1999: Super Smash Bros.
2001: Super Smash Bros. Melee
2008: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
2014: Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
Connected Series:
One thing I really like is visiting coffee places. There’s a lovely smell in the air, delicious cheese cakes for a snack and lovely hot chocolate to drink (at least that’s what I always get there) and they usually have especially comfy seats too. There have been so many times when I’ve sat in a coffee place for hours having deep conversations with my close friends. I think, perhaps, that I’ve begun to develop a positive association with the smell of coffee because of all these experiences. Anyway, one thing I’ve always thought was something which would be really nice, is a coffee place which is open very late into the night – I’d love to be in one at about 2am. Outside it would be pitch black, a perfect cold and dark night in the city, but inside the welcoming glow of the lights and comforting warmth of the hot chocolate would be heavenly. Having long discussions deep into the night in this hypothetical all-night coffee place is really appealing to me. It’s nice to chat late in a pub, but I think talking for hours in a place like this would be even nicer.
(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)
Kirby’s Dream Land is an excellent little Game Boy game and the one which introduced us all to Kirby. The only downside to Kirby’s Dreamland is that it’s a very short game and Kirby’s Adventure takes the building blocks of Kirby’s Dream Land and turns it into a full game.
Like the last game, it’s a regular 2D side-scrolling platformer game – it’s not too hard and quite pleasant and relaxing to play. There’s a nice soundtrack and a lovely magical tone to the game. What’s most exciting, however, is that Kirby has a new ability: after eating his enemies, he can the steal their abilities. There’s a ball creature that shoots lasers and if you eat it, Kirby can fire laser beams from his hands. There’s a little flying saucer enemy which turns Kirby into a flying saucer when he swallows it – using these abilities and choosing which ones to keep and which to discard adds a fun element of strategy to the game. I also found it exciting whenever I found new enemies, because I always looked forward to seeing what new powers they’d yield.
Story-wise, I’m quite impressed too. You don’t expect very much at all in terms of a storyline from an 8-bit platformer, but there’s quite an unexpected twist towards the end of Kirby’s Adventure. We’re also introduced to Meta Knight, who has since become one of the icons of the Kirby series. He, along with King Dedede, help to make the story quite interesting.
But while there is a lot to like about this game, it does have a few problems. Firstly, while there are a couple of new additions and features, it does feel a little too similar to Kirby’s Dream Land to me. I also think that the game starts to get a little boring before you get to the end, because it just starts to feel a little stale. I think they needed to introduce a few new things as the game went along. The first game may have been too short, but this actually feels too long (and it’s not even that long, so that’s bad.)
Nonetheless, Kirby’s Adventure is a fun little game and definitely worth a try for fans of platformers, Nintendo or Kirby. A solid second entry which is just as good as the first, but that’s potentially a little disappointing, as it could have improved.
Rating: 7.4/10
(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)
There aren’t a lot of things that I’d say were fears of mine, but I suppose if I were to identify one thing as my biggest fear, then I guess it would be the idea of growing very old and outliving most or all of my friends. As time goes by, my main circle of friends is always changing – people move away or have developments in their life which mean we can’t see each other anymore, so of course I then make new friends and the cycle goes on. But while it is always sad to stop seeing somebody on a regular basis, it’s nice to know that they’re still out there enjoying themselves. Outliving my friends is the one thing that seems frightening about living to an especially old age – I have a thing I call the Friend Square and it’s a collage of the twenty-four (and counting) friends who I am closest with and if I ever have a very sad dream, it’s usually about something happening to somebody on there. The idea of “running out” of friends and having nobody to engage with to ease the loss of other friends is probably what I would call my biggest fear.
One thing I’ve noticed recently is that keeping this blog seems to have had a negative impact on my memory. In the past, many of the anecdotes I’ve written about here were things I could remember quite clearly and tell to other people: these days I only remember the general details and not many of the specifics. Most shockingly, a friend of mine recently mentioned something which happened to me years ago (before I met them) which they knew about because they had read about it on my blog and I had told them about it, but I didn’t remember it until I’d thought about it for a few seconds. In some ways I feel like, after I’ve written down the things that happen to me, that piece of writing then acts as something which kind of replaces the memory. Is this good or bad? I’m not really sure. As time goes by, perhaps I’d have forgotten about these things anyway, perhaps I need to have these written down to have any kind of memory of these things. Perhaps the sooner I write it down, the more likely I am to preserve an earlier, more accurate memory than if I didn’t write it and let it slowly fade. I am confident that some of the things I’ve written here would have been forgotten without writing them down. As an additional note, right now it is Saturday afternoon – I forgot to write this yesterday! Making this the second time I missed an update. Rather coincidental that it happened on a day that I was writing about forgetting things.
(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)
This is the third game in the cult Mother series and, honestly, is one of the best games ever published by Nintendo. The sad news is that it has never been officially released in English, which means that you won’t be able to properly appreciate it without either finding a fan translation (and there is a very good one) or being able to read Japanese.
The story follows the lives of a family (parents Flint and Hinawa and two kids, Lucas and Claus) who live in Tamzily Village in the Nowhere Islands. I shan’t spoil what happens (and it’s hard to describe any of the plot without revealing anything important) but they soon find themselves caught up in something quite big, all of them being affected in very different ways. It’s a really fantastic story which is both surreal and deeply emotional and one of the best I’ve ever encountered in a video game.
What’s particularly noteworthy about this game is the fact that it’s evoked both some of the biggest laughs I’ve ever had from a game but it’s also the saddest video game I have ever played. Once or twice, I actually I avoided playing it because I thought it might be too much of a downer. But you never know what’s going to happen: sometimes you’ll play and find yourself laughing hard at it’s bizarre humour.
What helps to really emphasise those emotions, is the fact that this game has a truly superb soundtrack. There are so many musical tracks in Mother 3 which are so beautifully melancholy – just hearing them triggers the sad association in my mind with the upsetting events of the game. It’s one of those games where the soundtrack is so good that I go back to listen to it whenever I can.
If you’ve not played any of the earlier Mother games, you’ve got nothing to worry about; while there are small connections to the previous title, the story is basically a strong, standalone thing. If you do get the references though, it will help you to appreciate the game even more.
I realise I’ve gotten to the end of this review without really mentioning the gameplay! It’s a solid RPG with a colourful, vibrant world to discover. I really like the somewhat minimalistic art style of Mother games, it’s just kind of cute and fits perfectly with the style of story. Sadly, it’s through the gameplay that we come to the one weak point of the game: there are a few times when the regular enemies seem far too strong – it’s never unmanageable, but occasionally frustrating.
Overall, an amazing game. I really hope more people get to play it soon. Rating: 9.9/10
(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)
One thing that occasionally concerns me is that it might sometimes seem like I just make things up for this blog. There were one or two anecdotes which I almost didn’t write, because I was worried that they would just seem like they were made up and the blog would lose some of its integrity. One of these was the story about when I got threatened with a knife, another was the time I accidentally wandered into the woman’s changing room at the local pool without realising (to name two examples off the top of my head.) But of course, its silly not to write about things like that, because they did happen and the whole idea of this blog is to write about things that happen to me – I just can’t help but be a little concerned because anybody can claim that anything happened to them.
Honesty in blogging is something which I take very seriously and I’d never write anything on this blog which I didn’t believe to be 100% true. But it’s a concept I sometimes grapple with; for example, I wrote a blog post about a time when I was in school and one of my teachers was absolutely terrible towards me. I feel like I wrote that post fairly and honestly, but, as with any dispute, the other person involved could probably write a version of those events in which I am the bad person – I just have to be as fair and objective as I can when it comes to things like that, but as they say, all writing has some degree of bias, even if only small. A perfect example of my own bias is that I wrote once about a time that somebody tried to violently intimidate me, but actually forgot that I’d gotten quite angry afterward, so I had to add a clarifying note to the bottom of that post.
Memory is another issue too: I started writing this blog in 2011, but there were things that had happened to me before 2011 which I thought were interesting and so deserved to be written down – this meant I’ve sometimes written anecdotes years after they actually happened. One example is the story of the time a friend of mine and I witnesses a parent abusing their child and tried to intervene – I remember what happened, but how much had my memory been affected by the passing of time when I wrote that? I like to think I remember a good amount, but I probably remember less than I think.
So basically, the issue of honesty in blogging is something I’m always conscious of. I try as hard as I can to ensure that these blog posts are as accurate and honest as possible, but I suppose there’s always going to be a degree of error. Outside of this blog, I have to write all kinds of marketing stuff which I don’t honestly believe, but at least here I can create my own space for honest reflection.
On Wednesday I almost didn’t write a new blog post here because I was feeling quite ill. In fact, all of this week I’ve been very ill and I still kind of am now. Thankfully, in the end, I was still able to write that blog post, but if I didn’t that would have been the first time I’ve missed a blog post due to health related reasons. While that’s still something which hasn’t happened yet, I wonder how long it will be before that actually happens? It’s made me reflect that I’ve really been very lucky with my health. Many of my friends have and do suffer from some terribly debilitating and painful illnesses. Its very sad, but it reminds me that this is something I need to be grateful of and to be sure not to take for granted: otherwise I’d really struggle to juggle the balls of creativity, work, socialisation and relaxation – my days are usually filled entirely and I’m thankful that I’m well enough to keep to those routines,
(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)
Game & Watch Collection is a rather rare game for the Nintendo DS which brings together three classic Game & Watch games. The reason it’s so rare is because it’s something that was made available exclusively through Club Nintendo, which a lot of people did not use. It brings together Oil Panic, Donkey Kong and Green House which were all double screen systems, meaning they all transfer well to the DS. So what are those games like?
Oil Panic
This one has you at the top of a petrol station and catching oil in a drum so that it won’t fall on the ground and catch fire. These drums can only hold so much though and you have to pour them out of the side of the building once they fill up, making sure to pass it onto your helper and not one of the customers below! It’s a bit of a weird situation, to be honest and actually not as fun as the other two games in this collection. (Read the full review here.)
Donkey Kong
This is very interesting from a historical perspective as it is a Game & Watch version of the original Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong has kidnapped Pauline and Mario is setting out to rescue her. It’s fairly fun, but it gets repetitive quite quickly and can actually be quite tricky. It’s nice to see it’s rather urban setting though. (Read the full review here.)
Green House
This is my favourite Game & Watch! You play as a character who is presumably Stanley the Bugman of Donkey Kong 3 fame (but who may also be Mr. Game & Watch or a random fumigator) and you just have to quickly squirt bugs with a bug spray gun to stop them from killing your flowers. Very fun, simple and hugely addictive. (Read the full review here.)
Other than buying these original Game & Watches themselves, this is probably the best way to play these games – the DS’s two screens mirror their original ideas entirely. It’s sad that you only get three games in this collection and it feels like you should really have a lot more. So keep in mind that this is a very basic game, but it’s still good.
Rating: 8/10
(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)
In my younger years I held on to a rather silly belief: I used to think that people in relationships were not worth making friends with because they’d just be less likely to have time for you and you’d never be able to depend on them because they’d always be with their partner instead (at least in most cases.) Single people, meanwhile, can dedicated more of their time and attention to you and would ultimately be more loyal.
But as the years have gone by and I’ve had time to reflect: I realise that people in relationships are some of the best people to befriend. In fact, in many ways they make better friends than single people! Why? Well, firstly, when you make friends with one part of a couple, there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to make friends with their partner too – a kind of “buy one get one free” sort of situation. Then, also, when befriending somebody in a relationship, you already know that their relationship ideals are healthy and they’re happy to make friends even if they do have a partner. If you befriend a single person, then they might abandon you if they ever have a relationship.
Ultimately, its just a bit silly to make decisions like this about who to be friends with, because the seeds of friendship can burst forth from any flower and those seeds can grown under any conditions. Or in other words, you never know who you’re going to make friends with (but it’s always exciting to find out!)
