Super Mario Bros. 35 - Thoughts

 
Super Mario Bros. 35 is a fantastic game that stumbles over its own short legs. Its premise is my dream battle royale: make 35 players compete in randomly selected Super Mario Bros. levels, where defeated foes from bowser's army are sent to other players' games to hassle them. This keeps the single player experience intact while offering a competitive twist that makes the game feel tense but never mean-spirited. However—like with any multiplayer game—an optimal way to play bubbles to the surface, and boy howdy is it boring.

Super Mario Bros. 35 suffers from a fatal flaw, one I assume could be easily fixed: too many damn World 1 levels. Before each session, each player picks a course from Super Mario Bros. they want added to the play pool—and most seem to either pick 1-1 or 1-2. That, or they're added to the pool as filler levels, because their prevalence is maddening. I have over 200 clears of 1-1 and nearly half that for 1-2, meanwhile everything beyond world 5 has been played once or twice at most. While the early stages provide a nice reprieve to collect fire flowers and hidden 1-ups, this comes at the cost of your adrenaline and excitement, as it's a fairly safe, uneventful and thoughtless run (unless a squad of lakitus is being sent your way.)

The abundance of early levels vastly extends Super Mario Bros. 35's optimal play time, turning what should be a rapid-fire adventure through oldschool courses into a sloggy, amateurish affair, every World 1 stage a boring pitstop you're rarely in need of. This issue isn't so terrible as to turn me off from the game, but I'm only reminded of how invigorating the game can be when a random gauntlet of tricky stages comes at me back to back (like 3-4 -> 2-2 -> 5-3). Not only does this wake me up from the rote stupor 1-1 lulls me into, but it provides a decent challenge that's likely to knock out a few players, even when it's down to the final five left.

And getting to the final five is another source of my frustration, since this is where you'll be spending most of your time. When you first reach this threshold it's a thrilling, nerve-wracking experience that'll have you crossing your fingers over even the smallest jumps, but the excitement fades when you learn what a long road you have ahead of you. After the initial 15 or so players are culled thanks to the first two stages, Super Mario Bros. 35 becomes about keeping your timer high and collecting a lot of coins. You extend your timer in a number of different ways, most noticeably by repeated kills via stomping heads and kicking shells. The coins on the other hand feed into the game's roulette power-up system, which can provide you with an instantaneous—albeit random—goodie at the cost of twenty coins.

On paper, both of these are excellent ideas. They give you a reason to explore the level as well and not skip over enemies, instead of turning success into a speedrunning competition. But conversely, it means that speed is downright useless—as long as you're receiving a steady trickle of foes from other players, you can keep your clock fed by slowly inching forward, hopping from one noggin to the next. This, combined with the ever-present 1-1 (as well as 1-2's warp pipes to skip problematic stages,) turns the game into a resource management of sorts. As boring as the World 1 stages are, you're better off spending as much time as possible in them collecting goodies to prepare for the endgame. After about seven minutes (which is quite long in game about reflexes) the timer in the corner will rapidly tick down, making whoever stays in the game the longest the winner—and this is usually the person with the most coins.

The issue of the slow, grindy gameplay preceding the frantic endgame isn't something that has an easy fix. The best I can come up with is that there should be some kind of speed incentive, like the flag at the end adding 60 seconds to your timer instead of a measly 15. Or maybe introducing a certain amount of stages to beat in order to claim the crown. As it stands I'm too easily bored by the monotony of the early game but find myself entering the endgame at a disadvantage. That's not to say that I'm unable to eke out a win by simply playing well, but when I lose to time it feels like there was very little I could've done, especially when my reserve of coins is wasted rolling POW blocks over and over again. For what it's worth, the endgame with the red clock is at least exhilarating every time you reach it, which is a lot more than I can say about starting on 1-1 for the umpteenth time.

Super Mario Bros. 35 is an clever competitive-platformer, but it'd be massively improved if latter levels were shuffled into the mix more often, or was quicker to reach the endgame. And hey, for all I know, this is an issue that'll fix itself as newer players drop out and the hardened vets that love running 8-1 are the only ones that remain. But like with No Man's Sky, I can only form my opinion and what the game currently is, not what it'll become some time down the road (speaking of, what reason is there to pull the game on April 1st Nintendo?) I have no plans to stop playing Super Mario Bros. 35 any time soon, but I've spent enough time with it to see that—while it's loads of fun—it's not quite the ideal Mario battle royale I had hoped for.

Heavy Barrel - Thoughts

Data East's Heavy Barrel is an aged, unflattering polaroid of the NES era. Though it's stylistically closer to Ikari Warriors than Jackal, I think drawing a comparison with the latter game will better punctuate my thoughts on this janky adventure. I wouldn't deign to call a terrible game, but it's plagued with an ugly aesthetic, baffling design choices, and periodic moments of sheer boredom. Whereas Jackal is laser-focused on its strengths as a fun experience, Heavy Barrel is muddled, its strengths diluted down into a lukewarm puddle of "eh."

I praised Jackal highly for its variety of stages that took you through colorful yet down-to-earth territories swarming with entrenched foes. Heavy Barrel on the other hand cares little for realism, preferring bright, clashing colors and large mechanical bosses. The abstract nature of the game isn't a knock against it—Rygar is fun largely due to its nonsensical enemies—but I doubt anyone would label Heavy Barrel as a "looker". Stages are bland and forgettable, merging into one another due to a lack of a cohesive theme for each level. Sure, one stage might have mine cart tracks or a blue elevator ride, but... so do other levels later in the game. You'll basically be ping-ponged between outdoor areas and techbases until you inexplicably find yourself squaring off against the final boss.

The shooting in Heavy Barrel is serviceable on paper: it provides a nice blend of enemies to put down and powerups to collect. You have a rapid fire machine gun to use against a majority of the opposition, with anything more durable (tanks, turrets) requiring explosives... provided that you can land your shots. The grenades add a hint of skill to the gameplay but they're far from a good weapon; their long arc and delayed impact can only be described as "bothersome", especially considering how little damage they do.

But for the most part, Heavy Barrel provides the player with plenty of mindless fun—so long as there are things to shoot on screen. Once you get to the aforementioned blue elevator ride, the action grinds to a halt for minutes at a time, the enemies spawned being easily countered and dodged. I'm usually undisturbed over how ubiquitous elevator sequences are in games, but only insofar as they continue to provide gameplay. Heavy Barrel's snail-like descents are just a glorified shooting gallery that might amuse you the first time through, but become very obvious ammunition (and time) sinks on replays.

One bad section that repeats itself several times isn't enough to outright ruin the game, but it's a major annoyance that stands out among Heavy Barrel's other numerous flaws; other issues blotting the game only become apparent the more time you spend playing it. Chief among these is that enemy attacks give the player little time to react, rockets fired from tanks guaranteed to decimate you should you find yourself in their crosshairs. Whereas Jackal can be beaten with vigilant thumbs, Heavy Barrel opts for shameless memorization, especially when flame grenadiers start getting thrown into the mix. That can still be fun in its own little way—it's pretty invigorating to finally make it past a difficult section unscathed—but most of the time it's vexing due to the sudden, unavoidable deaths. Plus once you're trained to start blasting spawn points, the game becomes sapped of most of its replayability.

Compounding the muck of memorization is Heavy Barrel's power-up system, which serves to highlight just how good Jackal is by keeping things simple. There are two primary weapons, three separate grenade abilities, and an elite superweapon that requires five pick-ups to activate (and you know you'll have acquired it when your character shouts so loud your speakers blow out.) It's a solid amount of diversity for a top down run 'n gun game, but in almost all situations you'll want the flame shot and flame grenades, as both of these have wide attack zones that are able to pierce enemies.

It's not a huge problem to have unbalanced weapons in your video game, but what makes it worse is when it's impossible to parse which ability you're acquiring. Spending a key to open up a power-up cache yields a single square sprite that is used for every power-up in the game, meaning that if you're hunting for more parts to your superweapon, you could unintentionally swap out your stack of 99 flame grenades for the dinky whirlwind attack. And since the weapon caches are not randomized, the winning strategy is to memorize which boxes hold the flame shot and then straight-up ignore the rest of the boxes until you die. Yes, even hilariously large superweapon is not worth the risk of turning your grenades into those silly stationary whirlwinds.

I'm probably overly-harsh on Heavy Barrel due to Jackal still being fresh on my mind. To be fair to Data East, I think the key mechanic for opening weapon caches is really clever: you're allowed to hold up to four keys in reserve, creating tension between saving keys for opening boxes after you die or blowing your key reserve in anticipation of finding more superweapon parts. I also feel that manually destroying the trapezoidal gates at the end of each level—while repetitive—provides a small, satisfying pat on the back. But Heavy Barrel is not an experience I'd recommend to anyone other than the biggest NES nerds whom have already been conditioned to view the warning of "memorization required" as a selling point. Heavy Barrel may be plenty playable, but its problem at the end of the day is that you have to twist yourself into knots to call what's playable "fun."

Jackal - Thoughts

Konami's Jackal is an unaged, heartwarming polaroid of the NES era. It is exemplary of the good games of its time, although inventive it is not—you probably won't find the game listed on too many "hidden gems" lists. But what Jackal offers is Konami's trademark forte: action. And not just action, but fairly tight, difficult, reaction-based action that has you skirting around bullets like an insta-death slalom. Don't let its age fool you—this old war jeep's got plenty of kick once you start it up.

Jackal is short, punchy, and straight to the point. The plot is paper thin: bad guys got our guys, so free them by blowing up everything. When you destroy a detention center, you can rescue POWs and drop them off at a helipad for points (used for 1-ups) and a weapon upgrade. In terms of unique mechanics, the liberation system is really the only thing Jackal has going for it. There aren't other weapons to acquire, vehicles to use, or even on-foot sections to change up the gameplay. To vanquish the enemy forces you're left with only your machine gun and a stack of explosive ordnance.

Yet it's all Jackal needs to be an exciting, action-packed experience. The simplicity also belies a number of interesting gameplay quirks. Firstly, explosive ordnance is lobbed in whatever direction you're facing, while your machine gun is stuck firing solely northward. Since explosives are both 1) unlimited and 2) upgraded when you rescue friendlies, they'll be your primary mode for dispatching foes, relegating the machine gun to situational backup. You can also squash enemy soldiers under the wheels of your four ton vehicle, but it's almost always easier (and safer) to just toss the stuff that goes BOOM.

It may seem boring that Jackal is dominated by a single weapon, but variety isn't the name of the game here—it's precision. Enemy shots are tiny but frequent, denying land you're trying to maneuver through or blocking a vulnerable angle of attack. You can mindlessly throw your grenades about in a hail of desperation, but learning to make quick, accurate shots is going to save you in the long run. Each upgrade also adds another layer to your attack, at first turning the grenades into speedy rockets, then granting a horizontal blast to the explosion, and finally a vertical blast. These come at the cost of being able to arc grenades over enemy walls (a brilliant tradeoff), but the upgrades grant you a new angle of attack, introducing trigonometric planning to your warfare (eg "Aha! If I shoot to the northwest, the blast will expand below the point of impact and destroy the turret!")

Jackal's emphasis on precise shots, bullet dodging, and a fixed order of upgrades all merge together into a challenge that's heavy on execution and light on memorization. Memorization can definitely help (like knowing where specific POW camps are located), but it isn't the silver bullet one might think it is. If you're quick to respond to enemy shots you'll likely get to the final level on your first try—and if not that, the end of the game. But if you happen to Game Over your first time (like me), Jackal takes a paltry thirty minutes to finish, meaning it's no hassle getting back to where you last died.

What helps to keep the experience invigorating for re-runs are Jackal's colorful stages. Konami has always been great at giving their levels a distinct flavor, and—despite the unimaginative setting—it's no different here. You'll tread through jungles, harbors, swamps, and mountain ranges, facing a variety of foes that are unique to each stage, like the medusa statues in level 2 and the train in level 4. Likewise the bosses you'll face in Jackal are satisfying, even though half of them are obviously glorified turrets. The ludicrous final boss deserves a special mention for being a phenomenal closer to a truly phenomenal game.

Jackal isn't perfect, but I'm not sure any of its foibles warrant a lengthy discussion. Its greatest offense is a flaw that run 'n gun fans are all too familiar with: certain sections are exceptionally brutal without weapon upgrades. But roughly 90% of Jackal is both fair and fun, testing the player's reflexes across a treasure trove of solid levels. I only played it for the very first time a few days ago, and yet I can't help but feel charmed by its simplistic, humble design. Pop this one into your NES if you haven't and thank me later.