The 'Shroom:Issue LXXVII/Critic Corner
Director's Notes
Victory, I have been so busy I only just barely managed to get this shit done on time! Why is this my life. Anyway, our long-time writer New Super Mario (talk) decided he wasn't busy enough so he's begun a new opinion piece titled Smash Time, which will focus on his thoughts on new updates and features for the upcoming Super Smash Bros. 4, so let's all give him a warm welcome even tho he's been here for a while now! Also, Cirdec (talk) was kind enough to contribute another one-time submission in the form of a Non-Marioverse Review, so big thanks to him as well!
Now, our last feedback survey revealed some people are none too happy with the low emphasis on Mario reviews in the Critic Corner, which seemed to be ignoring that I've been trying to get writers for that for a fair while now. So more than ever, if you're at all interested in writing any Mario reviews – whether as a permanent section or as a one-time submission – please contact me immediately because I'm getting desperate here. Although not desperate enough that I'll just take anything; please put some effort into your submissions, that's really all I ask. Contact me here.
July Section of the Month
Thirteen votes was all we got last month. I am severely disappointed in that, I reckoned we were fancy enough to get more attention than that, but I guess I was wrong. Fine! I'll just have to make things even more flashy to draw in readers, won't I? But the results we did have were a victory for MrConcreteDonkey (talk) for Should Have Been which covered beta elements across the entire Pokemon series, winning with a grand total of 8 votes.
I came second for Crocodile Style Reviews which reviewed Remember Me, and third place was a tie between YoshiMonsta (talk) for Entertainment Section covering a video about failed Mario game ideas, and Pyro (talk) for Hottest Reviews Around which reviewed DLC Quest.
Please vote this month, my self-esteem depends on it. You wouldn't like me when my self-esteem plummets. After all, I have a rifle. And it's not loaded with bullets. It's much worse.
Pyro gets an eight in one with this comprehensive review of The Basement Collection.
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NSM's Review Corner
The long-awaited Pikmin 3 is finally here, and I, NSM, picked it up and beat it just in time to review it for you guys! Did the game live up to the original two games? Let’s find out.
The core gameplay of Pikmin is still here, but also returns with new features, so it feels familiar and new at the same time. The basic gameplay has players take the role of a captain who has to use the help of the tiny, little Pikmin in order to complete their goal. While Pikmin and Pikmin 2 featured Captain Olimar and the Hocotatians as the main stars,Pikmin 3 features three new explorers from their planet Koppai. Alph is a young engineer who designed the S.S. Drake, the ship the three captains use to explore the planet. Brittany is a botanist who provides you with information on various fruits from the planet. Charlie is the captain of the ship. Controlling and switching between the three during gameplay is a great way to strategize and manage different squads of Pikmin.
In the story mode, their planet Koppai has been starving from a booming population and all food has been depleted. They look for planets with possible food sources to bring back to Koppai, and at the end of their search they find PNF-404, the planet in which the Pikmin live. They send Alph, Brittany, and Charlie to collect fruit on the planet and bring back the seeds to cultivate on Koppai. However, on their way, the S.S. Drake malfunctions, which send the three explorers plummeting to the planet in three different locations. You start the game as Charlie, and then later switch over to Alph. As Alph, you’ll have to regroup with Brittany and Charlie, using Pikmin as well. The game starts off more tutorials-based, and there is no sun-meter, making it easy for more new players to jump in the series. So if you haven’t played a Pikmin game before, now is a golden opportunity to start.
While the game introduces the basic controls, you’ll find various memos around the planet that introduce advanced techniques and strategies on various enemies. The memos are a really cool feature in my opinion, even if they don’t feel as fleshed-out as Olimar’s logs from the original game or the Piklopedia from Pikmin 2.
There are many new gameplay mechanics, so I’ll go through some of them in depth. Like the first game, the game features a time limit. By collecting fruits, the captains will store the juice as their food supply. Running out of juice means game over, so you have to always you have, in the words of Brittany, “a little bit of a juice buffer”. While the time limit is a nice compromise from Pikmins Thirty day time limit and Pikmin 2s no time limit at all, I was really disappointed by that because I would soon collect so much juice that you couldn’t even see it all on the screen. In the original game, you felt a sense of peril, and that you could die if you didn’t get all the parts, but this game feels like a walk in the park compared to that. Yet for some reason Brittany is still worried about her “little juice buffer” even though there was enough juice to last until Day 99 (and I finished on Day 47).
One of my new favorite features is the charge or as I like to call it, “swarm” feature. By locking onto a target, such as an enemy or a wall you can swarm your entire Pikmin squad at it by pressing a B on the gamepad or shaking the gamepad/nunchuck (depending on what control scheme you’re using). I used this feature a lot, and I think it made up for them taking out the C-Stick control from previous games. (not that you would have needed the C-Stick in this game anyway, the Pikmin AI has improved TREMENDOUSLY. Like, it’s so much better.)
Additionally, when you find different Pikmin Onions, at the end of the night they will merge together to create one big onion. I think this feature was really good and made picking out the Pikmin a lot easier than in the original. I mean, thinking that if they didn’t do this, there would be five onions with you which would just be really too much.
Two new Pikmin are also introduced in the game, the pink, Winged Pikmin, and the Rock Pikmin as well. Winged Pikmin are awesome. They are just so incredibly useful. I mean, seriously, these things are broken. They can fly over hazards like water, so there best to use to take stuff back to the Onion. They’re probably one of my new favorite Pikmins. However, they are pretty weak, which is one setback. Rock Pikmin are awesome as well. They can be used to break crystals, which appear in multiple areas throughout the game. However, they can’t latch on to enemies and just kinda “bump” off of them. These new Pikmin are just great additions. Reds, Yellows, Blues, Whites, and Purples also return, however Whites and Purples are exclusive to Mission Mode. This, to me, is fine since having all seven types in the story mode I think would get a bit crowded.
There are multiple control options for the game. I used the Wii U gamepad since it was closest to the Gamecube controls which I was used too, and having the map in front of you on the gamepad was good for convenience. However, you may prefer the Wii Remote and Nunchuck controls which offer more precise aiming, or the Wii U Pro controller if you rather not hold onto the gamepad.
The graphics in Pikmin 3 are gorgeous. Seriously, the delay was worth it. I especially love how the water looks when the captains go through it and seeing the water ripple. Everything just looks a lot more realistic then the original games, including the gates, bridges, and pellets. The music is perfect as well. It really sets the mood, especially the music for the boss battles, and the return of classic music that makes you feel nostalgic, and just good.
The game also offers Miiverse support. You can take pictures using the in-game KopPad, and share them on Facebook. This is a neat little feature, but I just forgot about it all the time and never really used it. But I’m sure you’ll like it if you’re into all that.
The final thing I’ll talk about is Mission Mode and Bingo Battle. In Mission Mode, you play on different maps to collect treasure, defeat enemies, or defeat bosses. I found Mission Mode to be really fun, and I think it can be played over and over again to further your high score and try to get higher in the world rankings. My favorite was the collect treasure mode, and I found it to be fun in both solo and co-op. I’m positive the Mission Mode will keep me playing for months to come. Bingo Battle is also really fun as well! You do need two players though, which is kind of boring since I don’t always have someone to play with and would have liked if you could have played with a computer. Bingo Battle is a huge improvement from Pikmin 2’s battle mode. Basically, each player has a bingo board with fruits and enemies on it, and you win by collecting fruits in order to get a bingo. You can also steal your opponent’s macaroon to get an instant win, which I found really fun. You can also edit the settings to give handicap Pikmin (which I found helpful to use with my mother. ), set to play as one or two captains, and turn the victory macaroons on or off. All in all, both of the modes are great fun and will keep me playing forever. Hopefully they release some sort of DLC with it, since I would love some new Mission Mode maps to play on. Pikmin 3 is truly amazing. It’s probably just as good as the original, if not a bit better.
Pros: Mission Mode and Bingo Battle, replay value, Miiverse, beautiful graphics, nice controls, new Pikmin, merging Onions, swarm feature, improved Pikmin AI, neat memos.
Cons: Unsatisfying time limit, no Piklopedia
Overall rating: 9.5/10
Got an idea for a game I should review? PM me, NSM, on the forums!
Crocodile Style Reviews
| The Last of Us | |||||||
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| Developer | Naughty Dog | ||||||
| Publisher | Sony Computer Entertainment | ||||||
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 3 | ||||||
| Genres | Survival horror, third-person shooter | ||||||
| Rating(s) |
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| Available From | |||||||
- Mature
- Eighteen years and older
- Eighteen years and olderOK so we had a nice bit of respite last month with Remember Me, but like any storm, we must leave the eye and walk straight back into the flurry of miniscule projectiles propelled at rapid speeds that could be considered somewhat detrimental to the integrity of our skin and/or life, by which I mean we're diving back into shooters again. Don't look at me like that, I don't get to choose which games I play, and—oh wait. Well, fortunately, this month's release is The Last of Us, which breaks the industry tradition by being a third-person zombie shoo—oh for Christ's sakes!
Yes, it's that little blossom again, of which has been shovelled so much grot by desperate publishers over the years that I'm half-wishing it'll turn sentient and start attacking its makers. But then again, if The Walking Dead had shown us anything it's that it's never too late to set things right again for a potential prize-winning orchid, and so here's The Last of Us in what I'm hoping will be the last of this industry's money-grubbing anxiety fits. Specifically in that The Last of Us is a fucking masterpiece that deserves all the credentials it gets, and that's hardly an overestimation on my part.
So here we are in half past apocalypse where a spore pandemic has turned everyone into Shane MacGowan, where we play as Joel, a smuggler with dubious hygiene standards, who is tasked by a rebel organisation called The Fireflies to escort a young girl named Ellie to an evacuation point to be extracted and taken away from the increasingly aggressive military. It takes less than a day for everything to fuck up as he finds out she's actually infected but immune, the task force have been killed, his girlfriend has been infected on the trip there, and now Joel and Ellie have to travel across the entire country to seek out the Fireflies' medical research divisions in hopes that a cure can be produced from her in some non-descript way.
What shines through with the story particularly is the powerful strong emphasis on character interaction, which features heavily in what I imagine must be how politicians shuffle through their daily lives, as the majority of Ellie and Joel's conversations can best be described as either nervously casual or akin to slamming your friend’s hand in a car door. Well no not really, the dialogue is far better written than that and is woven into the narrative brilliantly, presenting the pace as being tense but not rushed thus providing enough room for the character arch to stretch and do its thing, typically (although not always) done within scripted cool down moments because the last thing you want to do is stall the pace by hitching up the recliner and cheap $2 popcorn. And really, if a game has two powerful leads with good chemistry, and an interesting supporting cast backing them up, then that's already worlds above where something like Halo has managed.
By now we should all be familiar with the cover-based third-person shooter shtick, kept original only by the logic of at least they're not first-person cover shooters. Interestingly enough, though, the game doesn't have a two weapon limit, which is quite a pleasant surprise for me but probably not for your average shooter fan that start frothing at the mouth when they have to coordinate anything more complicated than a pistol and quickscope. Usually this does bring out the problem of players getting accustomed to only a few of the weapons and sticking to those for the majority of the game, but The Last of Us can be a tough motherfucker when it decides that a steady surplus of bullets is just a little outside your allowance bracket for the week. The limited supplies encouraged me to actually use each weapon, particularly in complete desperation during heavy sieges which made victories feel all the more interesting behind all the intracranial bleeding.
Although being American isn't the only way to solve all your problems, as The Last of Us allows you to craft different kinds of equipment from resources randomly strewn about each area, which range from shivs to molotovs to smoke bombs, all of which I found myself using at one point or another during encounters. Yes, even the fucking smoke bombs had their uses. Once. In very iffy circumstances. Well, you know, there's really not much you can do with sugar other than decimate your pancreas. And truth be told, I didn't find laying the nail bombs on the ground as traps to be particularly useful since they always seemed to fire off a lot sooner than you think they would before Joel's had a chance to hide himself behind the toilet, which certainly isn't my idea of an enemy takedown.
Accentuating this is an upgrade system for both weapons and personal stats, reliant on finding spare parts and supplements strewn about across each area which means you either have to decide on flying through the level to avoid becoming the dinner for a family of cartilaginous butterfly faces, or taking the time to patiently and thoroughly search everyone's drawers for all their personal belongings at the risk of crashing the party of the fifty billion other angry berks with the exact same idea. Not that the supplies needed to craft those resources are hard to find – barring ammunition, which can't be crafted – and I didn't really have too many moments where I was completely out of stock of essential resources, but that might just be because I was playing so carefully that my grandmother could've walked in and told me to stop being a stingy ankle biter and just get a move on.
In stark contrast to other action horror games like Dead Space that throw you into zerg rushes with enough firepower to embarrass Rambo whilst the world's most obnoxious scare chord plays because my sensory organs have detonated THE HORROR, The Last of Us's survival horror segments are crafted well enough to be genuinely tense, even if they're not overtly pants wetting as Amnesia or a Brazilian goliath spider are. Being stalked by a conga line of thieves whilst only having limited ammo, or treading carefully through narrow corridors teeming with sound-sensitive mutants, were at times enough to get my heart resting uncomfortably on my bedroom drawer, which to me is a big plus because I don’t quite get anxious enough simply asking the checkout bloke at McDonalds for a sausage McMuffin.
Due to the action gameplay and the amount of hiding spots each area tends to have, being spotted during stealth segments doesn't automatically mean a million barrels up the bumhole, although at times it certainly fucking feels like that since everyone just automatically knows that you exist the instant one bugger spots the heel of your shoes. Again, you can salvage it, but particularly in zombie encounters which are typically in contained areas filled with advanced stage buggers that can take you down in one hit, it can get kind of frustrating having to coordinate a perfect run to avoid getting your face torn off. Literally, that's one of the kill animations. It's astounding. While I'm complaining, I do want to point out that having to sneak past a heavily guarded field while being watched by a sniper that magically knows where you are at all times and whose shots immediately alert everyone around to your exact location is not a test of skill, it's legally battery against the player.
I can comment on how The Last of Us does world building really well and how the adventure manages to feel grandiose and large scale without feeling overblown, but you've heard me hand out those sorts of compliments around like Halloween lollies, so I'll instead point out another small thing I found fascinating; the zombies have an actual disease process attached to them! Aren't I just so fucking easy to entertain? Instead of just making a few special infected and knocking off for lunch like so many other games, this game displays the more powerful ones as more advanced stages of infection than the usual groaning, shuffling buggers we all know. It's just nice to see that sort of attention being invested into zombies again, which as a student nurse must be to me what fellatio feels like to a normal person.
I find it a bit hard to review The Last of Us because the sum of its parts is far more interesting than the equation, which makes a step-by-step process a bit disingenuous because everything is so nicely woven together that it's doing the game a disservice by breaking it down. The Last of Us is spectacular; it's an amazing change of pace in the industry's approach to storytelling, filled with vibrant, interesting characters that keep us engaged through a spectacular balance between action, stealth, and survivalism, even with the odd hiccup here and there. A fitting swan song for the PlayStation 3 just as the new generation is rolling around, although I'll lose the last of my patience if I have to take up another zombie/mutant game this year. Say, what am I doing next month, anyway? Oh for Chri--
Hottest Reviews Around
| The Basement Collection | |
|---|---|
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| Developer | Edmund McMillen & Tyler Glaiel |
| Publisher | Edmund McMillen |
| Platform(s) | Steam |
| Genres | Adventure, Strategy, Indie, Platformer |
| Rating(s) | N/A |
I did go back and play Live Freemium or Die', and I have to say it's much better than DLC Quest. It's definitely a different type of humor, mostly a mockery of the internet. I do think I got waaay too angry last time, and so this time I'll review a much happier game, because it's made by Edmund McMillen, I mean Jesus fucking Christ.
The Basement Collection is a collection of a bunch of flash games that Edmund did the art for and a bunch of different people programming. The flash games in their originality are free, but then you'd wonder "WHAT A RIPOFF LOL AMIRITE???". Despite them being able to be played free, they've got extra levels, better art, and new music, and along with that a slew of extras. It comes with...I think eight games, and I'll cover each one individually, but I haven't beaten them all. I'll start on Meat Boy and end on the secret game.
Meat Boy: The prototype for what is very likely the greatest platformer of all time, and what a fucking rough start it had. Meat Boy's controls are downright awful, and what scares me is that they're improved over the flash version! It still is a clever platformer, though. Many elements here are in the final version, like buzzsaws (although here they're just one block wide - they act more like spikes), rocket launchers, salt, crumbling walls, conveyor belts, and everyone's favorite, Hellmaw launchers! I have no clue how this is the only game in the collection I've managed to 100%. It's likely because of my extreme dedication to Meat Boy...at the time of this writing I'm not far from getting Golden God (the achievement in Super for 106%'ing the game).
It's still as hard as ever, but I think it's easier than the final game! Hell is still easier than the final worlds in Super, such as the dark world Rapture. Overall, this game gets four hyperealistic Nipper Plants out of five.
Coil: A game about pregnancy. No, I'm dead serious. I haven't managed to beat this one, and so haven't unlocked its extra. It's mostly that the game is the most confusing thing ever - the gameplay practically changes every thirty seconds, from shmups to trying to bury yourself into cells or something. You're just immediately thrown into a strange screen with a tadpole-like thing that follows the mouse with very poor reception. You have to find a giant bubble and nudge yourself into it by swaying the mouse. After this, you're supposed to separate the colored balls from each other, and they constantly try to get back together.
That was seriously how far I got. I could not get the balls to separate. This game gets two giant keyboards out of four.
Triachnid: A spider sim game thing where you move a spider's legs by clicking and dragging them. I never played this very far - what I know of it comes from Indie Game: The Movie, and apparently you can hurt the spider if you pull the legs too far, and I'm absolutely terrified I'm going to hurt it, because I'm dumb like that.
That's my completely valid and not dumb reason for not playing Triachnid.
This game gets zero fucks out of zero.
Aether: The main course of the collection, being Edmund's first very successful flash game. In this, you click and use WASD to swing around a boy riding a squid thing with a very long tongue. You swing along clouds and meteors to solve other planet's problems, which are probably the most cryptic things next to the Potato Sack ARG and the Super Meat Boy level editor. Actually, some are pretty simple, like "touch fish". The one I'm talking about is "find strange aliens floating really high above the planet and do 360's around them". Although oddly, the story claims that the Earth gets smaller and smaller as each planet's problem is solved, and by the time you have solved them all Earth becomes a spiky ball that explodes into glass as soon as you touch it. Then you beat the game.
This depresses me for some reason.
This game gets five Squidward's Houses out of nine.
Time Fuck: AKA "Time Fcuk", but fuck that. Another depressing game full of strange black space aliens that explode when they eat pills and spontaneously become depressed. Actually, wait; it's a puzzle platformer where you switch dimensions with A to change around the environment. This gimmick certainly brings in a slew of very interesting puzzles that certainly kept me interested for the thirty minutes or so that it takes to complete it if you're smart. Besides the switching, there are crates you can push and lift that switch dimensions with you if you're touching them, disappearing blocks, gravity flipping, and many other mechanics that make the game a great time fucker. Or killer.
This game gets eight French people out of seventeen.
Spewer: A game that will make you throw up. I mean that literally. The entire game mechanic is that you can vomit to propel yourself and swim in it. Along the way you get pills that change the color and behaviour of your vomit - for example, the white pill makes your vomit unaffected by that silly thing called gravity. Oddly, I find Spewer to be a thousand times more difficult than Time Fcuk because Spewer is mostly a "puzzle platformer" while Time Fcuk is a "platforming puzzle".
This game gets six sitcoms out of ninety.
Grey Matter: Another confusing one. This one apparently has you moving and shooting. A more traditional shoot-em'-up than Coil. I'll recount my experience with Grey Matter right now:
Okay, what?
Oh, you can move and shoot.
Huh, an achievement?
Okay, I'm done.
Completely accurate. Just check my Steam account; I totally have a Grey Matter-related achievement.
This game gets three confused ducks out of two
AVGM: I said I didn't beat Coil, right? So I never unlocked this one. I still have to cover it though. It's a game where you try to flick a light switch ten thousand times.
This game gets ten thousand clicks out of one.
That's it for The Basement Collection! I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who liked Super Meat Boy or The Binding of Isaac, or anyone who is waiting for Mew-Genics to come out. Overall, a fun collection of silly little games with so many extras I didn't cover. Bye!
| The 'Shroom: Hottest Reviews Around | |||||||||||
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| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
| 2013 | |||||||||||
 Scribblenauts Unlimited |
 Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?! |
 VVVVVV |
 Pokémon X and Y First Impressions |
 DLC Quest |
 The Basement Collection |
 Mario and Luigi: Dream Team |
 Spelunky HD |
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Non-Marioverse Reviews
Nine years... that's the gap between Pikmin 2 and Pikmin 3. So it's useless to say the expectations were pretty high for this game, with such a long time to develop it. It eventually came to the Wii U, which is a good thing because this console lacks Nintendo games. Was the waiting at the height of our hopes? Let's see this.
The story begins presenting a planet, Koppai. The residents suffer from a starving, and the only way to save the population is to find another planet which has lots of resources. One of the satellites finds a planet which could correspond to these criterions. This planet resembles Earth, but it is called PNF-404. The mission is confided to three persons; an engineer, Aph, a botanist, Brittany and a captain, Charlie. They are on the way to this planet, aboard their ship, Drake. When they are about to arrive to PNF-404, an accident occurs and the Drake crashes on the planet, the three persons are separated. Here starts their encounter with the Pikmin. They see the incredible potential and help these creatures can give them. The collection of fruits can start.
The gameplay is very similar to the previous games. You have the choice between Gamepad and Nunchuck + Wiimote. The control on Gamepad may need some time to get used to, but the Gamepad offers a command which allow tracing a route the captain will follow, which is great for multitasking. This time you have to collect fruits, they are essentials because you need them to feed the three captains each night. You have unlimited days to do the mission, but since there are a limit of fruits; you obviously can't do as many days as you want. Fortunately, the abundance of fruits is widely enough to finish the game and 100% it. Contrary to the previous games, you can control three characters, as some obstacles can be crossed only with their teamwork. Days are very short, so you will need to optimize your time and do multitasks. Luckily you have the possibility to do again a day, to improve it, though if you decide to do it, all the data of the following days will be erased. The Red, Blue and Yellow Pikmin are still there. This game introduces two new Pikmin, the Rock Pikmin, who resists crush attack and can break crystal walls, rocks or creatures. And the Winged Pikmin, as their name stands, can fly and transport object throughout the air. These two new Pikmin are very interesting to use. Though it should be noted Purple and White Pikmin don't appear in story mode, which leads to five types of Pikmin usable.
The comparison between Pikmin 3 and the two previous games seems inevitable; one significant thing is the lack of the caves in Pikmin 3. Hence the number of new creatures in this game is not very high. This game rather focuses on strategy rather than fighting creatures like Pikmin 2. However Pikmin 3 features 6 bosses, all new. Each of them is very impressive and hard to defeat, especially the last one. So you should not be worried, there are definitively some challenges.
Unfortunately, despite the 9 years gap, the story mode is not very long. It should take approximatly 15-20 hours to beat the final boss, and 10 more hours to find all fruits. When you beat the final boss, you can't continue your expedition, so if you want to play again, you have to do again a previous day. And unfortunately, there are not multiple files in this game.
This game features two other modes. One is the mission mode, when you have the choice between collecting treasures, killing creatures or fighting one of the 6 bosses, aiming for the best score in a limited time. In this mode Purple and White Pikmin appear in some missions. Also this mode can be played with 2 players. If you are aiming for platinum medals, this mode will give you serious challenges.
The other mode is Bingo Battle, which is a duel between two players, with the choice of controling 1 or 2 characters at the same time. Each player has a bingo card and the goal is to make a bingo by collecting objects with Pikmin. This is somewhat similar to Pikmin 2 multiplayer mode.
As a conclusion, Pikmin 3 is a solid game, which offers lots of challenges and strategy. As a new player to Pikmin, you will certainly have a hard time because of the short days and difficult bosses, but the almost unlimited number of days should be enough to beat the game. For Pikmin veterans, the strategy, more important in this episode, will please them but some may be disappointed by the weak amount of new creatures and the rather short adventure time.
Smash Time
Hey guys, it’s NSM, here with a new section called Smash Time! This section will focus on the updates from the Super Smash Bros. 4 website and the game in general. I’ll be giving my opinions on the subject matter and also share my ideas and predictions. Each issue I’ll go over anything that was announced in the past month. As you read, be sure to have the Smash Bros. website up, so you can follow along with what I have to say.
Since this section is starting late, today we’ll be going over everything announced at E3 and the confirmation of Captain Olimar’s appearance in the game. Let’s get started!
During the E3 Nintendo Direct, the Villager from Animal Crossing and Capcom’s Mega Man were announced as newcomers for the game. I’ll talk about each one individually and analysis what we know about the characters currently.
The Villager just looks awesome. It’s just funny how they managed to make such an innocent character be so deadly. Villager’s moves have been inspired by items in the Animal Crossing series. He wields items like the slingshot, fireworks, and his net. His full moveset isn’t known yet, but we do know some of it. Villager can take projectiles and put them in his pockets and throw them back whenever he wants. They showed him throwing a projectile back at Samus, and it seems like the move could be very powerful. Most of Villager’s moves do a good job representing his games, but some just don’t really make much sense. One move shows him floating up with balloons like a Balloon Fighter would. Sure, there are balloons in the game, but he doesn’t fly like Balloon Fighter does. I’m also presuming this means Balloon Fighter won’t be a playable character, which is good because he would be a terrible addition. Another move has him using a bowling ball. There are bowling pins in the game, but they’re just furniture, so I’m not really sure if it ties into the game because all I’m thinking is Wii Sports. Unless of course, the bowling ball isn’t his and is just some type of projectile, but that probably isn’t the case because he’s been shown multiple times with it as if it were his. One other thing I’m wondering is if a female Villager would appear as a costume change as well, since that’d be pretty cool. Alright, let’s talk Mega Man.
I know a lot of people have wanted Mega Man in forever, so I’m happy for the people who supported him. Mega Man’s design for the game looks really great, and they did a good job transferring his classical design into 3D. The cool thing about Mega Man’s powers is that they come from the Robot Masters in the game. He can use the Metal Blade, the Leaf Shield, the Flame Sword and more. I can’t really put many thoughts on Mega Man, since I’ve never played the games, but I’m sure with all of these awesome moves he may be a bit overpowered . One thing that has been said is that Mega Man will rely more on projectiles and weaponry to fight, which seems to be true since he doesn’t have as many moves that involved hand-to-hand combat. Additionally, when Mega Man dies he has a different KO explosion, and instead has the blast of blue orbs like he has in the games. I got nothing else to say about Mega Man, so let’s get on to my favorite, the Wii Fit Trainer.
When I heard about the Wii Fit Trainer being in the game, I was a bit scared to tell you the truth. But after thinking about it more, I came to love the idea. Seriously, I’m probably looking forward to playing her more than the Villager and Mega Man just because she’s so random and fun. Besides, would we really want to neglect one of Nintendo’s most successful series! Heck no. Wii Fit Trainer’s moves involve various yoga poses. Sakurai said she uses moves that are “healthy” for her in combat. It’s just funny to see her smash attacks and how they just look like she’s working out, when really she’s just killing the person next to her. I think a lot of people have come to like the Wii Fit Trainer, just like R.O.B and Mr. Game & Watch before her. One of her special moves has been revealed too. She uses Hula Hoops to rise upwards, so it’s probably her recovery move. Wii Fit Trainer has also been the only newcomer to have a confirmed final smash called Wii Fit. In it, she sends a bunch of colorful yoga poses flying across the screen to hit the other players. It looks really good, and I can’t wait to see more of the Wii Fit Trainer’s moveset.
Weeks after E3, Olimar was announced to return as a veteran character. This should be no surprise as he is the mascot of the Pikmin series. I can’t believe some people thought Alph would replace him. That idea is just preposterous! From what we’ve seen so far, Olimar appears unchanged, but has been given a visible whistle like in Pikmin 3.
That’s it for Smash Time! Next time I’ll go over any new character announcements and possibly talk about the new stages as well. Thanks for reading!
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