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Posted May 27

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Here we go, managed to get two more games done.

GAME #29 - Super Mario Land 2 - Completed

Super Mario Land 2 is an extreme step in quality from the original Mario Land. Does it still feel a little bit weirder than the console entries? Yeah, it does feel off and can take some getting used to. It’s a little floatier from what I’ve noticed, probably to make it a bit more easy to control in response to the Mario Land controls where it was really odd and could hardly control your moveset. I’d rather have a bit of floatiness compared to what SML1 did.

This game is more worth visiting in my opinion, the only reason I’d say Mario Land 1 is worth going back to is because of how short it is and quality it is for the time. I would say this is a pretty decent platformer overall, not the best Mario platformer, but a good one even today. Sure, the power-ups are a bit strange and so are the worlds, but I think it adds to the games charm.

The music here is also pretty good, and who can forget the biggest addition to the franchise this game brought… Mario having a castle! Nah, it’s Wario, who is one of my favorite characters. So this game will always have some respect for bringing him into existence. I do plan on playing the Wario Land games at some point too, I have them all on different systems, but I would like if NSO started add them all soon. Would be a lot handier.

I also think this is pretty lengthy in comparison to the original GB title, this one is about two hours whereas the first is like 30 minutes but you need to beat it twice. I definitely appreciate this method, and the world map is a great addition so you can go back to it and select any level you want while on your car ride or what have you.

Not too much more to say. I’d say this is a good handheld Mario game, even if it isn’t the most necessary one to play. I like what it does, and while it still has an off play style to it, it’s not nearly as bad as it’s predecessor and it’s good enough with the ways levels are designed around that moveset. Only really some levels have annoyances to me, but for the most part, good game.

GAME #30 - Crash Bandicoot 4 - Finished

I’m just gonna say this right off the bat, there is no way I’m going to go back and complete this one lol. Even Punch-Out Wii seems more enticing to go back to comparatively. I’ll get more to the completion aspect later, for the little I tried of it at least.

Crash 4 is a pretty solid entry in the franchise, I think it does a good job giving Crash a solid moveset that doesn’t get upgraded throughout, which is one of my criticisms for Crash 3. Even the double jump feels good to me here, although it does feel quite a bit different. It’s very useful for the many different platform segments that require timing to get a full completion on a level. I also think the music here is nice, even if it doesn’t really reach the series peaks.

I think having so many playable characters and them being optional is a good idea, but I do wish they did a better job making most of them fun. I find myself skipping nearly all of them on new playthroughs outside of the mandatory ones because they just feel really grating, especially Cortex and Tawna’s stages. Dingo’s are okay but not my favorite. I also like that instead of doing power-ups, they have these like multiversal masks that play as different abilities for platforming and traversal that stick with you for a limited section of a level. A fun way to mix it up without adding onto the moveset Crash has permanently, which I applaud them for.

Now here is some areas where Crash 4 falters a bit. The bosses? Eh; they’re just kinda okay. They have cool theming, but most of the time they’re just kinda nothing. I think the final boss is probably the best and also has the best music in the game too, but the rest are mediocre or bad (Tropy’s). I guess it’s not much different from the rest of the series that I’ve played so far, but Crash 3 at least IMO didn’t have any bad ones.

I also don’t really love the story here all that much. Like it’s a cool concept, but in execution they didn’t do a whole lot with it. It’s the multiverse, but it’s just really time travel. Even the title is “It’s About Time”. So I feel like it was a marketing thing just to get people to not say they’re doing the exact same thing as 3 again, even if they basically did it again. A game that does a good job delving into the multiverse is Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which does good job building the world and alternate versions of the characters. Here, you only meet one alternate version of a character and that’s Tawna. And the original Tawna isn’t even in the game, so it hardly matters. There is a point where there’s two Cortex’s, but it’s just the Past Cortex and Future Cortex, he’s no variant that’s completely different. Guess it doesn’t matter much in the end, but still, think they could’ve done more with it.

The biggest problem is one spoken about a lot by many, as I’m sure everyone knows it by now. The completion is a nightmare. It’s wild how Vicarious Visions in N Sane Trilogy went out of their way to try and make the games easier to complete, but then Toys for Bob just went all in on the difficulty completion wise. You have to get platinum time trials relics in levels now in order to complete them and get the achievements, whereas N Sane only asked for Gold. It’s really difficult, especially with how the hitboxes work in this game, which werenotgood at launch. They did fix some of them a bit here and there in a later update, but it’s still no closer to being perfect like some of the stuff they expect you to do here.

There’s also the Bumpa Berry or whatever their called levels, which give every level an ugly filter, some harder to look at than others. They’re also required for completion, and it’s basically just the same level again. It’s just bloated and padding out the game more. The completion is the worst aspect of this game, and I’m sure most agree.

Crash 4 is a good game to play through casually, but it is not a fun game to complete to its fullest because of the bloat. Even with my issues with the execution of its story concepts, and the awful completion, Crash 4 is still fun to just run through without much thought. But it’s nowhere near my favorite game in the series.

That’ll do it for me this week. Did get Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door Remake, so I’m sure that’ll be on here soon. It’s great so far though, but I’ll give my full thoughts on that eventually. Thanks for reading!