If you follow my even halfway closely, whether that be here, Twitter, etc, then you know that even in the best of times, I deal with depression pretty often. Not nearly as bad as some people, but still fairly bad. And as you probably noticed, these haven't exactly been the best of times on the internet as of late. I'm not even the hardest working moderator on Giant Bomb (not by a long shot), but we've been putting in a lot of hours lately, and I know I'm very happy for Sunshine and Smiles Week. I think we could all strive to try to be a bit cheerier, and happier when interacting with other people online these days. Even me. Especially me, but that's not what the meat of this blog is about.
Back in July I got a Wii U, and I've been spending a lot of time playing Nintendo games since then. I hadn't really thought about it until just recently, but it was really the first time I had spent a serious amount of time playing a lot of Nintendo related stuff since...Probably the launch of the Wii. Granted, there were Wii games that I had been playing for years after that, but the last one I played was Xenoblade Chronicles in 2012. And even then, as much as I loved Xenoblade (probably my favorite Wii exclusive), it's not really a Nintendo game. I mean, literally it is, given that Nintedo published it, and it was made by a developer owned (I think) by Nintendo. But it doesn't really have that spirit of whimsy and mirth that I associate with Nintendo games (not counting more serious ones like Metroid or Legend of Zelda, and I really need to stop getting off topic before I completely tear what I'm trying to say to shreds).
When I think of Nintendo games, I think of the games I played as a kid, with Mario happily crushing walking mushrooms and turtles to death. Games that are just about having fun, and not about serious stuff like stopping terrorists, saving the world from annihilation, or what have you. And that's mostly what bigger games have become. As these games get bigger, and grander in scope, so have the stories. Not necessarily better (as things like what GB coined "The All Story"), just bigger, and more dire. It's also not necessarily a bad thing, some topics deserve a serious amount of drama and reflection on real world topics, like how Metal Gear handles nuclear war, the ethics of genetic tampering, using the media to control the masses, and...Okay, I can't keep that one going with a straight face.
But these last couple of weeks I've been spending a lot of time playing Super Mario 3D World and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. And I've learned a couple of things from these games. The first is that Nintendo is very rapidly running out of names for its existing series, and the second is that they've still got it. They're still the best at making fun, whimsical games about jumping on and over stuff. And I couldn't be happier, because sometimes, when it feels like the entire rest of the world is slowly imploding around you, you just need to jump around as Mario doing fun stuff to brighten your day.
Controlling like a Pro.
I think part of the reason why I really enjoyed playing these games more than the other Nintendo throwback-ish stuff I had been playing is that I got a Pro Controller for my birthday, which was a big improvement (also New Super Mario Bros isn't great, but that's neither here nor there). I know when I first wrote about the Wii U Gamepad (the controller that comes with the system that features the big screen in the middle), I was hovering somewhere around optimistic/kinda favorable. Or, at least I think that's where I was at, I didn't really take the time to go back and check to make sure. Anyway, in the months since then, I really soured on the controller. Aside from using it for the over-world map in Wind Waker HD (which I never finished, and will try to before the end of the year), and using the screen to waste close to 200 hours of my life in Miiverse (not an exaggeration), I kinda grew to really dislike the Gamepad. It's "fine" in that way that you tell your parents school was "fine" when in reality you just want to die because the girl you asked to prom declined (not that I know from experience, or anything). It's "fine" in the way that watching cable TV in 2014 is "fine." Sure, it works, and it gets the job done, but there's much better ways to accomplish the same thing. It's not "fine" in the coin collecting sense where "fine" is a higher grade than something like "good" (I think, I was never into collecting coins like my dad was back before I was born).
The Gamepad is big, and not comfortable to hold. It's just wide and heavy enough that you can't really hold it in the air comfortably for super long (not great if a game requires motion controls with it), and the "grips" on the back are too small to really be of use. And as I do remember detailing in my first write up, some of the buttons (specifically start and select) are hard to get at with your thumb, without taking your hand off the controller, at least. Again, the controller is "fine," but I knew for a while that I was going to have to get a Pro Controller.
And I did! And I LOVE it! I feel like this thing exists because someone in Nintendo said, "Hey, you realize people are gonna hate this goofy screen controller, we should make something normal," and then the rest of Nintendo said, "hey, you might be onto something." I never owned a "Classic Controller" for Wii, but from my brief time using one that my friend had (I think the redesign with the better handles), I have to say that the Pro Controller is also a considerable step up from that. I'd even go so far as to say that the Pro Controller is the best Controller Nintendo has ever designed, and is one of my top three controllers of all time. Right up there with DualShock 4 and the 360's controller. I definitely like it more than the Xbox One controller, though as I've said before, I've only used those for a couple of hours.
Like with the Gamepad, Nintendo opted for a symmetrical design (which I prefer to the asymmetrical one on the Xbox systems), but with the sticks "on top," rather than on bottom like on Sony platforms. It took a little getting used to, but not much. The controller is comfortable to hold, and the buttons and sticks all feel good to use. It's a really well built controller over all, but it does have a handful of issues.
The first one is that the "triggers" (ZL and ZR) aren't analog. For whatever reason, Nintendo decided to put digital triggers with no pressure sensitivity on this controller. I shouldn't have been surprised by this, given that it's the same on the Gamepad, but it was still a little surprising. I find it especially odd when the GameCube had pressure sensitive shoulder buttons (though they weren't really trigger shaped like these are). I'm sure Nintendo has its reasons for this decision, but it would have been nice if they were analog like on the competitors' controllers. Not that I expect to play a ton of games on the system where that pressure sensitivity would be key, but it's one less thing that Nintendo exclusives can use. Like, what if someone makes a a game for Wii U with driving in it? Take Watch_Dogs for example, that's coming to Wii U. I doubt anyone will play it, but there's not going to be any nuance to the accelerating in the driving in that game like I had on PS4. Sure, that wouldn't break the game, but it doesn't improve it. But then again, there probably won't be many games worth playing on Wii U that would be worsened by this, so it's not a huge deal, in the end run.
Another issue I have, which isn't that big, is that there's no headphone jack on the controller. I wasn't really expecting it to have one, but the Gamepad did, and I've gotten really used to playing PS4 games with my headphones on, so I would have liked if it did. Then again, the Gamepad doesn't even have audio for all games unless you're playing on the screen (or, at least Wind Waker HD didn't), so even if there was one on the Pro Controller, it might have been expecting too much to assume I could get audio from it anyway. I should add that, when playing Super Mario 3D World, I noticed that even when using the Pro Controller, the Gamepad stayed on and kept outputting audio, so I actually plugged into the Gamepad to get that game's music into my headphones. It was real silly, but it worked. It does not work with Tropical Freeze, which was a bummer, given that game also has fantastic music.
My last issue is with the power button on the controller. On the other systems, you hold down the PS Button, or the Big Shiny X Button, navigate a menu, and turn the system off, to sleep mode, whatever, from there. But on Wii U there's just a power button (on both Gamepad and Pro Controller) that when held, just turns the console off. Granted, the button is lower profile than the other buttons (as is the Home Button), so it's not really easy to accidentally hit, but I can't help but envision accidentally turning the console off and losing progress because I did. It doesn't bring up a menu or anything, it just turns the console off.
Okay, one last thing that I want to complain about, but this has more to do with how the Wii U handles multiple controllers, or even just one controller. Rather than just attaching a profile to a controller, like Xbox has done for years, and like how Sony does with PS4 now, instead the Wii U just kinda turns the controllers on and off at will. Seriously. If I use the Gamepad to turn on the Wii U, the Gamepad stays on and I can use it to navigate menus. But If I use the power button on the Pro Controller, the Wii U turns the Pro Controller off before I get to the main menu, so I have to hit a button (any face button) to turn it on, then I have to press another button to make sure it knows I want to navigate menus with it. That part is because Nintendo wants the menus to be navigated by touch screen, but I don't want to do that every time. (But I should add that it doesn't turn the Pro Controller off if I go to the main menu from in game.)
Then, once I get into a game, it has to ask which controller I'm using. You'd think that they would be able to realize that since I was navigating menus with the Pro Controller that I intend to use it in game, and could skip that part, but nope. I mean, it's a hassle more than anything else, but it's a hassle that the other consoles have gotten around. It doesn't help that Nintendo has full compatibility with Wii Controllers, and is going to be adding GameCube controller support for Smash Bros (but apparently nothing else, even though that'd be a great time to start selling GameCube games on Virtual Console).
But, at the end of the day, the Pro Controller is fantastic. Really love it. Battery life is good too, or at least, better than on PS4. It makes me hope that Nintendo doesn't put out many more games that require the Gamepad, because I don't want to use that thing. To the point where I'm considering skipping games like Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker that I feel like will require the Gamepad. Seriously.
Oh, and another good thing about it: Unlike PS4 controllers, it came with its own charging cable. A five foot (ish, I didn't measure it) one, no less! And apparently it uses mini-USB (not micro like PS4), like the PS3. And also like the PS3, the Wii U can't charge things through USB when it's turned off. Which is weird, since I'm pretty sure the Wii could. So that's left me using my PS4 to charge my Pro Controller, which I think is a little funny.
Super Mario 3D World.
Okay, now on to the actual games. This is the first non-side-scrolling Mario game that I've played since Super Mario Galaxy. The first one. Yes, I know, I should have played the second, but...Some day. Anyway, I skipped Galaxy 2, and 3D Land (that was because I don't have a 3DS), and the New Super Mario/Luigi U games weren't especially great. This one, however, I adored from beginning to end. Which isn't to say that the game is uniform in terms of quality, quite from it. It starts out pretty good, but gets absolutely fantastic by the end. I didn't play it last year (obviously), but if I had, it would have been a serious contender for my game of the year.
There really isn't any one particular thing that this game does that other Mario games haven't done, or any one gimmick that really sets it apart, like the FLUDD in Sunshine (the best Mario game). It just does everything that it does really, REALLY well. It controls well (on Pro controller), looks beautiful, sounds great (music and effects wise), and has fantastic level design. It's a joy to play. Delightful is the best word to describe this game.
It does have some new stuff, like a Cat Suit that makes me think that there are a lot of furries at Nintendo, but let's not get into that. There's different characters to play as, but I only ever played as Mario unless I needed another one to get a collectible (there's a handful of stages that have a thing that requires a specific character to ground pound to get it). They do play differently, but I feel like the game was tuned for Mario. You know, stuff like Luigi's high jump and Peach's glide make it too easy. That's scrub-tier Mario play. Also, there's Toad.
That reminds me of the Captain Toad levels, which I really liked until I started playing with the Pro Controller. See, you can't play the Captain Toad levels with that, you have to use the Gamepad. There's a few regular levels like that too. Why? Hell if I know. In the Captain Toad levels you can tilt the controller for camera control (which is poor and you can use the right stick). And there's a few levels where you have to tap stuff on the screen to move them, or blow into the microphone to do stuff. But it all kinda feels tacked on, and I don't understand why they couldn't have ginned up some way to let those levels be playable with the Pro Controller. It's a shame, really, because the Captain Toad levels are really good otherwise, and like I said, I didn't really notice it until I was being forced to swap controllers mid game and use a worse one. But, at least you can swap controllers without going back to the game's main menu, so that was nice.
Speaking of collectibles, most of the levels have three green stars and a stamp. Occasionally you'll need more stars to get to the next level, but I literally collected all of the stars in each level as I went. Not always on my first try, some I really had to get in there and do multiple times, but I enjoyed that. Those stars are fun to get. Sometimes a bit of a pain, but fun. I didn't get all of the stamps, but I think I had three left in the entire game. Well, of the worlds that I have been able to get to. See, after "beating" the game, and seeing the credits, the game opens up a bonus world. Finish that, and there's another. Eventually, I got to the point where the fourth bonus world requires that I have EVERYTHING to get in. All th green stars, all the stamps, and get to the tops of all the flagpoles. Now, those first two are fine. Getting those last few stamps wouldn't be too hard. But getting all those flagpoles? I dunno, man. I got, maybe half of them, total. And that requires not only finishing all the levels I didn't get them in, but also getting to the tops of those flagpoles, which isn't easy. If you have the Cat Suit, you just climb to the top (assuming that counts, and if it doesn't, then screw them), but not all levels have Cat Suits in them. I mean, I'll probably try to get it at some point. Maybe? I dunno.
I do really love the game, which is telling because I'm even considering something like this. I don't really have much else to say about the game, actually. Something I've noticed is that I tend to have a lot more things to write about the things I don't like in games, than the things I do like. At a certain point just saying, "This thing is good" gets kinda boring, because I'm not great at explaining why game mechanic type things are good. I mean, saying, "I dunno, it feels good" is poor writing. But if I don't like something, there's usually a reason as to why (usually), and that gives me something to write about. Just an observation I had about what I write about video games.
Oh yeah, Rosalina is in the game too, but you don't unlock her until you get into the post credits bonus worlds.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
I really liked this game too, but not nearly as much as 3D World. Which is kinda good, because I have more to say about it than just, "hey I liked this." Anyway, I haven't played as many Donkey Kong games over the years as I have Mario games. I played a ton of DK 64, and I played a fair amount of the GBA version of the original Donkey Kong Country, but that's about it. Granted, there aren't nearly as many DK games as there are Mario, but I thought I'd point it out anyway. I also didn't played DKC Returns, for what it's worth.
Anyway, this is a really solid sidescroller. It's fun, and it's hard. Really hard. For the most part, I enjoyed the challenge, but in some cases, it got to be too much for me. Specifically the boss fights. It's not even that the boss fights are super hard, it's more that they go on a lot longer than they should, and if you die, you have to start over because there's no checkpoints mid boss fight.
That's actually another complaint I have about this game, and 3D World. Not enough checkpoints, and why are there lives? In 3D World I actually game over-ed a few times, but in Tropical Freeze I had so many lives that even though I died at least 40 times on the final boss, I still had like 30 left. I mean, DK 64 had infinite lives because at some point, someone at Rare said, "Hey, this concept of a finite number of lives and punishing the player for dying too many times is terrible game design." Granted, Rare made neither of these games, so I dunno.
And yeah, checkpoints are bad in both of these games. And you don't even start back at them with the same power ups or Kongs as you had in either game, which means that not only do you have to replay stuff, but it's now harder unless there happens to be a pickup after the checkpoint. That wasn't that bad in Mario, because that game does a better job of giving you what you need around where you need it (at least until the late game bonus worlds). But there were plenty of times in Tropical Freeze where I felt like dying screwed me over, especially when trying to get collectibles. I didn't obsess over finding everything in every level. There were only a couple where I did, actually.
I think that DK's fur in this game looks fantastic.
I also feel like I missed a lot of content in Tropical Freeze. 3D World doesn't have secret exits, like some of the older Mario games, but Tropical Freeze does. It has a lot of them. But unlike in something like Super Mario World, where a secret exit will unlock a shortcut to skip levels, and get through the game faster, Tropical Freeze's secret exits exist solely to get to secret levels. And there's a lot of them. I didn't count, but some of the worlds must have, like, four or five secret levels. And these aren't short little bonus levels. These are full length, challenging, and fun levels. I did get to a fair number of them, and they are all marked on the map, with the paths to them and everything. So you know what levels have the secret exits (there was at least one with TWO secret exits, that led to different levels), but getting to them is tough. Really tough in some cases.
While I admire that there is a lot of content in there for the people willing to put in the time to get to it, I also kinda feel like I'm missing out on a large portion of the game because I wasn't able to find that stuff. I wouldn't mind if it was only a couple of levels that I missed, but I missed (I should note that I actually turned on my Wii U to get this info) at least 12 levels. And given the post credits thing in the game, I bet there's a hidden secret world with even more levels, if I can find all of a thing that the game introduced after the final boss. And unlike Super Mario 3D World, I don't really feel compelled to go back and find everything.
But again, I did enjoy the game a lot. Like I said before, I tend to focus on the negative aspects of games when I write about them, but I liked this game a lot. It is a whole lot of fun. And the music is FANTASTIC. Right up there with Destiny in terms of best music of the year, I'd say. Which is no surprise, given that it's done by the same guy that did the music for Diddy Kong Racing, which has some of the best music ever made in the history of the world. I'm not even joking, this guy has made some of my favorite video game music of all time, and he's still got it. I'm just going to link to a few of my favorites from Tropical Freeze for you to listen to. Or, actually, I'm just going to leave this one, that about halfway into, it kinda sounds like the serious part of an 80s buddy cop movie version of DKC music.
Okay, and maybe this one too.
I think that's all I have to say about this game. Or rather, I stopped to walk a dog and eat lunch before this, so I forgot anything else I was going to write, so I'll just move on instead.
Destiny Check In.
So, I didn't realize how far my raiding group had made it into the Vault of Glass until I watched Brad and company do it. See, I thought we were on the second of three bosses (as did they others, if I recall correctly), so we didn't feel too bad about stopping on that night, the night before the server reset for the week (I think, it might have been a Sunday, but I think it was that Monday). If I had known it was the last boss of the raid, I would have insisted that we kept at it until we finished it.
Now though, I'm in a situation where I'm as leveled up as I can be without getting raid gear (level 29 with about a third of the light needed for the next level). And my prospects for doing the Vault of Glass to completion? Not great! All my internet friends have either moved on, or are too low level to do it, and probably will stop before they get high enough level. Maybe not Sweep, but that still only makes two of us, unless he can trick some other people into doing it with us. He has more sway than I do (somehow), I'll have pester him about this.
I am so dedicated to my blogs that I tweeted this screenshot just for this blog. I'm also saving up my Motes of Light to buy a cool holographic class item from the Speaker so I don't have a lame blue one any more.
I need to get to level 30. NEED TO. It's going to drive me nuts if I can't ever do that because I couldn't get enough people to do it, and those lazy Canadians I was playing with got tired and had to sleep (I'm only mostly joking about that one).
But at this point, I have over 120 hours into the game. Not counting time spent in the Tower, or loading screens. Or my 50 hours in the Beta. At this point, I'd like to get this obsessive part of the game out of my system, and move on. Not that I don't want to ever play it again, I'd just like to be at a point where I could just play it casually a couple times a week for fun. That's kinda what I do now, but now I have the added feeling of, "god damn it, I'm never going to do this stupid raid to completion." I HAD been hoping I could do it with internet friends, but I'm almost at the point where I want to just trade finding people to raid with for Secret Back Channel Mod Favors. That was a joke, I can't actually do that.
I bought this rare speeder because I like wasting Vanguard Marks.
In Other News.
I finally beat Spelunky! Or, rather, I beat Olmec. Which, hey, is good enough to me! It only took me 367 attempts, too. Joking aside, I consider that to be one of my greatest video game related achievements. That game is hard. I died a lot. And I've played it since then, and have yet to even get back to Olmec (though, that was only the second time I had ever gotten to Olmec). I got close the other day, but I died in the City of Gold. But that was the first time I had made it to the City of Gold, so I wasn't too upset.
Nothing else really going on. Tried to get back into novel writing, but I dunno. Gonna keep at it, however long it takes. Already got two under my belt, so I can do this.
What about the upcoming weeks? Well, I'll try to do a PlayStation Plus Catch-Up next week, just gotta poke around in the couple of PS3 games for this month first. I guess my thoughts on #DriveClub will have to wait, since there still isn't a free version.
Bayonetta 2 is out this week, so I'm going to try to get that. I say try because I anticipate this being one that I might have trouble finding. Probably have to go to GameStop. I know I could download it, but I only have 10 gigs free on my Wii U, and I don't really feel like deleting Tropical Freeze yet.
We're close to November, which means November games are coming. I don't really know the actual release dates of anything, but I assume CoD and stuff are Nov, right? I'll probably get that, my internet friends are, and I might as well play with them before they all abandon it like they did with Destiny.
And that's it! Nothing else to say. I would have gotten this up about an hour sooner if I hadn't started listening to all of the Diddy Kong Racing music and gotten sidetracked. Oops.
It's sooooooo gooooooood.
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