Almost immediately after I got to the Mushroom Kingdom, a.k.a. Super Nintendo World, Bowser challenged me to a Mario Kart race! So of course I took him up on that challenge! So here’s my impressions of the Mario Kart ride. Was it good? Did I beat Bowser? Well you’ll just have to read on to find out.
So you know how the Mario Bros. are plumbers and they fell into a pipe that led them to the Mushroom Kingdom? Well, I work in the plumbing department of a major hardware store, so I guess the same thing happened to me! So in this four-part blog series, you’ll read all about my adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom, and how I was able to defeat Bowser three times in one morning. Take that, Mario! So yeah, I went to Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood a few weeks ago, so here’s my detailed account and experiences of the whole thing.
Cannon Dancer was an arcade game from 1996 and it was called Osman in the US, although I have never heard of it until now. If the game looks a LOT like Strider, there’s a reason for that. Both were directed by the same person and some have said that Cannon Dancer is like an ‘unofficial sequel’ of sorts. In the game you play as a martial arts dude who can climb walls and punch and kick bad guys as you stop a corrupt government in the future. And now you can play it on all current consoles, but it’s reviewed on PS4 here.
Hyper-5 is a 2-D side scrolling shooter with 3D graphics that look like they came from the late 90s/early 2000s. You can choose to play an arcade mode where you pick up power-ups, or a story mode where you can upgrade your weapons and ship at the end of each level. It’s available on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.
This is a motion controlled fitness game where you try and ‘swim’ a set distance each day by moving your arms while holding Switch JoyCons to mimic swimming strokes. It kind of reminds me of another simple fitness game released on the Switch a couple of years ago called Jump Rope Challenge.
Last year there was a game that came out that I really wanted to review called Arcade Paradise. I requested a review code three different times and was denied each time! I really wanted to review it, too, because it’s a time management sim where you must run a laundromat business, but you are secretly running an arcade in the back with dozens of fictional arcade games you can actually play! I actually had an idea for a business that was half laundromat, half arcade, and I was going to called it Quarters: Good Clean Fun. So this game really resonated with me. If I had gotten a chance to review it last year, it definitely would’ve showed up on my Game of the Year list somewhere. But this year I used some Christmas present PlayStation Store points to buy it, and sure it was only 20 bucks so I was kind of cheap, but this stuff adds up if you’re not careful. Anyway, so now that I’ve played the game, I thought I’d write a blog about the arcade cabinets you can play on it. Oh yeah, and slight spoiler alerts here and there, but I don’t think it matters much.
Papertris is a ‘falling blocks down a well’ type puzzle game, and it’s most similar to SEGA’s Columns. Colored blocks of three in a column fall from above, and you must arrange them and press the button to cycle through the color order to match three or more of the same. Except while in Columns you could only match colors horizontally, vertically, and diagonally, here you can match colors as long as they are next to each other. There are single player and multiplayer modes, and it has a neat paper graphics style. It’s available on Switch and PC (reviewed on Switch here).
Unlock outfits for cute anime ladies by playing a mahjong variation where you match three tiles. Pretty Girls Tile Match is available for PlayStation consoles, Switch, and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.
All right folks, I’m about to reveal one of my guilty pleasures. I like ghost shows. You know those shows on the Discovery Channel where investigators or ‘ghost hunters’ will explore haunted places to try and find proof of ghosts? Yeah I know those shows are dumb and probably are over exaggerated and maybe even faked at times. But I still like ‘em anyway! I just think ghosts are cool. But there’s not a whole lot of horror themed video games where you fight ghosts. It’s usually zombies or something else. But even though I usually like happy, colorful, kid friendly games, I do have a passing interest in the Fatal Frame series, where you use a special camera to fight ghosts by taking pictures of them. This series of games goes all the way back to the PS2 and I’ve played pretty much all of them. The latest one, Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, just came out and it’s available on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.
A group of the most adorable critters you’ve ever seen live happily in a forest together. One day a magical star-shaped seed appeared. If you plant it, good things will happen when it grows into a tree. But it only grows with happy feelings. So all the animals decide to build things for each other, eat good food, and play games together to make the tree grow. Cuddly Forest Friends on Switch is a hybrid virtual pet simulator mixed with Mario Party style mini-games.
