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Jan 28th, 2008 at 22:54:25 - Syobon Action (PC) |
...and I'm back! time to catch up to where I left off, world 1-2.
...nice! I make it with only one death, to the enemies that fall when you reach the top of the final staircase. I got too excited and remembered them a second too late! But, so, on to world 1-2. Like the previous level, it is based on the corresponding level in SMB. However, the music is extremely lively, for an underground level. I always figured it went well with the death that occurs immediately in the level if you don't hold left or right as you fall from the start. This level has some of my favorite deaths, including the one I just mentioned.
So, onward! The question blocks at the beginning hold a fire flower, which of course is deadly. The familiar pillars approach, but the third one conceals a spike trap that activates on touch. A trick is reused here, as attempting to collect the next item box will trap you between the pillars with invisible coin blocks. There is a koopa-troopa type enemy ahead, and trying to jump on it will most likely cause one to bump into an invisible coin block, but it has no deadly effect. Or does it? A fan of the original game would know that the underground levels are famous for allowing you to skip most of the level by running along the ceiling, which the invisible block will allow us to access. Of course, this game is not so forgiving, and trying to take the easy way out will lead to a dead end, forcing you to drop down on an invisible cloud that eats you.
This marks an important part of the game - the levels no longer copy the original super mario ones. So, we approach a pit...using what we have learned so far, we might try to slowly edge toward the pit to trigger an invisible coin block that would wait to send us to our dooms. In this case, that results in death as an enemy leaps from the pit when we get close enough. Tsk tsk. This game won't let us rest easy. The next pit is guarded by a coin block, however. There is once again a catch - if you attempt to stand on the block, it will break under you and most likely cause another loss of life. Beyond the pit there is a pipe, and a checkpoint. On approach, an enemy will leap from the pipe - to progress we'll have to leap backward and wait for it to fall in the pit... but there is another that leaps out. There are strangely only two, however. We have reached the checkpoint! Good for us. Straight ahead the ceiling bricks turn red. Hmm. Most likely they will fall once we're under them, we'll have to turn around after we trick it into falling. So let's do it! ! Oh no! We thought we were so smart to notice the SUPER OBVIOUS TRAP but we of course acted as would be expected and we are crushed by the ceiling blocks previous to the red blocks, which now also fall when we back up. This death is my personal favorite since you think you've cleared the trap, but then you die. A recurring theme seems to be "of course it's not that easy, you moron." After I had first played this section and evaded the second set of falling bricks, I took a moment to appreciate how awsome I was. This led to my undoing, since after both sets of bricks fall, a completely new set fall from nowhere. Get a move on!
Past that trap, another one waits (when doesn't one?). There are three question mark blocks. One has a coin, one a star, and one has a mushroom. Eating the mushroom causes to to become huge and gain the ability to break block, like in the original game. The difference is that in this case you break the blocks under you and you die. We can't proceed straight ahead because an enemy blocks the way - the trick is to let him get the mushroom, then the brick under him break. Depending on the timing and the direction he was moving, you may then be able to progress or have to kill yourself. If you can reach the mushroom immediately, however, the timing will always be right and you won't have to worry! Since I am kind of typing this as I play I missed the timing and have to kill myself.
...catching back up I killed myself in a new way - there is an invisible coin block covering one of the pits under the falling ceiling section - up until now I've had the fortune of missing it by luck. So, now I'm at -1 lives. Oops got hit by the bricks. -2.
Ok! Now we're presented with a question mark item. What will it do? It's a mystery. What it actually does is cause the pipe behind it to start shooting fire at an accelerated rate, trapping us. So, let's not get it, and time our jumps to get past the pipe! Nice! Now the level reverts to copying SMB again. We're presented with the vertically scrolling platforms. The upwards scrolling ones are ok to stand on, but the downwards one will harshly accelerate if you touch them.
Now, in the original game, there was a warp zone you could get to by riding the vertical platforms up high, then jumping and running past the end pipe. It is the same here, but the warp zone takes you back to the first level. Oh ho ho.
So, let's go straight on. Right before the pipe the floor will fall, as in the beginning of the stage, and if you fall down too far invisible coin blocks will keep you from jumping out at the last second.
Alright! Time for the ending staircase. As we jump out of the pipe, an enemy does so as well, though he isn't much of a threat. So let's grab the flagpole... and we die! Touching the flagpole causes death, and we can now see another flagpole behind it. So...let's jump it! Haha, as if that would work. Come on, that was how we beat the first level, of course it won't work twice. The false flagpole chases us and kills us as we grab onto the real flagpole.
The trick in this case is to jump on top of the false flagpole, which causes us to bounce and the flagpole to assume we're jumping over it - and it moves backwards. Now we can grab the real flagpole as the fake one moves away.
So, we're halfway through the game now! Level 1-3 starts immediately after the flag. After that level resides the castle, and the end of the game. I encourage everyone to try their luck in figuring out the last two levels, I won't spoil them for you! But I will point out that there is a real ending, with credits and everything. Don't get discouraged. Though I'm ashamed to admit it, when I first beat the game, I had -170 lives. Good luck!
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Jan 27th, 2008 at 20:19:32 - Syobon Action (PC) |
Syobon Action is a kind of joke game. It is based on the original Super Mario Brothers (SMB) for the NES. The objective remains the same - get to the end of each level, via a series of jumping challenges. Also! This game is in Japanese, which means mostly I will not understand it.
The game starts on the title screen: "Syobon no Action" "Prece Enter Key".
So, Let's prece enter!
As in SMB, we start with two lives. The controls consist of the left and right arrows to move, down to enter pipes, and Z to jump. The graphics in this game are very bad. Very likely they were all made in MSPaint. The music consists of a short, catchy loop. It sounds like a midi but since all the music is just sitting in a bgm folder I know that they are mp3s.
So, let's start playing. It's quite evident that the level is copying the original SMB level 1-1, with it's famous question block layout. Immediately two enemies approach, and I stomp on both of them. Landing on these basic enemies causes you to bounce quite high. Attempting to hit the first question block ends in failure, as it moves upward to stay just out of reach as I jump for it. The second block is blocked by an invisible coin block - though the number of coins I get are not kept up with. The top question block contains another enemy. Well, this is easy so far, let's progress over this first pipe... or not! As I do, an enemy fires out of the pipe and kills me. This will be a recurring theme in Syobon Action - this game will attempt to kill you at any opportunity.
In any case, I now have one additional life. This time, instead of being blocked by the invisible coin block, I carefully jump, such that I avoid hitting the invisible block, and hit the visible one, which contains a mushroom! I get it, and my cat avatar exclaims, "Delicious!" in Japanese. However, this does not give me any additional abilities or bonuses. Onward! I jump high over the first pipe, evading the enemy that pops out. I try to stomp the next basic enemy that appears, but he is invincible - and I bounce quite near to the top of the screen. Now, to deal with the second pipe....no enemy pops out this time. In the original SMB, the second pipe contained a shortcut and a load of coins, let's just help ourselves, then. Of course, there are no shortcuts here. The pipe shakes for a moment, and takes off into outer space. I now have no reserve lives.
Catching up to where I was, I die to a standard enemy. How embarrassing! My life counter now reads -1.
Passing by the second pipe, I recall another secret from my childhood. Past the second pipe is an invisible block that contains a 1-up mushroom. I'm at negative one lives! Surely I need to stock up. And indeed, there is an invisible block, which begins to produce an endless stream of purple mushrooms. It will be impossible to go past without getting a mushroom, so let's go! And they are poisonous. I am now at negative two lives.
Continuing, we reach the first pit of the game. Let's get a running jump, and... we hit an invisble coin block, which causes my poor little cat to fall into the pit.
Just kidding! Actually I have played this game before so I knew it was there, and up until now have been dying for illustrative purposes. This game is based on first dying, then avoiding the obstacles on the next run. There are many ways to die, which is why the game never ends due to running out of lives. Only someone with a good sense of humor (am I complementing myself?) will be able to make it through this game without getting completely frustrated.
Continuing onwards, you have to dodge some falling bricks, and our friend from the pipe earlier who now fires from the top of the level.
We now reach a purple flag...how will this kill me...is what you might think when approaching it. These flags actually serve as a checkpoint - we will start from here the next time death occurs.
Directly past the check point the ground falls from under us, and delivers us straight into a pit. Past that - a staircase leads down...taking it seals our fate. An invisible ceiling of coin blocks locks us in, and a bottomless pit exists so we can kill ourselves. Coming up on the end of the level, a cloud, normally thought to be a harmless element of the background, kills on touch.
We now finally have reached the staircase marking the end of the level! But of course we're not out of danger yet. Climbing the staircase, a rain of enemies falls from the sky - on the second run you must first trigger them and immediately retreat to stand a chance. The flagpole is in sight...but jumping towards it will result in death, as a yellow rectangle appears which will kill on contact. It also must be triggered first by jumping in place, causing it to scroll by harmlessly. Now we are free to jump toward the flagpole.
Doing so causes the automated walk toward the castle, however, during this sequence, we are killed by an enemy from the first pipe.
To progress, we have to figure out a way to trigger the enemy before grabbing the flagpole. The only way to accomplish this is by jumping it. Care must be taken, however, as jumping too far past the flagpole will cause it to scroll off the screen, and we'll be forced to jump down a pit to start over, since moving backward is impossible.
The level is not quite over at this point, we still must enter the pipe to world 1-2..manually of course. Walking straight ahead causes the pipe to immediately fire us out. We'll have to go down from the top. Jumping directly next to the pipe triggers an invisible block that contains a poison mushroom, which will block the pipe, and on top of that, there is an enemy in the pipe that fires out when stood upon.
Clearing these obstacles, we have reached the end of level 1-1! For reals!
Falling from the ceiling at the beginning of level 1-2 and reaching the bottom, death occurs immediately, as the floor falls below us.
This game is awesome.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 27th, 2008 at 20:20:26.
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