#dated game review

[16bitsara-blog]

Sara finally plays: Paper Mario: Sticker Star!

I have a nasty habit of jumping back and forth between two or three different games. I used to never be able to do this but now i can't help myself, I don't know what causes this behavior and some of my friends consider it weird. Sooooo anyways I'm just explaining this to justify the fact that I haven't finished oracle of seasons yet. 

I have been waiting to play this game since it came out, but my budget usually demands that I wait, and scavenge for games that have dropped in price, unless for a special occasion (like a zelda game.) Paper Mario: Sticker Star was originally going to be one of those special occasions, but the less than stellar reviews prompted me to wait a while.

The level design is excellent, it really brings what makes the paper mario games, and mario games in general good, and mixes them together beautifully. It has a world map, divided into worlds and stages more like a traditional platforming game... I don't mind this so much actually, as it feels a lot like mario 3, and mario world, many stages even open up with multiple goals... and it still has a very free and RPG feel to it, so I don't mind this at all. Something about the way the levels are made are just fun, the blocks and jumps and overall use of platforming mixed with rpg puzzles just delights me.

Challenge is a little lacking, I have to screw up pretty bad to die, many of the bosses are initially hard, but they all have some gimmick to defeat them and once you figure out what sticker to use, it gets pretty easy for the most part. It's much easier to screw up and recover from it than the original paper mario, and that button timing action aspect is way more forgiving. Curiously what I find myself getting the most challenge out of are the mysteries and puzzles. There is a system in play where you need to find objects called "things" and make thing stickers, and put them in the world where they can be used... this reminds me of the old survival horror games like the early resident evils... a strange comparison to make for such a light hearted game like mario, but it's the same application of logic without the horror aspect, so I like that, lots of fun.

The papercraft art style is great, its used in so many creative and fun ways. Poison goop on the floor can be flipped over with the hammer, and on the other side? just a harmless piece of construction paper. It really plays with my imagination, i'm in a world made of construction paper, stickers, and cardboard... yet it feels like I'm in a forest, or chocolate colored hills, or a golden desert... all of which makes me forget I'm in a video game. I never was one for having pretend inside of more pretend. I never liked Changeling the Dreaming, because it to me feels like there's too little bit to challenge the idea that the characters inside the make believe roleplaying game weren't in fact... just playing make believe. This video game however really encourages one's imagination, and tricks you into thinking and pretending in new ways. 

I was talking to someone about the game on twitter and they said that while it wasn't a bad game, it's missing everything that they liked about paper mario. I can't speak for that other person, but I think I know what they were talking about. The story here is very bland, Bowser gets no speaking lines, princess peach isn't in it at all so far, and there's very little... story at all. Miyamoto I believe said story isn't necessary in a mario game... perhaps he is trying to move away from the wordiness that skyward sword was criticized for, and there is a certain freedom in just being allowed to get started playing and romp freely... But part of the charm of the Paper Mario games IS the story, and he failed to recognize that, and this game's enjoyability suffers for it. A story doesn't need to be dark or gritty to be good, Paper Mario and it's SNES non papery successor, let us see the lives of the mushroom kingdom and allowed us to explore that world in a new way, with characters that talk, most of whom are fun and silly. Even the bosses in the original paper mario had a lot of story to them, I honestly felt sorry for Tubba Blubba, being teased all the time by the Boos, and Goombario's cute Goomba family. Storyline in Paper Mario should be lighthearted and fun, but it shouldn't be sacrificed entirely, and that's where this game dropped the ball. I hope Miyamoto changes his mind and realizes we or at least I, and others too, LIKE story in the mario RPG games and want to see it kept in as an integral element.

All that about story being said, I cannot put Paper Mario Sticker Star down, it's just too much fun. It may not have much story, and its a bit easy as Nintendo games nowadays tend to be, but it definitely has a grand adventure through an imaginative world, and excellent level design that makes each stage a fun place to explore, and brilliant use of the paper art style that just beams with imagination. I'll give it a 7.0 out of 10 due to the lack of story and modesty of the difficulty

I was talking to someone on twitter who told me that the game is not necessarily bad, but lacked key things that person liked about the series, and I think I know what that person was talking about.

[16bitsara-blog]

Sara Finally Plays: Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

I'm starting up a new series of entries called "Sara Finally Plays" this is due to the fact that as a gamer, I tend to be a bit of a scavenger, waiting for games to go down in price, and then I look for games that everybody is already done with, and over with, bored of and moved on from (for the most part) and I finally check some of them out, and some of them surprise me, some of them don't, and some of them are classics that I've longed to play for a long time, knowing full well I'm missing something great. Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons, are together two of the few Zelda games I'd never played. I never had a gameboy color. I know, I know... it's awful, all the great nintendo entries I missed, pokemon red blue and yellow, and probably many others I don't even realize I was missing. Thanks to its re-release on 3ds virtual console, I am able to play this now for the first time. I decided to start with Oracle of Seasons, if I had a reason for choosing this one specifically, I forgot what it was. The colorful imagery of the four seasons, is the first thing that jumps out at me, I really love art that depicts the four seasons with colors, or even metaphors or personifications, like the seasonal forest in the upper land, in Secret of Mana, and the Seasonal Courts in Changeling: The Lost, a pen and paper rp I am fond of. It's a really great way to incorporate the colorful screen into a gameplay mechanic that wouldn't work as well without color, other than that though, I guess it's just a personal thing that I like, not really an objective thing. The next thing that jumps out at me is the throwback to link's awakening, both in terms of look and feel, and in terms of gameplay formula. For me, this is great, because I haven't played a new zelda game (new to me) in that formula since minish cap, it doesn't really get old for me, it's a formula that's classic and I could play old school zelda games all day, especially in this post link to the past formula that combines the best elements of the series in my opinion. I have to wonder though, how good of a move this was considering the last handheld zelda game WAS link's awakening. Link's awakening however was originally made almost 10 years earlier, with only a colorful re-release in between them, and by then the world had seen Ocarina of Time and Majora's mask. Was redundancy a common complaint at the time? I don't know. My other concern was that this game would feel like half a game, like the effort that could have been put into this game, got split between the two of them, and so far, I'm not feeling that way, so that's good, but it's hard to tell without playing the game through all the way. From what I've seen it's a bit like pokemon with two games made from the same engine with similar themes and style, except, they are actually completely different games. Might be interesting to try doing that with a pokemon game instead of making them mostly the same, it would make it more worthwhile to buy both versions. Well that's all I really have to say about this one, I've seen people on my twitter feed complaining about it being about it, but really, I love the Zelda formula too much to get very tired of it. I'll give it a 7.5 out of 10. I'd give it an 8, but as much as I like this formula, I feel that from an objective standpoint it IS a little redundant, I think to deserve an 8 they would have had to do a little more to revolutionize the formula then they have so far, maybe the combined experience of both games does this a bit more but as an individual, it pretty much sticks to what zelda does best. This kind of review is usually looked upon unfavorable, but 7.5 out of 10 means above average. I'd play this game again any day, so don't get the wrong idea, it's colorful, seasonal, zelda goodness.