Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (Wii U)

Happy Together!

So not only have I've been dusting off my old reliable Wii U, I also went through reading this old blog and realised that when I wrote about Smash Bros for 3DS I wrote that I would play the Wii U version, but I never wrote about it, mostly because as noted, I was a bit burned out by the series, and it has actually not been helped with Ultimate. So why didn't I play that instead? Well, I mostly played the Wii U version because it was the last game in the series as of yet to have trophies. And you couldn't transfer data between the version, what a huge hassle.

Cause what is there otherwise to talk about? It's a fighting game and works as much every other Smash game. Didn't help the Wii U that much, but introduced DLC where we finally got Roy back in the fold. As well as Mewtwo that you could get for free if you bought both games and registered it on some Club Nintendo site or such, unfortunately I bought the 3DS version in a Swedish shop meaning it didn't have the code so I had to buy it on the side. Well everything is bought online today so no problem with that anymore.

So I played through Classic Mode with every character, and some on All-Star Mode, but with this many characters it's a real pain getting through it. Also, All-Star mode is fine since it's pretty much the same as it always been, but Classic mode, what a downgrade from the original (now this might be just me playing it on easy since I want to get through it) but I recall Classic mode have different phases with metal Mario, large and small versions and such spicing up the gameplay, here it's just move around the board and choose a group of enemies. And why isn't there any Adventure mode like in Melee or Brawl? At least the 3DS had the great cave offensive or whatever it was called. So nothing special about, works like everyone else and if you have a couple of friends it's a great time, maybe not so much playing alone.

So why is trophies so important? Because it introduced me to a much larger world of games. In Melee you could get trophies from games that wasn't out yet and games that never was released in Europe or the US. The stickers in Ultimate doesn't tell me anything about the games they come from. I learned about Earthbound from the trophies, got me interested in Metal Gear before the Twin Snakes come out and something called the Famicom Detective Club... wait, that came out on the Switch some time ago. And I got it, might be a fun playthrough.

Star Fox Adventure (GCN)

I actually liked it

Since I was playing the N64 again I thought give the Rare games a spin since I don't own a console that can play those game at home (the one and only reason I ever is interested in a XBox One in order to get the Rare Replay... and maybe the Mistwalker games). Sadly my sister have taken the Banjo-Kazooie games that I first intended to play so I picked up Diddy Kong Racing instead. Never finished it and didn't do it this time either, but I got further and only have one single stage left before defeating the dragon boss for the second time. So I picked up Jet Force Gemini, still stuck at the double boss at Lupus stage. Picked up Perfect Dark and got to the end boss on easy, but got killed. Tried getting invincible cheat to finally see the end credits, no. Couldn't finish the first stage on hard and actually got out of the Datadyne Tower intro stages on medium difficulty, but not further than that. Put in GoldenEye instead, sound not working so I should probably try to clean the cartridge and couldn't finish the first stage. Then I put in Shadow of the Empire instead, finished the speed-racer and space station stages before the sewer did me in. Put on some Castlevania 64 and actually got to the castle for the first time, where I got my ass kicked and closed the game. Then I remembered another Rare game, Star Fox Adventure on the GameCube.  No memory card though since all of them was at my place so I played the first half of the game in one go and then restarted when I got home on my Wii with memory card plugged in.

I think the graphics looks nice 16 years after the release (compared to many N64 games).

Simply put the game starts with the fox girl Krystal arriving at Dinosaur planet following a distress signal on a pterodactyl (called Cloudrunners in the game) where she is attacked by a flying ship that belongs to general Scales, the tyrant that almost have conquered the planet. Her staff fall to the planet and she is able to esquape to Krazoa palace, a holy place for the dinosaurs where she finds a krazoa spirit and releases it in the temple, but she gets caught in a crystal (ha) by an unseen force. Cut to the Star Fox team that have lost Falco and gets a mission by General Pepper to investigate Dinosaur Planet since it threatens to blow up the whole system (since the planet is being teared apart by the magical forces in the planet when Scales took the four Spellstones that kept the energies in check). As Fox arrives at the planet he is tasked with finding the prince of the Earthwalkers (triceratops) that have been kidnapped by the SharpClaw clan (General Scales army).  Doing so put Prince Tricky as your companion that can help in certain puzzles. 

Escort Mission: The Game

So get the Gatekeepers to open the portals to the floating continents in space, fly there, get spellstone, take it to one of two force point temples, get a Krazoa spirit and take it to the Krazoa palace in order to release it, rinse and repeat. And I gotta say, I liked the game when it came out, I finished it several times, but playing it again... it's rather linear. There's hardly any sidequests and only thing is getting stuff you don't actually need. Mostly cheat tokens that hardly does anything or Bafamdads (1-ups) that you hardly will use after the first spellstone gives you an extra heart container, or Airwing energy-balls that you need a minimum amount of that you shouldn't have any problem with getting. Your progress is constantly determined if you can get item A or do quest B that enables you to get onward, either giving you a ability or giving you the ability for more money to get another item or pay your way past a checkpoint. Why? Why can't I explore and try to find the krazoas in between on my own? Is this Rare's commentary on the rail-shooter by doing the whole adventure on the same style? Well, the reason is that the development got cut short since Microsoft bought out Rare and they finished this as their final game for Nintendo. And it was even in development for the N64, but titles Dinosaur Planet and without anything Star Fox. Now, I know that some people would have liked to see the original intent (and I would lie if I wasn't curious at the time the gaming magazines reported on it) and some people seems to really hate this Star Fox game. I get it if you want a on rails-shooter, but to me this was much more fun than the rails-shooter. It had enough deep story (although now I would say there's some weird things story wise). Then again, I only played the original Star Fox game and not the N64 that everyone seems to love.

I really like the design of the Airwing in this

You get all the stuff and at the top of Krazoa Palace a mysterious force makes General Scales give Fox the last spirit and releasing that and freeing Krystal, Andross awakens once again (being the mysterious force that trapped Krystal and controlled Scales) so Fox follows him on the Airwing and after fighting of the first waves of Andross Falco appears giving you bombs so Fox can blow the brains of Andross once again. Day saved, pay check arrived and Krystal thanks Fox by joining the Star Fox crew. It felt a bit rushed in the end, especially that you never fought General Scales and Andross was a bit from the left field, although it can be chalked up to be the constant enemy for Fox... although he wasn't there for the next two games if I recall. Overall I still liked it, but it is a bit much gathering items that you hardly use (why do I need 31 fairies to light my way when it's only required twice or to have over 100 energy-balls when only around 20 is necessary to complete the game?) and the linearity of the game makes replays rather redundant. You can't really miss anything except things that doesn't help you in any way. Wish they were able to let it stew a bit longer, but sadly it wasn't to be, but it was at least over 10 hours to play the game, but I have forgotten much since I was perplexed several times over the solutions of the puzzles.

Star Fox: Guard

10 years since the last new Star Fox and they give us 2 at once? 

So they made a little spin-off game to the main game. Basically you are a newly recruited camera operator on a Cornerian mining company and it's your job to protect the companies facilities from ore stealing robots. So with 12 cameras you overlook the facilities and has to shoot the robots with the same cameras. You play three missions in facilities A, B and C and then there is a boss fight and then a new planet. Rinse and repeat. Small dose fun, You can also play online and be on the other side of the camera sending robots on some poor schmuck sitting out his first camera job. Nothing else to say since the story is just protect the company to get rich. Works for the set up. Maybe I should have put this on the Star Fox: Zero post, but so could probably Nintendo instead of forcing me to download the game.

Well, enjoy the best teaser trailer for the main game!

Star Fox: Zero

Even Nintendo are jumping on the reboot-train

Finally, the first brand new Star Fox since Star Fox DS back in 2006. And we are back to space battles (with some occasional other vehicle battles on land and space, as of this moment I haven't seen if they brought back the Blue Mariner for some underwater action). Besides the Arwing and Landmaster two new vehicles have been built. The Gyrowing for stealth missions and an alternate mode for the Arwing, the Walker. Fine and dandy, but what everyone talks about is the controls. Since the Wii U has two screens Nintendo decided to force it upon us to use it. So for precision shooting it's recommended to look at the gamepad and to get an overlook over the battle watch the TV. You can possible just do it with the gamepad, but I notice the TV is preferable to watch most of the time due to the overview. Which causes this game to be one of the several Wii U games I probably won't play as much due to not having a TV to use alone since their is more people in the household for the moment. The next thing is that the gyro in the gamepad controls the lasers. A bit like Splatoon and once you get a hang of it it works rather fine. It at least takes away the problem of you needing to be a target for enemy fire to get in a hit or two. 

For a game called Star Fox there doesn't seem to exist a fox vechicle

The story then... it's just the same story as Star Fox (Starwing) and Star Fox 64 (Lylat Wars), but with teleportation devices. Apparently what Andross was working on was teleportation devices that he began using for... no, he didn't want to share them so General Pepper had him locked up on Venom... no, James McCloud put him on another dimension with the teleportation devices where he somehow built an army and then dragged the whole planet Venom with him to launch the attack on Corneria. It's a reboot basically and the story wasn't much to write home about anyway. I can't say it stuck much with me afterwards either since nothing is really new. Star Fox: Assault was better in my opinion with Pigma's transformation, Peppy and Peppers sacrifices, even Star Wolfs sacrifices and the enemy was interesting and a bit scary... for a borg ripoff. It missed something and really, how much of a surprise was it that Venom disappeared when we have the teleportation holes all over the game? 

Looks like someone been watching the Terminator-series

The graphics looks nice and the music is fine, still prefer the soundtrack from the original game and apparently you could get access to it by either stepping up your game and 100 % percent it with collecting medals and highscores and with it unlock the original look of the Arwing as an alternate mode together with the music... or just use any Star Fox amiboo. I'm mighty tempted since I clearly can't bother spending the 40-100 hours I would need to actually train myself to get good at this game. Eh, it's not a bad game and you get used to the controls, it's just... I suck at these games.