the improvements that you mentioned in sprite detail, scripted level modification and the ability for levels to have rooms/pathways over the top of other rooms. I didn't actually realise this was a limitation of the original Doom until a week or two ago when I was reading about the Build engine used for Duke Nukem 3D and how it offered rooms on top of other rooms as a feature.
I'm not sure if I prefer the new designs for the villains, whoever designed the new heathenous pain elementals is probably a heathen themselves! But all in all, I liked the designs, I just don't think I necessarily preferred them over the originals.
Generally I'm not sure if I have a favourite out of the 3 games, they are all really good. Doom will always have a soft spot because it's the one I played as a kid, well at least what was included in the shareware version on PC. It wasn't until I had the GBA version that I found out I had only played a third/quarter of the whole game on PC! Doom 2 was just crazy and I loved it for it and Doom 64 was just a really good tightly designed evolution of the previous 2 games. As a trilogy though, they work really well.
Did you ever get around to the Final Doom megawads out of interest? I can't really remember if you said you did or not. Anyway, I think a short break is in order before I move onto doom 3. Hopefully I can get through that and the expansions before I replay Doom 2016 for game club!
@RogerRoger That Sonic Rush music is pretty fantastic (especially like the boppy Waterbike music)! It is pretty embarrassing how bad the music in TDB is in comparison, I will say. And I guess it makes sense that a bad soundtrack would help to make people feel sour about a game. I don't know about WRPGs that much, but music is an INCREDIBLY big element in any successful JRPG. And the ones people remember most fondly? The timeless ones? Guarantee you half the time people are mentally replaying their favorite tunes in their heads when discussing them.
The Archie comic started off pretty light-hearted, a bit more like Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, but the storylines became more complex and ambitious once it became clear to Archie that people were digging the darker action-adventure vibe of the Sat AM cartoon. And the problem with a comic with long-running arcs is that it becomes easy to lose your place in the narrative and become disengaged.
I'll give it to Sonic: while I do maintain a sort of ironic appreciation for some of the 90s Mario TV shows I've watched over the years (especially the hilarious Super Mario Bros. Super Show), none of them are legitimately good. But Sonic Sat AM? Fantastic show. One of the best saturday morning cartoons ever made. When I was able to keep up with its storylines, I really liked the comic as well. And even Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog had a fun, Looney Tunes-esque appeal to it. I've not watched much of the Sonic anime that have come out over the years, but I'm sure those probably aren't too bad, either.
@ralphdibny Fantastic. Yeah, the sound design in DOOM 64 is remarkable, and does wonders for the atmosphere. I had no idea it was a result of hardware limitations, but it seems like that's often a thing with horror, like the original Silent Hill and how its iconic fog effect was used to mask a short draw distance.
The level design is probably the area that saw the most improvement over previous DOOM games, IMO.
I've unfortunately not had the opportunity to play Final DOOM yet, although I think I'll make a point of returning to that next year after I've completed DOOM 64 and Eternal on PC.
I think DOOM 2016 is due right after Hollow Knight, right? It'll be soon, so I don't expect you're due for much of a break unless you skip past DOOM 3 entirely for the moment.
Currently Playing: Fields of Mistria (PC); Cookie Clicker (PC); Metaphor: ReFantazio (PC); Overboard! (PC)
@Ralizah I decided to fact check my comment just to be sure I wasnt spreading misinformation. Turns out it was a similar or same soundtrack for the psx port of the original doom that had the memory constraints but it had to be adapted to the different memory constraints of the N64 when it was used for doom 64. I didn't read this whole article, just glanced over the relevant bits but this is an interview with the composer (that somehow manages to digress before even getting to the crux of the interview):
I'm sure/hope it'll be fine, I'll probably spend next week playing doom 3 and I'm not sure when they'll move on from hollow knight but sounds like they're all in the endgame so I imagine it'll be in the next week or two. maybe I'll be playing a bit of catch up and miss the first week of doom16 but I don't remember it being a very long game anyway so I doubt I'll have much trouble catching up!
I think we're on a similar track with final doom, I plan to get eternal if the deluxe edition that includes the season pass goes down to a reasonable price in black Friday sales, it's currently sitting at around £50 so hopefully it gets a bit cheaper!
@RogerRoger It's a bit weird seeing that Robotnik design in a not explicitly goofy context. Although it kinda fits, because the design is also creepy.
As to Sat AM vs Adventures, I mean... I have my preference, of course, but they're such radically different shows that it doesn't make much sense to compare them. But I do think it's worth tracking down. I'm glad I bought the DVD collection when I did, though, because, after a cursory look online, it seems to be weirdly expensive. Probably oop, I'm guessing.
Anyway, Jim Cummings will always be MY Robotnik
@mookysam DDS1 actually has unused placeholder pause menu graphics for characters that only appear in DDS2, so it seems likely that it was originally conceived of as one project and then, early in development, it was decided that the project scope was too large for one game.
@RogerRoger What did you make of the rumours regarding MS buying Sega. Did you breath a a sigh of relief or did you think it was a load of hogwash anyway?
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
Mookysam’s Super Mario 64 Review, or, The Perils of Revisiting an Old Favourite
Time is a funny thing, reducing all in its wake to shrivelled, shambling husks, mere echoes of former glories. Of course, I’m not talking about politicians. Whilst other forms of interactive art - such as film or music - may continue to be revered for their aesthetic qualities decades later, gaming is almost uniquely subject to and bound by the technology of the day. In other words, many games find themselves quickly dated given the exponential rate at which computing technology has developed and how the state of the art of game design has been built upon.
Originally released alongside the Nintendo 64 in 1996 (1997 in Europe), this nascent 3D platformer was hailed as a masterpiece, a must-have for all new N64 owners. To be fair, the only competition at the time was Pilotwings 64 and Fog Simulator: Dinosaur Edition so pickings were slim. Playing Super Mario 64 as part of Nintendo’s Super Mario 3D All Stars collection has been a curious exercise; not only have I played the original many times in the past, I absolutely loved it and have consistently rated it among my all-time favourite games. It’s now been roughly 13 years since I last completed it and it is hard to pinpoint what exactly has changed, because the game certainly hasn’t. This is the same old Super Mario 64, warts and all. Except stacked against the likes of Super Mario Galaxy and Odyssey - and viewed through 2020’s delightfully harsh lens - those warts appear more like festering, necrotised appendages that have taken on some undead persona of their own.
One may ask if it is fair to be so harsh on such an old game and judge it by modern standards. Normally I would say this is a tricky question, yet here Nintendo has seen fit to release it as part of a three-game collection priced at £50. To provide a little context, Sony released the Nathan Drake Collection for £30, complete with substantial visual upgrades. Activision completely remade the first three Crash Bandicoot games and sold them together for £35. Nintendo have hobbled together three old games with pound shop sellotape, given the resulting collection a premium price, and sauntered away with a cackle. I am jolly well going to review it as such.
Waaaaah!
There are fifteen main levels in all, each accessed through paintings dotted throughout Peach’s castle. The main objective is to collect the 120 stars dispersed across the world, and later levels are inaccessible until a certain number of stars are obtained. Stars are usually found dotted across hard to reach areas in a level, or won by completing a specific challenge - such as collecting red coins or beating a boss. The levels themselves cover the usual platforming staples of “field-ish”, “icy death trap” and “fiery place”. There is also a vaguely Egyptian-themed level and haunted house thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately the most inventive level is also one of the most frustrating, taking place inside a giant clock and comprised of moving platforms suspended over a bottomless pit. Otherwise visual motifs are generally quite conservative, and it lacks some of the imagination found in earlier Nintendo platform games or later N64 platformers such as Rare’s Banjo-Kazooie. Music is another mixed bag, making sparse use of the N64’s sound capabilities. The jazzy tune that plays during “field-ish” levels is fun, though repetitive, and this theme, accompanying “watery death traps’ is a soothing favourite.
Then there is this wonder, that plays in a loop in the clock of doom.
The main issue with Super Mario 64 is a camera that refuses to work on a most fundamental level. There are two camera modes - one that frames the action from the viewpoint of a “friendly” Lakitu, and another that is supposedly behind Mario himself - with both having a “close-up” and “slightly less close-up” view. Neither mode works particularly well or offers the player an optimal viewpoint. For reference, Lakitu are the annoying enemies in the original Super Mario Bros. games that would float around on a cloud and throw spiked balls at Mario. It would seem they still hold a vendetta against him.
If you thought the main function of any camera would be to frame something from the most ideal vantage point, then Miyamoto and his merry band thought differently. There’ll be moments, flashes, really, where the player may be fooled into thinking it might just be on your side after all, only to swerve at the last moment like Pat Butcher on a particularly hectic bender. Thin ledge with chasm below? “I know!” Laughs the camera, a cruel twist barely perceptible on the corner of its thin lips. “Let’s jut in the opposite direction so that Mario can fall to his death!” And this dance replays countless times throughout the game. By Tick Tock Clock, a level Nintendo thought would be enhanced its maddening audio accompaniment, I became the husk and the game had absorbed what little remained of my essence.
Things are not helped by how the camera controls. Originally the camera was manipulated using the N64 pad’s “C buttons”. As modern controllers lack the requisite inputs, it is instead moved using the right analogue stick, which is to say a poor substitute when the game thinks you are still pressing buttons. If you manage to push the stick ever so slightly in the wrong direction, Lakitu and friends are not terribly forgiving.
Mamma mia!
Controls are another issue. Mario himself has a very wide turning angle, which at times works to make precision platforming much harder than it needs to be. I could swear that the controls were tighter using the N64’s more precise analogue stick, but am unfortunately unable to verify this. Mario also loves to slide off almost every surface with a greater than twenty degree incline. In the icy levels I suppose this makes sense, yet grass, sand or rocks are also bound by these bizarre physics. Strangely, the obelisks that dot Shifting Sand Land are not, and Mario can walk straight up them. Given that this is a platformer, camera and controls are hugely important components of the gameplay experience - perhaps even more so than in other genres. That they are so frustrating here undermines Super Mario 64 at its core.
It’s-a-me Graphical Glitch!
In all, Super Mario 64 plays like some surreal Pavlovian nightmare version of the game I once loved. With each successive level I wondered what horrors the game held in store. It reminded me of how, when I was ill with encephalitis, I thought I had died and somehow become stuck in purgatory. I shan’t judge it for being ugly - thought it is lamentable that it has only been upscaled to 720p - or that it runs at only thirty frames-per-second. It is a solid 30fps, after all. But if that is the only real positive thing I have to say about a game stacked with design issues, then we have a problem. Mario - and wider gaming - has changed immeasurably over the past 23 years. Of course this a wonderful thing, but it has come at the cost of dating into the Mesazoic those titles we once revered as masterpieces. It is therefore hard to recommend Super Mario 64 to today’s audiences. Arrive derci.
@mookysam Nice review. I was going to write out a long comment, but, now that I'm at 118 stars, I realize I'll probably want to write a review of some sort for this (and I imagine even more are incoming), so I'll save my material.
All I'll say is that it's vindicating to finally see other people acknowledge how poorly this clunky nightmare of a game has aged. Although, in your case, I'm sorry that it probably spoiled what were probably fond childhood impressions of it. Sometimes it's better to leave stuff in the past.
Currently Playing: Fields of Mistria (PC); Cookie Clicker (PC); Metaphor: ReFantazio (PC); Overboard! (PC)
@Ralizah You’ve totally overtaken me but I’ve been playing Hollow Knight and Assassin’s Creed to rid my mind of Tick Tock f***ing Clock. Urgh, I feel ill.
Cheers @Ralizah and no need to be sorry. I still value it for the memories from 1997, but it has indeed aged horrendously. It's interesting how for years many people were insisting it was of divine origin and no other platformer could possibly stand up against it. When did you first play it? Good luck with those final two stars and I look forward to your review. (which I hope judging by that is vicious!)
@mookysam 2009? 2010? Something like that. After it released on the Wii VC. While I did own an N64 as a child, I almost exclusively played terrible Pokemon games on it (ahhh, so many hours spent with the overexpensive Hey You, Pikachu!, yelling at the electric rat and getting pretty thoroughly ignored by it; an experience eerily mirrored years later by the dog in Nintentogs, who also ignored my commands). Although I have since tried it on an N64, and I can confirm that the plumber does control better on an N64 stick. Probably because Mario's littlest motions are tied to slight changes in the orientation of the stick, and the N64's stick is tall and brittle, so controlling Mario is more like handling a plane in a flight sim, frankly. Playing Mario 64 with joycons, or on anything other than an N64 controller, is like playing a flight sim with a broken joystick where you can only make extreme alterations to the movement of the plane. It is technically possible to move Mario slower and more deliberately, but it requires muscle memory after countless hours of making the wrong move and sending the plumber flying to his death, because the world of Mario 64 is, I'm convinced, made entirely out of textured ice, which is the only way I can explain away Mario's tendency to slide on dirt, grass, and stone like he does.
Did you find any of the levels to be more or less well-designed than others?
@Ralizah She’s in Eastenders over here, soaps are basically a breeding ground for gay icons in the UK cause they’re traditionally watched by.. less affluent mothers and while it’s a stereotype, the gays do love their mums. The trifecta would be Pat Butcher, Dot Cotton and probably Gail Platt from Corrie too. I actually found an article about this phenomenon from 1993 which is pretty cool, it’s so old it interviews Lily Savage before he made a career as just plain old Paul O’Grady, which probably won’t mean anything to you 😂
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