Good Saturday morning there; I just got off playing a little SMW (Super Mario World), now I'm in Valley of Bowser's Ghost House. So close to the end I can practically taste it. It's been a fun, if not somewhat frustrating @ times, ride, but I'd rate SMW pretty damn highly as a great platforming game my slights aside (which do come down to me moreso than the game, tbt). I'll also pick back up on Snatcher and maybe start up on another game while at it. Feel in the mood for action.
Art progress is going a bit slow; I spend all last night tinkering around w/ my settings trying to find what worked best for me. In the end I really am trying to keep the use of color strong and focused and keep the number of layers minimum, and where layers only serve a needed purpose that can't be done otherwise. So funny for me to learn that most of the layer settings can be achieved w/ pure good color choices alone, tho this does somewhat lead to a bigger palette (something I don't like much, but am learning to deal with). Speaking of which, I could probably due w/ another rigorous study on color as a whole, and today seems very good to start as I probably wade back between a few pics over the course of the evening.
I actually don't have any WIPs to post this time; I haven't really done sufficient progress on Mary since Thursday, and I have started on a new picture of Chun-Li but it should be done very soon, so soon that it makes posting anything of it today redundant. In the meantime I've been reflecting very much on what new pieces to try and tackle. There's plenty up for grabs, but dunno...lots of choices and little time to choose. Whatever's chosen I'm sure will need to be fun to work on, that's for certain!
That's all for today...not really much was talked about eh x3?. I'll make up for that next week as I'll have the finished version of the two pics mentioned up, and maybe finally start to tackle down the Pro Spec site (I'd like to get it up and running by the end of October, or mid November at the latest), starting w/ some custom image art and a pic for the avatar. Keep tuned everyone I'll be living up to the self-stated claims very soon. Have a gr8 weekend!
"Must play this again sometime soon..ahh, so scenic <)"
Morning everyone; if you stay here in the U.S you know the significance of this day. Exactly this date a decade ago, NYC, Washington D.C and Philiadelphia came under attack by a trio of botched plane flights, resulting in the damage and destruction of not only iconic landmarks, but also the loss of thousands of lives, people unfortunately caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's always been a range of theories on as to who really executed the attacks, and that's a sordid history best left told elsewhere. What one can't deny, though, is the impact the events of that day had on not only this country, but the world at large.
So take this as my ode of respect to all those who lost their lives on that day; I hope you all are doing better and just as well in the afterlife.
Events like 9/11 aren't that commonplace, I have to admit. It's spirit is still charging the range of suicide attacks that are happening even now in the Middle East, and the political revolutions taking place in places like Egypt and Libya share some sense of political common ground (as in, they were politically driven) w/ the attacks of that day. This level of distress and perhaps far worst occurs all the time in the world, and sometimes realizing that is enough to make me slightly depressed.
Ah well; even if knowing the importance of today will make some aspects a little dull, I still have to keep doing what I do. Apologies for no uploads last week; I either haven't felt up to typing up a big blog or would just prefer to actually post up some finished work for once and am holding out until that's done. I've gotten started on setting up my Pro-Spec blog, but I'll hold off until October to launch it, likely near the end of that month. Gives me time to finish up more pieces and do some custom graphics to add a personal spark to the space ;). I finally got the printer cartridges (well, the tri-color one anyway), so I can move on to some important other steps for some pics. I...really loathe the printer cartridge industry. Why can't manufacturers make cartridges that are compatible w/ ALL the printers in their family is beyond me...I smell monetary greed at work there.
Okay; I'll be wrapping this up now. I'll try finishing Super Mario World today (it's the only game I've really been playing atm; so I'll wait until I'm done w/ that before resuming Zelda and maybe Snatcher too...actually, scratch that I'll resume Snatcher today as well), tho right now the game's being an absolute awkward s.o.b w/ this sixth castle. And watch a few more shows and maybe cook some egg rolls (I got everything besides the noodles for crunch, but I was hoping to hold off on them until Monday, for food to eat through the rest of the week). Gotta go for now; take care everyone and I'll be back w/ some finished work extremely soon. Until then, take care an' l8r :)
**NOTE: Apologies this didn't get put up yesterday. Irene threw me really off-schedule, and I didn't have much time to write. Also, chances are I will not be posting any new art until the next Saturday update b/c I don't feel I have enough done w/ the pictures to warrant an update this week. Everything next time should be about done tho ;)**
It's funny to mention this now, but for a while I just wasn't a really big Mario fan. I always appreciated the little Italian plumber's role in the industry; he is our Mickey Mouse after all. And as such, his games have touched us all in a very important way, making us feel like adventurous children all over again. They're also some of the most technically polished offerings on the market.
And yet, to me Mario was just "that dude" for a long time. I tried a little of 64 on the N64; it was neat, but nothing compelled me to complete it. Again w/ Sunshine on GC; fun, maybe a little finicky, but in the end it just didn't hold me over. Not even offerings like Smash Bros. Melee or Mario Kart made me want to REALLY venture out to play the main games. I blame part of this on my age at the time of those games; being either a child or teenager then, my interests gaming-wise did not lie in what I perceived subconsciously as 'child-like' fare. I was either too busy catching up on older consoles like the Genesis or making up stories and drawing, and then of course there was school to deal w/ as well.
However, recently over the past year and so, I have slowly been getting into Mario's groove, opening myself up to his main adventures-old and new-and finding for myself why everyone holds them dear to their hearts. Good, unadulterated slightly nonsensical fun. My time w/ Mario has now culminated w/ a somewhat feverish playthrough of Super Mario World, the first Mario game I might actually play through to completion. Right now, I'd like to share a bit of both the awesomeness I find in it, and some of the more naggling features that persistently bug me. It is a classic, yes, but that doesn't mean it's perfect.
--WHAT I LIKE--
As the first Mario game on the SFC/SNES-and coming right off SMB3-SMW had a lot to live up to. Thankfully it manages to meet the challenge, and I think most of that is attributable to what it gets right. The game doesn't visually look much better than B3, but what's there is very clean, crisp, festive and vibrant. The colors are energetic, the enemy designs are on-point and creative, Mario's own sprite has a good deal more detail, and the backgrounds really help pull and hold these vast visual elements together quite well.
The music, although not as diverse as B3, is damn catchy and downright hypnotizing at moments. Variations are done well and come just in time, and at default doesn't drown the sound effects or voices out. Speaking of which, I really like the implementation of whimsical sounds here; that's been a Mario staple sure, but in World I think they finally got hardware powerful enough to pull them off strongly and marry them w/ visuals that resonated just right. Everything in World sounds full of life and splendor.
The level design, on the whole, is actually very impressive. If it sounds like I'm trying to be shocking for the sake of shocking, that's not true. It's just that the first couple of opening levels in World didn't have the same punch in their design as the same opening set in Bros.3, so it was starting on a lower mark. But the twists some of the levels make are pretty inventive, sometimes ingenious, and most of the set-pieces work w/ aplomb. Also, there are a few really neat moments in some of the stages-such as Ludwig Castle 4 (probably my favorite level in the game so far)-that made me very giddy. I can see why Shigeru Miyamoto considers this to be his favorite Mario game, and for all I know it could be mines as well (but let's wait until AFTER we play the others fully-ed.note ;)
I like the introduction of Yoshi and how he helps to bring a very slight Kirby-esque feel to the game (tho he's never as good as the Kirbster). This being Yoshi's first appearance, he's introduced in a pretty logical fashion and he makes some sections quite more manageable.
I also have to mention Mario's control as a whole: despite some frustration (motl), I'd say he controls about the same as he did in Bros.3, which until it's time was the pinnacle of control in a 2D Mario game. His jump has a real sense of weight to it, he builds up running momentum reasonably, and his button inputs are pretty much dead-on responsive.
On that subject, his range of attacks is also relatively plenty for this being a Mario game. I still really miss moves like the buttstomp and triple-jump from the 3D games (and I have played a fanmade 2D flash Mario game that's extremely well-made and proves those techniques would work well in an official game), but everything he has here, from the spin jump to the dash to slide to the shuffle (yes you read that right; it's Mario's little dance and it rocks. Just sway him back and forth rapidly and there you go; look at 'em little feet dance their toes off xD!), functions to serve a direct purpose and looks pretty good doing it.
--WHAT I DON'T LIKE--
For everything Super Mario World has going for it, there are a few things that do pester me about it. I will get the biggest one out of the way first: controls. Yes, I know I said the controls are fairly rock-solid...and they're certainly not to a level where even a quarter of deaths could be attributable to them being slightly shoddy. But-and this isn't even really a control issue as it is a physics/inertia one-for me, Mario seems to get too much forward momentum coming off average-height jumps into landings. For landing and STICKING on very small foundations, this can be an issue. The problem doesn't seem to exist when it's Yoshi, just Mario, suggesting he either packed on too many spaghetti and meatball meals prior to heading out, or decided to take jumping lessons from Luigi.
Honestly, if I could describe the physics and jump inertia model of Mario in world, it would probably be " .75Bros. 3 Mario + . 15Bros. 3 Luigi + .10 Bros.2 (U.S ver) Peach"...if that makes any sense. Not that there's anything wrong w/ that, but I would've preferred a Mario who was that much closer to his Bros.3 incarnation, b/c of the 2D Marios I've played, that is his best in terms of jump interia and weight, which directly impacts the controls.
Another issue I have w/ World is the length. I don't really profuse to disliking a game simply b/c it's short. I like many arcade games and plenty of them are quite short once you know what to do w/ them. But in the case of World it's different. It's actually decently lengthy for a platformer of its time, clocking in at seven worlds (of which I'm currently on World 6). However, the reason I don't have an issue w/ arcade games being short is b/c either that's the expectation or you eventually learn them inside-and-out to cut down the time, and the process of that learning is through fair difficulty. W/ World, there's no expectation of it to be short, so it actually isn't so. What actually makes me consider it shorter than it is, is that the moments where progress stalls is where I found myself dying more to Mario's delay in inertia and stopping; if it wasn't for those moments I would have been quite further along. Granted, in those same moments the levels themselves were often genuinely more challenging (and I can't claim to be a saint in patience), but the point stands.
Yet another, much more miniscule but still annoying thing, is that the collision detection on the sloping platforms seems to be a bit "off". Take World 6-2 for instance, once you go past the green pipe. You have to make a series of jumps on sloped platforms. This isn't really a big deal, but whenever I landed on one of the slopes at their very edge w/ Yoshi, I would pass right through them. I naturally assumed those areas would still be solid, but apparently the game doesn't like that idea, and so it was life after life after life. Little things like that kind of infuriate me b/c the rest of the game's collision detection is more or less spot-on when it comes to platforms...so why not these platforms? *Sigh*...
Moving away from more technical stuff, I do have to say that the power-up system in World is kinda weak in comparison to Bros.3. Bros.3 has a megaton of other really neat power-ups-namely the Tanooki, Frog, Hammer and P-Wing suits-that are omitted from World for reasons I'm not clear on. I might be premature in that assumption-as the cape in this game actually combines several power-ups into one and there's a balloon power-up that functions mostly like the P-Wing from 3-but in the case of the former it doesn't pop up enough times and in the latter's case, it's only appeared ONCE across all of the 5 worlds I've cleared. For the most part, it is mainly the regular super mushroom or fireflower suit to be had, which actually shifts the focus closer to SMB1 than 3, and maybe that's not all bad but still, a little more variety wouldn't hurt.
(P.S: I should mention that, thinking on it some more, the power-up system in World might actually be fine as-is. I say this b/c if you take into consideration there IS Yoshi there, having both Yoshi and all the Bros.3 powerups would've made the game too easy. Yoshi appears frequently enough and w/ some enemies he can absorb a power from them. So really, the usual power-ups are probably gimped to balance out the presence of Yoshi and increased capabilities of the cape power-up).
(P.S.S: On this note, I could've also mentioned my dislike for the lack of the spade card and power-up panel houses from 3, but for the most part that also seems to work out in the end. 3 is actually pretty generous w/ power-ups if you play it smart, and w/ World you would need to venture back to older stages to get extra lives or certain other power-ups useful for other future stages (like needing the cape for stage 6-1, even tho there is no cape power-up anywhere on that stage). I think it actually adds an extra layer of strategy and tactics to Mario that, while annoying at first, I'm getting used to, and wished Bros.3 employed and hope some of the later Mario games DO feature., backtracking syndrome notwithstanding).
--CONCLUSION--
In the end, despite some of my personal issues w/ World up to now, I would have to say it's a damn fine platformer, and earns its reputation for a reason. It's slightly inferior to Bros.3 but that shouldn't take away from its charm, and it has a LOT of charm. World is packed w/ tight level design, great physics and jumping control, endearing visuals, ear-massaging music and sound, and some inventive enemy designs. It's also a fairly moderate challenge, tho it takes until about Donut Plains Level 2 to begin showing it ;). Makes me pine for the Special and Star World levels that much more xD.
Below I'll share some of my favorite moments from my time w/ the game so far: good and bad, all comical in their own way. But for anyone else on the fence of playing a classic gem like this one, hopefully I have convinced you it's worth the time. If not, all I can do is dance the Mario Shuffle and hope it fills you with the highest levels of envy x3.
Thanks to everyone taking the time to read this; hope you've enjoyed it. I'll be back this weekend w/ some art and hopefully big progress on that front, so look forward to then. Until next time, be awesome and see 'ya l8r :)
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BONUS!!!
The following's just a jaunt through some of the more memorable aspects of the game I've experienced up till now. Both downright neat stuff, and frustratingly ambysal moments, all wrapped in one quick list of blurbs. Yeah!
>The prairie dogs: Hate them. Hate them w/ a blood-soaked passion. Way more of a hassle for me than the Zeus-wannabe Koopas in their respective level. I almost hate them as much as..
>The baby dinosaurs: Don't know what they are; look like triceratops, but less dinosaur-y. They're more random than the dogs and that's where my increased hatred for them comes from xD.
>Bubbles are NOT my friend. I think it's Forest of Illusion 3 or 4...definitely one of those two stages, but anyhow...I just couldn't believe how many times I died from having a jump cut off by colliding w/ a bubble. I guess Mario's a bit more lightweight than I give him credit for :S.
>The pipe Lakitus: bastards! One of them PERFECTLY spawned a spiked koopa shell to kill me just the very moment my feet were saying 'hi' to his bald head. Could not have timed that any better if he tried. Needless to say I would love to use spiked boots on them.
>The double chain hallway bit in Ludwig Castle 4; ingenious. I still think that might be the single hardest section in the game for me as of this writing, and also one of the most fun. It's just a little section...near the end of the hallway you get a big mushroom and yadda yadda yatta. Still, the level of precision needed to get through them w/o dying, and the build-up to getting to that point, really enticed me.
>Ludwig Castle 4, in the sequence right after the hallway. A very pressure-heavy area, my favorite part is after you hit the switch and need to run your ass like MAD after clearing the fireballs as the ceiling's coming down. Only the second time in the game where the dash feature is mandatory, and just as fun as the first time (but w/o invincibility to aid you). There should've been more moments like that..hopefully there will be in these last two worlds.
>"The Jump". You know, the one where you're in that stage w/ all the triceratops-looking dinos for the first time, and you get Yoshi, warping into the silver pipe to launch out into that giant open space w/ the flying koopa. I was actually pretty pissed w/ this part b/c it seemed no matter what I did, I just could NOT clear this section. No amount of timing or momentum out of the pipe would work..unless you had the cape feather. Since I did not have that power-up, it meant backtracking to the nearest stage w/ one (Forest of Illusion 1 I believe) and not fucking up. Backtracking,...in a Mario game?!? Yes, but it wasn't that much really and I liked having to do that, 'cuz it forced a better playthrough on that particular stage. I was also accustomed to the level-back trick earlier to get extra lives for Ludwig Castle 2, and that one was much more time-consuming.
Good Wednesday to you all; the past few days I've been toiling away on Suzuka, restarting Valkyrie, and polising up Poison (still haven't started painting her yet, sadly :S; maybe today'll change that) and beginning work on another girl (on the one hand, having this many ladies around is quite pleasing...on the other hand I don't think I've drawn a dude in who-know-how-long). But I'm actually not here to post up anything on that stuff; it can wait until the weekend. Instead I'm going to start mid-week updates that have nothing to do w/ that stuff. I can take this time to talk about stuff that interests me in general, or just what I've been up to.
I'd like to consider myself a big gamer. True, I don't play as much as I used to (the time simply isn't there, and it'll only get worst in that respect from here) but when I do, I like to absorb myself into their world and turn each play into a little adventure. I enjoy seeing how the game works, and somehow bending its reality to my twisted sense of humor. Also, I do thoroughly enjoy messing up a lot, but that's something else entirely.
The past few weeks I've been making a transformation from being a guy who plays mostly fighting games to being a guy who plays mostly Zelda. I was never a big Zelda fan before, but that had more to do w/ not getting an opportunity to play them. As A Link to the Past has shown me, it's probably Nintendo's best-regarded series for a reason. It's simply pure fun and a smooth-going (in terms of the absorption factor) affair from start to end.
So far I've managed to grab all three pendants, the Master Sword and that Triforce-looking symbol thingamajig (as I mentioned in the last blog post), so sometime this weekend I would suppose it's back to the Castle to once again save Zelda...yep, she's been kidnapped again. You would think the King would have the witch create some anti-kidnapping amulet or atleast give his daughter a dagger and weekend swordsman practice; if Link can attack w/ the equivalent of a broken toothpick (sorry, still can't get over that, coming off the Mongolor boss) and survive pretty well, Zelda should do about as decent w/ a sharp daggar.
But continuing w/ this old-school feast of playing games I missed out on when they came out (b/c, understandably, I was too young to play them then), I also decided to start up Super Mario World. I actually tried playing through the other older Mario games earlier (or at least tried getting a feel for them), and the general concesus was: Mario 1- jump=bad; Mario 2 (US version)-me=dumb, Mario 2 (Japan version)-game=HARD (tho I might can do it now), Mario 3-sun=bastard (tho I owe Arino of Game Center CX a thanks for showing a, honestly obvious, method to dealing w/ him.). In other words, Mario was serving me some nasty pasta :S.
But, who would think it would've taken World to finally get me on his good side! Everything feels just right here; I have no issue w/ his jumps and the stages ramp up nicely in difficulty. Right now I'm around 3-3 (having just gotten past that Boo house; those green floating balls kept giving me some headaches, not to mention times in 3-1 and 3-2 where I died needlessly, forcing my own restarts), so this weekend I'm aiming to get atleast through the end of World 4 completed. If it's like the other Mario games, that'll be half the quest complete, which is about good enough for me given the time frame.
Then there is, of course, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. There's no reason for me to lampoon on it's story, history or mind-exaberating challenge; this is all historically and scientifically documented. Yet being the fiend I am, I come to relish that challenge. Spending a good deal of time w/ the American version and some w/ the Japanese original, it's pretty obvious Capcom skimped on the challenge in the former, though that's only relatively speaking. I was almost ballsy enough to just play the Japanese version through..I got up to start of Stage 2 before things really discouraged me, but for now I'm content to try and get through the American version first.
Still, there's a vast deal of differences (little differences to some, but they do add up) btwn the two I'd love to outline the future once I get through both versions, though there's no solid time I'm aiming for doing that. Maybe this weekend I can have the stride to beat the Level 2 boss and carry onward to Level 3, as Level 1's pretty much a joke by this point (gasp, how could I even think of saying such a thing on a such a...lol nah it really is now, I swear) but the watercraft part of level 2 is still causing some headache. Most brutal of all is the set of...arrows I believe?...it gives you in the middle of that ocean. As any respectable GnG player will tell you, the holy trinity of weapons in those games are (in order of power) Daggars, Chakrams, and Lances. Play w/ any others and you are asking for an early(ier) demise.
Given all this, right now of all the games I'm playing through the one that impresses me most is actually a Sega CD gem...on a system that had a lot of pretty bad games, a few good games, a handful of greats and a couple of gems, can you guess what game it is? I'll give you a hint: it doesn't involve hedgehogs. I'll give you another hint: it's company is currently in danger of being accused of pimping out Metal Gear Solid. Yes, I'm speaking of none other than Snatcher, and I'm happy to finally get into this one. "Happy" is a bit of an understatement; "estatic" is more the word. I'm already a HUGE sucker for dark sci-fi and cyberpunk everything (well, it has to be GOOD too, but you get the picture x3), and Snatcher covers both highly well.
However, it's not just that; huge doses of Blade Runner notwithstanding, I can tell Kojima poured his heart into this game's story and universe. It's crammed w/ extremely meticulous and thought-out backstories and mythos, interesting concepts and well-written characters that are very human. It also has some of the best animation, visuals and voice-acting I've seen of any 16-bit game; even the action segments (this being a graphic adventure game..or a visual novel-meets-graphic adventure game...action comes off as very smooth which isn't typical of these sorts) are well done.
The level of story to this game, honestly, puts most modern-day efforts to absolute shame; they try to be cinematic in ways that are overly artificial (or end up feeling that way, since the substance for that 'cinematic feel' is not there), forgetting to create a WORLD for their characters to inhabit, even the parts that the player may never visit. Something should be there, something should let the player know of these interesting tales and oddity facts. Kojima's one of the few designers out there that I think still cares and has the drive to do that sort of stuff...I just wish he'd do it w/ properties other than MGS. I...smell a Snatcher/Policenauts sequel petition in the works here x3...
"And since I am calling it here..."
That's all I have to say for this afternoon; just some general thoughts on four games I've been circling through. Moreso than just playing them, I'm more interested in the little oddities of these games and seeing how they work and why they work, so some time soon inbetween all the artwork I'd love to do some deep analysis on each one and other games I happen to really enjoy. All I can say is, it'll be interesting to see what happens w/ this, and it is a nice break from the artwork, as I mentioned above. So while I'll be back this weekend w/ some new progress on current pictures, at least next week I'll maybe try this again, just a general blog post...there's a bad movie I want to wash out of my head at the moment, maybe I'll talk about that xD.
Anyway that's all for now; thanks for reading. Take care and see 'ya l8r.
