Category Archives: Wii

Maybe I’ll Find Wayne Newton Here

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Today was mainly a cleanup day in Paper Mario: TTYD, as I went exploring and found a bunch more star pieces around town and in the nearby areas, especially now that I have the stomp attack that shakes some loose.

I also found the Trouble Centre, where a bunch of odd jobs were posted, and did all of those. They were mostly fetch and delivery quests, but there were a few interesting ones like the one that sent me to rescue someone on level 18 of the Pit of Trials. In the end I got a bunch of coins, some new badges, and unlocked a couple of minigames in the parlour.

To get to the next town I had to do the local mob boss a favour by finding his daughter, who was trying to elope. That was easy enough, and I headed off to Glitzville, which is every bit as tacky as the name suggests.

They’re Certainly No X-Men

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I managed to do all of Chapter 2 in Paper Mario: TTYD today, after doing some more exploring in town and finding some better shops, a minigame room, train and blimp rides, and another section of the sewers with more people, a cola bar, and an even better shop.

The next star was in the Boggly Woods area, a kind of snowy forest though it never said it was actually snow at any point. A small creature (called a puni) there took me to their Great Tree, but it was locked, and we went to get help from someone named Flurrie, but she wouldn’t help us until we recovered her necklace. It turned out to have been taken by the three Shadow Sirens we saw earlier on, and after beating them I got the necklace back, returned it to Flurrie, and she joined our party, adding some wind-based abilities.

We got into the Great Tree via a secret entrance and discovered X-Nauts like the ones that kidnapped Peach there, and had to find a couple keys to rescue the rest of the punis that were locked up. This involved having to drag a group of them around, getting over some spots by using Flurrie to blow them across, and fighting some mosquito-like critters that had also invaded. There was also a simple puzzle that earned me the spin jump boots, which lets me smash through boards on the floor.

I found the crystal star, but Lord Crump (leader of the X-Nauts here) stole it from me and set off a bomb timer. I had to escape, dragging all 101 punis along behind me, and it was frustrating and caused me to fail the first time since the framerate suffered a lot and that made me keep failing jumps at a couple points. I caught up with him at the exit though, he stopped the timer (maybe I didn’t need to drag those damn punis back with me after all), and a boss fight ensued that wasn’t really too difficult, and I got the star back from him.

This ended the Chapter and I got another Peach scene, where the computer ‘observing’ her wanted her to teach it to dance, with a hologram of herself as a partner. Yes, computers can be creepy… And there was also a Bowser scene that played out just like the original Super Mario Bros for a short stage, except with Bowser in control.

Back in town I explored a bit more with Flurrie, since she could blow away certain torn pieces of walls, and found the Pit of 100 Trials, though I don’t think I’ll be doing that anytime soon. And I popped back to the door and discovered that the next star is in a place in the sky called Glitzville, and I’ll need to ask the mob boss for a ticket for the blimp to get there.

Somebody’s Muscling In On Bowser’s Racket

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I finished off Hooktail’s castle in Paper Mario: TTYD tonight, and it consisted mostly of switch puzzles where I had to use Koops to trigger them from a distance. And I also got ‘cursed’ again, this time with the ability to turn myself sideways so I can fit between vertical bars, which lets me into a few more areas.

Hooktail himself was a bit of a challenge the first time I met him, and I just barely defeated him, only to run into a second stage of the battle where he healed himself up to half, and by that time I was spent. There was a hint about defeating him easily that implied ‘cricket’ was important, and then I realized that I’d picked up a badge along the way that says it changed Mario’s attack sound. I equipped it, and sure enough, his attacks now sounded like crickets, and Hooktail was much easier to beat the second time around as he took more damage and dished out less. I got the Crystal Star and gained a new ability, though I haven’t tried it out yet.

This ended the first chapter and I also got to play short segments as Peach, now kidnapped by some “X-Nauts” and being watched by a computer that wants to learn about love, and as Bowser, now heading off after us since he’s the only one allowed to kidnap Peach, of course.

It’s Dragon Season

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I resumed in Paper Mario: TTYD by meeting Goombella’s professor, who told us that we had to take the map I had to the Thousand Year Door, located in the sewers. Getting there wasn’t a problem, and it revealed the location of the first Crystal Star we need to collect. Along the way I also got ‘cursed’ by some evil spirit trapped in a chest, and the ‘curse’ allows me to turn into a paper airplane at certain spots to sail over large gaps. That’s an awfully useful ‘curse’…

So, I went off to the first area, Petal Meadows, which was fairly straightforward and led to a town. There, the mayor told us that the crystal was guarded by a dragon I saw fly by earlier, but I had to go get some keys from a fortress first. Reaching the fortress was fairly uneventful, but once there a guardian thwomp challenged me to a…game show? I had to answer five questions correctly, based on the events so far, and it wasn’t too much trouble. That let me get into the basement of the fortress, where I fought off some life-sucking fuzzies and got the two keys.

The two keys opened up a stone that turned into a pipe near the start of the Petal Meadows area, and that led to the dragon’s castle, and I ended there for the night. I also got a new party member, a koopa named Koops (sigh) with a different set of attacks and the ability to get switches and items from farther away.

I Hope It’s Not The Bathroom Door

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For the next game I’m going a bit retro (but only a little bit) and doing Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for the Gamecube. I actually have the original Paper Mario as well, for the Virtual Console, and haven’t finished it yet, but it’s not like continuity is important in this series anyway. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s kind of an odd action/platformer/RPG game in the Mario universe where the world is 3D, but the people in it are like 2D paper cutouts.

I didn’t have much time left today so I only really got through the introduction (the Princess is missing, and sent me a treasure map) and basic combat tutorial (kinda RPG-ish, with some action elements), met my first party member, a female goomba (how do you tell?) archaeologist named Goombella, and found a couple star pieces in the first few buildings (I can’t remember what they’re for).

Who Needs Realism?

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I haven’t had much time, so there was just a bit of arcade-ish racing tonight, first in Mario Kart Wii again. Someone on my friends list sent me a challenge ghost that I could race against, so I did with the Funky Kong + Flame Rider combo, and just barely beat him by about three tenths of a second. I also did the Flower Cup in the 150cc class, and was surprised to score two stars on it given how close some of the races were.

I also spent some time back in TrackMania United Forever, playing for a while on a Brazilian server with a bunch of custom maps. The players there were pretty good, so I usually only placed mid-pack (highest was 4th, out of 25-30 people), but some of the maps were pretty crazy and difficult to learn, too. My global rank has fallen to around 15,000th place, but that’s out of around 550,000 players now, as the game (or at least the free version) spreads.

Babies Don’t Have Licenses!

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I finished off the 100cc class in Mario Kart Wii fairly quickly tonight, and then went back and redid a few cups where I hadn’t gotten at least a one star rating, which was fairly easy with the new characters I’d unlocked so far. In the end, I wound up unlocking Dry Bones, Bowser Jr., Baby Daisy, and one more kart and bike.

I think I’ll work on time trials for a bit now that I know the secrets to it (use a ‘big’ driver with a fast kart or bike, ignoring acceleration rating), and did a few tonight and unlocked Baby Luigi. I also tried the coin battle game for a bit, but it’s rather confusing, since it’s not a race and a whole bunch of AI drivers are zipping all over the place and attacks are coming out of nowhere and it’s not clear where the coins even are…

I Hate Rainbows

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I played a bit more Mario Kart Wii tonight and finished off the first tier of 100cc races and the first retro 100cc cup. I actually had to restart one of the cups for the first time, due to a really bad showing in the first two races. Getting nailed by that GODDAMN blue shell just feet away from the finish line can knock you from first all the way down to 6th in the blink of an eye…

But, in the end I managed to finish them off, unlocked the ability to use a Mii as a driver, and even starred them all, so I won’t have to redo some of the more annoying ones again. Rainbow Road, I’m looking at you…

I Should Create A Schumacher Mii…

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Tonight I played a bit more Mario Kart Wii of course, and finished off the cups in the 50cc classification, which opened up the ability to use bikes in those races now. I even got the credit sequence, but I don’t think I’ll put this one on the ‘completed’ page until I’ve beaten at least the 100cc class. I got at least a one star rating in all of the cups except two, where I only got an ‘A’ ranking, and I’ll have to go back and redo those with a faster kart at some point.

Why bother when I’ve already won them? Well, for the unlocks. There are lots and lots of things like characters and karts to unlock, often with very specific criteria, like scoring star rankings on all of the races within a classification. I’ve got a handful of things unlocked so far, and I should be able to unlock the ability to use a Mii as a driver soon, but it’s going to take a while to get most of them…

I also played online for a bit and didn’t do too badly, gaining about 500 points on my online score, which seems to be set up like a ladder system around a median score of 5000. The friend codes still suck, but races against random people are easy to jump into and full of frantic fun.

I also did some time attack runs against the built-in ghosts, which will also eventually lead to unlocking more stuff. Some of the ghosts are pretty tough though, especially after you beat the basic one and unlock the ‘expert’ ghost for that track.

The Big Release Day

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Today I swung by a local HMV over my lunch hour in order to pick up, well, you know, one of the biggest games of the year. Mario Kart Wii, of course.

It’s a lot more like the DS version than other recent ones, which is a good thing, and there’s a good mix of new tracks and classic ones from the older games. It still retains the terribly unfair blue shell though, which often knocks you right out of first place with no chance of blocking it, making races a bit more random than just a pure test of racing skill.

It comes with a wheel, which is really just a plastic shell in which you place the regular controller, but I’ve found it a bit awkward to use compared to the superior nunchuk+controller combo. You do get a special bragging-rights reward for using the wheel though, in the form of a golden icon showing that you’re beating others while using a wheel in online races, but I’m not too worried about that.

So far I’ve done the first three 50cc cups, and the new tracks are pretty good overall, with only the ‘maple’ one standing out as being a bit annoying with a lot of extreme twists that make it easier to fall off. I also did the first cup in the 100cc class, where you use bikes instead of karts, but the handling isn’t really that much different.

I didn’t get a chance to try the online mode, since the servers are apparently taking a bit of a beating right now. Online support has been a weak point of the Wii so far though, and it still uses the silly friend code system and lacks any form of communication between players. The leaderboards are interesting, though; instead of just a ranking list, it shows a cluster of players along a lap time axis and places you on it, for a graph-style comparison. You can also filter it to compare yourself just against other players in your region, as well as worldwide and just against your friends list.

Oh and I’ll probably get around to that Grand Theft Auto 4 thing at some point, too.