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Thursday 22 February, 2007
Wow, this game brings back a lot of memories. This was the first game that I felt really had a social out of game aspect to it. Because everyone my age got the game at almost the same time, we worked together on how to solve the puzzles and such. The characters in this game are very generic, there's Mario, Toad(who wears a mushroom for a hat), Bomb-ombs that sometimes help you be activating their cannons, Bowser who you must duel with multiple times, then just generic monsters and enemies. The story line is the basic "go save the princess" and the dialog is almost only existent to give you a hint at what to do. This game is a perfect example of a case where storyline doesn't mean a thing. What drives this game is rock-solid gameplay and exploration of the levels.
Another great aspect of this game is the persistent world aspect. When you change something, say activate the red "flying" caps in the levels, it stays changed throughout the game. This makes you feel like when you discover a secret or activate the cannons in the level, you just made your playing experience easier or you opened up more possibilities, more places to go to. In this first hour, I was able to play through the first two levels (The First and the Snow Level) and I found two castle secrets (the flying caps and the slide extra level). After playing I felt very accomplished with myself. This game gives you a good sense of progression. As you gain stars by completing missions, you gain access to new levels and locations of the castle. This gives you the sense that your working towards something, which is very important for a game to keep their players interested. Overall, I find this to be a wonderful game, and I feel that every gamer should play through it at least once.
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