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Thursday 21 February, 2008
Gameplay
The game the second time around was as entertaining and fun as the last. I got to fight in a few boss battles, so I was able to show off my awesome RPG skill. They make the boss battles very rewarding by showing that you won coins at the end of the battles, they just fountain out of the defeated enemy, kind of funny. I also learn new moves, which was gained by me leveling up my characters. I can now heal my party with rain. This means I can save more items, which is always a plus.
The music is kind of getting to me though. At first it was fun and reminiscent but now it is becoming a bit repetitive. I blame the battle song; it doesn’t make me want to battle. I got my first start too. That was awesome, had to fight this sword thingy named Mack. He was trying to take over the Mushroom Castle, but I stopped it. That’s where I saved and stopped.
Game Design
I found myself taking a bit about the design in my first gamelog about the battle system and how they set up the Mario world in a RPG genre game. As I said, the game is turn based and as in any RPG, you gain levels. I think the creators of this game made a very interesting decision on what happens when you level up. Your attributes not only increase, you are able to choose to add an extra boost to either att/def, HP, or magic att/def. I really like this because it made me feel like I was involve in the creation and the growth of the characters. A really interest game design element I say. What was also cool about this game is that they keep some platform elements in the game. You solve little puzzles by going through a series of platforms and you can also jump on the enemies. Whether or not it changes the start of the battle has yet to be decided by me. I just like the idea of hurting them a bit before we get into battle. Oh, and the star power is still in the game! When I first got it, I felt invincible because I was! You can touch enemies and they are instantly defeated and you gain experience for the victory. However, with all these cool things making the game look good, there were a few things I didn’t like.
The game doesn’t follow a random enemy encounter system as most RPGs have, which is not a bad thing. However, it gets a bit annoying when enemies keep coming at you and they don’t stop respawning. I like to defeat all the enemies if they are visible on the screen, but if they don’t stop respawning, it makes things a bit difficult. The music, also mentioned earlier, becomes tiresome and did change my mood. However, looking passed these minor annoyances, the game is really fun and does deserve to be in the classics list.
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