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Codiekitty · 05-20-2005, 01:44 PM

Now, I know this is often hailed as the greatest Mario RPG of all time, so I was looking forward to it. I played it just after its release through a rental, but had to return it after getting to Tubba Blubba's castle. The years passed, and I totally forgot most of the game. Well, purchasing Thousand Year Door gave me a bug to get the original, so I eBayed it. I beat the Koopa Bros, and it went into my drawer for about six months.

About a week ago, I decided to dust off my N64. Mario Party 2 angered me, what with most of the minigames being ones from Mario Party with something thrown in (for example, Bumper Balls now has a couple rocks on the arena), and all the new ones pretty much sucking (if I ever come upon the genius who thought up that counting Toads one, I'm gonna ram my shoe up his rear). I also don't recall the controls of the first Mario Party being that stiff. Something enticed me to finish Paper Mario, and I did. Now I can shelve this game and get on with my life.

This is one of the ugliest N64 games I've seen. The N64 should be able to take sprites better than this. But instead, we've got characters who look like they were drawn with a child's blackened markers on thin art paper, then torn out of the paper instead of cut. I hardly noticed any of the sceneries, except for the clouds in Flower Fields which looked like a painting (though I guess I was trying to something to bearable because the music was making me want to ram a car key into my ears). When I originally played it a few years ago, this game's graphics gave me a splitting headache. They no longer hurt my head, just my stomach.

The only N64 game I've played with a worse soundtrack than this is Yoshi's Story. All of the decent songs in this are remixes of some earlier Mario song. All the new stuff ranges from blah to needing work to downright irritating. Who the hell composed the Flower Fields song? And that racket that plays while the train is moving in Shy Guy's Toybox? Or the friggin' final boss piece of crap?

Now, before I get a "graphics and music don't make the game, stupid" I'm gonna go onto my issues with the gameplay.

The battle system is too slow. Sure, not as slow as Magi Nation (on my New Game+, I spent three hours in the Shadow Hold fighting everything, then had to reset because I used a key in the wrong place. When I restarted, I ran from everything and wasn't in there for more than twenty minutes), but still slow (granted, some time in the middle of playing this I had emulated Sweet Home on my Dreamcast, and its lightning fast battle system may have spoiled me a little). The only person who doesn't feel the need to put on a little show and dance before attacking is Mario. Those Crazee Dazees (or whatever they're called) in the Flower Field are by far the worst offenders, as they feel like they take twenty seconds to attack.

Thanks to the "It takes off one point of damage rather than something significant", towards the end of the game, the defend action command becomes less and less useful to the point of being useless (sure, 1 is half of 2 which could essentially double your life meter, but 10 vs. 11? Who cares?). I hardly ever blocked in the Bowser fight, and still won (though I had the Pretty Lucky badge, so about 1/4 of his attacks missed altogether).

Bowser's battle was pretty anal overall. The cutscenes before it were nothing short of obnoxious, and every three or so rounds Bowser would cast that spell that made him "invincible", and then you'd have to blow a turn taking it down with no real effort. It's like if you had to constantly use the Crystal while fighting Zeromus in Final Fantasy 4 (it's also pretty retarded, because in real life Bowser would probably realize that I could just break the spell). I also love that move he has that restores 30 HP when you're doing 9 to him per round. I had a splendid time when he used this far into the battle twice in three turns.

I hate this game's star system. I guess it's the game's way of keeping a check on your levels, but it really hurts the game instead of helps it. After a certain level, an enemy won't give you coins or EXP. Most of the enemies on the field are nigh impossible to dodge, so you'll often find yourself wasting five minutes fighting an enemy you're not going to get anything from, bringing the already slow game to screeching hault.

The woman at Mega Man Homepage kept talking of how awesome X's Action Triggers in Command Mission because they involve nothing more than holding and mashing buttons, and how Axl's was total **** because it took some skill to use. Well, this game would probably be her favorite RPG of all time, because almost all of the Special attacks involve mindless things things like holding the A button until the light turned red or smacking the control stick to the left as fast as you can. Granted, some of these take some real skill to use (Sushie's Tidal Wave), but there wasn't enough thinking nor attacks like this to make of for the button mashers. I'm sorry, but I fail to see the challenge in hammering the A button.

In fact, the whole game is seriously lacking in the challenge department. I remember back when this game was released, I looked at some SMBHQ reviews for this game (a section I cannot even find anymore), and every one of them complained of how insanely difficult Huff N. Puff was. What the hell? Sure, he gave me my only Game Over in the game, but I blame that on carelessness on my part. The second go round (all I did was buy a Life Shroom which I wound up not even needing), I kicked his ass to the moon. I'd hardly blame it on overleveling, since if I were overleveled I would have beaten him the first time, plus this game does whatever it can to prevent it. I guess people were trying to use the stupid Lakitu whose name I never bothered to learn instead of Bow. Also, the Fire Pirahna's second phase didn't even touch me. Seriously.

Some people rant about the game's puzzles. Is there some confusion between "Solving challenging puzzles" and "Doing stuff"? Only a small handful of the puzzles were anything that I had to think about. Everything else was asinine crap like "Oh, a crack in the wall, let's have Bombette blow it up" (when I got dumped into the dungeon in Bowser's castle, I knew immediately there was going to be a crack in the wall) or "Oh, a lake, let's have Sushie swim me over to the other side", and most of the ones that could possibly be challenging have the answer either in the next room, like the shaped block puzzle in Dry Dry Ruins (Okay, so it's blocked out by sand. How do you clear the sand? Waltz on over to the other end of the room and push a button), or right next to you, like the shooting Kooper into a hole in the wall in the Crystal Palace. Speaking of the shooting Kooper into the hole in the wall, what was up with those clone "puzzles" in the ice area (especially the last one where we had Luigi, Kolorado, Goompapa, and some old Koopa saying they were Kooper)? Has anybody ever actually lost to those?

The ending credits scene was a complete ripoff of Super Mario RPG, only not as cute. The biggest pleasure I got from it was when Mario and Peach walked off, came up to Mario's house, and dirty thoughts filled my head.

Smithy could kick Bowser's ass, and you all know it.

Where are these lemmings going? The Super Nintendo Super Shire! Hop in line and follow them there!

[ May 20, 2005, 11:11 PM: Message edited by: CodieKitty ]

05-20-2005, 01:44 PM	#1
Codiekitty Just Another Face in Red Jumpsuit Join Date: May 2001 Location: Lemmingland Gender: Posts: 19,143 Thanks: 121 Thanked 174 Times in 120 Posts Points: 46,476.72 Bank: 3,021,450.74 Total Points: 3,067,927.46 Donate	Now, I know this is often hailed as the greatest Mario RPG of all time, so I was looking forward to it. I played it just after its release through a rental, but had to return it after getting to Tubba Blubba's castle. The years passed, and I totally forgot most of the game. Well, purchasing Thousand Year Door gave me a bug to get the original, so I eBayed it. I beat the Koopa Bros, and it went into my drawer for about six months. About a week ago, I decided to dust off my N64. Mario Party 2 angered me, what with most of the minigames being ones from Mario Party with something thrown in (for example, Bumper Balls now has a couple rocks on the arena), and all the new ones pretty much sucking (if I ever come upon the genius who thought up that counting Toads one, I'm gonna ram my shoe up his rear). I also don't recall the controls of the first Mario Party being that stiff. Something enticed me to finish Paper Mario, and I did. Now I can shelve this game and get on with my life. This is one of the ugliest N64 games I've seen. The N64 should be able to take sprites better than this. But instead, we've got characters who look like they were drawn with a child's blackened markers on thin art paper, then torn out of the paper instead of cut. I hardly noticed any of the sceneries, except for the clouds in Flower Fields which looked like a painting (though I guess I was trying to something to bearable because the music was making me want to ram a car key into my ears). When I originally played it a few years ago, this game's graphics gave me a splitting headache. They no longer hurt my head, just my stomach. The only N64 game I've played with a worse soundtrack than this is Yoshi's Story. All of the decent songs in this are remixes of some earlier Mario song. All the new stuff ranges from blah to needing work to downright irritating. Who the hell composed the Flower Fields song? And that racket that plays while the train is moving in Shy Guy's Toybox? Or the friggin' final boss piece of crap? Now, before I get a "graphics and music don't make the game, stupid" I'm gonna go onto my issues with the gameplay. The battle system is too slow. Sure, not as slow as Magi Nation (on my New Game+, I spent three hours in the Shadow Hold fighting everything, then had to reset because I used a key in the wrong place. When I restarted, I ran from everything and wasn't in there for more than twenty minutes), but still slow (granted, some time in the middle of playing this I had emulated Sweet Home on my Dreamcast, and its lightning fast battle system may have spoiled me a little). The only person who doesn't feel the need to put on a little show and dance before attacking is Mario. Those Crazee Dazees (or whatever they're called) in the Flower Field are by far the worst offenders, as they feel like they take twenty seconds to attack. Thanks to the "It takes off one point of damage rather than something significant", towards the end of the game, the defend action command becomes less and less useful to the point of being useless (sure, 1 is half of 2 which could essentially double your life meter, but 10 vs. 11? Who cares?). I hardly ever blocked in the Bowser fight, and still won (though I had the Pretty Lucky badge, so about 1/4 of his attacks missed altogether). Bowser's battle was pretty anal overall. The cutscenes before it were nothing short of obnoxious, and every three or so rounds Bowser would cast that spell that made him "invincible", and then you'd have to blow a turn taking it down with no real effort. It's like if you had to constantly use the Crystal while fighting Zeromus in Final Fantasy 4 (it's also pretty retarded, because in real life Bowser would probably realize that I could just break the spell). I also love that move he has that restores 30 HP when you're doing 9 to him per round. I had a splendid time when he used this far into the battle twice in three turns. I hate this game's star system. I guess it's the game's way of keeping a check on your levels, but it really hurts the game instead of helps it. After a certain level, an enemy won't give you coins or EXP. Most of the enemies on the field are nigh impossible to dodge, so you'll often find yourself wasting five minutes fighting an enemy you're not going to get anything from, bringing the already slow game to screeching hault. The woman at Mega Man Homepage kept talking of how awesome X's Action Triggers in Command Mission because they involve nothing more than holding and mashing buttons, and how Axl's was total ** because it took some skill to use. Well, this game would probably be her favorite RPG of all time, because almost all of the Special attacks involve mindless things things like holding the A button until the light turned red or smacking the control stick to the left as fast as you can. Granted, some of these take some real skill to use (Sushie's Tidal Wave), but there wasn't enough thinking nor attacks like this to make of for the button mashers. I'm sorry, but I fail to see the challenge in hammering the A button. In fact, the whole game is seriously lacking in the challenge department. I remember back when this game was released, I looked at some SMBHQ reviews for this game (a section I cannot even find anymore), and every one of them complained of how insanely difficult Huff N. Puff was. What the hell? Sure, he gave me my only Game Over in the game, but I blame that on carelessness on my part. The second go round (all I did was buy a Life Shroom which I wound up not even needing), I kicked his ass to the moon. I'd hardly blame it on overleveling, since if I were overleveled I would have beaten him the first time, plus this game does whatever it can to prevent it. I guess people were trying to use the stupid Lakitu whose name I never bothered to learn instead of Bow. Also, the Fire Pirahna's second phase didn't even touch me. Seriously. Some people rant about the game's puzzles. Is there some confusion between "Solving challenging puzzles" and "Doing stuff"? Only a small handful of the puzzles were anything that I had to think about. Everything else was asinine crap like "Oh, a crack in the wall, let's have Bombette blow it up" (when I got dumped into the dungeon in Bowser's castle, I knew immediately there was going to be a crack in the wall) or "Oh, a lake, let's have Sushie swim me over to the other side", and most of the ones that could possibly be challenging have the answer either in the next room, like the shaped block puzzle in Dry Dry Ruins (Okay, so it's blocked out by sand. How do you clear the sand? Waltz on over to the other end of the room and push a button), or right next to you, like the shooting Kooper into a hole in the wall in the Crystal Palace. Speaking of the shooting Kooper into the hole in the wall, what was up with those clone "puzzles" in the ice area (especially the last one where we had Luigi, Kolorado, Goompapa, and some old Koopa saying they were Kooper)? Has anybody ever actually lost to those? The ending credits scene was a complete ripoff of Super Mario RPG, only not as cute. The biggest pleasure I got from it was when Mario and Peach walked off, came up to Mario's house, and dirty thoughts filled my head. Smithy could kick Bowser's ass, and you all know it. Where are these lemmings going? The Super Nintendo Super Shire**! Hop in line and follow them there! [ May 20, 2005, 11:11 PM: Message edited by: CodieKitty ]