Street Fighter Alpha
( How odd, the last Street Fighter game I played was Fighting Street!) AKA Street Fighter 1. What makes this odd? Well, story-wise, I think Street Fighter Alpha completely ignores the original Street Fighter, for some reason. The main thing about this game is that it's a prequel to Street Fighter II, because apparently even Capcom forgot about the original SF. So the whole thing is written from a Street Fighter II perspective, featuring characters and locales from that game. For example, bad guy M. Bison is back, and he's gathering forces for Shadaloo, which I was disappointed to find out was not the name of an awesome Australian rock band from 1984, but a Brazilian drug ring. The other characters can't have this, so they each fight M. Bison for their own contrived reasons. Speaking of characters, the cast of characters can either make or break a fighting game; fortunately, Alpha has a good cast, but not without its flaws. A few of the characters have very specific purposes, like Rose being anti-projectile or Sodom/Birdie mainly being close range rush guys. When you combine characters who aren't meant for each other (and you will at some point), it makes for a kind of awkward showdown. However, these battles are still better than battles with Sagat and Adon, the two cheapest characters in the entire game. OK, Sagat's not bad, even if he is tougher than a shitty 90s comic should be; it's Adon who's the real cheap character. Remember in the original Street Fighter II, when you'd fight Vega, and he spent most of the fight jumping around, striking at you from nowhere? Adon fits this description perfectly...perhaps too perfectly...
Moving away from the Alpha Counters, we come to the other....OK, the major feature of Alpha: the super moves. Throughout battle, there's a meter at the bottom of the screen that fills up as you're damaged/perform special moves. It fills up to different levels, but I never found this to be a major part of the game, ever. Probably because it only happens for the enemies, it doesn't affect the lethality of the special moves, and only a few characters ever require it for about one or two of their special moves. But back to the special moves themselves, they're the best part about the game. Most of them are super badass feats of human strength that can turn the tide of battle in the blink of an eye. Also in the blink of an eye, I've seen computers block the moves before I even activated them, proving that the computer f'ing cheats. Back to the super moves, another thing I like about them is that they're unique for each and every character. Characters who were originally clones of other characters are now distinct characters themselves.
In fact, the only flaw I can find with the system is that the meter carries over from round to round. Trust me, it's really cheap when you can start a battle with a Shinkuu Hadouken or whatever. Yet for all the times I horribly abused this feature, I still don't consider this to be the biggest flaw with the game; that honor would go to the load times. They're somewhat short, but they are incredibly frequent. It loads the title screen, it loads the attract mode intro, it loads the fights, it loads the victory messages, it loads the ending, it loads the loading screen, you'll spend more time waiting for the game to load than you will playing it. Yea, it's a very early PS1 game, but still, you're going to see more load screens than a Resident Evil gamer completely lacking any sense of direction....yea, that joke sucks. I might as well continue the downward decline and end this with the Shadaloo Award for Excellence in Awesome Rock Aweseomeness.
Review Synopsis
- Smooth, intuitive fighting system with decent additions.
- Why did they get rid of E. Honda and replace him with a samurai named after Ancient Fuck Capital?
- Hold on, my last bullet is still loading.
After some time on YouTube, I discovered something: the 21st century fucked up Ren and Stimpy in ways I dare not remember. I'd post an episode, but let me reiterate: THEY ARE SEVERELY FUCKED UP. In fact, this is the only thing I could find that isn't horrible, and it's just a poor attempt to usurp the Rick Roll throne with Ren Roll. (It probably goes without saying that the related videos may be NSFW.)
Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2
( Crap, this game is going to be hard to review.) After all, it's hard to remain objective and analytical when all of the video gaming community has decided that this game rocks and is perfect in every way. I also have a very personal history with this game, given that I grew up with it and have many a decent memory associated with the title. Throw in the very likely probability of Don Mario assassinating me for not giving this game a 29/10, and you can see why this review may have me worried. However, as a critic, it is my DUTY to review games like this. I will press on!Let's jump right into things: the Princess was found missing at the beginning of the game, and Mario, the presumptuous, fat bastard that he is, decides that it must have been Bowser! He doesn't have any evidence of this (or of her absence at all), but having been presented with a flimsy excuse to beat up Bowser and his children, Mario takes this opportunity with gusto. Luigi's there, too, and you can switch to him at any time you please, but who cares? He's Luigi! We stopped caring about him in the original Mario Bros. What we're really here for is Yoshi. This is the thing that sets Super Mario World apart from its predecessors: Yoshi, the....what the hell is Yoshi again? Is he a reptile, an amphibian, or some bastardization of them both?
That reminds me: I've always had a lot of questions about Yoshi. Where the hell does Yoshi buy his shoes? Why are all Yoshi born with saddles on their back? What's the plural of the word Yoshi? And most importantly: why the hell is it that when Yoshi eats power-ups, Mario receives the benefits? I've spent a lot of time thinking about these questions, and the only thing I could think of to answer one of them is that Mario and Yoshi share an other-worldly bond that no mortal can break. You know, like Yoshi is a dragoon or something. However, instead of leveling half a city with its laser breath, Yoshi eats and digests turtles raw. That's kind of what makes Yoshi fun: he can eat anything. It allows for a lot experimentation and cool uses for your Yoshi. Swallow a red Koopa and spit his fiery corpse at bubbled enemies! Vomit a Bob-omb into an enemy-filled clearing! Eat enough dangling fruits to make Yoshi crap a 1 up!
This is probably the reason people love Super Mario World so much: the variety. Everything about this game was creative for its time (not counting music and power-ups). There are over 100 levels, each with several ways to approach them. My favorite was "build up a running start, bob through the level on my superhero cape", but that was because I'm usually in a hurry to beat my games. If I didn't blast through the levels like my life depended on it, I'd probably have indulged in the other progression methods, like blasting everything with fireballs or using Yoshi like a free double jump. Hell, some of these are required to beat levels, like the Ghost Mansions. Speaking of which, the game can be a bit cryptic with progression at times. What does that have to do with the Ghost Mansions? Anybody who has played this game knows what I'm talking about. Remember those times when you couldn't figure out what to do in those maze-like houses, and you had to call your friend to show you how to get past them?
Oh, and this isn't limited to the Ghost Mansions; hell, the last 40% of the game seems to have been designed for the sole purpose of pissing off little kids everywhere. After exiting a cryptic forest with multiple exits and the only way to move forward being secret keyholes, you stumble across a mountain range filled with even more cryptic levels with even harder to find keyholes! If the game is sounding hard, prepare for a surprise: it isn't. I didn't have much trouble blasting through the levels, something I don't have a problem with because of my aforementioned gliding fetish. What I can't excuse are easy boss battles. What the hell's wrong with you, Nintendo? I could beat these Koopalings on my first try, and usually did! Several of them are just rehashes of previous bosses, too, and they're not any harder the second time. Granted, Bowser is hard, but he's supposed to be hard, he's the final boss. What's your excuse for the other bosses?
Wow, I suddenly got harsh on this game! Told you guys it would be hard to maintain my objectivity on such a notable game that everyone has played at some point. To be fair, i still like Super Mario World a lot. It's simple and fun, two things that work really well with the GBA. Oh, I forgot: there are some additions on the GBA. Just sharper graphics, a redone version of the original Mario Bros, and some voice work, that's all. Anyway, I'm going to end the review prematurely with my Tortured Childhood Award, mainly because I think I might be dead. *notices bullet wound in skull* Yea, I'm dead.
Review Synopsis
- While there aren't as many power-ups as there were in Super Mario Bros 3, Yoshi more than makes up for that.
- Hooray for multiple approaches to any given level!
- A bit on the easy side until you try to beat Bowser.
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