Goin' German with Liverwurst, pretzels and beer
Pulled out the Wii today to play Overlord: Dark Legend. It’s basicially a shortened version of Overlord II. At least it seems that way. I haven’t played Overlord II in a while but it seems pretty much the same. The cut-scenes seem scaled down to still images from what I remember. The Wii’s controls were as annoying as ever for me but they worked well enough in this game. Trying to control multiple subgroups of minions at the same time during boss fights was a real pain. In every one of them, I ended up simplifying my group or at most two minion types with the second one just being red minions fixed to one spot as ranged fighters. During adventuring I would go with four of each type plus more browns to fill it out. Then I would have browns selected for any spur of the moment fights and then switch when another type was needed to get past a barrier of fire, water or poison gas. It was annoying to try and hold the Wiimote at such an angle so that the cursor was always on the screen. I fiddled with various positions to keep my hand from getting tired.
I finished the game in around ten hours. It was a pretty quick game but fun. The writing by Rhianna Pratchett (who most recently wrote the Tomb Raider game) was really funny. I enjoyed all the dialog. I wonder why there aren’t more games like this out there. There’s Pikmin of course, but nothing else.
Once I finished that, I hooked up my Game Cube and started Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door. I got as far as the first few rooms in Hooktale Castle. I’m really loving this game. The battle system is very similar to the Mario & Luigi games so I felt right at home doing timed jumps and hammering of foes. The game is set up like a RPG in every way but there are lots of platforming and action moments sprinkled throughout. For instance in battle, you have to think fast because unexpected events happen like the audience throws things at you or the enemy suddenly multiplies to fill the screen. In the adventure screens, you do a lot of jumping, hammering and even flying. You get “cursed” with being able to turn into a paper airplane to fly over gaps.
The whole paper asthetic is really neat. You sometimes move to a background plane and move along a single line of landscape. I love the way you enter buildings and the walls just unfold for you so you can see inside.
After a while I realized I was really relaxing into this game after the somewhat tense time playing Overlord on the Wii. I think that’s a very good sign of a great game. I just hope I can get to the end of it and not get stuck on some really hard boss fights.
Paper Mario for N64 is one of few JRPGs I can say I genuinely enjoyed. I loved its cast and characters, if not plot; it's been a while, so I don't remember much except that my brain had a generally positive reaction to playing it; and I might look for either a Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi title on my next trip to a gaming store.
Once Stick of Truth gets a price drop, I really want to download it. If JRPGs keep going in the direction of these types of games, where there's action/platforming mixed in and there's a wacky and genuinely clever and funny storyline, my general opinion on the genre may do a 180.
I'm loving Paper Mario right now. I think I'll get every game in the series now.
Apparently, Sticker Star kinda sucked, but I wouldn't know.
Yea I've heard mixed things about it. I still want to try it out though.
The GameCube Paper Mario game is probably the best RPG on the GameCube and my favorite of all the Mario RPGs. Not once did the game get boring or bogged down, and it has some of the most clever writing of any game I played. Too bad the last Paper Mario game, Sticker Star, ended up being my least favorite Mario RPG.
I just pulled myself away from Paper Mario to write this. It took several hours after the thought occured to me to catch up here on Pixlbit to yank myself away from it. It really keeps you interested.
I still need to buy one of the Overlord games.
They're good but it's still difficult to manage multiple groups with a controller be it standard or the Wii's controller. I wonder if it's better on PC that way. I wonder if it's on Steam.
GIMME DAT PRETZEL!
Philly Pretzel Factory mini-pretzels with spicy mustard. Oh yeah!
Those pretzels look delicious and I so wish they served German beer at American parties. Alex, are you of drinking age, and if so, what is the beer in Belgium like?
I've been trying all sorts of beers at my local deli, but after a while I just stuck to what I liked and it was the German ones like the Warsteiner I had the last couple weeks.
I'm on drinking age in Belgium (16 is the age while it's 18 in Colombia) but I'm not really one to trust for beers because so far, every single one tastes like liquified sand in my mouth...
In any case, many had said that Belgium has one of the finest beers in the world due to the large amount of traditional breweries (with some run by monks).
There are lots of Belgian beers at my deli. I'll have to try one. I'm not a big beer drinker though. I drink like one or two a week at most. I also try and pick one with a theme that matches the game I'm playing, but last few weeks I just stuck to the German one since I liked it.
Hell, I almost never drink beer and if I'm drinking alcohol for taste, it's mixed drinks like Jack & Coke or liquor like St. Brendan's Irish Cream Liquor.
I'd like to try some liquors.
Liquified sand tastes better than piss-water though, I'd imagine, the latter being what I think American tastes like. Are you basing liquified sand on beers you've had before or the ones in Belgium? Cause I've had dark English beers in Dallas and they've tasted leagues better than typical American party beers like Miller Lite, etc. I'm not fancy, so I'll drink Keystone around friends, but they're not remotely comparable.
If you happen to get monk-made beer at some point, let me know.
I wonder what Monk's piss tastes like. Think it's somethin' special? All they do is make and drink beer all day.
Magical, maybe? Maybe drinking it warms your bodies even in extremely cold temperatures, kinda like Russian vodka or actual monks.
The flavor in general. My tongue isn't really used to beer.
So you've tasted beer in both countries and it's not good in either then, right?
I'll let you decide. Like I said, i'm not to trust when it comes to beers.
Paper Mario... the best marios ever.
I'm beginning to see that. Just entering The Boggly Woods and hoping this game never ends.
Thousand-Year Door was the first Paper Mario game I played and I liked it a lot. Whenever I get my TV problem sorted out, I need to revisit it.
It continually surprises me with new things as I'm playing it. So frickin' good.
I need to try overlord someday. I've seen it on the Xbox 360 but for the life of me I never pick it up. I've heard good things about the game yet I keep passing it up. I think even my bro owns the game.
It's a cool use of the Pikmin idea where you control a horde of creatures and move them as a group or individually around the world. Why no one done more with that mechanic, I'll never know.