I fucking love what they've done with Mario's Cloud Suit not only because it looks like it works really well, but more that it reminds me of one of the greatest animal buddies of all time, Squitter the Spider from the DKC series. He was one of the more interesting Animal Buddies, as really, fas I know, up until Mario Galaxy 2 there's never been another character quite like Squitter. Able to create platforms were ever he pleased, Squitter played like a cross between flying and walking. Not tied to the ground but still beholden to gravity. There was a finesse to using Squitter, jumping from web to web, shooting a mini-necky out of the sky in mid jump. Like Espresso he couldn't really jump on dudes, but thanks to his maneuverability and the effectiveness of his webshots, he never had to.

There was a time where I thought about how one might've improved DK64, and the first thing on my list would've been put Squitter in it. Bringing that sort of gameplay, where you're not quite flying but not quite falling while also being in complete control into 3D would've been far more interesting than experimenting with what you can do with 5 different apes with slightly different moves. But then, when thinking about that, I never quite pieced together how exactly it should work. Seeing Cloud Mario fills me with joy because it looks like a lot of those ideas have been brought forward into the 3D perfectly. While I think that it's a bit of a downgrade having it just form beneigth your feet, and of course no projectile attack, I figure that's probably what it takes to actually bring the ideas into 3D.

I'm more excited that I was yesterday for Mario Galaxy 2, but then that's what Squitter does to a game. It makes it awesome.