Monthly Archives: January 2018
Mario Party: Island Tour
Game: Mario Party: Island Tour
Start Date: January 6th, 2018
End Date: February 18th, 2018
Videos: 16
Ever since Hudsonsoft went out of business, people could make the argument that the Mario Party series started going down a very dark road. However, that didn’t stop Nintendo from continuing the series by any means necessary, even if they didn’t exactly understand what fans of the series actually wanted from a Mario Party game. Instead, they decided to take the Wii Party approach by making a bunch of minigames and doing a variety of one-off boards to feature those minigames; with no single, strict board gameplay to speak of. How did this approach pay off? Well…not a lot of people like this game, but it did manage to sell enough copies to make it as a Nintendo Selects title, so…that’s something, right?
Honestly, it’s still incredibly early for me to make a final statement on this game. I got it for free with a gift card sometime last year and haven’t had a lot of personal experience with it myself. However, from what little I have played of it, I didn’t necessarily hate the game. I just wish it would have delivered on more of what I liked as opposed to delivering on half-baked concepts that only scratched fractions of the Mario Party itch I’ve had for the last several years now. With that being said though, it is still a Mario Party game, which means I had to cover it at some point, so why not now? The year is young, lol.
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Game: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Start Date: January 2nd, 2018
End Date: January 26th, 2018
Videos: 9
When a video game gets very successful, it’s only natural for developers to want to create a sequel. It’s also natural for developers to try out new ideas when they make their sequels, including the notion of drastically changing the gameplay and the style of the game in question. The Legend of Zelda is an example of this when they made Zelda II for the NES. Although it had a nice overworld map, puzzle-filled dungeons and various caves to explore throughout the land of Hyrule, Zelda II controlled very differently from its predecessor. In fact, I imagine present-day Zelda fans who didn’t grow up with this title would not be overly fond of this game because of how different and how difficult it is compared to the other games of the franchise. However, it’s still a part of the Zelda lore and is definitely worth a look at.
Before moving on to other Zelda titles, I wanted to get completely caught up with the series (at least up to Majora’s Mask anyway) and fill in any gaps I left hanging beforehand. However, Zelda II wasn’t a game I was overly familiar with. In fact, before this playthrough, I had only completed the game once beforehand and that was a few weeks before the end of 2017. So safe to say, I was going into this title with only a little practice and not a great deal of experience. However, from when I played the game, there were definitely some things I appreciated and liked about the experience, so at the very least, you could say I wasn’t repulsed by the game to the point where I just didn’t want to cover it at all. So I figured it was as good of a time as any to finally mark this off of my Let’s Play list, and here we are!
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Game: Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Start Date: January 1st, 2018
End Date: March 30th, 2018
Videos: 39
First we got Super Mario RPG, then we got Paper Mario, but in 2013, Alpha Dream had another idea when it decided to give us another Mario RPG, but this time on the Game Boy Advance. Little did we know, this was the start of a very well-established handheld franchise with great gameplay, a refreshing sense of humor, and some extremely memorable moments to come! So let’s take the series back to its roots and explore the Bean Bean Kingdom for all the laughs it has in store!
I was definitely not ready to continue with the Paper Mario series, knowing what title was next on the agenda, so I decided to mix it up a bit and start tackling the Mario & Luigi series, essentially giving me some more time to breathe before Sticker Star, and a title that is easily way more fun and interesting to me. Before Fire Emblem came out to America (finally) this game was easily my favorite title on the Game Boy Advance, and it’s not exactly hard to see why. So let’s take it all in, shall we?