Today’s game is Mario Galaxy. Specifically the 3D all Stars Version. After Mario Kart world Yesterday, I wanted to see how this looks on the system (looks great, but Galaxy has some sharp edges I wish I had options for). Embarrassingly, I bought the 3D all Stars when I was young and Naive and bought into the FOMO Nintendo pushed with it. I don’t regret buying it, but I do regret giving in.
I played in bed while playing it, and damn, they did a really good job of adapting the controls. Emulating always sometimes has issues adapting to controllers, but snap off the joycons here and you’re basically good to go. On top of that being able to lay in bed and play without worrying about the battery being gone in a few hours is awesome. No offense to my Steam Deck, but I sleep in a loft bed to save space and I don’t want to lug it up and down the ladder every couple hours to charge.
I think this is like the 4th time I’ve started this game and talked about the water, but Galaxy has some of my favorite water of all time. Like, if I had to drown to death and got to pick the water, this is top of my list. It looks like it’d be super cool and taste amazing.
While playing through this, I did one of the song segments and didn’t realize how much of this game borrows from other games. It has so much identity of its own, but also doesn’t neglect its past. It’s something I feel like more recent Nintendo games haven’t done.
And then finally, I wanted to talk about how surreal I realized this all is. like, an Italian Plumber is just thrown into space with random shit scattered about and he can turn into a fucking drill and gets to climb all over a giant ass bee. It really makes sense in the context of the history that the Mario Franchise has.
Like, if I didn’t know anything about Mario and you handed it to me. I feel like I’d played it and go “What the fuck is going on”. It’s just something I was thinking about while playing was all.
brsrklf@jlai.lu 9 hours ago
References to past games are still a thing they do quite a lot. Weirdly enough in Super Mario Odyssey they went all in on Donkey Kong nostalgia. 3D world has the Comet Observatory, reimagined levels from 64, Bowser’s Fury brought back Bowser Jr’s paintbrush from Sunshine.
Breath of the Wild is chock full of references, ruins of old places, every land feature name is evoking something, be it a character, an old boss, whatever, music cues from the Temple of Time, Spectacle Rock dungeon, Dragon Roost Island…
Echoes of Wisdom borrowed like 70% of its map from A Link to the Past. Again. They already did that in A Link Between Worlds. Not a fan of that one honestly, I love ALttP, Nintendo please stop nostalgia farming it for subpar games already. I like my maps to feel fresh.
Mario Kart World is almost nothing but references, most tracks are from past episodes, and you can find stuff like SNES circuits on the roads around the official ones. And there are loads of remixes of past games music, from NES to Switch and everything in between.
jacobydehunter@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
You just made me realise we haven’t had a fresh new map in a Zelda game since 2017 :(
brsrklf@jlai.lu 8 hours ago
There’s Cadence of Hyrule, and the map shifts every game!
Okay, that’s a stretch.