Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

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A Hat in Time
Platform: PC
Completion Status: 40/40 time pieces and all missions cleared

Indie developer Gears for Breakfast's A Hat in Time is another one of the early video game success stories on Kickstarter. What was promised was a nostalgic throwback to N64/Gamecube-era "collectathon" 3D platformer game design, and, to the game's credit, that's largely what was delivered. AHiT has a very heavy dose of Mario 64/Mario Sunshine in its blood, although it also struggles to live up to the standards set by Nintendo's early classics in some respects. Although it can perhaps be argued that if a fresh-faced developer is being compared in any way to one of the grandmasters of the medium, that is its own sort of compliment.

Players take on the role of "Hat Kid," a humanoid alien with the appearance of a small child dressed in a cape and top hat, who is confronted by mafioso demanding she pay a toll as she passes over a strange, unnamed planet. When she refuses, her spaceship is damaged, causing her fuel, portrayed in the game as "time pieces," to spill out over the planet, leading Hat Kid to become stranded on the planet until she can track down her fuel sources. While on the planet, she falls into the middle of a conflict between Mafia Town (a government run by and representing mafioso, apparently) and the troublemaking Mustache Girl, another small girl (who, yes, sports a mustache) who sports an unexplored resentment against said government. Mustache Girl agrees to help Hat Kid find her missing time pieces if she'll help to take down the leadership of Mafia Town.

The structure of this game is eerily similar to a 3D Mario platformer. In this case, the hub world of AHiT, which is Hat Kid's ship, which gradually opens up as you find more time pieces, and the space theme in general call to mind Super Mario Galaxy. Different unlockable rooms on the ship will sport telescopes which, when looked through, will grant access to different locations for Hat Kid to explore. Like in a 3D Mario game, each location is divided into a variety of missions, which also contain collectibles and offer the player a significant degree of freedom when it comes to exploration.

One immediate contrast between AHiT and the games that inspired it is how original the level themes feel compared to almost anything else I've ever played. Locations in this game are pretty wildly diverse — you'll explore, of course, a large town filled with mafioso; a haunted forest where you quickly find yourself under the thumb of an evil supernatural entity known as The Snatcher; a gigantic free roam area composed of mountainous islands; and a movie studio where Hat Kid becomes embroiled in the fierce rivalry between two bird film directors.

Aside from the time pieces you'll acquire at the end of any given story mission in a location (similar to the stars and shine sprites you'd earn in early 3D Mario games), you'll also be hunting for relics, yarn balls, and rift tokens. There aren't a huge number of relics throughout the game's levels, but collecting and assembling them all will open up special "time rifts" (more on that in a moment), accessible via Hat Kid's hub ship. Yarn balls, when collected in specific numbers, will unlock new hats for Hat Kid, each of which grants her a special ability when equipped. Finally, rift tokens are least necessary, but will unlock cute little randomly selected bonuses in the game: some will change the color of Hat Kid's outfit, some will unlock special remixes of the musical tracks that play in given worlds throughout the game, and so on. The rather prolific dispersal of these (mostly) optional collectibles means that exploring the levels in these games almost always turns out to be worthwhile, and they can help to pad out environments that are otherwise rather sparse.

I'd also like to briefly mention the badge system in this game. As you explore various worlds in this game, you'll come across a creepy merchant (he sort of reminds me of the merchant in Resident Evil 4, actually) who you can buy various badges from with the in-game currency, orbs you'll collect throughout the game's various levels. You'll eventually be able to equip three of these, and they have a variety of effects: some wildly useful (drawing in items to you; breaking your falls; making it where you don't bounce off walls you dash into; etc.), some largely ornamental (one, as I recall it, will change the way people sound when they speak in the game), and some even largely detrimental to your health (one badge, in particular, makes it where you die in one hit, versus the four you can normally take). It adds a nice layer of customization to the experience.

Some of Hat Kid's time pieces have broken and opened rifts in the space-time continuum. These special, bite-sized levels are accessible when the player locates an area where there is an obvious tear in space. Quite distinct from the coherent, heavily thematic designs of environments in story locations, the time rifts feature very sparse and abstract scenery and platforms. The aesthetics and gameplay of these rifts are HEAVILY inspired by the secret levels in Super Mario Sunshine, although, strangely, unlike that game, Hat Kid isn't deprived of her hat abilities (compared to Sunshine, where Mario is deprived of his FLUDD water gear and forced to rely on pure platforming skill to survive). These rifts frequently open up in previously cleared worlds after surpassing certain progress thresholds as well, which compels the player to revisit those locations to find the new rifts, which recalls the comet mechanic in Super Mario Galaxy. Interestingly, the game doesn't make it easy for you to find these rifts; instead, you're presented with pictures showing a zoomed-in view of their location, and that's the only hint you're given as to the location of any given rift.

In a lot of other platformers, this wouldn't be much of an issue, but AHiT's worlds, perhaps because they're low in number, tend to be sprawling. And this leads me into perhaps my first major criticism of the game: the level design is not great. As Hat Kid, you'll be forced to trudge back and forth across gigantic maps where everything sort of looks the same attempting to complete level objectives. Additionally, you don't have access to any sort of in-game map, so you just have to sort of muddle your way around, frequently getting lost in the process. The most irritating map is perhaps Subcon Forest, because, being a forest, it's difficult to tell where you're supposed to be going at any given time, but the world where the size becomes truly ridiculous is Alpine Skyline. Each island is enormous in and of itself, and you're supposed to navigate across multiple, complex islands to find a number of time rifts. It's probably easy to understand how the player can become turned around. Thankfully, the game features a built-in hint system in the form of Hat Kid's default top hat, whose ability is to point her in the direction of the nearest level objective. This often isn't helpful in missions with multiple objectives, which are usually the ones you'll want the most help with, but, early on, it can be invaluable when you're trying to find your bearings in these large landscapes.

Hat Kid's moveset is simple, but the game uses every move in her arsenal to full effect. Thus, while the game doesn't allow for tremendously absurd displays of platforming skill, it does frequently force the player to consider difficult platforming tasks in the context of smaller and less complicated movements. Hat Kid often feels just barely up to the task of reaching distant platforms in her path. One thing I'd like to mention, briefly, is that the player's control over her double jumps feels great thanks to being able to mid-air cancel out of a jumping animation. Hat Kid is, more broadly, a joy to control: she feels almost weightless, controls very tightly, and there's a satisfying tactile feel whenever she interacts with surfaces in her environments.

With that said, I didn't encounter a weird problem in the PC version. The game controls well with a controller (I played it using Sony's DS4), but, at one point, my controller died due to forgetting to charge it the night before, and so I transitioned to playing with a mouse and keyboard for a while. This was... OK, but the issue I had was that the game, for whatever reason, doesn't allow the player to remap key bindings within the game, which is a VERY weird oversight for a game that started on PC. The PC version has even received the majority of the developer's attention via patches and DLC. If you want to change the default key binds, you have to exit the game and alter one of its INI files, which players shouldn't be expected to do.

The game attempts to weave narrative in throughout the game's various missions, but these efforts often fell flat for me. As a result, the story/characters felt a bit underdeveloped and lacked emotional resonance. This became clear to me at the end when various characters you've met throughout gather to support you in your effort to defeat the final boss, and I was just left thinking: "I don't really know or care about any of these people." The designs aren't bad, and the concepts behind them are often interesting or creative, but something really got lost in translation for me, and it kind of took the air out of the game's climax, IMO.

In general, many aspects of this game are... just OK. The characters are just OK. The presentation is dated (although, given the efforts of this game to feel like a throwback, I'd argue this is perhaps more justified; it really does look like an HD conversion of something you might have played on the Gamecube or PS2). The music is perfectly acceptable, but never really stands out aside from the game's delightful main theme (linked below). The difficulty is pleasantly balanced, but it also lacks some of the memorable-ness of a 3D Mario game (I can cry about Mario 64'S jank all day, but its levels are permanently seared into my brain now).

The area where the game succeeds most fully, I'd say, is in terms of the personality it exudes. I expected the game to be cute and perhaps charming, but I didn't expect the writing to be so consistently sarcastic and funny. It's comparable, in some respects, to the Paper Mario games, except even your diminutive protagonist, despite her adorable looks, is quite the snarker. She's actually kind of a little brat at times! This is communicated in her body language, such as the way she'll stick out her tongue at mafioso when running by them, or in her optional "smug dance" taunt (itself a reference to a similar dance in Animal Crossing, another classic Nintendo game). But it especially becomes evident when you unlock a ground pound-esque ability and discover her secret pillow fort, which houses a diary. If you read the diary after any given story event or completed mission, you'll read Hat Kid's take on the situation, which is often... well, suffice to say, she looks adorable, but the personality perhaps doesn't match. It's a super fun little secret, though. The hub is actually full of fun little easter eggs and optional activities. My favorite is when you discover that a computer on her ship can play a sort of text-based adventure game. I mean, yes, it's short, and primarily a gag, but it's a great thing to just stumble across.

This also kind of ties into the game's great balance of platforming and exploration and the way it rewards player curiosity. There's always SOMETHING to collect in this game, and the collectibles almost all have some sort of larger gameplay function

The game does need some QoL updates, though. It's really stupid that I can't look at the pictures showing off the location of a time rift when I'm actually loaded into a level. I kind of wish that worlds other than Alpine Skyline allowed for a free roam mode for when the player needs to go back to pick up collectibles, though. Most crucially, it's really frustrating that players can't go back and read previous diary entries Hat Kid has written throughout the game. And, thanks to the design of the game's mission flow itself, there are certain diary entries that can't even be viewed normally over the course of the game. It's a dumb, obvious oversight that should have been patched out. And, as mentioned before, key rebinding should be a thing in the PC version.

I do also want to mention that the third-person camera could use some work, as it has a tendency to get stuck zoomed in on Hat Kid, or even stuck on objects in the environment. Coming off Super Mario 64, I'm finding it difficult to get too worked up about this issue, as the camera in AHiT works well 90% of the time, whereas the camera in Mario 64 works well exactly 0% of the time. It's also less troublesome than the camera in Yooka-Laylee. With that said, again, the game could use some attention in certain places.

So, at the end of the day, I think A Hat in Time, as the first game by a novice indie developer, is a resounding success, but not necessarily a top-tier classic like other famous indie games such as Stardew Valley, Undertale, and Papers, Please turned out to be. It's full of charm, wit, and, even if the game's inspirations are perhaps a bit too evident in the way its designed, it's still very solid in terms of the fundamentals you'd want from a 3D platformer. AHiT is also one of the few games from the explosion of successful Kickstarters in the early 2010s to release with a minimum of drama or disappointment associated with it. It's an easy recommendation for anyone who likes the genre and, hopefully, will lead to future platforming classics from a developer that is clearly swimming with talent and passion for the medium.

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Over the weekend I finished up Trials of Mana (PS4)! Given how limited my PS4 time has been lately, it was a journey a few months in the making, even though the game (including post game) only took me about 30 hours.

Gameplay:

• A full on remake of a previously Japan only Super Famicom action RPG. It's pretty standard fare in terms of base gameplay, but the way you progress through the game has a pretty unique twist.
• Upon startup you pick 3 of 6 characters (each of which fills one of the typical roles, such as Duran being the "Knight" archetype, Hawkeye the "Thief", Angela the "Mage", etc.), and while you'll run into all 6 on your journey, it's these 3 that will join your party on your quest (with the first selection taking the role of the "main" character). Your character selection determines where in the world you'll start the game, and ultimately, even which final boss you face (more on this later).
• Battles take place in real time directly within the environment (no random battles here, though there are some scenarios, usually near a treasure chest, where a group of enemies will pop up when you get close), though there is a surrounding ring that denotes the "battle area". With a few exceptions such as boss battles, by pressing up against the edge of the area you'll build up a meter that lets you disengage the enemy & escape. More powerful enemy attacks will be telegraphed with a red area of effect, giving you a chance to get out of dodge before they hit (bosses will have some super powerful attacks that encompass the entire battle area, and you'll usually have to destroy some objects that have blue life bars in order to interrupt the attack, usually stunning the boss in the process). Also, you can only use up to 10 of any given item during a fight (for example, you can have 53 Cups of Wishes on you, which revive a fallen party member, but you can only use 10 of them in the middle of a fight).
• During combat, In addition to basic light & strong attacks (with the latter being effective at breaking armored enemies barriers), you'll unlock a series of special attacks that are mapped to L1 + a corresponding face button (these use up an energy meter). By pressing up or down on the D-Pad you'll pause the game and bring up one of two ring menus (one of which houses usable items, the other your character's spells). You use L2 & R2 to switch between characters (this works outside of battle too, unless you're in a town, where you must be the "main" character), and you can dodge & guard too (though I honestly never did the latter outside of the tutorial).
• When it comes to powering up your characters there are multiple ways to do so. The most standard ways are simply levelling up via battle experience (which works as expected), and obtaining new gear (in a pretty straightforward affair, the battle equipment available to you when you arrive in a new town will be unanimously better than what the last one offered). However, you also earn training points when you level up which can be spent on further stat increases, new spells, and "Abilities" (while the extra stat increases & spells are immediately applied/learned, "Abilities" are passive buffs that must be equipped once learned, and each character can only have 4 equipped at the start). While some "Abilities" can only be equipped by the party member that unlocked them, there's actually a good amount that can be equipped by any party member, no mater who you unlocked it with. The last and most important way to upgrade your characters is obtaining new Classes...
• At certain points in your adventure you'll be able (and are expected) to transform your party members into new Classes. Doing so grants them a new look (though you can switch back to earlier costumes in the menu), massive overall stat boosts, a new special attack, the ability to equip 2 more "Abilities" than before (so after your first Class change you go from equipping 4 to 6, then up to 8 during the next Class change), as well as an extension of your basic attack combo. At every juncture you'll be asked to choose between Light & Dark transformations, each of which has it's own look & abilities (this doesn't affect story, as you're not becoming "evil" by choosing the Dark version of a Class over the Light version, it just changes the focus of the stat & "Ability" upgrades, such as a more attack focused upgrade versus a defensive one). New to this version is a 4th Class, which you can only unlock during post game, and doesn't have Light or Dark variants (it's mentioned as having the benefits of both the Light & Dark versions of Class 3, merged into one).
  
  
  Class 1 & Class 3 forms of my party.
• Fields & dungeons are pretty linear in terms of design, with only slight exploratory elements such as treasure chests off in little alcoves or a fork in the road that lead to different locations. Dungeons may have simple platforming elements, dangerous terrain such as poison/lava, very simple puzzles (such as flipping a switch to unlock a barrier), and occasionally an unlockable shortcut once you get far enough in (incase you have to leave & come back). Like with most RPGs of this type you'll eventually unlock sea & air travel which make traversing the world easier, and you are actually given the opportunity to choose your next objective at certain points, giving it some open elements.
• Oh, there's also a character called Lil' Cactus hidden in most towns, fields, & dungeons (sometimes in two places in the larger areas), and you unlock certain perks for finding him enough times (such as free stays at inns, revealing the locations of unopened treasure chests on your map, ocassional doubling or tripling of battle exp, & more).
• Also, you obtain Item Seeds (which come in different rarities) from treasure chests & defeating enemies that you can plant in pots at inns (and near select save areas) that harevest a variety of items (such as usable items or even equipment). Sometimes you'll obtain equipment that's better than what you'll get in nearby shops (by endgame I was unlocking better equipment through seeds than what was available to purchase at the best shop).

Audio/Visual:

• It clearly doesn't have the budget of something like Final Fantasy VII Remake, but it has a bright & vibrant look that I really liked. Despite the fact that it's based on a 16-bit game, I found that the environments, while not really complex, played with verticality quite well (if I hadn't known beforehand, I don't think I would have been able to tell it's retro origins).
  
  
  
  
  I couldn't think of one or two environmental pics to post, so I picked them all! You later cross in the shallows of the lake below, and the mountainous bridge high above.
• The music fit the game I felt.

Story:

• The nations of the world are growing closer to conflict, and as the main character you chose you set out from your home country to put a stop to the fighting. Not soon after you meet up with Fairy (a fairy named Fairy) who reveals that Mana (the world's magic energy) is waning, evil forces are on the move (likely behind all the strife), and only by obtaining the legendary Mana Sword can things be made right. The thing is there's actually three different villainous factions, and while you scuffle with all three on your journey, your party makeup determines which one becomes dominate and ends up the endgame villain...
• Duran & Angela are after the Crimson Wizard, Reitz (spelled that wrong) & Hawkeye have to contend with Belladonna, while Kevin & Charlotte are up against some sort of marionette dude. If you choose a party that doesn't have one of those pairs (let's say Duran, Reitz, & Charlotte), you face off against Duran & Angela's boss by default.
  
  The Crimson Wizard has been cornered.
• Otherwise the game is a pretty standard JRPG fantasy tropes.
• It does have a post game that's new to the remake that features a superboss that's the same no matter who you pick. I won't dwell on it too much due to spoilers, but it adds a couple hours to the runtime at most.

Overall:

• Really just a great comfort food JRPG, and I had a good time with it.
  

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Focus on You (PSVR). I had actually went through this months ago, but didn't want to do a write-up until I played around in the post game mode, which I recently did.

Gameplay:

• A VR dating sim spread out across 8-10 chapters or so, taking you a few hours at most. In each chapter you'll be in a different location (such as a park, classroom, cafe, home, beach, etc.) where you'll be in a stationary position (though you can look around obviously, and at certain points you'll move to a different area in the room) and interact with objects & people in your immediate vicinity.
• Most of the gameplay revolves around dialogue choices when talking to Yua (the girl whom you are trying to woo) or texting a friend on your in game phone, and taking photographs with your in game camera (more on this to come). Otherwise there are ocassional small minigames where you'll have to make a cup of coffee or a smoothie for Yua when you are at work in the cafe, and other things of that nature.
  
• As I mentioned before you take photographs, which is the main gameplay element. There's a shoot in almost every chapter, and in these segments you're sort of taken out of VR (when pulling out your camera) and look at things through a flat image floating in the void (I guess simulating looking at the screen of a digital camera). You can rotate the screen to portrait & landscape orientations & implement a "beauty mode" (which focuses on Yua, or whatever else it is you're photographing, and blurs the background), and you can ask her to do one of three different poses in each scenario (you'll have the option to move on after the first couple poses, but you can take as much time as you need).
• While you can effect some things (such as choosing between 2 different outfits for Yua to wear during a chapter), I'm not really sure if it's possible to "lose" the game or get a bad ending. I know you get a trophy for doing things like making her favorite type of coffee or smoothie, but as there's no way to figure that out other than trial & error, I don't think it effects the end outcome (maybe the reward is just seeing her response in the moment).
• Upon clearing the game you unlock a post game area where you can listen to the game's soundtrack, look at all the photos you've taken, and replay the game's chapters in a "free play" state, placing Yua in any outfit & hairstyle you like (you can unlock outfits not worn during the story, so maybe that's the reward for doing things like making her preferred coffee during the story?)
  
  Come now, you can't go swimming in class.
• It is possible to play with Move controllers (which I don't yet have, but should be getting), but you can play with the Dualshock as well.

Audio/Visual:

• Graphically it looks stunning, seriously one of the best looking VR games I've played. Sure, that leads to some blurriness in some of the more detailed environments, but as the vast majority of things you interact with are up close & there's no quick movements, it's never a problem. Whatever the case, my inner weeb was excited about getting to sit in a Japanese style classroom
  
  
  
  Anyone like "Rony" brand electronics (actually, it does a good job looking like Sony when not right up on you due to the resolution).
• The soundtrack consists of soft melodic tunes & piano riffs that fit the romantic tone of the game.

Story:

• You play as a student in an Arts high school into photography, and after noticing your skill while in a local park, fellow student Yua Han recruits you into one of her own projects. You see, she's an aspiring fashion designer & she needs someone to shoot her in some of her designs for an upcoming competition. Along the way you two will become more than partners on a project.
  
• I won't say it's award winning or anything, but the VR setup makes it many times more engaging than any traditional VN dating sims I've tried.

Conclusion:

• It was something a bit different, but I'm glad I gave it a go, as I found it to be a unique experience and much more investing than a traditional dating sim.
  

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[Part One of Two]

Super Mario 64 (via the Super Mario 3D All-Stars Collection)
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Completion Status: 100%; all 120 stars collected, and I even found the brief post-game Easter Egg

Super Mario 64 is a game I have a bit of a rough history with. I've, of course, heard people talk rapturously about it for ages, but didn't really have the opportunity to play it until it released on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console. What I encountered was a game that controlled poorly and looked like a nightmare thanks to the mix of incredibly low-poly character models and a vibrant color scheme that brought out every aspect of the game's deficient visuals. I quit after playing for a few hours and gave my opinion online, but... it kept nagging at me. This game is SO highly praised. So beloved. And I just could not get into it. I've tried continuously, over various platforms to get into this game over the years, and, every time, I ducked out after a point. I let the game get the better of me.

Well, with the 3D All-Stars collection and the game's official re-release as an HD remaster on Switch, I decided I was going to finally complete this game. I had to prove to myself both that I wasn't wrong about this game and also that it couldn't conquer me in the end. It's sort of like Stephen King's It, when the protagonists all reconvene years later to visit the town of Derry to confront the demons of their younger years. In this case, N64-era Mario — all eight polygons of him — was my Pennywise.

So, after a fascinatingly weird start screen where players can use a hand to interact with a shockingly high-poly model of Mario's face, Super Mario 64 starts out with Mario reading a letter Princess Peach has sent him, inviting him over for... cake. It's a children's game, so we'll accept that at face value. Anyway, Mario arrives to find the princess gone. We discover, via the toads in the castle, that the princess has been locked away by Bowser using stars, or something, and it's up to Mario to collect the stars and save the day.

So, to be clear, this is all expressed in, like, five lines of dialogue. There's pretty much no narrative context to what happens in this game, and virtually nothing in the way of an overarching goal beyond collecting power stars.

Power stars are accessed via a number of magical portraits situated throughout the castle, and Mario will need to complete various activities in order to gain the stars within each portrait. When the player collects a certain number of stars, they can confront Bowser across three boss stages - one early game, one mid game, and one at the end - and subsequently unlock other parts of the castle to access more portraits. The game's structure is extremely open-ended and allows for the player to collect stars in any order they wish.

I figure I'll discuss the game in the context of a handful of its worlds.

World 1 - Bob-Omb Battlefield

Although you do get to run around the front of Peach's castle when you start up the game, Super Mario 64 doesn't feel like it really begins until you jump into your first portrait. This is when the music kicks up and you're presented with a wide open field filled with bob-ombs and goombas. Running around this very rudimentary environment (there's a minimum of platforming beyond some basic jumps and sliding to be had in this world), the game does seem to communicate an infectious joy at the prospect of movement through three-dimensional space. This becomes apparent early on with the game's fixation on flying through the air via both the wing cap and via loading oneself into a cannon. One really does get the impression that one has stepped back in time and is seeing something that must have seemed truly groundbreaking and revolutionary at the time.

The first thing everyone will do in Super Mario 64 is run to the top of this world and have the King Bob-omb challenge them to a fight. And... boss fights in Super Mario 64 are incredibly lame. They mostly involve running around behind an enemy and then throwing them. In the case of King Bob-omb, there's no challenge whatsoever as he slowly and pathetically waddles around trying to face you other than the challenge of getting the game's controls to work like they should.

The player will likely encounter their first red coin challenge here, where they're tasked with collected six red coins throughout the level, usually in hard-to-reach or dangerous locations. In Bob-omb Battlefield, there's this one particular red coin on a slope that is just the damndest to try to collect whenever I play this game. Somehow, I always slide AROUND it. I eventually took advantage of this game's broken physics system (more on that later) and jumped uphill in a sliding position to collect the damned thing.

The player will also likely get their first taste of being fired out of a cannon here, and, boy, is it another massive irritation. When you enter a cannon (after unlocking it via talking to a red bob-omb NPC in the area, which is something you have to do in pretty much all of the worlds), you can aim where you want Mario to fly to, but, crucially, Mario never actually goes where you're aiming the cannon. He, instead, goes under this mark by several feet, so you have to try and mentally correct for this and then aim way ABOVE the target you're trying to hit with the cannon. This would be annoying in the best of instances, but two additional factors serve to drive me up a wall on this matter. First, you're often trying to hit a thin or small target when you're firing yourself out of a cannon, like a tree or a particular location on an otherwise inaccessible ledge, and this bizarre method of targeting makes it incredibly hard to hit your target. What truly infuriates me, though, is how, if you miss your mark with a cannon shot, it's usually going to send you FLYING OUT OF THE LEVEL. So not only does that mean you exit the level, have to jump back into the portrait, and then trudge all the way back to where the cannon is, but you also lose a life in the process. For missing a target you're not allowed to actually aim at anyway!

World 2 - Whomp's Fortress

This is the first would that involves much actual platforming. Unlike the rather cohesive previous world, Whomp's Fortress looks and feels like a lot of platforms, razor thin bridges, and moving parts slapped together haphazardly in order to harass and kill the player. If you don't end up getting on with the game, THIS is likely the first place you'll notice your irritation begin to flair up.

Mario's platforming toolset in this game is complex and acrobatic compared to his movement options in the 2D games of yore, and even, frankly, compared to certain more recent 3D entries. These motions are mostly well-thought-out, although Nintendo also included a punch/kick command, which has... always struck me as odd. Mario isn't a melee fighter outside of Smash Bros., and trying to punch goombas, koopas, etc. in this game just feels wrong when it's so much easier to jump on enemies. It's sort of like the opposite of A Hat in Time: that game had a very limited moveset, but it required you to combine movements in multiple ways to master its platforming challenges. Mario 64 gives you access to a ton of movements, several of which feel like they barely belong in the game at all. Again, this is another way in which Mario 64 betrays its age: it's clear that some of these movements were included in the game just because 3D was new, and they wanted to allow the player to try out a lot of different actions with their fancy new 3D Mario model.

Unfortunately, the rather decent 3D moveset is hampered by how terrible it feels to actually do anything in this game. Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Super Mario Odyssey... hell, even Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World, all have an immaculate sense of presence to them in terms of how the games control. Movement is intuitive and satisfying. When you mess up in those games, generally, you feel that it's because YOU made a mistake in terms of how well you were controlling the character. Not so in Super Mario 64. Never have I played a game where just the sheer act of moving from one spot to another felt so... fraught, so anxiety-inducing. Mario feels like he's covered in a slick gel that makes him feel slippery at all times, and, as a result, I never felt like I was fully in control of him, no matter what surface he was on. Simply put, there's no sense of traction when it comes to Mario's movements in the game, and the game treats any level of unevenness in the geometry around you as an incline, which means that running too close to a slanted wall, or, god forbid, stepping on a low elevation of grass will send you flying across the level like someone out-of-control in an ice rink. There's also a heavy reliance on momentum when performing jumps, which become downright aggravating when combined with the game's tendency to push the player onto thin platforms and surfaces surrounded by bottomless pits, which are ALL over the place in this world.

Making this issue infinitely worse is the game's frankly obscene camera. The first major issue crops up immediately, when you realize the camera can only be rotated around Mario in a variety of preset angles, which often makes it impossible to focus on what you need to look at in this game. I understand that it's Lakitu controlling the third person camera in this game, but you'd think a turtle in a clowd could allow for slightly smoother movements of the camera.

But sure, fine, the camera can't be freely rotated. Not a problem if the camera is situated in such a way that it gives the ability to see where you're going. Something like Super Mario Galaxy, for example, gives the player almost no control over the in-game camera at all. But the difference between this game and that one is that the camera in SMG was pretty much always perfectly positioned to give the player a satisfying experience while platforming. I don't ever recall feeling frustrated about the lack of camera control in that game. But the camera in SM64 is almost never well-positioned. Lakitu, frankly, sucks at his job, and it happens more often than I can count that the camera gets 'stuck' on scenery, or isn't positioned in such a way that I can easily gauge where I'm supposed to be jumping, and sometimes can't even be adjusted to allow me to see clearly around obstacles.

In the context of this world, imagine trying to cross an incredibly thin, moving bridge when the camera is fixated on on one of the bricks in the wall behind you. You fall off, of course, both because of this, but also because the way Mario moves was, in the N64 original, intimately tied to slight fluctuations of the tall, stiff analog stick on that console's controller. Nintendo hasn't found a way to adequately emulate the feel of the N64 controller in subsequent consoles, so it can be difficult to make precise movements with Mario. He ALWAYS feels like his movement is out of control.

World 3 - Jolly Roger Bay

This is the first 'water world' in the game, and it's... alright? Weirdly enough, considering how rough around the edges everything else is, I thought Nintendo's first attempt at 3D swimming was perfectly competent. He actually controls much more nicely in H2O than he does on land. It's also sort of thematically interesting insofar as you interact with a sunken (and, in later missions, mysteriously fixed) treasure ship and come face-to-face with a terrifying, kaiju-sized eel underwater.

Mario has a sort of breath meter in this game, although not really: as he stays underwater, his HP slowly drops over time, and then refills once he surfaces for air. There's no dedicated breath meter in this game. The interesting thing about this is that, in other levels that have some water in them, you can actually game the system by diving into water and then resurfacing to fully heal Mario if he takes damage from other sources.

There's another water-themed world in this game, but it sucks (the game ACTUALLY makes you swim through rings at one point like you're playing Superman 64 or something) and feels like a worse version of this. Mario 64 has a mid-to-late-game issue with filler content.

World 4 - Cool, Cool Mountain

This is the first 'snow/ice'-themed world in the game, and it also houses some of my least favorite missions. I hated having to hunt around everywhere to find a baby penguin to bring back to his mother. There's nothing to it other than the irritation of finding the correct baby penguin (the more obviously situated one belongs to another penguin mother, apparently), and then the irritation of dealing with the awful controls and level design as you bring the thing down.

The truly awful aspect of this level, though, is this long, twisting slide you have to go down (first just by yourself, and then, in a crueler twist, racing against a penguin). There's a similar slide in the castle that you'll likely discover earlier in the game, but it has rails on the side and isn't quite as long (although there is a supremely annoying speedrunning star associated with that slide). There are no rails on this slide, though, and LOTS of twisting, which means LOTS of opportunities for Mario to go flying off and plummet to his death if you dare to gain even a bit of speed (which you need for the turns and constantly when you're racing the penguin). Words fail to even convey how annoying this slide is. The music that accompanies the slide feels like it's designed to be rage-inducing as well, especially considering how many dozens of times I had to listen to it over and over, all in a state of near-panic the entire time. This is pure anxiety in musical form, so I suppose, in some sense, it's a good fit.

It's hard not to feel like Nintendo is trolling you when most of its worst, most sadistic worlds and challenges are accompanied by this demented carnival music that makes every missed jump or slightly mistimed turn on a slide, which inevitably sends the player plummeting to their doom, feel that much worse. That also reminds me: there is a massive lack of musical variety in this game, so you'll here the same tunes repeated quite a bit. It's as horrible as it sounds.

So, yeah, I hate penguins now. Thanks Nintendo.

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[Part Two of Two]

World 5 - Big Boo's Haunt

It has often been held by fans of the 3D Mario games that Super Mario 64 has the best hub world in the series, and while I'm not inclined to be kind to this game, I do have to admit that Peach's Castle, despite its initially shallow presentation, IS rather impressively dense overall. Through the course of the game, you'll unlock the upper portions of the castle, the courtyard, and the dungeons, which all feature portraits to jump into. There are environmental puzzles to solve if you even want to find some of the worlds, rabbits to catch, secret exits that lead to alternate stars, etc. One of the most interesting choices was making the method of entering Big Boo's Haunt different from how you enter every other world in the game. In this case, you will notice a Boo drifting out through the castle courtyard doors at some point. You'll walk out to be greeted by a number of ghosts drifting around. It takes a while to figure out, but the largest Boo, if you attack it, drops a birdcage that becomes the portal by which Mario is able to access the 'ghost house' world of this game, Big Boo's Haunt.

Thankfully, Big Boo's Haunt stands as one of the least irritating worlds in the game. The frustrating misdirection of Super Mario World's ghost houses is replaced with something more conventional and atmospheric. Instead of platforming, the player will primarily be exploring a haunted mansion, filled with setpieces like a small library where a poltergeist flings books at Mario and a famous jumpscare in the form of a haunted piano that tries to eat Mario.

I do also want to briefly mention that, despite the accusation of laziness on Nintendo's part when it comes to how this package was assembled, that they did take some care to improve the presentation a bit. While this really would have fared better with a full on remake ala Super Mario 64 3D, a variety of texture work has been updated throughout, and the effort is most noticeable, IMO, in this world. The UI is sharp. Linework on the coins you find, portraits/designs on the walls stand out. The effect isn't overwhelming, but it does help to avoid the razor sharp HD polygons of the characters clashing with lower-res environments ala lazy efforts such as Final Fantasy VII's HD remaster on PS4. The game is still incredibly primitive looking, but it's, at least, a clean, sharp sort of primitive.

It's worth mentioning that the game only runs at 720p in both handheld and docked modes, though. I have no idea why, but I felt like it was probably worth mentioning. This isn't great for a remaster, but it's still obviously a big upgrade over the original resolution the game ran at on the N64.

World 6 - Hazy Maze Cave

Hazy Maze Cave is, per the name, dark and labyrinth-like in spots. It's a mostly unremarkable world, but I do want to use it to kickstart a discussion about the 100 coin challenges in this game.

The interesting thing about doing a completionist run of Super Mario 64 is that it becomes evident how oriented the structure of Mario 64 is around building the player's sense of mastery over their environment. This is primarily due to the 100 coin challenges. Each level has six listed star challenges (five that involves completing various tasks and then, always, a red coin challenge), and then a seventh unlisted 100 coin challenge. Each star throughout a level will introduce you to, usually, a small aspect of that level's design. In this way, the game's locations are offered up piecemeal to the player. 100 coin challenges, though, require the player to master completing various areas of the level one after another, because collecting that many coins usually means engaging in multiple activities that each reward the player with a star. And considering most enemies in a level typically need to be killed to reach the required coin threshold as well, it makes a lot of sense to think of 100 coin runs as master runs of a level. Your master run will task you will completing the entire level in such a way that you can quickly and expertly dispatch most enemies and complete most tasks because you've spent so much time previously engaging with the level design in order to collect the other stars individually.

Some worlds are overflowing with coins, and this is a piece of cake. But in other worlds, there are so few coins that literally one wrong move or missed enemy will cause the player to be unable to finish the challenge. I found this to be particularly true of Hazy Maze Cave, where I felt like I was constantly looking for new ways to bleed coins out of the sparse, poorly-lit environment. I suppose these levels with tighter coin restrictions force a greater level of mastery from the player, but, like so many of this game's other challenges, it feels like padding to cover up how uneventful the world itself truly is.

This is also one of the worlds that features one of Super Mario 64's two signature transformations: the metal cap. The metal cap turns Mario into... metal, which makes him stomp around and slowly sink in the water. It's as lame as it sounds, although, in the Hazy Maze Cave, it allows Mario to traverse environments filled with a toxic vapor without taking damage.

World 8 - Shifting Sand Land

One of the more interesting worlds in this game, despite the kind of generic desert theme it goes for. A large portion of the world is filled with quicksand, and the level itself is structured around a large pyramid in the center. This is the first world that really requires some level of mastery of the wing cap, the game's other primary transformation, which is... well, it allows Mario to fly, sort of. What is actually does is send Mario careening through the air uncertainly, and every flight with the hat is a terrifying ordeal where Mario feels like he's out of control and seconds away from crashing into something. This is primarily due to the deeply weird method of maintaining altitude and speed with the wing cap, which requires Mario to fly toward the ground and then violently pull back up, which sends him see-sawing through the air in a nauseating fashion. Flight should and could have been liberating in this game, but instead, like so many other aspect of Mario 64, it's just frustrating.

There are a number of interesting setpieces and gimmicks in this level. For one thing, a giant bird flies around the outside of the pyramid and will grab at Mario if it gets too close. For another, the pyramid itself can actually be entered, and is a large structure filled with platforming challenges, and even the only halfway decent boss encounter in the game! There are also large pillars that Mario will have to stand on top of to finish one of the world's missions: I initially flew to them because I was still thinking of it as a game with a semblance of consistency to its physics or environmental interactions, but, as it turns out, Mario can run vertically up these pillars without a care in the world, even as the slightest bit of unevenness in a bit of grass will see him flying across the level and, usually, to his doom.

A weird, one-off inclusion in this game that never seemed to return for future entries was Mario being able to lose his hat. In specific levels, environmental interactions can lead to Mario losing his hat. In most levels, this isn't a big deal, as, if the hat is blown off his head, it can easily be recovered. In Shifting Sand Land, however, the large bird that terrorizes the entire level can swoop down and snag Mario's cap with its claws. Interestingly, even if Mario dies, his hat will still be missing: Mario has to navigate his way deep into the level and make a point of snatching the hat back from the bird. The loss of his hat makes him take way more damage from enemy attacks, so, as you can imagine, it was a wonderful move on Nintendo's part to force the player to trudge through a level filled with uneven terrain and infuriating instadeath traps to recover it.

That's the bulk of what I wanted to discuss. I mean, I could discuss the horrible, cruel lategame levels, like the one where you're inside a giant grandfather clock, and every missed jump sends you back to the bottom of the clock, and the way the platforms move differently depending on what in-game time it was when you jumped into the clockface (sometimes the platforms will move sporadically and with no clear pattern, which, as you can guess, is a real joy); or the one where you're standing on a magic carpet in the air the entire time and have to precisely jump over obstacles to avoid falling into the bottomless void which takes up roughly 95% of the world around you; or the hidden wing cap level where, every time you fail to get all the coins in the allotted time frame, you go back to the very beginning area of the game, and have to spend several minutes climbing the castle to get back to the stupid level; I could discuss all of that in detail, and innumerate the ways in which this game irritated the hell out of me, but I think I'm largely done complaining about it now. There's an odd sort of pride and peace that comes with fully completing a game like this, though. Hell, I'm even at the point now where, like older fans, I've largely adjusted to its eccentricities and can now clear the majority of its challenges with a minimum of trouble. I even, having moved on to Super Mario Sunshine, kind of miss its acrobatic long jumping.

There are also two interesting worlds I didn't mention, but which are unique enough to merit mention. In Tiny-Huge Island, you're either tiny or huge compared to everything around you, and the perspective change dramatically changes how you approach the level. It's really quite neat, because you can enter the world in either form via two separate portraits, one normal one for the tiny perspective, and one portrait that's HUGE in comparison to the player. The game uses some weird perspective trickery to pull this off, because the portrait looks like it grows in size as you approach it. It's very neat. There's also Wet-Dry World, in which you have to interact with objects to change the water level of the world, which impacts what stars and challenges you have access to. It recalls Ocarina of Time's famously annoying Water Temple, except, here, it's actually executed fairly well.

With that said, I'm... done. I'm done. It's over. I can't really imagine myself ever revisiting this game again. It's a relic of an earlier time that I'll happily leave in the past from now on. I may or may not check out the revamped NDS version eventually, but otherwise, that's it.

Burn in hell God rest your weary soul, Super Mario 64, because it's time to go on to much better games.

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Super Mario Sunshine (Super Mario 3D All-Stars - Switch)

The GameCube was the first Nintendo home console that I missed out on as a kid (I had one briefly at a later time, but we mainly went with a PS2 that gen), and so SMS was a game I had missed out on until now, so I'm glad I finally got a crack at it. For full disclosure I finished the game with 80 (out of 120) Shines.

Gameplay:

• It has the same basic structure of Super Mario 64, with an expansive hub world to play around in (this time the bustling Delfino Plaza), and by jumping through graffiti portals, going down red pipes, or being shot out of a cannon(!) you access the various large, exploratory worlds you must traverse in order to collect Shine Sprites (the game's answer to 64's Power Stars).
• While 64 had 15 Worlds with 7 Power Stars each (6 Missions and a 100 Coin Star), Sunshine has 7 Worlds with 11 Shines each (8 Missions, a 100 Coin Shine, and 2 "Secret" Shines), with it's smaller World selection being in part due to a rushed development cycle (for example, the final level, Corona Volcano, while a linear platforming challenge in the final game, was intended to be a full fat World at one point, and there are one or two confirmed or rumored World cuts as well).
• Unlike in 64 where you're able to collect a World's Stars in any order you want (with a few exceptions) and any 70 Stars (out of 120) will unlock the final level, in Sunshine you must complete a World's 8 Missions in order (with the first 7 in each World being mandatory to unlock the final level), although the next World will open up after completing the current World's first Mission, so you don't have to complete any of the Worlds in one go (just be aware that you'll eventually have to go back to complete them in order to access endgame). I think having a certain number of Shines is a secondary requirement to unlocking the final level, but it's certainly a lower number than 64's 70, and most of those will be made up of the required Shines, so any extra Shines are largely pointless unless you're going for 100% (not that they can't be fun in their own right).
• the required Missions (plus the 8th one in each World) themselves are quite varied & range from boss fights (which are more plentiful & more in-depth compared to 64), completing a certain task within a World (such as cleaning up most of a dirty beach in 3 minutes, platforming to a hard to reach area, navigating a maze, etc.), Red Coin missions ( you have to collect 8 red coins, and these are tied more closely to a specific challenge than in 64 where they were more often than not scavenger hunts, and I prefer Sunshine's take on them), Shadow Mario missions (always the 7th mission in a World, these are easy missions where you have to chase Shadow Mario around and spray him with water until he falls. As far as I know there's no way to lose him & fail, if there was I certainly would have encountered it during one of the 500 times I fell off the scaffolding in Ricco Harbor & had to make my way back up to him), and of course the infamous "Secret Levels", which take you to a void & require you to complete a linear platforming challenge without the aid of FLUDD (these can be a stiff challenge, but I actually liked them).
  
  
  The top screen is an example of one of the "Secret Levels" I had to traverse, while the bottom is a unique boss fight where you have to use the propulsion of FLUDD to clean a deep sea eel's teeth while avoiding being sucked in by the creature.
• Outside of the main Missions, there are also a few hidden levels you can access from Delfino Plaza (similar to 64's hidden slide or Cap unlock levels inside of Peach's Castle), these tend to be linear challenges that offer up a Shine for completion (and two of these, the Pachinko & Lily Pad levels, are considered the hardest in the game. I only did the former), Blue Coin Shines (there are 30 Blue Coins to collect in each World, plus some in Delfino Plaza & Corona Volcano, and you can trade in every 10 for a Shine), the 2 Secret Shines in each World (these can be genuine secrets, but oftentimes just revolve around replaying the "Secret Levels" in a timed Red Coin variant, though you'll have FLUDD with you now) & some Shines you get for doing mundane things around Delfino Plaza (such as cleaning bell towers, uncovering a painting on a beach, etc.), including a 100 Coin Shine for the hub area. These are largely optional, and most seem like padding (especially the Blue Coins) since otherwise there'd be no way to reach 120 Shines with the smaller World count.
• Platforming itself is much tighter than in 64, and while a few moves (such as the long jump) have been cut, your repitoire has generally been expanded thanks to the introduction of FLUDD, a water filled backpack device that you can use to squirt enemies or goop (which you'll often be tasked with cleaning up), with the R button locking you into place allowing you to direct the stream with the left stick (by pressing in the right stick you'll get a close up over the shoulder camera view that makes aiming easier), with R2 allows you to shoot while running (while this is less accurate, it certainly has it's uses). By pressing "X" it'll switch to "Hover" mode, in which you can instead use it to hover over large gaps or correct a misjump before you land. Via Red & Silver boxes you can swap out the "Hover" nozzle for the "Rocket" or "Boost" nozzle (Blue boxes will switch you back to "Hover"), with the "Rocket" nozzle allowing you to reach high up areas via a compressed water burst, & the "Boost" nozzle shooting you forward at Sonic speed and allowing you to run on water. These latter two abilities are usually used in specific instances & are best thought of as power ups (which the game is otherwise lacking). Using any of FLUDD's abilities will drain your supply of water, but it's usually easy to refill when low, as there are a lot of bodies of water in the environments.
• It's also the first 3D Mario title to feature a rideable Yoshi (and the only one in this collection), and while it's fun at first, you're abilities actually seem to be a bit limited when riding him, so you'll likely only saddle up when an objective needs him (for example, there is certain goop that can only be melted by the juice Yoshi holds in his stomach, which by the way if Yoshi runs out he'll disappear & you'll have to hatch a new one if he runs out. It automatically drains, and drains further if you use any, so be sure to keep an eye on the guage & eat a fruit if he's running low). He'll also automatically disappear if he comes into contact with water...
• It's also considered to be the glitchiest of the 3D Mario titles, and though I had a couple issues, it's not something I found to be a particular problem, other than annoyingly the final boss, where you have to destroy parts of the arena with a butt stomp and platform up the cracked area back to the main arena before it falls off (you can glitch through the cracked floor upon impact, dying before even getting a chance to climb back up).
  
  The only other issue I encountered is the humorous one above, where Mario got stuck between this flipping grate & a wall, causing a shower of "star sparks" (usually 4-5 show up when you run into a wall at high speed) while he was stuck.

Audio/Visual:

• Like most 6th gen titles I think it cleaned up really well in HD, with water & heat effects that look good to this day, and the cartoony look certainly helps as well.
• Interestingly for a Mario game, the entirety of the game takes place within a single overall locale, the tropical Isle Delfino (the different Worlds are really just the different regions of the island), and they go through great lengths to make sure every little platform is organically built into the environment (with the exception of the "Secret Levels") & you can usually see one or two (or more) of the other Worlds from the one you're currently in, giving the game world a sense of cohesiveness that you just don't see elsewhere in the franchise.
• While this could give rise to the fear that the Worlds themselves could be samey, that couldn't be further from the truth. While an aquatic theme carries across everything, over your journey you'll explore an industrial fishing harbor, an amusement park, a haunted hotel that looks ripped straight from a 60's Elvis movie, huge seaside ruins, & more.
  
  
  
  Noki Bay pictured just above is absolutely huge! You start out on one of those little platforms in the water below, and can climb up the shell towers as well as a series of ruins built along the entirety of the cliff wall that surrounds the bay. Many of the worlds have high up vertical platforming that's quite impressive.
• It has a nice tropical infused soundtrack that fits the theme, plus some classic remixes in the "Secret Levels".

Story:

• Mario, Peach, & Toadsworth (a character both introduced & dropped in the 00's) are looking forward to a nice vacation on tropical Isle Delfino, but when they get there they find out that the place has been trashed, the Shine Sprites (the island's power source) have scattared, and thinking Mario is the culprit(!) the local Pianta population jails him & tasks him with cleaning up the place, all the while our hero tries to clear his name.
• Final Fantasy this is not, but it is one of the deeper Mario "narratives" (eclipsed probably only by Galaxy), and while things end up in a pretty predictable manner, the journey there is a bit unique. Plus, it's the only game where Bowser has spoken dialogue!
  
  Sonic isn't the only platform mascot in the 6th gen to get a Shadow...

Conclusion:

• Definitely a step up from 64, IMO. Despite a few rough edges with the ocassional glitch, Sunshine feels & looks relatively modern, with generally tight platforming around some quite impressively expansive Worlds, inside the most cohesive game world in Mario cannon. Outside of the varied main missions it feels a bit padded out, but that's not necessarily a bad thing when it has such a strong core. Some may balk at the fact that it largely lacks the freeform progression of it's predecessor (outside of some unintended glitches you can take advantage of), but it's not something that particularly bothered me, especially when the rest of the game is just so much better.