The numbers of inconsistencies and plot holes present in Nintendo's Donkey Kong franchise are vast, and unfortunately, rather prevalent. This is not the mere kind of "A snowman appeared in the desert level" level of plot hole, this is the "We didn't bother to think through our main franchise characters, the ones we will be using as figureheads to sell our titles, very well at all."
I went into depth on why the Donkey Kong we have today is definitely the same they had thirty years ago, and in that article I used one of the other errors as a sight gag. In 1999, RareWare, then owned by bigwig Nintendo, released a follow-up to their successful Donkey Kong Country trilogy: Donkey Kong 64. This was the first Donkey Kong game to put the big guy in the starring role for quite a while, and he was accompanied by a slew of other Kongs. Naturally, we were once again paired with the heroic Diddy Kong, Donkey's smooth talking nephew, but we were also introduced to the sibling of Dixie Kong. Tiny Kong, as she came to be known, was the youngest of the playable Kongs in the game, and she was also the smallest. These were the pigtailed primate's defining features.
Then they took it all away.
Suddenly out of the blue, she was changed. Diddy Kong Racing DS appeared on store shelves, and it brought with it a tall, curving, gypsy hooker monkey who had the gall to call herself "Tiny." This failed attempt at sex appeal was certainly not the Tiny Kong I knew, and neither was it the sexy I knew. Maybe it's because I've become pretty ape-phobic in past months, and know that a blowjob in this department could easily end in one of the most atrocious things a man could conceive, but no matter how far in the air they place her ass, and how close to the ground they dangle her hair, I am never going to find this monkey arousing.
Well, at least she isn't Tranny- I mean!- Candy Kong.
The sudden change didn't cause much of a buzz, because frankly, most people don't really give a shit. But I did. And I still do. I give lots of shits. At least once a month I try to figure out how Nintendo could go back and create a game to explain what happened to the poor, innocent child chimp that I knew and loved and used to beat the stuffing out of demonic jack-in-the-boxes. Why she became the prostitute of the jungle. What happened to make her older than her supposedly "big" sister, Dixie. And just who her pimp is.
My guess is Swanky.
Nintendo has always been a little iffy when it came to the continuity of their titles, but for the most part, they managed to avoid randomly aging characters with established family and plot relations. This is what happens when the company doesn't care about continuity, and doesn't respect the franchise they have. This is what happens when a developer takes the mentality that something is "just a game" and doesn't appreciate video games as a story telling medium. While it's all fine and dandy on occassion, you know, in spinoffs and such, it doesn't really work when there's a continuity involved.
For my closing comments I will tell you my theory on how Tiny came to be.
Baron K. Roolenstein built a device in the present day, that transported child Tiny into the future. There she met her older herself, who attempted to send her back to the past. Instead, the older Tiny got sent to the past, and the younger Tiny was stranded in the future.
A surprising amount of time ago, eight years ago to be exact, Cartoon Network aired a hit superhero show that managed to find an audience in every age group, and became a phenomenon that swept across the internet, spawning hundreds of thousands of fanfics, fansites, roleplays, and couple worshipping message boards. This cartoon was the animated adaptation of Teen Titans, a show that couldn't really decide what demographic it wanted to cater for.
The show spawns a slew of original characters, some of which have even shown up in the main DC Universe. Few of these original characters were as interesting as Red X, an anti-hero counterpart to Robin, who didn't have enough screen time in the series itself, and has yet to make a return as part of the main universe. Which is peculiar, because DC has a thing for adapting characters from other media.
But not this guy!
It's not like Red X was an unpopular character. On the contrary, actually, fans couldn't get enough of him! Red X was like a more powerful, darker version of Robin. He could single-handedly take out the entire Titans team, partially because that's what his suit was designed to do, but also because he was simply better than them. And by that logic, he was also better than Deathstroke, the series antagonist, which makes Red X possibly the most powerful villain the team ever encountered.
Not only did Red X defeat the Titans at every opportunity, for kicks, he also managed to walk away from the Brotherhood of Evil. You simply do not walk away from the Brotherhood of Evil, but this guy did it. Either that or he was killed in the process, which isn't really likely, especially when you consider that he was probably this universe's version of Jason Todd.
Jason Todd, as some might know, was the second Robin. He met an unfortunate end at the hands of the Joker in one of the most iconic Batman story lines to date. Todd was eventually resurrected after a reality-shattering punch by Superman Prime. After being reborn, Todd became a much darker person, and took on the persona of the Red Hood. As Red Hood, Todd was filled with rage and vengeance and other dark emotions, essentially becoming an evil Robin... like, y'know Red X, who already existed by this point.
Red HOOD?!
Todd even beats the hell out of Tim Drake, the current Robin, whom he loathes to some extent. Kind of like.. well, you get the picture. It doesn't really help that Teen Titans even made a small reference to the notion that Red X could be Jason Todd. Here DC was, presented with the best opportunity to introduce a really bad ass character into their main universe, further cement the connections between the DC lore and the animated series, and they practically had a plausible explanation served to them on a silver platter.
And they didn't take it.
Not that I have any problems with Red Hood, he's perfectly fine and all... if he would maybe just choose an alias and stick with it, though, that would be nice.
Ah well. Here's to the future prospects of an in-universe Red X!
A question that hangs heavily in the minds of many, and while the stereotypical idea of the person who would ask this question is that of a puppy loving schoolgirl, it isn't hard to find both men and women seeking this answer despite finding themselves out of college and entering their forties. At that point it seems most people end the search and try to put it out of their minds, ashamed of the time they have lost in their quest for enlightenment.
Even those few who feel they understand the truth of this supposed element, "Love," often find themselves reevaluating their theories, and more often than not pulling a total 180° and never looking back. The hunt goes on, or the wearer traveler drops dead. An answer will elude mankind for all eternity, and no single individual will ever be able to define an absolute form of "love."
Einstein may have been able to define "E," but he couldn't figure this one out, huh?
Making the matter even more confusing is that everybody seems to have a unique concept of "love," which makes revealing a universal definition quite the challenge, and even if someone feels as though they have stoppered all the loopholes, conditions, and exemptions of most other individuals, somebody else will disagree, and they will disagree with such boisterousness that others will follow their example, and once again divide the commonly accepted meaning you have so cleverly crafted.
Because of this, it would be foolish of me to attempt a universal definition, and it would be selfish and unethical of me to attempt to conform you to my personal ideals of the meaning of "love." Even more so when you consider how likely it is that my own ideals will be changed by myself in the next two or three months, as these sorts of things are always metamorphosing.
Kind of like Ditto, but even more.
At first I thought of love as something shared only by two individuals. The typical "puppy love" concept, although to a greater, and much more selfless, degree. I believed the only true love was that shared by, well, lovers, and that all other connections were feeble, hollow, and weak. It even seemed, for a while at least, that this idea of the romantic couple was lost, and that "love" existed only between two people who could stand to see each other naked every night.
Both of those thoughts caused me many months of anxiety that I really shouldn't have needed to endure. If my brain weren't such a loud mouth, I may have been able to sleep. My understanding is now far more diverse, and less in the realm of pornography. While it is true that some call what really amounts to exclusive friends-with-benefits "love," I don't believe that's what it is. And while it's true that the most obvious, and definitely real, form of love is that between spouses, there are many other more diverse definitions.
But I'll roll with this one just a little longer.
Sex is considered part of spousal love, and there's good reason for it. This is the main reason why spousal, or "romantic," love is considered the deepest and most glorified of the forms of love, and why there is a very large difference between "fucking" and "making love." The concept of "fucking" in itself has actually cheapened sex to the point where it almost means nothing to a large majority of individuals, however there are many whom still feel that deep intimacy. There's something to be said for the submission of both parties when making love. Your partner and yourself become one, your souls are no longer playing footsies, they are merging seamlessly.
When just fucking, there is no connection, other than a penis to a vagina, or whatever other order and combination of orifices and protrusions you care to smash together. But a large amount of the difference lies in the appreciation of the partner. Lovers would traverse tundras naked to meet their significant other again, while fuckers let each other freeze, and probably eat whoever dies first.
Or they make a child that clearly... isn't all there...
Then there's camaraderie, which is far different from romantic love. I would advise very much that you do not confuse these forms of love, as having sex with your childhood buddy is not a great way to express this. And in truth, this is a far trickier concept of love than is romantic or familial love. Camaraderie is something that seems to be greatly ignored in out society, and often even mocked, and it probably has a lot to do with its lack of media portrayal, and of course the arrogance of the typical beef head.
The love of friends is rarely expressed as such. Telling your pal you "love" them, in today's society, is a pretty good way to get a broken nose and a pretty big misunderstanding. In fact, the notion of possibly accepting true friends in a sense of "love" is an outlandish one. To most people, anyways. There seems to be some confusion among most people that friends are unimportant, or merely gateways to social opportunities. To appreciate a friend enough to consider them an important part of your life?
"Why, Sir, we call that gay."
However there is a certain nobility in being accepted as a loved one by a close friend, and there's an equal amount of nobility in accepting a close friend as a loved one. Someone you can depend on, unconditionally, who is neither your spouse nor your brother by birth. Individuals who accept each other and assist each other under almost any circumstances. A friendship, a bond, like that is something to be admired, and a love like this is potentially the most difficult to come by, and in many senses, the most valuable to have.
Now the oddball of the family: familial love. I haven't quite figured out my take on the concept of familial love. Are you to love someone simply because they brought you into this world? Well, what the hell kind of gift is that? Now you're doomed to indebted servitude, taxes, and heartbreak! Despite this, there is a bond that unifies a family. A child will appreciate and love its caretakers, and a certain, very distinct intimacy will form between them. This same intimate feeling reaches out to those who share large quantities of your blood, but it is difficult to have an appreciation for distant cousins. And why should you, if they have no real meaning in your life?
Familial love is also difficult to understand because, despite being the default mindset, it is possible, and likely, that it will at some point be shattered, and it is very difficult to repair. A mother may love her child, but if she doesn't know how to handle that love, her child may very well grow out of his helplessness-induced love for her.
Which lends itself to the confusing concept of parental love, the final form. Parental love is the unique love a parent feels for their child. This love is strictly one way, which makes it unique as all the other forms are reciprocated love. When a parent sees their child, they see not only an individual, they see bits and pieces of themselves, and while it may be narcissistic to love oneself, it isn't exactly a bad thing. Humans always want to see themselves as the best the world has to offer, but they also want to defend themselves from harm. These two desires are focused on the child, even after they have kids of their own.
Well, there you have it. My opinions on a topic you didn't ask about, in an article that lacks a great deal of my usual charm (and unfortunately, all my good looks.) However, being one of those lost and confused young adult things, I often find myself wondering about emotions and that wonderful nonsense most of my generation are drinking so hard to ignore. I'm still fine tuning and organizing all my thoughts here, and as I hear new theories I'm always beginning to understand and accept a little more. So I'm just wondering, what do you all think is the definition of love?
Over the years Nintendo has made some great games, but not all of them were available to a very large amount of people, so in the end they were lost to the abyss of time and obscurity. Some of these games weren't even made for a regular console or released outside of Japan, and that's left a lot of fans hanging dry. To the relief of many old timers, Nintendo's attempt to rival the X-Box Live Arace, the Virtual Console, has made a lot of these games available, sometimes with a few small updates. Still, things are missing, so I've taken it upon myself to help Nintendo fill in the gaps.
1. Duck Hunt
Duck Hunt was a pretty innovative game back when it was released in 1984. It was the first game to utilize the Nintendo Zapper product, which would be the forefather of the many numerous plastic-molded, pixel-murdering guns crafted by Nintendo, a tradition which is still somewhat carried on. The game also hosts a notable cast of imaginitavely colored ducks, and the prickiest pooch ever to paw his way into my heart.
But man, if I had a copy of Vs. Duck Hunt...
The Duck Hunt legacy carries on into today, even without Nintendo. The game's place as a pioneer and a legend has made it a household title into the modern generation, and almost everybody can recognize both the dog and the fruity-flavored fowls who pester him. Despite this, Nintendo has never made an actual sequel to the game, nor have they ever shown an interest in porting it to one of their more recent consoles. Occassionally the game will receive a cameo of some kind, such as being one of the many Micro Mini Games featured in the WarioWare franchise.
The Ducks also got a pretty sweet trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
The most obvious reason for the lack of a port is that technology has moved on, or there isn't an appropriate light gun system for the current consoles. However, the Wii came along and made any of these excuses completely obsolete. The system is practically designed with Duck Hunt in mind, as Nintendo themselves proved in a tech demo. A pretty damn sexy tech demo, I might add. I want that shit in my game library right now.
Knowing this, I can't see a reason why Nintendo would keep their classic masterpiece lurking in the dark any longer. Nintendo, it's time to free the ducks!
2. Wario's Woods (SNES)
"Hang on, Nate. Wario's Woods is already on the Virutal Console, and it was in Animal Crossing. We've seen this shit so many times I'm being put to sleep just thinking about it."
That may be true, but have you seen this shit?
"Oh, well, I guess that's a little different... Please, go on."
Why thank you, good audience. You see, there were actually two versions of Wario's Woods developed right alongside each other, though they have some differences. Unfortunately, Nintendo apparently hates the SNES version of the game, which is the better of the two. It was the first (and I think, only) game to actually star Toad as the leading man, and he came with a slew of interesting supporting characters and adversaries that we, regrettably, have not seen since.
Katsini, oh Katsini. Where the hell are you, Katsini?
This was also the first major appearance of Birdo as one of the good guys, as she served as a kind of cheerleader for Toad. Additionally, the little known character Wanda made this her final act. It can only be assumed that at some point prior to the game's story, she was shot down by Wario's might warplane.
"I'mma da Red Baron, bitch!"
Wario's Woods was one of the first puzzle games I actually gave a damn about, because it was Mario, and because it was more than just one color block falling ontop of other color blocks. It was one color block falling ontop of other color blocks and then me picking that shit up and putting it in its place! It also featured all those other characters I mentioned, and at the time, Vs. style gameplay in a puzzle was simply unheard of.
Keeping this piece of Nintendo history hidden from the world is simply an injustice. To combat this, you should all painstakingly dig through every yardsale until you find a copy and a working SNES.
3. Joy Mech Fight
Joy Mech Fight is one of those obscure, Japanese NES games with an absurd cult following in the US the likes of which should encourage any gaming company to invest the minimal effort of translating and emulating the title, a task which is made easier by the fact that this has already been done, and all anybody would have to do is literally copy that ROM file.
Regardless, Nintendo still hasn't done so, which is a terrible, terrible marketing move. Joy Mech Fight doesn't have an audience simply because it's an obscure Asian game, it has an audience because it's a badass obscure Asian game. The concept of the game is to steal all of the basic plot concepts from Mega Man but turn into a fighting game with one of the most oddball protagonists this side of Canada.
The best cure for comedy is a punch in the face!
Sukapon is a robot that wasn't designed for combat, he was built for the sole purpose of making people laugh. His one primary function was comedy, until all of his brothers were kidnapped by Nintendo's version of Dr. Wily, and Nintendo's version of Dr. Light had to retool his lighthearted little friend into a deadly war machine.
Just because Nintendo couldn't think up their own plot doesn't mean the game is condemned to be a gigantic rip-off failure. On the contrary, actually. As a fighter of its age and platform, Joy Mech Fight is pretty advanced. The characters are all interesting, and they all have a unique playstyle that reflects their specific adaptations. Enjoy some gameplay you'll never see on your TV:
4. Mario Kart Arcade GP
I recently put some serious praise out for the Mario Kart franchise with the exception of one utter failure, but I had neglected to mention a pair of titles that followed the Mario Kart tradition and were both worthy and unique successors to those that came before them: Mario Kart Arcade GP, and Mario Kart Arcade GP 2. While there are two games in part of this mini-series, I'll only be discussing the first.
That would be this one.
Right off that bat you're going to notice something odd about this game, in a pretty awesome way. If you haven't seen it yet, go take a look at the picture two lines up. Oh, who might that be taking aim at Nintendo's beloved mascot? It's his industry predecessor, of course! Before Sonic tried to muscle out the mustachioed man, he was hopping his way over the old timers. While Pac-Man really hasn't aged well, he's in it to win it, and he's not alone. Ms. Pac-Man, and their arch-nemesis Blinky join the kart races alongside the Mario Big 8, and they don't seem out of place in the least. Actually, they fit right in, and I'm kind of disappointed these two have never had the opportunity to team up in other spin-offs. It's almost as if Pac-Land is some weird neighboring country to the Mushroom Kingdom.
Typically the Mario Kart games have one or two big gimmicks that carry them as a unique title. Double Dash had twin racers, Wii had motorcycles, and Super Mario Kart was simply an innovative title. While the game itself doesn't really offer too much new to the franchise, Mario Kart Arcade GP does handle like an arcade game, which it should, but it isn't because it was built into a cabinet. The game's engine, camera angles, sound effects, visuals, everything about it screams "arcade," which is all a gimmick in its own right. But it had one other ace in the hole that wasn't another left field crossover:
It took your picture.
Mario Kart Arcade GP came with a built in camera that would take a picture of your face and use that in place of the standard mugshot. While the current incarnation of the Wii doesn't come equipped with a camera, it does have two features that could take its place: the Mii channel, and the photo channel. By allowing the game to draw possible resources from these channels, players could still put their faces inside of Mario's stinking, thirty-year-old hat.
Aside from Namco's own mascot showing up to keep Mario on his toes, this game has one other thing separating it from the rest of the franchise: it's only available in the arcades. Because of this simple fact, I've been hoping for the title to show up on Wii ever since the Virtual Console was first announced, but alas, no such luck. For a while I lost hope, but that was reinvigorated when Nintendo unveiled the Virtual Console Arcade. And what a better place to use as a launch pad for their own arcade games? Unfortunately Nintendo doesn't seem interested in providing much outside of the 8-bit realm, so the wait carries on.
5. Donkey Kong 64
Donkey Kong 64 was the second member in the sisterhood of the Rare titles released on the N64 back in the late nineties. It was intended to have a tie-in with Banjo-Kazooie's famously unfinished Stop-n-Swap feature, but whatever this was going to do has long since been forgotten. Regardless, Donkey Kong 64 is a great game with a lot of depth and charm.
Really, how much more charm could you ask for? You got Lanky Kong!
This game was less of a follow-up to the Donkey Kong Country trilogy that blessed the Super Nintendo, and more of a game all its own. There was clearly a great deal of influence from Rare's previous title, Banjo-Kazooie, but DK64 did a lot to personify itself and embrace the fact that you were controlling a family of primates in a partially civilized jungle environment. While it is a bit of a collect fest, the collecting is always fun, and most of it is optional. Plus, there's something special about seeing all the oddly colored bananas and hearing that satisfyingly soft noise when you pick them up.
Unfortunately, I think there's one real key reason this hasn't shown up on the Virtual Console: because Nintendo would have to replace a small portion of it.
This portion.
Rare has always been big on referencing their own past endeavors, and the past of their parent companies, and they just love dropping in little cameos wherever they can. Or at least, 90's Rare did. That was part of the charm of the set of games they developed for the N64. They all had little nods to themselves and other cool titles. Donkey Kong 64 contained two specialty games that were required in order to progress within the main game. In one instance, you have to crash the big ape's party old school by actually besting the first three rounds of the Donkey Kong arcade cabinet. To make things even, Rare added Jetpac, one of their own arcade games, later on, which was required for a prize that I can't quite recall at the moment.
Unfortunately, Nintendo sold Rare and most of its licenses to Microsoft at the beginning of the last generation (which is actually ages ago, now that I think about it. Damn, I'm old.) Because of this, Nintendo would either need to go through legal hell to get the game up as it is, or put some effort into modifying the game to include one of their other arcade titles in place of Jetpac, and honestly I don't know if they even have the capabilities to do that since they weren't developers.
But if they could, man, I'd jam with the D.K. Crew. Yeah.
Spriting is an art form, like painting, sketching, animating, sculpting. You know, all that stuff your parents praise when you're two, then scream at you for "wasting your life on" when you're sixteen and covered head to toe in charcoal. What separates spriting from the rest of the artistic realm is that it is a purely digital art form, with its closest physical relative probably being Legos. When you play old video games, you know, the ones that aren't rendered in high resolution 3D, those little cartoon guys running around on your screen are made up of sprites. A single sprite is typically only a frame of an animation, but there are plenty of sprites that aren't part of an animated sequence, and that is still a member of the art form family.
Mario is a sprite, the mushroom platforms are sprites, and the blocks are all sprites. These are all somebody's art.
While sprites aren't appreciated very often in the world, there is a rather large community built around them. From sites such as The Spriters Resource to the Infinity Mugen Team, spriting has found itself a place deep within the core of internet lore. At the heart of all fangame projects are spriters young and old of various experiences, but each of them have something in common: they all started off with something known as "sprite editing."
Sprite editing is the practice of taking sprites from an existing, but commercialized, video game, such as Super Mario World, and changing the pixels to resemble what you want. This is common among novice spriters, typically as a means of learning from those who came before them.
For example, they were all once Mega Man. These were edited by some bloke named Apex.
There really isn't a problem with editing for educational purposes, art classes tell you to do it all the time. So do you creative writing classes, for that matter. The entire creative process is built on the idea of editing until you have the skills you need to do it by yourself. But the problem in the community is that sprite editors seem to have some ridiculous sense of ownership over the sprites they've edited. So many times have I seen the words "Hey man, I made that Mario hat! You can't use it, it's mine!"
Those words are total bullshit.
When one editor edits the work of another editor, an enormous shit storm will undoubtedly ensue. The editor who modified the first guy's sprite won't understand why he's being bitched at, and the original editor won't say anything other than "You're a dirty, rotten thief." In fact, I will probably be torn apart for the sprites I'm posting as examples in this article. You know, once anybody actually reads the article... two or three years from now...
Which means Loganair should be raining the might of Odin upon me any second now...
There is one critical flaw in this mentality: the original edit was nothing more than an edit of somebody else's artwork to begin with. I'm truly baffled how somebody can steal someone else's art, edit it, and then bitch at another kid who comes along and edits that. I mean, did the first editor in this chain ask Capcom permission to scribble all over their hard work?
Apparently because the sprite was used in a commercial property originally, it is of free reign for people to draw on top of and then claim as their own, where as, by the effectively fair and unwritten internet laws, an editor cannot edit another edit, because that is stealing somebody else's artwork.
You guys better not steal my art, it's mine.
And while there are some amazing edits out there, like the Thor I posted above, they're still just edits over somebody else's art, and no amount of ownership should really be attributed to them, and there should especially not be shit tossed around when somebody wants to dye Thor's hair a different color.
My message to sprite editors is simple: each and every one of you is a thief, stop bitching at your brethren.
Good morning, you crusty eyed, Friday night vodka world championship trainees, you! You should still be partying hard as I write this, and your vision will probably be too blurred by the time you attempt to read it, but I'm just popping in to let you all know that I've updated the archive pages up through the end of last month! Aren't I spiffy? I should be completely up to date by either later tonight or tomorrow, but there's a pretty good chance of that not happening until October. Stay chill, guys!
Alright guys, it's game time! Or rather, the opposite of that, because I am between games right now and my fingers feel absolutely lost. They don't know what to do other than push joy sticks and mash buttons, and even now my keyboard is yowling in pain from over-mashing. If you've been following along, you know I just beat The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask with absolutely everything, because doing that makes Majora's Mask an easier pansy than King Dodongo or Queen Gohma.
Easier than Paris Hilton.
So I now need something to play to occupy the time that I should spend updating this blog, writing novels, writing short stories, getting out of my parent's house, y'know, basically anything that would be actually constructive. I like to justify this by claiming that video games and anime and comics give me more material to write about, when in reality it's all just entertainment porn.
Anyways, I'm apparently entertainment horny, because I am seriously feeling the need to game, and this is a need I haven't felt very often since I finally finished off that beast known as puberty (although I guess hormones are still intent on being bitchy until I'm 25 or something ridiculous like that. Maybe after a decade, my acne will go away?) I've given Legend of Zelda II: the Adventure of Link a brief whirl earlier today, and I'd like to get into that at some point, but there's such a steep learning curve that I really can't at the moment. I mean, I haven't even figured out why sometimes my sword shoots lasers and why other times it doesn't, because my magic meter isn't changing at all.
I also pulled out Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat for the Nintendo GameCube, which I just bought on Friday, along with a host of other GCN games because GameStop's GCN and PS2 shelves are just absolutely amazing. Anyways, I don't have the drums, and while the game is fun enough with the standard controller, the controls weren't really thought out well enough for me to want to play it on a regular basis. It's more of a game I would pick up for five minutes, and shut off without saving. Which I think I may have accidentally done.
Sorry, bud.
So I'm just wondering: what games do you think I should play?
The Mario Kart franchise is probably the longest surviving series in the racing genre of video games, and when you pick up just about any game in the franchise from the pseudo-three-dimensional Super Mario Kart to the largely competitive Mario Kart DS, you can really see why. Almost every installment in the series has worked to be an improvement over past iterations, while properly reinventing courses and items that succeeded before. Up until Mario Kart Wii, the gimmicks worked well and made for a unique experience. Honestly, Nintendo has worked hard to make each game great, and individual, so that you can go back and play Mario Kart 64 without feeling like you're trudging through a lesser developed Mario Kart: Double Dash.
But, like I said, every family has a black sheep, and for this mushroom induced hubbabub, that sheep happens to be Mario Kart Wii. MKW did its job of introducing a pretty cool gimmick, this time it was motorcycles which seemed to be influenced from the Mario-themed Excitebike: Mario Battle Stadium. On their own, the bikes in Mario Kart Wii were alright and added a cool diversity to the vehicles, which had so often been mere cars. They even added some pretty awesome costumes for Peach, Rosalina, and Daisy.
Pretty awesome indeed.
Unfortunately there were a few problems with MKW that no amount of perfectly figured princesses could save it from. The most notable of these was that it suffered from Nintendo's attempted genocide of the competitive gamer. The title was designed to as a party title, with an far too much emphasis on chance. And no, I don't mean chances that you'll pull into first, I mean the chance of being blown to bits by three blue shells and a Bob-Omb before you can even really gloat. There was no attempt at balance in this game, and it really put fans off their appetite. Especially when no less than Sega came out and punched Nintendo in the nuts later that generation. And they punched hard, with Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing possibly being the best kart racer produced for a while.
The other problem that plagued Mario Kart Wii was poor track design, and some wonky texture choices that made everything seem to mesh together, making it nearly impossible to have any real depth perception during races. Which is a real problem when you find out that left turn was actually a one-stop drop to the bottom of Maple Treeway.
This Dry Bones used to be a regular Koopa, but misleading
road signs have a bad habit of getting things killed.
Of all the Mario Kart games that have been produced since the beautiful year of 1992, MKW is the only one that I find myself hating every time I play it. This was especially painful after the gaming gods had graced us all with the majestic Mario Kart DS just a few short years before, although to be fair, things were kind of beginning to slip at Double Dash.
So you can understand why when I first heard that there was going to be a Mario Kart title for the 3DS (a handheld I'm already not entirely sold on) I was a little bit in the ballpark of "Meh." However, after watching an interview and hearing about the game just a little bit more, I realized that Mario Kart 7 is looking to be something special. Something that wants to bring the competitive back into the franchise, and keep the fun and gimmicks to boot!
And I dig this gimmick!
Courses from past games are returning, as per the usually Mario Kart tradition, but this time they aren't just past stages. This time the stages are being just ever so slightly retooled to incorporate the glider and underwater elements that are dominant in this title. So not only do we get old stages back, we get old stages back with muscles on the hoods and spinners in the tires.
The deal only got sweeter when I found out about the two new additions to the roster, a pair of characters that haven't been seen in a kart before. The first of them is creating the biggest of fan shitstorms: Metal Mario. Honestly, I don't care how many people cry about lazy texture swapping, I love Metal Mario, especially since he started becoming his own character in Mario Golf and Super Smash Bros. on the N64. Metal Mario is kind of like the Mushroom Kingdom equivalent of Dark Link, and all the more power to him.
The second new racer this time around is someone I had never really considered ever, but he's been there the whole time, and I'm surprisingly excited that he finally has a chance to sit down and be playable. This time Lakitu is done saving your drowning asses and is showing everybody what's up in his state of the art cloud car, and I couldn't be happier. I'm definitely going to be taking him for a spin when I get my hands on this game.
This is going to be more amazing than the tanks in Mario Party 5.
There's new items, such as a pretty cool fire flower that looks like it has some real strategic game, and the return of the classic MK64 blue shell. No more of that flying, exploding, first-player-only crap that hindered MKW. Oh no. This time the shell is back to tearing up the track and every single racer in its way. Move the hell out.
Really, this is the one of the few 3DS titles to be looking at. There seems to be an emphasis on quality gameplay, the roster is looking slick, items are great, and the gimmicks are going to be a blast. Check out this interview here that shows off everything in spectacular moving action, and if that doesn't convince you, then sir, go back to your generic FPS.
Oh, Ben, you stupid sonuvabitch. I beat your ass senseless, I did, I did. You tried thwarting me, what with your newfangled GameCube edition lock-ups and save cancels, but I didn't let you scare me off, no sir, no sir, and now here I am with a 100% Majora's Mask playthrough. I did it, you stupid, little punk. Twenty hearts, reduced damage, extended magic meter, Great Fairy Sword, Fierce Deity Mask, six empty glass bottles. Oh yeah, your ass is on a silver platter, and now I'm serving it up to the internet, even if it isn't quite what they ordered.
This prick. I kicked his ass.
In the process of demolishing the unfathomable evil of the electrical world (AKA: XANA) I noticed some of the intentional weird shit Nintendo tossed into their game. Even though this was something like my fifth or sixth playthrough of the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, there was still a bunch of new things for me to find, things I had never seen before or things I had never bothered to notice. The one I'm going to share with you that absolutely blew my mind?
This douche...
...is the same person as...
...this douche.
No, not Majora's Mask. The Happy Mask Salesman is the same person as all five of those little bratholes that run around on the cracked out moon that's trying to eat the Earth. I don't really know what this means outside of the fact that the Happy Mask Salesman has some unexplored supernatural presence, and a much deeper connection to the Majora's Mask than what he presents to Link at the beginning of the game, where he essentially claims to have sought the mask out to complete his collection.
I kind of want to believe that the Salesman actually created Majora's Mask, or is at least descended from the tribe that supposedly did. It really would make more sense of the Salesman created the Mask, however, and the evil in the Mask is in some way all of the confusion he accumulated growing up. Y'know, during that hormonal holocaust known as "puberty." This doesn't really explain the Mask's cold demeanor when it addresses the player without speaking through a puppet, but not much about the Mask is known at all when you consider it.
"Oh, it's the evil mask is going to kill the world," is the easy answer, but that really isn't it at all. Majora's Mask was only attempting to ruin Clock Town because that was the desire of the lonely Skull Kid, however we never get an explanation for why Majora's Mask continues its assault on Termina after it abandons Skull Kid, and why it still acts like a lost child when you find it on the Moon.
There's a vast amount of mystery behind these characters, and in one respect, I hope Nintendo returns to this point in time to explore them, but in another I'm intrigued by the unknown, and I want to keep it in the realm of my imagination. And honestly, the vast unexplained is one of the many reasons I'm going to recommend anybody who's read this post to this point to play the game.
Friends and followers should know that I'm a pretty avid gamer, and regularly shirk any and all of my responsibilities to sneak off and push some buttons. Actually, if you remember at the beginning of last month (about) I admitted to having been rather inactive due to a recent and debilitating need to play the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (which I still haven't beaten due to that nasty lock-up glitch that plagues the Collector's Edition disc.)
Capcom has been showing of videos that, until today, have accomplished their goal as being the sexiest strip tease in video game history, although they were walking on thin ice with that farting Kuma bit. But that was excusable, since he could already do that. Unfortunately, Capcom decided to show off the one thing that can ruin an awesome strip tease, the only real boner killer when there's talk of a lap dance: they've admitted that their limelight guzzling super model has herpes.
And the herpes look like this.
If you owned a copy of Street Fighter IV in any of its incarnations, you've probably had the misfortune of either playing as or coming up against this rumbly, tumbly mass of bad idea. This guy's name is Rufus, and he was the worst thing to take up memory on Street Fighter IV, and he continues to ruin perfectly nice, healthy, beautiful, young games in what can only be a pitiful attempt at either redemption or justification. Or, maybe he just wants to share his nightmare, who really knows?
Happy trail and all, Rufus is intent on ruining this game before it's even gone out of the gate. All I can do is hope the amount of awesome to follow this poor decision is enough to wash Rufus out of mind, and with a little luck, out of sight. If you don't care two ways about who gets in and who doesn't, check out the reveal trailer (a waste of animation.) If you want to bitch, like I just did, check out the reveal trailer (still a waste of animation.) If you want to see the only thing that makes Rufus look good, check out the reveal trailer (If only it were Xiaoyu...)
Hopefully you've all read my opinion of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the newest incarnation of the popular My Little Pony franchise. If you haven't, go check it out, because you won't feel right reading this article until you've done that. That's even more important if you're a guy, because without the reassurance I provided for you all back in May, you might be concerned about your balls falling off or shriveling into a pair of ovaries or something.
To put it in a nice, neat little package for you: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has an enormous number of young adult, male viewers, who go by the collective name of "bronies." The bronies are a large lot, and I suspect many of them only leave the closet when they sign into their virtual sanction. However, the old phrase "don't knock it 'til you try it" is very true where ponies are concerned, because this generation they're kicking ass.
Lots, and lots of ass.
Yes, in that very arcade-fighter-esque screenshot up there, you are seeing Twilight Sparkle blast Applejack's soul into a million heart shaped pieces of hell. A fangame developed by a team who call themselves Mane6 is in the works, and looking at just the alpha (essentially, the first draft) material is giving me all sorts of warm, pleasured, "I need new pants" feelings.
The game, which has both a tech demo and a rather lengthy recorded feed, takes a lot of influence from arcade classics such as Street Fighter II, King of Fighters, and of course: Marvel vs Capcom 2. A life meter and a special meter are both present, as well as some form of active combo system, because that image is definitely keeping track of just how badly Applejack is going to need a stretcher.
Pretty damn badly.
Titled My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic, Mane6 promises that the game will contain a roster of at least the core six ponies: Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity (whore.) In addition to the main six (if you missed that one) the developers have promised us a completed roster of seventeen playable ponies, but the other eleven will be released individually as DLC after the initial release.
Not to worry though, because the original game, and all of its subsequent DLC, will cost nothing but a few clicks of the mouse and whatever hidden bandwidth cap your ISP has decided to implement last month. In an attempt to give back to the community (and not get the thunderous thumb of copyright infringement forced upon them), Mane6 has stated that MLP:FiM will be totally free. Which is incredible, because they've also stated that everything going into the magic is being designed from scratch, including the wonderful soundtrack we've already gotten a sweet, sweet taste of.
You hear that beautiful background music? That isn't even completed yet, it's only a WIP. If that's what the WIP sounds like, can you imagine what our ears will be caressed with once they've ironed out the almost non-existent kinks? It's hard to believe that anybody could compose a song like this, that perfectly blends the hardcore, nit and grit needed for any real fighter soundtrack with the upbeat, overzealous cheer of the MLP universe, and not forgetting that we're kicking ass on a farm to boot!
But it isn't just the music that makes this game so delicious. The sprites and their animation are all great, and extremely fluid. Everything is so vibrant and full of life. The background is rendered pixel perfect, and really sets the tone for the environment. The characters all appear to be clearly and individually expressive, and the moves we've seen so far really do a good job reflecting their personalities. While it's been stated that some of the animations and moves currently being used are mere placeholders, I really hope they don't change too much. Particularly when I see how Applejack is going to play:
The one part of this game that wasn't handmade happens to be the core engine. Surprisingly, the development team turned away from the seemingly obvious choice that is MUGEN, and have instead elected to build the game using Fighter Maker 2002. What does this mean fore game play? Well, actually, it means this game is going to have one very important feature that a lot of other fangames never even consider a real possibility: online multiplayer.
Fluttershy, beautiful music, glorious artwork, and the ability to horsekick my friends without actually having to see them? What more could a guy ask for? What's that? Balance? You're giving us that, too?!
That's right. There's a reason the dev. team has decided not to rush all seventeen members of the game's final roster, and that's so they can have a good chunk of time to iron out all of those pesky infinity combos that Capcom is just so damned fond of. Mane6 claims to be full of fighting game junkies, and they all seem to know what aspects of what games made them fun and which ones didn't, and more importantly, how to give everyone a fair shot at success with their favorite ponies. There won't be any asshole tournaments filled with thousands of Fox McClouds or Sheiks. This game promises to be perfectly well rounded.
And absolutely none of this shit.
In general, My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic seems to be one of the few games everyone should really be keeping an eye on, even if you're all gamer and no brony, you should really be watching out for this one, because it looks like it's going to be a ton of fun.
Don't forget to check out Mane6 and their developer's blog for updates:
Super Mario Bros. is one of the most renowned video game franchises on Earth, easily taking a place as the figurehead of the industry. Mario is the Mickey Mouse of video games, and almost no child in a modern civilization won't recognize him. And just as Mickey has a foil in the greedy, selfish, obese Pete, Mario has a foil in the greedy, selfish, obese Wario. But Wario has one other difference that makes him really stand out from the crowd of Reverse Flashes and Bizarro Supermen.
Those damn ears.
Mario and Wario are supposed to be cousins, so logically you would assume that Wario is also an Italian. The one thing about Italians is that they're human, where Wario is clearly some kind of twisted elf or maybe a leprechaun. Actually, if Wario were a leprechaun, that would make a lot of sense considering his attraction to gold coins, and such a thing wouldn't feel out of place in the Mushroom Kingdom. Yeah, I'd be all for Wario being a leprechaun.
Unfortunately, leprechaun nor elf, nothing has been mentioned about Wario's ears in any official media. He simply has them. Maybe it's some kind of racist caricature of Italians? Though that really isn't a stereotype, at least not as much as those noses...
Way to go, Nintendo.
The only other explanation I can think of is that Wario is actually related to the Hylians that feature prominently in Nintendo's other franchise the Legend of Zelda. While this seems unlikely, there are an awful lot of other hints that the Mario and Zelda franchises actually take place in the same world, though at different points in time.
The simplest of explanations might just be that Nintendo wanted a way to further show how opposite Wario and Mario were. How do you oppose Mario's perfectly rounded ears? You make 'em pointy, of course! There isn't a whole lot of thought going into the canon of the Mario universe, so this is probably the best this explanation is going to get.
Seriously though, I stand firmly behind the leprechaun theory.
