More Nintendo piano action for you

I've been spending the last few weeks learning this song, the Hyrule Castle theme from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. And just so you know, this is probably the hardest piano song I've ever learned, and I have learned a lot over the years. Enjoy the music!

Mario's Many Moves: Flight

Through the use of a variety of power-ups, Mario has taken flight many times over the years. This began with the ever-famous Tanooki suit in the NES game Super Mario Bros. 3. The Tanooki leaf turns Mario into a raccoon-like form. The key feature of the Tanooki suit is the tail. Mario can spin the Tanooki tail to put the hurt on enemies and also fly into the sky. Infinite flight would destroy the integrity of a Mario platformer, so the Tanooki tail's power is limited.

As Mario moved from 8- to 16-bit, he maintained his ability to fly with the feather power-up in Super Mario World. No, the feather did not grant him wings: instead, it adorned him in a bright yellow cape. Though it grants him the same ability as the Tanooki tail, the cape feels and controls entirely different. Mario can soar into the sky with enough momentum, but maintaining that flight turns out to be a tad more tricky in SMW. I would love to tell you exactly how it's done, but I'm afraid I don't know myself!

Flight in a 3-D Mario platformer turned out even more different. In Super Mario 64, the wing cap is the power-up of choice for flight. To lift from the ground to soaring heights, Mario need only perform a consecutive high jump with the wing cap on. After that, it's a matter of alternately diving and reaching for the sky again in smooth, sweeping motions.

So there you have it! Not all of it, of course, but I hope you'll play all the Mario you can to discover the secrets of flight for yourself! Have a splendid weekend!

Now Playing: Week of March 31-April 6

Weekly "Now Playing" posts will begin appearing on the Nintendo Lifeline every Saturday, letting you know what Mary and I are planning to play (and possibly review *winks*) in the coming week. So, without further introduction, let's jump right in:

Holly
Me? I could sure tell you what I want to play, but that list would take up a massive amount of post. What I need to play is Okami. My chemistry lab is over for the semester, which will surely free up time in my schedule. On the handheld front, I'm ecstatic to let you all know that I recently picked up the Gameboy Advance game Golden Sun, to which I'm officially hooked. And I'll most likely finish up Kid Icarus: Uprising this week as well. Excitebots: Trick Racing is my current Gamefly rental, so, in the words of Fi, I calculate a 99.99% chance that I will finish it during the week. In addition to all of that, I hope to play some of my Virtual Console games: Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy III, Actraiser, and Donkey Kong Country to name a few.

Mary
Mary being even busier than me, she has made a single video game goal for the week: to reach a different ending in Chrono Trigger. You all know how high school is! Sports, friends, family, homework, musical instruments, etc. It's sheer chaos!

And you?
The final question, though, is what are you playing this week?

Joe and Mac - a review

One of the greatest two player games of all time on the Super Nintendo is Joe and Mac. If you haven't heard of this game you are crazy. This game takes place in the dinosaur era where you are a caveman. Strangely enough even though you are a caveman you talk as if you are from the coast. Everything is "Bogus Dude; we gotta save the babes!" I know, it doesn't make any sense at all! Besides that it's a really fun game. As the opening explains why you're going on you're quest to fight big bad Dino's, you get a cute little scene. Neanderthal Nerds (as the game puts them) come into your village and scare off the "totally hot babes". It is your job to go around you're world and save all of the girls whom have gotten into a lot of trouble. Pretty awesome story line!

This is a great game by yourself, but if you want the full experience, I would suggest to grab a buddy that you can have a little friendly competition with without it getting to out of hand! At the end of each level you must face some sort of prehistoric animal, and whoever ends up hitting that animal the most times gets the rewarding kiss on the cheek from the pretty girl who was being held captive. This game is full of fun and adventure. It takes only a little bit of skill and strategizing; a very good game for beginners. Make sure that if you play it with a friend, sibling, or anybody that you don't hate them. This game can get very competitive when it comes to getting good power ups, meat, and the final kiss at the end. This game is a definite five out of five stars! I still play this game; and even though I am writing a review on it I still haven't killed the very last ending guy! Joe and Mac is so easy yet so challenging! If you haven't already give it a try; it's totally worth it!

New Years Resolution

Whereas most people have a resolutions list for their life (as in, how to make it better), I have come up with a Nintendo New Years Resolution list! Here it is:

1. Beat Ocarina of Time
2. Play at least one game of NCAA
3. Play all of the games in my SNES collection
4. (This one isn't my proudest) Beat an RPG without cheats OF ANY KIND! (Little brothers included)
5. Beat all video game RPGs that I've started, gotten really far in, and stopped playing BECAUSE IT'S TOO STINKING HARD!!

Yes these are all of my resolutions. I will try very very hard to at least do half of them! (Yes I realize there are five of them, which means I'll do one halfway through . . .) Wish me luck! I wish luck to all of you who are also brave enough to come up with a resolution list and stick to it, be it Nintendo related or not!

Nintendo Music: Wind Scene

I love music because, like many other forms of art, it has the ability to produce feelings in the human being. Oftentimes, these feelings cannot be described in words, so music is its own beautiful kind of language.

Today's music selection comes from the SNES game Chrono Trigger. It is a great example of a piece of music that creates a feeling that is hard to nail down. Not to mention it augments the feeling that the actual game is portraying at the time it's played.

By the way, in addition to having awesome music, this game is just an overall amazing experience. Enjoy the tune!

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest: A First

So I finally got my hands on DKC 2! Well I gotta say I loved it! I mean it kept to the original pretty well but it also went off on some of its own stuff. I liked that a lot; every game has to have its own attraction to it. It can't just ride off of the first game, contrary to some peoples' beliefs. Of course a question that I was asked by Holly was: Did I like the first or second one better? Ooooh, tough decision!

Well, as of right now, I definitely like the first one better. Heck I probably always will, though I do have to admit the second one is growing on me. I love how it is its own game! I just can't get over it!! I thought that it'd be a lot like the first but boy was I wrong! Sure it has a new character but there were other things too! Some things were missing (like Candy Kong at the save points) but they still kept some other things (like Diddy Kong and Funky Kong) and of course they added new things as well (like coins to collect).

All in all I was really happy with this game. There was one thing that sort of threw me off though. It was the graphics of the game. I don't know if it was because I was playing it on the Wii or if they were just strange; the point is, I didn't like them. Somehow they were too different from the first one. I don't know why! On the bright side I can now say I have played all four of the Donkey Kong Country's. The first one is definitely the greatest in my mind, but hey, maybe that'll be different in the future!

Strange new world: The RPG genre and me

I know a thing or two about the RPG genre! I've played Pokemon since I was ten! Other than that...well, who needs more?

My line of thought was somewhere along those lines before I played a little game called Chrono Trigger. RPG's, where have you been all my life! That's what my new thoughts are.

But before I get ahead of myself, let's go over the meaning of "RPG" first. RPG stands for role-playing game. A "party" is almost always key to the RPG formula. Leveling up is also a necessary ingredient. Battles must be fought. These can be turn-based or action-based. In a turn-based battle, each active character can choose how to act, then the battle proceeds, generally with the fastest character attacking (or not attacking) first. Thus, a certain degree of strategy is involved in turn-based battles. Action-based battles, on the other hand, play out much like battles in any action-adventure game. In fact, "Action RPG" is its own sub-genre.

I hope that at least gives you the gist of it. Back to Chrono Trigger! What a spectacular game! I must acknowledge Mary as the one to whom I owe the finding of this game. The question that remains now is this: is the RPG genre for everyone? Absolutely not! And I'll tell you why: many gamers want that quick burst of gameplay, which comes from a Mario platformer, or a Star Fox shooter, or a Wii Sports party-er, or a Mario Kart racer. There's a great deal of complexity in RPG games! And, oftentimes, there's a degree of drag to them as well. It was hard even for me, a big Pokemon fan, to accept the foreign RPG style of Chrono Trigger (What? I can't catch 'em all in this game?! Ludicrous!). But the bare-bones truth is, RPG's provide deep, rewarding experiences that are worth all the trouble of learning all there is to know about them. So dig a little deeper, and maybe you'll find that there's an RPG fan in you after all!

Super Mario RGP: Legend of the Seven Stars

I got to say I love this game! It's very exciting! Well if you haven't heard about it then you must be thinking, "Oh okay it's just another Super Mario game where you go through the levels. Than you get to each ending guy and blah blah blah same thing!" Now I'm not saying that doing the same old thing is bad, I mean it's Super Mario for petes sake! Although doing the same thing can be fun, sometimes doing something different is even better. This game, my friend, is definitely something different!

You see instead of having level after level of pure awesomeness, this game is in fact a true RPG. There are more than three boxes of dialog, (that mind you, in the original games only come after you've defeated an ending guy, and usually ended with "But the princess is in another castle!"), and instead of killing people by jumping on them, you actually get in a battle with them! I'm talking the kind of battles where you can strategize and such wonderful things! Now I have your attention don't I?

So this game starts off with such an 'original' beginning. Peach gets kidnapped. Wow, didn't see that one coming. Of course I'm just joking around. I mean it wouldn't be a real Mario game unless Peach did get kidnapped! The one who does the deed is, of course, Bowser! Personally he's always been my favorite in all the games! He's just too helpless! I mean even in this game he isn't the all mighty and powerful ending guy! That title goes to . . . well let us not spoil that little tid bit of information shall we?

Anyways! Well Mario goes off to save Peach, and guess what? He does! Not too far into the game you save Peach! She joins your party along with a certain bad guy. Bowser shows his sensitive side, which to us is a really hilarious side, to Mario. Turns out he got kicked out of his castle! The one who did was - wait, what? A giant sword? With eyes and a mouth? Now it gets interesting!

Mario goes off on a quest to get Bowser back his castle. Though this isn't the intention of the game. What you really are meant to do is repair Star Road! A place that was broken when the giant sword split right through it! Without Star Road no dreams will ever come true! Now we can't let that happen! So the seven stars that make up Star Road have to be found! 

Of course I won't spoil anything for you but I will give you a hint as to who appears in this little RPG of ours! The cast includes: Geno, a doll possessed by a celestial spirit from the Star Road. Peach/Princess Toadstool, who refused to just sit back! Bowser, a sensitive bad guy gone good. Mallow, a . . . tadpole? These are our main characters! Really quite an interesting bunch! Of course there are side characters! Yoshi for instance! I mean it really wouldn't be Super Mario without him am I right? What else do you need to complete the super awesome Super Mario stew? Mario's jump!

This does make an appearance of course! Through out the game people are constantly trying to prove that he is the one and only Mario. So how does he do it? He jumps! That along with in battle; this is where you can use a special technique where if you time tapping the X button along with his jumps you take off more HP!

One ending you guy face is one that may spark some interest. I can't give you full details since doing that would ruin the story for you. All I have to say is: Axem Rangers. They're like the power rangers except EVIL! MUAHAHAHAHA!!! Anyways, if you have the time, pick up the game and go on an adventure! Of course you'll have to own a Super NES or an internet-ready Wii if you want to play it! Trust me it's completely worth it! For more information on this game here's a website! I've read through most of it and deem it correct! Just don't read too far into it or else you'll know the whole story!!

Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Country Returns

In this situation it's the old against the new. Which one is more popular? Which is more fun? Which one is greater? I have been wondering this since the very beginning! To tell you the truth when DKCR first came out I was prejudiced against it. I thought that there was no way it could ever match up to the old and original DKC! After all it's one of the greatest nintendo games of all time! Though after some time I finally got to play DKCR. I have to say I was pretty impressed.

It is fun to play and simple enough. I was actually really excited to play it! I mean hello it was DK and Diddy! Who wouldn't be excited? They were finally back and ready to go! Of course they got their bananas stolen (goish talk about losing your bananas instead of your marbles...hmm I wonder which is worse?) and that is what starts them off onto their adventure. There are some downsides to the new DKCR though. One that really irks me on is the bad guys.

I do understand that in this day and age that they can make some seriously wicked bad guys but I miss the old ones. What ever happened to the annoying little beavers and the stripedy snakes? The bees and the scary jumping alligator thingys?! It's depressing, it truly is! I liked killing those guys they'd always make funny noises. I'm not creepy I swear! It's just that they were so obnoxious, when you finally killed them you'd get some satisfaction...The upside to having different guys is the little scene at the beginning it's super funny and way cute! 

One thing that I really like about DKCR is that they really do return. It's not just a remake of the old one. It has new boards and a new supreme evil guy that for some reason wants bananas just as much as monkeys want them. Though that does confuse me! Why do they need bananas? Sure they came out of a volcano and probably want some food, but still!! Are they going to roast them on a stick? Actually, that does sound quite apatizing...I'll be right back. (Gets a banana and a stick and tries to roast them over a fire) OKAY NO!! So now I don't understand why he wants the bananas.

Anyways my conclusion is that I really do like both of these games. DKC is of course the original and will forever be number one in my heart. DKCR is a close second. One thing I do have to say though is that I think that it is definitely better than DCK 3. I've never played 2 so I don't really know. Well now that you have read this go and play these two fabulous games and decide which is better! Stop reading this and go do it. Like right now. So why are you still reading this? 

Donkey Kong Country: 8 million copies sold worldwide
Donkey Kong Country Returns: 4.2 million copies sold worldwide

Chrono Trigger - to easy?

Chrono Trigger for the Super Nintendo is, of course, a blast! The only question is: Was it just too easy? I don't know about you but I absolutely love challenging games!!! The kind that really make you work hard and actually strategize. In most RPG games you may only have three people that you stick with the entire time. They are the highest leveled and have the best equipment. That's where this game changes the rules.

You can do special Techs, or Techniques, with different sets of characters. This gives you a one up with most enemies, but you have to strategize or else it's all for naught. That is what makes Chrono Trigger so challenging and fun. Then you get to the point where you have your favorite combination of three with the Techs that can do it all. They can heal, damage, and protect. Due to that, they are just so very strong. So then it becomes so simple, you just wish you had a "That Was Easy" button. That's when the game gets boring and you want it harder.

Of course it doesn't stay like that for long. When you finally get those amazing Techs that can do pretty much anything (that's it, I'm calling them Supermans from now on because lets admit it Superman can do ANYTHING!) your main character, Chrono, disappears from the picture. This forces you to put a different third party member in, screwing up the awesome thing you had going. Therefore it makes the game harder.

How could that make it harder? Well first you now have to level up your other characters. You know,the ones you barely use, because you don't know who's going to be there one second and then suddenly be a rainbow of crystals the next! When you finally get someone to a sufficient level, you can start playing the game again. This is where it gets really difficult. At this point, you can choose to do side quests or save Chrono. The combination of these two vital tasks will have you running all over the place to keep it all together.

After you finally finish doing all the quests and getting Chrono back you can beat the game. That itself is pretty hard. So if you do all of that the game is pretty hard. So now you're thinking, "Then what the poop is the point  of this post?" Well here it is: The whole time you could have played on a New Game+. This allows you to start a new game with your old game data. Usually you can only do this after you beat the whole game. Once again though the Super Nintendo breaks this rule. From the very beginning you could have done it. This makes the game a whole lot easier! It's almost like cheating.

If you couldn't get past an ending guy well, looky here, start it over with New Game+ and all problems are solved. It becomes the easiest game ever. You can even start it while you're not very far into the game and you will still have a heads up on everything. So with that said, is this game too easy - or is it just right -  or even is it too hard? Looks like someone *stares at reader* just has to play the game to find out. Then after that go and try it on the Playstation. You see cool little video clips and it's a little more challenging because you don't have the New Game+ option from the very beginning. It's a very fun game!

Metroid Fusion and the dawn of familiarity

Well, the stars aligned for me to play the fourth installment in the Metroid series. Said installment is, of course, Metroid Fusion for the GameBoy Advance system. Two events that were necessary for me to really enjoy a Metroid game occurred just in time for Fusion. The first is that I built a strong enough foundation composed of Metroid series basics to avoid (much) frustration. The second is the game itself: Metroid Fusion has the smoothest control scheme of any installment that came before it.

Nearly every video game series, be it Mario or Zelda, has its own way of doing things. Coincidentally, I grew up with Mario and Zelda, so the basic principles of those games are stuck with me. I did not grow up with Metroid. But after playing the NES original and the SNES iteration, I've learned and solidified the basic principles. Samus Aran, a bounty hunter in a sci-fy space world, is always the main and playable character. She does a kind of spin through the air when she jumps diagonally. A host of power-ups and upgrades can be added to her suit through the course of any given adventure. If in doubt, bomb everything in sight, or use bombs to catapult Samus into hidden shafts. I get it now. And that foundation has enhanced the Metroid experience ten-fold for me. 

Still more important than that are the improvements made with Metroid Fusion itself. I distinctly remember the thrill I got when I first discovered Samus's ledge grip ability. Going back to previous Metroid games and finding Samus incapable of grabbing onto ledges made the gameplay feel incomplete indeed. The rest of the gameplay in Fusion feels flawless and comfortable, not to mention fun. Samus's ever-growing list of weapons and abilities are easy to manage and use.

This may shock you, but the next Metroid game I'll experience will be Metroid: Other M, which is the most recent installment. Sorry if that disappoints you, but I found a brand-new copy of the game for $20 (a steal!), and I can no longer let it sit dormant. See you in two days!

Super Metroid and Expectations

On a scale of great influences in my early life, the Super Nintendo is second only to the Nintendo 64. Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario World, X-Men: Apocalypse, Street Fighter 2, Donkey Kong Country 2...all considered, is it really surprising that my love of Nintendo has lasted so long?

One game that never made it into the family Super Nintendo library was Super Metroid. What a great game, right? I had some serious expectations prior to playing this. Apparently it's one of the best games in the entire Metroid series. Possibly due to all of this praise, Super Metroid fell short for me. The same happened with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Here's what really mystifies me though (and keep focused, this could get messy): A Link to the Past didn't keep my attention very long for obvious reasons. I mean, I grew up on Ocarina of Time, so I'm partial to 3D Zeldas. As for the Metroid series, I began with the NES original. Super Metroid blew that game out of the water, right...? RIGHT?! Then why do I seem to like the original Metroid better than Super Metroid? I may never learn the answer.

I'm happy to say that I at least found a boss battle to enjoy on Super Metroid, which is more than I can say for Metroid. Also, the atmosphere of Super Metroid is genuinely awesome, thanks to eerie sound effects/music and creepy enemies. Given a choice between Metroid and Super Metroid, however, I would rather play Metroid. Call a doctor if you feel you must.