In an attempt to not write sports and celebrate Hanukkah — neither of which ever happens all too frequently in this guy's world — we present you the sixth of an eight-part series, "The Magical Hanukkahtime Section Variety Hour." On the sixth sundown, it's the gift of: Blogcritics Gaming!
Before I begin, it's best that I put something on. (Adorns "Cranky Old Man" hat)
In my day we had video games that were difficult to beat! You had four, maybe five lives, to beat a game, rarely getting extra lives! And if you lost all your lives, you went back to the beginning like you were supposed to! And if you wanted to beat the game, you had to use a Game Genie! These young'uns have it made with their "saved states!" And another thing, what's the deal with...
(takes off "Cranky Old Man" hat)
Well, you see where I'm going with this.
This writer's acquisition of Nintendo DS games Super Mario Bros. and Yoshi's Island — per recommendation of Ken Edwards, isn't he something? — were quality purchases. Nobody hates a good side-scrollin' action game with nostalgic overtones and easy-to-pick-up-on gameplay. Problem is, by the time I got through about four worlds in SMB, I had 99 lives. Yep. Nine followed by another nine. Eleven cats.
And in Yoshi's Island, I'm currently at — wait, let me check — 193 lives. The hell?
I'm not entirely sure where it began, but 1-Ups used to be a rare commodity, not a bare necessity. In fact, there's actually a mini-game on World 2 of Yoshi's Island you can access from the menu that gives you 1-Ups. There's no coin cost to play the game. You can simply play it as much as you want until you amass enough extra lives to fill Wario's undies.
Article comments
1 - Ken Edwards
Wonderful column Matt! I have to agree, especially with those two DS games. They are great fun, but a bit on the soft side. And I don't buy the story they try and pull - making the game easier to broaden the appeal.
2 - Dynamo of Eternia
There are some really great points made in this article.
Back in the old NES days, you could get a lot of extra lives in the Mario games, but you had to know how to find them. They didn't just come flying out at you at every turn like they do these days.
In the orignal Super Mario Bros., there was that trick in World 3-1 with the Koopa shell on the stairs to give you a bunch of lives. It worked well, but wasn't obvious. There are other ways akin to that to gain extra lives in Super Mario Bros. 3.
These days, though, you don't even have to try, and suddenly you have more lives than you know what to do with.
I also agree on the save feature issue. However, the problem is this...
A lot of games these days are too long and would take too much time to complete in one sitting with no save feature. They are bigger than even was Super Mario 3 was back in the day. So, to not be able to save would be annoying.
However, the problem is that these same games end up seeming too short when you do have the save feature. Since you can just pick up and go from where you left off, you can complete the game in just a few sittings.
They either need to make the games shorter with no save option, or make them a LOT longer with a lot more to them if they want to keep the save option intact. That would increase the fun of the gameplay.
3 - Matthew T. Sussman
"So, to not be able to save would be annoying. "
Then, 50-digit password.