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Friday 25 January, 2008
GAMEPLAY:
As the game progressed, I gained the ability to attach a pair of wings onto my hat, allowing me to fly. The flying control scheme was a bit awkward and I found it very hard to master. I ended up just trying to avoid using it as much as possible. In fact, in one of the levels I found that I preferred loading myself into a cannon, shooting myself off into the air towards my target, and running back to the cannon if I missed much more than trying to grab my target by flying to it. Besides that incident, though, the gameplay stayed very much the same throughout the game. Of course, there was that one awkward water level that every game designer seems to HAVE to add, that no gamer seems to actually enjoy, but besides that the game stayed the same old Mario that I had come to enjoy for my first writing. As previously predicted the only bar that I ran up against was that set by my own skill level as the levels progressed, rather than that of Mario's. This is a gamestyle I greatly enjoy, which many other games, such as RPGs, simply cannot have. I am a great fan of a player's individual skill being directly translated into the character's abilities in the game, and Mario was able to do that for me.
Oh, I almost forgot... Mario's attack command. Basically, after I finished exploring the controls, I promptly forgot about it. The range on Mario's attack was far too ridiculously short to do anybody any good -- if I was THAT close to an enemy, I was more likely to run or jump away from him so that i could re-approach him, rather than get knocked over. His punch did no more damage than just jumping on somebody, and jumping on their heads or just flat out avoiding them seemed so much more natural anyway.
DESIGN:
I touched on the controls a lot in my previous update, so I won't mention it much here, but I have to say again that Mario was designed EXCELLENTLY, and controlling him really was a pleasure. Flying through the sky and swimming around in the water was a bit awkward, but thankfully I didn't have to spend much time doing that. As for as the story goes, I believe that the story in Mario 64 was pretty thin, but because all the worlds that you visit are intended to be painting worlds not related to the main story, and you spend most of the game inside of the painting world, it makes the game seem like the plot was fleshed out perfectly, even though it doesn't hold up to inspection.
The concept of painting-worlds was also a great way to introduce vastly different zones and situations without having the player question the situation he or she is thrown into. I can understand why the developers might have added the permeabile, metal, and flying mario powerups, to help keep the game fresh as it progresses, but I can't help but question if flying mario didn't just detract from that amazing feeling of control the player usually has with Mario. These powerups were not even really implemented in more than a few places, and based on how little the appear and how difficult it is to play with metal Mario, I can't help but feel that the developers decided to throw these in at the last minute, and did not devote to these powerups the same amount of time that they did to the bulk of the game.
It just goes to show you, even if you find a new and interesting idea you can throw in with a game to help keep the game from getting too monotonous, if it ends up just feeling awkward or if you are unable to devote enough time to its implementation, it's probably best just left out. Sure, the game may be a bit bland without it, but really by leaving it in you don't achieve your goal of making the game funner anyway, you just end up detracting from it. Besides, if the only complaint that your players can come up with is that the game was too long, you could be doing a lot worse.
Having said all that, though, the game's flaws are very overlookable. I would recommend Mario to anybody who has never played it, regardless of how old the game is.
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