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BacklAugust 2024! (Forums Are Dead Edition)

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M.K.Ultra:
With all the excitement of the 2024 Olympic games in Paris I decided to finally get around to playing Mario and Sonic at Rio 2016 Olympic Games on Wii U. This is the second Mario and Sonic Olympics game on Wii U, following the Sochi 2014 game. There is also a 3DS version of the Rio game but I have not played or bought that.

There is a lot to enjoy with this Olympic themed mini-game compilation. The game is beautiful in terms of graphics, both character designs and Rio backgrounds, and the music. There are lots of collectibles (awards, tips, flags, and stamps) that are fun to collect, though there are some gotcha systems in play. I also found the slow unlocking of characters and modes to be rewarding for single player play. There are some options for 2-4 player couch co-op but I have not touched them. The hub for the game is the famous Copacabana beach in Rio and you get to run around and talk to other Mii's, who give you the aforementioned flags and tips. They also give you a fun fact about the country when you get a flag. I actually had a lot of fun collecting flags and learning about countries around the world. The mini-games themselves are pretty solid with nice short lengths and tight controls. My favorite events were probably 4x100m Relay and BMX. There are even some Duel events that take football, rugby, and volleyball and make them less realistic and more like arcade game sports.

When you first start you just play single events using the Mario and Sonic characters until you get five medals and can unlock the tournament mode, which appears to be the main part of the game. However, in the tournament mode you only play as Mii's, so for most of this game I wasn't playing with any of the Mario and Sonic characters ???  Another strange design choice is the control options. As far as I can tell you have to play this game with the Gamepad for player 1 and then Wiimotes for additional players. But, the controls used for the games are only simple button presses, so none of the gamepad's features (e.g., touch screen) are used. I thought the Sochi game had some nice gamepad use and was looking forward to more of that so that was a little disappointing. 

Once you get enough medals in the tournaments you unlock the Hero's Showdown mode where you can go back to using the Mario and Sonic characters in a tournament style series of randomly chosen events. This was pretty fun and once I beat that and had gold medals in each tournament for Level 1 I considered the game beat (for now). There is still plenty to do, mostly repeating everything at a higher difficulty level, but that will probably happen in 2028 when the games come to LA. Who knows, I might even pick up the 2020 Tokyo game by then  :D.

Mop it up:
I've been kinda busy so I'm checking in late I know, but I had gotten around to a game earlier this month. It was a little later than the closing ceremonies of the real Olympics I s'pose, but I've wrapped up Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. I had seen that it contains a story mode so I figured I could play through that to consider the game completed. And I've gotta say...

...I probably shoulda just watched the Olympics instead. The story mode contains way too much blabbering for how little interesting it has to say. I get that I should know what I'm getting myself into with a "story mode" of a game, but the ratio of cutscenes-to-gameplay here is extremely out of whack. It probably averages 15-20 minutes of inane dialogue just to be thrown into an event that typically lasts 1-2 minutes. It sort of feels like playing a visual novel that gets interrupted by a random minigame now and then.

This is probably because it was developed by Sega, but I felt like there was a bit of a disparity in how the story treated the two main protagonists of Luigi and Tails. Tails gets to do the fun stuff like scale Tokyo Tower; snipe Eggbots with a bow; punch Shy Guys in the face; etc., while Luigi is getting absolutely bodied in events like Karate, Boxing, Rugby, etc. Poor guy can just never catch a break...

The game doesn't have much else to offer either, as the only other option is to just play single events individually. No competition modes or anything to tie stuff together, and no extras like a shop. This series has always been a little questionable, but I don't think this one matches up to even previous entries in the series.

I would probably rate this game a Big Oof out of 10.

broodwars:
Been picking away at this one for a while now, but I just rolled credits on Song of Horror, a particularly unique survival horror game that feels very inspired by Eternal Darkness., albeit primarily inspired by Lovecraft.

This game is extremely intense, especially in the first 2 (of 5) episodes. You play as a series of characters that literally hear a song that should not be heard, cursing them to be eternally hunted by an Eldrich incarnation of Darkness known as The Presence. In gameplay terms, you explore classic survival horror-style puzzle box environments, solving puzzles and obtaining clues. Meanwhile, the Presence AI stalks you. The Presence cannot be killed, and it cannot be stopped. It can only be beaten back temporarily. I realize that's obviously a very "Lovecraft" sort of tone, but I definitely felt elements of Japanese horror as well. Death is inevitable. It's just a matter of how long you can last.

For instance, you may be walking down a hallway, and suddenly it will appear as countless bony hands attempting to rip open a nearby door, whereupon you have to quickly run to the door and slam it shut using a combination of built up strength and timing your slams. Other times, The Presence will start to flood the area you're in with Darkness, forcing you to quickly find a hiding spot and calm your nerves as the legion of hands around you scream. Other times, you might just be treated to a "blink and you'll miss it" jump scare or Eternal Darkness-style hallucination. Sometimes, it'll just park itself on the other side of a door, and if you're not listening at the door to see if it's there, you'll be in for a surprise when you open that door.

Suffice it to say, The Presence delights in fucking with you, and until near the end of the game I didn't find its manifestations too frequent on the default difficulty level, though apparently the encounter rate is obscene on the highest difficulty.

However, there's a distinct twist to all this: every encounter with The Presence is lethal. If you fail a mini-game or you walk into a room where The Presence is waiting, that character is dead. Thy story is over. Turn in your character sheet.

This lends the game a delightful, but exhausting, tension that you just don't see in games all that often...but it did mean I had to confine my playtime to at most 1 episode a night. I also think the puzzles in this game are pretty badly designed after the 2nd episode, so a guide is strongly recommended. This was this developer's 1st game, and it very much shows it.

Overall, I strongly recommend Song of Horror if you're into this sort of thing. The atmosphere is just superb...but it caters to very particular tastes.

M.K.Ultra:
I was able to get the "Bad End" in Bubble Bobble which I was playing on the NES Classic Edition. I had not played this game before and it is indeed a very playable NES game. The graphics are simple but decent for the NES. The game consists of one screen rooms where you need to defeat all the enemies, typically but spitting a bubble onto them and then popping it. There are 99 of these rooms in the main game and the first 50 or so are pretty easy. They do get more difficult and I found the challenge enjoyable. You get three lives, but you have unlimited continues and you can restart at each room so it is very doable to beat this game without save states or cheats. There are a variety of enemies and power ups to keep things interesting including an umbrella that has you skips over about five stages.
If you are playing solo as I was then after stage 99 you have a cool final boss fight and get the bad ending. If you have two players you can find a secret exit in stage 99 and get about 20 more levels and then fight the boss and get the good ending. I have a save at stage 99 in case I get the opportunity to have someone help with that coop only part of the game.
I just looked and it does not appear that Bubble Bobble is included on the list of NSO NES games. However, you can but the arcade game, which is probably much better, as an Arcade Archives release.

Luigi Dude:

--- Quote from: Khushrenada on August 18, 2024, 12:48:23 AM ---Ugh. My condolences to you. That's an awful one-two punch you received there. I hope things go better for your second half of August.

--- End quote ---


--- Quote from: M.K.Ultra on August 21, 2024, 10:22:24 AM ---I am sorry to hear about your cat. I have lost quite a few in my time and it is never easy.

--- End quote ---

Thank you, I appreciate that.


--- Quote from: broodwars on August 17, 2024, 10:35:53 PM ---Yeah, when it comes to my gaming collection, the Tales series is my dump stat. They're all so long and so complicated that I never feel like jumping into one of them. Doesn't help that I only particularly liked Phantasia & Symphonia (of which there is only one, and don't you dare suggest otherwise).

--- End quote ---

This is actually the first Tales games I've every played and it's kind of making me not want to play any of the other because of this reason.  I'll save my full thoughts for when I finally beat the game but right now, this game has been going on far longer than it has any right to.  Other games that go on too long at least give new gameplay to spice things up, but this game hasn't done anything to change up the gameplay in over 40 hours now.  I was playing on Hard mode for much of this game, but I've recently turned down the difficulty to make fights go faster because I'm just so burned out.

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