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Nintendo, and a Digression
I looked around for a Nintendo community, but couldn't find one that felt like it was worth posting in. I wish there was a community for over-30 gamers (or maybe over-40 gamers), but I am NOT going to be the one to start one up.
Luigi's Mansion
I finished playing Luigi's Mansion on the GameCube a while ago. Not bad. Sebastian makes me replay the final battle against King Boo in the Bowser suit pretty often. Not an easy battle! Funny thing: He thinks that Professor Gedd, the wizened white-tufted mad scientist who seems to be a new Nintendo character, is a "silly little boy". Probably because Gedd is so short.
To tell you the truth, even though it's a sort of silly Ghostbusters rip-off, the game is still scary enough to me that I wouldn't choose to play through it all again.
Super Mario Sunshine
We also finished Super Mario Sunshine. Well, I should qualify that: I beat the final Bowser/Baby Bowser encounter and got the final cutscene. But I only have 82 out of 120 Shines. That's like Super Mario 64, though; you could beat Bowser and win the game after getting only 70 out of 120 stars. There was a bonus when you got all 120 stars, though. Apparently that's not the case with Super Mario Sunshine, from what I've heard.
I have to give Teri credit: she stopped me from depending too heavily on online walkthroughs, and that definitely improved the game for me.
The final battle was surprisingly easy. It took me a while to work out the rhythm - as is often the case, it's a matter of moving more quickly and making the right moves - but in the end I beat Bowser on the second try.
All in all I was surprised. I expected a lot more difficulty in the game overall; I expected to have to learn much more complicated moves. There are still 38 more shines to get, though, and I expect that some of them may require those moves. I certainly plan to play more and pick up more shines, although not, perhaps, all of them.
There were two big plot holes. No, make that three! I find them annoying because there were clear hints that these were issues which would be addressed by the end, and they simply weren't.
Oh, here be spoilers. SPOILERS! You have been warned.
1. Who was Baby Bowser's mother? During the game he thought that Princess Peach was (which was cute), but at the end, although he flat-out said "I know she's not my Mamma", he didn't ask who WAS his mother. That seemed odd.
2. What the hell is with Professor Gedd? He designed the FLUDD unit for Mario, which helped him clean up Isle Delfino. But he also gave the magic brush to Baby Bowser, which started all the problem in the first place. When FLUDD heard about Gedd's gift of the brush to Baby Bowser, it said "Oh no - not again". That really seemed to imply a backstory, but it was never explained.
3. A less-major point, but still a baffling one, is the identity of Il Piantadosi. The Pianta villagers all express suspicions of him - he's not one of them, they say - but his mask never comes off and his identity is never revealed. That's just a tease, I guess.
Overall I have to say that Super Mario Sunshine isn't as good as Super Mario 64. The world isn't as magical, somehow. The music is nowhere near as good. And the whole thing is somehow less interesting. I'll replay it, but I won't dream about it.
If I had the money, I'd pick up a Nintendo DS; they've released Super Mario 64 for that unit, and according to what I've heard they enhanced the game quite a bit. Sounds like fun.
Yoshi's Story
On Saturday Teri was at the animal shelter again, so Sebastian and I had our now-traditional Saturday morning breakfast at Coffee & Cream. After that, we bopped around a little, and ended up at a local used game shop - not roleplaying games, but video games.
The store used to be next to a furniture rental place. When we got there, though, the door was locked. But there were signs all over the windows saying they sold used games! After a few baffled moments I realized that the game store was now INSIDE the rental store, and we had to enter through the rental store entrance instead. The interior partition had been opened up, and the game store area was now full of rental items. The game store had been moved to the back.
Woonsocket is a seedy town.
Anyway, the guy behind the counter was over 30 (a miracle, he was probably the owner), and pretty knowledgeable. He started by asking us what systems we had. I answered "Turbo Graphx, Nintendo 64, and the GameCube" - I wanted to freak him out a little with the Turbo Graphx.
He had quite a few games, and - okay. Digression.
I am often uncomfortable buying stuff used. I don't mind if it's just stuff that people didn't want any more, but all too often - particularly in a ghetto town like Woonsocket - I can't shake the feeling that these used things were precious to people, that they were forced to sell them just to stay alive.
I HATE THAT.
I hate living in a world that's that cruel.
When I was a kid (say, 13 years old), I wanted a tape deck. This was new and exciting technology back then, mind you; it was 1977. I saw an advertisement for a used tape deck for $60. I talked to my father and he agreed to drive me over to see it.
The address was in Bridgeport (CT), which is basically the armpit of the universe. The house was one of hundreds of identical row houses; not a gunfire-in-the-street ghetto, more of a desperate-working-poor neighborhood.
The house was reasonably clean, and the seller (a man, perhaps 25 years old) escorted us to the back room, where the tape deck was. On the way we passed a completely insane old man who was sitting in front of a television set, mumbling and drooling. The seller explained that that was his father, who was disabled; I'd guess it was Alzheimer's, although of course that disease hadn't been discovered by that point (I think?).
The seller (I wish I had something else that I could call him - okay, I'll call him "the guy") worked nights in a nursing home, scrubbing floors, and spent the days taking care of his father.
The back room told an interesting story. There was a small electronic keyboard there. The guy explained matter-of-factly that he liked to compose music. rectangular clear areas surrounded by a little dust made the story clear: he'd been selling off his stereo system, bit by bit. Now all that was left was the tape deck, the keyboard, and a pair of earphones. He'd had some speakers at one point, but those were gone.
I felt for him. Obviously music was something he loved very much, and he was being forced to tear it out of his life, bit by bit.
When my father asked if he'd take $50 for the tape deck, the guy started to cry.
I should explain that my father isn't heartless; in fact, he's one of the most compassionate people I've ever known. But he grew up in Istanbul, where bartering is part of everyday life. I grabbed his arm and hissed "NO, Dad!". We paid $60, and I left feeling like I'd stolen someone's baby.
I wish George W. Bush could exchange lives with that guy for a month. Hell, I wish they could exchange lives permanently. I think we'd all be better off.
Now I'm depressed.
Anyway, there were a lot of Nintendo 64 games there. Some of them were really, REALLY used - their labels were mostly worn off and ragged. I remembered that back room with the tape deck, all those years ago.
In the meantime Sebastian was exploring. He kept coming over to grab me and show me things. Finally he got up on a sofa and started watching The Incredibles, which was playing on a nearby high-definition TV.
I combed through the games. I was most interested in Banjo Kazooie, but they didn't have that. Most of the games weren't that interesting; I wanted something that Sebastian could watch and enjoy, and that meant something to do with Mario.
There was one interesting game: Yoshi's Story. I'd never heard of it, but Yoshi, of course, is Mario's friend and sometimes-mount. But the game was $24.99, well outside of my price range. The owner explained that it was a relatively rare game, and consequently more expensive.
Too expensive for my tastes (and budget), unfortunately, so I moved on to some used PC games. There was a Dig-Dug Deeper game (based on the arcade classic) that looked interesting; it was $9.99, which was tolerable.
This has gone on too long, so I'll cut to the chase (finally): I ended up getting both the Dig-Dug game AND Yoshi's Story for $20. I was surprised that the guy was willing to let both of them go for such a low price, but he obviously needed the business. As Sebastian and I left the store, I seriously wondered whether either game would work.
As it turned out, though, I'd made a great choice. Yoshi's Story is a very unusual game from Nintendo: it's aimed at much younger viewers than their other games. The game itself has a mode that's a pop-up picture book on the screen (really!), which Yoshis try to convert back into a "real" world. Baby Bowser is the villain, which was also perfect; he's a major figure in Super Mario Sunshine, and Sebastian loves watching him.
The game itself is colorful, simple, and very much like something out of a child's dreams; there are flying striped "snakes" that look like a smiling cross between a barber pole and a pencil (Yoshi rides them), a really cute theme song sung by a chorus of children, and the Yoshis themselves make incredibly cute noises. Definitely a hit. And quite easy to play.
So it goes...
Luigi's Mansion
I finished playing Luigi's Mansion on the GameCube a while ago. Not bad. Sebastian makes me replay the final battle against King Boo in the Bowser suit pretty often. Not an easy battle! Funny thing: He thinks that Professor Gedd, the wizened white-tufted mad scientist who seems to be a new Nintendo character, is a "silly little boy". Probably because Gedd is so short.
To tell you the truth, even though it's a sort of silly Ghostbusters rip-off, the game is still scary enough to me that I wouldn't choose to play through it all again.
Super Mario Sunshine
We also finished Super Mario Sunshine. Well, I should qualify that: I beat the final Bowser/Baby Bowser encounter and got the final cutscene. But I only have 82 out of 120 Shines. That's like Super Mario 64, though; you could beat Bowser and win the game after getting only 70 out of 120 stars. There was a bonus when you got all 120 stars, though. Apparently that's not the case with Super Mario Sunshine, from what I've heard.
I have to give Teri credit: she stopped me from depending too heavily on online walkthroughs, and that definitely improved the game for me.
The final battle was surprisingly easy. It took me a while to work out the rhythm - as is often the case, it's a matter of moving more quickly and making the right moves - but in the end I beat Bowser on the second try.
All in all I was surprised. I expected a lot more difficulty in the game overall; I expected to have to learn much more complicated moves. There are still 38 more shines to get, though, and I expect that some of them may require those moves. I certainly plan to play more and pick up more shines, although not, perhaps, all of them.
There were two big plot holes. No, make that three! I find them annoying because there were clear hints that these were issues which would be addressed by the end, and they simply weren't.
Oh, here be spoilers. SPOILERS! You have been warned.
1. Who was Baby Bowser's mother? During the game he thought that Princess Peach was (which was cute), but at the end, although he flat-out said "I know she's not my Mamma", he didn't ask who WAS his mother. That seemed odd.
2. What the hell is with Professor Gedd? He designed the FLUDD unit for Mario, which helped him clean up Isle Delfino. But he also gave the magic brush to Baby Bowser, which started all the problem in the first place. When FLUDD heard about Gedd's gift of the brush to Baby Bowser, it said "Oh no - not again". That really seemed to imply a backstory, but it was never explained.
3. A less-major point, but still a baffling one, is the identity of Il Piantadosi. The Pianta villagers all express suspicions of him - he's not one of them, they say - but his mask never comes off and his identity is never revealed. That's just a tease, I guess.
Overall I have to say that Super Mario Sunshine isn't as good as Super Mario 64. The world isn't as magical, somehow. The music is nowhere near as good. And the whole thing is somehow less interesting. I'll replay it, but I won't dream about it.
If I had the money, I'd pick up a Nintendo DS; they've released Super Mario 64 for that unit, and according to what I've heard they enhanced the game quite a bit. Sounds like fun.
Yoshi's Story
On Saturday Teri was at the animal shelter again, so Sebastian and I had our now-traditional Saturday morning breakfast at Coffee & Cream. After that, we bopped around a little, and ended up at a local used game shop - not roleplaying games, but video games.
The store used to be next to a furniture rental place. When we got there, though, the door was locked. But there were signs all over the windows saying they sold used games! After a few baffled moments I realized that the game store was now INSIDE the rental store, and we had to enter through the rental store entrance instead. The interior partition had been opened up, and the game store area was now full of rental items. The game store had been moved to the back.
Woonsocket is a seedy town.
Anyway, the guy behind the counter was over 30 (a miracle, he was probably the owner), and pretty knowledgeable. He started by asking us what systems we had. I answered "Turbo Graphx, Nintendo 64, and the GameCube" - I wanted to freak him out a little with the Turbo Graphx.
He had quite a few games, and - okay. Digression.
I am often uncomfortable buying stuff used. I don't mind if it's just stuff that people didn't want any more, but all too often - particularly in a ghetto town like Woonsocket - I can't shake the feeling that these used things were precious to people, that they were forced to sell them just to stay alive.
I HATE THAT.
I hate living in a world that's that cruel.
When I was a kid (say, 13 years old), I wanted a tape deck. This was new and exciting technology back then, mind you; it was 1977. I saw an advertisement for a used tape deck for $60. I talked to my father and he agreed to drive me over to see it.
The address was in Bridgeport (CT), which is basically the armpit of the universe. The house was one of hundreds of identical row houses; not a gunfire-in-the-street ghetto, more of a desperate-working-poor neighborhood.
The house was reasonably clean, and the seller (a man, perhaps 25 years old) escorted us to the back room, where the tape deck was. On the way we passed a completely insane old man who was sitting in front of a television set, mumbling and drooling. The seller explained that that was his father, who was disabled; I'd guess it was Alzheimer's, although of course that disease hadn't been discovered by that point (I think?).
The seller (I wish I had something else that I could call him - okay, I'll call him "the guy") worked nights in a nursing home, scrubbing floors, and spent the days taking care of his father.
The back room told an interesting story. There was a small electronic keyboard there. The guy explained matter-of-factly that he liked to compose music. rectangular clear areas surrounded by a little dust made the story clear: he'd been selling off his stereo system, bit by bit. Now all that was left was the tape deck, the keyboard, and a pair of earphones. He'd had some speakers at one point, but those were gone.
I felt for him. Obviously music was something he loved very much, and he was being forced to tear it out of his life, bit by bit.
When my father asked if he'd take $50 for the tape deck, the guy started to cry.
I should explain that my father isn't heartless; in fact, he's one of the most compassionate people I've ever known. But he grew up in Istanbul, where bartering is part of everyday life. I grabbed his arm and hissed "NO, Dad!". We paid $60, and I left feeling like I'd stolen someone's baby.
I wish George W. Bush could exchange lives with that guy for a month. Hell, I wish they could exchange lives permanently. I think we'd all be better off.
Now I'm depressed.
Anyway, there were a lot of Nintendo 64 games there. Some of them were really, REALLY used - their labels were mostly worn off and ragged. I remembered that back room with the tape deck, all those years ago.
In the meantime Sebastian was exploring. He kept coming over to grab me and show me things. Finally he got up on a sofa and started watching The Incredibles, which was playing on a nearby high-definition TV.
I combed through the games. I was most interested in Banjo Kazooie, but they didn't have that. Most of the games weren't that interesting; I wanted something that Sebastian could watch and enjoy, and that meant something to do with Mario.
There was one interesting game: Yoshi's Story. I'd never heard of it, but Yoshi, of course, is Mario's friend and sometimes-mount. But the game was $24.99, well outside of my price range. The owner explained that it was a relatively rare game, and consequently more expensive.
Too expensive for my tastes (and budget), unfortunately, so I moved on to some used PC games. There was a Dig-Dug Deeper game (based on the arcade classic) that looked interesting; it was $9.99, which was tolerable.
This has gone on too long, so I'll cut to the chase (finally): I ended up getting both the Dig-Dug game AND Yoshi's Story for $20. I was surprised that the guy was willing to let both of them go for such a low price, but he obviously needed the business. As Sebastian and I left the store, I seriously wondered whether either game would work.
As it turned out, though, I'd made a great choice. Yoshi's Story is a very unusual game from Nintendo: it's aimed at much younger viewers than their other games. The game itself has a mode that's a pop-up picture book on the screen (really!), which Yoshis try to convert back into a "real" world. Baby Bowser is the villain, which was also perfect; he's a major figure in Super Mario Sunshine, and Sebastian loves watching him.
The game itself is colorful, simple, and very much like something out of a child's dreams; there are flying striped "snakes" that look like a smiling cross between a barber pole and a pencil (Yoshi rides them), a really cute theme song sung by a chorus of children, and the Yoshis themselves make incredibly cute noises. Definitely a hit. And quite easy to play.
So it goes...