Music of the Week #508

A little late.

The next game post is ready to go, I just completely missed the pre-Wednesday window again. I feel as though it came out a lot shorter than the other ones and it’s indicative of how I felt about it. What I will say though is that the next three games have all been bangers to me so I can’t wait to start talking about them. However, they do need to be written up as I had too much fun playing them and hadn’t had the time to actually reflect and write my thoughts down so they’re going to take a bit.

I gushed about how much I like both Paper Mario’s jungle island chapters but in a strange turn of events, the chapters immediately following the swashbuckling adventures always make an unexpected but welcome turn in the following chapter. Namely, the 6th chapter of Paper Mario requires you to go around the game world to collect a couple seeds from these walking flower-lifeforms and then bring them back to Toad Town square whereupon the pathway to the next zone reveals itself. Flower Field is some weird wonderland filled with talking plants, clouds, and dudes dressed as plants. It’s a rather back-track heavy zone with notoriously dangerous enemies who can put you to sleep but the weird music mixed with the carefree but deadly enemies makes for a memorable gimmick.

Music of the Week #507

Another down

Hollow Knight was a really fun game, you should read about it. I’ve got a couple more to write up but since I was insistent on 100%ing the past two games, I’m a bit behind on playing new ones. I should really hop on the next Yakuza game.

Lava Piranha would not be the first boss in Paper Mario with a 2nd phase but I always did like the idea of elemental Piranha plants when I was younger. Unfortunately, no other big piranha plants became notable enemies going forward. The Chapter specific partner, Sushi, makes decent work out of his multiple attacking parts if you use the upgrade blocks on her and hey, when was the last time there was a friendly Cheep-Cheep in a Mario game? TTYD’s own jungle island chapter got a very unique boss that I enjoyed but the flower-based enemies in Super Paper Mario were if pretty non-threatening, if hilarious in a political sense. Yeah, political. You heard me.

Hollow Knight- Bug Souls Spelunking

Hollow Knight is in a strange place for me right now because I have more or less finished the game but have the Godmaster DLC content that I haven’t been able to beat and I imagine my predicament is where most people who play this game are in. As of this writing I’m stuck at the Pure Vessel and haven’t even managed to get to Absolute Radiance’s pantheon but these are the only remaining things left to do in the game for me, aside from Steel Soul mode.

Before really having the chance to play Hollow Knight, I had only heard about it and most of them were usually praising the game. I really didn’t know too many specifics as to why but it never really struck me to try it out anytime sooner. Coincidentally, after I had talked about wanting to take a break from Yakuza with a much “smaller” game, Hollow Knight went for free on the PS+ monthly games and I saw no reason not to try it out.

And after playing it as much as I did with around 80+ hours sunk in, all I can say is

I wish I actually paid for it.

Music of the Week #506

I got the next post readied up, it just fell on a bad time.

With this one out of the way, the next couple shouldn’t be too bad although two games in particular are still in need of being written up. Springs almost over isn’t it? I haven’t taken a look at Summer but it’s probably fair to say that I’m out of seasonal stuff by now until Part 6 finally comes out.

Lava levels are no stranger to Mario games and Paper Mario added a mechanic of enemies being “too hot” for Mario to step on so they added a new badge to nullify the effects of fire-based enemies much like how in Dry Dry Ruins had the Spike Shield badge. The only depth comes from just putting the badge on or not or opting to hammer your way through things but as far as level designs go, I definitely preferred the jungle before Mt. Lavalava. I said it before, but I’m generally all for jungle island setting based story chapters.

Music of the Week #505

And another one down

I finished one of the new games I bought in a week and around 60ish hours of playtime and I can’t wait to talk about it. It’s kept me so busy for the past two weeks that I haven’t even kept up with the Nagatoro anime. First I need to get through like 4 games before I talk about the one I just finished, I should be able to focus on that now.

Upon hearing this theme again, it sounds something out of Earthbound when the drums start up again, like something close to Saturn Valley and the Lost Underworld and guess the Jade Jungle sort of resembles either location in how yoshi are technically dinosaurs and we’re plenty deep in the jungle wilderness to meet Raphael.

Music of the Week #504

Oh man,

So what held me up from posting the next game? Well, playing other games. It’s a good sign that I can still go on playing for multiple hours of a game, clearly there is still hope in the industry. Now the only worry is that I can actually put the game down for a bit to get through the next post in a timely manner.

Well I mentioned Yoshis last time and that reminds me of another reason why I enjoy the Paper Mario series so much. Since the franchise in and of itself is a platformer, practically anything standing in your way is usually out to kill you and the RPG mold allows for former enemies to potentially become allies. While Paper Mario isn’t the first Mario RPG, places where friendly goombas, koopas, cheep-cheeps, bob-ombs, boos, and the likes being friendly only helps build up the overall universe. This only makes it sadder when you consider potential new partners for Mario if the Paper Mario sub-series ever finds itself a new entry that retains its RPG mechanics. One of the early footages for one of the 3DS sequels had a Chain-Chomp partner and it made me excited for the prospect but we all know how the portable Paper Mario entries turned out.