So Long, My Wii — Now Playing: ?

It actually seems strange. The product page lists it as $20+, but when you go to the New/Used section with all the different retailers, the top listing with the game for $9.99 New under Featured Retailers is Amazon.

It isn't projected to ship out until Mid-November, though, so I'm guessing there's plenty of time.

ccesarano wrote:

It actually seems strange. The product page lists it as $20+, but when you go to the New/Used section with all the different retailers, the top listing with the game for $9.99 New under Featured Retailers is Amazon.

That happens a lot with Amazon's third-party sellers. You can pay them some money to be a preferred seller, and part of that agreement includes getting your shop listed as the main shop for the day, so basically anyone who just goes to the product page and hits "buy" gets it from you instead of Amazon. So today must be Hitgaming Video Games' day at the top of the heap even if they don't have the lowest price.

Clocky, were you interested in the Kirby Collection as a co-op option with your wife? I recently picked it up and according to the packaging almost half the games* have co-op options. Although, I think Super Star doesn't have co-op for all it's sub-games. So technically 1/3rd of the games + change.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

My Bluetooth dongle finally showed up in the mail today, so I'll be able to play some Skyward Sword on my PC tonight! I'm excited to get back to the game, finally, although I'm a little apprehensive about getting frustrated. I suppose I can just quicksave now. ;)

I haven't tried Skyward Sword, but Windwaker looks mega fantastic in Dolphin and plays well with a 360 controller.

Instead, I've been sent on a quest to crawl back through the Dark World versions of each area looking for nine hidden keys. I've been given no hints to where they are, and nothing to tell me when I've found all the keys in a given area. I already found one by accident, and it was so well-hidden that I despair a little bit about how long it will take me to find the other eight.

So it turns out that I was wrong: there are hints for where to find the hidden keys. Multiple hints, even; I just wasn't paying close enough attention, I guess.

Throughout the light world, you find dead Luminoths (the good guys) who you can scan for a testimony. I thought the testimonies were just lore, but they're actually accounts of how they lost their Sky Temple keys and where they ended up in the Dark World. Likewise, the entrance to the Sky Temple itself, where you're supposed to take all these keys, has scannable orbs that give you hints of where to look.

I've been trying to keep track of how long the Sky Temple key hunt has taken. So far, I'm at 6/9 keys after 1h 37m of looking. That's not too bad, although I wish the locations of any of the Luminoths I'd scanned would just show up on my map and save me some time.

shoptroll wrote:

Clocky, were you interested in the Kirby Collection as a co-op option with your wife? I recently picked it up and according to the packaging almost half the games* have co-op options. Although, I think Super Star doesn't have co-op for all it's sub-games. So technically 1/3rd of the games + change.

We liked Kirby's Epic Yarn, but I'm not sure we liked it enough to get the collection and play through the Gameboy games and such. We'll probably just get Kirby's Return to Dreamland and see how that goes.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

We liked Kirby's Epic Yarn, but I'm not sure we liked it enough to get the collection and play through the Gameboy games and such. We'll probably just get Kirby's Return to Dreamland and see how that goes.

I can definitely vouch and say that Kirby's Return to Dreamland is really fantastic. Over the summer, I was working on a project that had a 5-6 minute test, so it gave me time to just sit around. I set up a spare Wii on my desk and played 50% of that game because I could literally complete a level or two in that time. I finally purchased it once that project was over with because I needed to complete it. And now I can actually take my time through it and collect everything. It truly is fantastic.

EDIT: ALSO! I will try and get Punchout! sent sometime this weekend or next. I started a new job this week, so I'm adjusting to that sleep schedule. Not to mention I misplaced the game on my desk under my philosophy textbook.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

We liked Kirby's Epic Yarn, but I'm not sure we liked it enough to get the collection and play through the Gameboy games and such. We'll probably just get Kirby's Return to Dreamland and see how that goes.

The gameboy games don't look terrible on a modern TV (and they're fairly short). But Return to Dream Land is quite good so that's a good idea as well!

Metroid Prime 2 is finally done!

I kept track of how long that extra fetch quest took, and it added all of two hours to the game, and I only took another half-hour after that to finish the game. For two hours out of just shy of nineteen, I can't say I was too inconvenienced or too bothered by the padding.

Having heard so much about the difficulty in Prime 2, I was prepared for the game to be a lot more difficult than it was. Unlike with Prime, I didn't run into any weird difficulty spikes or boss fights that I needed to do over and over again. I'm honestly not sure if that's because Prime 2 isn't as hard or if the Wii's pointer controls make it significantly easier than it was on the GameCube. I'd accept either explanation.

In general, the Wii adaptation was excellent. The controls were beautifully done, and the game is wonderful. The only thing that was a little weird were the achievement-style pop-ups throughout the game. I think they unlock bonus content on the disc? I have no idea.

There was some discussion earlier in this thread about how pointer controls weren't motion controls, so the Prime adaptations didn't count as good motion-controlled games. Prime 2 doesn't have a lot of the motion controls that Prime 3 does (no unlocking things by rotating the remote, for example, and no flicking the nunchuck to deploy the grapple beam), but it does carry over one of my favorite motion controls: flicking the Wiimote itself to make the morphball jump. It's a small little thing, but it makes a difference in how smoothly you can traverse terrain. (And yes, you could do it with a button, but I prefer to flick. I like the connection between my motion and the ball's action.)


So now I'm moving on to Donkey Kong Country Returns (thanks for the loan, Minarchist!). I've only played the first level so far, but I like it. I'm not familiar with the SNES originals, so it's a whole new ballgame for me. I'm playing with just the Wiimote. Anyone familiar with the Wiimote + nunchuck option? How is it?

I'm going to try to talk my wife into playing it in co-op, but right now we've been sucked back into Trauma Team and might spend our gaming time together trying to get medals in that game. Once again: if you haven't already played it, I highly recommend Trauma Team. It's one of my favorite hidden gems on the system. (And it's not a first-party game!)


Dominic Knight wrote:

ALSO! I will try and get Punchout! sent sometime this weekend or next. I started a new job this week, so I'm adjusting to that sleep schedule. Not to mention I misplaced the game on my desk under my philosophy textbook.

No worries! Thanks for lending that to me.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

In general, the Wii adaptation was excellent. The controls were beautifully done, and the game is wonderful. The only thing that was a little weird were the achievement-style pop-ups throughout the game. I think they unlock bonus content on the disc? I have no idea.

I believe that was the intent of those which brought Prime 1/2 in line with Prime 3.

EDIT: Good luck with DKC:R! Demyx and I co-oped until World 2 and then yeah... it gets hard.

Some of the bonus levels are what get annoyingly hard. I can't remember the regular levels, though. It was fun, but it didn't capture that same bit of awesome that Diddy's Kong Quest managed.

Oh yeah, I died over 150 times in the final world of DKCR. Have fun!

My wife wasn't sure if she wanted to co-op Donkey Kong Country Returns, so I've been playing Super Paper Mario while she decides.

I tried to play it once before and gave up after four hours or so. I was a big fan of Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door on GameCube, and like a lot of people I was pretty disappointed that Super Paper Mario wasn't very similar at all to its predecessor. The Thousand-Year Door was a pretty good JRPG; if you haven't played it before, the best comparison this generation might be that it's a deeper, full-length Costume Quest. Super Paper Mario, meanwhile, is this weird platformer hybrid that abandons most of the RPG elements that made the GameCube game so much fun.

But I knew a few people who hadn't played The Thousand-Year Door and really enjoyed Super Paper Mario, so I wanted to give it another chance. I'm glad I did.

Taken as a sequel to The Thousand-Year Door (and presumably the other Paper Mario and Mario RPG games; I haven't played them), Super Paper Mario is kinda lousy. Viewed as its own weird platformer/RPG hyrbid, Super Paper Mario is so far actually really charming and enjoyable. The ability to shift between 2D and 3D perspectives, as well as switching between characters and powers later in the game, gives the game some puzzle and exploratory elements. Upgrades are handled along a linear path, and the items are more about convenience than necessity, but viewing the game as something other than an RPG mitigates the disappointment in those systems.

As a whole, the writing and design are a lot more wry than I remember them being. There's a running (unspoken) gag that traditional Mario platforming hazards like spinning fire sticks and crushing blocks are completely negated by shifting into the third dimension. I cracked up the first time I realized that a jumping hazard was actually super easy if I just shifted dimensions and walked past them.

In general, there are a lot of fourth-wall breaking jokes, clever asides, and cute nods to Nintendo games past and present. I'm happy I'm giving this game another shot, and I hope to continue to enjoy it. At the risk of being cheesy, I feel like what I needed to do with this game was shift my perspective on it in order to really appreciate what it was and what it was trying to do.

I'm really glad you're enjoying it. I actually have the opposite perspective of most. Because I never played the other Paper Mario games I'm disappointed we're not getting another Super Paper Mario. Oddly enough, one of the things I enjoyed about it most was the story.

I remember really enjoying the game as it picked up steam. The first hour or two or three (I can't remember how far) wasn't all that impressive, but as you progressed the game became a lot more enjoyable. Maybe its biggest problem is the beginning being so straight forward compared to the puzzles later on.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

...
As a whole, the writing and design are a lot more wry than I remember them being. There's a running (unspoken) gag that traditional Mario platforming hazards like spinning fire sticks and crushing blocks are completely negated by shifting into the third dimension. I cracked up the first time I realized that a jumping hazard was actually super easy if I just shifted dimensions and walked past them.

In general, there are a lot of fourth-wall breaking jokes, clever asides, and cute nods to Nintendo games past and present. I'm happy I'm giving this game another shot, and I hope to continue to enjoy it. At the risk of being cheesy, I feel like what I needed to do with this game was shift my perspective on it in order to really appreciate what it was and what it was trying to do.

I see what you did there.

My wife wanted to try Paper Mario on the Wii for the first time recently. It took so long for any actual gameplay to happen that she never wants to touch it again.

It's a shame, but on the other hand I can't fathom why they think that is a good way to start a video game.

I stopped playing Super Paper Mario in large part because I thought the new enemies were poorly designed. I guess I wanted more Bowser in my Super Paper Mario. I really liked the perspective shifting, but think I may have liked it better as a strict platformer.

I'm not sure why anyone thinks it's a good idea, but it is depressingly common lately. It sort of makes sense in RPGs, which tend to have big worlds that need to be explained to the player. One easy (if lazy) way to do that is a big narrative dump at the beginning. Since Thousand Year Door was an RPG, perhaps SPM started as one as well, and when they changed the gameplay style, they failed to update the delivery of the narrative.

Garden Ninja wrote:

I'm not sure why anyone thinks it's a good idea, but it is depressingly common lately. It sort of makes sense in RPGs, which tend to have big worlds that need to be explained to the player. One easy (if lazy) way to do that is a big narrative dump at the beginning. Since Thousand Year Door was an RPG, perhaps SPM started as one as well, and when they changed the gameplay style, they failed to update the delivery of the narrative.

I hate it with RPGs too, to be fair, but I think the lack of voice acting in Paper Mario might have made it worse than your standard modern RPG opening. At times that makes it feel more like waiting and clicking and less like watching the opening of the game.

I dunno, exposition at the start of a game, or even a film, usually gets missed by me. I sort of glaze over since there's no reason to be absorbed into anything yet. Text makes it easier since it requires some level of focus.

ccesarano wrote:

I dunno, exposition at the start of a game, or even a film, usually gets missed by me. I sort of glaze over since there's no reason to be absorbed into anything yet. Text makes it easier since it requires some level of focus.

Interesting. I gloss over text all the time.

Looking back at my post I'm glad I said "I can't fathom why they think that is a good way to start a video game" instead of "this is a bad way to start a video game" because clearly I don't know everything. At least I covered my ass.

SixteenBlue wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

I dunno, exposition at the start of a game, or even a film, usually gets missed by me. I sort of glaze over since there's no reason to be absorbed into anything yet. Text makes it easier since it requires some level of focus.

Interesting. I gloss over text all the time.

Looking back at my post I'm glad I said "I can't fathom why they think that is a good way to start a video game" instead of "this is a bad way to start a video game" because clearly I don't know everything. At least I covered my ass.

I think I'm somewhere in the middle, I guess.

I wrote:

One easy (if lazy) way to do that is a big narrative dump at the beginning.

I tried to choose this wording deliberately, but maybe my meaning was missed. I meant narrative dump, as in "info about the world", in general, not in any particular format. A big blob of text at the beginning isn't a problem any more than a big cutscene, or long forced dialog block is. The problem is that time-to-gameplay is too long. I tolerate it in RPGs that have enough worldbuilding to "support" it. In shorter, less narrative-driven games, or game that don't have engaging narratives (which is mostly subjective) it is just annoying.

I can't stand narrative dumps in any format, for the most part. I don't like it when someone wants to tell the player about the world because they don't know how to educate through the world.

I honestly want to see more games with a longer Act I, truth told. You'd think Half-Life might have shown the value of establishing the status quo before wrecking it, rather than "Here's the world. Here's how it works. Now here's what is threatening that order. Here's your gun/sword, kill sh*t."

SixteenBlue wrote:

My wife wanted to try Paper Mario on the Wii for the first time recently. It took so long for any actual gameplay to happen that she never wants to touch it again.

It's a shame, but on the other hand I can't fathom why they think that is a good way to start a video game.

I think it depends in large part on your expectations. Looking at a Let's Play, it looks like Super Paper Mario has about fifteen minutes of story content before you really start playing the game. That's an eternity for a platformer, but it's about on par with most RPGs. Since Super Paper Mario is a bit of both, I have a hard time saying whether it's reasonable in this case or not.

If you were sitting down to the game expecting a quick start like you'd get from a Mario platformer, I can see where you'd be annoyed that it takes 15 minutes to get going. I remember being kinda annoyed when I started Rayman Origins that it takes a few minutes to run through a little story intro.

But if you view Super Paper Mario as a 20-odd hour, story-heavy RPG, that fifteen minutes is nothing. And while I did say it helps to not view Super Paper Mario as a JRPG like its predecessor, I don't think viewing it as a platformer is correct, either. It's its own weird little thing that's neither platformer nor RPG. It's definitely a text-heavy, story-driven game, though, so go in expecting a fair amount of talking.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

My wife wanted to try Paper Mario on the Wii for the first time recently. It took so long for any actual gameplay to happen that she never wants to touch it again.

It's a shame, but on the other hand I can't fathom why they think that is a good way to start a video game.

I think it depends in large part on your expectations. Looking at a Let's Play, it looks like Super Paper Mario has about fifteen minutes of story content before you really start playing the game. That's an eternity for a platformer, but it's about on par with most RPGs. Since Super Paper Mario is a bit of both, I have a hard time saying whether it's reasonable in this case or not.

If you were sitting down to the game expecting a quick start like you'd get from a Mario platformer, I can see where you'd be annoyed that it takes 15 minutes to get going. I remember being kinda annoyed when I started Rayman Origins that it takes a few minutes to run through a little story intro.

But if you view Super Paper Mario as a 20-odd hour, story-heavy RPG, that fifteen minutes is nothing. And while I did say it helps to not view Super Paper Mario as a JRPG like its predecessor, I don't think viewing it as a platformer is correct, either. It's its own weird little thing that's neither platformer nor RPG. It's definitely a text-heavy, story-driven game, though, so go in expecting a fair amount of talking.

When I played it I think I had my usually feeling of " hurry up hurry up" but I wasn't turned off by it. It was interesting to see it from a non-hardcore gamer perspective though.

I'd put Super Paper Mario in the Action JRPG category like Kingdom Hearts. Just instead of mashing X to attack, you're doing standard Mario moves.

So happy that I have a switcher for my monitor now. It is a component switcher but it works well enough so now no more reaching behind and knocking stuff over. I hope I can do a little more backlog work. Xenoblade, I will get out of the first area I swear.

My HDTV has been dead for a month (hopefully just the mainboard). Since we're currently confined to a smallish sdtv I finally have a reason to hook up the Wii. My daughter grabbed Lego Batman from the library so that will be our game for a while.

It's something of a JRPG parody. There's even a battle where you do a prototypical 8-bit JRPG thing. It's also somewhat self-referential. The long text that nobody reads starts early and becomes a running joke by the midgame.

Y'know... I think I totally don't like DKCR. Color me. surprised. I can appreciate the craft on display but it retains the core issues from the SNES games.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Y'know... I think I totally don't like DKCR. Color me. surprised. I can appreciate the craft on display but it retains the core issues from the SNES games.

Go on...