#and the main game itself feels weirdly devoid of it

[professor-glasses]

I will love and support all of the pokemon ranger games but I will also fully admit that guardian signs just doesn't capture me the same way as the first two (heh). So it is my least favourite and gives me the least fizzy autism feelings. Which is unfortunate because most of the people I know who know pokeranger really love guardian signs. I like the past story quests a lot and I like the story drama (I'm pretty sure this is the part everyone else especially likes) but the region feels less like a rich place to me and more like just a neat environment to pass through and that kinda detracts from how I enjoy it unfortunately

I feel like there's a lot there but at the same time not enough. There's a lot in concept, but in execution there isn't. Like I wanted more informational tidbits about the areas. More interesting NPC dialogue from the people living there to drop little morsels of how they view the place, what it's like to live there, hints at history maybe. GOD more hints at the history from the npcs would have been amazing considering the entire deal of the region is its history. More comments about the places themselves and less just filler dialogue or comments about the player. Also fuckin. dialogue that updates properly to comment on the story. SoA had this and I loved it so much and was so disappointed at the comparative lack in GS. Several of the SoA npcs feel at least aware of what's happening in the region in the story but most of the GS npcs felt to me like they were just kind of existing there to fill up space and give out side quests

The NPCs at the time travel shrine are the most notorious to me about this because they say almost the exact same thing through the entire game, I kept going back to check in the hopes they would update it to say something different, but it was Always the Same as if you'd only just been there and had the celebi thing happen...

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Wet-Dry World

Debut: Super Mario 64

We’ve talked about Mario Enemies. We’ve talked about Mario Entities. We’ve talked about Mario Allies, Mario Power-Ups, Mario Games, Mario Mechanics, Mario NES-era Game Manuals, and even things that aren’t Mario at all! While the blog’s called “Weird Mario Enemies,” and probably always will be, make no mistake. We’ve covered just about everything under the Weird Mario Sun...

...except for Weird Mario Places. I don’t think we’ve ever dedicated ourselves to talking about locations within Mario’s great wide wacky world, but today is the day we change that! That’s right, we’re headed to...

Wet-Dry World! This place has been the talk of the town as of late, and it’s easy to see why... It’s all so... surreal! People describe it as having a “negative emotional aura,” and I have to definitely agree with that statement... though what is it, specifically, that makes Wet-Dry World like that? it’s hard to look at Wet-Dry World without something feeling weirdly off... let’s take a deep dive to figure out some of the possible reasons why!

An important part of Wet-Dry World’s negative emotional aura, I feel, comes from its aesthetic. While most Mario locations are bright, poppy, and fun, Wet-Dry World is a notable exception. The stage is largely drabby shades of blue, gray, and brown, and it’s not like the music is the most jolly music to jaunt around to, either. Even just from screenshots, it’s pretty easy to tell that something feels weirdly wrong about Wet-Dry World, compared to nearly every other location Mario’s been to. Even places like New Donk City, thoroughly grounded in realism, seem to have more “fun” aesthetics than Wet-Dry World!

But while Wet-Dry World focuses itself to dull, realistic “urban landscape” colors, that doesn’t necessarily mean the location itself is grounded in any sort of realism. While the “downtown” area looks almost exactly what you’d expect a primitive N64-era cityscape to look like, the “uptown” area is precisely the opposite, going for the Super Mario 64 level design favorite: “abstract shapes put together in a way that represent the concept of a level more than any sort of level itself!” Ahhhh, the old classic.

Heck, even the skybox so perfectly represents the clash between abstraction and realism! It’s genuinely a picture of an actual town in Spain, but the filters and background applied to it give the impression that it’s all underwater, which adds further to Wet-Dry World’s surrealism: everywhere you look around you, there’s these strange realistic buildings, but look up, and you’re underwater. But not actually, because despite everything, you’re still walking on dry land! Unless you go for a swim, in which case you are underwater underwater.

And it might just be me, but even Wet-Dry World’s base concept feels weirdly off-kilter. I feel like a lot of the late-game worlds in Super Mario 64 sort of have this thing where they don’t feel completely “real,” like Tall Tall Mountain and Tiny-Huge Island, but at least those feel like the kinds of CONCEPTS you’d see in Mario games! Heck, they even seem to be based on the athletic levels and Land of the Giants, respectively! But Wet-Dry World is based on the concept of wetness. I don’t know exactly how to explain it -- it’s not like a beach world, or a lake world, it’s a world based on the concept of “wet” and something about that just feels like it doesn’t really belong in the world of Super Mario. Granted, Mario’s world is so huge that really anything is fair game at this point, but I guess it’s Wet-Dry World’s presence in a mainline Mario game that makes it feel more strange than usual.

And while the gimmick of a world where you can change the water level DOES seem right for Mario, they decide to go and make that weird too, by having it activated by these weird crystals instead, apparently called Crystal Taps!

Wet-Dry World is such a weird, weird place. It feels almost... unnatural in a way. I guess it doesn’t help that despite resembling a town, it’s devoid of any actual life, and most of the enemies are notably mechanical ones, such as Chuckyas, Heave-Hos, Amps, and Keronpa Balls which don’t even work because they’re placed so low on the stage that they’re never not underwater. The only enemies that look natural at all are Skeeters, a type of bug. They’re featured in the stage’s painting!

Yeah, that sure is the first thing I’d paint to show someone what Wet-Dry World is like. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of Skeeters there! I’d probably just pay attention to like, the entire city down there first. Interestingly, this painting has a unique gimmick, where how high you jump into it influences the water level when you enter the stage! But once you’re in, what is there to do in Wet-Dry World? Well, how about trying astral projection?

While the “astral projection” glitch can be performed in a few places in Super Mario 64, can you really think of a better place to do it than Wet-Dry World? I mean, Wet-Dry World feels like the kind of place you’d astral project in. As you can see in this video, which is kind of low-quality, but in a way that only makes it more fitting, buddy up with your Chuckya Chum, and separate Mario’s soul from his body like never before!

In conclusion, Wet-Dry World is a weird, weird place. There’s really just a lot about it to point out, and chances are, I missed quite a bit, myself. Really, Mario 64 in general is a weird game, quite possibly the most “off” feeling of the main Mario series, maybe only beaten by Super Mario Bros. 2, but probably ahead of the Land games, which at least feel like traditional Mario platformers. Super Mario 64, being the genre-defining game it is, will always hold a point as being revolutionary to video games, even if half of the courses feel kind of like developer test areas.

Really, the primitive nature of Mario 64 seems to play into Wet-Dry World’s weirdness somewhat, it’s hard to imagine today a level being designed with the abstract geometry seen here, though I’d love to see a modern Mario game try to recapture its unique aesthetic, whether it’s in an HD remake, or even a Mario Kart track or something (because hey, Tick-Tock Clock got the treatment). Would it even be possible? Or is Wet-Dry World something that can only exist on the N64?

Either way, Wet-Dry World will leave a lasting impact on all of us... as the place seen in that weird Super Mario 64 milk commercial.

[secretlyatargaryen]

July 2019 Reviews

Games

Walden, a game - A delightful experience for those who love games and literature and the idea of them together. The best parts of the game are the quotes from Thoreau's book that appear on the screen when you examine something closely, like a fox or a maple tree, complete with great voice acting. The ecological detail put into the game is impressive. The worst part is that the game mechanics for completing tasks are clunky and there is very little time each day before the game forces you to go to sleep and begin the next day, and your hunger, fuel, and shelter meter always seems to be low, causing you to spend the majority of your daylight hours picking berries and collecting firewood. I get that this is supposed to mirror the experience of "living simply," but 1) it is boringly repetitive and if anything calls to mind the irony of “being one with nature” in a computer game and 2) there are a lot of other interesting things to do in the game which you do not have enough time to do, such as helping escaped slaves on their way to the underground railroad. I learned playing this game that Henry David Thoreau was basically every guy I met in college who hated the government and whose solution to its atrocities was to fuck off into the woods and smoke pot instead of actually doing anything about it. This analogy is completed by the fact that you are able to go into town and get food and clean laundry from your parents' house if you get too low on those things.

Black Mirror (2017) - No, not the Netflix series. This is a re-imagining of the Black Mirror series of adventure games developed in the early 2000s. The original game is considered a classic of point and click adventures but suffers from an unoriginal plot (obligatory part where I once again complain about horror games and their obsession with "Surprise! You're crazy! Dead women!") and the unfortunateness of early 3D polygon graphics. The second and third game took the series in a completely new and original direction and were quite good, so while I had never heard of the remake before I came across it during the steam summer sale, I was cautiously hopeful. Even if it was trash, it's just the kind of gothic-mystery-exploring-a-haunted-castle trash that I like to throw my money at. The gameplay is pretty fun (minus some quick time events where you can get killed by ghosts mostly by failing to operate the somewhat clunky controls - the game was originally ported for PS4) and the story is original but also expands upon the series mythos. An enjoyable trashy gothic yarn, although the story also felt incomplete, even to someone who has played the original games, and was both wrapped up too quickly and left weirdly unresolved.

Books

Greenglass House, Kate Milford - I started this book a while ago and it’s been on my radar for a while, and I restarted it again when I heard it was going to be on this year’s BOB list. A fun young adult adventure story which utilizes one of my favorite mystery tropes, the closed circle. The story is that preteen Milo lives in the eponymous house, which his family runs as an inn. The house used to be a meeting place for smugglers back in the day, which means there’s buried treasure somewhere in the house, and when the story starts a slew of guests arrive at the house and are stranded by a snowstorm, when things start getting mysterious. Someone in the house is a thief! I really like this book and the way that the story’s original folklore is woven into the plot. There are also several dungeons and dragons elements that play a role in the plot - to solve the mystery, Milo and his friend Meddy pretend to be characters in a role-playing game, and I love the way the story makes connections between games, stories, and language, since that happens to align with my interests.

Serafina and the Black Cloak, Robert Beatty - Another BOB book, this one also has been on my radar for a while because the series is very popular among my students, and when I went to Beatty’s website recently I saw that Disney had already put their name on it, lol. What I didn’t know was that the series takes place in my state. The setting is the Biltmore Estate in the late 1800s, and the story is a historical fantasy that utilizes some of the local folklore in some really interesting ways, although it’s more fantasy than historical. An enjoyable read with an interesting female protagonist.

Movies

Ready Player One - I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I would. I had heard going into it that it was not a great adaptation from friends who loved the book, which I haven’t read. That might be why I did enjoyed it so much. I don’t think it’s anything that memorable, but it is enjoyable. I can see why the book became so popular, although I’ve read books with similar storylines. I guess a book like this is more relevant nowadays with the popularity of VR in the modern gaming market, but the story relied on some tired cliches nonetheless. I also was a bit annoyed when the story acknowledged the issue with the main character falling for Artemis’ idealistically beautiful avatar without really knowing her...and then had her turn out to be stunningly gorgeous in real life. Okay, she had a wine-stain disfigurement on her face, but she was still traditionally beautiful, and the main character gets to be with her in the end while meanwhile, his actual best friend, who turns out to be an unfeminine black girl in real life and who obviously has a crush on him, is left behind.

Picnic At Hanging Rock - I come across this movie on gothic film recommendation lists every so often and have wanted to watch it for years, and I happened to find it on youtube, which surprised me. The original movie is from 1975 and is a cult classic for a reason. Stunning visuals and a story that leaves you confused in the just the right way. After watching it, I was itching to learn more and came across last year’s amazon prime series with Natalie Dormer and watched all six episodes, and although the series was enjoyable and a good extension for anyone who enjoys the original movie, it does not have the charm or brilliance of the original. The series expands on the story, but part of the beauty of the original movie is the way the story is told in what isn’t said, and in carefully choreographed scenes where nobody on screen says a word. I can see why the movie is called “gothic” as it has some of the trappings of the genre. It takes place in 1900 at a remote and mysterious boarding school in Australia. Three girls vanish during a school field trip, seemingly without a trace. What happened to them may have been supernatural. Or they may have been murdered, kidnapped, or run off on their own. Also, I’m pretty sure everyone is gay.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - I’m a huge fan of the Shirley Jackson novel which this movie is an adaptation of, and unlike Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, this movie is actually a fairly straight adaptation of the novel. The movie captures the gothic feel of the book as well as the anxiety about gender and class from which it gets its themes, and there are solid performances all around, but the movie does seem a bit devoid of a life of its own. Despite, and possibly because of, the voice-over narration, Merricat never really comes alive as a character the way she does in the book. This is, I think, a problem with a lot of book to movie adaptations that rely on voice-overs to tell the story. I can see the appeal of this, especially with a book like this which is both heavily steeped in POV and characterized by an unreliable narrator, but I found myself really wishing the movie would just let itself tell the story rather than the narrator.

Shows

American Gods - I watched all of season two on the starz website except for the finale, which I was told that I needed to upgrade by account to watch, so if you are watching on the website or the app be aware of that. I enjoyed season two, although it lacked some of the urgency of the first season. I do enjoy some of the adaptational choices made that update the novel a bit, such as having Technology be outsourced by New Media. Also, season two saw the arrival of my daughter, Sam Black Crow. I’m also looking forward to the Lakeside subplot next season (I assume) as it’s my favorite part of the novel.

Stranger Things - I watched the first four episodes of season one when it came out, and then for some reason never finished it. I know, I know. It didn’t take me very long to watch all three seasons, which I sort of interpreted as one as a result, although I do think there’s a drop in quality somewhere in the second/third season, but overall it’s a fun show that definitely kept me interested and invested in the characters. Also, every scene relating to the upside down motivated me to clean my bathroom.