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MarsDragon's Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
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| [February 23, 2007 07:08:11 PM]
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Well. After another hour of playing, I completely failed to get past Water Land. I have been made weak by RPGs and today's soft games. Gah. As a result, I also failed to get to my favourite world, Giant Land, and failed to get to world five and Kuribo's Shoe. The shoe is lost to me forever now. I hate world 3, especially stages 2 and 3, with a BURNING PASSION now. A burning passion even greater than my burning courage, but I'm going to blame that on my roommate being around, thus preventing me from being able to yell. Victory comes from courage, and courage comes from yelling. Obviously.
That said, world 3 is well put together, if frustrating. This is where the game really gets difficult, after the easy first two worlds. And, you know, I hate water levels. The combination of Cheep-Cheeps and complicated jumping is just something I can't do very well, and I had to continue several times just to get all the way to stage four, but then made it all the way to seven with no real incident. Four isn't even all that hard, it's just two and three. I do have to admit that the rising and sinking of the airships and certain water levels is an nifty idea, and one that should be ripped off more often. It can create some very interesting applications of physics in using the movement of hte level itself to get to inaccessible places, and creates and added element of danger.
One thing that happened to me after I beat the castle on my first trip through (due to my good stock of lives I was able to make it through all the way to the castle, then died horribly with no remaining lives), where I got a white coin ship. I had never been able to get one of those before. It promptly fled off past the screen to where I couldn't get, and I was forced to continue several times. Amazingly, though, it hung around, and eventually moved to where I could get to it, scoring me three extra lives and a hammer. In all my years of playing Mario 3, I've never managed to get one of those before, so finally seeing one was...impressive, and pretty fun. It's good to know that SMB3 can still surprise people with what it has.
Since this was a rather short (in terms of new game uncovered) session, I'm not entirely sure of what to say. Except that despite playing them over and over again, I never got better at the first two stages. Curse them.
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| [February 23, 2007 05:56:10 PM]
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In according to the requirements, I began to play Super Mario Bros 3. I decided to play this as straight as I could, with no warping right to world 8 from the start.
I used to have the Nintendo Power guide for this game. I'd read it all the time, probably more than I actually played the game. I don't exactly recall every secret by now (I think I spent most of my time looking at the maps anyway), but every stage of Grassland has passed into the general gaming unconscious by now anyway. As a result, there isn't much to say. I finished the first world and beat Larry with 20 lives to spare. The only secret ending I used to get out of a stage was getting the Warp Whistle in the first castle, since I hate that bit with the lowering spikes. And I didn't play stage 4, since I've had an innate hatred of auto-scrolling stages since childhood. I can beat it easily now, of course, but that's NOT THE POINT.
Grassland does provide an excellent learning ground, though. There are plenty of secrets, especially in the first stage, for getting tons of coins and 1ups. Nearly everything is placed to guide you along a path, with enough hints to the secret objects that you can find them by yourself without being told. It makes for a nice prelude to the more complicated stuff of the later stages instead of hiding blocks with 1ups right at the start, like SMB1 did. It's an extremely well put together first world, even with all the tricks unveiled by 17 years worth of constant playing by near every gamer.
Sandland was next, and for the most part, it's as well-known as Grassland, so I got through with no major problems (though there was one secret I forgot about...the pipe with the P-switch in Stage 2. It was amusing finding it again) until...the sun. Luckily I had played the stage recently enough that I remembered how to get past the whirlwind, but the sun would not die to kicked Koopa shells, and I got killed by it a few times; once, most frustratingly, just as I got into the end of the stage. The worst part, though, was how the Hammer Bros chose to hang out right on top of my respawn point, thus dragging me into an instant battle as soon as I came back. They were actually harder than the sand stage itself, and chewed through at least five of my lives before I beat them. And my reward? A damn music box. Who the hell even uses those? After that the rest of the world was easy, and I beat up Morton in one try. Stupid Morton.
I continued to play through the first stage of Waterland before calling it quits. I have an irrational hatred of Bloopers ever since Japanese Mario 2 (THEY LIVED IN THE AIR WHAT THE HELL), so world 3 is far from my favourite. Overall, though, the first stage of Waterland is just a re-introduction to the swimming mechanics that have basically remained the same since Mario 1, so there's not much to tell, but that I've now been listening to the overworld music for twenty minutes now and I think it's driving me insane.
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MarsDragon's Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Friday 23 February, 2007
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