The type of party where nobody gets laid.
By Video_Game_King 20 Comments
Mario Party
(Why, that would be a Mario Party, of course.) And I was invited to it. The invitation said "King +1", but I don't have any friends I could have brought to the party. See, not everybody made it to Giant Bomb during my exodus from GameSpot, and those who did really don't give a flying crap. That means no Queen, no Writey Guy, no Shiki, and (weirdest of all) no Don Mario or his Mushroom Mafia. So I had to play Mario Party alone.What I find weird is that Don Mario wasn't available to play a game about him. Here's the plot: Mario, after having been rejected by Peach numerous times, has come up with a brilliant idea: throw the most kickass kegger in the entire Mushroom Kingdom! He's invited all his friends (and Peach), but there's one problem: Bowser somehow heard about it, and he's crashing the party! Everybody knows how much of a buzzkill he can be. Can Mario get with Peach before Bowser ruins the party?
OK, I lied, that's not the story (but it should have been). The real story is that everybody in the Mushroom Kingdom is a narcissist prick, and all of them are arguing on who's the best. They soon reach a conclusion: beat the hell out of Toad. However, Toad comes up with an idea that will keep his eyes out of his stomach: play a board game! He's organized everything, even for people like me, who don't have any friends with whom to play this. All you do is select three AI players and see how long until they conspire against you. Yes, like many other Mario games (Kart comes to mind), this game can f'ing cheat.
If you're in need of a large number, you'll get stuck with 1s and 3s for 9 turns; if you're near the star, somebody will land on a question mark and send you straight to Bowser the Buzzkill; and if you think you can get revenge on your opponents in the 1 vs. 3 mini-games, you'll get stuck in the one mini-game where the others just get to beat the shit out of you. Again and again and again. Although there are a variety of mini-games, I often found myself playing the same ones time and time again. Because of this, I discovered another flaw in the system: the mini-games aren't properly balanced. As I've already mentioned, there are some where one player gets butt-raped, but then there are ones where it's either really hard to win or everybody can win. Yea, that's not exactly a good thing to have during a multiplayer game. Oh, and let me throw this in: anything that makes you rotate the analog stick can piss off. These games will destroy your hand. I am not kidding.
Moving on, although I didn't play the game with other people, I did many years ago, so I can imagine what it'd be like. When somebody steals your star and sends you to last, at least you can punch that person in the face; you can't really do that with single player, obviously. However, late in my adventure, I discovered there was a single player mode, and it's pretty much Super Mario Bros 3 with mini-games instead of levels. That part I like, but what I didn't like is that all the games are pre-determined and you MUST beat them. If you get stuck on a really hard mini-game (like one of those hand-destroying ones previously mentioned), you're pretty much screwed. Then again, you're screwed anyway; this is a party game, not something you play alone. Therefore, I give it the Sex Award. Think about it.
Review Synopsis
- Best played with other people around, and not something you want to be caught doing alone.
- Not enough mini-games, and the ones that are there still need to be rebalanced.
- The only games that can get away with rotating the analog stick are Super Mario 64 and Conker's Bad Fur Day.
There's no video for this blog. Why? Well, when searching for a game to beat (I'm running out), I stumbled upon this. Go ahead, try it out and then insult me for whatever reason you choose.
Magical Pop'n
(The first thing that pops into my mind is "what a deceptively kickass game.") The second thing that I thought is "stop making these stupid puns." And the third thing is "get to the damn review." I'll go with that third thought. Now then, the first thing I thought (I promise I'll stop right here) was that this was some weird mistranslation of Mary Poppins and that this was just Whack-a-Mole with the moles swapped for chimney sweeps, but no, it isn't even close to that. Instead, it goes like this: some demon guy has conquered a kingdom while its princess was away. She returns, finds out what happened, and decides that the fate of the world rests on her 8 year old shoulders.While that might sound hopeless, the reality is far from it. Over the course of the game, the princess (from now on, I'll call her Girl, for brevity's sake) finds a wide variety of weapons and tools to help her navigate the levels. There's the difficult-to-use grappling hook, the fire & ice, the spiderball thing, and several other weapons. If you've noticed several similarites between this and Metroid, congratulations, have a cookie. Like Metroid, you play as a blonde female navigating non-linear levels with a large array of weapons. But unlike Metroid, things are a bit simpler here. The game is clearly divided into levels, the areas are a bit smaller, and they're easier to navigate. Imagine Baby's First Metroid.
In fact, a lot about this game seems (quite obviously) aimed at kids. The graphics are super cute, the music sounds like it was ripped from Kirby (except for one song that reminded me of the song I put in here), and the game oozes charm from every oriface I could find. However, unlike other games that run on charm, this one doesn't really use its charm to cover up its flaws (which I will cover later). It's not like Dragon Warrior or the first Sonic game, where they used their unique style to distract you from their flaws (grindfest and focus, respectively); Pop'n just uses it to make the game better.
And as I've stated, this is already quite a good game. It has interesting gameplay mechanics and pulls them off without any major screw-ups. Oh, wait, of course there are screw ups. Traditionally, near the end of a review (especially in ones where I forget the game while reviewing it), I'll slap in whatever flaws I found so I don't automatically place it in my top 10 games ever. First off, some of the levels can be somewhat confusing to navigate; usually, you'll need one weapon to progress, but you won't have it. So you go find it and get lost trying to find the one place you couldn't pass before (or get lost finding the one place that actually moves you forward). I can't even really use a walkthrough to help me or anything.
Go look at the lone walkthrough on that page; it doesn't even reach the later levels. If it did, I assume that the person writing that would have noticed my next flaw: the lack of originality. Yea, you still get cool weapons up until the end of the game, but that's where the originality ends. Several late-game bosses are just carbon copies of previous bosses, often ones you just fought. I don't know whether or not the fact that they're easy is a bad thing. However, I did not have that problem when I encountered the final boss, who is a complete, 100% rip-off. When he's not ripping off Dracula, he's ripping off Lucifer from Ghouls 'N Ghosts (or Contra, I don't know). How could such a semi-original game end on such a bland note? I'm confused., so I give it the Lewis Carroll Award for Completely Confusing Me.
Review Synopsis
- Enough cuteness to induce rainbow vomiting.
- A really fun game that doesn't use its charm as a crutch.
- The originality suffers near the end of the game.
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