Category Archives: Wii

It’s Okay, They’re Spheres, Not Balls

Posted on by
Reply

Since there was still time to kill, the other big chunk of the evening was spent in Super Mario Galaxy, and although I’m not very far into it yet, it’s definitely a winner.

It continues the 3D platforming as seen in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, but with some important differences. Instead of the typical flat hills or vertical towers you normally expect, most of the action takes place on small planetoids, with the camera following Mario from above, with the occasional trip inside the planetoid where Mario runs around inside like it’s some kind of giant hamster ball. Gravity can vary wildly as you find yourself running up walls and jumping around edges to ‘fall’ on the other side, and it’s a bit disorienting at first, but you quickly get used to it.

There are multiple galaxies you can visit, each made up of a bunch of different planetoids, and each planetoid has a minor task you have to accomplish on it before you can rocket off to the next one in the series. Most of them are your traditional spherical planet, with different types of rocky/grassy/metallic/etc terrain, but there are also things like pirate ships and cylinders containing platforming sections that you can land on.

There’s not much control over which planetoids you visit, though. Unlike Mario 64, SMG is a lot more linear. Instead of having a bunch of different paintings you can choose from, galaxies are unlocked in a series by reaching star counts (so far, at least), and the stars in each galaxy can only be collected in a specific order, whereas in Mario 64 you could accidentally find or deliberately decide to go for a different star than you first selected.

The controls are pretty effective, with the nunchuk controlling movement and ducking, and the remote controlling jumping and attacks. You can defeat enemies both by jumping on them, as usual, or by shaking the remote and causing Mario to spin around and stun enemies. You can also use the remote to control a cursor that you use to collect ‘star bits’, which you can then also shoot back at the screen to stun enemies. There will probably be more advanced gymnastics required later on, and it’s been pretty easy so far, but I’m still fairly close to the start.

My Wii has been somewhat neglected lately, but SMG is the game that’s finally made me glad I picked one up.

Take That, Mother

Posted on by
Reply

Woo, I finally finished Super Metroid tonight, after taking 8 hours and 42 minutes, and collecting 86% of all items, according to the post-game stats. I’m sure it could have been done more efficiently, but I’m happy to have finally completed it at all. There wasn’t really a lot left to do, just to get the screw attack, a couple more energy tanks and miscellaneous ammo increases, a couple more bosses, and the final boss.

Ridley and Mother Brain were tougher fights than I expected, knocking me down to my last energy tank in both cases (though I had unused reserve tanks, at least). I lost a bit too much health on the way to MB and let a few too many super missiles get wasted while fighting the pseudo-Metroids on the way to her, and had trouble dodging the lasers in her room, which accounted for most of the trouble. I think I started the MB fight proper with only five or six energy tanks left, of fourteen.

So, how did I celebrate this victory? By going and buying three more games on the Wii’s Virtual Console, of course. Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, available in North America for the first time (aside from the enhanced version in All Stars); Landstalker, an interesting-looking isometric RPG for the Genesis; and Neutopia, a suspiciously-similar clone of the original Zelda. I’d never even heard of the latter two before, but got them based on forum recommendations.

I’m not sure what game is next, though. Time to finish off the night with some more Picross DS…

Your Mother Named You *Botwoon*?

Posted on by
Reply

I yet again failed to complete Super Metroid, though I did beat a couple more bosses (Botwoon and Darygon) and picked up a few more abilities (space jump, plasma beam, and spring jump). That’s nearly all of them, and I’m close to full on energy tanks, so the end can’t be too far off.

I think I’m sick of wall jumps and the grappling beam, after a few areas where you had to successfully pull their moves off a good half-dozen times in a row, without fail. Fortunately the space jump mostly obsoletes the need for those from here on. Also, the bosses have been fairly easy since Phantoon; I beat him while on my last energy tank, while I barely broke a sweat on the two above.

I also finally got my copies of Halo 3 and Eternal Sonata from Amazon. I got the Collector’s Edition of Halo 3 and unfortunately, like almost everyone else who got it, the game disc was loose and scratched up a bit, and the steel tin is slightly bent in a bit on one side. The scratches don’t look too serious though; there’s only one easily visible one and it extends outward from the center, which is much less damaging than one that runs parallel to the tracks. MS has instituted a replacement program if it fails to play properly, but it would help if I get my 360 back from them first so I can even check…

Samus Love You Long Time

Posted on by
Reply

I spent a few more hours on Super Metroid today, but didn’t finish like I thought I would. The frenzy of items yesterday was just an initial spike, and I’ve still got a few bosses and some more exploration to go. Shouldn’t take too long, though, and I don’t think I’ll be going for 100% completion anyway.

I’ve had to resort to a map at Gamefaqs, much to my shame. It’s mainly just to save time, as otherwise I could spend hours just wandering around. This style of game (including the Castlevania series) often has areas where you can’t proceed any further until you get some item or ability, but it’s hard to remember exactly where to return to later on, so you wind up rechecking previously visited areas multiple times. I’d rather not waste too much ‘dead’ time on it given how many other games I still have to go.

A Productive Day

Posted on by
Reply

For certain definitions of ‘productive’…

I finished Halo 2 this morning, and it turns out I was wrong, the last level was indeed an Arbiter level. Given that, and the relatively abrupt, incomplete ending, I can see how people might have been pissed off when it was first released. I should have my 360 back and be able to play 3 soon though, so I won’t have to wait like they had to.

The final two levels turned out to be a lot shorter and easier than I expected. Only the Tartarus fight was really any difficult, mostly because it was hard to jump around to avoid his insta-kill melee attack with all the pillars and debris around. I didn’t get the achievement for completing the game, though, and I suspect it’s because I missed the achievement for one of the previous levels and I’d have to redo it. Oh well, I can always come back and get it later if I need an easy 130 gamerscore points.

After that I figured I’d finish off another shooter, SiN Episodes: Emergence. I got it over a year ago, but it wasn’t all that great, so it was set aside and forgotten for a while. I turned on godmode and blew through the unfinished bits in an hour or so just to see if there were any interesting surprises to come, but no. Its main fault was that there just wasn’t enough variety to it; not enough different weapons, not enough different areas, not enough different enemies (in the last level it was pretty much the same two soldier types over and over again), and not enough set piece battles. The audio outtakes after the credits were a bit amusing, though.

After that I completed a few more courses in Excite Truck, finally finishing the Bronze series. I put this one aside because I was originally frustrated at getting stuck on only the second course, coming just barely under the number of stars needed three times in a row, but it was no problem this time for some reason. Still, I doubt I’ll ever get the complete set of wins and S-ranks needed to unlock everything, though. It’s not really my type of racing game (on the realistic vs. arcadey scale, it’s off in fantasyland), but it’s good in occasional short bursts.

And finally, I played a bit more of Super Metroid via the Wii’s VC and managed to get quite a few items (high jump boots, spazer, Varia suit, speed booster, ice beam, grappling beam) and defeat Kraid and the Crocomire. I’ll probably be able to finish this one tomorrow.