The Nintendo Letter Box is a free to download feature for Nintendo 3DS consoles and while it isn’t very much of a “game” as such, it has enough charm that I would like to review it. For big Nintendo fans like me, there’s enough unique content to warrant giving it a look.

Nintendo Letter Box (or Swapnote, as it is also known) gives you a handy little way to send electronic letters to people you have on your 3DS friends’ list. You can draw pictures or you can write messages, but either way you use the stylus for it. It’s quite cute, really, because if somebody sends you a message, then their Mii delivers it to you when you open the game up and you get to watch them writing and/or drawing whatever was in their letter and you get to see it done in exactly the same way that they wrote it. Likewise, it’s your own Mii who will deliver the letters to your friends and you watch them sitting there happily as you write.

What’s also especially noteworthy about this game is that it introduced us to Nikki, who has gone on to become a minor Nintendo mascot. Nikki writes you a series of letters which provide a sort of tutorial. If you were lucky enough to play this between 2011 and 2013, you’d be treated to pleasant messages from Nikki every time there was a special occasion, like Christmas. Nikki is a very pleasant character and it’s easy to see why she was so popular.

If you’ve got a 3DS and you have other friends who also have a 3DS, you should make good use of the Nintendo Letter Box. I honestly only used it once or twice, but I have the letters saved and it makes me feel very nostalgic every time I launch it. If you have friends to use it with, you might really enjoy using it. If you don’t, there’s no real reason to ever use it, other than to see the introduction of Nikki.

Rating: 6/10 (though I have to admit that rating this seems rather arbitrary. I’m only really doing it for the sake of consistency.)

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

Battletoads is one of the earlier games made by British developer Rare and it has a reputation for being one of the hardest games on the NES – these two facts meant that I was quite keen to give it a try for myself. Having now played it, I can say it certainly lives up to it’s reputation in terms of difficulty…

I think I should probably talk about the difficulty first, because it is a enormous aspect. I played the game via the compilation Rare Replay which brings with it two modern conveniences: the ability to create multiple save states and the ability to “rewind” the game if you make a mistake. You would think that with these features, any game would be extremely easy, but you would be wrong. Even with constant save states and rewinds, I still really struggled to beat Battletoads. Perhaps I’m just terrible at games (and I am) but this is definitely something to keep in mind if you’re going to play the game on a NES. I think you would literally have to spend hundreds of hours playing the game in order to complete it, because you’d need to master some really tricky strategies.

Anyway, now that you’ve been warned about the difficulty, let me tell you about what this game actually is. You play as the big tough guy Battletoads who fight their way through a space army (ruled by the Dark Queen) who have kidnapped a princess and one of your friends.  The story may be very generic, but I feel like the toads are given a nice level of characterisation through their animation (which was quite rare for the time) and the Dark Queen has quite a lot of dialogue too, which I also liked.

In terms of gameplay, it never really seems to do the same thing more than once. Sometimes you’re riding vehicles, sometimes you’re on foot. Sometimes you can move in all directions, sometimes you can move in two. There’s a nice level of variety which keeps the game fresh. But one thing every level features is enemies which you have to fight though. The fighting in this game is quite entertaining as the toads’ hands and feet grow to comical sizes as the deal powerful blows. It’s quite a satisfying combat system actually. There are two levels which I would like to warn you about in advance: one where you’re racing a anthropomorphic rat and one where you’re riding a unicycle which can go up walls. These are very, very hard (especially the unicycle) and if you want to beat them without assistance, it’s going to take an incredibly long time. The game also has cooperative multiplayer, but this is only going to make things harder (not that it’s not impressive.)

While it’s not that relevant to the game as a whole, I’d like to talk about how this game looks through they eyes of a Donkey Kong fan (me.) The soundtrack by David Wise is sure to put you in mind of Donkey Kong Country, which he also did the music for. There are also small little things here and there which will bring to mind small little aspects of Donkey Kong Country. It’s nice to look at Battletoads as a kind of prototype for the later game. Interestingly, there was also a bit where you’re on red girders jumping over barrel-like objects which could have been a reference to the original Donkey Kong (which is possible, since there is an obvious Space Invaders reference in it too.)

Overall, I enjoyed Battletoads. The earlier, easier levels are very fun and if the whole game had been like that it would be thoroughly enjoyable and accessible to all – but it’s not and this might spoil it for a lot of people. I really struggle to know how to score this game, but I think it’s important to say that my overall impression was a positive one. If you love hard games you’ll love this, but if you hate them, you’ll hate it.

Rating: 7.7/10 (I guess)

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

In 2003, the Super Mario series had had two forays into the world of RPGs. First, there was Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars and then there was Paper Mario and these two games were both quite different in a lot of ways and had their own distinct tone and style. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga gave us a third, equally distinct interpretation of an RPG for the franchise.

As always with the RPGs, the story is quite interesting. Princess Peach has her voice stolen from her by Cackletta, a visitor from the nearby Beanbean Kingdom and then Mario and Luigi venture there in order to retrieve her voice. Thing get more complicated as they progress. The change in location provides lots of interesting new additions, most significant of all are the Beanish people who live in the Beanbean Kingdom and aid the brothers on their quest. It’s interesting to be introduced to a whole different race and culture in the Mushroom World and there are even Beanish variations on common enemies, which are fun to see.

The story is full of entertaining humour (the game starts with Toad walking in on Mario taking a shower, for example) and I think it really benefits from having Mario and Luigi work as a team. I love Luigi and I always appreciate it when he is given more of a focus, as he is here. The two of them interact with each other quite often (speaking in an incoherent mock-Italian) and these scenes are always delightful. Luigi, especially, is very expressionate. I also really liked Bowser’s characterisation and, honestly, felt sorry for him at times, which was interesting. A new character, Fawful, is also introduced. Fawful speaks in broken English and is supposed to read like his text was poorly translated. A lot of people absolutely adore him, but I’m kind of indifferent.

Something else which I liked quite a lot was the mixture of classic Mario gameplay with more traditional RPG elements. You walk around on the over world map, jumping across bottomless pits and avoiding enemies like you would do in any other game. If you make contact with an enemy, a turn-based battle starts. When you attack, you can time your button presses to do as much damage as possible and when you are attacked, you can jump and counter attack, making it possible to avoid harm entirely if you are very skilled. It makes you feel a lot more involved in battles than you would in other RPG games. There are also a lot of puzzles to solve as you go on: most of them quite clever and some quite hard.

On the whole, it’s a game that I enjoyed. The story is full of fun little references to past games and features cameos from a number of other characters. You encounter a skeletal Kong at one point, there are posters for Wario and Kirby on the wall in one area, Geno (from Super Mario RPG) even makes a small appearance. These are just a few small examples and I won’t mention them all to avoid ruining the surprises, but it’s full of references and connection and it makes the universe of Super Mario games feel a lot more real and coherent.

If I had to fault the game it would be for two things: firstly, I think that the later bosses in the games are ridiculously long and difficult, which spoiled the end of the game for me and, secondly, I feel like things started to feel a but boring as they went on too. The actual finale is all very good (other than the bosses) but before things picked up, I was starting to feel a bit bored of wandering around the Beanbean Kingdom. But those are only two small points and this is still an excellent game. I should also quickly mention that it contains the remake of Mario Bros. from Super Mario Advance which is nice, but I will review that when I review Super Mario Advance.

Rating: 8.5/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)