Conquered : Super Mario Brothers 3

Sweet. Super Mario Brothers 3 is freaking amazing. I grew up with a Sega Genesis, so my gaming started with platform video games. Since I've moved in to "bigger and better" gaming systems, I've always held classic platform games in a negative light. When I decided to take SMB3 I was a little weary. I expected an unbeatable game (when you're 5 years old, any game on Genesis is pretty much unbeatable), that would offer little diversity and seem never ending. I was totally wrong. Playing through SMB3 was a completely unique and fun experience. The reason this update took so long to come about? I beat it three times. Yes. After going through it the first time, I loaded up the first map, and told myself I would go through the first few levels just for fun. The first few levels turned into the first few worlds, turned into the entire game again, turned into let's just see how high of a score I can get by beating it a third time. Not only that, SMB3 offers players the opportunity to explore worlds, and find crazy secrets in almost every level. I'm pretty sure my childhood desire to beat old school Genesis / NES games came through these past few weeks, and I'm more than happy about it!

Way happier than you, Mario, you f*ck. "Shows emotion while saving a princess".

The Story :
Really? It's Mario. You have to save the princess. But really, I've played the first two Mario Games, and SMB3 has a lot of conspiracy behind it (maybe I'm an idiot and what I'm about to say isn't conspiracy but is, in fact...fact, so I'm wrong). But the game starts off with a curtain coming down, and a lot of people say that you aren't actually rescuing the princess, but you are putting on a play. Maybe, but this game still f*cking rocks, and I'm going to insist on the fact that it f*cking rocks a lot throughout this review.

Mario. Fucking. Rocks.

Graphics, Sound, Atmosphere and the Likes :
I never thought an old school platform game can create an overall awesome experience, but SMB3 did. Without further a-do (wtf does that even mean?), let's break it down...

The graphics were actually surprisingly good. They are basic, yes, but they are easy on the eyes and enjoyable. They don't work to blow you away, but they work to make you happy. They are enjoyable, simple, entertaining, and lots of other things. It's not like developers had a lot to work with, but they still managed to give some enjoyable look-ats. The game was a pretty good fusion of "modern for its time" graphics that provide a minimal amount of detail as well as the old school video game strategy of making tons of colorful shit flash in your face to get you excited.

Sound, oh sound. Of course, I recognized the infamous Mario theme song. But seeing as this is the first Mario game I've played through, or for that matter, the first Mario game that I've gotten through the first world in, I was happy to hear a lot of familiar tunes and actually get a grip on their roots. I'm talking about the music, of course. The music is great, for tons of reasons. The biggest reason being that Mario is iconic in video games across much of the world, and a lot of people recognize the music. The language may be different, but anytime someone heres that "DA DA DA da da DAAAAA da" (you know what I mean) they almost always think Mario, and that's awesome. The music in SMB3 makes the game feel like a true adventure. Even with it's limited-of-the-time-technology it was still good and extremely enjoyable.

Atmosphere? Hell yea, atmosphere. Mario travels across tons of different themed worlds, and they all suck you in. Whether the theme be ice, desert, sky....cloudsishness, or hordes of tanks / naval battle ships intent on blowing you to hell, SMB3 will lasso you like Wonder Woman and force you to admit you're immeresed. I always thought it was hard for platform games to give gamers a diverse gaming experience, but I was wrong, every world, and every level in a world, was different. It faced the player with a different challenge. Whether it was making a sure a player could stop short on an icy platform or making sure a player could time their jumps perfectly to earn boxed - stars (invincibility) so they could sprint across a never ending line of deadly flowers, SMB3 sucked you in. It had the looks, the sound, and the gameplay to offer players a diverse and immersive feeling at each and every level.

The limited technology in SMB3 creates more atmosphere than the entire movie this screenshot comes from...whatever movie it may be...

Controls and Gameplay :
For my past few articles, Controls and gameplay has been a worthy amount of reading. For SMB3, all I have to say is simply controls. Left, right, jump, duck, that's it.

Well, that may be it, but SMB3 is more than left, right, jump and duck. This is where gameplay comes into view. SMB3 actually involves strategy. There are times in SMB3 where your movement and choice of action are very particular, and this helps make the game awesome and challenging. You can't barrel through every level (at least not until you learn said level) and expect to win. SMB3 requires timing and expertise of Mario's abilities. Throughout the game, you can collect certain items that give you abilities, such as the ability to fly, shoot fireballs, or hop like a frog and only be helpful on water levels (for the record, I fucking hate water levels, no matter the game). But anyway, SMB3 is a game of strategy, no doubt, and the items you can collect only add to that strategy. At times, you have to be particular about your use of ability, your choice to jump, when to duck, strafe either way, ahh it blows my mind. A platforming game that actually makes you sit down and think out your strategy. No doubt plenty of platforming games are like this, but please keep in mind, this is the first old school platforming game I've actually beaten, under the assumption that all platform games only consist of jumping and running, so this blows my mind. But every level in SMB3 challenges you to find different ways to use Mario's controls and abilities to overcome any obstacle...and each obstacle can be overcome in many different ways, which is why Mario is awesome. So awesome! The gameplay is just great, this game did not become one of the greatest video games of all time for no reason. If you haven't beaten it yet, stop reading this garbage and go grab a (virtual) copy so you can. You will not regret it, and you will understand my limited ability to put it into words.
 

Maps (Worlds) :
As I stated before, each world (and every level in every world, for that matter) is very unique, Each world is themed, and there are 8 worlds. I can't name every world off the top of my head, but the range from desert, ice and sky to shit I can't even really explain, but consists of a lot of pipes, flowers and tanks, (yes, tanks. I never knew there were tanks in Mario).

Only Stalin-Mario can really beat those tanks.

Characters :
Well, you have, of course, Mario....you know, THE video game icon. It's crazy to think about it, but one video game icon that any gamer would recognize is Mario. Aside from the red-overalled plumber, you have Luigi, who can be used by the second player in 2 player mode (he never got as much recognition. Luigi's Mansion?.....uh, right), Toad, Bowser, Goombas (and every other iconic Mario baddie), the Princess (I might be wrong, but was the princess not Peach in SMB3? Looked like Daisy), and, of course, my most favorite baddie of all time, BOWSER! Characters for SMB3 are easy, because they are iconic. So you know, Mario characters.

Summary :
Like I stated before, I had a ton of fun playing SMB3. This game offers so much, for so many different ranges of gamers. For example, for those who like to explore, almost every other level has secrets and can only be reached by exploration. For high scorers, you can finish this game with a score of almost nil (as I did the first time around, because I died in Bowser's castle and had to use a continue, thus bringing my final score down to 0) to a score in the millions (by the third time I beat SMB3, I had a score of 2.5 million, holy moly). For die-hard gamers, you can make your own challenges in SMB3. Try to get through the whole game by beating every level in every world (which is not required), or without using special items, or any other challenge you can think of. SMB3 is really just a ton of fun. It has tons of replay value, and what's cool is  the replay value is totally up to the player. Each time you play, you decide how worthwhile you want to make the game. You can make it challenging or easy, crazy or.....sane?

A true gamer could actually make SMB3 this intense...

Favorite World : The desert world. I remember that flying sun tormenting me when I was little. Being able to best it in a matter of seconds was such an awesome feeling. When you're young, that stupid Sun can look invincible. Once I realized all I had to do was jump to avoid it, it felt so great. Fuck you, desert sun thing.
Most epic moment : This may sound corny, but my most epic moment was anytime when I first discovered and "iconic" Mario World attribute. For instance, from the Super Smash Brothers games, I knew all about the flying boat type levels, but all my knowledge came from those SSB games. So the second I got to my first flying boat map (the ending of every world) in SMB3, it was pretty awesome. I heard that iconic music, and played through those legendary levels, and saw those video game roots for everything they were worth.
Biggest Annoyance : Really, I only have one complaint about SMB3. Bowser's Castle is actually kind of challenging the first few times through, but Bowser himself is not. You don't have to hurt him, or attack him in any way. All you have to do is dodge his fireballs, and let him break through the floor so he falls to his death. So the entire last battle consists of dodging. He basically kills himself. Beating any mini-boss at the end of one of those flying ship levels was more challenging than that. Honestly. His fire balls move slow, so they are easy to avoid. When he tries to jump on  you, his hand time is like 5 seconds, so you can move out of the way at your leisure. The game was insanely fun, the final battle was the boring part. I wish it were more epic and fulfilling.
Favorite Weapon (err....item) : This was a struggle. Everytime I played SMB3 I was always hyped about the flower that let you shoot fire balls, then I made myself look at the game realistically. The fire ball was cool, but the weird leaf thing that turns you into a flying raccoon (wtf, for real) was way better. It let you find tons of secrets and in some cases beat certain levels, whereas the fireball let you kill (some) enemies from a distance, and that's about it. Flying Raccoon leaf for the win.

Raccoon Leaf is awesome. This picture is scary.

 
Favorite Character : I really liked frog-suit mario. It was funny to watch. Mario wears a frog suit and hops. Also, I hate water levels in any video game, and the frog suit let you easily navigate any water levels in mario.



Final Say :
If you haven't played and beaten SMB3 yet, do it, now. NOW! It is actually a ton of fun. Play through it a few times, and you will feel like a real gamer. *Note, this game will have an affect on me. Expect to see an onslaught of Mario game challenges in the future.

Play. This. Now.

Just Beat : Super Mario Brothers 3

Holy Crap! SMB3 is a ton of fun. Review is on the way...in the mean time I think I'm going to play through again.
But seriously, SMB3 was awesome. I'm not surprised it is one of the greatest video games of all time. It's going to be hard to cover everything in one readable review but I'll make it work, so keep your eyes open. In the mean time, enjoy this picture.

Creepy

Still in the Console : Super Mario Bros. 3

Sweet, I'm having tons of fun playing this game. It looks like a simple platformer, but it's insanely enjoyable and challenging, which is a hard mix to get right. There's been times when I've been stuck on one level for a while, or chasing one of those flying ships around at the end of the world for a bit, but I'm still having fun. I'm on the second to last world now...Bowser's going down.

......ew

In the Console : Super Mario Brothers 3

I am really, really, really excited for Super Mario Bros. 3. This is the first classic game I'm taking on. I remember playing SMB3 on the Nintendo in my Grandpa's basement when I was little, and never getting past the first world. I would usually get past the first two levels and give up, grumbling in frustration. SMB3 is one of the top selling video games for Nintendo, and sits on the top of many gamers favorite game list. So here it goes, my first big classic game. Grab a 1UP Mario, it is time.

Bring it you Goombas!

Conquered : Jet Force Gemini

Wow, what the hell. After finishing this game, I still can't decide if I like it or not. It went from fast and fun to slow and boring. There's actually a pretty definitive point in the game where it starts to suck. I can see why JFG has become a cult classic, but I can also see why a lot of players turned their backs on it, and the reason it never caught on as a video game staple. Let's review...

The Story :
The story starts off, and stays, kind of bland. At the beginning of the game our characters are shown in a cutscene arriving at a planet in their spaceship, the Nubis (pretty sure it's the Nubis). They are boarded by human sized blue ants and forced to evacuate to a nearby planet, where you find out some evil dude Mizar is using his blue aunt army to take over the universe and inslave the adorable - yet soon to be hated by anyone who plays this game - Tribals, little white balls of fuzz who literally lose their heads if you shoot them. So, I guess, you have to take down Mizar and his army, saving the Tribals.

We're here to kick ass and...do whatever you tell us.

Graphics, Sound, Atmosphere and the Likes :
As with Zelda, JFG has pretty good graphics for it's time. They are clunky and imperfect, but doable. At times, though, the game gets skippy. If at any point there are too many enemies on the screen, or you unleash a hellstorm of rockets at a boss, the game slows down and seems like it has problems keeping up with what is on screen. It doesn't happen enough to ruin the game, but it can get annoying.

The sound of the game is 50/50. The sound effects are actually really good and effective. Enemy blood sounds squishy, gunfire matches the amount of bullets that you shoot and all that. The music itself is actually very good. It sounds professional and really helps players get into the game. When it is supposed to sound epic and adventurous, it does. When you are playing through a planet plagued with hot lava pits and dark caves, the music gets erie and dramatic. The only problem I had with the music was there was no actual soundtrack. Instead, all of the music was made up of short sound clips that loop continuously as you play. The longer you play, you actually start to hate the music, because it is the same thing over and over and over again. This gets especially annoying when you are spending a lot of time on one planet, trying to complete late-game objectives.

The music is a lot like this roller coaster. It loops, and it will make you puke.

As far as atmosphere goes, it didn't really grow on me. At the beginning of the game it seemed alright, but it never achieved what it really wanted to, that feeling of an "Interstellar Adventure". Nothing about this game feels "interstellar". Sure, you play on different planets, and a spaceship, but it never actually felt like that. Each planet just felt like a different level on the same planet. The spaceships could have been anything industrial, like a factory, or janitor's closet. The lack of originality and creativity that went into the games atmosphere left it feeling dry, and limited how much I enjoyed playing. The game border line failed on feeling like an actual adventure.

Controls and Gameplay :
The controls in JFG are a little different then most games. Instead of using the A / B buttons to jump and perform different actions, you use them to cycle through the weapons. Instead the "C" pad, the yellow arrows on the N64 controller, allow you to jump, strafe, crawl and occasionally hover. The joystick goes with the basic joystick N64 operations, you use it to walk, turn and aim. The controls were good, but the camera was not. This game is played in the third person, so you see your character in front of you as you control him / her. At times, your character would get ahead of the camera and you couldnt' see them if you were turning a corner. This causes a lot of run ins with enemies that could be prevented. It can also make it difficult to navigate some levels that require a lot of platform manuevering.

JFG seems to be lacking a lot more than other games, but the gameplay is solid and unique. One thing that worked well for it was the design of the game. It felt like Rare intended to make JFG as a 2D platform game, then turned it into a 3D semi-shooter at the last second, which turned out good. It was cool to navigate multiple platforms to get through levels, especially when you earn the jetpack attachment. Aside from its platform-esque gameplay, JFG also had the elements of a railshooter. When the time came for a boss battle, your character was limited to left and right movement (and jumping). There was a crosshair in the middle of the screen, and you could fire away. This actually worked really well, as during regular gameplay you usually auto-aimed and rarely used the manual targeting feature. It also made boss battles a little more difficult, but kept the difficulty on a reasonable level. The diverse gameplay helps keep JFG alive.

Dodge left, dodge right, shoot, repeat!

Another thing that helps JFG a lot is the multiplayer. There are tons of multiplayer modes that players unlock as they play, and they seem pretty fun. In the days before online gaming, I could see JFG thriving because of its multiplayer alone.

Another fun bonus is a robot named Floyd. You save Floyd in one of the earlier levels and he spends the duration of the game flying around whatever character you are playing as. This is cool for two reasons. One, there are hidden points through the game that act as many games for Floyd. Players get to fly him through tunnels and the likes to beat mini games that earn them unlockables. Second, Floyd turns the game into a sort of co-op video game. A person playing on a second controller can aid the first player by using Floyds gun. His guns are pretty powerful, they have unlimited ammo and Floyd can't be killed. The only downside is he never leaves the main characters side, so you are limited on movement.


Now comes the huge, fun killing, made me hate JFG part of the review. Throughout the game, you think that you simply have to fight through planets, reunite the JFG team and take down Mizar. So you do just that, except the fight with Mizar is ridiculously easy. Why? Because Rare didn't think the game was long enough. Instead of killing Mizar, he escapes and send an asteroid hurtling towards Earth. The only way to save it is to use an ancient spaceship, which is missing a bunch of parts. You are told you have to go back through all the planets you already beat to find these missing parts and oh yea, save every single tribal in the fucking game. Are you kidding me? There were times when just getting through a planet was tedious, and now I have to find every single hidden tribal in the game? After learning all this, you are given new armor with jetpacks, and you find out you can now use any character on any planet. Seems good right?....right.

Across the level, you will lose all will to live as this game slowly kills your soul.

Truth is, using any character on any planet is a curse. Each character has a different ability, like the ability to swim (you can all save the universe, but not all of you can swim?) or hover across mediocre distances. This allows you to access new areas of planets hiding more Tribals, and spaceship parts. This seems cool at first, but is actually extremely annoying. Let's say one planet has two hidden areas, one that can be found by swimming, the other hovering, and each one is about halfway through the regular play area of the planet. Since the game starts you off at the beginning of a planet everytime you change characters, you have to go through some planets two or three times to find all the Tribals it is hiding. This gets so tedious it completely kills everything that is good about the game. To make it worse, you can't just charge through areas to get where you want. Most of the time, each area is blocked by a "life force door" that can only be unlocked by killing all the enemies in that area. This makes the game so long and drawn out. Everything gets dulled out because you do it so much, that by the time you finish you wish you rescued all the Tribals just to see them get dumped into a giant paper shredder.

Maps (Planets) :
They are fun, but I don't think much time went into them. Some are woodsy, some have hot lava, and some look like giant pyramids. They weren't bad, but they weren't amazing.

Characters :
The JFG team is made up of three heros, Juno, Vela, and Lupus the dog. Lupus was fun, just because he's a dog who can hover. Oh, he also turns into a tank halfway through the game. Aside from the heros, you have Mizar who looks like a cross between a spider and a butterfly (who turns out to be neither, but that's a big spoiler.) There's King Jeff, the Tribal who guides you through the game and walks really slow. JFG also has a pretty big cast of small role characters, such as a turtle whose pants you have to retrieve from a tree. These characters kept the game fun and fresh, but they didn't do so enough.
As far as enemies go, they are all giant bugs or flying UFO's (which made little sense). Most of the time you are fighting big blue ants, or big purple.....upright purple guys, with rocket launchers. You also take on hovering UFO looking enemies, who tend to fly into an area and hover in one spot making for some fun machine gun rampages. The enemies to toss it up every once in a while with things like riot shields and sniper rifles, but they all mostly look the same and have one of two actions, shooting and running.

If I had to play this game again, I'd run away too.

Summary :
JFG simply left a bad taste in my mouth. I got the feeling that Rare thought the game wasn't long enough, so they added a lot of mind numbing objectives that killed the mood. JFG started off as a fun, save the world shooter and turned into an I want this shit to be done so I can get on with my life game. Playing through the same planet again and again simply got annoying and, truthfully, boring. By the time I was done I felt like Rare didn't actually finish JFG in the way they wanted, but they were forced to release it anyway.

Favorite Planet - None in particular. I guess I'm leaning towards Mizar's palace, because it looked pretty.
Most Epic Moment - Beating the boss for Lupus the dog. You have to fight two Praying Mantis' at the same time. It's hard to conserve ammo and took me quite a few tries, but those guys fell hard.
Biggest Annoyance : The second half of the game. Period.
Favorite Weapon : Tri Rockets. They always saved the day.
Favorite Character : Lupus. He's a tank dog!

Final Say :
If you play it, just pretend you killed Mizar and won the game after the first fight. Nothing else is worth it.

Just Beat : Jet Force Gemini

Holy crap, I am happy to be done with this game. It got so repetitive it was borderline torture. It wasn't a horrible game by any means, but the second half, well....review and write up coming soon. For now, I'm happy I am done, and I am going to soak in this feeling.

At times, this game made me look like that dog.

Still in the Console : Jet Force Gemini

Oh boy, this game just got a whole lot bigger than a thought. To sum it up quick, from the beginning the point of the game seems to be dedicating yourself to saving a race of Mogwai-looking furry aliens simply called "Tribals" the from a guy named Mizar and his blue ant looking army. The game is pretty linear as you assume the role of either of the three main characters, blazing through blue ant armies with a vast array of weapons to reach Mizar in his palace and take him down. Alas, I reached Mizar pretty quickly and to tell the truth, was dissappointed by one of the easiest boss battles I've seen in the history of video games...or so I thought.

You may be crafty, but you still can't decide if you want to be a spider or a butterfly.

After you "defeat" Mizar, he goes and commandeers and asteroid (yes, he literally sits inside of it) with the intentions of slamming it into Earth. That's when you find out that the only way to beat him is by freeing all the Tribals and finding 12 parts to some ancient spaceship that hasn't run in years. It doesn't sound too bad, to someone who hasn't played the game. But let me tell you....ugh. That's all I have to say. I'm not trying to go into much detail, but throughout the duration of the first half of the game, there are Tribals hidden on each map. Some are out in the open and easy to spot, and some are so hidden I wonder if they were put in by accident.

Just don't feed them after midnight.

But either way, I now have to back track through every single map in the game to find all these little...ahem....guys. Really? Really Rare? Talk about map repitition. There were times when just fighting through the maps got boring and mind numbing, and now I have to fight through them again while meticulously looking for this Mogwai? Well, I'm not giving up yet. It's going to take a lot of work, but I'm bringing Mizar, and this now ridiculously annoying game, down.

Before I go back to this mind fuck of a game, I do have to say that it's not a total loss. After taking down Mizar the first time, the game genorously upgrades your armor AND gives you jetpacks. Why is this so cool? Because the dog turns into a tank. Yup, you read right you're going to play through the rest of the game as tank-dog.

This had me laughing for a while.