I highly recommend Mario Maker 2 to everyone who hasn’t tried it, especially if you have kids with an interest in learning game design. It’s a great tool.
My favorite game in the series was Super Mario 3. I first played it on the SNES when it was part of the Super Mario All Stars cartridge. I really liked the levels, especially the variety of landscapes and the secrets you could find if you had the right powerup.
Super Mario World is just as good imo. Everything I liked about 3 and more, plus the star road levels, that was a good game.
The most recent game I loved was Yoshi’s Wooly World on the WiiU. Excellent art style and super fun levels, especially the unlockable bonus levels.
Oh and let’s not forget Legend of the Seven Stars. That was a fun and bizarre story.
That being said, does anyone else think the Mario universe is just fucking weird? How did the creators come up with Italian plumbers who can jump really high saving a Princess from an oversized turtle in a fantasy land with walking mushrooms? Who thought that was a good idea? What inspired them? I think the only reason it became popular was because Super Mario on the NES was one of the first decent games, and most players were kids who didn’t care about the game’s universe and narrative beyond saving the princess.
If Mario wasn’t the first popular platformer in the 80s and was instead introduced today, nobody would take it seriously. Since we all grew up with Mario, it’s a thing we accept as is. Of course high jumping Italian plumbers discovered the mushroom kingdom and rescued their princess from Bowser, again and again and again. Of course little dudes with mushroom heads are ruled by a blond haired human. Of course giant pipes are a normal mode of transit. Of course goombas and koopa troopas are the baddies.
This universe came about because they would design fun gameplay first and then write an absurd story around it.
The “reasons” for things were usually dictated by gameplay and the stories reflected that.
It’s why Katamari Damacy is one of my favorite games, because it took that notion and really ran with it. It’s story is as absurd and over-the-top as the gameplay of rolling up objects to make stars in the sky. The gameplay is absurd and not in any way reflective of any reality except the reality of the game world itself.
The Mario series has always kept that ethos as well. The stories have grown and changed as long as the Mario gameplay has, each a response to a new set of moves, and at one point the move from 2D to 3D, all of it forever changing the path forward and the details of the canon Mario universe.
It’s a series where a dragon kidnaps a princess, and a plumber from New York must save her. To do so, he must gather mushrooms by hitting bricks while jumping with his fist, jump on turtles to make them hide in their shell, and dodge fire breathing plants.
In the most recent 2d incarnation, the fire breathing plants will sing at you.
Super Mario 64 has to be my favourite (and is also the most recent one I’ve tried). When that came out it rocked my world, and I didn’t even have my own N64 at the time. I would play at friends’ houses or Toys R Us.
There was a Canadian TV show called Video and Arcade Top 10 and they would frequently give games away. I wrote to them explicitly requesting SM64, and a year later it just showed up in the mail.
Wow I love this story, I used to watch that show all the time! I can still hear the theme song as if I just watched it yesterday. That was super cool of them to send you a copy. I hope you still have it!
I actually owned one of these. It was not too bad but I still can feel how weird the movement felt. I ended up not really being able to reconcile how the controls felt cause this worked in like 2 games and I had to use my mouse like 95% of the time anyways. In the end it was more just like a thumb stick… Just on a larger scale. You had a limited range of motion and once you reached the end of it, you would just hold it there to keep turning… Slower than a mouse. Was nice for fine movement control over a small area.
I hated the Xbox controller when it first came out, probably because my child-sized hands couldn’t reach the buttons comfortably. So it was Playstation style for a long time.
Now as an adult I’ve switched over to the Xbox style (easier to plug and play for Steam gaming) and I like it a lot. It feels a lot more durable than any other controller I can remember using. Though I feel the size and weight of the controller makes it slightly more difficult to use the bumper and trigger buttons compared to PS controllers, it’s not a big deal because I’m not playing FPS these days.
Recently finished Cyberpunk 2077. For all its hype, I found it a mediocre/ generic game.
I’m trying to get into Baldur’s Gate 3 but it seems, it just is not my type of game (first D&D). Might also have to do with the fact, I tried to replace LeagueOfLegends with Baldur’s Gate.
(re)playing Last of Us 1 (remake version on PC). Stays a great game.
Debating whether to quit Returnal and play another game such as Alan Wake 2 or Hellblade 2.
I’m also trying to find a isometric/ top-down game to replace LeagueOfLegends with. But no luck.
The only thing that could get me a little bit of LeagueOfLegends feeling is Hades 2. Though not even that can give me similar dopamine as LeagueOfLegends does.
I honestly think there’s no replacement for it unfortunately. So I suppose, got to just detox and get used to the lower dopamine from games (speaking about myself).
After taking a couple of days to digest the ending I got in Not for Broadcast, I’m hoping to go back and replay it differently sometime soon. One moment in particular, I need to approach differently.
Man, that game is equal parts hilarious and fucked up. Not much I can say without spoiling it, but it’s really worth a shot if you like dystopian fiction (especially the kind that starts just before everything slowly goes to shit), dark humour, satirical takes on news media, or just narrative-focused games in general with a fair amount of choices and consequences which gradually play out over time.
Like, there are 14 main endings and within all of those there are also “mini news stories” which play out over the game that have a wealth of different outcomes themselves. The amount of variables is pretty impressive, honestly.
Anyway, now I’m playing Do Not Feed The Monkeys for a similar darkly humourous experience of “fuck with the people on the other side of the camera”.
Still playing BG3, nearing the end of Act 2, but also picked Elden Ring back up. I still have stuff to do in the main game so I’m not getting the expansion yet, but wanted to know what I was doing when I do.
Since I finished erdtree I jumped into DMC5. Combat feels so awkward in this game and it’s so clear the control schemes are from ages ago. It’s had me thinking about whether I want to just pick up another game on my list like BG3 or cyberpunk 2077 and finally play through it, or if I want to just start a new character or re-do the erdtree DLC (made a copy of my SL110 char before beginning DLC) so I can do all the new content properly. Still slowly working my way thru DMC5 but I’m like 7 missions in and while it’s getting better as I unlock skills it just doesn’t feel smooth.
I played the hell out of the first DMC back in the day. Just over and over again, even on Dante Must Die and I almost never do hard modes. Apparently I really liked the relatively toned-down gameplay and setting, and the RE-inspired tone, because I never really enjoyed 2-4 the same way (2 goes without saying).
I largely ignored the series but spontaneously got the interest to play 5 a year or two ago. I did beat it, but it did not do anything for me. I was very glad to be done with it.
Slowly coming to the end of Pacific Drive, which has been mostly great. I think I’ll wrap it up at the perfect time, because I’m not quite tired of it but can feel my interest beginning to wane.
I have also been playing Sea of Stars. I had one foot fully over the edge to give it up during its painfully slow opening, but I just barely made it long enough to get through the first dungeon and found myself beginning to admit that it was becoming fun. I can’t remember the last time my feelings for a game pivoted so hard, because once it opens up it is a ton of fun. I’m glad I was able to stick with it.
I watched a friend play Sea of Stars and really enjoyed it! I hope it’s a good adventure for you the rest of the way.
Something to note if you’re in it for combat, the difficulty plateaus a bit towards the middle/end. And if you like this one, their other game, The Messenger, is tied to it lore wise, although it’s a different genre.
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