With New Pokemon Snap releasing in less than 30 days I figured this was the right time for me look at back at the original game which inspired it.
Pokemon Snap was developed by Hal Laboratories and was originally going to be a Jack and the Beanstalk videogame which focused on photographing plants and animals, the developers really struggled to convince Nintendo of this idea for the N64 Disk Drive and it was instead requested by the late Satoru Iwata that due to the success of Pokemon Red and Blue all of the animals were to be changed to Pokemon and the environments and story adjusted to make the world feel natural and realistic to contain Pokemon monsters. This genius idea for a change was much more than just relying on the success of another franchise but a way of expanding the Pokemon universe to express it self in a non violent and natural way with some puzzle elements thrown into the mix and I think everyone will agree that this is exactly what Pokemon Snap brought to the table.
In the game you play as a talented young photographer named Todd Snap, Todd begins the game chasing the rare Pokemon Mew trying to be the first person to ever get a clear photograph of it, unfortunately the creature escapes into the clouds and Todd feels defeated and in need to regain his confidence and refine his skills in Photography. He becomes an apprentice for Professor Oak who asks Todd to photograph Pokemon and landmarks which represent them.
There are 63 Pokemon’s you can can discover and Photograph in the game, the majority of these are quite easy to find but getting the best possible photo is the real challenge of the game, some times you may need to interact with a Pokémon to make it emotionally react in order to get a great photograph, this can be achieved using the in game items.
There are three items in the game and later on you can move through the courses faster as well.
The apples can be used to attract a Pokemon to a specific spot, a very popular thing you can do is in the beach level use the apples to encourage Pikachu to climb a surfboard in order to get the amazing Surfing Pikachu shot.
You can also use the apples to knock over items and Pokemon while this may seem a little cruel, and in reality it is a little bit but by knocking Pokemon or eggs into certain elements you can evolve them, for example knocking a Charmeleon into the volcano is the only way to get a Charizard shot.
Some of the evolutions are a lot more difficult and require more puzzle solving, in the valley stage you need to hit a jumping Magicarp with a number of apples in order to hit it so hard that it fly’s to other end of the trail. Here it will land on some rocky terrain, hit it with another apple to knock it into the water bouncing it inside of a waterfall, this will evolve the Magicarp and is the only way to get a shot of Gyrados.
The pester balls can be used to make Pokémon dizzy but more importantly it can bring camouflaged Pokémon out of hiding, you need to do this in order get a shot of Porygon.
The Final Item is the Pokemon Flute this can be used to encourage Pokemon to show off secret poses, these photographs will give players extra points, it is also the only way to wake up Vileplume in the River level.
The items are also needed so that you can interact with secrets in the environment to open up new paths and levels.
I was a little disappointed with how short the game was and its difficulty, while I agree its creativity is outstanding and overall the game is tons of fun, this was my first playthrough and I managed to do everything in under six hours, the main Pokemon were a little challenging to find especially the evolutions but the Pokemon signs I found straight away when I began seeking them out, this was fine but I think it would have been better to make them a little more difficult to discover considering that finding all six of them gives you access to Mew and the games credits.
I thought that while fairly simple the music actually suits this game very well, this is not an epic role playing adventure game but is in fact a relaxing and fun experience for the whole family, the music gets you pumped to go and discover secrets and genuinely has a really good feel to it, I never grew up with this game so I don’t have nostalgia for it, but my friends that do have all said that they think opening theme is an easily recognisable and iconic video game composition and I will admit that if I heard it in the future I think I could easily match it with this game, it is unique and fits the tone of the game perfectly.
I have very few complaints with this game, I think it could been a little longer with some more levels, this came out in gen 1 but only used 63 of the then 151 Pokemon and lets be honest they could have put all of the Pokemon in this game.
I think the Pokemon signs should have been really hard to discover, there was no internet back then so it could have made easy playground brags especially since you could print the photographs off in certain stores.
If I made the game myself I would have made no mention of Mew at all and instead had the final level unlock only to players who got every photograph in the game, beat all of the high scores and found all of the Pokemon signs, I think leaving Mew a secret would have been a fantastic completionist bonus for players.
I realise these complaints are more on the lines of what I would do differently so please don’t let what I have said put you off this fantastic experience, Pokemon Snap as a concept is great and the final product is a wonderful game which anyone can get into, graphically while these days outdated back then this is some of the best visuals on the N64, the music is perfect for the game and its tone, it controls well, has a good story which does not overshadow the gameplay and while I would have liked it to be just a little bit longer I cannot wait to replay this and I am even more excited to see what directions the new game takes but until then I give Pokemon Snap a very high score of 9.6/10
I actually played the entire game live on my twitch account, I am using this account to share my experiences with these games in real time before reviewing them and I would appreciate some support over there if you would like to come hangout and play some games with me !
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Animal Crossing is a popular social video game series where a human character moves to a town or village inhabited by animals, the games are known to give each player a unique experience with every play-through having different villagers and things to do. Players are also encouraged to be creative in the games and every game is able to be played in real time with the seasons and holidays being accurate to real life because of this each game is intended to be played daily until the next entry is released.
In this article we will be looking at all of the main series entries as well as its spin offs.
I haven’t played these games in a very long time so I will be using images from others peoples villages so if yours is on here and you want it removed please let me know at the email address on my contact page.
Animal Crossing was originally released for the Nintendo 64 in Japan, this version was never released worldwide and the rest of us got introduced to the series through the GameCube version which was enhanced with new features and better graphics.
The main goal in all of the games was to pay off a property that you have on a mortgage with Tom Nook, every-time you gain enough bells by selling bugs, shells, fish and other things you collect, you can pay off your home which will make it bigger, you repeat this process until you have the biggest home available in the game.
On a side note you can also find and collect fossils, bugs and fish which can be sent to Blathers the Owl at the Faraway Museum for analysing.
You can have many villagers join your village, they will either stay or leave depending on how you communicate with them, many of them will ask you do tasks for them, in the first Animal Crossing game you could have 15 villagers in your village at one time.
In the game players could, find, trade and be gifted games for the NES, all of these games were fully playable and this idea was really revolutionary at the time.
Two of these games could only be accessed using e-reader cards, and two more were giveaways to certain players, The Legend of Zelda for NES was in the games code but was never put into the final game.
Some of these games could even be transferred to the Gameboy Advance using the GBA link cable.
Using a GBA Link cable players are also able to access a secret island that a character named Kapp’n can take them too, on this island is a hidden villager and special fruit such as coconuts.
The GBA can also be used to create special clothing designs at the Able Sisters shop.
Animal Crossing on the Gamecube is the version I played and to this day I still think its a great game to play over and over again, there are so many cool things to do, there are the NES games to find as well meeting interesting characters such as Tom Nook, Kapp’n, Tortimer and K.K Slider who have all become fan favourites K.K slider is particularly fun because he plays music for you and then gives you a copy of the track which you can play whenever you want giving collectors another thing to collect. Animal Crossing is a chilled out experience but also a really immersive game that is still one my favourites.
In 2005 we got Animal Crossing Wild World for the Nintendo DS, in my opinion there is not much new material here and this is more of a enhanced port of the original game than it is a sequel.
Because the DS used dual screens the sky above the player would move as the character moved making the game a little more realistic and immersive than the original
The use of the DS stylus made certain aspects of the game such as creating patterns and writing letters a lot easier than they were on a controller.
What is consider to be the best new addition was the ability to visit other peoples villages over the Nintendo WiFi connection, this was really cool but you could only visit villages using someones DS friend code and you were unable to connect to a random village. Online was able to be used in the game until 2014 when the service was closed down.
Apart from this there wasn’t many differences to the game-cube version, there were no retro games this time around and apart from online I cant think of any reason why this version would be superior.
Animal Crossing Wild World is in my opinion the weakest game in the main series, this does not mean that its bad, it just lacked new features and it was missing certain elements from the original game and its for that reason why I think it’s not as good.
In 2008 we got the third main series Animal Crossing game for the Nintendo Wii in the US it was called Animal Crossing: City Folk but over in Europe our version was called Animal Crossing: Lets Go to the City.
The base game of City Folk was very similar to the previous entries and not much was added as new content however for the first time a new area could be accessed without the use of a second games system. This new area was the City, players could access this area by hoping on a bus driven by Kapp’n. In the City you can take part in various activities including shopping, getting your haircut, bidding on items and visiting the local theatre, I really enjoy the city area of the game as its a nice distraction from the regular village.
A new peripheral was available with the game, this was Wii Speak an electronic device that allowed you to talk with other players in real time using voice chat. I never owned one of these myself so I am unable to comment on its quality, other devices that could be used with the game were the Nintendo DS, you could use the DS to transfer you character and other elements from Wild World to City Folk and for easy messaging in the game you could use a PC keyboard instead of the wii-mote pointer.
It should also be noted that using a service called Wii Connect 24 players were able to order special items from Nooks Store, during special events Nintendo would release special clothing and items that could be downloaded into the game, this service was shut down in 2013 upon the release of the Wii U.
Even though there wasn’t many new things added to this game it managed to maintain the charm present in previous games, it never tried to over whelm the player with new content and it was clear that Nintendo knew what the fans wanted, with only few extra additions Animal Crossing: City Folk was a really nice entry to the series it was as good as we expected it to be without it being to ambitious.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 it was the fourth game released in the main series and at this moment it is still the most recently available main entry game, the game also introduced players to new series character Isabelle.
The game came with the usual fare of Animal Crossing game-play such as fishing, collecting shells and bugs and selling items for bells but a major change was the player being mistaken for the town mayor, this opened up many new types of game play.
As the mayor you are now able to modify to the majority of the village, you can add new buildings, you can fund projects and construction jobs such as adding bridges and fountains to the town, also as the mayor the villagers will ask you for help in various ways, they did this in previous games but the jobs were never anything memorable and were usually delivering an item from one villager to another.
Another thing you can do as Mayor is ordinances this works somewhat in a similar manner to legal laws, you can use ordinances to control how certain aspects of your village and residents work, for example you could ask for more trees or flowers to be planted or you could change what time the local shops will open and close.
The special island re-appeared in this game, players could go over to the Island to collect bugs and fish not available in the regular village and some mini games could also be played over on the island.
new mini-games were added to the Island in a free update.
Multiplayer returned along with being able to visit your friends towns, the dream suite feature allows players to visit dream like versions of random players towns over Nintendo Wifi Connection, another really cool online feature allowed you to view players homes that you found via the 3DS street pass, you were even able to buy the items that they stored in their homes.
The last feature I will talk about is the sewing machine in the Able Sisters shop, by using this machine you could create QR codes for the patterns and designs you create, other players can scan these using their 3DS cameras to download the patterns.
Animal Crossing New Leaf is one of the best games available on Nintendo 3DS, it changed up the game play while still remaining respectful of its purpose, it was a nice change of pace and its new features made the game more playable and kept players interested with its consistent game play with plenty of things to do.
Animal Crossing Home Designer was the first spin off game in the Animal Crossing series, the game had players designing multiple homes for villagers and trying to design the decor and furniture to suit their needs. It was released in September of 2015.
In this game the main focus is designing homes so there is no mortgages to pay off, different villagers will hire you to theme there homes on specific things this adds a bit of challenge to the game and also encourages creativity and imagination. The shops have returned from the main series however more items are available from the get go and more can be unlocked as you progress through the game.
The game also incorporated Amiibo cards that could be used to invite main series villagers to join parties in the town, you might even get the opportunity to design homes for these characters.
Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival was released in November 2015, it was based on the Mario Party video game series, the goal of the game is to make your villager the happiest in town.
In the game players will roll a dice to move around the board and you will see events, depending on how these events turn out you will either gain or lose happy points and at the end of the game the player with the most happy points wins.
The game gave us animal crossing amiibos, by scanning these amiibos into the game you could then play as those characters, you could also scan amiibo cards to play some minigames with your friends.
Animal Crossing Pocket Camp is a free to play mobile game that was released Worldwide for android and IOS in November 2017.
Surprisingly this mobile version of the series is not much different to the main series games that we have come to love, the biggest difference was that it was based on building a campsite instead of a village but apart from that the core game-play remains almost the same, I personally think that this game had much more memorable events and holidays as some of these were based on other Nintendo series.
Like similar games on mobile, the core game is free to download and play but things take a long time to build and require a lot of patience however if you are feeling up to it you can use real currency to purchase Leaf tickets to speed up the process, the tickets can also be used to build things that you may not have the correct materials for.
The Latest main series title Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released for the Nintendo Switch on March 20th 2020.
In the game players need to choose an Island layout before being shipped to that Island, from here a naming ceremony is held along with a bonfire party, this part of the game is mandatory and is the only time the game is not following real time. Once the player goes to sleep real time and seasons will start and the Animal Crossing experience will begin.
A really fun crafting system has now been introduced to the series, players are able to gather materials from trees, rocks and other things in the game to combine and make furniture, new tools and decor, special recipe cards can be discovered or traded allowing players to add more craft-able items to the list.
The staple Bell Currency is back as usual however this time it is joined with a new type of currency called Nook Miles, Nook Miles allow you to purchase special items and updates to your game, this includes visiting new islands, upgrading item storage and general enhancements to the experience of the game. You gain this currency by finishing special tasks acting in a similar way too an achievement system, along with main nook goals special daily goals are available as well.
Late into the game, players can unlock an Island Designer mode, this mode allows the player to edit their islands by removing specific terrain or creating rivers and cliffs, this allows a serious amount of customisation in the game.
The game can bug although this does not happen, there is a rescue service option available which can help the player in these circumstances by spawning them back at their house, it does cost 100 Nook miles to use.
Swimming was introduced to Animal Crossing: New Horizons allowing players dive for deep sea creatures a new addition to the museum.
The last thing I feel needs to be mentioned here is the lack of Mr Resetti, for those who don’t know, Mr Resetti is a frequent character in the series who would scold a player when they forgot to save their game or when they reset their town, the character has been removed from New Horizons due to the Auto Save system.
In 2021 fans were given a major update to the game which brought back fan favourite characters, Brewster returns along with his cafe.
Cap’n is back and can take players to random mysterious islands where they can find unusual materials that are more difficult to find otherwise.
Harvs Island upgrades to allow us to open stores and make special sets for his photography.
General updates such as new ways to use the camera, group stretching activity were added, new ways to upgrade your home decor and general design and more items have been added to purchase via nook miles. We can now also add lighting and decoration to our roofs and for the first time in the series history we can cook using different recipes.
An finally Gyroids have returned and can now be customised to fit your tastes.
Happy Home Paradise is a new Animal Crossing designer game that was added as a DLC to the base game, this is an entire game on its own but only can only be accessed if you own a copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The game is very similar to Happy Home Designer and has a similar premise of creating homes for different animal residents and trying to build the houses to match the required theming for each client.
You do get paid for your work but only in a currency that can be spent on the design island however these furniture and clothing items can be taken to your own island and are each unique to those who own the DLC.
And that is where we are left with the Animal crossing series to date, I find it hard not to love this series for its simplicity, cuteness and relaxed atmosphere, I will update the new horizons segment if major updates are added but for now we will continue this series with the next games release.
Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
So a few weeks ago Nintendo released a press conference where they talked about new content in upcoming games as well as announcing some release dates for big Nintendo titles, one of my favourite announcements from the conference was that you can now purchase N64 and NDS games on the E-shop for the Wii U, I’m not too interested in the N64 virtual console as I do prefer to get most of my N64 as physical copies but the realisation that I can now play NDS games on my TV literally made me squeal like a little girl who got given a kitten covered in candy floss for Christmas and I just want to hug Nintendo into eternity right now, at the moment there is only two DS games available on the E-shop Mario Kart DS and Wario Ware touched and I was a little disappointed with this considering that the USA got Yoshi’s Island DS while Europe has to wait until May.
I may have been a little disappointed but I am still super hyped for what DS games Nintendo will bring to the E-shop and in celebration of the announcement here are my top 5 DS games I want to see on Wii U E-Shop.
5. New Super Mario Bros
As some of you may know New Super Mario Bros is one of my favourite Mario games of all time, it is essentially a remake of the original Super Mario Bros but with a few changes the most obvious change is the more modern graphics, the game also has a variety of music tracks, new power ups and a well detailed over world similar to Super Mario Bros 3, the reason this is so low on the list is because it honestly isn’t that exciting compared to my other choices but needless to say I think this game would look awesome on the Virtual Console.
4. The Professor Layton Series
The professor Layton games are these surprisingly in depth puzzles games made by Level 5 Studios, the games follow the adventures of Professor Layton and his side kick Luke Triton, each game has our two protagonists working together to solve the hidden mysteries of different towns and villages, you slowly solve these mysteries by finishing many puzzles and answering many riddles through out the games, the Professor Layton series are great games to play by yourself on a handheld but I think it would be interesting to play them on the TV because with a bigger screen you and your friends can try to solve to puzzles together which seems like it would be a lot of fun also the games have fully animated cut scenes which I’m sure would be a real treat to watch on a larger screen.
3. The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks
A few weeks ago I finally finished playing through Wind Waker and I had a lot of fun with it but I didn’t enjoy it as much I have enjoyed other games in the series which is why its two sequels are only at the number three spot on this list, these two Zelda games are very unique as they are controlled completely with the touch screen which is a concept I find very interesting as I believe it will add more of a challenge compared to how easy Wind Waker was, this is also the main reason why I want to play the two DS games as I want to see how the challenge differs as well to see what happens next in Wind Waker’s story.
2. Mario and Luigi Partners in Time/Bowser’s Inside Story
I recently downloaded Mario and Luigi Super Star Saga for the GBA on the E-Shop and boy am I glad I did, the Mario and Luigi games are these surprisingly hilarious and well written RPG’s from Nintendo, the plots are always silly and the games are full of interesting characters and clever jokes, Super Star Saga is slowly becoming one of my favourite RPG’s of all time as it reminds me a lot of Super Mario RPG for the SNES, these games are charming, very challenging but fair and full of that Nintendo flavour so I really hope that Nintendo put these games on the E-Shop as I cant wait to play them all.
1.Any of the DS Pokemon Games
Seriously Nintendo this needs to happen because not only would it be awesome it would also be extremely useful, I know many people who like to play the Pokemon Game Boy games using their super game boy’s and the Game Boy Advance games using the Game cube GBA adapter, the Pokemon series is a lot of fun to play on the move but personally I always have more fun playing them on the TV and I’m sure a lot of other people do too.
three reasons why Pokemon on the E-Shop will be useful
1. TV’s don’t have a battery life so you can play Pokemon all day without having to charge the console every four hours, the pokemon games are really long and require many hours of grinding so his will help.
2. Your friends dont need to climb all over you to watch you play the game, Pokemon games can get pretty intense and if like me you have friends who get overly excited when you find a shiny you will most likely have 10 different people crowding around your DS at the same time and with a TV this is not such a huge a deal as all of your friends can watch no matter where they sit on the couch.
3. Save States, there is no denying that the Pokemon games are tough and require a lot of patience the only way to retry a battle or a puzzle if you mess up is to either lose or reset the game which is extremely annoying , playing a Pokemon game on the Virtual console will allow save states which are going to be very useful as it make the whole experience less stressful and the best part is that you don’t have to use them so any hardcore Pokemon players wont be disappointed
The only problem I can see people complaining about is the lack or online battles and trading as it seems that this feature will be unavailable due to the original Nintendo Wifi Connection being shut down, but I have a feeling that Nintendo might be able to use their magic to some how make the online capabilities work.
Thanks for reading my top 5 DS games I want on Wii U E-Shop I realise that most of these are Nintendo titles but I cant really help that I’m a bit of a Nintendo addict, although my number 6 spot would go to the Drawn to Life games which I also hope get ported to E-Shop soon, what DS games would you like to see on the E-Shop?
thanks for reading this blog
If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours
By Padawan
Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer
Also me and some friends have recently started playing games together so please check out our new YouTube Channel Hoenn Rangers, We haven’t played any DS games yet but I’m sure we will some time in the future.
I loved Rare Ware Studios as a kid because they were the gods of the video game industry creating games like wizards and warriors, battletoads, the donkey kong country franchise, conkers bad fur day, super mario 64, diddy kong racing and golden eye just to name a few. Rare Ware were known to make some of the greatest games of all time which is what made them so popular back in day. Sadly all great things come to an end and in 2002 Rare Ware Studios was purchased by Microsoft Corporation because Rare Ware no longer had Nintendo to help them out and was now in the hands of Microsoft not so great games got made like grabbed by the ghoulies and perfect dark zero and sadly Rare Ware have remained this way ever since.
I like to remember Rare Ware the way i did when i was a kid and what’s a better way to remeber them than reviewing one of the most popular and well known games they ever made Banjo Kazooie.
Story
The story to Banjo Kazooie is that the evil witch Gruntilda
Is angry because she is not the prettiest person in the land any more and has been told by her magic cauldron that Banjo’s sister Tooty is the most beautiful being in all the land. Because of this Gruntilda swoops down from her lair on her broom stick and kidnaps Tooty so she can swap her ugliness for Tooties beauty using a machiene she built. a lot of noise was made by both Gruntilda and Tooty which wakes Banjo and his pet bird Kazooie up, Banjo with Kazooie in his ruck sack rushes out to see what all the noise was about but little do they know of the adventure that lies ahead. The story may seem a little basic but trust me if you play the game you will reslise that the story is actually really clever and creative.
Game play
The way Banjo Kazooie works is that you play as both Banjo and Kazooie (they have these names because of the instruments they play). You use Banjo for basic things like punching, walking and swimming and kazooie for just about everything else. Both Banjo and Kazooie control satisfyingly for the most part, the game dosent lag at all and even though there are a lot of different moves in the game the button combinations to pull off these moves are easy to remember. One issue is the in game camera, the camera is fine when Banjo and Kazooie is on the ground but for some reason whenever I swim underwater or fly the camera just has a mind of its own and this can get annoying fast. The controls are not too bad I just wish that the camera issues when performing certain tasks were fixed before the game got released because if they were the controls would have been perfect.
Things to collect
There are a lot of things to collect in Banjo Kazooie which may seem like a bad thing but trust me it isnt because the game overly generous with these items locations.
Jiggy’s- To enter each world in Banjo Kazooie you will need fill in a picture of each world with jigsaw pieces AKA jiggies. Each world has 10 Jiggies to find and one switch you can hit which will release a jiggy in the games hub (Gruntildas Lair).
Eggs- ammunition that Kazooie can shoot from both his mouth and butt (OUCH sounds painful)
Red feather-these allow Kazooie to fly
Gold feather- these allow Banjo and Kazooie to be invincible for a limited amount of time
Notes- throughout each world the player is able to collect 100 musical notes, a certain amount of notes are needed to progress to the different parts of Gruntildas lair
Mumbo skulls- certain jiggies can only be collected if Banjo is tranformed into another animal, this can only happen if Banjo collects a certain number of mumbo skulls which he then needs to give to the voodoo master Mumbo who will turn Banjo into the needed animal form in exhange for the skulls he collected.
Jinjo- the final thing you need to collect in each world are these cute kangaroo things called Jinjo’s. There are five Jinjo’s to collect in each world and to my knowlege in order to actually defeat the final boss you need to collect all of them. The reason I believe you need to collect each Jinjo is because in everyone of my playthroughs of the game I collect all of the Jinjo’s and everytime they have helped me defeat Gruntilda.
Graphics
This game is beautiful I’m not even kidding for an N64 game every aspect of Banjo Kazooie is a piece of art, the textures really help enhance the wonderful environments in each world, the character detail is very impressive and overall the game looks better than some modern games look today which is saying a lot since Banjo Kazooie came out in 1998. There are 9 worlds to explore in the game (not including the hub world or Spiral mountain). My favourite world in the game is called Freezeezy Peak its a Christmas themed world, its my favourite world because not only is it the best looking world in my opinion but it also has the best music.
Music
This game just keeps getting better and betted because even the music is kick ass, its not often that the music in a video game suits the environments perfectly but just to add the cherry to an already perfect cake Banjo Kazooie manages to do just that. Its hard to explain why the music is so good but go and listen to the music from Freezeezy Peak, Gobi’s Valley and Mad Monter Mansion and you will see what I mean. If were not gonna get another decent Banjo Kazooie game a Banjo Kazooie soundtrack would be nice.
Final Verdict
From reading this review you can probably tell that I like this game, in my opinion its one of greatest video games of all time and highly suggest buying Banjo Kazooie because even though it has some camera issues it still is a really awesome game and because of this i rate Banjo Kazooie a 9/10.
I hope you enjoyed this raggle fraggle review
This revie is of my own opinion if you respect my opinion I will respect yours
this review was written by Dan (Padawan)
Wow another blog that’s related to Super Mario good lord I just can’t leave this guy alone, there is good reason behind my slight obsession with everyone’s favorite Italian plumber though and that is of course the games and the fact that he is the Mickey Mouse of video games. There are a lot of Mario games so choosing just five for this list was one tough job. Of course I’m only basing this list on games that I have actually played and I will only be choosing one game per console.
5. NEW Super Mario Bros (NDS)
Last Thursday I gave my honest opinion on the original Super Mario Bros for the NES in the style of a review, even though it is one of my favorite games off all time it does have a few issues one of them being the fact that the game has a very small music library and after a few hours listening to the same music can get very frustrating. I also mentioned that a lot of the levels look similar and the bosses are all pretty much the same these reasons are why the game didn’t make this list. Nintendo released not a sequel but more of a remake of the game on their hand held system the Nintendo DS it fixed all of the previous issues with the original game, it has stunning new visuals and even the Bowser boss battles have been changed immensely I love this game even more than the original and it truly deserves a place in this list.
4. Super Mario RPG (SNES)
Remember when Square Soft (Square Enix) teamed up with Walt Disney and together they gave us the Masterpiece Kingdom Hearts, Well before Disney Square Soft teamed up with Nintendo to create a Mario based RPG as a farewell gift for Mario Fans entering the world of 3D gaming, as expected what got released was yet another Mario Masterpiece. Role Playing had never been used in a Mario game before and as you may expect Nintendo was not sure how the game would turn out, luckily for us Mario Fans it was great the best thing about the game in my opinion is that it is not all an RPG you still need to tackle some platforming areas which all have a 3d look to them I gather this was to help get players ready for Super Mario 64. The paper Mario Series may have never happened if it was not for this games success.
3. Mario Kart Double Dash (Game Cube)
How could I do a top 5 list for Mario games without mentioning the Mario Kart series and more specifically Mario Kart Double Dash for the Nintendo Game Cube, What makes this game better than all the rest well for one thing you race with two characters in your Kart one throws Items while the other drives the Kart, even though apart from this the game is similar to all the other Mario Kart games in the series it does provide us with one of my favourite maps DK Mountain and of course like I said before two racers instead on one. Mario Kart Double Dash, double the racers, double the power, double the fun.
2. Super Mario 64 (N64)
Time for Mario to step up to the 3D gaming in his first proper 3D game Super Mario 64, What makes this game so great well pretty much everything apart from the biggest pain in ass the camera which is a serious issue in a lot of N64 game, but if you can ignore the camera problems you will realise that you are playing a brilliant game which really showed that Mario can be awesome in any 2D, 3D or any other kind of D wait that don’t sound right. As well as the game having tight controls, a humorous story, enjoyable levels, a free roaming over world and amazing music Super Mario 64 is also the first game that I recall allows you to hear that sweet Mario voice we have all grown to love.
If you read my review of this game you probably expected it to be number one on this list and it has every right to be. Super Mario Bros 3 is what I consider to be a perfect game now granted it doesn’t live up to its remake New Super Mario bros wii but that game didn’t come out in 1991 so I feel Mario 3 deserves a place in the spotlight instead. The game provided us with an overall world for each land, secrets and mini games hidden within them as well as levels and boss fights, a great soundtrack, amazing graphics for the time , good multiplayer and you could even play the original Mario Bros on the multiplayer mode, a good and enjoyable story line with loveable characters, New power ups such as the tanookie suit, the game never seems to get boring and finally it has Mario in it where could you wrong Super Mario Bros 3 was my favourite Mario game back then, it is now and chances are its going to stay that way.
Want to read my full Review of Super Mario Bros 3 click this link
When it comes to Nintendo 64 games there is one that I believe everyone has played and that’s Super Mario 64. Super Mario 64 was the first 3d free roaming Mario game to ever be released this was a big step up from the old side scrolling Mario titles and it was also the first game which allowed us to hear what Mario voice sounded like. This game had quite a big impact on Mario fans so big in fact that there was a remake on the DS which included more playable characters and more in game levels the DS version was also very popular but I’m not here to review that game I’m here to review the original so lets a go and jump straight into this 64 bit masterpiece.
The Story
Mario receives a letter from Princess Peach telling him to go to the castle as the princess has baked a cake for him (don’t they have servants to do that) any way Mario’s a doofus and lets his hormones take over his common sense and so he leaves the dodgy letter and go’s to the castle anyway when he arrives and enters the castle he finds out the letter was fake and Bowser has kidnapped the princess and is hiding in the castle somewhere and it’s Mario’s job to go and rescue her.
The game itself
The controls in this game are perfect that’s because Mario has a lot of moves which all require a different button combination to pull off, luckily Mario 64’s controls are very easy to remember. The game play is really smooth and there is no lag when pressing the buttons, what I really love about the game play is the fact that Mario talks while you play whether it’s a yahoo or yippee it’s pretty awesome it may not be too impressive now but back when the game came out it was pretty mind blowing. The game play is not all perfect though as Mario 64 very slightly suffers from what most N64 games suffer from and that’s bad use of the in game camera, it’s not as bad as in some games but at times the camera seems to have a mind of it s own and will hide Mario under platforms which can be annoying since at times its caused me to fall off cliffs and die.
Graphics
The graphics in Mario 64 are beautiful and I’m not over exaggerating for a game that came out in 1996 the graphics are pretty damn impressive and with it being one of the first game to be released on the system it really showed the 3d capabilities that Nintendo are capable of producing. From beginning to end the smoothness of the graphics are really shown off with character movements, in game animations and amazing looking environments throughout. Super Mario 64 looked awesome back then and it still looks pretty awesome today.
Music
If you thought the music in Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario Land was good you haven’t heard shit until you’ve heard some of the music from Super Mario 64. Before this game came out Mario fans were used hearing catchy tunes in Mario Titles and catchy tunes is what we expected from Mario 64 but what we heard was like the sound of angels singing from the heavens it wasn’t just a catchy tunes we heard in Mario 64 instead the music was an orchestrated masterpiece today it’s not as good as the music from titles such as Mario Galaxy but back then it was just as good. My personal favourite track from the game is the final music when you’re on your way to final fight with Bowser.
Bosses
The big guys
In every couple of paintings you will have to defeat what I like to call the big guys these are very large enemies who will usually challenge you to defeat them if you do you will earn a star they can all be defeated similarly and their not too difficult. The big guys I can remember fighting from when I was a kid are King Bob-omb, a giant Thwomp and Giant boo, King Bob-omb is my favourite because he talks about moustaches and moustaches are awesome.
Bowser
I hate this boss because every time I do it I end up with a blister this is caused by the player having to spin the joystick really fast and pressing the A button to hurl Bowser into bombs which are spread around battle area. This wouldn’t be so bad but the problem is you need to defeat Bowser four times in different locations of the castle until you finally beat the game. The whole idea to beating Bowser is to run behind him and grab his tail (This where the camera really starts play up) once you have his tail spin him around with the joystick and throw him into the bombs do this three times each time you fight Bowser to defeat him make sure you avoid his fire balls though because they take away a lot of health. Once you beat Bowser you see the final cut seen before the end credits to legendary game.
Final Verdict
I love this game and I going to give it an 8/10 because apart from the annoying camera angles and the game physically hurting me it’s a really awesome experience and it was the first 3d Mario game that Nintendo ever made it also really revolutionised the world of gaming so if you own a Nintendo 64 and you don’t have Mario 64 in your collection go out and buy it because it’s pretty bad ass and its great game to have your shelf.
I hope you enjoyed this review of Super Mario 64 this is my opinion of the game if you respect my opinion I will respect yours.
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