One of the most creative plattform games ever made, but hindered by less than stellar movement precision and some pretty bad hitboxes. But oh boy, these levels, both on concept and design are not only weird and unique, but excel at execution most of the time. It is also the first game with no Old School Mario Bullshit. There's no Try and Error, the Auto-Scrollers are fun and have an interesting pace, there's very few to no waiting sections and the bosses here are leagues better than what we've seen in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. The coin system is also an high point to this game, being way more creative than in other games.

This game, if received the same treatment that "The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening" received, and had graphics revamped and polishness in Hitboxes and Movement, would end up being one of my favorite Super Mario Games

Absolutely baffled by this
Aesthetically Amazing, strongly inspired by late 90s Seinen Anime like Lain and Evangelion, but also by some classics like Gundam, Akira and Macross. The diegesis is convoluted and abstract, but i enjoy the frantic pace and the way they built the scenes. This game is a great example of usage of cinematics in favour of a videogame, with the cinematic frames actually being a gameplay part itself, and is so carefully built. I like the open nature of the narrative too.

Ludic-wise, the gameplay is very in depth, with both a varied number of options and also differing patterns of enemies and levels. What amazes me is how many different activities the game require you to do, you are never doing the same thing twice.

The game can be REALLY challenging, and its arcade nature allows a lot of skill-based replayability.

OST and scenarios are both killers too.

The control scheme can be a little bit counter-intuitive at times though.

This game is all about Aesthetics. From the name, the logo, the very anime-like concept and overall tone, kinda reminded me of Akira and Ghost in the Sell, and the final phase with the ost inspired by catholic chant "Ave Maria", reminded me a lot of that Cowboy Bebop church scene, but also gave me Shin Megami Tensei vibes. And in that part, this game give you everything you want. The concept is cool, the art direction is amazing, the sprites, the scenario, the graphics, the soundtrack etc. Everything in that audio and visual department is amazing. The only problem of this game is the game itself.

While being "notoriously" an Castlevania copycat, copying from the way of walking to the overall move of the enemies and... pretty much everything... this is pretty much an cyber-punk Castlevania... but differently from "Super Castlevania IV" (1991) in SNES, this game is full of problems.

For start the controls are not the most responsive. This adding the fact that the hitboxes in this game just suck. You try to hit things that are incredibly close to you while sometimes failing and sometimes making the hit. The running movement is not adequate to the screen and to run in this game is quite confusing, with not much space in the screen and the frame not keeping up with you a lot of times. The game also can't handle many particles, so a lot of times the entire screen just will have a framedrop for a few seconds, particularly at boss fights.

If the deliberate fighting design that became popular with the NES Castlevania trilogy is accompanied by fierceful challenge, need for precise movement and a lot of thought, this game try to replicate the structure while throwing a lot of these elements in the bucket. Overall, the game is quite easy, even I, a not skillful player at side scroller action games (you don't have idea how many times games of Castlevania and Megaman have made me suffer quite a lot), didn't found many difficulties, and pretty much went every stage within 3 tries at the most, with the exception of the last one, which, in an clear desperate move, they decided to take a game that should be deliberate and strategical and turn in a constant spam of fast enemies that you couldn't neither predict nor antecipate, something that this game used a lot (and that i find that don't go well with the overall design intention, feeling like cheap attemp of challenge). But in the 6th level is just constant spamming to a annoying level. And even with that i think i've died 6 or 7 times. The only moment of challenge in this game, although nothing extraordinarily hard, are the boss fights, but these are not quite interesting also. The first one, besides looking cool as hell, can be easily rushdown with not much problem. The second one is a bat that look like a dick, but is overall and well rounded and fine boss fight. The third, the moth-like being, is very exploitable and repetitive. The fourth one is by far the best and most interesting one, offering actual skill and timing and was a really fun playing. The last two bosses suffered from the same exact problem, being attacks that you can't pretty much antecipate, so you just have to be conservative while attacking and try to not take random hits that you couldn't saw coming. And this summarize another problem of that game, incapability at displaying information to the player. Is hard to know what to do against the bosses, and pretty much everything is understood by try and error. The fourth boss have a giant glooming bulb over his body, so i, and you can definitely blame me for being a huge Zelda fan, assumed that he only would take damage at the yellow bulb, how is often done in boss fights, but that was not the case. After 6 stages, the game is beaten, you've seen it all

The game try to put up some variation, while also not being a bad thing, also don't help much, since is so short. But you definitely see a lot of different scenarios, enemies and do some varied activities.

The lenght of the game being really short also doesn't help, but differently from a lot of 3rd and 4th generation games, the replay value in this game in minimum. The levels are pretty narrowed and linear, the game is quite easy and there not much content to see or great task to do after you finished the game.

The plot is quite simple, is not a linear narrative or developed story by any means, but it help to set the tone and give cohesion to the different stages and scenes, while fitting the cool aesthetics and themes. Is no "Final Fantasy IV" (1991) (to compare with another SNES game), but it functions well to an action side scroller from 1992, so is perfectly fine.

This is not by any means the worst game i've played or a complete waste of time and effort, but is undeniably bad in my lens. I wouldn't recommend, unless you are agressively bored and are extremely fan of early Castlevania games (and even in that case there are better pastimes).

Mario Kart Reviews (1/8)

"Super Mario Kart" (1992), or: the game that is not as janky as some people say, but not nearly as good as some other people say.

I don't like to claim that a game is "outdated", in the first place because i don't see development of anything as an linear simple progression, second, because an analysis that start with claiming that "old games are outdated", will always compare the logic of certain games, to our modern ones, that operate in an different logic, is doomed to fail to analyze a game in its particularities and just will grasp most of the general era logic. If you play NES and SNES games with good faith and open heart, and try to grasp their general logic, and then play its games with the logic in mind, they'll be way better. I firmly believe that a game should be analyzed on its own logic, with its intentions and objectives in mind. So i'll try, as little as possible, to compare with more recent Mario Kart titles, and try to see how it relates with another arcade racing games of the SNES catalogue (there's a notorious jump in logic from SNES/Genesis to N64/Saturn/PS1 logic in Racing games, particularly with the increasing distinction between Arcade and Simulation racing and the notorious passage from 2D to 3D). My idea here, is try to understand the designs built in "Super Mario Kart", its intention, integration in a cohesive system and execution, and evaluate this effort, and trying to see its short comings, not as a limitation of the time or technology, and how most of its shortcomings are due to design or execution failures.

I think "Super Mario Kart", is one of the games that suffer the most from the "outdated" label, not allowing most people to properly see this game design problems, and merely dismissing this game as an antiquity.

The first thing we notice in a Mario Kart, is always the handling of the car. In this game, specifically, is really heavy and maintain much more of the weight in center, you can see it is much more realistic and inspired by real Kart. SNES racing games tend to be heavier, but even comparing with another titles such as "F-Zero" (1990), a way faster (and more technical) racing game, is significantly more difficult to take turns in "Super Mario Kart". And with a drifting system that serves more for adjustement of position than as an racing tool (as later Mario Kart entries would do), make tight turns in this game can be a little headache. This, combined with the level design, that favours a ton of 90o angle curves, you have a game that feels extremely slow, not because the game itself is slow, but because you need to always stop accelerating to adjust when entering curves. This, by itself is not bad, this is how racing in real life works, and if this was a Racing Simulator, would be a reasonable choice, but for Mario Kart and its quite simple driving, just hinders the game, creating a stale and grindy gameplay at times. Combined with the excessive hazard use (this game is to Hazards, what "Mario Kart Wii (2008)" is to Items), this game will have you slowing down really often. After you get the grip, you will be able to drive without much harm, but is not the most fun you can get out of an Racing game in an SNES.

The items are really moderated here, playing the least comprehensive role in any Mario Kart game, being mostly used in 1 vs 1 situations. By one side, this avoids the bonanza that some Kart games can become, erasing the racing fun for an quasi-party game madness, by other, items play an fundamental role of regulating position in kart games, and getting behind here is a hell, where you don't get any tool to signicantly help you, and make comebacks a rare case. A bad start can really kill your race.

The game is quite charming in its visuals and music, the character roster is considerable, and they play different from each other what adds variety to the game, but the level design and the hard handling end up favoring way more the lighter characters, making Bowser and Donkey Kong Jr. (The two heavy characters in the game) not excellent racers.

The game also don't have the Mario Kart feel yet, not being as distinct from the racing games of the time (the great difference is items, that was a great add to the game, allowing interesting tool for 1 vs 1 and taking shortcuts, giving more depth to the races). AI is quite competent, without being unfair, the only problem is that the enemies have semi-spammable special items, that you don't have access to, what is a very cheap design decision.

The multiplayer is a great addition, to play with a friend instantly make this a better title, and battle mode can be quite fun. Particularly thinking how shallow this is for singleplayer content experience.

But we need to talk about the level design. A lot of people complain about the lack of variety in levels. What i beg to differ. The plain levels make sense, while being different from the crazy stuff we get nowadays, and they do a great job with putting some variety. You have 8 unique concept tracks, and some variations of these, that honestly feel different to play. In a 20 tracks game, this is enough variety. The problem is that a lot of them have bad design. Besides the 90o curves in every Ghost Valley or Bowser's Castle (that, as we said, don't fit the game's handling system), the excessive hazard in the track in most tracks, you also have Thwomps you can't see where are coming from beacuse they are out of sight in Bowser's Castle 3, the hazards that make you lose total control in curves and that are spread out on the field in the Choco Mountain tracks and the Vanilla Lake tracks would heavily benefit from a better color Scheme, since the ice blocks in the field have the same color than the snow on the field and are really really hard to see in movement, also while being everywhere on the track. The sole reason to the Mounty Mole latching onto you indefinitely (unless you jump out in water) not being the most stupid design decision in Kart Racing history is the existence of "Clashing" in "Crash Tag Team Racing" (2005), and the dead-end in Bowser's Castle 2 is not too far in the Dumb Scale. In general, most level have bad design.

"Super Mario Kart" for SNES, can be fun, cheap fun, but fun, but only at times. Is not even a cheap fun GAME, is a slightly bad game, with some cheap fun moments, mostly, when you're playing multiplayer, that's why you'll see way more people getting back to play "Mario Kart 64" (1996) than this one.

Why pretty much every single bad review of this game is just people complaining that BotW is not an game that it isn't trying to be?

What Makes BotW an outstanding game, even when compared with its now stellar sequence, is that is an nearly consistent and complete set of systems that interact with each other in an enticing way, providing, to the core design loop of the game, the chain of exploration, an strong ground to operate with.

Every single system in this game (most of them, operating in an consistent way), have an meaningful purpose to be here, and is well crafted to help and to be helped by the other systems. Is an structural game, is the most strict sense of "structural". In which every element is solidary with all the other elements, and the whole of the game compose an totality as an piece of art that feels coherent.

I think most criticisms towards this game, fails to recognize what the game is striving to do: put you in an constant chain of small interactions within its outstandingly designed world, in a way that smalls chunks of your attention leads to endless exploration. Combined with the large number of systems and tools that allow you to experiment and try different things in order to solve the challenges, and helps even further these small interactions.

The frequent criticisms could be comprised of

1- The Lack of an Linear Storytelling
2- Not deep developed Side Missions
3- Simplicity of Combat System
4- Lack of Variety in Enemies
5- Lack of Urgency
6- Easy Puzzles
7- Too Many Korok Seeds and Shrines
8- Weapon Breaking System
9- Lack of Reward for Exploration

My answers would be

1- I think people tends to understand wrongly what means to have an good story in videogame, while acritically pushing an model of "good story" that oftens come from either Cinema or Literature, and, while suiting well its original media (although it have some examples where this model don't work well, but this can't be discussed here), is completely arbitrary when applied towards videogames and ignore the particularities of the media in which its circunscribed and the game intentions. A "good story" in videogames is one that better fit the game in its systems. People often think in linear progression, character arc development, text heavy dialogues, drama focused narratives and complex thematization as good story, and while this serve wells some games (Most JRPGs and Naughty Dog Games for instance), for other, it would be a desservice. A good example is how disjointed some recent Rockstar and Ubisoft games feel, with its linear main campaign feeling akin and alienating the game itself (i looking at you Far Cry). BotW presents its short story in the most proper way i could possibly think to this game. It ties the story to exploration itself. To find the memories you have to explore the world and partake in the chain of interactions, giving more depth to the stables and relying on the game's different notable landmarks. The rest is told you by either enviromental storytelling (an overlooked aspect of narratives in videogames, that BotW excels in doing) or by bits of interactions in its open world.

2- Side Missions in BotW are not meant to be parallel plots. Some games strive to do so, and i like it. The Witcher 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, being prime examples of well developed parallel storylines. Here, side missions operate as pieces of the open world, that integrate the rupee economy system of the game (that is an scarce asset in this game) or leading you into more bits of exploration. All of this leads you back, more or less indirectly, to the focal point of the game: the chain of exploration. Bigger side missions with more narrative development could work (although risking feeling akin to the game and too distracting from the core), but the lack of it don't hinder the quality of this piece.

3- BotW is not a combat focused game. If we try to compare to other great open world games, such as Elden Ring and Xenoblade Chronicles, we miss the main difference of BotW with most Action Oriented Open World games. If most of them, are Action Games, that use exploration as an auxiliary way of improving the fun of its fight system, BotW is an exploration game that uses combat to enhance its exploration, being the action parts auxiliary to the exploration. Drawing influences from 90s Immersive Sims (and ultimately being an immersive sim), one of the key tenants of the game is the idea that the fighting is ONE of the many possibilities when dealing with enemies, not THE MAIN possibility. An intricated combat system, that allowed Link to do all sort of crazy stuff would hinder a lot the incentive to use the wide variety of options the game provide to you. You have heavy Attack, Block, Dodge, Parry and Flurry Rush. Flurry Rush have the downbreak of quickly breaking your weapon and is not as op as it was in Wind Waker, so is perfectly fine as it is.

4- This feels weird to me. First, because as i stated, is not a combat focused game. The fun of BotW don't come with facing unique enemies like in Xenoblade or Elden Ring. The enemies, functionally speaking, presents a challenge, that you should ought to solve with your tools. Also, because there are some variety here. You have 21 possible threats, not counting the main campaign bosses, the elemental varieties (that, because of the consistent systems of the game, effectively affect the way you interact with them) and of course, the different colours of the levels. And this considering that the encounter with the foe always depend on the weapon he's utilizing, and this itself, give an enormoug depth to the action moments of the game. Since each enemy acts differently depending on the weapon it's using, even if it don't varies deeply from a design standpoint, but is diverse in a mechanical standpoint.

5- Every action in this game is tied with the main goal of defeating Ganon and saving Zelda. Since you start exceptionally weak, all the exploration you are doing feels meaningful as you get stronger and have more cards to use against ganon. The Shrines give you hearts and stamina, the enemy camps give you weapons, the korok seeds give you weapon stache, the side quests give you rupees that allows you to acquire armor and fighting and exploration situations lend you with materials that allow you to upgrade these armor. Everything makes you more suited to fight ganon and leads you to fight with ganon.

6- This is not a puzzle heavy game, and it can't, for the most part, be one. The thing with hard to solve puzzles or complex dungeons with a lot of easy interconnected puzzles that are hard to solve in the grand schemes of things (the way old Zelda games operated), is that they are 1. Long 2. Slow. This can definitely work out, how it worked in older Zelda titles, but they were games that had an really slow pace, that saw you often stalled thinking and wandering to find the solutions. Introducing this kind of approach to the shrines here would have the game's pace to fall apart. The idea of shrines and koroks is to offer a quick challenge, that helps the exploration loop to have some interesting things to do, while not being a detour of the loop itself. If everytime you got into a shrine you spent an hour in the shrine, instead of 5 minutes, the game would quickly transform itself into a slugfest. I can see them doing, in the future, 3 or 4 big dungeons in the game to appeal to old school fans, and it could work, but is not a necessary element of this new Zelda design approach.

7- BotW is not a game meant to be 100% played. Not only BotW, Shigeru Miyamoto openly expressed that 3D Mario games are not meant to be fully beaten but played untill you thought you had enough. They clearly not designed BotW with Completionism in mind, but once again, with the chain of exploration in mind. And the overbearing amount of shrines and korok helps to provide the enough links (no pun intended) to this chain. You always will have some interesting thing to look while roaming in the map. If their quantity wasn't overbearing we would end up with holes in the the game's main loop.

8- The most polemic point of the game. And i'll go direct on point: just as some people disliked the mandatory saves in Darkest Dungeon, people hate weapon breaking in BotW not because is bad but because is frustrating. And thank god it is.

The weapon breaking is not only good, but one of the key tenets of the game, completely quintessential to the game experience as it is.

For multiple reasons

First, because it obligate you to actually consider not using solely weapons in combat, but to think outside the box, and engage with the wide variety of possibilities to defeat your enemies without the need of direct engagement, something that the 90s Immersive Sims such as "System Shock" (1994) and "Thief" (1998) strived towards.

Second, because it doesn't kill the incetive to explore to keep finding weapons. If you have an 35 attack weapon, it doesn't make an 23 attack weapon obsolete.

Third, because it obliges you to use an myriad of different weapons, to understand well their usages and how they connect with the multiple possible interactions that you can have with them and how to take advantage of them while in combat.

Fourth and the most important, because it integrates the combat with the exploration. I think an annedocte of me playing BotW could help elucidate this. For the first 10 hours of the game, that weapon breaking system frustrated me. When i reached Hateno village, the first village i found in the game, i was hoping to find an weapon shop there, as it usually have in most games, because i was almost dry out of weapons. But there's wan't any weapon shop, and i got confused and in fear that i would not be able to get more good weapons. Then, i had an epiphany. I had to actually explore and engage with the world to have an constant influx of weapon. Permanent weapons would eventually desincentivize me to A: Engage with some enemy camps and B: Roam around and find out new things about the world. The weapon breaking system is amazing and helps to integrate these elements in a superb way.

9- I think this criticism

A: Fails to See how the Exploration-Reward operate in BotW

B: Fails to understand why the exploration is so fun in BotW

In A, because the game operate with small bits of exploration for small rewards. You got korok seeds, weapon, armor, materials, Spirit Orbs etc., that don't look, individually, like an big deal, like would be with an hyper badass weapon or some cool stuff, but rather, give you small things that help you further advance little by little, exploring little by little. In general, the reward is proportional to the task, and if you go the labyrinths, you get cool armor. But in general if you gave big reward for exploring, the game's economy would break.

In B, Because the exploration in BotW strives to be intrinssecally fun. You shouldn't explore because you will be rewarded, but because is fun. The rewards exist to tie in the progression with the game main loop, that feeds back the main loop once again and then you have an progressive circle of development in the game. Sure, not everybody will feel compelled to have intrinsic motivation for exploration, but, for instance, i'm not compelled to see intrinsic motivation to play stealthy in videogames as some people, but this doesn't mean that Metal Gear Solid, Thief II or some Splinter Cell games are not really well crafted stealth games because i am not particularly leaned towards it. Is hard to deny how well crafted Breath of the Wild open world gameplay is, just as is really hard to deny how well crafted Metal Gear Solid 3 stealth gameplay is, even if its not the most appealing thing to you. We should strive to understand a piece of art in its own terms.

I think i generally talked why i liked the game and answered some criticisms that the game often suffer. I won't say some corny stuff like "the game isn't perfect" as some sort of discoursive diplomacy to someone who disagrees with me feel less confronted. If you disagree with me, is fine and i don't think you actually have to like this game, although i'll defend in rational grounds why i think this game is as a piece of art an good piece of art, and also, because this is trivial, of course is not perfect, because no game is "pefect", i don't think "perfection" is useful at all to think about videogames, and to be honest, art in general. And if there is something as perfection in art, it is as mere Ideal of Art, not as something an factual art could be, just something we strive towards, not something we can actually achieve. I think, the relevant discourse on this game should be that it is a really well crafted game, that develop and presents its ideas in an interesting an coherent way.

I didn't wrote about it at the time i played it, because to be fair, everything that had to be said about this game, was already said. A trillion video essays about BotW were made in youtube. I can't think many games that were as analyzed as this one. But the recent release of Tears of the Kingdom made me want to write about this game, partially because i ended up reading this criticisms again, years after i've read them, and also because writing about BotW helped me make sense of my experience with TotK, and to further think about the new game, and also videogames in general. I would also say Breath of the Wild is one of my favorite games (it is listed, as of today, in my "favorite games" section of the backloggd), and i could write about it way more, but i think this summarize and organize some of important general thoughts i put into this game. Zelda is my favorite franchise i am delighted to envision a bright future for the franchise, even if its aparted from the approach that made me fall in love with Zelda games in the first place.

This game is a masterpiece.

The only problems in the game design are the boss levels, that are extremely formulaic and often completely counter intuitive (particularly the labyritnth levels), the response is not 100% and some later levels have the tendency to put more precise plattforming, something mario controls and move dynamics are clearly not meant for

A lot of people complaint about the mario movement being broke and imprecise, most due to his little slide after the jump, but that seems intentional, and help the game to keep rythm and momentum, creating a fast paced plattform that feels dynamic. The level design, even with the limited assets and technical capability, have sufficient variety to sustain its lenght. I hate the use of term "outdated" for most games, and i don't think this game is outdated (even the ones you can claim that are significantly more simple compared to its genre, like "Dragon Quest" (1986), have design problems that were problems already in 1986. But "Super Mario Bros." keep up with most standard 2d platformers nowadays. The game is well designed all around and achieve most things that it's trying to do. Most of the problems stems from the same overall problems that early Nintendo games had: Creating higher difficulty. "The Legend of Zelda" (1986), suffers from the same, with its intent of creating challenge in its later part, causing the game to betray its design, sacrifice what makes the game good in first place and go to directions that are more based in try and error than in good and honest challenge. I would also argue that "Super Mario Bros." suffers less from its later part than "The Legend of Zelda".

With this circunstancial flaws, "Super Mario Bros." still to this date one of the best games 2d plattform gave us, and this explains why people play it more often than even arguably better games, such as "Super Mario Bros. 3" (1988). The only thing this game needed was polishness and some design and levels expansion (what wouldn't receive in its 1986 sequence, but would in "Super Mario Bros. 3"), to be a masterpiece.

I wrote a bigger piece with more detailed info. on what i think about this game here: https://medium.com/@criticalinputs3/final-fantasy-vii-1997-review-b3904f4c5f62

But this is a great game. One of the best diegetics i've seen in a game, both in script but also in the way they develop the narrative through in-game elements. The battle system is extensive and provide interesting tools. My gripes with this one came with two things: Poor Information Delivery (particularly visual information) and the Structure of the Overworld

I think this game is highly overhated. Mostly because of how outrageously cheap is the game ending (combined with Todd Howard "evil" schemes during this game announce) and by the fact that there are way better Fallout games (pretty much every non-Bethesda developed Fallout game), while its predecessor being not only way better, but also one of the best games ever made in history of videogames. In this sense, it shares a lot of connection with Mass Effect 3 comically enough. What differentiate them two is that for the worst of Fallout 3, its sequel, Fallout: New Vegas, did a similar game as Fallout 3 (although with different approaches), but infinitely better, and also is one of the best games ever made.

But if we take Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas aside, this game is not bad, and is lowkey good. Nothing mind bogling or near a masterpiece, but definitely a good game nevertheless.

Right, the main campaign is uninteresting and quite forgettable, but everything aside is cool. Nice side quests, the towns are all very vivid and interesting to interact with, some of my favorite characters of the franchise are there (Fawkes is probably my favorite Fallout character). There's good exploration, even if it is a little too much of late 2000s/early 2010s open world sometimes (definitely on the higher end of these type of games).

The VATS system is quite fun, and altough is not a hard game, is definitely on the harder side of the post-oblivion Bethesda games.

Also kudos for the Metro Trains having feet.

This game is pretty much what Skyrim was for The Elder Scrolls, an watered down RPG, extremely acessible, with an underwhelming main campaign, but with a very interesting worldbuilding and a lot of ways of interaction and some genuinely fun side quests. And as Skyrim, although a good game, could be infinitely better.

If i could sum up this game in one phrase, i would say this feels like a collection of bad Super Mario Maker levels.

This game don't add much to the first and classic "Super Mario Bros." (1985), being more an expansion than a full fledged sequel. The only notorious differences from the first game being the poison mushroom, the red piranha plant and the wind (the only interesting new mechanic). But beside everything else, this game, that properly receive the name of "Lost Levels" in the West (this is what this game should've been), is trying to be a harder version of "Super Mario Bros."

If you played the first game, what i highly recommend you do, you know that one of the few problems with it, and with Nintendo games in general in that era, is the way they developed difficulty throughout the game. The overall moving mechanics of Mario in the game, favor dynamism over precision, creating a fast paced always moving plattformer that is really fun to play. However, in the later Worlds of "Super Mario Bros.", to create a sense of challenge, the devs opted to create more high precision jumps for plattforms, what betrayed the game overall intention and mechanics, and made some late levels more about try and error than an interesting use of mechanics. The problem with "Super Mario Bros. 2" is that the whole game is like later levels. Pretty much every level is meant to be played in a single specific way, with a lot of tight windows to jump, that should be done in a unique way, what takes away the room for high octane movement and constantly break the tempo of the game. Most of this game will be you awaiting for a window open to you to jump. The level design is bloated, not allowing the player to have any anticipation whatsoever, making this game pretty much a game where you die and then as you die from things you can't expect you learn and decorate how to play the level, sometimes you'll feel like you're playing "Cat Mario".

And if the labyrinth levels in the first game were bad, being mysterys that you should solve by try and error, this game is bloated with levels you have to guess, based on nothing. From levels where a pipe high in the sky is where you should enter instead of advancing to the right to the classic labyrinth of layers in the boss level. The "bosses" is as predictable and formulaic as in the first game, just await Bowser jump and the run under him.

This game not only don't solve the first game few mistakes, as it radicalizes and make the game be bloated with them, without add nothing worth to mention, have bad design and forced difficulty. By far the worst mainline Mario game that is not "Super Mario Land" (1989) (that one is barely an actually put through game), and somehow the decision of Nintendo of America to not bring this one, but to bring "Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic" (1987) as "Super Mario Bros. 2" instead was a great one (even if that one is not good either).

I have conflicting opinions about this game inside me.

I grew up with this game, it made part of my childhood, although i am younger than this game. And the pure joy of playing this one lives in my memory. To replay it was for sure weird.

For an side, this game does a lot of stuff right. The presentation is superb, the graphics are very good, amazing art style, the game have a ton of personality, all the characters have top tier design and are super charismatic, the ost is amazing, the animations are really cool and the levels are all really beautiful. And the level concepts are abismal. It is weird how Nintendo gave an company that had nothing to do with Nintendo an important character and they were able to put up an game that is so good at being an Nintendo game. They catch up with the way Nintendo delivers platformers since "Super Mario Bros. 3" (1988), where each level have one simple concept that they fully develop through that specifical level, than they move on to another concept, making the game overflow with cool ideas and never endings challenges that feel fresh and new. The payoff is clear, as long as you can overcome the challenge, you need to put up dozens and dozens of cool ideas for levels. And well, at that part Rare just killed it. Pretty much every single level concept is cool, and they are for the most part different from each other, with pretty much no repetition (this game is really short tho). The level concepts are superb, and some of the most creative i've seen in an platformer. The animals you can ride give variety to the game and are really fun, the collectibles do give depth to the game levels, and the way they handle bananas, statues, lives etc. are really well made. The spin movement make the movement have way more depth.

In the other hand, this game lacks a lot in terms of execution. Rare learnt how to mimic Nintendo at the time, but they brought up to the worst parts of Old School Nintendo Games: really bad hitboxes and awful bosses. I would not only say in this case that the hitboxes and the standing platforms are bad, like in "Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic" (1987) (the American version of Super Mario Bros. 2) case, but this game is particularly bad at giving visual feedback. Sometimes is hard to understand at first how you are supposed to handle an enemy or a stage and sometimes is just hard to understand what is a platform and what isn't. Another problem they inherited from old nintendo games is the anti-movement level design, where the game punish you if you try to play the level with constant flow, putting enemies, pits and hazards in specifical places to punish you. There is also some troll design here and there. Most of the time, the best approach is just be really really cautious when playing the level the first time, what is ultimately quite boring. The game also do the Old School Kirby bullshit of making some fast going enemies move in the direction of the screen that are really hard to avoid or foreseen. This added with an screen placement that normally have the danger outside your point of view, making you having to guess what's to come quite often. You'll die most of the time with stuff you pretty much couldn't predict or avoid rationally.

The game also contains unnecessarily specific platform sections, where there's only one specifical way of completing the section, restraining the freedom of movement that normally is fun from platformers to have you trying untill you guess the specifical way of jumping in that section, becoming a try-and-error fest, but without being well designed to do so.

But sometimes this game don't follow Nintendo, mostly for it diminish. They tend to not be very effective in showing some hazards in places where the danger is controlled and just have you dying to learn how to play the stage, and this game can be quite frustrating on purpose, feeling somewhat cheap at times, what was a common practice at the time, both because difficulty was seem as a quality and because you could massively extend the time of the time (something Rare knew really well from working in "Battletoads").

Using the same button to roll and to run is not the ideal situation for me, particularly in a game with so many tight platforms.

The moments where one of the characters get hit is often poorly made like in moving platforms sections and then you just end up loosing the other one.

The fact that the only difference between Donkey and Diddy is a little bit of speed and the hitbox is sad, and make Diddy Kong pretty much the best option to play, with no reason to use Donkey Kong but when he is out.

Surplrisingly so, the water levels are in general quite solid in level design and some of the best water levels in games.

The quality in levels varies a lot. World 2 and 3 particularly are not very good, with 1 and 6 being my favorites.

This game had it all to be one of the best games ever made, but fumbles the opportunity with too many flaws. This can be called a flawed masterpiece, but only in the sense that it is too flawed to it actually be a masterpiece, in the end i still liked the game, it was just frustrating to see how cool this game could've been. I didn't played DKC2 yet and i know everybody agree it was an major step up in the franchise, but i still feel sad because Donkey Kong is one of my favorite characters and i wanted this game to be great.

Mario Kart Reviews (2/8)

I would like to start saying that i never had played "Mario Kart 64" (1996) prior to this experience. Being a kid from the 2000s made me start playing with the DS and Wii Mario Kart games. I had the oportunity, already in the 00s to play "Mario Kart Double Dash" (2002) in an acquainted's house, and later i would also end up playing "Super Mario Kart" (1992) in SNES emulators. But i never tried the N64 one. I'm saying this because this is a game a lot of people have a ton of nostalgia for, an nostalgia that won't play a role in my review, because i can't simply relate to (wait for the DS review).

I know, as a huge Mario Kart series fan, that i had to play this one. Is regarded by many people as a classic and was a big hit back in the day. But also, that maybe i wouldn't like this one that much.

At the time, this game was somewhat criticized for being to much alike to its predecessor, in here lies most of its virtues, but also, most of its flaws. To be fair, i don't think this game play out exactly like SMK, that one feels like an standard racing game with battle elements, this one inaugurate the Kart racing genre in its totality, and honestly feels distinct from other forms of Arcade Racing. The great problem is that a lot of what hindered the original game, hinders this one also, altough, not in the same extent and definitely not in the same way. This game feels pretty much like what the SNES
iteration should've been since the beginning, but couldn't because of the atrocious track design and troll in-track hazards. This is, by every mean, an needed step up, but at the same time, is not an outstanding game by any means.

First thing, its handling. The first game of the series was an extremely heavy game to control, so they needed to change it, and they lost the tone completely while doing it. Now the kart feel extremely light, and hard to control by the exact opposite to why the last game was hard to control, although anyone would have to admit that the control on this game is better than its predecessor. A lot of times you try to make the curve and your Kart will go towards the open part of the curve and a lot of time will get outside of the track way easier than you would expect. The major problem is that is a pain in the ass to dodge from oncoming hazards, particularly at short range, a lot of times you will make the correct move in the joystick and the kart won't move. But also, if you lean to hard to the side, your kart will try a full turn. Either way, you have to eat a loss. Beside that the game feel miles better. Having an effective and manual drift helps a lot, although a little bit difficult to control (not in the good technical sense, but in the clunk sense), and the fact you barely don't have to slow down in this game, make it being so much more dynamic and allow much more options during the race.

The visuals are outstanding, the characters are full of charm and the tracks are in general nice to see too. The OST is cool too.

The items are mostly to 1 vs 1, like the last game, not being a particularly item heavy Mario Kart, although it does a little better in that department. The Thunder item and the Blue Shell helps a lot with position managing, particularly dealing with the higher standings, but still lacks items that help lower standing racers to catch up. An complaint would be that the speed boost, both the normal mushroom and the newly added gold mushroom, feel really weird, as it the boost is not that relevant at some times.

For god sake the game don't punish you so much with in game hazards as SMK. My only complaint is that clearly some of the hazards ignore Bots and go directly towards you, like the Thwomps in "Bowser's Castle" or the Chomp Chomps in "Rainbow Road". But differently from SMK that falling out of the track had a reasonable time to get back to the race, here, falling out of the track means that you probably start at the 8th position, even if you was in 1st place, is just too long, and in some cases, like "Yoshi Valley" is an eternity.

The roster is nice, altough they feel less different from each other compared with the last one.

Every single Mario Kart have some deegree of Balancing issues, in this one the heavy characters are way easier to play, since the handling is so light, while winning most of the phyisical matchups, that play a significant role in this game.

I know that in the N64 era, the fact that the console could put up to 4 controllers made Nintendo highly focus on multiplayer experiences. "Golden Eye 007" (1997), "Super Smash Bros." (1999), "Wave Race 64" (1996) and the entire Pokemon Stadium and Mario Party trilogies. "Mario Kart 64" is not only not an exception to this, as it is probably the premier multiplayer experience in N64. This multiplayer is decidely fun, the battle mode is amazing, way more dynamic than SMK one, an not as broken as the battle mode became from Wii onwards, also, the joy of playing Mario Kart split screen with 4 friends is unmatched. That being said, this game hardly lacks in single player content. Only 4 cups, no unlockable characters, and the only thing you unlock is the mirror mode. This is the kind of game you would own to play only when your friends were at your house.

The track design is mixed. Most of it is nice, having cool concepts, but in general, being really limited, restricting a lot the player creativity and being somewhat repetitive internally. A lot of them have a cool gimmick, but some of them like "Kalimari Desert" and "Yoshi Valley" altough cool in concept, are quite annoying in the race. There are not many that allow you to take shortcuts or use your skill and creativity to express yourself and do cool things, and a lot don't even have offroad and are just track lines with aesthetical themes.

Mushroom Cup Tracks

Luigi Raceway- The Bland generic first track that every single mario kart game have. It is a necessary evil, allows begginers to play without paying attention to gimmicks or distractions. Not bad, but nothing special, could have a better racing layout tho.

Moo Moo Farm- The concept is pretty cool and god bless this game don't have the annoying Mounty Mole like the last one. But the layout is not interesting and the lack of offroad or any interesting thing happening make it so limited and boring. Moo Moo Meadows shown us later on how to do an way better track with the exact same concept.

Koopa Tropa Beach- Your Standard beach track. While not being "Peach Beach" level, is quite cool, with some parting ways and some nice ways of using speed boost and shortcuts.

Kalimari Desert- The concept is cool, the execution not so much. The timing of the train in the first lap is bad, and you always have to stop and wait the train twice, and beside the train gimmick, there's not much more to be have.

Flower Cup Tracks

Mario Raceway- This one is very pleasant. While the concept being the standard Mario track, this one excels at it. The layout is very very cool, have a lot of interesting curves to drift, some places to use speed boost and overall a very good track.

Frapee Snowland- Boring. While not being atrocious as the snow tracks in SMK, is a quite boring track. You can't see where the offroad ends and is just bland and generic overall.

Choco Mountain- Nice track. Is ugly visually, but have some elements going for, the falling rocks and the fact you can fall and get into the other part of the track for instance.

Toad's Turnpike- Nice concept, awful execution. While it have to be 8 shaped? Really repetitive and boring, you pretty much do the same thing the whole track.

Star Cup Tracks

Wario Stadium- Fun concept, and have some things happening. Overstays its welcome a little bit. The problem is: a good design for a track, is not just the layout and the gimmicks, but how well it ties to the game handling. This game is not fit to extremely tight curves. In SMK you would hit the wall inside the curve, here you hit the wall outside the curve.

Sherbet Island- This a classic. Quite remarkable. There are two different stages, while having a fun layout and a lot of interesting things happening, one of the most fitting for handling.

Royal Raceway- There are better Peach tracks, but this one is not bad. But is nothing special either. At least have some offroad that you can speed boost through.

Bowser's Castle- This track is amazing, one of the best in the entire series. I normally always like Bowser's Castle tracks, even the SNES one if you ignore some atrocious design flaws. But this one is special. Have a lot of different levels with its differing challenges, a really cool layout, some fun drifting parts and a lot of fun you can have trying stuff here. But this face the same problem with Wario Stadium, 90o angles are ass to make in MK64, this is why this feels so much better to race in the Wii version. Also, the goddamn Thwomp that ignore other racers and follow you in GP Mode.

Special Cup

DK Jungle Parkway- Quite quite fun. Have some different levels, the bridge is really fun to trap other racers, the coconut being shot in the forest is interesting and the cave have a nice place to speed boost to. The only problem is that the big jump across the river is really poorly handled in this version and you loose all the momentum. Another track that is better at the Wii version.

Yoshi Valley- Cool concept, awful execution. The parting ways are nice, but the fact that you don't know in which position you are although fun at first, quickly become annoying. Not a fan of that one.

Banshee Boardwalk- I hate that one. Not the concept and overall execution, this is ok. Is literally an enhanced "Ghost Valley" concept. But the layout does not fit the 64 handling, but way worse than Wario Stadium and Bowsers's Castle. When even the AI on 50cc consistently hit the walls during the track you know that is not a fit. This is just not fun, while also not being the very best track in the world, but i can't stance how better it is to race this one in DS.

Rainbow Road- This track had everything to be amazing really. The layout is really fun, and feel fun to play, stancing the strong points of the game handling. But there are two major problems. 1- Goddamn the Chomp Chomps clearly follow the player in Single Player. Very cheap 2- Overstays its welcome. If it was shorter would be way more enjoyable.

So overall, the tracks are ok. Some bad ones, not many awful and some great, most of it just fine.

The last element that i want to talk about is the rubber band. Rubber Band difficulty is not bad itself, and to be fair, most games use it, but here is just too much of rubber band, in an EA Sports fashion, particularly when you're faring well, and the way they strecht the challenge, just as EA Sports, is really really cheap, mostly for giving an unfair speed boost to the other racers. That is why is almost impossible to gain separation from the 2nd place, even if you are able to pull up some really cool stuff with drifting and speed boosts, or take shortcuts. And is really annoying having the other racers pretty much in your back the entire race. It do create a challenge, but just feels overall cheal and lazy, and you feel that you don't have much control in the outcome of the race.

If "Super Mario Kart" was cheap fun just at times, and mostly a bad game, this one is great at times and mostly cheap fun. Is a nice game, and i don't think is fair to call it a bad game, but is far from being a great one. I know that most people that have this as its favorite Mario Kart, have out of nostalgia, but to me is outrageous to say this one is better than "...Double Dash", "Mario Kart DS" (2005) or "Mario Kart 8" (2014). If you can play that with friends, i would not pass the opportunity.