On the odd hour or two a week I’m not eating, sleeping, or working, I still like to play the odd game or two. Here are the games that are taking up my time these days.
New Super Mario Bros.
It took me a while to get warmed up to New Super Mario Bros. I kept comparing it to other games in the series, and was constantly trying to point out things that it didn’t do as well as the other games. Once I got over that and actually started to look at the game on its own, I realized that it was actually pretty good. I welcome the return of the Fire Flower, and the Blue Koopa Shell is pretty nice, but the mushroom that makes you really big and the mushroom that make you really small are just kind of… meh. The game also seemed to be extremely generous with the 1ups. About 3/4 of the way through I had the maximum amount of lives, and have since not dropped below 95. Maybe I’ve just developed an aptitude for the 2D Mario games.
Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures
Four Swords Adventures is the expanded version of the multiplayer game included with the GBA version of A Link to the Past. As a single player game, it’s decent enough, but it’s really made for more than one person (ideally four people). I just finished it up this evening and only had a couple of minor issues with it. Each ‘stage’ is completely independant of each other. This lets you pick up and play at any time and each time you do, you start out fresh. Anything you collected in the last segment of your game is gone and you start out anew with no equipment. But really, that’s a minor quibble. There’s lots of color-related puzzles and a huge emphasis on teamwork that makes it an excellent party type game.
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
I like strategy games, even though I’m not particularly great at them. This is the first Breath of Fire game that I’ve played, and so far I’m liking it. I haven’t gotten too far into the story, but I can already tell that there’s going to be a lot of dialogue. It’s not the kind of dialogue that’s spoken, either, it’s all text. That doesn’t bother me so much, but I can see where that could be a turn off for some people. For micro-management junkies, there’s quite a bit to do between missions like equipping your people, doling out bonus XP, listening to conversations between your troops, and so on. One of the things about the Breath of Fire series that is a bit different from some of the other strategy games that I’ve played is that once weapons break, they’re gone for good. Also, and this is the big one, if someone falls in battle, they too are gone for good. Important characters (i.e. they still have some part to play in the story line) will still show up in cutscenes, but they will no longer be available to battle. Kind of lame, but that requires you to either: plan your battles better, or reset your game when you lose one of your units.