#Depicting: Donkey Kong 2 NES game box

[gaminghardwareingames]

Animal Crossing - Part 4

All from https://nookipedia.com/

[mysmashplaythroughs]

New Super Luigi U Playthrough

Fighter: Luigi

Game: New Super Luigi U, Wii U. First Released on June 19th 2013.

Fighter Bio.

Luigi is the younger brother of the famous Mushroom Kingdom hero Mario. Together the two are referred to as the Mario Bros or Super Mario Bros. Luigi has often followed his brother in various adventures, taking on Bowser and other threats, although Luigi sometimes takes a smaller role holding down the fort at home or is off on his own journey. There are also a few cases where Luigi has been the star over Mario, most notably his ghost hunting escapades. Similarly, to how iconic Mario is as a gaming icon, Luigi is probably the most iconic Player 2 character in gaming. Luigi started off being essentially a palette swap of Mario, meaning he looked identical to Mario just with different coloured clothes, that being his association with green rather than Mario’s red. It would only be in Super Mario Bros 2 USA that he first started having a different look to Mario, being taller and leaner. Whilst official art would start depicting him differently from Mario after this point, his sprites in Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World would still be recolours of Mario, although he would get more distinct sprites in later re-releases of these games.

It is possible that the idea of Luigi being Mario’s younger brother, which is only referenced occasionally may come from his first appearance being after Mario’s, with him first appearing in the game Mario Bros, which was the first game to use Mario’s name, with him being referred to as Jumpman before that. Luigi would often be in other games following this along with Mario, such as Wrecking Crew, always filling the second player option. Luigi did notably follow Mario when the Mushroom Kingdom first appeared in his game series, with the game Super Mario Bros. Whilst Luigi is in this game, he was only playable in two player, where he would be the character the second player controlled, and players would take turns playing through stages. With Mario Odyssey implying Donkey Kong the arcade game took place in New Donk City, it’s plausible other early games such as Wrecking Crew may also have taken place there, however as with most of the Mario series, nothing is really confirmed or denied. Luigi similarly to Mario is known as a protector of the Mushroom Kingdom, and he is just as capable as Mario of fighting Bowser, with the two of them together often being a force to be reckoned with. Luigi similarly to Mario is often not the strongest or fastest, but not lacking in any particular skill either. However, sometimes Luigi is somewhat distinguished from Mario, in some cases being slightly weaker but faster, and sometimes being able to jump higher but slip a bit more than Mario. This tends to be the case more in games where there aren’t many playable characters however, and often in games with larger casts such as the Mario sports games, Luigi will be the same as Mario in abilities.

Luigi unlike his brother, has often been given more of a personality, although it has varied from game to game. As there are a fair few games where Mario is the playable character but Luigi still appears, he often has dialogue when Mario speaks to him. He’s been shown over the years to be more cowardly than Mario, and sometimes a bit of a braggart on some occasions, possibly to try and impress Mario who he looks up to. He is also loyal to his brother and his friends, and still willing to fight even if he’s afraid of what he’s up against. Luigi tends to be clumsier than Mario, and approaches situations more cautiously than his Brother, preferring to slowly approach situations rather than jump right in in most cases. He has a fear of ghosts, but despite this has taken them on many times even whilst being terrified as he does so. Finally, Luigi is often noted to be in Mario’s shadow somewhat, with a lot of characters often recognising Mario but not him, or even if they do recognise him, not being able to remember his name and just referring to him with names such as “Green guy”. There are occasionally hints that this has caused Luigi to develop a slight dark side deep down, but he very rarely acts on it unless forced to by other influences. Finally, Luigi can be a fair bit more emotional than Mario, crying a few times when Mario won’t.

Friends: Luigi has had a fair few friends throughout the years, however he’s notably not as popular as Mario. Mario is his best friend as well as brother, with the two often working together to take on threats, and being a strong force when doing so. Luigi has a lot of respect for Mario, although he can get jealous and competitive with him from time to time. Luigi is also good friends with Princess Peach, although she tends to be closer with Mario, however as he is playable in many of the Super Mario Bros games, he often has the same endings with Peach such as receiving a kiss from her. With that said, Luigi seems to be closer to Princess Daisy, who he only interacts with in spin-off media, but is often shown paired together with, including a statue of the two dancing in one of Daisy’s race courses in Mario Kart Wii. Yoshi gets along well with Luigi just as he does with his brother, however they specifically are sometimes associated with each other such as being called Green Team in certain games. Toad is another of Luigi’s friends, but perhaps less so than Mario. Whilst the main Toad seems to get along with Luigi as well as Mario, other Toads throughout the series vary, with some being dismissive of Luigi and others being big fans of him, as opposed to them all seeming to praise Mario. Most of Luigi’s other friendships are similar to his brother in various spinoffs, with characters such as Diddy Kong and Rosalina.

Whilst Luigi has met less characters than Mario over his history, there are a few he has made friends with that Mario doesn’t seem to know as well. A notable example of this is Professor E Gadd, who has met Mario a few times, but knows Luigi much better. The two can have a slightly antagonistic relationship, but still seem to trust each other despite E Gadd’s occasional barbs he makes at Luigi. One final note on Luigi’s friendships, is that unlike Mario who has had many adventures where he’s met and befriended various characters such as in the Paper Mario series, Luigi hasn’t really done so. There was one case where he had an adventure in the Waffle Kingdom, which was only told to Mario when they’d occasionally meet up during Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door. The majority of the partners Luigi teamed up with on his adventure did not seem to be very fond of him however, with them often telling Mario that Luigi was exaggerating his tales and in some cases had made major mistakes and they were only travelling with him to get him to pay them back or to make sure he doesn’t cause more problems elsewhere.

Enemies/Rivals: Luigi has not amassed as many enemies as Mario, but he has shared a fair few with him. Similarly to Mario, Luigi’s most major and recurring enemy is Bowser and his forces. Bowser often forgets who Luigi is, but he has been reminded from time to time when Luigi causes him just as many problems as Mario does. Bowser Jr and the Koopalings have fought Luigi a fair few times, although not as often as they’ve fought Mario. Unlike Mario who is feared by a lot of Bowser’s troops, they often fail to recognise Luigi, although those who do either tend to underestimate him, or in some cases realise he’s just as much of a threat as Mario. Finally, Luigi has an arch enemy who uniquely he has fought more than Mario, that being King Boo, leader of the Boos. King Boo has captured Mario numerous times, but often ends up defeated by Luigi, which has gradually led him to despise the younger brother. It’s debatable if King Boo is always the same one throughout the series, but if so, in Super Mario 64 DS he was the one who captured Luigi hiding him in a painting in Big Boo’s Haunt, alluding to their antagonistic relationship.

Luigi has one rival really which is Waluigi. Waluigi has an intense hatred of Luigi for unknown reasons, and Luigi actually seems to be more confident when going up against him rather than his tendency to be somewhat afraid of other antagonists such as Bowser. At worst Waluigi has cheated to try and win in various competitions which is why he’s more of a rival than a full-on enemy, and may be part of why Luigi doesn’t seem to be afraid of him. When it comes to Wario, the two don’t seem to really have much of a rivalry, as Wario is more of a rival to Mario, however the Mario Bros often compete against Wario and Waluigi. Interestingly, in Super Mario 64 DS, it is Luigi who saves Wario from the painting he’s trapped in.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: Luigi is not as prolific as Mario when it comes to crossovers, but he has had a fair few over the years, and more than a lot of other characters. Luigi was with Mario and others in the crowd during certain parts of Kirby Super Star, watching Kirby fight King Dedede in the boxing arena and the Megaton Punch minigame. Luigi was in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe where other racers include Link (Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild’s incarnations) the default Inklings, two Animal Crossing Villagers and Isabelle. Luigi similarly to Mario has been in some Game & Watch games and was in the Game & Watch Gallery games which included the original and Mario versions of various Game & Watch games, therefore featuring Mr Game & Watch. Luigi appears with Mario in Tetris on the NES in a small cameo alongside Pit, Samus, Link and Donkey Kong. Luigi was also in all of the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series, crossing over with the Sonic series. What’s interesting is despite Tails being arguably the next most famous Player 2 and sidekick character in gaming, Luigi’s rival seems to be Shadow in that series with the two appearing a few times alongside each other. Luigi co-starred in Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, which had originally planned cameos of Olimar, Toon Link, Wario, Fox McCloud, Samus Aran and and Excitebiker which were cut from the final game. Luigi appeared in the audience of the arcade Punch-out games along with Mario, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr which was his first ever cameo. Luigi was also playable in the Mario Kart GP series, which had Pac-Man a playable racer also. The Fortune Street games have had Luigi cross over with the Dragon Quest franchise, however, the Heroes from Dragon Quest do not appear themselves in these games. Overall, Luigi has made quite a few cameos over the years, just not independently of Mario.

Why this game?

So, the obvious choice people always go with when it comes to Luigi is the Luigi’s Mansion games. Whilst they are definitely on my list and I will get to them down the line, the reason I went for New Super Luigi U in the end, was because Luigi’s overall movements in Smash Bros are closer to his portrayals in the platforming games than the Luigi’s Mansion games. Whilst Luigi in Super Smash Bros Ultimate uses the Poltergust, he has not always had it as part of his moveset, and it still only makes up his Final Smash and grab (which is only one move more than Mario’s F.L.U.D.D. and I doubt most people would say that is the best game to represent Mario overall, even if they love it) I therefore went for this game as it’s one of Luigi’s only starring roles besides the Luigi’s Mansion series and features specific movements which are associated with Luigi such as him being more slippery and jumping higher as well as doing the Scuttle jump. The game also has Luigi taking on Bowser and his army which represents the Super Mario Bros series overall better than the ghosts of Luigi’s Mansion.

My past with this game.

When it comes to this game it can’t really be separated from New Super Mario Bros U. New Super Mario Bros U was a launch title for the Wii U and the fourth in the New Super Mario Bros series. The series overall has had a mixed reception, with not many thinking the games are bad but most of the complaints feeling they’re somewhat generic. Personally, I understand the complaints, but I still enjoy the games and think they’re good games overall. One key element that sadly I’m lacking is that these games can be played in multiplayer, which I’ve only been able to play a few times, so the majority of my experience with the series is single player. Personally, my favourite aspect of the series was seeing them bring back old enemies and redesign them into 3D, which has somewhat solidified how they appear now with enemies such as Buzzy Beetles and Hammer Bros and bosses such as the Koopalings reappearing after a long absence.

When it comes to New Super Mario Bros U specifically, there’s two aspects that probably stand out most in my mind. The first of these are the locations, with them making more of an effort in this game to not have the Mushroom Kingdom look the same as it did in New Super Mario Bros and New Super Mario Bros Wii. The locations in this game such as Acorn Plains are somewhat recognisable, although they’re not the most exciting locations to have appeared in the Mario series. The World Map was the second aspect I always remember, with it working more like the World Map in Super Mario World being one large map you can walk across from world 1 to the final castle. One key aspect to this game which was showing off a new feature of the Wii U was Miiverse, which personally I found a really fun addition, where you could see many different posts by other players for each level. I always liked this feature as it made it feel like you were going on a journey with lots of other people seeing what their experiences are like as you go. With Miiverse shut down now this is no longer possible and as such it was a unique feature to the Wii U game.

New Super Luigi U was what could be called an expansion to the game. It featured the same world map, but every level was replaced with a brand-new level which was meant to be more challenging. Along with this, every level now has a time limit of 100 seconds, meaning they were shorter than those in the original game and you have to focus on getting through them more quickly. There is only one ‘new’ enemy in the game which is a bigger version of a yellow Cheep Cheep, a fish enemy. The rest of the game doesn’t really use new assets so much as using different more challenging setups with those which were in the original game. Overall I’d say this game is similar to the original Super Mario Bros 2 in Japan, which was a more challenging version of the original Super Mario Bros, although with a couple of new features in that case. I played through the original and New Super Luigi U I believe fully getting all three star coins hidden in each stage and beating every level in both, however this was some time ago so I’m not one hundred percent certain if I did or not. I have also gotten New Super Mario Bros Deluxe on Switch, however I have not played through New Super Luigi U on it yet, so my playthrough for this post was on the Wii U version.

My Smash Playthrough.

So, when it comes to my playthrough of this game, it’s very tough to actually go over it. Similarly to other games I’ve covered so far, it was some time ago I did this playthrough, however, one aspect of the New Super Mario Bros series which is often criticised and really doesn’t help me remember, is the game doesn’t really have many memorable moments. There’s the occasional stage which I’d have to retry a few times, but most often it’d be due to me messing up rather than it being particularly hard. The game is definitely tougher than New Super Mario Bros U, but also because of every stage having a time limit of 100 seconds, it means a lot of them are over quick when you do get through them. I think the main memorable aspect of the game is the overall worlds rather than specific stages, with them all being a mixture of foods and standard terrains you’d see in most games. The game starts off at Peach’s Castle, with Luigi, Blue Toad, Yellow Toad and Princess Peach sitting at the table, with oddly Mario’s cap also there, being the only sign of him in this game. Bowser’s Airship along with a squadron of Koopaling Airships arrive and Bowser’s Airship deploys a giant mechanical hand. The hand then moves Peach aside and smashes the other three, scooping them up and throwing them out of the castle, with them landing in a giant Super Acorn Tree, in the first world of the game, Acorn Plains. The three get up and start running back to the castle as Bower’s forces gradually start transforming it. Not exactly a deep story but it’s very rare for Mario games to have that interesting of a plot. The first world is fairly standard, although it introduces the main powerup in this game, the Super Acorn. I quite like the Flying Squirrel form and feel it works well in the game, being unique to previous forms with flight such as the Raccoon Suit and Cape as its movement is linked to the spin mechanic in the New Super Mario Bros series. Beyond the Squirrel form, there’s not a lot of unique features to Acorn Plains beyond the scenery. The aesthetics and theming of the worlds in this game is most likely influenced by Super Mario World in this game, with the food themed locations and the various strange shapes making up the backgrounds throughout the game. Acorn Plains does have one other new feature in this game, Baby Yoshis. Unlike Yoshi, who sadly only appears in specific stages and won’t go with you to other ones, the Baby Yoshi you find on the world map will follow you for as long as you can keep ahold of it, which is somewhat difficult. Baby Yoshi comes in three colours, Pink which when you’re holding it and shake the controller (or press the button in other playstyles) will inflate and allow you to float up a little way, being able to do so a limited number of times before you slowly fall, Blue which shoots bubbles out of it’s mouth which can defeat a lot of enemies, and finally the Yellow shining Baby Yoshi. The Shining Baby Yoshi is only available in specific stages as it’s main job is allowing you to light up dark stages by spinning. All three Baby Yoshis eat most enemies that adult Yoshi can eat. Whilst Baby Yoshis have appeared in a few games, this game was the first time they’d reused the design from Super Mario World in a long time, and the first time this form had appeared in 3D.

Layer-Cake Desert is the next world, which is made up of surprisingly mostly sand themed stages, as well as a fair few underground ones. Some notable features of this world are the first case of a dark underground stage where light is only provided by certain objects such as fireballs from enemies and the fire flowers, as well as glowing Baby Yoshis. Also, of note in this world are the first appearance of Spikes, who can be irritating but aren’t too difficult to defeat as long as you watch out for the iron balls they roll. Next up is a branch, where you can choose which world to take on next. Despite me not going for 100% in this playthrough I believe, I beat both worlds, and I have every time, so I’m not entirely certain if you can carry on without doing the other world or have to beat both options before being able to go on to world 5. I’m fairly sure I have always gone for the same world first each time, being Frosted Glacier, so I most likely did again in this playthrough. Frosted Glacier has some really nice looking stages, with a lot of starry skies, and a nice atmosphere. The only problem of course, is in a game with Luigi slipping more than usual, you now have ice physics to deal with. I believe I didn’t have an awful amount of trouble with this however, as often there’s plenty of room so it’s rare to slip and fall into pits in my experience as long as you’re careful. The first ghost house also appears in this world, I don’t tend to remember specific ghost houses in most games until I get to them, so I can’t say which ghost house is from which world, but with the strict time limit, having to solve puzzles I think could take me a couple of tries, however it was nothing I remember being irritatingly tough. Sparkling Waters is the other option and the one I usually go with second. As you can likely guess from the name, it’s a water based world, however what’s interesting is there’s only two underwater stages in it, with the rest being more beach themed stages with a small amount of water at the bottom. Probably the first stage that I noticed being somewhat unique in this game compared to New Super Mario Bros U is in this world, with a beach stage featuring various beach huts and Huckit Crabs, which throw rocks. The other stage of note in this world is the ghost ship, which is a mix of a ghost house and a beach stage with water running along the bottom and Boo enemies.

Following these worlds is the first encounter with Bowser’s main airship which involves a battle with Bowser Jr. I’ll cover the boss battles later, but this is probably the only standard airship level in the game as the other one differs somewhat. I’ve always been a fan of the airships in Mario and so despite it being an auto-scrolling level I quite like this one. Past this is Soda Jungle, which has a few unique features. This world starts off with jungle themed stages with poisonous water that kills you if you fall in, and can be quite irritating. It also features Giant enemies for the first time. The Haunted Forest section of the world has one of the most interesting looking stages in the game, which is a stage where all the backgrounds look like painted artwork along with painted pipes that move a lot. I do remember having to play this level a few times, so I was glad it had an interesting look to it rather than just being another jungle stage. Finally, after leaving the Haunted section comes a couple more jungle stages, with them both featuring some unique mechanics, one of the stages requiring you to bounce off of giant Wiggler enemies (caterpillars that are an enemy that first appears in this world) and not touch the poison water. The second is a stage which features enemies that only appeared in one stage in New Super Mario Bros U, being Sumo Bros. What I found cool was that these enemies hadn’t appeared in a game in years so I was glad to see them in 3D for the first time. They can be very tricky though, stomping on platforms above to make lighting drop down. Rock Candy Mines is the next world, which features many mountain and underground themed stages which are fairly challenging. I can’t really pick out stages that stood out particularly in this world however. Next up, and the final of the standard worlds in the game is Meringue Clouds. I’d like to note that I have always been a big fan of sky-based locations, with cities in the clouds being some of my favourite settings, so I enjoyed this world. Probably one of the more notable stages on it is the Rainbow Skywalk, which features you travelling through various rainbow corridors with Bullet Bills firing and Waddlewings flying at you.

Before tackling the final world, I’d like to make a mention of the boss battles. They’re often seen as the weakest aspect of the game I believe, and I can understand why, however personally I quite enjoy them. Boom Boom is the miniboss of most worlds, with him receiving various changes each time from Kamek, including forms such as being able to spin jump, growing giant and gaining wings amongst other abilities. The Koopalings are fairly different in this game to their last appearance in New Super Mario Bros Wii, being only fought once in each world and having different features to their fights. They’re still beaten the same way mostly however being jumped on three times when not hidden in their shells. These battles I believe are no different in New Super Luigi U to the base game, with the main difference being Luigi’s different movement in this game and the shorter time limit. The bosses are fairly simple with only a couple making me have to try more than once against them. The final Airship stage follows Meringue Clouds and features the giant hand seen on the airship in the introduction. It causes crushing damage so can kill you instantly even if you’ve got a full powerup, so it’s important to always find somewhere to hide from it. The auto-scroll nature of the stage can make this somewhat irritating but it’s not too difficult and is followed up by a Bowser Jr boss fight. The first Bowser Jr fight earlier in the game had you swimming and trying to get his homing Torpedo Teds he’d fire to instead hit him, which wasn’t tough but could take a bit of time and I believe I had to try more than once. This second boss battle can be fairly irritating, with it requiring you to jump on his head when he’s low enough. However, what’s dangerous in this battle is Bowser Jr can break the floor you’re standing on, meaning a mistake can cause you to fall fairly easily. Following this battle, the Airship is taken down and its on to the final world, Peach’s Castle which has been transformed by Kamek.

Peach’s Castle features all lava stages, with many features seen in the castles you’ve been through such as Podoboos and Magmaws coming out of the lava to cause you trouble. Somewhat more unique to these stages are the poisonous gas cloud that follows in some stages, although due to the time limit you’re unlikely to wait long enough for it to catch up to you anyway, and meteors which fall from the sky and often destroy platforms they land on (as well as you if you’re not careful). Probably the my biggest complaint for this world in both NSBMU and NSLU is that, beyond Peach’s Castle being viewable in the background in some of the stages, none of the stages really look that different to typical Bowser’s Castle stages, and given the history of Peach’s Castle with Super Mario 64 having the whole game take place in it as a hub world, it would have been cool to see more of the concept of that location transformed into a lava filled fortress. The final stage isn’t that different from the one in New Super Mario Bros U, with Bowser Jr in his Clown Car flying above you and ground pounding on you every so often. It’s a somewhat irritating stage due to this, with him often throwing you off or knocking you stunned into the lava. At the end of the stage comes the final battle with Bowser… which is once again a recreation of his battle in the original Super Mario Bros. Run under him when he jumps and hit the switch to collapse the bridge under him. There is more to this, but given the last three NSMB games did this setup before the real final boss, I really wish they could have done something else here. Super Mario Bros 3 had a fun Bowser fight, they could have easily done a recreation of that if they wanted. It’s funny because due to this same boss fight being in the NSMB series multiple times, it makes Bowser in his ‘base form’ so to speak seem like a complete joke which Mario and Luigi can take down with ease at this point.

So, as you can imagine, Bowser falls, and Kamek appears to once again use his magic on him, just like in previous NSMB games. This time, instead of running from a giant Bowser like in New Super Mario Bros Wii, the giant Bowser confronts you on the roof, with Bowser Jr in his clown car helping him. This is a somewhat cool battle, as you must dodge Bowser Jr’s ground pounds, jump on him to knock him out of the Clown Car and pilot it above the giant Bowser, before ground pounding with it down onto his head. It’s a fairly fun battle although not particularly hard, you will probably have to try it once or twice though but for how many lives you have at this point it won’t matter much. Following his defeat Bowser falls with Jr jumping after him (I’d imagine landing on top of Bowser rather than to his doom but I’ll let you be the judge of that) and Luigi goes to see Peach, gets a kiss and the same ending as New Super Mario Bros U plays out. Usually I go over my feelings on the ending, with the credits music and other things, but there’s not really much to say for this one, it’s another playable ending screen which is nice but it’s nothing really special. The music’s nice enough for it but New Super Mario Bros as a series has not had a lot of music that really sticks out to me. I don’t find it bad music, it does its purpose, but it’s not something I’ll really think of outside of the game usually, with only the occasional track that I’ll listen to. So for the game overall, I think it benefits from it’s focus on being a challenge for those who played the first game rather than a sequel, and for Luigi’s first non-Mansion or Educational starring role it’s not a bad one.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Luigi in Smash.

So, when it comes to Luigi’s moves in this game, there isn’t a lot to go over. Luigi can use fireballs when he’s in his Fire Luigi form similarly to his Neutral B in Smash Bros, he can also do spins in this game, similar to his Down B. Apart from that however, most of the similarities come down to movement, with Luigi’s physics in comparison to Mario’s being similar to the differences between them in Smash, and Luigi having his Scuttle Jump. Other than that, most of Luigi’s moves in Smash have a somewhat interesting origin, with a lot of his attacks being based on Mario’s which came from Super Mario 64, a game Luigi famously wasn’t in. What’s interesting is years later Super Mario 64 DS would release with Luigi playable, being able to do the same attacks as Mario, so in a sense it could be said to be based on his Smash moves rather than the other way around in this case. (Although, in reality it’s simply because all characters besides Yoshi have the same punching and kicking moves). Overall, despite this being the game I chose for Luigi, the closest playable appearance for him to his Smash Bros appearance is in Super Mario 64 DS. Finally, as it is an important aspect of him, I will cover Luigi’s Poltergust down the line as an alternate costume in a sense with a play through of Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon, and then Luigi’s Mansion 3.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to Mario Wiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using Miiverse before it shut down.

[translationandbetrayals]

Kirby of the Stars

Old school games were tough. Many games from the NES era haven’t aged well for this same reason. Even games that were aimed at children were hard(see Ducktales or Tiny Toons Adventures). But as the time went by, and the industry evolved, games started to become more accessible for the non-hardcore gamer. To me, one of the games that better struck the balance between challenging, accessible and fun was Kirby; and today I’ll talk to you a bit about the cute little pink blob of cuteness.

To talk about Kirby, we first must talk about Masahiro Sakurai. From a young age Sakurai saw in video games his passion. He dreamed of becoming a game developer, with that aspiration in mind he set his eyes on HAL Laboratory, a game developing company that had close ties with Nintendo. After some time of trying, he joined the company. Satoru Iwata, one of HAL Laboratory high-level employees, wanted to make a game that could be enjoyed by anyone, whether you were a seasoned gamer, or just a casual one. That’s when Sakurai came up with the idea of a game called Tinkuru Popo(Twinkle Popo). During the development of this game, the placeholder for the main character was a ball with hands and feet. The team at Hal Laboratory grew so attached to this simple design, that they decided to keep it that way. When the game was close to completion, they changed the name of the protagonist from Popopo to Kirby. And that’s how Hoshi no Kābī(Kirby of the Stars) was conceived.

Hoshi no Kābī Logo

There are rumours about Kirby’s name origin. The first and most commonly accepted is that the name comes from American lawyer John Kirby that helped Nintendo win the lawsuit from Warner Bros over Donkey Kong’s name. The other theory is that it’s based on the Vacuum Cleaner Company, Kirby(makes a lot of sense since Kirby’s main ability is to inhale enemies hehe). But Masahiro Sakurai has said multiple times that he doesn’t remember the exact origin of the name.

One of Kirby's early designs, here we can see that he's referenced as Popopo(ポポポ)

Another fun fact about the game is that Kirby’s pink color wasn’t decided immediately, instead there were discussions about whether to make him yellow or pink. The localization of the game to America was made during this process, so the team at Nintendo of America had no idea what color Kirby was, so in the box art he appears to be white.

American boxart, featuring white Kirby

The game was released for Nintendo's handheld device, the Gameboy, in April 1992 in Japan, and in America in August of the same year under the name of Kirby’s Dream Land. 

Hoshi no Kābī's Title screen, with many Kirby's dancing and jumping.

The game it’s very simple; consist of five levels, and in each your goal is to get to the end of it to retrieve a Sparkling Star, but before you get there you’ll have to face and defeat a horde of enemies and bosses, to do so you use Kirby’s main ability: inhaling everything that fit’s his mouth, and then either swallow it or shoot it. Also, you can fly! These concepts made Hoshi no Kābī a simple yet engaging game, that in order to get the most of it, you’ll have to master these mechanics.

Hoshi no Kābī on a Gameboy Color. The game had a Hard Mode that you could access with a key combination on the Title Screen.

In terms of story, there is nothing much to dig through. As the manual says, King Dedede(Kirby’s main antagonist) and his gang have stolen all the food and Sparkling Stars of Dream Land, and Kirby must stop him.

The game was fun, but it had some problems, it was easy and short to complete, so the novelty wears off a little bit after playing for some time.

Despite that, the game sold like hotcakes, naturally Sakurai was tasked to make a sequel to the game, this time for a home console. And here’s where a weird move happened, the sequel to Hoshi no Kābī was released in 1994 for the NES, that’s 4 years after the release of the SNES. The game had to deal with the limitations of the 8bit console, despite all that the game is truly impressive. Anyway, Hoshi no Kābī Yume no Izumi no Monogatari(Kirby of the Stars: The Story of the Fountain of Dreams), or simply Kirby’s Adventure in America, was released for the NES, and featured a lot of improvements: The game was waaaay longer, with a lot of new enemies and levels to explore. Kirby’s most iconic feature was introduced, his copy ability, where after he inhaled an enemy he could eat them to gain a special ability. 

Hoshi no Kābī Yume no Izumi no Monogatari title screen.

After this, the Kirby train was unstoppable. Although Sakurai stopped working in Kirby games after some time, his legacy endured. The spirit of the original Kirby games can be seen in all of its games. With a total of 34 games, the game sure has been a success.

Well it’s not 34 games of only the gameplay as Hoshi no Kābī, there are lots of spin offs. One of my favourite spin offs is Koro Koro Kābī, with “koro koro” being the japanese onomatopoeia for a ball rolling. The Gameboy color game features motion controls, something that’s very weird but really fun.

Some Kirby spin-off games

There is a curiosity with localization of the game from Japan to America. The box art from American releases features Kirby being angry or mad, while in the japanese he’s just neutral or smiling. Nintendo of America felt that players would have more response to an angry character for some reason. This pattern is present even in the more modern games.

Boxart comparison. Left Japan, Right US.

Did you know that Kirby’s first appearance wasn’t in Hoshi no Kābī, but as a cameo in HAL’s SNES roleplaying game, Arcana?

Or that there is a depiction of a naked woman in Hoshi no Kābī 2? Weird isn’t it?

There’s even a Kirby anime with over a hundred episodes! (It's called Hoshi no Kābī or Kirby right back at ya)

I could be talking about Kirby all day, it really is one of my favourite games. It captivated me when I was just a child, and even today I still enjoy the new and old games as if I was just discovering them. I’ve been trying to collect some of the games

I don’t want to bore you with talk. I want you to go pick up the game! There are lots of them, and each one is packed with fun to the top.

Poyo!

-Luis Sobarzo

[princessqueer312]

Pauline 1981-1984

As we all know, Pauline used to be really important in the Mario series and it really was a shame how she got replaced and forgotten, nevertheless, in the first few years of Mario, his lady was right at his side not only in the video games, but in the canceled games, the Supercade, cereal boxes, and etc... In the first 3 years of her life, Pauline had multiple variations, here in this post, I recreated all the sprites she had that were made/published by Nintendo (aka not the versions of her from different systems).

July 9th, 1981

The top row is her first appearance, DONKEY KONG for Arcade. The first 3 are extremely recognizable, the 4th is a "cut content" sprite (either from Arcade or NES/Famicom) that was used for what is proposed to be an alternate ending. In this one shes shown sitting (in the entirety, mario is sitting next to her). In the 5th pixel, I decided to take it upon myself to recolor the 4th pixel to match her other sprites.

June 3rd, 1982

The second row is Pauline from the Donkey Kong port on the Game&Watch. This is the first time where Pauline is depicted in red.

1983

The third row is a little more fun because not many people knows of the existence of this game. These 3 sprites of Pauline are from a game called DONKEY KONG Fun with Music. I'm gonna tell you why very few people know of this games existence... its because of 3 reasons, 1) it's an edutainment game that was meant to release alongside Donkey Kong Jr. Math, 2) it was canceled, and 3) it was only ever revealed in Japan in a magazine. There are only 4 pictures that prove its existence and yet it is very crucial for the development of Pauline. Not only does this game have a sprite that depicts her as a brunette, but this game introduced the idea of Pauline being a singer in video games (idk if comics made Pauline a singer first or if this game did, either way, Pauline has been shown as a singer for a long time now). **********Fun Fact!!!!! If this game had released, this would've been the first game to have Pauline playable, she was player 2 while mario was player 1.

July 15th, 1983

Row 4 is the port of DK Arcade on the NES/Famicom. The only noticable thing about this version in terms of design is that it gets ride of the blue, leaves the sprite in 2 pieces with empty space where the belt should be, and makes her more of a blonde.

February 2nd, 1984

Row 5 is Pauline's cameo in NES Pinball. Here we see Pauline as a brunette for a second time. This is also the first game where Pauline's sprite shows emotion.

June 21st, 1984

Row 6 is Pauline from the Famicom's Family Basics. The sprites in this game are much smaller. This is the first time where Pauline is wearing a red dress and the only time where she's shown with blue hair.

I made these sprites, I DO NOT need to be asked to use them. Please note that the "Fun with Music" sprites may not be 100% accurate, the photos that exist are really blurry and was extremely difficult to make them as accurate as possible. Pauline is my absolute favorite character in the Mario series, and she deserved better, but I'm glad now that Pauline is in the spotlight and getting the attention she deserves. And finally, I would've extended this list to 1987 if "DONKEY KONG Returns" was made and released. It would've included Pauline alongside all of the DK trilogy stars. Her, Mario, Stanley, DKJr, and DK himself (obviously) would've all been in it, we only know it exists thanks to 2 paragraphs of text, no images exist.

[t-oresama]

“Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America” by Jeff Ryan

Synopsis: In 1981, Nintendo of America was a one-year-old business already on the brink of failure. Its president, Mino Arakawa, was stuck with two thousand unsold arcade cabinets for a dud of a game (Radar Scope). So he hatched a plan. Back in Japan, a boyish, shaggy-haired staff artist named Shigeru Miyamoto designed a new game for the unsold cabinets featuring an angry gorilla and a small jumping man. Donkey Kong brought in $180 million in its first year alone and launched the career of a short, chubby plumber named Mario. Super Mario tells the story behind the Nintendo games millions of us grew up with, explaining how a Japanese trading card company rose to dominate the fiercely competitive video-game industry.

Published: 2011; republished in 2012 (Penguin Group) Genre: Non-fiction, biographical, pop-culture Rating: 4 out of 5 Reader Review: The day has finally come. I’m finally doing a review for this book. I have to write this to believe it for myself because this book took me about two years to finish. Yes, two years for a book less than 300 pages. As with many books nowadays, I found this one at the library, my place of work. I skimmed through the book and took a vested interest in it. But rather than check the book out, I asked for it for Christmas and received it in December 2015. So yes, just about two YEARS. The reason for the length in time? I usually don’t do non-fiction. It’s not for lack of trying, and I do have non-fiction books in my possession, but I’ve always loved fiction for its ability to go all-out, create worlds and characters and situations beyond our wildest dreams because it’s not real; anything is possible. With non-fiction, it’s all facts and automatically trapped within the confines of reality. There isn’t much mind-wandering to be done with that. None of this is to bash non-fiction or those who admire it just as much as I do fiction. And despite my views on non-fiction as a genre, I persevered and stuck with this book until its end because of its subject matter and main character: Mario.

Video game history in itself is unlike anything else because, compared to other types of entertainment such as TV, movies or sports, video games are the newest form with the exception of the internet. Not even half a century old, many people who were around to play the “first” video game (Pong and the first surge of arcade cabinet games) are still alive today. It’s a young market, and its growth has been, as a whole, exponential and hard to ignore. It’s to the point where all forms of entertainment mentioned above have included video games at some point; there are cartoons and movies based on video games, there are TV shows dedicated to TALKING about video games, websites like Youtube are catering more to the gaming community, and just recently a marching band performed the Legend of Zelda theme song at a grand football game. So to read about how this all essentially started was fascinating. Now, I’ll try to stay unbiased as always, but I must say that as the great 21st century console wars go on, I’m Team Nintendo. I’m not exclusively Nintendo, but I’ve always been drawn to their bold, colorful and positively fun games rather than Playstation and X-Box’s direction of gritty “adult” action titles. There’s pros and cons with all three consoles, and I know Playstation and X-Box have done some things better than Nintendo. Like my preference with fiction and non-fiction books, that’s all I mean to express here: a preference. And I’m sure there’s books like “Super Mario” that go as in-depth with Playstation and X-Box’s histories (in fact, Playstation’s history started thanks to Nintendo, as they backed out of a deal with Sony in an admittedly scummy manner, prompting Sony to drop the idea of collaborating with Nintendo in favor of making their own console: the Playstation). But Nintendo is a unique specimen because this book doesn’t just talk about Nintendo’s history, but makes it quite clear that Nintendo IS video game history. They are the grandfathers of video gaming as we know it today. Nintendo has 10+ years on Playstation and X-Box, and it’s all thanks to Mario, their mascot still as synonymous with gaming as Mickey Mouse is to Disney nearly 40 years later. And that is the hefty goal of this book- to showcase Nintendo from its humble beginnings to their growth to now (well, to 2012, when the book was last updated).

“Super Mario” starts not just with the release of the NES/Famicom or the hiring of Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of Mario, but with the formation of Nintendo itself, when it was a trading card company... in 1889. So, how did it go from cards to electronics almost a century later? That’s what author Jeff Ryan breaks down for the reader. The book is separated by five parts with five chapters per segment. As this is a book depicting Nintendo’s development over the years, its parts are sequential and correlate to (almost) each new game console Nintendo has created and Mario has taken part in: The Donkey Kong arcade cabinets, the NES/Famicom, the SNES/Super Famicom, the Nintendo64, and the Wii. Each chapter, Ryan states, is named after a Mario game (’Mario’s Party’, ‘Mario’s Brawl’, ‘Mario’s World’) and just the fact that there are enough Mario games out there that Ryan could use 25 of them without repeating is pretty telling of Mario’s success. At times I felt the names were distracting or too much of an attempt to be ‘punny’, simply because some names had nothing to do with the subject matter. ‘Mario’s World’ is about the N64, and ‘Mario’s Kart(ridge)’ is about the Virtual Boy. It might just be because I’m doing a review, but finding events in a book to go back to is not easy when the chapter name and subject don’t correspond to one another.

Throughout the book, there are certainly parts that come off more as talking about Nintendo’s history rather than Mario’s  but Mario is ingrained in Nintendo electronics; there really is no separating the two, nor a way to talk about one without the other. And in the world of video games in the 1980s, where the rules were not yet made and the potential limitless, reading about seemingly small and minute decisions Nintendo made with Mario with nothing to go off of but instinct was amazing, especially when you read about the subsequent payoff of those decisions a few paragraphs later. There was a reason for Mario’s name, there was an idea that they wanted him to be not just a mascot but a character that wasn’t defined by one game/genre of game but could easily adapt to any situation (similar to Bugs Bunny), and there was even a reason to Mario’s design, stemming from both graphical limitations of the arcade cabinet and simply from laziness. Because no one was challenging them in the beginning, the risks were both high and low. Some choices Nintendo/Miyamoto made for the world of Mario stemmed from real life (such as the idea of the Chain Chomp enemies, created from a dog on a chain that would attempt to chase Miyamoto as a child). If they didn’t come from real life events, they came from a blend of business (Kirby, the pink ball-like creature in the Kirby franchise, was named after the last name of the lawyer who helped Nintendo during a lawsuit over Donkey Kong’s name) and culture (with Wario being named for the Japanese word “Warui”, meaning “bad”). I found all of these little factoids interspersed through the chapters, between talks of schematics for games and the reception of said games, really cool simply because I’m a lover of the useless fact. It got to a point when even stuff I didn’t think was done for a reason was, indeed, done for a reason (”Color theory links purple [Nintendo Gamecube] to feelings of royalty... Dreamcast had chosen white with neon orange highlights: orange was the color of happiness. Sony’s... Playstation 2 was black with distinctive blue piping: blue is the color of intelligence... [The XBox’s] black came with hints of green. Green is the color of renewal... These weren’t accidental choices.”).

As you can probably tell, reviewing non-fiction isn’t exactly my forte. Giving my opinions on facts is a little strange. So let me get to a part I can always critique: the structure. Obviously it has to go in chronological order, so on that it does an A+ job. But in the beginning of a majority of the chapters, before picking up where the last left off, Ryan does this really weird intro where he talks about pop culture and Mario’s presence in it. Sometimes it correlates with the timeline of the chapter (he talks about the Super Mario Bros. Super Show in a chapter also taking place in the early 90s, for instance), but sometimes it doesn’t. It’s detached from the timeline and just serves to talk about how impactful Mario is: “Mario garners 1,500,000 search results when you type in ‘Mario Cake’ on Google! Mario is on hundreds of T-shirts! Mario was painted onto a sponsored Nascar racecar and won its first race!” Those are all great achievements and serve the purpose of showing how big Mario is even today, but they’re just dropped in the beginning, Ryan brags about Mario for about 3 pages, and then the first line of a separate paragraph will be in bold, indicating that the singing of the praises is over and we’re back to the timeline again. It’s distracting to the point of being annoying sometimes. Why did all of these accolades have to be spread out through openings of various chapters? Why not just have a chapter dedicated to his pop culture impact? It just makes no sense when, for some of these intros, all Ryan is doing is literally listing things Mario has been in or on. 

And I feel the need to point this out, because despite the cover pictured above looking how it does, my copy has the words “with a new chapter” written in the top pixelated cloud. Ryan originally published this in 2011 (hence why it stops at talking about the Wii), but added this new chapter at the beginning of 2012. And what is this new chapter about? Well, to start, it’s titled “Mario’s Misfortunes”. And it’s about just that: it goes in month by month talking about the missteps and stock hits Mario and Nintendo took in 2011. We go from singing high praises to shooting him off his pedestal with a Nintendo Zapper. I feel similarly to this chapter’s inclusion as I did with the “bonus chapter” included in “The Bane Chronicles”: I hate it. Hate it hate it hate it. Yes, it’s factual, and yes, it was a pretty dismal year for Nintendo, but to end the book made to present Mario and Nintendo’s rise from underdog to top dog on that? On THAT? It’s so utterly depressing. And suddenly Ryan inserts himself in the book, in this additional chapter, addressing the audience directly and giving a solution to this “crisis” that no one asked for: “It’s time for a Mario theme park,” he declares. I’m still so baffled by this whole last part. He details it to even the specific location of this imaginary theme park and why it makes sense to put it there. I can’t honestly figure out why this exists other than to serve as a pitch, but we, the ones reading it, are not the people he should be pitching this to. It honestly made me irritated when I first read it. This is a book that, up until now, has been written in grounded facts (although, if you look on websites like Amazon where this book is sold, many Nintendo connoisseurs have been quick to point out some inaccuracies in the book as far as release dates and timeline happenings). Why, now, do we need it to veer from fact to opinion? “Because it’s an updated chapter” is not an excuse. I found something so smug about it, as if Ryan was saying “Well, if I was running the company, I’d do this. Dummies.” It was a chapter that really didn’t need to be. Nintendo is still up and running in 2017, and doing pretty spectacular in comparison (without a theme park, too, however I hear that one is actually in the works), and at this rate they’ll continue to exist. It’s pointless to add commentary for one year and then stop. If you commentate on 2011/2012, why not 2013, 2014, and so on? You set yourself up for failure by adding on to an already-complete book. If you really want to say more, just make another book ten years from now. Dummy.

Admittedly, I found the first half of the book more interesting than the second; that may be why my bookmark was lodged in page 116 for months and months. What I found so enjoyable about it was simply the history. The first half of the book is the start-up, how things came to be, how the public first reacted to the concept of “home gaming consoles”. Hands down my favorite story in the book was about Nintendo fighting a lawsuit from Universal who owned the rights to King Kong and argued copyright infringement against Nintendo for their similarly-named ape. That alone is a wonderful standalone story about Nintendo and just a good lesson for big companies trying to claim people “stole” something when it’s all within fair use. But then the second half starts to become more familiar territory. The N64, the Gamecube, the Wii... us millennials were around for all of that. Maybe not as game reviewers or commentators, but we saw the progression happen right before our eyes as players. It’s nostalgia-inducing, sure, and there are neat behind-the-scenes pieces about how Super Mario 64 was made as the first successful mainstream attempt at 3D graphics and why they made the Gamecube purple (really, I think I’m the only one that found that so totally enthralling), but it felt more like a recap at times than anything new and interesting (I know that’s not necessarily the point of a book chronicling Nintendo and Mario). I will say this, though- The second half, especially five years after this was written, makes for good comparison between then and now. Ryan points out that Nintendo like to keep to themselves and are weary about releasing things like mobile games; he even quotes the late great Satoru Iwata in talking about how Nintendo isn’t doing enough to meet the demands of the huge online demographic “nowadays” (2010). Fast-forward to now, and the WiiU and Switch both heavily encourage online play, and Mario exists in a mobile phone game. It’s like opening a time capsule and seeing what’s changed now to what it was back then. It’s an unexpected enjoyable treat at the end (thanks, last 40 pages of the book!) 

"Super Mario” is an easy, interesting read showcasing a history that is still so young, one has to wonder if you can really call it a “history”. I can guarantee that there are things you didn’t know about Nintendo or Mario in this book, and whether you’re just a casual gamer or a Nintendo fanboy/girl, you’ll find a reason to like this book and keep reading, as I did. While I had to force myself to read the book sometimes and was kind of critical of it in here, I enjoyed it. I learned a lot, looked at some game and consoles in my home in a different light, and I gained a lot of respect for Nintendo, for Ryan who took (I’m assuming) months to research all of this, and for the everlasting Renaissance man, Mario himself.