Token Female Gamer

Amongst other things (~cough~ Puzzle and Dragons ~cough~), I’ve been spending quite a lot of time playing the very fabulous Ni No Kuni. Like most JRPGs it is fairly travel heavy and in my experience, there is only one thing that makes running across the wide expanse of world (aka nothing) fun, and that is jumping. Thankfully Ni No Kuni delivered, and right on time as I was starting to wonder if I had lost the jump button.

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The original Super Mario Bros was a seminal game. Not only did it spawn a legion of sequels, but it also catapulted the Mario franchise into the stratosphere in terms of popularity. It also happened to be the inception of my (and many others) life long Mario habit and still holds a very special place in my heart.

And though I’ve played many of the sequels, most of them diverged wildly from the original, expanding the world of Mario in many new and interesting directions.

All good things, but it does make me appreciate Super Mario 3D Land, as few games have evoked as much nostalgia for the original. 3D Land managed to capture the simplicity of the original Mario, with straightforward and short, yet interesting and challenging levels, simple graphics and minimalist backgrounds. But like all great sequels/remakes, Super Mario 3D Land doesn’t forget about progress and includes many of the features found in modern Mario games.

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Super Mario has been rebooted five million times by now, but I still love each and every one of them. Super Mario 3D Land for the Nintendo 3DS is the latest of these and is my current favorite reboot.

This version, more then most, reminds me of the original Super Mario Bros, with its fairly simplistic level design and world selection. But it is a reboot, which means additions. In this case they added very minor 3D aspects to each level, yet most of the game still remains a simple 2D platformer.

What really makes this reboot enjoyable and nostalgic, is that they managed to pay homage to the classic by updating the content without adding too much. It is a great Super Mario Bros experience!

Looking back over the past twenty-nine days, it is clear to me that most of the games discussed thus far could easily qualify for favorite game. I deliberately chose games that I liked for more reasons than simply excelling in one category. But choose I must, even though I’m sneaking in the past twenty-nine days as runners up.

My final choice is Paper Mario. It’s actually quite a perfect choice, as it manages to represent many of my answers from the past few weeks – Mario, RPGs, super cute graphics, turn based gameplay, and teamwork.

It’s pretty clear that I loved almost everything about this game. The graphics were incredibly cute with the paper characters in a half 3D world. I loved that I got team members with benefits. Skills were incredibly fun to play with and adjust. The turn based combat was a perfect balance between twitch based jumping games and slow RPG combat. I even liked the story.

Paper Mario left me with such a great impression that I still think about how much I loved the game, ten years later!

There you have it, my final answer.

Most new games, especially overly hyped ones, seem to fall into the ‘I will probably not like this’ category. This is probably a defense mechanism I have developed over the years. Basically I would rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed.

While my entire list of ‘hate to great’ is rather lengthy, there is one in particular that started clearly in the negative – Portal.

After its release people were frothing at the mouth with praise. This of course made me incredible suspicious, but also rather curious. As I hadn’t purchased the Orange Box I went looking online for information on the game. The first thing I found was this odd web puzzle version of the game, clearly a knock off. The experience was so incredibly terrible that I vowed never to bother with anything Portal again. (Yes, this was totally not fair to the actual Portal game and I know that…now.)

Fast forward to Portal 2’s release. I really wanted to try this because it was cooperative. Me = sucker for cooperative.

Long story short, I was told it was unacceptable to play Portal 2 without first playing Portal. So I did and loved it, but complained the entire time.

Skyrim is another example. I was sure that I would be bored out of my mind two seconds in; I’m still playing it. Mass Effect 2 was another, tried it mainly because a good friend was so rabid about it; ended up finishing the game. Uncharted 2, only picked it up because I thought it was going to be cooperative, got hooked anyway.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is without a doubt the perfect pick for this category. The graphics for this 2d platformer are rendered to look like fabric and yarn, making the cuteness factor simply ridiculous. But the real brilliance of the graphics is that they actively impact the game play.

Kirby himself has been turned into a ball of yarn, which lets him change into various different forms, all super cute. Zippers are opened to reveal things, buttons can be lassoed for swinging, and stitches can be platforms or walls or unraveled. (And really so much more!)

As an avid knitter I love how the yarn and fabric build a wonderfully detailed world and the stitches, buttons and finer details really make it extraordinary. But the incredible functionality of the graphics is quite possibly one of the best graphics to game play interconnectivity I have ever seen.

Now I want to go play it again.

Chell is definitely the character I wish I were like. She is an amazing survivor and has this incredible drive to keep searching for freedom regardless of obstacles. I imagine her to have an endless source of determination. If only I had half of her will. Though I would probably never want to suffer in silence as she has.

The irony is that I am probably more like GLaDOS (well not the psychotic part). Her brutal honesty is something I can relate too. I always thought that being really honest was better. There is a time and place for brutal honesty, but it should be reserved for those special occasions. Its something I have learned the hard way and I think GLaDOS has also, well as much as her programming will allow for it anyway.

Somewhere between Chell’s resolve and GLaDOS’ over sharing is a semi balanced being.

Side Note: Portal has two female leads, which is just another notch in its awesome belt.

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) has the immense honor of being my guilty pleasure game. While I wouldn’t really say that I feel any guilt about playing it, it isn’t a game that I like to play while people are watching. It’s my hide it away and play alone game. =)

I grew up dancing, ballet, tap, jazz, pretty much anything, and I danced a lot. So while I love games, the immobility of them sometimes gets to me.

DDR on the other hand lets me bounce around to fun music and sing along. Plus it’s a game, with various difficulties and modes. Later versions of DDR even have a sort of campaign/quest system.

Frankly it’s the best of many worlds, but mostly it just makes me happy.

Perfect place to begin, though I will admit I am dating myself with this admission. No matter, it’s where my little gaming journey began.

My very first game was a hand held game from Nintendo called Donkey Kong Jr. My mother purchased it for me right before we embarked on a nine-hour flight to Europe. Considering that I was around four years old at the time, it was quite a brilliant move, because I was absolutely engrossed in that game for almost the entire flight.

In fact I became so devoted to this game that I could play it through multiple times in a row.

Strangely enough, this did not result in my becoming a Donkey Kong fan. But I can thank Donkey Kong for being the first reason I became a huge gaming nerd. Thanks DK Jr! <3

For anyone interested in playing it, I found a simulator online. Oh nostalgia! Play it here: http://www.pica-pic.com/#/donkey_kong_jr/

Portal 2 is the much-anticipated sequel to the vaunted Portal, a small add on game, which hit the big time, due to its awesome power of humor and cleverness.

A rather tough act to follow, but Portal 2 manages quite well. Filled with the trademark dark humor and teleportation puzzles, but bundled in a much larger package. Portal 2 is a gigantic game, boasting a multi chapter single player story mode and a completely separate cooperative multiplayer mode.

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