Mario.

What is intended to be an easy going, happy go lucky, cheeky scamp, just comes across as cloying and sycophantic to me.

It is the definitive mascot for Nintendo and perfectly encapsulates it’s design philosophy. Which is… Treat them like children. That way, they can’t be critical of the quality of the game design as it’s aimed at kids, so therefore has set a lower bar lower in terms of game complexity, both mechanically and thematically.

He is always wearing a stupid smug, self satisfied grin with the wide unblinking eyes of a physchopathic killer. His choice in women are mute timid beauty queens and he brutally strikes animals round the back of the head and slaughters wildlife by the million.

There’s nothing to relate Mario to a real human who has doubts, thoughts or emotions. Life for Mario is just one big long walk in the park. Sure he has to rescue the princess (first name irrelevant, apparently, she’s just a squeeze) but he never breaks a sweat and his dumb unflinching grinning mug never falters.

I hate Mario because he is a racist stereotype, cruel to animals and depiction of humanity that sidesteps any allusion to depth or complexity, in favour of simply grinning and being upbeat.

Sure, you can say "It's just a game, it's meant to be relaxing . Why are you taking it so seriously?!"

Well, because, as a creator of fiction and mass media, Nintendo has a responsibility to it's audience to both entertain and educate. Education isn't stupid spelling games or "can you say, 'bank'? B.A.N.K.". No. Education is preparing young minds for the horror that is real life, not coddling them into a primary coloured blanket of simplistic platitudes.

Mario is the most 2 dimensional character ever created and a detriment to human culture as a whole.

Here is a bad gameplay mechanic: backtracking.

There is one thing I don’t like about Wonderboy in Monster World. The final level in the castle. You are stuck going backwards and forwards which can be so long you give up, which is how I left that game 25 years ago. But I have completed it, you just need the bell which rings when you ago the right way.

Metroid is an NES game where the dungeons are non-linear. So you have to go back the way you came sometimes. That’s fine. Until you get lost.

This gameplay design is not bad in itself, but without an arrow and the larger the level, the more chance of getting lost and wasting time, getting bored and frustrated. Add a random level generator and the chances of becoming lost and for longer, increase. I have seen footage of Symphony of the Night and it looks convoluted and simplistic.

This game looks very repetitive. The game is 6 hours long if you don't get lost. For me, that equates to I will probably never finish it. Not out of the inability but the unwillingness to subject myself to the tedium of the undertaking.

Indy game designers are just as culpable as the AAA’s of jumping on trends and disseminating poorly thought through or executed gameplay styles throughout the industry, bombarding the market with clones.

It’s macabre, it rogue-lite/like, it’s metroid-vania, it’s retro, it’s 16-bit. It could be any one of hundreds if not thousands of games in the past 8 years.

So I get the feeling indy game devs are more devs than designers as I’m seeing very little by way of innovation or consideration of “is this gameplay element relevant or suitable to use in my game?” but more “How do I make a game in a popular style which is selling right now?”

This blog, the latest in my series of pointing out the obvious. I write it last night but had to throw it out as I just saw this video which covers the same point so I don’t want to be accused of plagiarism.

This blog was actually inspired by watching someone playing Axiom Verge on Vita, having loads of fun. Then exactly no fun, so I thought it was time to have a go at indy devs for being, on the whole, even lazier than AAA devs.

"Why can’t you make a new game Nintendo?"

“What you talking about? Mario Party, Smash Bros, Zelda, Super Mario Bros. etc”

“Yeah but they’re a little bit similar to the previous games, no?”

“Didn’t you play Mario Maker? Now you can make your own new games based on old Nintendo franchises, we’re tired now.”

“But Nintendo, we worship you! You must have a new idea to wow us all and change the face of gaming like you did that one time with Donkey Kong arcade in 1981. We don't know what our Switch is for...”

“…oh, err yeah! Of course! It’s Battle Royale…! You kids like that right? It’s competitive… Tetris!”

“My god. You’ve done it again.”

“Once again Nintendo have proved they are the best game designers in the entire world and have improved upon the perfect game.” - critics etc

“It also has”

“Whoa, slow down Nintendo. I’m still getting over multiplayer?! Tetris?! Just let me catch my breath... OK go.”

“OK, so now you can play the mechanic introduced in Puyo Puyo by Compile in the 1991 but watered down so it’s not too difficult."

"OK that sounds exciting."

"Yes, and you can pretend playing against 98 other strangers is different to playing against one other player. Because 99 is more! Thats 99x the fun!”

“So now I can rank my Tetris abilities to a degree of 99 and finally know how good I am compared to 98 strangers?!”

“You sure can! It won't change how you play in any way but if your really good you can feel good to the exact degree of your success against 98 strangers.”

“This. Game. Deserves. Game of the year. They have improved upon perfection.” - Completely level headed game critic

I will say that at least Tetris 99 has a new gameplay mechanic, unlike Tetris Effect, which is, as the name suggests, is Tetris, with some special effects in the background. Wow.

I’m personally not sure how you can improve on 1984 ascii Tetris. But it can be changed around and spruced up a bit. So here are some other Tetris gimmicks from through the ages I’ve dug up.

Puyo Puyo - Compile - 1991

Beans with eyes. It’s darling. They stick together and 3 or more make them explode. Oh yeah, also it is competitive. Get combos to crap all over your opponent’s day. See also Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, Dr Mario, Baku Baku Animal and many, many more.

Blockout - California Dreams - 1991

It’s a version of Tetris that would have suited VR more than the Tetris Effect game, which was being used to push the VR hardware. There is also an unofficial NES version of this game.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo - Capcom - 1996

OK it’s Puyo Puyo again but it is different because Capcom's gems can get gigantic until you get the trigger tile and boom! A bit like Baku Baku’s animal tiles eating their respective food types. You do ten hadoken’s into your opponents face and they get a load of grey tiles to clear. Bonus.

Columns - Sega - 1989

Three coloured gems. Always horizontal. You cycle them. Match diagonals, horizontal or vertical sets of three. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.

Sega Sonic Bros - Sega - 1992

Puzo Puyo again. Maybe this was just an logical extension of Tetris but here it is again but this time diagonals can combine with vertices and horizontals to make chains.

Pac Attack - Namco - 1993

Make a chain of ghosts and then drop the pacman block and watch him gobble them all up.

Wetrix - Zed Two, Warthog Games - 1998

OK, this is not a tile matching game but I will always try and cram Dreamcast games in where they don’t belong. Try to make big pools of water for some reason. It’s weird, but it’s good. First came out on N64.

The Next Tetris - Blue Planet Software, The Tetris Company - 1999

Features online mode for 1v1 play. Some shapes have two colours, which lock when land but loose colours will fall down.

Tetris 4D - Bullet Proof Software - 1998

4 Player Tetris on Dreamcast. Just convince three other people you are not an immediate threat to their safety and coax them back to your house and play 4 player vs Tetris against people you can actually see and hate on a personal level for beating you! That is the true multiplayer experience.

Here are some more Tetris games I remembereed on the 15th March 2019....

Lumines - Q Entertainment, Resonair - 2004

A line scans from left to right, clearing matching blocks of 4 or more from two potential block types.

Welltris - Alexey Pajitnov / Spectrum HoloByte (et al) - 1989

Alexey has another go and it's ok. Like Blockout, you look down on the play field but tiles slide in from the sides. Weird.

You can even play this on the ZX Spectrum.

Can anyone think of any more takes on the core Tetris gameplay?

This is a genre I only got properly into a couple of years ago, after playing MUSHA on Mega Drive. I then decided to find more shooters on the Genesis / Mega Drive and also played a few on Dreamcast.

I didn't play them much back when I had a Sega Mega Drive (SMD) and didn't play them on PC so I still don't know a whole lot about this genre.

I loved, but never really played Thunder Force 4 properly back in the day - I just went through on 99 lives and enjoyed the spectacle. These days I'm using the Thunder Sword to wreck bosses in 4 hits.

It can get tiring after a while but for short bursts of entertainment it is the definitive arcade game genre.

Looking into the SMD (and Master System) back catalogue, it turns out there are a few decent one's I'd missed out on.

So here are my recent favourites within the genre.

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1: Thunder Force 4 - Mega Drive - Technosoft (1992)

Best intro on the system. Best pixel art. Best music. Difficult but easy to get 99 lives (press d-pad+button+start to enter options, set life stock to 0) and just enjoy the scenery.

Trying to win you can just use the ‘Hunter’ and concentrate on dodging. Rock solid bosses.

2: Power Strike 2 - Master System - Compile (1993)

Played these games last year for the first time. Have known about Compile for about 2 years and I love them now. Blistering pace. Power Strike is much faster than the Robo Alesté series.

3: R-Type - Master System - Irem Corp. (1987)

Better than a Spectrum for graphics and sound... So I was very impressed. If also a little disturbed and unable to play back then for it’s difficulty. It turns out it's a really solid classic of the genre which is still really fun to play. It's slow pace means it's fair game for Irem to fill the screen with bullets to make up for it.

The artwork must have been influential and it still gives me goosebumps to see those Giger cyberpunk aliens.

4: Fantasy Zone - Master System - SEGA (1987)

This is even harder than R-Type but the ship physics and gameplay is impossible to improve upon. Another game which requires a potion of concentration.

5: MUSHA - Mega Drive - Compile (1990)

It all about the weapon upgrades. You have to constantly get all the different weapons in a Compile game (if you keep losing them like me), otherwise you can't power up your secondary weapons. You can take damage and will momentarily flash if you lose your secondary weapon, giving you a chance to recover. Also, your arms can absorb hits, temporarily removing one of your floating probe weapons. So although punishing past level 5, success is always within reach. Refined gameplay by a top tier shoot em up developer.

The music is cheesy, but it's good.

6: Super Fantasy Zone - Mega Drive - SEGA (1992)

Actually kind of easy once you get the swing. Otherwise, 3 lives on no continues. You will be playing the first level a lot. But a load of upgrades and weapons and interesting bosses and art style make this game very moorish.

7: Ikaruga - Dreamcast- Treasure (2001)

I like the presentation with the camera circling the ship as it flies through corridors before levels with 3d backgrounds.

The difficulty is a bit low once you figure out how to absorb bullets and the smart gun is a bit superfluous for the first stages at least. Then there is a lot of scenery dodging.

This game gets quite repetitive due to there being mostly just 2 colours for most of the time on screen and uninspired enemy placement.

But the visual spectacle and excellent sound effects make it worth replaying.

8: Trouble Shooter - Mega Drive - Vic Tokia (1991)

You have a woman strapped to your back and she can turn around to fir backwards or forwards. Vic Tokai games are so out there and fun to play from the music to the artwork, the pace never drops (apart from annoying pre-level weapon select menus.) Once you understand which weapons and special attacks to use and when, it becomes alot easier.

9: Empire of Steel - Mega Drive - Flying Edge (1992)

I always liked how they made it look like and old film at the beginning and in-between levels. This game is just solid. Not too difficult until you get to the speeding tunnel levels.

Choose from a blimp or plane. Nice graphics.

========================================================

I don't really know any more modern scrolling shooters. Not sure why that is, but maybe it’s because as a genre, the games don’t differ all that much, going back to Defender in 1981 by Williams. Just keep firing and dodging the bullets.

Defender - Williams (1981)

Honourable mentions:

Robo Alesté - Mega CD - Compile (1993)

You can chuck two spinning blades out at diagonal angles and chop things with them too, which is cool.

1942 - Arcade - Capcom (1984)

They always had these in swimming baths for some reason. Looked too hard and I needed my money to buy sweets but the visual spectacle had to be admired, back in 1987.

Still haven’t played:

Border Down -Dreamcast - G. rev (2003)

Thunder Force 5 - Saturn - Technosoft (1997)

Radiant Silvergun - Saturn - Treasure (1998)

Sturmwind - Dreamcast - Duranik (2013)

Can’t remember the name of: A witch flying broomstick (dragon?) maybe PS1 or Saturn game but not Cotton.

I’ll be honest, I’m no aficionado and probably still haven’t played some of the best ones and there are loads on the Dreamcast so please feel free to comment and highlight your favourites.