Video Game Blog 020: Triple Feature #2

A few months back I went on a panic-induced buying spree of older console games, mostly filling up the storage on my Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. This was caused by the impending closure of those system’s digital stores and my fear that I would miss out on some games that I always wanted to play. It also felt like a waste to keep unused space on those systems. I did a similar thing on my PlayStation Vita a couple years ago. (Man, that one was a disappointment. It was a seriously solid handheld, but Sony didn’t give it the support it needed. I love my Vita.)

Anyway, I chronicled this in one of my previous posts and posted reviews of three of the games I bought for my Wii U. Well, right now I’m in the midst of a big project that won’t be done in time for my expected launch, so here we go with another look at some obscure gems I found in the soon-to-be closed digital store.

Metroid: Zero Mission (Credit: Nintendo)

Metroid: Zero Mission

Metroid: Zero Mission was released in 2004 for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance. This was a remake/update of the original NES Metroid game. (Which I didn’t realize— or forgot— when I bought it.) It used the same game engine as Metroid Fusion, which was a really fun game.

Pew pew! (Credit: Nintendo)

Gameplay: This game plays a lot like the original. Metroid, for those who haven’t played it, is a classic action adventure game where you take the role of space bounty hunter Samus Aran, who travels to planet Zebes and encounters dangerous lifeforms called Metroids, as well as space pirates led by the evil and gross Mother Brain. At first your area of exploration is very small but it opens up as you get more powerups. Examples of these are the Morphball that lets you get through small gaps, the High Jump, and the Ice Beam, which lets you freeze enemies to use as platforms.

Fancy. (Credit: Nintendo)

Thoughts: This game is essentially Metroid, which is good and bad. Good because Metroid is awesome. Bad because it really doesn’t bring a lot new to the table from what I’ve seen so far. At first I was wondering what’s the point? I mean, my initial impression was that it seemed a tad unnecessary. The original Metroid is available for free on Switch Online. But the more I played the more I realized the updated controls and graphics (the cut scenes are cool) are a nice improvement. If I’m completely honest, original recipe Metroid is a bit crude by today’s standards. This game does include new items, areas, and bosses, so it’s worth a try. It’s not enough to give it an identity of its own apart from its predecessor, but it’s still a fun remake. As long as you treat it as a remake, the execution isn’t wrecked by the expectations.

The controls are much smoother than the original, so that’s a big plus mark right there. The music, however, is horribly repetitive. I had it running while I was taking notes for this post and it nearly drove me crazy. This may be one of those rare games that I mute while I go through it and play Utada or something in the background. It’s also one of those games that plays a horrendous whooping sound when you’re near death, so there’s another reason to mute it.

I played long enough to get the Long Beam and my first batch of missiles, then I got whupped by a giant centipede mini boss, so I packed it in there. I’ll revisit it sometime and play it through, though. I bought it, I play it. That’s the rule.

Mario Party DS (Credit: Nintendo)

Mario Party DS

Mario Party DS was released by Nintendo and published by Hudson Soft for the Nintendo DS in 2007. Yes, another Mario Party game. After my mixed reaction to Mario Party Advance, I was hoping this one would be better. It… sort of was?

Just look at these awkward visuals. (Credit: Nintendo)

Gameplay: Just like in most Mario Party games, the objective is to roll a die and travel across a gameboard to gather more stars than your opponents. At the end of each round you all compete in a minigame to earn coins. In a nice change from MP Advance, this game keeps that core gameplay. (If you recall, MP Advance was a weird hybrid of simplified board game and minigame player.) Just like with MP Advance, this game has an exhaustive single player mode, which is good for me, since the multiplayer features that the game was so proud of are not available at all on the Virtual Console version I bought. This locks me out of a great portion of the game and one of the main draws of the Mario Party series. Still, I’m a completionist and I wanted to play this one too.

Okay, this is worse, but it’s okay on the Gamepad. (Credit: Nintendo)

Thoughts: Okay, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. As you can see in the above two screenshots, this is a terrible port. This is the second DS game I’ve played on the Wii U, the first being Animal Crossing Wild World. So the problem with porting DS games (and the reason two of the installments in the Kingdom Hearts series were not playable in the remakes… they were remade into HD cutscenes instead) is that the DS splits graphics between the top screen and the bottom screen. The bottom screen is used for sylus input while the top screen, depending on the game, can be the main visual focus of the game or a menu/map. (In Animal Crossing Wild World it was just the sky and where you would see balloons go by.) In order to fit this on a television screen, you have to do some acrobatics, and the results can be mixed. The game first loaded up in a tiny DS skin where both screens were as intended, but both were too tiny to be any use. There are different options, though, so I tinkered with them. The top screenshot is big bottom screen, small top screen, which made the map, turn order, coin ad star count and other info almost unreadable. The second screenshot is a slightly better option where you play on the gamepad and turn it on its side. This has a downside too, in that the control stick is on the bottom and the buttons are on the top, sideways. The minigame in that screenshot was wrecked by this because I kept hitting where the B button should be, not where it actually was (in the place of the A button). All options suck… I think my answer may be to play that way, but use the small television graphics for anything that requires button input.

So yeah, the porting makes this game an utter mess, but it’s not completely unplayable. I think after a few rounds I should be able to find a configuration that works for me. I think once I get over the awkwardness of the port, this will be a fun game. The graphics and music are decent… not up to par with the console installments of the series, but better than MP Advance by miles. The loss of multiplayer, while expected, still lowers the score a bit. I appreciate that it’s a standard Mario Party game without the weirdness that MP Advance brought to the table. All in all, this port is a disappointment, but I’ll still play it a bit.

Mario Kart DS (Credit: Nintendo)

Mario Kart DS

Mario Kart DS was released by Nintendo in 2005. This is the one I was waiting for! As mentioned in the previous post, I love Mario Kart and so far all the installments have been a lot of fun.

Dang it Bowser. Watch where I’m going. (Credit: Nintendo)

Gameplay: This one plays like a regular Mario Kart game. There are a wealth of items (sometimes too many) and for some reason this one has no coins to gather on the track. It has the different difficulties (or cc’s) of tracks, mirror courses, time trials, and more. This one also features different kart choices, which is not something MK Super Circuit had.

I’m pretty impressed that both Mario games allowed me to use my full name. (Credit: Nintendo)

Thoughts: Although this game suffered from the same porting issues as MP DS, they weren’t nearly as noticeable on this one. The top screen was mostly used for the map, placings, and extra info like that, so I found myself rarely squinting at the too-small box. The controls are smooth and responsive. The graphics and music are fantastic. As I mentioned above, the items got a bit ridiculous. There were times that I was hit by a squid, then a red shell, then a blue shell, all in rapid succession. (The opponents seem to get a lot of blue shells.) As with all the virtual console games, multiplayer is inaccessible, but that’s fine. I still have fun playing by myself. (Although nothing quite matches up to a Mario Kart race with friends and family.) After winning each cup, I will need to bump it up because 50 cc seems easier than in the other Mario Kart games that I have tried. After getting ahead of my opponents, I rarely saw them again in the race. (Except when I slammed into that damn semi truck and careened off the edge plummeting me to fifth place. Still I somehow eked out first place in the final lap. See? Too easy.)

Out of the three games I covered here, this was the one I played for the longest and will likely go back to the most. Mario Kart is a good go-to game when you have a little time to kill and want to unwind. Although the console versions are bigger and flashier, this one still has a lot of charm and gave me a bunch of entertainment for the time I’ve played it so far.

Happy monkey! (Credit: Nintendo)

And there’s another triple feature for you! I hope you all are enjoying these posts. I doubt I’ll be able to do another one unless I can figure out a good way to screenshot my 3DS or Vita. (I need to get back to researching that.) Anyway, thank you all for joining me for another brief video game post. I appreciate you all and I’ll be back soon with more!

The end! (Credit: Nintendo)