Nintendo @ E3: The Grand Super Smash Bros 4 Post (Part 1)

This is why I love E3

Hello everybody and welcome to my first part of my potential series of E3 posts! Now, I know earlier I said I was trying to avoid a "series" and I still am. However, Nintendo this week has made that just incredibly difficult for me. Like, oh my God. When I saw their Digital Event, I'm going to be honest, I was a little disappointed. This may be mostly because I don't have a Wii U, but still. Now, I realize that presentation only scratched the surface. With their Treehouse department live at E3 ALL DAY for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT, I saw what they were doing. Oh man, that was simply amazing. I haven't even finished watching all of that stuff yet. So because of the tremendous amount of depth and content they've shown off, I really do not think I can sum up E3 in a single post. I'm going to have to make an entirely separate post just for Nintendo. Let me tell you, if I have to make an entire single post just for one company at E3, that's pretty much indicative that they won, and I haven't even looked at Sony and Microsoft yet (like Microsoft even has a chance).

However, let's take a breath for a moment and hold up. As you may be aware--given that, of all of what's probably just five posts that I've written since the Metroid essay, three quarters of those are Super Smash Bros 4 posts (here-onwards referred to as SM4SH)--I have been tremendously hyping for this game. It's strange because Metroid is my favorite franchise out of Nintendo, but no other game from them seems to generate as much excitement for its release than Super Smash Bros. We have the classic characters that have appeared on Nintendo consoles, the iconic choices of stages that perfectly reflect the respective game's lovely style, and of course, the intensity of just duking it out against other people in a game that's more about pushing people off the screen than draining a health bar. It's fast-paced, and every character, no matter how crappy they may be competitively, has something to love about playing as them. This is a series that has acquired such a tremendous fan base, too, and this week I pretty much got quite a look at how huge it really is.

This is why I'm splitting up these posts even further and making an entire single post devoted to SM4SH, because regardless of any of the following:

• Lack of physics exploits from Melee
• Zero Suit Samus being OP
• Being too similar to Brawl (my only reaction to that is: ??????????????? I can understand preferring Melee to Brawl, but still)
• The first tournament ever held for the game was won in a widely disagreeable fashion
• No Shadow the Hedgehog/Powerpuff Girls/Kingdom Hearts characters/Insert Famous Character from Famous Franchise Here as playable characters. Come on, you got Mega Man and Pac-Man (ew), please give Sakurai a break at some point

SM4SH is going to be amazing. Have you seen all the gameplay they've put out for it? I sure as Hell haven't (although I pretty much saw most of it) and I'm already in love. Well, yeah, I've been in love, but you know what I mean. You can say that Melee or Brawl or even 64 is better, I don't care. You cannot deny though that it will be incredibly fun to play and difficult to get tired of.

Alright, so we've have a ton of ground to cover, and I don't believe I'll even cover everything, so let's get to it. First, we begin at pretty much the very beginning of the Digital Event. After a pretty hilarious--is it even CG?--"fight" between Satoru Iwata and Reggie Fils-Aime, the Mii is revealed as a newcomer! I know in my little rant about the "prophet" of SM4SH* that I sounded like I detested the suggestion, but seeing the Mii in SM4SH just felt right to me. I think I partially fear ridiculous characters appearing in SM4SH and feeling out of place, but since the Mii is an icon of Nintendo, it just made sense. Sakurai even says that he thought about it initially for Brawl, but it didn't seem right to him at the time. That makes sense since Miis weren't as active in games as they are today.

Now I can fight against Reggie!

I'm not going to get into grand detail with their moves, mostly because I only saw them for merely seconds on a video. I will inform that they will have quite a range of different movesets, because every character now has 12 different moves to choose from. Also, though, the Mii is unique in that there are three different styles for them (unarmed brawler, sword fighter, and gunner), so because they have three different styles, they really have thirty-six different moves. You can select any Mii that you have on your hardware and make him one, and so Sakurai has used this to constantly joke about all the ridiculous suggestions he keeps getting.

I can finally be a Smash Bros character!

After talking about the Miis for a bit, Sakurai moves on to the matter of game modes on the 3DS. He doesn't actually discuss them, but he does pull up a sort of montage of the different things we'll see in the game... and boy, are there a lot of them. I watch that clip like three times over and I'm still unsure of everything I saw. There seems to be a Classic Mode. There will be coins like from Brawl, and it seems you can spectate matches and bet on players. There seems to be a sort of sound test where you can playback the characters' voice acting. There is also a screenshot photo album, and we see some of what the trophy viewers are like. There were a few other game modes shown very briefly, and since I don't have much context for them, I really can't say much about them. Check out the Digital Event if you want to see for yourself. What I do know is that they said during the Treehouse streams that the coins you get will be used or involved with these other game modes/minigames as well.

Sakurai then gives the usual, "We need time to debug the game" lines, and with that, my gut wrenches. Sure enough, the release date for SM4SH on the 3DS is shown, and it is not in the Summer, but on October 3rd. This may be partially why I wasn't all that into the Digital Event, since I was sour the whole time about the pushback, so that takes away even more unnecessary blame on the Digital Event. This was really the only sour, bitter point of all of Nintendo's time at E3. I really wished the game was coming out over the Summer, because during school I have a hard time finding the time for anything. I have a hard time finding the time to put on my shoes in the morning, honestly. Also, my friends back home have this silly habit of going to McDonald's and playing their 3DS there until three in the morning. That's just the place to be if you're going to play your 3DS with friends at late hours of the night! When we found out that they were making a Super Smash Bros game for the 3DS, we jumped for joy at the thought of finally being able to play Smash Bros at McDonald's until three in the morning! We'll still get to do that, but I won't be able to do so with them until as early as Thanksgiving Break, and that just makes me sad. At least I'll have friends at school to play the game with though, and it's not like I can't connect online with my friends back home. They can invite me to one of their McDonald's tournaments while I'm at my apartment!

Sorry, moving on from my personal breakthroughs, SM4SH did not end on that sour note during the Digital Event. At the very end, Reggie says something along the lines of, "Why not end on another little teaser?" At first, my hopes shot straight up for a new Metroid game, but more on my desperate and hopeless pining for a new Metroid game in my Nintendo post. Instead, we got another character reveal for SM4SH! And who was it this time?

( ´͈ ॢꇴ `͈ॢ)･*♡ = my face every time

PALUTENAAAAAA!!!! THE LEAK WAS REAL, BITCHES!!! CALLED IT!!! CALLED IT!!!!!!

Shut up about that stupid "prophet," I don't even want to hear about him right now.

Side thought: what if the "prophet" was Sakurai this whole time?

So her trailer was pretty cool, shot mostly in the form of an anime. I wondered of a Smash Bros anime but people on Reddit are saying it was referencing a Kid Icarus Uprising anime of sort. I just find it really cool how Sakurai and the development team get really into these reveal trailers. I'm also really glad I don't have to send those Palutena leaks over to my friends for analyzing anymore, and now finally all the people who think they know everything about edited photos that claimed they were fake when really they just didn't want Palutena in the game can shut up. Wow that was quite a nasty sentence.

The trailer showed all twelve of Palutena's special moves, plus her Final Smash, so this Digital Event really brought out the hype for that option. Also, at the end of her trailer, Dark Pit came swooping in, which was really awkward. Is he a character reveal? Is he an assist trophy? What was up with that? I personally doubt he'll be playable because 1) what an awkward reveal, and 2) even though I've never played a Kid Icarus game, Dark Pit just seems too easy to be another Pit. It's pretty much why I don't want Dark Samus playable because I think she'll just be too similar to Samus. I think that Dark Pit will probably be an alternate costume. A lot of other people on the Smash Bros. SubReddit seem to think the same as well. It's not really certain whether every character will have a truly customizable appearance, or like alternate costumes or whatever, but that would be really nice. Besides, some characters already have that, why not all? Then again, I understand it could be difficult to do that... but is a green-haired Zero Suit Samus too much to ask?

^___^ So happy I was right.

So after the Digital Event... nothing else really. The Nintendo Treehouse went on talking about many games from the Digital Event that I initially didn't care too much for at first, but because of how in-depth they went into these games, I became really interested in them. And I don't even have a Wii U. Keep that in mind for my next post on how Nintendo seems to have won E3 for me. Getting back to SM4SH, though, and before I get into the Invitational Tournament, there is one thing I nearly forgot about, and that is Amiibo.

I don't want to get too much into this, but basically, Nintendo is releasing a line of toys or figurines that can interact with both 3DS and Wii U games. It seems they chose Smash Bros as the perfect game to introduce these toys with, and basically, I think there are going to be figurines for every fighter in the game. On the Wii U, there'll be a sensor on the gamepad controller that'll download the toy's information and make them a CPU you can fight and train in the game. Eventually, that CPU will be even stronger than a Level 9 CPU. I don't know how it will entirely work, like if it learns like the AI in Brawl does, but I do know that the Amiibo toy CPUs will be able to level up and equip gear, which is actually something players can do too (the equipping gear part, I mean).**

That's pretty much all I have to say about it really. I'm sure there's more information on it, but that's the gist of it. You can also use that same CPU on other people's games and consoles. It seems like it might be the answer to the cons of training with a Level 9 CPU in Brawl as opposed to fighting real people, even though I'm still certain fighting real people will always be best.

Alright, so Invitational Tournament. I took this as a good opportunity to see how each character plays. As it turns out, I left still without any real idea at all! This tournament was very fresh, intense, and energetic, and honestly, this is the first actual Smash Bros tournament I've ever seen. It was a very impressive event; Sakurai showed up, Reggie showed up, some guy from the Nintendo Treehouse showed up, some host from I think Spike or G4TV was there. Most importantly, though, was the presence of what seemed to be iconic announcers and players. I can't really go into much detail about this tournament anymore as it was a couple of days ago for me, plus like an idiot I didn't take any notes throughout pretty much all of Nintendo's E3 stuff. So, I'll just share my highlights of sort. I guess this also means I'm including videos here. There isn't much that particular stands out in my memory. Bear in mind that my primary concern with this game is how Zero Suit Samus plays, so I paid much of my observation to ZeRo and how he was playing (which unfortunately wasn't too fun or informative since he mostly played it safe. Not as boring and silly as that Media Rumble match though with the different people from different magazines. That was terrible).

Also, interestingly enough, when Sakurai came on stage he said that Samus was reported to be the best character so far. That's right, not Zero Suit Samus, normal Samus, who was absolutely crap in Brawl. That should be interesting.

So first highlight of the day: Zero Suit Samus's Final Smash being revealed! Here's the match that she used it in. This was also the match where ZeRo was either most confidant or most willing to go in to attack, so it was also the most fun to watch. Also, this is a pretty nice look at the Skyloft stage and Rosalina (and I guess Fox and Bowser too).



This was my first true look at Zero Suit in the game, since everything else were just screenshots. Plus her Final Smash was never shown until now (or maybe from livestreams at E3, but I don't care). You cannot imagine the joy that overwhelmed me. You cannot begin to imagine the hype. I was crying, it's true. Zero Suit Samus was amazing, and I was so happy to see that she seems to move just as fast and jump just as fantastically well, if not better than before. She also seems to hit pretty hard, a little bit harder than in Brawl maybe, and of course her Final Smash being infinitely better than it was in Brawl excites the living Hell out of me. Of course, I don't use the Final Smash all that much to begin with, but still.

Throughout the tournament, after every match, they had the fans vote for their favorite character by holding up a notebook with a page open to that character... er, this will take some explaining. The notebook is basically a series of pages, each page an image of a character from the new game. So fans would hold up the character they were voting for, and the people running the event would somehow tally the votes up. I have no idea how they'd do this because there were several times when the votes for one character seemed indistinguishable from the votes for another. Whatever the case, some people were constantly voting for Pikachu even well after he was out of the tournament, and the G4TV host was getting annoyed with that. That was pretty funny.

Next highlight is the Media Rumble. HA HA HA I'm kidding, that was completely awkward and boring. They had another odd match, the Celebrity Match, with people from things that don't seem too popular honestly. Like how many people really watch Teen Wolf? However, they did have Zelda Williams, which I thought was a little bit funny and kind of awkward. Still, she was really, seriously owning it as Greninja (can you imagine how awkward that would've been if she picked Zelda?). I mean god damn, I had no idea Robin Williams's daughter would be so good at Smash Bros. She could probably kick my ass, and I like to think I'm good at playing as Zero Suit Samus (I'm pretty sure I am, I beat several people at my school). Sadly, some random guy playing as Bowser won, but she'll always be the winner of that match in my eyes. I think she even landed a Final Smash, she was just tearing everyone apart.

Then we have the Grand Finals match, which seems like one of the most controversial things to ever happen in the Smash Bros community's history. At least that's the way the Smash Bros SubReddit seems to put it. Just watch the Grand Finals, and if you're big on competitive play (well, you probably already saw this) you can probably see why people were upset and booing. Also, this video I found just so happened to hold my other favorite moment: Reggie comes up and tells somebody he's gonna kick his ass!



Hence where the picture up top comes from! I think it pretty much sums up the crowd's reaction to this fight. Now I personally didn't feel wholly satisfied watching ZeRo play Zero Suit there. I was expecting something insane, and that wasn't what I got. Instead, he used Zero Suit's Plasma Whip a lot. I can see why he used it so much, but that really is not the way you play as Zero Suit Samus, at least in Brawl. ZeRo used that whip for spacing, to keep Hungrybox away, and it worked for the most part. I'm not really going to criticize ZeRo for doing that because that is the smart way to approach Zero Suit Samus when you don't play as her all that much (I assume he doesn't, but also I give the benefit of the doubt because it's a tremendous event, he's playing to win, so of course the best thing to do would be to play it safe). The only part of this video that bothered me was at the end, as the very moment the announcer says, "Remember, there is Sudden Death!" ZeRo just played the evasion game. Again, that was the smart thing to do, but it wasn't very fun to watch, and it disappointed me because I was really hoping to see some crazy action out of Zero Suit Samus. Still, that's just what I wanted. ZeRo wanted to win, and that's perfectly fine, he was the one who was up there playing, not me. Other people, however, did not seem to handle this maturely. I saw a photoshop edit of ZeRo holding that trophy in front of the Twin Towers burning to the ground. That was pretty fucked up and stupid, and I swear anybody who upvoted that on Reddit was a moron.

Then of course, Reggie coming up and telling Hungrybox he was going to kick his ass was gold. Why, do I have a personal vendetta against Hungrybox? No silly, I didn't even know any of these people before I saw this. It was a classic moment because it's Reggie!

Also to add to the disappointment here, I read some interview with one of the players, PewPewU I think was his name, and he said that ZeRo didn't even fully utilize Zero Suit Samus's toolset. I thought I could see a bit of what he said, but more on that later. The good news is, though, that many of the players are saying that Zero Suit Samus is top tier, so when I do get to finally sit down with the game and observe her thoroughly, I am going to have so much fun.

By the way, if you want to see a real finals match with an insane player making insane moves out of Zero Suit Samus, watch the Grand Finals match of Apex 2013: Mew2King versus Salem.***

Last but certainly not least on my highlights reel for the tournament is when Mega Man used his Final Smash. This is literally a classic, cheesy sounding miracle in sports (like when the Heat tied one of last year's finals matches in the last half of a second) coming to life straight from text. Just watch the video and read how I write it out:



"It's the final match of the fan favorites bracket of the first-ever Nintendo-run Smash Bros tournament, for a Smash Bros game that has well yet to be released. Thirty seconds left on the clock. Fans in the audience hunger to see Mega Man draw blood with his Final Smash. The Smash Ball is in the air, but so far he has never succeeded in getting it-- Wait, what's this? Mega Man attained the Smash Ball! He uses his Final Smash, shoots a black hole, seems to miss... But Rosalina walks into it! It's Mega Man's Final Smash! The crowd roars at the Mega Men joining together and taking Rosalina down! The walls are coming down in the house!"

I don't do the video any justice, but just imagine reading something like that and then it suddenly explodes into reality. This was something I honestly lost hope of seeing since the guy playing Mega Man had a terrible time trying to get the Smash Balls that popped up in previous matches. I personally don't care tremendously for Mega Man (though I think he's way more awesome than a certain somebody I've yet to talk about), but I can't deny I really felt the hype for his Final Smash, that was just really cool.

If none of this was enough, there was still more SM4SH news later that night, as Sakurai held a closed doors discussion for the game (though weirdly, there is a video out there showing very small bits of it, only about thirty seconds long). How did he start off the discussion? Why, with another character reveal! Next up we have... Oh... Wait a minute... Oh no...

PAC-MAN???????

That is NOT a fake leak, ladies and gentlemen! That is straight from Nintendo's Super Smash Bros website.

As you may know from my rant about the Prophet of SM4SH, I was a very big opponent against having Pac-Man in the game. I was afraid they were going to use his terrible design in Pac-Man's Ghostly Adventures or whatever the Hell it's called. I was afraid his character, like the Mii, was going to feel out of place and more like a Brawl hack than a real Smash Bros character. Honestly, I also really did not want that "prophet" to be right, and more on that in a moment.

Then I saw the Pac-Man reveal trailer, and I looked at the screenshots in the game, and then I took a breath. It's not as bad as I thought it would be (although that Pac-Land stage for the Wii U looks like crap. I'm interested in playing on it but the design just looks so bad to the eyes). Pac-Man's moveset make nice references to the other Namco-Bandai classics. It felt genuinely designed with respect for the character's franchise, and seeing Sakurai make all these shots of Pac-Man juxtaposed with these other classic video game characters is actually really beautiful. You can get a sense that he is completely in love with what he's doing, and this is probably quite a historical moment in gaming as this seems to be the first game in which all these iconic characters come together. So seeing them dug out of their graves and treated lovingly is in itself a wonderful thing for me to see, so I'm actually really happy with how this came out.

Still, I am a man of my word. Pac-Man is still going to be my punching bag for Zero Suit Samus. If you're a Pac-Man player when this game comes out, watch out! I'll be like when a bull sees red!

I also at least can't deny that 3DS stage looks pretty cool.

Also, I almost forgot about this classic line from the developer roundtable:  A competitive Smash player is trying to challenge Sakurai to see if he can win and help balance the game. Sakurai asked "Have you ever made a game?"

So basically, Sakurai owned somebody tremendously harder and did not even need to play Smash Bros for it. Well done. And one more thing about the roundtable that I found really awesome was that Sakurai said he expected Zero Suit Samus to win that tournament. I feel like this may mean Sakurai is really intending for Zero Suit Samus to be a really awesome character and possibly better than she was in Brawl. Judging from what others are saying about her, it really seems that she has improved a lot, which is crazy because in Brawl she was already an amazing character. Hopefully Sakurai won't tune her down too much if that's what he's thinking of doing after this week.

The rest of Smash Bros at E3 consisted of showcasing from Nintendo's Treehouse department. This was a very enjoyable few hours of watching them play the game, and what I really loved about watching the Treehouse do this (and this goes for every game) is that they all really enjoyed the games. They weren't these really lousy and stupid scripted playthroughs like that god-awful demo of Killer Instinct at last year's Microsoft press conference. Watching them play Super Smash Bros felt a lot like being with other people playing Super Smash Bros, and I was amazed at how well they restrained profanity while being genuinely into the game. I just feel a game like that makes it hard to be that way, ha ha.

Unfortunately I do not have a tremendous amount of things to say about the Treehouse showcasings of this game. That's partially because I missed Wednesday's Treehouse livestream so that I could go and actually play the game at Best Buy all the way in Jacksonville (I had to drive from Tallahasee, which is a three hour drive). The rest of the reasoning though is that it just wasn't too informative for me (it was still amazing to see), so I can't really talk about it. I did catch a highlight of them playing it on the Wii U with the top players of the tournament, and Nate, one of the members of the Treehouse department, got Zero Suit Samus in a random selection and showed off quite a few things that ZeRo didn't really do.

What I did find worth going into detail for was their showcasing of the 3DS version. Sadly, I missed them going over Smash Run, but I did get to play Smash Run when I went to Best Buy, so sit tight while I get there. Nate and some other guy, the same unnamed Treehouse guy who appeared in the tournament, were playing each other on the 3DS version of the game. The characters that were used included Samus, Donkey Kong, Mega Man, Toon Link, Greninja, Pit, Sheik, Bowser, Pikachu, and Yoshi. Yoshi seemed quite fast, but I don't remember very well what he's like in Brawl since I never play as him. They were saying that Yoshi now has a new dash attack that has better knockout power, so that's good I guess. The main gist of this segment though for me concerned the sages. I got to see a lot out of the game's 3DS stages, which were always on my mind with regards to this game. The first stage they played on was the island from Animal Crossing. As we may know already from Sakurai's Miiverse posts, the Treehouse reps said that the stage's layout changes randomly each time it's chosen. There are trees on the stage that bear fruit, most of which heals you except for coconuts. Coconuts can be picked up and thrown at your opponents like the apples from Green Greens. I thought I saw the coconuts explode on impact, which was awkward. A shark came by, but neither of the reps wanted to jump into the water, so I neither A) saw whether swimming mechanics were still in the game (I have a feeling this was already either confirmed/deconfirmed though) and B) saw what the shark would do. Cap'n comes by every now and then as well, but I didn't really see him do anything. Maybe he gives items, I'm not sure.

I cannot remember the exact order in which they played the stages, but I am pretty sure I remember each of them, so I can describe them. The next I remember was the Golden Plains. This was the stage that Sakurai revealed on the "first" day of E3, actually (Tuesday). It is based off something you'd typically find in the classic or New Super Mario Bros. games, and there are coins all over the place. When you collect a hundred of them, you turn gold and I think you move faster, deal more damage, and get harder to knockback for a short time. So it's like the metal box but with speed and possibly less weight mechanics.

Next is the Nintendogs stage, which I'm really happy they chose because I was dying to see what that stage was like. So far there doesn't seem to be all that much to it (still looks fun though), as all I've seen was a random sequence of dropping dog toys and other items (a glass slipper and a hamburger for example) from the ceiling. I keep hearing that the dog interacts but I don't see him doing anything, unless he is tossing the toys and stuff over (though I never saw that happen at all). Nate did say, though, that a cat comes in at some point, so that will pretty much make Nintendogs automatically the best stage.

Gerudo Valley is another stage they played on. This map is a lot similar to Bridge of Eldin in that there is a part of the center of the map that goes out for some time (if not indefinitely here). There are a few platforms, a couple above and a couple beneath the bridge. At the bottom of the map, I think there are spikes or something, because I remember seeing one of the players fall to the bottom and bounce right up with some damage taken. The main thing that makes this map though are the Twinrova sisters, who'll randomly cast fire or ice magic as stage hazards. Fun fact: I completely forgot about them when I played this game and got killed by the ice magic, which if it didn't happen, I probably would've won my first match in SM4SH.

The last stage is Arena Ferox. I honestly have very little to say about this stage, but then again I might not have been really listening. Let me see if I can watch them playing on it again. Okay, so as they put it, it is basically like the Pokémon Stadium stage, where you start off on a flat arena that dynamically shifts and changes form. Unlike the Pokémon Stadium stage, the changes appear to mostly be simple differences in the layout and structure of the platforms. One moment it's the two statues from Brawl's Castle Siege map holding platforms, the next it's a series of gears rotating platforms.

I realize this post is coming out incredibly long, and I still have to talk about Smashfest at Best Buy. So once again, I'm going to have to split up this post. I've spent about a good six hours out of this week just looking at Super Smash Bros stuff alone, and it's all just been truly amazing. To wrap up the stuff I viewed off livestreams, here's a list of some notable character changes that I found from watching.

• Pit has a new Side-B, which thank God because Brawl's Side-B was so annoying. He also has a new Up-B but I either never saw it or I don't remember it at all.
• Sheik has a new Side-B that looks pretty cool, but I don't think it ever did that much damage or knockback. He basically lobs out a grenade, like Sakurai explained in Sheik's character reveal, but what we didn't know then was that his grenade can vacuum opponents into it. Sheik also has a new Down-B, which looks basically a lot like Zero Suit Samus's Down-B, but I don't think the kick is separate from the flip jump. Nothing I saw from that match really indicated to me, however, whether Sheik was any stronger than she was in Brawl.
• Luigi has a new Final Smash in which he pulls out his vacuum from Luigi's Mansion and tornadoes around the stage with it, sucking people into their deaths.
• The Villager seems to be able to reset items entirely with his special move that picks up items and projectiles. During the Wii U segments, a jelly bomb was about to explode, and he picked it up right off the floor. Later, he pulled it out of his pocket, and the bomb appeared to have reset. This is really interesting, but it is not certain whether that will remain in the game.
• Greninja's substitute special seems really contingent on really good timing, much more so than Marth. Or Nate was just screwing it up pretty badly, but it seems to me the counter window consists of less frames. Greninja's recovery is also pretty much Pikachu's. I'll get more into Greninja in the next post.
• Little Mac, thank GOD, cannot one-shot you with his charged up K.O. attack... unless, of course, you rack up a high enough damage percentage.
• Link has a purportedly better dash attack than before.
• Samus's Up-B can sort of spike enemies at the last frame. More on Samus in the next post.
• Zero Suit Samus's new Up-B can connect into a pretty strong kick. I saw a pretty awesome combo where somebody used the iconic Down-A smash and followed that up with an Up-B that connected several hits into one, and ended with a very strong knockback from the follow up kick. As cool as that looked, I honestly still hope her original Up-B is still in the game as a custom move. More on Zero Suit Samus in the next post.

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* Let me briefly explain my gripe with the "prophet" of SM4SH. First off, I hated that everybody seemed to be giving him too much credit, especially when he said Palutena was going to be in the game when her leaks had been out there for months already. Now she's confirmed and I've seen people credit the Prophet. You'd might as well give me credit too because I didn't think those leaks were fake either. The other problem I had with him was that I just simply hated what he was doing. If you know who is going to be in the game, don't tell people! Why would you do that? Thankfully I found out about him well after Little Mac was announced, but my potential surprise at the Mii or Pac-Man being in the game was ruined because he set up the expectation of either seeing them revealed or not. That is what ultimately pisses me off about that idiot. Hell, he even ruined the Palutena reveal, because, for half a moment, I was shouting, "Called it!" and then I wondered if I really had any doubt to begin with because the freaking "prophet" said she would be in the game. I really, really hate that right now. But I guess in the long run, what does it matter? These are characters I was going to end up playing with in the game regardless of whether they were spoiled or not.

So yeah, that's my problem with that asshole. He never e-mailed me, too, that wuss. I'm just going to say that it was Sakurai's and an interpreter's doing, just to troll people and hype them up. I feel much better thinking of it that way.

** This kinda feels a little too much like Dissidia. However, considering it's Nintendo and the same guy who has brought us the previous Smash games, I really doubt this game will be anywhere near as bad as that atrocity.

*** Just watch this, watch how tremendous the hype is. This is literally the best thing I have ever seen out of anything relevant to Smash Bros.



Now that was fun to watch and the way Zero Suit Samus should be played. I wish I could be anywhere near as good as that guy. Hopefully next time my school has a big old Brawl thing I can get sort of far into it with Zero Suit Samus.

Damn It, E3!

They fucking changed the dates on me! Agggghhhhhh! They said it was from the 10th to the 12th, nothing on the 9th! And as it turns out, EVERYTHING was on the 9th! Fuck you too, E3.

Well, at least Nintendo is still sticking to the same schedule I assumed they had, so I can still be on track with my E3 posts concerning them and Smash Bros. Thankfully I wasn't originally planning on writing just after each press conference as I did last year. Instead, I'm going to make a much more condensed, single post recapping the event. Unfortunately, today was my only day out of this week (until Friday I guess) to do that, but since I had no idea E3 was happening, that's all gonna have to wait.

So tomorrow, Nintendo gives their presentation! So excited! After that, on Wednesday, I'm going to Jacksonville for Super Smash Bros.! Then I'll have a more Smash Bros-focused post, hopefully before Friday, and then on Friday I'll start working on the rest of E3.

Oh yeah and my Metroid II essay is coming, things are just kinda busy right now. Well, especially now, with everything going on with E3 running over on top of school. This is gonna be one hectic week for me.

Discrediting the "Prophet" of Super Smash Bros.

Well I finally found a name for my show. Anyway, so yeah, I'm sick and tired of people saying Pac-Man is gonna be in the game just because this guy said so. That's the gist of things.

Also, I am working on a Metroid II post! Expect that soon, sometime this week. I'm already about three-quarters done with it.

NEW POKEMON REMAKES ZOMG

Now I don't particularly care for the Hoenn region and Gen 3 Pokémon, which probably sounds like scandal to everybody as I'm pretty sure these are the most popular Pokémon games in the series. I'm sorry! Generation IV is still my favorite, even if I haven't played any of these games since Yellow (I mean I do have Pokémon X, don't get me wrong). Even though Gen IV did have Regigigas ("Regigigas just can't get it going!"), it still had some pretty cool legendaries. Kyogre is pretty neat, and so is Jirachi (hello, that's like one of my favorite Pokémon), but Latios/Latias are like wanna-be Lugias (with a silly design imo), all of the Regis--even Registeel--suck (and why the unified Fighting weakness?), and Deoxys also kinda sucks. Maybe it's just that I never used its Attack Forme that I think of it that way, idk. Still, I am pretty interested in seeing a Mega-Evolved Kyogre (come on, those are definitely Mega-Evolutions on those covers)-- Kyogre as it stands is already pretty OP and ridiculous. I can't begin to imagine what a Mega-Evolution will do. Then again, not every Mega-Evolution is all that good. Look at Mewtwo X: not very spectacular. I love destroying Mega-Mewtwo X with a Play Rough from Mawile or a Hyper Beam from Pixilate Sylveon.

I would rather see a Gen IV remake (Dialga's cooler than all these "weather" Pokémon combined and you know it), but I get that it would make no sense to skip these games over. Especially since people really think they are the best games in the series; I personally have no idea why, but I guess I'll see when I get Alpha Sapphire.

Along the lines of Pokémon, I'm putting together a new team. I discovered the incredible hilarity and sheer glass-power that is Mega-Mawile (aptly nicknamed Bites), and I was having so much fun destroying teams that I found myself wanting to build a team around my beloved Bites. So for my alternative Pokémon team on the off-chance I get tired of my beloved Eevee team, this is what I've got so far (plus my own strategizing so you could own me!):

• Mawile@Mawilite: Add Huge Power to Mawile's ~ base 105 Attack (probably more), throw in some coverage moves from its good variety in its movepool, and top that off with its hilariously animated STAB/Fairy-type move, Play Rough, and you have quite the nightmare that lives up to the Japanese ghost myth it is based off of (okay not really since the original Yokai is not really sinister, I don't think).
• Huge Power Azumarill@Sitrus Berry, with Belly Drum and Aqua Jet: This is an uncertainty and may change, but with instant access to 648 Attack, PLUS an instant recovery from the otherwise potentially life-threatening Belly Drum, you've got quite the annoying game breaker. I read this was illegal in tournament play, but I don't really do tournaments. If anything, I've got a physical wall setup on Tangrowth in mind to replace this. My "Mega Bites" essentially does the same thing anyway. Now if I could get Play Rough without breeding for egg moves (which I highly doubt), that'll truly make this Pokémon even more ridiculous.
• Dragonite: Because type coverage and dragons! I think its stats are good, too, so I think he'll make for a good non-gimmicky Pokémon in my team. Haven't really thought of much else to do with him though.
• Blissey@Something, maybe Leftovers: The quintessential special wall. I was going to make it a Wish-passer, but idk. The tremendous problem is that Wish is an egg move, and neither of my 6IV Blisseys have it. One of them has Aromatherapy, which is pretty cool I guess, but the lack of Wish really bothers me. I really don't feel like breeding either, since I'll have to breed for IVs as well, and I've bred hundreds of Pokémon already. Still, if I could get it Wish, I believe Blissey will really be an excellent healer. No wonder she (or I guess Chancey) is always with Nurse Joy at the Pokémon Center!
• Volcarona@Something, maybe Life Orb: If you know Volcarona well enough (read: entered just about any battle where somebody cheaply boosted it and one-shotted you with a Bug Buzz), you'll know that Volcarona is pretty dangerous. People say its resistances are crap, but it's really only weak to three things: Water, Flying, and especially Rock, and you'd have to be a tremendous moron (or just unaware of Pokémon types) to throw a Volcarona at a Rock type. This is what my Azumarill is for!
• Skarmory@Something: And finally, a really annoying trap-setter that is pretty impossible to take down quickly. So far I think I only have Spikes set up on it; I would like Stealth Rock as well but I don't want to deal with egg move/IV breeding when my Skarmory already has 6 IVs. Throw in Roost to give back health and we've got something truly annoying to contend with.

Yeah, it pretty much looks like I've got a gimmicky annoying Pokémon team, and I'm proud! DEAL WITH IT.

Along blog news, I've got another YouTube talk-show/podcast thing in the works on Super Smash Bros. I just need to pretty much finish editing the lengths of the photos, so it shouldn't take too long, but I'm pretty lazy so that may count against that. Luckily right now I feel like taking a break from my video games, so maybe I can get around to finishing it.

Zero Suit Samus! Greninja! All the Smash Bros. Happy Feels!

NOW WITH HIGH HEELS!

 

 

I cannot even find the words to begin to explain my happiness. Oh my god. This is sooooo beautiful! Just watch the Nintendo Direct, damn it!

 

 



This is so wonderful!!!! ☆*･゜ﾟ･*\(^O^)/*･゜ﾟ･*☆ (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*
(ღ˘⌣˘ღ) ♫･*:.｡. .｡.:*･ ლ(⌒▽⌒ლ)

Everything about this is perfect! Oh Sakurai you master of trolling! Pseudo-Palutena! ZSS not making it into the game! Waluigi! Oh my god this is just too good for me!

Update: Forgot to mention, listen to when they talk about Zero Suit Samus! "Slightly lesser strength than other characters." LMFAO they just took one of the strongest characters and made her stronger! On a more solemn note, it was just as I feared with Little Mac. He will be getting free one-hit K.O.'s. All he has to do is punch and take hits. Oh the doom, oh the misery...

HA HA HA screw that noise! As ZSS, I whooped so many asses who thought they could take me down with Meta-Knight, do you really think I'll be phased by one cheap little move! Lol no!

BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Audio Review (Plus Some Space Dandy)

I know, the Metroid thing hasn't gone anywhere further yet, but don't fret, as I will get right to that... eventually. For now, I've played Episode 2 of Burial at Sea, allowing me to give a complete review of the DLC set as a whole. Unfortunately, I haven't played Episode 1 since last October, so I can't really say much about it, but boy do I have stuff to say about Episode 2. Since this was mainly done for my other, private blog, you guys also get me fangirling over Space Dandy as an added bonus! So I hope you enjoy this change of pace.

Metroid: Zero Mission

Inori Says:

Hello! I am Inori Aizawa. Internet Explorer's Mascot who decided to take up the much cooler job of summarizing Axel-sama's really long posts with tl;dr versions of them! For Metroid: Zero Mission, if you're interested, he strongly suggests giving it a try! Pros Include Not just a remake of Metroid; very clear devotion to making the original game an almost entirely new experience. Great, well-polished art design, sprites, area backgrounds, etc. Nice remixes of classic songs, nearly always setting the mood where dialogue and action are nowhere present. Fast-paced action-platforming gameplay that also encourages you to slow down sometimes. (Careful with running for best times, though). VERY VERY BERRY HIGH REPLAY VALUE, multiple ways to play this game (and rewards for doing so) Fun and challenging boss fights. A neat little stealth segment at the end that subverts the typical series formula (in a good way). Samus is hot? (In all seriousness, the character design is nice). Simple-yet-subtle touches in a couple of moments of the game's otherwise thin plot. Cons Include Running the game on 15% Item Completion on Hard mode was a little over-the-top ridiculous. Also, pretty steep learning curve in figuring out how to solve the more challenging puzzles for items without making so many mistakes that you have to reset the game to preserve your time. Too short? (Maybe for others). Sometimes the bosses may just be a little too straightforward.

Let me begin with an explanation of how this series is going to work. I currently have all of the 2D side-scrolling Metroid games available for me to play on my 3DS, so those will be played first. I really wanted to do a chronological thing, but because I don't have my Wii up here in Tallahassee, that is not going to work. I just found out that Metroid Prime and MP2 seem to work emulated on my computer, but it is uncertain whether there may still be a bug later on in the game that'll cause it to be unplayable on my computer. Because there is a lot of uncertainty about how I'm going to get the Prime series to work and thus be consistent with how often I write my posts here, I am going to play those games after I play through the 2D side-scrollers. That also means Metroid: Other M is last, which shouldn't matter because nobody should really care about that game. Hell I'm possibly showing too much care already by including it!

Now I hope you're not a fanatic who is about to ditch me here just because I chose to review M:ZM before the original Metroid. First of all, I don't have the original Metroid on me; my brother has it on his 3DS (which I used to purchase it, long story). I figured why am I going to buy the game again when I can just transfer it from my brother's SD card? Some of you may be wondering, then, why I didn't just download a rom of the GBA port, and to that I say, I would prefer to play it without the emulator. It's a simple formula: Virtual Console is more stable than flashcart.

Second of all, if you honestly think Metroid is a better game than Zero Mission, you have problems. You must, then, think Final Fantasy I and II are better games than VI, XII, or even VII. Or, to put this back in terms of Nintendo, that Super Mario Bros. was a better game than Super Mario 64 or Sunshine. Or that The Legend of Zelda is a better game than Wind Waker. In that case, there is nothing I can do for you. You are trapped forever in a retroactive state of mind, in a retroactive belief that, "Old is always better." For you personally, I am truly very sorry.

Moving on, let's talk about Zero Mission! I'm going to start with some background to give you Readers an idea of my history with Metroid and this game. Very shamefully, I am going to admit right now that the thing that got me into the Metroid series was that I saw a similarity between it and Halo. I'm talking about Metroid Prime, of course, seeing as how Halo was never a 2D side-scroller. I only had a GameCube, not an Xbox, so I could only play Halo 2 when I was over at somebody who had an Xbox. So, when I found out about Metroid Prime, I thought, "Hey, this looks like Halo," and so I went and got it. Of course, I was immediately disappointed with the fact that there was no multiplayer feature, which was pretty much the thing that sparked a contrast between my brother and me in our liking of the game. However, I was already used to games being single-player only. That was how pretty much all games were throughout my childhood, so why should it bother me then? I also don't think I've ever played the single-player mode of any first-person shooter before, so I guess that makes Metroid Prime my first FPS, even though the game stands far off from that. If it's like any game, it's actually surprisingly a lot like Half-Life. It is almost very much an open-world Half-Life where the emphasis is more on platforming than on physics, yet still retains the sci-fi and the puzzle elements and the simple fact alone that it is more than just running around shooting things (coughs and mentions Call of Duty).

What does any of this have to do with Zero Mission, though? Well, Metroid Prime was the only thing I knew of the Metroid series for a while. I had no idea that it was initially a side-scrolling series until I laid my eyes upon an advertisement for Metroid: Zero Mission...

Wait no, that's wrong. I knew pretty much right away that it was initially a side-scrolling series, because after I beat Prime, I unlocked the original Metroid. I never really played through much of it at the time though. After that, I laid eyes on Zero Mission, which I found was supposed to be a remake of the original Metroid game. Remake is a term I refuse to use in referencing Zero Mission, but more on that in a bit. So anyway, since the GameBoy Advance was the biggest thing at the time, I got Zero Mission and fell in love with the game. The graphics, for a GBA game, were beautiful, which sounds shallow but meant a lot to me as a kid, seeing things look better than previous things. I was unsure at first how I'd feel about the gameplay, but the gameplay was incredible to me since it was everything that Prime was but at a much faster and exciting pace (not to deny that Prime was an exciting game). Zero Mission was what truly got me interested in the core games of the Metroid series, and it was what led me to like the original Metroid in spite of how, when I was that age, I never really liked NES games all that much.

So let's talk about Zero Mission, finally. What is Metroid: Zero Mission? Is it a port? Is it a remake? Well, obviously, it isn't really a port. Sure, it's the original game on the GBA, but it's not literally the same thing like the NES series of GBA games. It is defined as "an enhanced remake of the original Metroid game, designed to retell that entry's story with Super Metroid-like gameplay" on Wikipedia. While the gameplay is certainly that of Super Metroid, I would not settle with the term "remake" (even though they threw in "enhanced" to modify that). I would call Metroid: Zero Mission a complete revision of the original Metroid game. Sure, the entire layout of the game is familiar, but this is also a game that was built from the ground up, with its own additions and differences that set it pretty far apart from the original Metroid. I mean, Nintendo could have very easily placed this game somewhere chronologically between Metroid and Super Metroid and called it another game in itself. That is pretty much what Metroid: Zero Mission is in a nutshell.

I guess I can start with the obvious: the graphics and audio. GameBoy Advance games were (or could have been) 32-bit games, allowing for a broader range of color-pallets and detailed sprite images to run together. What was once a blocky-looking Samus Aran robot thing was now a fully-detailed armored sprite, with ridges along the knees, elbows, and other parts of the suit. The "breastplate" of Samus's suit, which in my opinion for the longest time was the only thing remotely indicative of her sex, was sort of distinguishable. You could see markings, the thrusters on the backside of her suit, the ridges and linings in her arm cannon, and the shape of her visor and the small pipes beneath it, I think. The enemies, namely of course the bosses, have also been brought to eye-popping detail. I would go so far as to say that this game looks even better than Metroid Fusion, when in actuality the two may have the same specs in terms of graphics. Here is where it boils down to art design, the backgrounds they use for each section, how the monsters look, and, once again, how the bosses are designed. One example I can pull up is how Ridley in this game looks compared to Ridley in Fusion. First of all things, Ridley in this game is more in line with how he looks in Super Metroid and even the Prime series, whereas in Fusion, Ridley is sort of funny looking. His eyeballs have pupil, they are big, and his snout is more like a cross between a crocodile's and a toucan's beak than his original thin and pointed, dragon-like snout. I mean, he still retains the form of a dragon, more or less, but Ridley in Fusion was a lot more cartoony to me than he was in this game (and cartoony feels like a strange term to use for the Metroid series). It's not that it was bad or anything, it was just... well, it was just sort of funny-looking.

Go ahead, you be the judge. This is a bad screen, too, as his eyes definitely have pupils.

So yeah, art direction! I just thought it was all more polished in this game. Not a huge thing or anything, but yeah. There are also some interesting things to talk about concerning Samus's character artwork as well, but I'll leave that for later (probably the end of the post as it is a fitting place). Then we have the soundtrack. The Metroid series probably has one of the most underrated or unnoticed soundtracks out there. You get a lot of orchestral and piano remakes of songs from The Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy. I think there may have even been a Mario music thing at some point or another. If there are stuff for Metroid's music, you just don't hear about it as often. The beautiful thing about Metroid, which probably goes for a lot of Nintendo games as well, is how well they are able to set the mood or tone throughout the game through cues in the music. This is especially noteworthy due to the lack of dialogue and voice acting in the Metroid games... err, well, in most of them anyway. A great example for this post would be the Chozodia theme, after Samus retrieves her Power Suit (if you are freaking about spoilers, you are freaking out over a game that is eight years old). The Chozodia theme is actually a sort of remix of the Brinstar theme, which is an iconic theme of the Metroid series. The Brinstar theme is cheery, catchy, and evenly-paced if not slightly upbeat in tempo and spirit. It is also the very first song you hear in actual gameplay of all these games. It is very inviting in that way and helps establish the feeling that you are on an exciting adventure, enticing you to explore the interestingly subterranean planet Zebes.

I kind of forgot that I was talking about Chozodia, ha ha. As I said, it is a remix of the Brinstar theme: slightly faster-paced, sounding more of like a fanfare as the music is in a higher dynamic, and each down beat (i.e. beat that a phrase starts on) is almost sort of explosive, as they have some sort of percussion marking those beats. We're not just hearing the welcoming theme that evoked excitement at the beginning of the game, we're now hearing that almost sort of celebrates all that you've been through to now have the "fully-powered suit." In other words, Samus is now one-hundred percent badass, and therefore badass iconic music needs to play to reflect that. It's not just a matter of finally attaining all of the main abilities in the game; the space pirates at the end of the game are virtually powerless against the awe of Samus and her awesomeness.

So before I go on forever about the gameplay, let's talk about story real quick. So... story in Zero Mission... wait a minute? Is there really a story here? Well, one of the selling points of Zero Mission is that it has cutscenes that further enact the story of the original game. Plus, we have a really awesome sort of "bonus" sequence (even though it is essential to beating the game) where we see that Samus never fully does escape Zebes after Mother Brain. But that's jumping ahead a little bit. The story of the game kind of actually begins before the title screen, which I think we pretty much have seen before in the original Metroid. We get a message that reads something along the lines of "Emergency Mission! Destroy the Metroids and Mother Brain" blah blah. In between each thing, we see brief scenes of Samus rushing over to Zebes, although not much really. When the game starts, she lands her ship, and we get this sort of retroactive reflection of the events of the game (not everything, but just that this was Samus's first, or "zero," mission). Then that's pretty much it, afterward we just get some brief intermittent cutscenes for most of the zones, which pretty much explain things like how Ridley arrived and stuff like that. Metroid's never really been all that much about the plot, honestly, and that's really okay, because on the other hand we have things like Other M to contend with.

The point of the game where the story gets really big is, once again, the ending sequence after Mother Brain. I actually really love this whole thing on so many more levels than just the fact that it expands the original game. First off, we have what I think to be a brilliant developing point in Samus's character, which all throughout the games hasn't really been too explored... well, aside from Fusion, but I mean even then, most people thought of Samus as this badass femme fatale whose cunning transcended human comprehension, which is sort of a good way to describe who she is. HOWEVER, this game does something really cool hat I think most people don't notice: we see she didn't always outsmart her own foes. We see in a pretty simple and straightforward cutscene how, after dealing with Mother Brain, she flies off into Zebes orbit and runs into space pirates. She manages to escape these guys, but in a moment of ease, when she least suspects it, she gets shot down and crash lands back on Zebes without her Power Suit. This is where the iconic Zero Suit gets introduced, but I'll have more on that later. This scene, at first glance or from just casual observation, just seems simple enough to further the plot along. However, there is something really cool happening here. As soon as Samus leaves Zebes's atmosphere, she takes off her Power Suit and catches her breath. Then, when things seem quite after that run-in with the space pirates, she seems to relax again, and this costs her her escape from Zebes. Do you where I'm going here? Samus makes a mistake. It isn't even just any kind of mistake, but I believe it to be a mistake that kind of implies that there was more to her than we imagine. It's kind of like she might've been sort of naïve during this time of her first mission. I mean, why not be that way? You are a super-human badass with access to an entire armory of advanced technologies and weaponry. No human being can fully understand what you are. If I were Samus I too would've taken a breath after destroying Mother Brain. Hell I would've kicked back with a cigar and glass of whiskey and probably laughed, congratulating myself for being awesome. Unlike Samus, though, I probably would've been so caught up with that nonsense that I probably would've been dead at the end of Zero Mission.

Well anyway, putting my silliness aside, that's what I make of that scene where Samus gets shot down. Who knows, maybe I'm reading too much into it and it really is just a means of expanding the plot, but nothing the developers can say will change my mind, I believe this is revealing of possibly Samus's age and mindset versus her experience so far in her line of work.

Then of course we get the whole Zero Suit stealth sequence, which is more gameplay talk to be saved for later. Then we get another interesting cutscene, where Samus is at this sort of shrine or whatever, and we see a flashback that reveals a little of her history with the Chozo, and that she was taken here as a child for some reason. So wait a minute, Samus has been to this shrine before, and it looks like there is only one way in. What does this mean? To me, it pretty much means that the whole time she went at least through the Chozo ruins segment of Chozodia, that she knew where she was going this whole time we, the players, thought we were just exploring. Could that mean that Samus knew, this whole entire time we've been venturing through Zebes, where she was going? I think maybe, but it certainly wouldn't be supported by the Chozo statues, which are placed to guide her to the items you find in the game. I know it mainly serves a gameplay purpose, which many find really annoying since it kind of holds your hand a little, but think about it from a story's perspective. If you know that Samus was raised on this planet, by the Chozo and all, you can kind of get the sense that these statues may have been placed in anticipation of her. We get support in later Metroid games that the Chozo were kind of clairvoyant, too.

Well anyway, after Samus gets her Power Suit back, we see how she acquired the iconic look of the big bulky shoulders and such. Then we see how she escaped, and that's about it. Oh wait, we also see Mecha-Ridley, and the fact that we see it so soon after defeating Ridley really shows how well the space pirates anticipated and prepared for Ridley's death (doesn't seem like they have a lot of faith in their top general). But I like that this kind of shows a sort of development or evolution of the Meta-Ridley we recognize from the Prime series, and that Meta-Ridley wasn't always as fast and efficient as he seemed to be in Prime. I mean, he's a giant robot that can't fly, takes up an entire screen, and has a huge weak spot left right out there in the open (although since he's so cramped in the room, it makes it hard to hit). It's almost clearly obvious that he was in no means ready for a situation where Samus comes bursting into their mother ship, if it weren't for the fact that he is one of the most difficult Metroid bosses ever. I mean, sure, he's no so bad with ninety-nine percent item completion, but on the other challenges of the game, he can be one hell of a pain in the ass.

It looks like we're getting into the gameplay now, so why don't we talk about that already? The first thing I want to look at is the fact that there are several ways to play this game. Yes, there is an "Easy," "Normal," and "Hard" mode, but there's more to it than just that. There are eight different "endings" for completing the game under different circumstances. These "endings" are pretty much concept art with different depictions of Samus, nearly all of which are super awesome. You can set out to beat the game on all difficulties, but what is a Metroid game without any reason for speed-running it (well aside from the Prime series, but more on that in a future post)? There are eight circumstances that will reward you for completing them:

1. Beat the game with 15% item completion or less on Hard mode (I like to call this "Curse-and-Nearly-Break-Your-Game Mode"). The picture up top by the way is the reward for doing this.
2. Beat the game with 15% item completion or less on Normal mode. It really isn't all that bad.
3. Beat the game in under 2 hours with 100% completion on Hard mode (I like to call this "Just-Reset-the-Game Mode").
4. Beat the game in under 2 hours with 100% completion on Normal mode (Also called "Just-Reset-the-Game Mode").
5. Beat the game with 100% completion on Normal/Hard mode.
6. Beat the game in under 2 hours with less than 100% completion, Normal/Hard mode.
7. Beat the game in over 2 hours, but under 4, with less than 100% completion, Normal/Hard mode.
8. Take 4 hours to beat the game, or if you're good at the game and smart, beat it on Easy mode. Why would you intentionally spend 4 hours playing one game to unlock the specific ending?

These really aren't the only ways to beat the game either. There are records other players have set, each under different circumstances of their on. There's the 9%-Only Challenge, where you play through the game with only the items essential to beating the game! That means no energy tanks, no missiles beyond the one you need to get to kill bosses and stuff with, no super missiles, no power bombs (mostly unimportant anyway), and no nice things like screw attack and hi-jump boots. Maybe on Normal mode this isn't as bad as it sounds, but I've already vowed to never play another Metroid game on Hard mode for the 15% challenge. That whole thing was so frustrating it nearly made me hate Zero Mission, which is actually my favorite game in the whole series. I managed to do it, though, so I am officially good at these games, and thus that makes me a sound authority.

And then, if that huge block of text describing the different challenges the game has to offer wasn't enough, we have something that's pretty big in the Metroid series: sequence-breaking. Metroid, when it is actually good and not like Other M, is about exploring pretty much every nook and cranny the worlds have to offer. You will find places that will puzzle you and make you scratch your head, but then, when you have found a particular ability, you'll remember that very place and go back again to try and get there. The Metroid worlds are known for being, for the most part, open-ended and enabling for you to explore without any real barriers that go out of the way to prevent you from doing that. Wow that was a loaded sentence. Anyway, so while you can follow the beaten path and go where the annoying Chozo statues tell you to go, you can also rebel against the hand-holding pretty much the moment you get the bombs for morph-ball. Why? Because this game has virtually no limitations on how many bombs you can place at once.

Usually, in other games, you could only place down three bombs and wait for them all to blow up before placing more. In this game, you can pretty much place bombs forever. This enables players the ability to bomb-jump in many ways that were previously impossible to do. For example, one can bomb jump diagonally across spaces to get to areas without the "required" power-ups needed to get there. It's all a matter of timing. Some skilled players can perfectly place bombs in such a timed succession that they can sort of jump twice at a time. It's hard to explain. I never got into doing that, so I just place down one bomb at a time to jump. There's also horizontal bomb jumping, which is somehow done to move in a straight line backward or forward. I have no idea how this is possible, as well as what use it could possibly serve at some point, but it's there if you so choose to use it.

Then of course there's wall-jumping and the shinesparking, which is when you speed boost and suddenly crouch to store up that momentum and unleash it to make some kind of ridiculous jump in any direction you put in. My god I'm having problems with syntax today. Basically, there are a ton of things you can do that go beyond what's clearly set in stone. Sequence-breaking pretty much allows for this game to be experimented with in a ton of ways, allowing for even more depth and complexity in the progression of the game. Combine this with the different challenges you can set out to achieve in Zero Mission, and you essentially have an incredibly high replay value for this game. I beat this game about nine or ten different times in order to A) fully unlock everything, and B) write this analysis of the game, and there was not one play-through where I felt tired with or bored of the game (although certainly annoyed and frustrated when it came to the ridiculous 15% Hard mode challenge, or having to constantly reset the game to preserve a best time).

Here I want to segue into game design, or level design, a little bit. I am no scholar on the art of game design, so excuse me for my lack of critical language, but I can certainly tell intelligent layout of the environments when I see it (disclaimer: sometimes). One example of intelligence and not seemingly arbitrary at first glance: talking about sequence-breaking and item challenges and stuff, at the very end of the game there is a morph ball tunnel which seems like you can only go through by blowing open some blocks with a power bomb. However, hidden above this tunnel is also another tunnel where you don't need to use the power bombs. It seems kind of counterintuitive, since it's really just easier to blow open the blocks once and then leave through them later during the self-destruct sequence, but what if you didn't have power bombs and didn't have that extra tunnel? You would have to sacrifice then another option in your six-percent allotment of items to freely choose from for the 15% completion thing. This also happens right after you beat Mother Brain: there is a tunnel above the exit to the ship that goes over the speed-boost blocks. Why go up this way? Well, what if you didn't have the speed-boost; how else would you get out? There are also, I think, some instances that pretty much anticipate and encourage sequence-breaking too, but I can't really think of them right now. I'd say those instances of game design could fall in line with anticipation of sequence-breaking, though.

Then we have the more straightforward level design that falls more in line with the standard progression of the game. While I don't believe this game is anywhere near Super Metroid in the subtlety of its level design, I think I can still see it there. One really obvious instance of the "hidden tutorial" is when you get the morph ball. When you head over to get it, you have to climb over this platform that seems impossible to go back from (well, not unless you wall jump, but that's beside the point). However, there is a little tunnel underneath the platform that may have struck your attention, and when you find you can roll around with the morph-ball, you see what the morph-ball is for. I don't think this always happens in this game, though, unlike in Super Metroid where even the very beginning of the game, without any abilities lying around to pick up yet, feels meticulously made to acquaint you with playing the game. For example, when you go to get the Speed-Booster in Zero Mission, there is no real indicator of its use before you get it. I mean, sure, Kraid's room is huge, but Kraid is also huge, so maybe Kraid's room is just huge to make him fit. Later you find the Power Grip, which lets you hold on to ledges. Here you do find the game's environment sort of working as a tutorial, but the raising of platforms for you to grab onto and climb out of the pit you fall into is kind of obvious. It doesn't help, once again, that there are Chozo statues standing around waiting to lead the way for you.

But there are still moments where the game does this sort of hidden tutorial. If the original power-ups are considered "invalid" for having already been present in the original Metroid, consider the Gravity Suit, which is not only a new item but also a part of the game's entirely new segment. After you get the Gravity Suit, you could, of course, read the description the game gives of what it does. But even if that description was absent, you'll eventually come across a part of a hallway that is submerged in water for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Like, if the water was removed, it would not have affected the hallway in anyway way, especially since you never go in that water before attaining the Gravity Suit. While in this water, there is even an item you can get with the speed-boost by simply running forward (that is, if you have the speed-boost). While players may not think much of its placement, they will realize that they can now move freely through any body of liquid this game throws at them.

So yeah, intelligent and subtle game design. Even if the game tells you what items do and where to go, it's still not like you are going through supermassive tutorial dialogue boxes like in Final Fantasy XIII. Most of the Chozo statues can be skipped anyway via sequence-breaking, which this game seems to encourage.

Other things: the pace of the action is neat. Before Fusion, Samus seemed really floaty and kind of slow. Maybe in the GameBoy game, Metroid 2, this relatively didn't feel that way, but it was never like Fusion where Samus quickly runs through rooms, jumps and flips around and stuff. I feel like the sound effects they use for Samus flipping in the air bring this out very well, where it started initially as a series of blips that could've meant anything. Even if Samus could run fast in Super Metroid (it is, after all, the game that introduced the speed-boost), she was still really floaty in that game. Fusion introduced the mechanic of keeping Samus from jumping too high (at least until you get the hi-jump boots [that is, if you get them]). I don't know why I'm talking about Fusion so much, other than to say that those mechanics are back in Zero Mission and really help establish its pace as an action-oriented game.

I don't feel like the controls are worth mentioning, because they are so simple it just makes no sense for anything to go wrong with them. I will say, though, that using the L and R buttons on a 2DS is a pain in the ass in this game. That is not really the game's fault though, considering I'm not really supposed to be able to play this game on a 2DS anyway.

Next we have the boss fights. The boss fights in this game, while fun and can be challenging, are nearly all very straightforward. You can very easily sum up a boss fight to somebody by simply advising: "Shoot missiles." Ridley is very criminal to this simple strategy. However, there are several things to consider here. First of all, this game is meant to be played in different ways. If you are going for the 15% Challenge, there is no way you can possibly sit there and unload all of your missiles at Ridley, especially if you do the smart thing (although it does looks stupid at first) and kill Ridley first. Second, there are two ways to fight Ridley: one is under the protection of standing beneath him and being immune to his attacks. This may sound like a terrible thing, but if you're anything like me, the anxiety of not screwing something up will lead to mistakes that might very well mean the end of a 15% game. If you have already killed Kraid by this point, or even if you're just collecting all the items and you sequence-broke, there is no point in doing this. Here is the other seemingly disagreeable option: just unload all of your missiles. While on Normal there is really nothing to it, I feel that on Hard mode (which, aside from the 15% Challenge, is pretty much the way the game is meant to be played), luck plays a pretty big role in the fight against Ridley, while still leaving room for skill to have a say in the outcome. This is always a good thing, and so it made each attempt against Ridley on Hard mode exciting since I A) had to recollect missiles and stuff (remember, I sequence-broke), and B) I could not anticipate for sure whether I'd survive.

Then we have Kraid, who can either be very easy or pretty annoying. He's not annoying to the point where he's a pain in the ass, though, which is good. The alternate way of killing him is simply hit him with three super missiles before he shuts his mouth, which people may have a problem with or consider to be cheap, but I like that it's in there. I like having multiple means of killing things in a game: it's called strategy.

Then there are the new bosses, which I don't care too much for in explaining them in gross detail. However, I will say that they definitely contribute to the atmosphere of the game, further bringing out the curiosities of Zebes. There is also that fight against the Chozo ghost in Chozodia, which was really cool as it is more of a puzzle than a boss. Basically, you have to be decent at dodging things while still being open at the right moment to "strike" the boss.

Mother Brain and Mecha-Ridley are the two bosses in the game where complexity really hits. The challenge of fighting these two is figuring out how to avoid their onslaught of attacks. Neither of them seem to hardly give a moment's rest. I was about to go into detail here, but I realize this post is starting to ramble on a ton about pretty much every aspect of the game, so I'll just leave off the bosses here. Point is, they are (nearly) all challenging and most have various means of defeating them.

This leaves me to wrap up with the ending sequence. So we kill Mother Brain and escape Zebes and think, Woohoo, we won! Then Samus gets shot down by space pirates, and here the game gets pretty interesting. We now have Samus without her incredible arsenal and protection, and now instead we just have this little gun that can only stun enemies, for about a second, and only when it is charged up. So what's this? We can't go running around shooting things anymore? Oh my god it's an intelligent FPS! Run away!

Honestly, as cool and awesome as this segment is, there are things about it that are just total bullshit. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but right at the very start of it, how the hell are you supposed to avoid being seen by that space pirate? He stands right up front of the tunnel you can jump into, but you must be like incredibly godlike at timing when to shoot that stun gun or else you will get caught by him, and thus ends any chance of a "perfect stealth run" if that's what you're after for some reason. There are some clever moments, though, like there is one crawlspace in a hallway that nearly seems destined for you to be caught in. However, it is very simple to time when you run out into the open here, and as for that crawlspace, there is a shadow at the end of it that you can actually hide in it if you stop and think about it. From there, you can stun the space pirate and carry on. Wall-jumping also makes interesting uses here, and it can add some extra dimension to the challenge of avoiding being caught, as now you have to time the jumps in both a manner that keeps you from falling and in a manner that keeps you from being caught.

Still, this also means mostly nothing when you are trying to speed run the game. It is actually better to just run out in the open and dodge every attack as best as you can. This segment is most interesting for the 15% challenges, where literally one or two hits on Hard mode means death for you.

If you really disliked this portion of the game or found it excruciatingly difficult, then that just makes regaining the Power Suit all the more exciting and rewarding. Again, really upbeat and almost celebratory music, plus the space pirates are almost laughable cannon fodder. The cool thing is, you still can't get too cocky on the 15% Challenges.

Last I want to talk about Zero Suit Samus, as this now pretty much deviates from anything that really matters about the game. In the past, whenever you beat the game correctly, Samus was depicted without her armor and wearing some kind of... I want to say underwear, I guess? The only game to really feature another suit was, and this is probably not a coincidence, the original Metroid, with that sort of leotard that Samus wore. She also had really cool green hair, whatever happened to that hair?

Well, anyway, this is the game that introduces Zero Suit Samus, for better or for worse. Some may find the thought of a skin-tight suit possibly even sillier than Samus in her underwear, others may (either creepily or in a calm, observant manner) find it attractive. The way I think of it is, it just simply makes more sense with the art design/logic of the game and its universe. What is the point of wearing underwear under a suit of armor? Wouldn't you prefer to wear something that, as strange as it may sound in terms of designing a female character, feels like you're wearing literally nothing? The Zero Suit is supposed to enable Samus's agility and flexibility, which is something of an iconic superpower of hers in itself. Look at this woman with alien blood in her: no human can jump and run like that! I guess maybe underwear makes some sense, but I'm still not buying it. Besides, when Samus dies, her suit comes off. It would probably be pretty embarrassing if Samus somehow lost her suit in a fight (it's been known to possibly happen) and was left in her underwear for her enemies to see completely.

Last I want to talk about this game's iteration of Samus. In every Metroid game so far (hell, even in Brawl), Samus's appearance has constantly changed. You may go ahead and criticize me for admiring a female video game character's appearance, I don't care because I know there's more to it than just, "Samus is hot." There's appreciation for the character art in itself, like how I described Morgiana in one of my other blog's posts where I talked about Magi. Now anyway, this game is kind of weird with its interpretation of Samus, by which I mean, it can't seem to make up its freaking mind. In some of the cutscenes, her face kind of looks hard, I hate to say it but I guess kind of feisty, like a kind of supermodel or something. I'll use pictures, that'll help.

Okay, so Exhibit A. Huge eyes, huge lips. Super model kind of shit, yeah? Is that a fucking tan?

But here we have Exhibit B. I know, kind of hard to tell, but you can certainly agree her eyes are nowhere near as big. Maybe her lips are slightly smaller. Whatever the case, the art direction here really makes me liken her to Han Solo, which is immensely awesome. However...

We have Exhibit C here. What the hell? Make up your minds, Nintendo! Maybe it's because she let down her ponytail, I don't know, but her face is a loft "softer" here, if that's a term I can use. She actually kind of reminds me of somebody I know in this picture, it's kind of creepy in spite of its sweetness.

I think, if it's anything we are to go by, it is actual concept art showing us the thought process behind designing Samus's face. I can't read any of that Japanese, in spite of the fact I'm taking Japanese in college. I'm just not at that level yet. Oh wait a minute, I can read the subtitle! It says, "Samus Aran Face" and then the rest I can't read because it's kanji I don't freakin' know.

So in spite of the huge deal I put up over Samus's many faces in this game, literally speaking, I think this is one of my favorite iterations of her. It could very well be simply because this is probably the first time they went into detail about showing what she looks like. Wait, no, they did that in Fusion, but I wouldn't count Fusion because it says her genetic makeup changed due to the injection of the Metroid DNA. You also see her in Prime, but I don't care. I like this one, now shut up and leave me alone. I also like the "Justin Bailey" depiction in this game, or the orange crop-top and shorts combo in other words. I don't really know why, maybe it's because orange is a color you never see Samus in anywhere else.

Oh wait a minute, her Power Suit is orange. This just got awkward.

No but seriously, you don't see her wearing anything else orange in anything. It's usually a blue Zero Suit or a blue crop-top and shorts. Well, actually, now that I think about it, her crop-top and shorts/underwear depictions have always been different. Whatever, okay, I just really like this one for some reason. I mean, come on, you can't say it's not stylish! Just look at it! I like it so much I have a modded version of Zero Suit Samus in Brawl where she sports the flashy orange crop-top and shorts combo. Oh, speaking of style, I found this:

She is apparently a fashion diva too. I find this hilarious. Alright alright, enough with the Samus pictures before somebody files a copyright claim on me (can't do anything though since I'm not breaking any rules here).

I think this is a good point to end my discussion on Zero Mission, as we can so clearly see by pretty much my drifting away from the topic of the game. If there's anything wrong with the game that I hadn't listed above... I mean, I guess it's "too short?" Maybe more like "too addicting," if that can even be considered a problem. I find myself wanting to go through it all it one sitting, which is good, but also bad because it's a handheld game, meaning it should be something I feel comfortable with picking up on the go. To be fair, there is a "sleep mode" that works, obviously, when it is played on a GameBoy Advance. If memory serves me correct, this is where the picking up and putting away aspect of handheld games came from for Zero Mission. For those who complained it was too short, what they fail to realize is you don't just play through this game once and be done with it. You just can't do that. Zero Mission is all about the replay, and the new ways you find yourself playing the game each time you start it over, and, just when you ask yourself how long this new method will carry you through the same game over again, you find yourself wanting to finish it as soon as possible to see if your new method will net you a new reward. My goodness, so many ridiculously long sentences!