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Paper Mario: Color Splash (Post #2)

So, I've gotten quite a lot farther into Paper Mario: Color Splash. I'm a few dungeons past the second major boss. This basically means that of the six major items, I've acquired two. I'm going to note that my personal opinion is that Color Splash is best enjoyed in long play sessions. While you can clear areas in 30 minutes, (and most have a save point halfway through) I find playing for multiple hours straight a more enjoyable method of playing. This is only my own opinion, and I'm sure some people might be able to play in short bursts. As I've stated before, the game's humor is excellent. All of the characters have someing to say, and there's an unexpected joke around every corner. The game's "cut-out" technique is the root of quite a lot of this. Using the gamepad, you can select specified areas of the background and cut them out in order to reach new places or place specific items. One of my favorite moments of the game is when you use the cut-out to place a giant fan in the background of an ocean level, causing a giant wave to form and a Toad to show off his surfing skills. The battle system is fun and the puzzles are often interesting and have some variety. I've very much enjoyed my time with the game, slowing making my way through levels and beating up some baddies. I have a few minor problems with this game, but they don't usually impact my enjoyment too much. 1. "Overinflation": It's very easy to get coins in the game, as there is a minigame that rewards thousands of coins. I found myself reaching the limit of 9999 coins fairly easily. While I don't think that the player should be forced to replay dungeons multiple times over in order to have enough coins to progress through the game, having money not be a problem at all probably isn't the best way of doing things. 2. Backtracking to the same location: In each level, there are two or three "paint stars," which you collect to unlock new levels. Collecting a paint star causes you to exit the dungeon, and entering it again will reset the enemies. This is a problem in some dungeons where paint stars are near each other, and having to backtrack through the same exact enemies seems like a waste of time. There's one level where the second paint star is collected by going back to where the first one is and dropping down a ledge. Having to spend over twenty minutes to take a detour two seconds away from where I had been before was a little frustrating. 3. Misuse of Hints: Talking to characters about where to go often will give you hints about what to do. While these can be useful, there are times where hints are provided where they are not needed and are not provided when they are. The latter can be especially annoying. There's a segment of the game where a giant thing is rolling after you. If it hits you, you get a game over. It takes one minute to get from the game over screen back to the chase scene, but if you do things correctly, the chase itself lasts less than ten seconds. I had no idea what to do during this section, causing me to have at least ten failed attempts. As I said, these problems don't affect my enjoyment of the game by too much. Paper Mario has a certain charm to it, especially in the more nonsensical moments. The game is hilarious. Anyways, that's all I really have to say for now. I don't think I'll post another discussion for this game until my final review of it, for fear or repeating myself too often.

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Pikmin 3: Final Thoughts (Spoilers)

If you have not played Pikmin 3 and are considering it, I strongly advise you to avoid this review. You've been warned. So, of the games I've gotten recently, Pikmin 3 definitely was the center of attention. It was nothing like anything else I've ever played before, and I loved it. It's strange. While playing it, I often end up thinking "this is frustrating." But afterward, I would look back and realize that I had fun, and then I became eager to play again. This wasn't always the case, obviously. There were moments in the main game where I enjoyed myself as I was playing. The game blends the uses of Pikmin very well. It never really seemed like the game was forcing you to tear your attention from your other Pikmin to focus on one. Do your new yellow Pikmin need to do some electric stuff? Here's some enemies to attack with your red Pikmin. Need something to do while your blue Pikmin work underwater? Collect stuff with the rest. It never seemed to be too focused on one activity. That's another thing I like about the game. It forces you to multitask. If you don't split up your captains and use them effectively, you're going to be unable to progress. Especially in one area of the game. But I'll get to that later. While I try to put as much distance between myself and the discussion of said thing as possible, I'll talk about some other stuff. Like the graphics. As I've said earlier, while not technically as advanced as other consoles, or even other games on the Wii U, (most likely because most of the resources are going toward AI) it still looks nice. The colors are vibrant, the areas all look different, it just looks nice. The music is also pretty good. While it's nothing particularly special, it works well, with calming tunes for walking through the areas, proper battle themes for bosses, and more "electronic" music for the launch of the ship into space at the end of the day. I don't really have much to say about the gameplay, as it's rather simple. The one thing I feel like I should mention is the Charge ability, which is a command that allows you to send all of your Pikmin after one target. This is extremely useful, and, now that I've started playing the original Pikmin, wasn't available previously. (At least not at the beginning of the game, as I'm not very far into it yet.) Pikmin instantly grab on to items nearby them, winged Pikmin automatically lock on to aerial targets, (another very useful ability) and a few other little things make the gameplay flow incredibly well, most of the time. I have a few very minor problems with this game, and one major one. First, the little things. Pikmin are idiots. I know that it would be hard to program more advanced AI, and that giving them the gift of common sense would make the game too easy, but there are a few moments where the AI is an annoyance. My main experience with this was when I was clearing out a large group of enemies inside of a cave. I started throwing Pikmin onto the dead enemies in order to have them carry the bodies back to my ship. While I was still fighting, the number of Pikmin, shown in the bottom corner of the screen, started dropping. After I was finished with the enemies, I walked over to where a lot of my Pikmin had died. In the center of this area, there were flame geysers. Off to the sides, there were not. The Pikmin carrying the objects felt like walking into the flames and dying rather than walking around them. I wouldn't have even been able to help them avoid the fire, as doing so would take up a large amount of time. Another small problem is that some of the enemies seem a little too powerful. In fact, some of them killed many more of my Pikmin than any of the bosses did. Particularly, the Peckish Aristocrab, which grabs Pikmin and eats them. You can break it's claws, but throwing your Pikmin at said claws leaves your Pikmin vulnerable to it's attack. You can't just charge your Pikmin onto it, either, as it will just let them go under it and then proceed to eat them. The two Aristocrabs you encounter throughout the game killed more of my Pikmin than four of the six bosses, including the final boss, combined. Either I just had a lot of trouble with this enemy or it could have been designed a little better. There were a few other cases where enemies were too efficient in murdering my beloved carrots. I could nitpick a few other things, but they all didn't affect my enjoyment or the overall difficulty of the game that much, so I won't bother people with those. Now, onto the dreaded major problem, which may not even be a problem: the Formidable Oak. The final area of the game. You can take multiple paths through it, which is interesting, and a nice change from the game's usual pseudo-linear order of progressing through each level, but there's one thing that makes the entire level incredibly frustrating, stressful, and difficult: the Mysterious Lifeform. I've heard some people say they like that it is there, and I can see why, but I disliked it quite a bit. Mr. Gold Blob, more often known as the Mysterious Lifeform or just ??? is a giant invincible blob of goo that will chase a certain object that you are carrying throughout the entirety of the level. You need this object to finish the level, and if the Lifeform gets it, it ends your day after a short period of time, causing all of your Pikmin that are not near you to die. The blob will often take shortcuts toward you that you cannot walk through, or just block narrow corridors that you absolutely need to go through. Any Pikmin that touch it will become stuck until you chase after the Lifeform and gather them again. This is especially irritating because of the Pikmin's poor AI. They will literally just walk into it. All of this would be better if the Oak was a large area, but because it's rather small, it's very difficult to avoid the Lifeform. I can see why some people may enjoy the challenge, but suddenly adding an obstacle unlike anything you've faced before just makes the level too difficult. I wouldn't actually call the level difficult, the more I think about it. Only three of my Pikmin perished in the less than forty minutes spent on the level. Those forty minutes were extremely stressful, and could be somewhat frustrating. However, the area was also a little enjoyable, when things were going just well enough that I didn't have to rework my plans every five seconds. This area definitely doesn't ruin the game. I have mixed feelings on the final boss. While having it be what it is apparently lines up better with one of the bosses of the previous game, one thing we must consider is that the Mysterious Lifeform is though to be what caused all of the captains to crash land on the planet. This creature personifies the planet itself. Because of this, I wish it was something more akin to the penultimate boss, which was the largest enemy in the game: an island of rock on four stone legs, with a fruit-like weak spot on top of it, which is reminiscent of something out of Shadow of the Collossus. I feel that an even larger and more advanced version of it would work better as a final boss than the golden goo. While the idea of using all five Pikmin types in the final fight was a good idea, having the boss's main attack be a fast, almost unavoidable, irreversible instant Pikmin kill would normally make the fight frustrating. However, one type of Pikmin is immune to this attack. While completing the fight with only this type increases the amount of time it takes and may seem like "cheating," I used the strategy anyway. My final results were that I completed the game in 46 in-game days. (keep in mind that I didn't discover the Charge feature until nearly halfway through the game) I gathered every piece of fruit, and 912 Pikmin survived, compared to 334 dead. While this review may seem negative, it's because it's hard to describe the joy I get from Pikmin. It's satisfying to use the mechanics in such a way and plan well enough that everything goes just as planned, maybe with a few more casualties than expected. I wouldn't recommend Pikmin 3 to people to seem especially opposed to it, but if you're on the fence about it, I'd suggest considering it, as I've personally very much enjoyed it.

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A Look At: Splatoon

Of all the games I have on my Wii U, Splatoon is the one I have played the most of by far. It's fast-paced gameplay never fails to be enjoyable. I'm not even sure if it's right to try to compare it to other shooters. The ink system is very interesting, with it being near impossible to enter enemy-controlled territory unnoticed. It's a game of momentum; whichever team holds control of the map, and thus is able to move around it easier, is likely to continue to hold control. No two matches I've played in Splatoon have been similar. But I'll take a step back. For those of you who haven't played Splatoon, here's a summary of the mechanics: It's a shooter game, involving squids. Ink is the most important part of the game. Normal games are 4 vs. 4 "turf wars," in which the opposing teams are of different colors. Your gun (or brush, roller, or otherwise) shoots ink of your color. You can change into "squid" form and swim through ink of your color. In squid form, you cannot shoot ink, but you are hidden from your opponents, move faster than you would walking, and slowly regain ink, which is also used as your ammunition. You are severely slowed when walking in your opponent's ink, and cannot swim in it. Obviously, shooting your opponents causes them to be "splatted," which sends them back to their base after a short respawn timer. However, you can jump to your teammate's positions at any time, but this leaves you vulnerable for a few seconds. The goal of turf war is to cover the most terrain with your color in a 3-minute span of time. There's also three other game modes, and a single player campaign. While the concept is relatively simple, games can become quite intense when all of the players have a lot of experience. This is very noticable in ranked mode, where there are consequences for losing. There are many different weapon types in the game, all of which I have used, that are useful in different ways depending on the map and mode. The game, while technically not being as advanced graphically as games on other consoles, is extremely colorful, with the colors of the different teams contrasting well. The game's soundtrack is also nice, my one problem with it being that the same song is always used for the last minute of turf war mode, which can become repetitive. Overall, Splatoon is a very fun and exciting game, and with a sequel announced for the Switch, I don't think it will disappear anytime soon. I highly recommend it to any Wii U owner, as I have enjoyed the many hours I have played of it.

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Pikmin 3: Log 3

I'm now in the final stages of my playthrough of Pikmin 3. I've unlocked the final area, but I have not ventured into it yet, instead opting to collect everything in the previous areas. I can safely say that playing this game has turned me into a fan of Pikmin series. I plan to go back and play the first two games, and play the fourth once it is released. For all the frustration it may invoke, I find this game to be really fun. I use the "restart day" button very often, but with every restart, my strategy gets closer to perfection. It requires patience, but the reward of everything going just as planned is worth it. I've never found the game to be extremely challenging. While the "sunset" system and required food collection may deter some people, I have rarely been in danger of running out of food, very few of my Pikmin have died at sunset, and a large portion of the difficulty was a result of my own poor planning. I can definitely see speedrunning and attempts to lose as few Pikmin as possible providing challenge to players experienced with the series. The backtracking isn't much of a problem for me. It shows you where the fruit is on your map, and each puzzle is different than the last. My only problem is that the data files, which tell you about enemies, puzzles, and other things, are not marked on the map. It doesn't change the ending if you collect them all, but it definitely is an obstacle for 100℅ completion. I'm not certain of what to say. I've very much enjoyed my time with this game so far, and I believe that it's certainly a good choice if you're looking for a Wii U game to play. I'll probably make two versions of my final review of the game: one "spoiler-free" one that gives my general thoughts as I have given them so far, and one that goes into more detail for those who have already played the game or don't plan to.

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Pikmin 3: Log 2

I decided to change my first post on Pikmin 3 from "First Impressions" to "Log 1" as by that point I had played many hours of the game compared to the few I had spent on the other games. This post will be much more specific than the last one, as I didn't want to spoil what happens in my initial review of the game. I'll explain what's going on, but if you want to avoid spoilers, don't read this post. Pikmin 3 is quickly becoming one of my favorite games. I've never played anything like it. I'm pretty sure it's unique even in the RTS genre. By now, I'm about 32 days into the game, having beaten the fourth boss a few days earlier. I've seen some people beat the final boss in the mid-20 range, but I'm not so efficient. The 250+ ghosts of Pikmin that have died under my command could tell you that quite well. The game clearly illustrates that PNF-404 is a beautiful yet unforgiving world. About 20℅ of all of my Pikmin that have died were killed by the first boss. Said first boss, the crystal centipede one I forget the name of, honestly could have been designed better. It's hard to describe; it was easy to take down, yet many of my Pikmin died. They quickly got scattered, and were left helpless to it's attacks. The way to interrupt it's attack was to throw Pikmin at it's head, but the Pikmin you throw slide right into it's attack range. Admittedly, as I've said, I'm not exactly good at the game, but there's another problem: the controls. The default controls are perfectly fine. You tap the stylus on the game pad to whistle your Pikmin to you. This would solve the scattering problem, which has left my army vulnerable at many points. However, as a left handed person, the stylus method is uncomfortable to use. So, the game has provided another control scheme, where the commands are done completely with the buttons. This makes it easier for me, but I'm still impaired by it: with the stylus, I could summon towards me any Pikmin within range. With my control scheme, they must be within my line of sight. This is rarely a problem, and I honestly don't see many other ways that the developers could have made the two control styles equal. Another small problem, which I later realized is why the second boss, the Venomous Phosbat, took me four in-game days to defeat. The game has a lock-on button, which allows you to focus the camera on a specific enemy or item. After you've locked onto something, you can command all of your Pikmin to charge at it, attacking it or picking it up. Despite the fact that the game provides a tutorial for nearly everything, I don't remember being told about this feature. Knowing of its existence earlier than the third boss would have made the game much less frustrating. These are minor problems. With every new area and Pikmin type, the game gets more interesting. Since my last post, I have discovered the flying pikmin. They simplify things and quite literally add a new dimension to the game. Now, instead of worrying about the path my Pikmin have to take to carry something somewhere, I can just have my flying pikmin do it. This is certainly a good thing to add; as new features are introduced, old problems become easier to deal with. I've very recently acquired the blue Pikmin, and I already can see all of the backtracking it will lead to. Every previous area contained water, which means I'm going to have to explore them again just to see what lies below the surface. Back to the subject of bosses, all four of what I've fought so far have been completely different in both design and attacking style. The third one both seemed a little bland and was easy, but I enjoyed the fourth boss, the bug... maestro... Thing. It switched up its attack pattern often, so it never became tedious or repetitive. I'll finish up with what I've come to now. The crew has rescued who they believe to be Captain Olimar (from the previous games) However, before they can ask him anything, he steals all of your food, jumps off the ship, and blasts off into the level (As in, he causes an explosion. Somehow.). This introduces the blue Pikmin. My one problem with this is that the fact that he steals all of your food forces you to prioritize finding food, while at the same time the game expects you to chase after Olimar(?). I think that it would have been better if he stole all but maybe 3 or 5 days of food, which would keep the urgency without setting you back to 0. I don't know. I've enjoyed my time with Pikmin 3 immensely, despite my few problems with it, and I hope that I shall continue to like it as I finish progressing through it. tl;dr: It's fun and it's interesting.

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Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker First Impressions

By the way, I plan on turning these into full reviews once I'm done with each game, but for now I've only gotten through a small portion of my new games. I'll probably go back and talk about my other ones eventually. Anyways, onto the important part: My feelings on Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker are similar to mine on Pikmin 3. As in, "I don't know why I'm enjoying this, but I am." Like Pikmin, a lot of CT can be frustrating, but it still has it's own charm that allows me to ignore it's shortcomings. This game is a extension of minigame from Super Mario: 3D World. You play as Captain Toad, and later Toadette, and you adventure through small isometric levels, solving puzzles and hitting bad guys. You travel from a start point to the star at the end, with the standard Mario practice of being taken out in two hits unless you fall off of the edge of the level, with an occasional health-restoring mushroom spread throughout. The one thing that makes it so interesting and different from normal Mario platformers is that you can't jump. You always have to consider the fact that once you drop down somewhere, you won't always be able to get back up. Each level has three different hidden bonus stars and a bonus goal. The stars work like their equivalents in previous Mario games; they're optional, but you need a certain amount to be able to continue at certain points. The bonus goals are the frustrating part: it does not tell you what the goal is until after you've finished the level. I'm not sure if I even get anything for completing them, but I end up playing through every level twice. Some of these goals are very difficult to get, and others I'm not even sure what they are telling me to do. "Sneak past all of the shy guys." I tried killing all of the shy guys and metal gear-ing it sans the cardboard box, but neither unlocked the goal. Some levels also end up being trial-and-error, as the solutions to puzzles may not appear easily. But, as I said, I can't say that the game isn't fun. I've enjoyed it so far, and it's decently challenging at some points, especially with the extra stars and goals. The game's presentation is something I enjoy. It's full of bright colors, like many Nintendo games, and has a decent soundtrack. Despite the fact that there are many levels, they are all different from one another. You may be in a jungle in one level and then in a haunted house the next, which keeps things interesting. Every so often, the game has "mine cart" levels where you jump in a mine cart and use the game pad to aim and fire projectiles in first-person. Of course, you have to manually turn the game pad to aim. It seems like a forced use of the motion controls, and it always breaks my immersion when I have to take a moment to push my chair away and stand up. I've only encountered two of these in the 30+ levels I've done so far, so they aren't a major problem. Overall, I'd definitely recommend it to fans of the other 3D Mario games looking for something different. I've enjoyed it. tl;dr: similar to 3D Mario games, easy at the base level with more difficult bonus objectives, occasional minor problems

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Paper Mario: Color Splash First Impressions

I'm going to preface this by saying two things: 1. Color Splash is my first Paper Mario game, and I've only played it for a few hours. Consider this if you comment. 2. I won't spoil major things, but I may quote a few lines here and there. If you want to go in completely blind, don't read this. Paper Mario: Color Splash is a great game. I've heard some people say that it isn't as good as the previous ones, but I've never played those. I enjoy the art style, which perfectly represents what I love about Nintendo games so much: the environments are colorful. Color Splash is all about paint. Hit colorful objects to get paint. Hit colorless objects to paint them. Use paint on your attacks to boost their power. Use paint to solve puzzles. Use paint to do everything except for not painting. Paint won't help you with that. The battle system differs greatly from that of the game's predecessors. Instead of a more "traditional RPG" system, you find/buy cards for each attack, and use them to battle. It's hard to explain, so I'll just visualize it: I could buy a "stomp" card from the card store. Then, I go into a level and encounter an enemy. I select the stomp card, and I'm given the option to paint it and boost it's attack. After using the card on the enemy, the card disappears. That's where one of the problems I have with the game lies: the card inventory gets cluttered very easily. There is an automatic sort button, but I'd prefer having one stomp card with a "x4" on it instead of four stomp cards. The battles are still enjoyable, and the inventory is a very minor issue. My other problem is, at least so far, the battles are too easy. Most of the enemies can be killed with one attack. However, oddly enough, the enemies also do too much damage. If two enemies appear and I'm only able to hit one, the first one will die, but the second will do a large amount of damage to me that I could not have avoided taking. However, it seems that as I progress through the game the difficulty will increase, and maybe the enemies doing too much damage thing is just because I'm bad at the game. However, the battling system is not why I love Color Splash. It's story and characters are hilarious. There's a Toad who is an expert on bridge experts! There's a Toad who is quitting the café scene, as it has become to stressful! There's a mail Toad to folds himself into letters and sends himself to people! There's a Toad who claims to be a hero of Justice, but cannot do anything as he has lost his pants! Around every corner there's an interesting new character hand-crafted to be the butt of a few jokes. I've heard that humor has always been a strong point in the Paper Mario series, and it continues to be here. That's about all I can say without going into specific detail about what happens in the game. tl;dr: Battle system has a few minor problems, the story is amazing.

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Pikmin 3 Log 1

About half an hour ago, I beat the second boss of Pikmin 3. This game is amazing. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever played before. It requires a large amount of patience and planning, but it’s amazing to see everything play out correctly. And you need a lot of patience. I checked online, and while some people were able to beat the boss in one in-game day (~20 minutes) it took me, someone new to the series and going in blind, four complete in-game days, with several retries, which ended up taking up about 2-3 hours of my time. (At any point, you can restart the day you are on. I did this a few times, adding to the total time.) But, those two hours were still exciting. I was doing the same thing repeatedly, but I loved it. The game keeps you on your toes. For me, it’s hit the sweet spot between challenging and enjoyable. The atmosphere is also one of the game’s strongest aspects. Each area seems to be huge and full of secrets. This enormity is assisted by the fact that you can never explore a whole area in a single day. The end of the day never comes as an annoyance, as it causes a rush to get everything into position and finish what you can. And after everything is settled, there’s another period of time the next day where you have to set everything up and return to work. The game is immersive, dragging you into it's wide open areas and deep, dark, caves. The Pikmin themselves are interesting, too. It gives you a new type just often enough that you’re able to learn to use the previous types well before learning something new. And, of course, there’s just something so satisfying about leading and army of 100 carrot people. The game’s humor is excellent, in my opinion. The conversations between the two and later three characters the game gives you never fail to make me smile. The characters, while still admittedly a little one-dimensional, all have completely different personalities.

Anyways, that’s my thoughts on the first 7 or so hours I’ve played of Pikmin 3. tl;dr: I love it, but it’s not for everyone.

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Christmas Aftermath

I got several games this year. Here's my first impressions of them. Pokémon Sun: I haven't touched it. I already have completed Moon, so I'll say that it's probably good. Shovel Knight: It's fun, but hard to get used to the control scheme of. I died 16 times in the first level, most of them on the boss. I'll adjust to it eventually. Paper Mario: Color Splash I've never played a Paper Mario game before, but I think it's fairly fun. The humor is good, which is apparently an aspect of every Paper Mario game. The battle system is also fairly interesting. Pikmin 3 It's really fun, but also hard to get used to. As a left handed person, I use the "Classic" control scheme, which is easier than using the stylus. The time limits and large bosses may push some people away, but I've enjoyed it immensely. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker It's much more of a puzzle game than a platformer. Finding all of the secrets in the levels can be frustrating, but it's an interesting concept and fun game. Splatoon Amiibo In case you don't know what the Splatoon amiibo do, they give you challenges to complete in the single player. Completing these challenges gives you rewards for the multiplayer. I've already completed the single player again using the charger, (a sniper-type weapon) but the remaining challenges ahead seem to be both difficult and enjoyable. I'll post more stuff as I progress through these games. Sorry for being so vague, but I've only played between one and two hours of each game.