 |
|
Jan 13th, 2008 at 19:57:45 - Kirby's Adventure (NES) |
Gamelog #1 Session #2 for CMPS 20
Start Time: 2:00 pm
End Time: 3:00 pm
Assignment due 1/14/08
Note: Gah, I really dislike this system. I wrote no less than 10 more paragraphs on KA(NES) when this system deleted it all... Take my advice: SAVE EARLY AND OFTEN! Or it could happen to you, too...
Another note: It deleted my outline as well. This is after it deleted all those paragraphs. I am trying to keep my cool, but this is really frustrating.
GAMEPLAY
After reading some critical reviews and looking over my own enthusiastic review, I recognized that I agreed with many of the opinions of people who thought Kirby's Adventure was nothing special. The things drawing the most complaints were the overall difficulty, the music, and the minigames.
The overall difficulty depended largely on how well-prepared you were. Being well-prepared made the game easy, if not boring. For example, one boss jumps up and down, jumps over you, and spits little enemies at you. Although this boss could be defeated by swallowing little enemies and spitting them out at the boss until the boss dies, you could also have the laser ability, stand in the corner and avoid the boss, and shoot at the boss constantly until the boss dies. The second tactic, though ingenious, makes the game trivial; in a sense, this game rewards failure.
The music is basically the same melodies, harmonies, and instrumentation as it has been ever since this first game. Though many people say the best music is the kind you can recognize immediately, many people also say recognizing the same music is the best way to tire of it. Either way, you do hear an awful lot of the same songs in this game, over and over again. It is uncertain whether this is good or bad.
The minigames in Kirby's Adventure are a lot of fun. There are quick draw games, crane games, egg-eating games, and many others. However, you only get to play each instance of minigame once. This is because you play for extra lives. Although having unlimited lives could hurt gameplay, this point is rendered moot by the unlimited supply of game-continues with no penalty. Keeping this in mind, it may have been better to just allow minigames with unlimited play.
Although these are valid complaints, I still think Kirby's Adventure is a great game that can withstand the scrutiny.
DESIGN
There's a lot of innovation in this game. My favorites are the main game mechanic, the overworld navigation, and the windy levels. The overworld consists of doors leading to levels, minigames, and bosses. Instead of static paths and chirps of like Super Mario World, this earlier game has overworlds built like miniature levels. In other words, you can use any of the abilities you have in each level in the overworld map. The windy levels remind me of parts of certain parts of DKC2: Diddy's Kong Quest. In the windy levels, wind pushes Kirby around, creating a bit of a challenge when navigating. It takes some skill to use the wind to your advantage, but it is definitely possible.
The tone of this game is light, funny, and fluffy. The skit cutscenes had me laughing out loud; I like slapstick humor in games like this, and there's plenty of it in Kirby's Adventure. The cutscenes are also really cute and lend themselves to emphasizing the tone very well. There is also no blood-and-guts gore in this game, so it's approachable for people who have never played a game and are intimidated by the supposed violence.
A major weakness of this game is that there is no multiplayer option. As such, this game does not innately support socialization. The only socialization might come from a group of gamers who have all played the game and like its music, graphics, or some other feature of the game. Even so, there is little chance for socialization during gameplay.
Another weakness was the lagging during the game. The lagging had the potential to make the game frustrating because it was unpredictable when the lagging would start or stop. Although I recognize that this could be viewed as a shortcoming of the console, not the game, it does seriously hurt gameplay when it happens.
Playing this game has given me a few ideas for my own project. If at all possible, I would like to create a multiplayer game. I would also like to not have any lagging. Increasing the number of enemies on-screen and increasing their difficulty would have helped this issue. I would also like to have players develop their abilities as the game progresses, rather than having most of the abilities available for use immediately. This would reward players for playing more. Finally, a good way to satisfy gamers' desires to play minigames more for my own project could be to wager lives in minigames, so there's some risk involved.
That's it for this entry. Keep gaming!
This entry has been edited 4 times. It was last edited on Jan 14th, 2008 at 11:39:14.
read comments (1)  - add a comment  - read this GameLog  |
|
Jan 11th, 2008 at 18:13:38 - Kirby's Adventure (NES) |
Gamelog #1 Session #1 for CMPS 20
Start Time: 2:00 pm
End Time: 3:00 pm
Assignment due 1/14/08
SUMMARY
Kirby, a pink puff of a hero, is a versatile, iconic video game character, and this is his first game. Developed by HAL Laboratory, Kirby's Adventure takes place in a fantasy world filled with characters as bouncy and whimsical as Kirby. Unfortunately for Kirby, in this game, all those bouncy characters other than himself are enemies. Luckily, Kirby is armed with a powerful weapon: himself. His body has the ability to copy the abilities of most of his enemies, and with that power, he will hop, bounce, fly, and imitate his enemies in order to restore the dreams of his friends in Dream Land.
GAMEPLAY
As far as my emotional response goes, I really enjoyed this game. The characters are simple and iconic, but they show an emotional complexity that is still not made use of in many state-of-the-art games. I probably enjoyed this game a little bit more than someone new to the Kirby franchise would; I was previously familiar with the main gameplay mechanic of absorbing enemies' abilities and with the main character, Kirby.
The gameplay mechanic seems simple at first, but its complexity surfaces just watching the attract mode. All you do to get a new ability is to swallow an enemy who has that ability. You can also get rid of a currently adopted ability. Both of these actions are very easy to do. During the attract mode, many abilities are showcased: flame, freeze, parasol, sword, fireball. All of these abilities can be used within the first half hour of gaming.
Although Kirby's friends have not yet appeared in the game as I'm writing this, the music stays upbeat and catchy so the player feels happy, not lonely. It's also fun to watch Kirby bounce around the screen, defeating enemies. It's even fun when he doesn't defeat an enemy; the gut reaction to losing isn't despair, just a hope of doing better next time.
The story is very simple: retrieve pieces of the dream-giving Star Rod from bosses to give everyone in Dream Land dreams again. The story doesn't enter into the gameplay much, but this isn't really a bad thing. You do get a piece of a Star Rod from every defeated boss, but this is pretty much the only part of the story that's visible to a player. It's good that text doesn't dominate gameplay because Kirby's Adventure is an action-packed platform game; text would be distracting. There is only enough text to explain to the player what to do when the goal isn't obvious.
The flow from one game world to the next, however, is practically non-existent. This isn't terrible; I didn't mind at all. I enjoyed seeing how Kirby would react to very new situations, and the action binds the game together by staying inherently the same throughout the game. The lack of flow is not severe enough to matter to me; it's only really noticeable if you stop to think about it.
That's it for this entry. I will continue after I play some more.
This entry has been edited 19 times. It was last edited on Jan 14th, 2008 at 11:27:27.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
|
 |
| Galactiger's GameLogs |
|
Galactiger has been with GameLog for 16 years, 10 months, and 12 days |
view feed xml
|
| Entries written to date: 10 |
|
