Smash bros 3ds - Demo Megaman and Villager

Oh boy do I count myself lucky to receive a download code for this game, and now you get to get hyped for reading my review on a small portion of a huge game. 

Let's get straight to the good stuff, the two new characters. At first I played Megaman, easy to learn controls, tight moveset and a seriously awesome tornado that blows opponents off the stage, gradually. Though i was a little dissapointed in Metalblade, Megamans basic "B" move. It doesn't do as much damage as i though nor do his crash bombs. No Megamans real power lies in his forward smash (I mean is this any news that a characters best is the smash?) Anyway! Really though, they undershowed it's potential.

from playing Megaman 2 where metalblade killed everything, seeing it's low damage is a letdown

It's Megamans charge shot, and at full blast it goes 3/4 the length of battlefield stage (All the demo lets you play). The less you charge the less damage it does and also doesn't go as far. I found this to be one of his best attacks, though leaves you vulnerable. Another key thing i enjoyed about Megaman, was his running A; a spinning move that traps the opponent in. I am a player for mobility or immense power, so a attacking move that traps and propels you, is a win in my book.

Though you cannot store his charge shot like lucario or samus, it covers that by being quick to charge and powerful.

Two other moves of megaman that stood out are his uppercut (Holding up and A) and his meteor smash (down A in mid-air). His uppercut is amazing, though you have to have Up ready held to use it, else you'll do up smash, which is different. His meteor smash is amazing, he fires his fist and rockets the opponent downward fast, the downfall is it's range is little less than one would expect. 

These are the main strengths i've noted on Megaman, now onto Villager.

Hoo boy was he hard to get used to. Villager is definitely a harder character to learn. His moves are not as mobile, and the ones that are, put you at risk. His two notable mobile attacks are running A, and forward B, Flower pot drop and Gyroid launcher respectively.

RIDE EM COWBOY

These two attacks are suiting for villager giving him a clumsy look to him. By riding the gyroid though you do more damage and propel yourself into battle. 

while cool looking, i felt this attack left me more open to attacks then being the attacker.

These are by far not even his best attacks. Because i like mobile characters, learning villager was difficult. He is not a powerhouse, he is not mobile, he is tactical. You need to plan a bit when playing him for his best moves are easily avoidable or hard to pull off via timing. 

Bowling ball, forward smash. This thing is amazing. Play on lvl 3 comps to see how far they go flying with 0-50%. Then change the difficulty to 9 and you realize the set up time for that attack is too long to hit reliably unless something is holding them down, or you get them off guard. By far a incredibly strong attack non-the-less.

This is an amazing attack, best used when players on ledge, though they have invulnerability for a time. Extremely short range.

Tree, Down B. By doing this attack 2 times, you grow a tree, and if you do this attack two more times on the tree you can cut it down and having it fall on the opponent, causing a lot of damage. If you so choose, you can leave your tree up and continue Down-B away from it to swing your axe at opponents, it though, is not as strong as one would hope, and takes a slight second to set up.

Pic says it all.

Lastly, his B. Item take. At first i didn't try too much with this attack, but soon i realized the amazing potential. already thrown bumpers? B and rethrow. That sun thing that circles the stage? B and rethrow. See a megahammer but everyones died? B and save, B again to instantly use. See Link about to final smash you? B to cancel (Not absorb).

After really trying to tinker with this ability Villager became amazing! Do not underestimate what you can and cannot take with this thing.

The other 3 playable characters are Mario, Link and Pikachu. I did not play them as much as the other two, but their style and sets are more or less the same. 

5 playable characters, 1 map (two versions) on a 2 minute limit. For those unable to get the demo, Don't despair, September 19th the demo goes live for everyone. Hope you're hyped. Polish those skills, the true smash begins next month (and again a month after that!) 

ALL ABOOOAAARRRRD

Paper Mario Sticker Star: 3DS

Making a paper Mario game with a new mechanic; Stickers. Now i'm not against change, 2D jumps to 3D and sometimes even new whole takes on the game. But my god this is how to butcher a game series, take everything which made it what it was and ruin it. Now lets go back to the beginning, the real beginning, the start of the paper Mario series, and if you can already guess, i'm talking about Super Mario RPG. 

Super Mario RPG, an old game for the Super Nintendo, was a brilliant game and it had a whole new cast of characters, old characters had a new but not contrasting personalities, and the game itself was brilliant. I remember in my youth playing this game, but i had never beaten it, always though hoping for a sequel. Super Mario RPG had a turn based combat system, meaning in fights each team took turns to battle each other. It was a mix of final fantasy (The old ones) and Mario.

Now many people wanted to play another Mario rpg, and luckily it became the parent of two Mario RPG themed game series. The first being Mario and Luigi's super star saga series, where the two Mario brothers go out on an adventure of sorts to quell evil yadda yadda. The second, which came before Mario and Luigi, was the comical fun adventure of paper Mario.

One of the most innovative games for the SNES

Paper Mario was the most entertaining thing to see, it was if the developers at Nintendo decided to parody themselves. Take the world of Mario that you know and simply put them into a world of paper and see what happens. Because they were made of paper, they could do things that you normally wouldn't think of but makes sense because, paper.

Now as i said briefly, this game was highly comical. While Mario never talks (like how link talks in his game with gestures) the genius comes from all the other characters. Luigi goes on his on adventure in one of the games and he constantly tells mario how he's going to save a kingdom, but he's scared. Mario meets with these 4 masked koopas, and my god are these my favorite villians. The game is constantly having fun. 

The Koopa bros. What type of cameo are they? Some say Ninja turtles, some aren't sure...

Now since Super Paper Mario for the Wii, the formula for the game has been changing. Now i personally liked Super Paper Mario, it was not turn based but rather real time jumping and stomping, but the one reason i can overlook it is because MR.L. I firmly believe he is the best character of this game, and it shouldn't be a spoiler but it's Luigi. 

I DON'T KNOW WHO THIS MASKED FIGURE IS!

Now you might be wondering why i spent the last couple paragraphs reminiscing on the past. If you've played paper Mario sticker star, you'd understand. In this game Bowser returns as the villain. Now over the years Bowsers become a weak Villain, capture princess ect. Now i have not beaten this game, so if theres a big twist i can be wrong, but from what i played i did not enjoy, so i will not rate the story portion too much.

This game centers around stickers, you use them in combat, you use them to unlock areas, you even use them to help toads (the mushroom people). Now i would be fine with this concept, expect if in combat you run out of stickers, you run out of things to do and are forced to run. Granted nintendo does a great job, no sarcasm, putting stickers everywhere, literally. The boss fights require each a special sticker that can be used on them and does mountains of damage, trying to beat it without it, simply means you'll lose (when you run out of stickers).

The biggest problem i had with the game was the way the levels were separated. In traditional Mario games the levels are separated by and overworld map with World 1, world 2 ect and in each world smaller sub stages. eg. World 1-3 would be stage 3 of the first world. In the paper Mario series it was a giant world, no overworld, and to get to other areas you had to walk, which sounds tedious, but it felt like a real adventure.

Welcome to the world map, go have fun on the very linear stages.

In Sticker Star, the stages are ordered in the traditional Mario game setting, eg World 1 stage 3. It also has an overworld. While that doesn't sound so bad hearing about it now, it really takes away from the game. It doesn't do the series justice. The first two games in the series had you finding new companions to help out in your adventure. The version for the Wii had you switching between princess peach and bowser, though this one, for what i played, has you playing with only mario with a single sidekick.

Now over the years mario has become more of a blank slate persona, but thats where the paper mario series thrived, it made mario look as weak as paper. Pun intended. I remember when the first one came out and you had to fight bowser and jumping on him, the only thing that happened was a ting sound of nothing affecting him. In this one it looks as if a battle will start between bowser and him, but then it just cuts to the next scene, no fight, no nothing.

Paper Bowser, you were quite the villian. And comic relief. 

Overall Paper mario sticker star feels like a sad attempt at trying something new. They throw in a new mechanic to keep the game fresh, now i am ok with most of the sticker element, but other parts do not meld well. I like the museum where you collect the stickers you use in battle and spend them to put them on the wall, though it is seriously costly, and i can tell nintendo did that on purpose. Do i recommend sticker star? If your a huge fan of the series,  tread lightly, if you saw this in Gamestop or walmart and decided to buy it with no knowledge, you'll be fine. It's more of an ungraceful addition than it is a bad game. So Overall, a bad game to the franchise, but if you had no idea what paper mario is prior to this... you'll be fine.

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. Nintendo 3DS

Ah, i remember a time where games gave twists at the end or least near it, surprised the player. Like some where you find out you were really the villain, or the villain you were going to fight was not at all what you expected, and i'm not talking about that "HAHA YOU DEFEATED ME NOW FIGHT MY SECOND FORM, BITCH" no. No. Thats dumb.

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon claims that it is a much more finely tuned game from its predecessor, but i don't see it. 

LUIGIS MANSION (gamecube) SPOILERS

Luigi's Mansion for Gamecube has a memorable story line, Luigi wins a mansion in a lottery and finds out its inhabited by ghosts. After much adventuring through this colossal mansion, you realize Bowser has trapped Mario in a painting (least i think it was a painting), and seeing that as a kid was like "whoa, Luigi's going to fight Bowser? damn Luigi". Then finally, you get to the boss, and after defeating him, he becomes King Boo. WHAT?! There was no inclination to this! ....Save the boo's which spontaneously spawned in the mansion half way, but that wasn't a giveaway... but man, that was a twist for the better. The game had suspense, mystery, great story and the ghosts themselves had personalities. 

POP GOES THE BOWSER HEAD

LUIGIS MANSION (gamecube) SPOILERS END

And now I start my tear down...

Dark Moon claims it has done more than the first, but i did not see that. The game length is about the same as the first even though there was 1 mansion in the first and Dark Moon had 5. That's not a real disappointment the length of the game is quite well done and is a perfect length of a game, but the way it's advertised is that "Luigi's not going through but 1 mansion this time, but a multitude of them", so instantly we who played the first are like "This games gonna be huge"

Now my biggest problem with the game (to me it least) was the ghosts didn't really have anything special. In comparison, the original had all their boss ghosts with something unique, there was a man in a rocking chair, a man eating endlessly at a table and more. These ghosts not only were different they were all their own original character, they each did something different. Also they all had a biography (if i remember correctly). It was interesting to see the level of creativity that went in to a game that no one had expected to explode the way it did. 

Red heavy, Green regular, Blue ... other regular

Now Dark Moon does not do this at all. The closest it gets to giving ghosts a biography is a boss of these 3 sisters. Though it does not feel like a real change in the boss. In first game, each boss ghost looked significantly different in terms of the way it was created (so graphic wise). But each ghost in this game look like they were made in the same way.

A lovely redeeming quality i must admit to though is what Mr. Miyamoto stated in the Nintendo Direct. (not exact qoute) "We wanted to make it really feel like luigi was in the room with the 3D" and god damn this is one of the best 3D games i've played. It's not over the top, not a gimmick it just feels right. I played majority of this game in 3D, and i usually play games in 2D.

Its...its like i'm really there!

Now for the less redeeming qualities. Again.

Before Dark Moon was released, many pics were released about it, some fan made some real, but you can never tell on the internet. So the pic which seemed like it'd be the Picture of the box art showcased Luigi facing King Boo, the boss from the first luigi's mansion. Now that's not a bad idea, king boo really gave a great twist at the end. But in Dark moon, it's like your making yourself a cheese sandwhich, hoping to dear god it will turn into a sub sandwhich, and when you bite into it, its still a cheese sandwhich. Don't get me wrong, im all for cheese sandwhiches, but a sub is great every now an then. 

SPOILERS

Luigi goes through the game slowly uncovering 'What or Who' destroyed the crystal moon, known as Dark Moon, (there's the title...) and Luigi "Slowly" finds out it was King boo who did it. The annoying part is, in the start of the game, we get a cut scene showing, King boo did it. So instantly the player knows who's behind it so were forced to watch luigi uncover this mystery. After saving some toads trapped in paintings, each in a different mansion, they show luigi a picture they took of the ghost boss, each time slightly missing King boo. 

Opening cinematic. Look there's king boo!

Now i can deal with that, King boo wants revenge. Ok good plot i admit, but the secret which we find out, which i hope most found out in the first photograph from the toads, was that mario was captured. Again. By the same dude. Mario wtf are you doing? You are THE PLUMBER, yes i know its luigi's game and he's the hero, but what were you doing to get caught? In the first game mario won the first mansion and got caught, and luigi went in after him trying to find him. Ok Sensible. BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE IN THIS GAME MARIO.

But hey gotta lure Luigi out somehow, wait? The doctor forced him to help out? Oh nevermind.

Would you trust this man? He's playing with a vacuum. 

Now the final big problem is the final secret. Or lack of. In the first game It's a huge twist that the final boss is not actually bowser, and man was that a good twist, dissapointing that i wasn't fighting bowser, but a excellent twist which burned itself into my mind. So as a fan of the previous one, i kept hoping there would be some sort of twist. They show King boo at the begginning, middle and near the end, so it's too obvious that it has to be a twist or something. But no, it's king boo. Now i don't want an M. Night shyamalan thing here, but i was hoping for a bit more...

It was continually boasted how this game was going to be what they wanted to do with the gamecube version. If you ask me, i rate the gamecube one much higher than this one. 

What the fourth wall toad. C'mon!

To conclude, Dark Moon isn't a bad game, but they failed to really deliver on their promises. They said i'll give you cupcakes, and you get muffins (granted i love muffins an hate cupcakes so that doesn't apply to me). If you never played the first game, all those years ago, then don't worry, you'll love it. But if you're like me and have something to compare this to, you'll see the flaws overtime, but still a good game to play. Very challenging at times and other times easy.

Don't cry luigi, It's still the "year of luigi".