We’re in to one of the busiest times of the year for me; I’m
a music teacher and the end of any term is always fraught with many more things
I need to do in addition to whatever foetid standards pass for normal. That
combined with the significant changes in my personal and musical life over the
last few years means that once again, I’ve not found much time to play many
games. Life gets in the way! But, also, life finds a way, as shown to us by the
Jurassic Park franchise. And amongst the many, many videos I watched of other
people talking about video games, I did indeed manage to play one or two of
them.
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| I thought I had another picture for this... |
I continued with my game of Sacred: Citadel, managing to get
past the part I was stuck on that was halfway through the second act. I’m
progressing through the game at a steady pace, and I’m still enjoying it. But I
have to wonder what in the world I’m supposed to be doing about the score
challenges. If you’re issued a score challenge, you need to get through the
level you’re set having scored 6,666 points. Considering that I don’t think I’ve
ever done that even when I’m not doing a challenge, and that I can’t find a way
to increase your score other than boost your combat multipliers, I find myself
wondering how I’m supposed to do it. Am I supposed to pick a less-damaging
weapon so that I can increase my number of attacks? I’m aware that there are
probably videos on Youtube that would answer my questions, but I haven’t looked
for any yet. The game’s enjoyable enough and I’ll probably keep playing it when
I’ve got an hour to spare, but if I find myself with more time in the weekend
(I might, you never know!) I might try a heavier game.
That was it until yesterday morning when I decided on a whim
to put my WiiU on and have a go at Super Mario Bros. I downloaded the original
NES version of the game not long after I bought the system, and I play it every
now and. It’s a game that I hardly need to introduce; it’s one of the finest platforming
games ever designed. It’s balanced, fun and challenging in all the right
places. While other games in the series were more fleshed-out, with different
themes being applied to different worlds and demonstrably better with the introduction
of new mechanics, the core of what Super Mario is started with this game. I focus
on collecting as many coins as possible to get extra lives – a standard
mechanic of the time – and I tend to get up to the seventh world before they
run out.
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| Apparently those blocks are supposed to be the people of the Mushroom Kingdom that Bowser and the Koopas changed into blocks with magic. Let that horror sink in. |
I’ve actually beaten the game before, ages ago, when I had
it on the Super Nintendo as part of the Mario All-Stars compilation, but there
was a crucial difference in that version of the game: you could save your progress.
You could start from any of the previously-visited worlds and you didn’t have
to do the entire game in one sitting. That, I’m pretty sure, is why I haven’t
beaten this version it yet – after the time it takes me to get to the sixth or
seventh world, I start to lose concentration, and make costly mistakes.
And yes, I know that the structure of the WiiU allows you to
save game states and you therefore don’t have to get through the entire game in
one sitting on this console either. I don’t mind doing that on Castlevania,
which is a ferociously difficult game due to its design, or Mega Man X that is
a large game that I wouldn’t expect to be able to beat in one go. With Super
Mario Bros, it’s a short enough game that I think I ought to be able to get
through the whole thing in one sitting, and the challenges it presents aren’t
unfair; I die due to my own mistakes that I should be able to correct if I keep
trying. That’s the level at which Super Mario Bros challenges me, and that’s
how I am aiming to beat it.
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