Tag Archives: Issue 47

New Super Mario Bros. DS — Issue 47

Posted on by

Stomp­ing step stone

New Super Mario Bros. DS a good tri­al run

Now, y’all know I love me some Mario. I’m a Mario girl and have been for a long time. A whole issue devot­ed to him and his exploits aside, there are few main­line Mario games that I haven’t played and enjoyed. As a con­nois­seur on all things Mario, his leap to 3D was not one of my favorite things to expe­ri­ence because of the sur­prise con­di­tion of motion sick­ness. So, imag­ine my hap­pi­ness when the series took the side­step to start pro­duc­ing 2D games again. Nin­ten­do’s first entry, New Super Mario Bros., was a warm-up if not a prac­tice ses­sion for some­thing greater.

The sto­ry starts pleas­ant­ly enough with Bows­er kid­nap­ping Princess Peach for the mil­lionth time. It’s stan­dard fare for Mario games at this point and it’s ser­vice­able enough because that’s what you’re sup­posed to do in Mario games: save the princess. But there’s some­thing dif­fer­ent here: a new­er style of graph­ics and play mechan­ics to whet your appetite for that “new” in the title. The game looks clean­er and brighter as com­pared to the last 2D out­ing — Super Mario World for the SNES — and Mario is more defined. Yes, you’re still in the Mush­room King­dom but it looks new­er. The way you play is also new. Mar­i­o’s get­ting around a lot bet­ter in mod­ern times and it start­ed here with a new butt stomp, wall jump, triple jump and new pow­er-ups in the Mini Mush­room, Mega Mush­room and the Blue Koopa Shell. These pow­er-ups are wel­come addi­tions to the Mario reper­toire and are fun to use.

My main gripe comes from the new mechan­ics, how­ev­er. While I love that Mario moves well, some­times he moves almost too well. I had the same issue here as I did with the lat­er Wii ver­sion: Mario slides around entire­ly too much. I have to keep in the back of my mind to under­com­pen­sate and over­cor­rect with run­ning and jump­ing move­ments con­stant­ly, and it’s a bit much to keep up with while try­ing to play well. When I want Mario to stop run­ning, it should be instant­ly. There should­n’t be extra frames of stop­ping. Also, some of the jumps don’t feel as clean as they should if we’re bas­ing it on the known Mario stan­dard. It’s all a lit­tle too loosey-goosey for my lik­ing and makes clean play a lit­tle bit more of a chore than I’d care to do. Lat­er entries have cleaned this up, but it’s obvi­ous here and I can cut it some slack because it has been fixed. Just know that it’s part of the “new” experience.

New Super Mario Bros. has the Mario charm the series is known for as well. It’s fun to play and dis­cov­er new secrets and see the new con­cepts work out in a series that puts in the work to inno­vate and stay rel­e­vant. This first game was the step­ping stone for the phe­nom­e­nal New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and you can clear­ly see where it’s going in terms of the total pack­age. It’s not an insult to say this was the prac­tice run and that prac­tice makes per­fect, espe­cial­ly if you’re New Super Mario Bros., and you’re com­pared to oth­er main­line Mario games, and you sell 30 mil­lion copies as the best-sell­ing DS game of all-time. Clear­ly, this is a mega Mario hit and good start­ing point for the 2D throw­back of the franchise.

Mega Man X Legacy Collection — Issue 47

Posted on by

A good start to a long-last­ing legacy

I’m a huge Mega Man fan. It start­ed with the orig­i­nal series and evolved to include the X series. Fear­less GI leader Lyn­d­sey gift­ed me a trea­sure trove of Mega Man X games wor­thy of Cap­com’s next gen­er­a­tion blue titan, and Mega Man X Lega­cy Col­lec­tion has risen to the top of the pile.

The first disc of Lega­cy Col­lec­tion cov­ers the first four MMX games that were released for the SNES and PSOne. In these games, you con­trol our favorite hero in blue or his lat­er part­ner Zero in their quest to achieve peace in the future. Each game has a dif­fer­ent sto­ry that builds on the pre­vi­ous game, but over­all X and Zero are the stars of the show with var­i­ous ver­sions of long­time antag­o­nist Sig­ma attempt­ing to achieve world dom­i­na­tion. Each of the first four games has var­i­ous boss­es X or Zero faces with the suc­cess­ful result of gain­ing the boss’ weapon or skill that can be used for var­i­ous lev­els. X has a slight advan­tage in the game by using hid­den upgrade cham­bers designed by the late Dr. Light that increas­es fire­pow­er, speed and protection. 

The val­ue of the first disc is per­fect for fans or those begin­ning the X series and increas­es with the ani­me-inspired designs of heroes and vil­lains, which encour­ages replay of all the col­lec­tion’s games. This first disc also has a lot of inter­est­ing ele­ments that include pre­sent­ing 16-bit and ani­me-style inter­mis­sion screens that were includ­ed when the games were orig­i­nal­ly released. Cap­com also intro­duced a high-res­o­lu­tion fil­ter, giv­ing the game’s graph­ics a stream­lined yet col­or­ful approach and a unique box frame for each game. A music play­er con­tain­ing all the music from the orig­i­nal games also rounds out the pre­sen­ta­tion extras, which were nice. 

One of the oth­er cool addi­tions is the X Chal­lenge, which pits you against two leg­endary boss­es of the series while choos­ing three weapons to use. This requires some fore­thought and under­stand­ing of the series’ mechan­ics, which is a wel­come change of pace when you want some­thing dif­fer­ent from the sto­ry modes. I also thought that the art gallery and the ani­mat­ed movie focus­ing on Sig­ma was a nice touch. 

The only crit­i­cism I had of the col­lec­tion is with some of the oth­er extras. Cap­com decid­ed to show off nev­er-before-seen Mega Man X col­lectibles that were only avail­able in Japan. Cap­com nev­er did license these out­side of Japan, mak­ing fans like me curse them for their dense busi­ness prac­tices. Because, real­ly, why would you tease oth­er regions with this, know­ing Mega Man is glob­al? It just seems like anoth­er slap in the face where Mega Man is concerned. 

Mega Man X Lega­cy Col­lec­tion is a great trib­ute to the X series. Despite my hang-ups with Cap­com, this is a great love let­ter to Mega Man X fans and can be a tem­plate to con­tin­ue the sto­ry of X and company.

Bust-A-Move 2 — Issue 47

Posted on by

Bub­ble Bob­ble Part Deux

Bust-A-Move gets down again in sequel

Long ago, bub­ble pop­ping took hold of my inter­est, right about the time I start­ed get­ting hair on my chest and some sense acquired when it came to good qual­i­ty video games. And would­n’t you know it, my late great mama — the dear­ly depart­ed GI Mama — also divined that she was a fan of the bub­ble-pop­ping non­sense that I’d brought home for my Super Nin­ten­do. Alas, my tastes had to grow so we looked for more bub­ble-pop­ping non­sense and found there was a sequel or two to the mad­ness. What apro­pos popped up was Bust-A-Move 2.

Now, let’s not get it twist­ed: This is the same old Bust-A-Move you’re used to play­ing if bust­ing bub­bles is your thing. Noth­ing is dras­ti­cal­ly dif­fer­ent than the for­mu­la estab­lished in the orig­i­nal game: You pop clus­ters of like-col­ored bub­bles in an effort to clear estab­lished puz­zles. This basic premise was set up in the first game for the SNES and it has­n’t changed, no mat­ter the iter­a­tion. But what has changed some­what is the pre­sen­ta­tion. In this ver­sion, there is an illu­mi­nat­ed map puz­zle path that your char­ac­ter can choose, and deci­sions have to be made to get to the end puz­zle. The deci­sion to include a vis­i­ble path struc­ture is a nice step for­ward, but still needs some pay­off to be a gamechanger. 

Slight­ly dif­fer­ent yet famil­iar are the graph­ics. Bust-A-Move 2 has­n’t real­ly changed all that much in the looks depart­ment. There are some new graph­ics for the back­grounds dur­ing puz­zles, the char­ac­ters are more defined and the bub­bles them­selves are more crisp and deep­er hued to pop but that’s about it. It looks OK for an N64 puz­zle game, but there are oth­ers out there doing a lot more with the same con­sole resources, such as Mag­i­cal Tetris Challenge.

The sound­track is a lit­tle more bub­bly than the orig­i­nal but has a lit­tle less charm than the first game. The songs are slight­ly catchy, but not near­ly as mem­o­rable as the first game’s 16-bit organ-inspired schtick. How­ev­er, what you’ll real­ly notice that’s dif­fer­ent is the addi­tion of voic­es. Now, your char­ac­ter and the oppo­nents make a lit­tle noise when they achieve a com­bo. It’s cute, even with the shrill squawk­ing that shows up in the menu.

But let’s be hon­est, what you came here for was to learn if the puz­zle game­play is up to the stan­dard estab­lished by the first game. Yes, it is, and here’s why: Not much changed. No crazy weird mechan­ics shoe­horned in, no mis­steps in how the bub­bles bank or strange con­cepts cob­bled togeth­er (aside from the sticky plat­forms that inex­plic­a­bly start show­ing up halfway through the sto­ry mode) make appear­ances here. You can be rest assured that it’s the Bust-A-Move that we all know and love.

My beloved late GI Mama once declared Bust-A-Move a cheat­ing game while I was mol­ly whop­ping her in a ver­sus mode run. She said she’d see me in the sequel. Well, the sequel here is just enough jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to wait for that rematch in heav­en when my time comes. It’s noth­ing new but then again, some­times stick­ing with the estab­lish­ment is the best idea when it comes to bub­bles part deux.

Devil May Cry 2 — Issue 47

Posted on by

You may cry over this dis­ap­point­ing sequel

 

 

 

 

Dante, Dante, Dante. Cap­com’s res­i­dent demon hunter/investigator has con­tributed great­ly to the com­pa­ny’s for­tunes. From var­i­ous mer­chan­dise and endorse­ment deals to a Net­flix series due lat­er this year, Dante is liv­ing large. How­ev­er, there are games in the Dev­il May Cry series that almost destroyed his ris­ing star. Dev­il May Cry 2 is one of those games.

In Dev­il May Cry 2, Dante and a new com­pan­ion, Lucia, join forces to bat­tle demons led by an inter­na­tion­al busi­ness­man named Arius whose com­pa­ny called Uroboros estab­lish­es itself on the island of Vie de Mar­li. Arius’ true goal is to find holy relics called Arcanas so that he can obtain the pow­ers of the ancient demon Argosax. Now locked in a race against time, Dante and Lucia must bat­tle against Argosax and put an end to Arius’ mad­ness before the world is plunged into eter­nal darkness. 

DMC2’s graph­ics and pre­sen­ta­tion had a nice approach instead of the usu­al hap­haz­ard scenery found in most hack-and-slash games. It’s nice that the DMC2 devel­op­ment team took inspi­ra­tion from West­ern Europe and the Mediter­ranean region and com­bined that with var­i­ous ele­ments from Japan­ese, Latin and Greek cul­tures and var­i­ous reli­gious ele­ments. How­ev­er, the parts of the deal­break­er with DMC2 soon appeared with var­i­ous scenes as poor­ly done clay sculptures. 

Fur­ther in the game, the graph­ics became more of a dis­ap­point­ment, despite giv­ing lee­way to the PlaySta­tion 2’s hard­ware capa­bil­i­ties in its ear­ly years. One of the most glar­ing issues involved the cam­era. The in-game cam­era was weird and clunky, zoom­ing in and out odd­ly in under­ground areas. And, it was too rigid when it need­ed to move with Dante. The con­trols were tank-like — Cap­com’s nor­mal stan­dard oper­a­tional pro­ce­dure — but it was more annoy­ing when I was shoot­ing at ene­mies long dis­tance and wast­ing ammo and mobil­i­ty. The tank­ing of Dante is counter to him being agile, which was a major sell­ing point that cat­a­pult­ed him to star­dom. Anoth­er issue was that the in-game store sold var­i­ous skill and weapon upgrades includ­ing health items but were ridicu­lous­ly expen­sive despite me hav­ing the abil­i­ty to gath­er more coins seam­less­ly here than in the orig­i­nal game. That’s a major turnoff because it’s a chore. More work for more expen­sive rewards is not fun.

The music of DMC2 was ser­vice­able; it feels like Cap­com’s renowned music team was told to phone in their work that was at best chop­py but accept­able. That’s a shame because all of it just seems mediocre and not the best that Cap­com could do for a series of DMC’s caliber.

While Cap­com attempt­ed to strike hot with a glob­al smash-hit prop­er­ty, they man­aged to fail because they treat DMC2 like their oth­er crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed series (Mega Man, Rival Schools, the Ver­sus series and Onimusha) not named Street Fight­er: like FLAMING GARBAGE. As a fan of DMC, Mega Man, Onimusha and var­i­ous Cap­com games, I’m incensed that these titles are beloved glob­al­ly, yet Cap­com does very lit­tle or noth­ing to do prop­er pro­mo­tion for them, yet they prof­it HUGELY from them. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Dante fell vic­tim to the Cap­com curse for which he can­not blame his black sheep broth­er — this time.

Dev­il May Cry 2 should have been the light­ning that struck twice. For­tu­nate­ly for Dante and Co., Cap­com man­age­ment saw the fol­lies of mis­treat­ment of a hot prop­er­ty and applied lessons learned in its future install­ments. As we say in GI HQ, “Know bet­ter, do bet­ter.” Cap­com should have done bet­ter with this sequel because they knew bet­ter. Dante should have been able to keep it styl­ish, but this is a major stum­ble in an oth­er­wise stel­lar jack­pot of a series.

Capcom Fighting Collection — Issue 47

Posted on by

Give this col­lec­tion a fight­ing chance

Cap­com tends to tread a lot of the same ground these days. Whether it’s “get­ting back to their roots” with Street Fight­er’s mod­ern ver­sions or return­ing to the past with a lot of upgrad­ed col­lec­tions, Cap­com sure has a way of remind­ing you that, yes, they made Street Fight­er and a bunch of oth­er fight­ing games. The ques­tion is do we care? Yes and no, if this cur­rent col­lec­tion is to be judged.

I will admit that, despite being a strict Mor­tal Kom­bat old head, I am inclined to speak up about my favorite genre in fight­ing games and how it relates to Cap­com. This col­lec­tion, filled to the brim with noth­ing but Cap­com fight­ers, aims to show that Cap­com had some hits and mem­o­rable prop­er­ties. Fight­ing Col­lec­tion fea­tures 10 entries: Vampire/Darkstalkers 1–3, Vam­pire Hunter 2, Vam­pire Sav­ior 2, Cyber­bots: Full Met­al Mad­ness, WarZard/Red Earth, Hyper Street Fight­er II: The Anniver­sary Edi­tion, Super Gem Fight­er Mini Mix/Pocket Fight­er and Super Puz­zle Fight­er II Tur­bo, with the North Amer­i­can or Japan­ese ver­sions avail­able for play. In all cas­es, these are arcade rom ver­sions gath­ered togeth­er in one spot and you can freely switch between them on free play. Col­lec­tion-wise, this is a top-tier pack­age for those who love fight­ing games made by Cap­com. Main­stream mon­ey mak­er that’s still around today? That’s Hyper Street Fight­er II. Obscure weird fight­er that no one even knows that Cap­com made it? Take your pick from Cyber­bots and WarZard. Cutesy, chibi fight­er that unabashed­ly mocks its mak­er? Puz­zle Fight­er and Pock­et Fight­er have that on lock. Defunct series that should still be a thing, but Cap­com does­n’t pay atten­tion? All of the Vam­pire you can pos­si­bly shake a stick at sat­is­fies that require­ment. There is lit­er­al­ly some­thing for every­one here. But the ques­tion is, do you want it, espe­cial­ly now that you know what’s avail­able here? As ear­li­er, yes and no.

While the pre­sen­ta­tion is top-notch, the actu­al assort­ment of the games involved is a mixed bag. Gen­tle read­ers, I just com­piled and cre­at­ed an entire issue devot­ed to Vam­pire (Edi­tor’s note: That’d be Issue 46. Go down­load it now if you haven’t.) and its inner work­ings and the his­to­ry behind the series. Know­ing that, please explain to me why I have Vam­pire burnout and why I had it before I did that issue because of this col­lec­tion. Cap­com does this song and dance every sin­gle time Vam­pire is whis­pered some­where by some unsus­pect­ing gamer who loves the series and wants to see it once more have its day in the sun. I wrote an entire col­umn in that pre­vi­ous issue dis­cussing the need for a Vam­pire revival — a new game, not an old rehash — and how we were nev­er going to get that because Cap­com does the series dirty constantly. 

Well, would­n’t you know it, Cap­com pulled a skunk out of their hat by includ­ing all of the Vam­pire games here. It’s like they said, “Well, you asked for more Vam­pire. Here, be sat­is­fied that we released all of them final­ly in North Amer­i­ca and shut up.” You know, I’m slight­ly hap­py but I’m more offend­ed than any­thing else. Because, as you should have read by now gen­tle read­er, Cap­com is nev­er going to give us a new Vam­pire game with­out there being some weird­ness attached. And because this col­lec­tion sold “OK,” — not great, just OK — you know we aren’t get­ting a new game. Because it did­n’t set the world on fire in sales does­n’t mean the demand isn’t there. But I digress. Every­thing else in this col­lec­tion has been released in some way, shape or form in either region, so it was­n’t nec­es­sary for their inclu­sion, either. 

What I would have pre­ferred to see are Rival Schools, Project Jus­tice, Star Glad­i­a­tor and Plas­ma Sword. These are defunct Cap­com series that they also like to act like they did­n’t cre­ate. Rival Schools and Project Jus­tice are espe­cial­ly egre­gious because while they’ve been port­ed to PlaySta­tion Net­work, we haven’t got­ten a full, unal­tered port of either game. A mod­ern trans­la­tion of the board game and sim­u­la­tion mode in both games is not that hard, but I digress again because we know we are nev­er get­ting it. It’s a shame because this col­lec­tion as pulled togeth­er in 2022 could have used some bet­ter curation.

While I love Cap­com fight­ing games, I’m OK about this col­lec­tion. It’s nice to have these in a mod­ern pack­age for mod­ern con­soles but I’m not enthused about the behind-the-scenes fool­ish­ness that could have been avoid­ed with bet­ter curat­ing on Cap­com’s part. There are some heavy hit­ters that could have been includ­ed imme­di­ate­ly that would have made it a bet­ter pack­age, and the extras includ­ed could have been bet­ter also. How­ev­er, it’s not a ter­ri­ble pack­age and is infi­nite­ly use­ful and valu­able to the fight­ing game pop­u­la­tion so it’s not a total wash. Cap­com could col­lect bet­ter, though.