30th May 2006, 4:53 PM
It's been too long. I had almost forgotton all too much of this game. It's better than I remember!
I'd make a journal of my progress, Weltall style, but I only thought of it when I was already over halfway t hrough the game. I'll just give you some highlights of WHY I STILL LOVE THIS GAME.
Completed Booster's Tower a bit ago, and yeeks, insane fun. Forgot about all the hilarity in there. If you want the definition of "inept villian", Booster is it. Well not quite, he's not exactly a villian so much as inept at LIFE ITSELF. He's basically completely confused about EVERYTHING.
He rides in on a train and takes off talking about how much fun you are going to have in his tower, then suddenly he gets off his train and runs the other way. Later, you have to play a minigame of dodging the snifits as they search through 4 curtains for Booster's Mario doll (there are 3 snifits, and the way they change their minds in ways that SCREW you is frickin' hilarious in it's insanity). By the end, Booster opens the last one and says "THERE HE IS!". Mario freaks out in typical hilarious Mario fasion before Booster says "it's up there, the doll's above that curtain!". You get the doll down and Booster THANKS you and gives you something for your trouble. After facing "knife guy" and "grate guy", you chase Booster up a hill (a minigame which, once again, Toad comes rushing in to explain) and the little conversation he has with Peach (or Toadstool as she was still known as back then) is comedy gold, as he tied her TO HIS BACK and then seems to have forgotten, so he turns around every time she talks (which in and of itself looks funny) and thinks she's playing hide and seek.
And then off to Marrymore (which as you might imagine is a resort town with a large cathedral where anyone who's anyone goes to get married). Many hilarities ensue, from Mario stepping on, and eventually fighting "ze cake" created by koopa chefs, to booster tasting the streams of tears coming from Peach's eyes "tastes like the sea, what is this liquid?", to Mario and the snifits all running around trying to find her various gear (shoes and crown, which is on Booster's head oblivious to him), which results in various people kissing other people in a bit of confusion (if you did it fast, Peach kisses Mario and Bowser and Booster kiss each other).
And, I love Bowser in this game! He's crying through the game over losing his precious "keep" to the smithy gang, and joins Mario's party. Meeting him in and of itself is funny. He turns around and you see giant tears streaming down his face and he turns right back around and starts talking to himself.
"Ack! He's here! Okay Bowser, gotta get it together."
"Hey how's it going?"
"NO! Not like that dummy! With CONFIDENCE!"
"What are YOU doing here?"
And then, finally, he decides to "do you a favor".
"Alright, I'll let you join the Koopa Troop." And then he forces himself into your party, where he uses chomp chomps as weapons (and also a weapon that lets him throw Mario AT the enemies), and has special abilities which involve snapping his fingers to summon various baddies to attack the enemies (like a big boo, or those mecha koopas).
So now, I've rescued Peach from Booster (who seems to have had a really good time and doesn't seem to have even noticed that a "rescue" was being attempted, and now wonders when the next princess will fall from the sky) and after a reunion at Mushroom Kingdom Castle (first appearence of Toadsworth is in this game, in the form of the Chancellor, and he's as worried about the princess as ever, younger looking though) which involves Bowser and Mario reenacting exactly what happened at the castle and Geno explaining that the star road is needed to grant the wishes of the people and without it, no wishes can ever come true again.
Peach: That's aweful, TERRIBLE! ... Isn't it?
Geno: Yes, for example if you got kidnapped Mario would never rescue you.
Bowser: Really? Then let's just forget about these silly star things anyway.
Peach: Then you can kiss your precious "keep" goodbye!
Bowser: WHAT?! Okay if the star road is gone, the princess is mine, but my castle is gone, and I'll never be able to take over the kingdom, but if the stars are there, then I get my castle back, but Mario will beat me and take the princess and... run that past me again?!
And then Peach sneaks out of the castle later behind the Chancellor's back and she goes into your party.
And so now I've gone past that and through the sea and beat Jonathan Jones the shark pirate and another member of smithy's gang (who forced me to temporarily give up a star by threatening to tickle the locked up townspeople), and have reached Monstro Town. Aside from a not so starry star and getting my arse handed to me by the very VERY tiny but ridiculously powerful "Jynx", master of martial arts, and getting challenged to find some flags by the 3 "musty fears", haven't done much here yet.
Anyway, had to share the retroventure with you because I forgot that this is one of my favorite RPGs evers. Only partly because the battles, as great and innovative (and expanded on in every Mario RPG since this one) as they are are actually less than half the fun to even be found in the game.
Plus, like it needs to be said that getting an invincibility star and instantly winning battle after battle by just running INTO the enemies on the screen and not even going through them is fun in and of itself. Levelups ahoy! (To a maximum of 30, and very SMALL numbers used to calculate experience, getting 10 XP is a LOT :D).
I'd make a journal of my progress, Weltall style, but I only thought of it when I was already over halfway t hrough the game. I'll just give you some highlights of WHY I STILL LOVE THIS GAME.
Completed Booster's Tower a bit ago, and yeeks, insane fun. Forgot about all the hilarity in there. If you want the definition of "inept villian", Booster is it. Well not quite, he's not exactly a villian so much as inept at LIFE ITSELF. He's basically completely confused about EVERYTHING.
He rides in on a train and takes off talking about how much fun you are going to have in his tower, then suddenly he gets off his train and runs the other way. Later, you have to play a minigame of dodging the snifits as they search through 4 curtains for Booster's Mario doll (there are 3 snifits, and the way they change their minds in ways that SCREW you is frickin' hilarious in it's insanity). By the end, Booster opens the last one and says "THERE HE IS!". Mario freaks out in typical hilarious Mario fasion before Booster says "it's up there, the doll's above that curtain!". You get the doll down and Booster THANKS you and gives you something for your trouble. After facing "knife guy" and "grate guy", you chase Booster up a hill (a minigame which, once again, Toad comes rushing in to explain) and the little conversation he has with Peach (or Toadstool as she was still known as back then) is comedy gold, as he tied her TO HIS BACK and then seems to have forgotten, so he turns around every time she talks (which in and of itself looks funny) and thinks she's playing hide and seek.
And then off to Marrymore (which as you might imagine is a resort town with a large cathedral where anyone who's anyone goes to get married). Many hilarities ensue, from Mario stepping on, and eventually fighting "ze cake" created by koopa chefs, to booster tasting the streams of tears coming from Peach's eyes "tastes like the sea, what is this liquid?", to Mario and the snifits all running around trying to find her various gear (shoes and crown, which is on Booster's head oblivious to him), which results in various people kissing other people in a bit of confusion (if you did it fast, Peach kisses Mario and Bowser and Booster kiss each other).
And, I love Bowser in this game! He's crying through the game over losing his precious "keep" to the smithy gang, and joins Mario's party. Meeting him in and of itself is funny. He turns around and you see giant tears streaming down his face and he turns right back around and starts talking to himself.
"Ack! He's here! Okay Bowser, gotta get it together."
"Hey how's it going?"
"NO! Not like that dummy! With CONFIDENCE!"
"What are YOU doing here?"
And then, finally, he decides to "do you a favor".
"Alright, I'll let you join the Koopa Troop." And then he forces himself into your party, where he uses chomp chomps as weapons (and also a weapon that lets him throw Mario AT the enemies), and has special abilities which involve snapping his fingers to summon various baddies to attack the enemies (like a big boo, or those mecha koopas).
So now, I've rescued Peach from Booster (who seems to have had a really good time and doesn't seem to have even noticed that a "rescue" was being attempted, and now wonders when the next princess will fall from the sky) and after a reunion at Mushroom Kingdom Castle (first appearence of Toadsworth is in this game, in the form of the Chancellor, and he's as worried about the princess as ever, younger looking though) which involves Bowser and Mario reenacting exactly what happened at the castle and Geno explaining that the star road is needed to grant the wishes of the people and without it, no wishes can ever come true again.
Peach: That's aweful, TERRIBLE! ... Isn't it?
Geno: Yes, for example if you got kidnapped Mario would never rescue you.
Bowser: Really? Then let's just forget about these silly star things anyway.
Peach: Then you can kiss your precious "keep" goodbye!
Bowser: WHAT?! Okay if the star road is gone, the princess is mine, but my castle is gone, and I'll never be able to take over the kingdom, but if the stars are there, then I get my castle back, but Mario will beat me and take the princess and... run that past me again?!
And then Peach sneaks out of the castle later behind the Chancellor's back and she goes into your party.
And so now I've gone past that and through the sea and beat Jonathan Jones the shark pirate and another member of smithy's gang (who forced me to temporarily give up a star by threatening to tickle the locked up townspeople), and have reached Monstro Town. Aside from a not so starry star and getting my arse handed to me by the very VERY tiny but ridiculously powerful "Jynx", master of martial arts, and getting challenged to find some flags by the 3 "musty fears", haven't done much here yet.
Anyway, had to share the retroventure with you because I forgot that this is one of my favorite RPGs evers. Only partly because the battles, as great and innovative (and expanded on in every Mario RPG since this one) as they are are actually less than half the fun to even be found in the game.
Plus, like it needs to be said that getting an invincibility star and instantly winning battle after battle by just running INTO the enemies on the screen and not even going through them is fun in and of itself. Levelups ahoy! (To a maximum of 30, and very SMALL numbers used to calculate experience, getting 10 XP is a LOT :D).
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
