Toaster's Ramblings - Playing Smash Bros. 3DS

So I got the new Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS. I haven't played it a ton yet, I was busy trying to get some writing done on my novel for the Writer's Workshop this Saturday. However, I've played it for an hour or so. My initial impressions are that the game is pretty amazing. It's honestly what you'd expect from Smash Bros... except smaller.

I have 2 problems with the game so far. The first is that I am having a little trouble adjusting to the button configuration of the 3DS. I am used to the Gamecube controller for Super Smash Bros, so having less buttons to work with is hard. I get confused as to which button does what... which really sucks when you need that super jump to avoid falling to your death and you press the "punch" button. Also, there are more button combinations to remember with less buttons. Charging your energy weapon (like Samus does) requires a pressing B and the D pad in the direction you want to fire, but it has to be done in a certain way or you will just shoot the gun. I'm adjusting, but it's a learning curve to get back to the skill level that I had with Brawl.

The other problem I have is that the screen size can be difficult. When the camera zooms out, you have a tough time keeping track of which little moving guy you are as opposed to the other 3 moving guys and all the other flotsam and jetsam on the screen (objects, assist trophies, Pokemon... etc.) A few times I thought I was one guy when in reality I was falling to my death, and vice versa. Now the game does have a red "tag" that hovers over your character to help, but amidst the super fast action going on, it's not always easy to look up and make sure you are actually controlling who you think you are.

That said, the game-play is definitely Smash Bros. It looks and feels the same as the console versions. The movement is fluid, the action is fast and intense. It's really just Super Smash Bros. shrunk into a portable size game.

I haven't had a chance to play all of the new characters yet (some still have to be unlocked). I have most enjoyed Mega Man (no surprises there). He has some awesome attacks and his super jump being assisted by his robo-dog Rush is a great touch. Pac Man is interesting. I like his "chomp mode" attack where he turns into his classic arcade look to bite his opponents. Little Mac is a lot of fun to play. He is fast and has some great striking attacks including a jumping uppercut that would make Street Fighter Ryu's jaw drop. Robin seems cool, but is kind of a finesse character with his various magic spells. Shulk feels a little like Robin to me as he can switch between battle modes, but he has a cool energy sword.  Greninja is also really fun. He's like a super fast water-bending ninja frog. He may be my new Star Fox (one of my go-to characters).

I have not played Palutena, Rosalina, Villager or Wii Fit Trainer yet and I have yet to unlock Lucia, Duck Hunt Dog, Bowser Jr. or any of those really. The only character I have unlocked so far is Wario, which I accomplished by winning the 100 Man Battle.  It will be fun to unlock the rest, I just hope there's nothing stupid hard to open any of them, like defeat 10 men in Cruel Melee mode... I can't take out even 1!

So for those who have a 3DS, I recommend picking up Super Smash Bros. I also look forward to getting the Wii U version... someday. Who knows, it may be released next month in time for Black Friday. Or it may be delayed until next year. If that's the case, the 3DS version will hold me over until then.

Toaster's Ramblings - Super Smash Bros for Wii U and 3DS Edition!

So with less than a month left before the US release of Super Smash Bros for the 3DS (and that it was already released in Japan), it would appear that the character roster is set. In all there looks to be 51 fighters from various video game properties, including 3 Mii fighters that I assume you can import your likeness into, for both the 3DS version and the Wii U version (which apparently has the same roster and a November release date). While there are over a dozen new characters added to the game, there are some omissions from previous games. So let's take a look at the new and the lost characters.

The new Smash Bros fighters are Mega Man, Pac Man, Bowser Jr., Dark Pitt and Palutena (from Kid Icarus), the Duck Hunt Dog, Greninja, Little Mac (Punch Out), Lucina and Robin (from Fire Emblem), Rosalina & Luma (Super Mario Galaxy), Wii Fit Trainer, Villager (from Animal Crossing), and Shulk (from Xeno). We also have the return of Dr. Mario, last seen in the Game Cube version of Smash Bros.

Of these newbies, the ones I am most looking forward to... okay, I am totally psyched for Mega Man, above all others. Beyond him, Pac Man is very cool and I am very curious about how Duck Hunt Dog will play. (Finally we will all have our chance to shoot that damn dog! Laugh at this you furry bastard!) As for the rest, I will have to wait and see. I am worried that Villager will be a lot like the Pikmin guy, one that I never really got into from Brawl. Wii Fit Trainer also seems really odd.

I do want to point out that I think this version will have too many characters fighting with swords. Seriously, they already had two from Fire Emblem, and now there's two more. In all, there appears to be 10 characters that fight with swords! Maybe there will be some unique variations between them (for instance, Pit played a lot differently than Marth in Brawl), but that also worries me. Especially when I see who was cut.

The new Smash Bros Games do not appear to include Ivysaur, Squirtle, Solid Snake, Lucas (from Earthbound), Wolf (from Star Fox) and the Ice Climbers. Ivysaur and Squirtle were both in Brawl as two of the three Pokemon that could be summoned by the Pokemon Trainer. That was a neat idea, but was a little awkward in execution. So in the new game they just went with the third Pokemon, Charizard, as a regular player option. I'm not that torn up over losing Ivysaur and Squirtle. I'm also not that sad over losing Solid Snake, though I imagine others will be. Snake always felt out of place in Brawl. In a game with cartoonish characters having near ridiculous battles, you have this realistic looking soldier fighting with handguns and grenades. (For note, I will miss Snake's hiding under a cardboard box... that was hilarious.) Lucas was really just a crappier version of Ness, so he's no big loss either.

I am disappointed to lose Wolf and the Ice Climbers. Wolf is not a huge loss as he was really a finesse character of a finesse character of a finesse character. Fox was already tricky to master, Falco was even harder, but Wolf was for the advanced students. He has that weird angled charge attack that was great... if you could get it to work. He was stronger than Fox and Falco, but slower. I guess I just liked Wolf as the bad guy option. I would have been sadder to see Falco get the axe.

The Ice Climbers really bug me, though. They've been around since Melee and were very unique. No other character in Smash Bros. operated like them, with their tandem movements and attacks. I know a lot of people hated using them, but I actually enjoyed using the Ice Climbers. I kind of feel like a unique option was replaced by a random sword fighter.

I also want to add that although MewTwo was replaced back in Brawl with Lucario, I still miss him. He had neat attacks and that evil laugh. I get why Lucario replaced him, but I still miss the evil MewTwo.

I do have to say that 51 playable characters is a weird number. Not 50, or 52, or even 55. This makes me think there could be other unlockable characters or possibly future downloadable packages for both the 3DS and Wii U that give new characters, skins, locations, etc. Then a lot of my complaints may be rendered moot. I hope that's the case. I also want to add that the addition of Mega Man trumps every cut character combined. I am really excited for these new Super Smash Bros. released (the expectation of a new installment was my biggest reason to get a Wii U!) and will buy both versions as I am a tool like that.

Toaster's Ramblings... End of 2012 Edition

So 2012 is about to come to an end. In some ways it was a big year full of change and in other ways it is just the same old shit.

The Summer Olympics were the irritating waste of time they always are, essentially being a competition between the US and China for medals… how exciting. The United States went through the most annoying and vicious election season I have ever heard of and in the end… nothing really changed. In fact, our lawmakers are just as gridlocked now as they were last year and I don’t see that changing in 2013. Same old, same old.

Television was the same as always. Cable shows, while still better than network shows, remain under-appreciated in lieu of mind-numbing schlock like crime procedurals, high-end karaoke contests and reality shows about horrible people doing stupid things. A few shows ended such as Chuck, a show I seldom watched, and House, which if you ask me ended a few years too late. Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 showed us that there’s more to James Van Der Beek than Dawson and obscurity thereafter. Nothing really monumental happened on the small screen.

The Hollywood trend of exploiting comic books for blockbusters has continued in stride with The Avengers making a gajillion dollars (that’s a kadillion more than a fazillion!). Chris Nolen’s Dark Knight Trilogy ended in controversial style; people seem pretty divided on their feelings about The Dark Knight Rises.”  Sony gave Disney the middle finger by restarting their Spider-man franchise with a well received hit movie, thus ensuring Marvel Films will be without their figurehead web-slinging character for years to come.

However, Disney was able to console themselves by buying Star Wars in their latest bid to own every aspect of my childhood. (They don’t own Mattel yet, do they? I’m not sure I can handle a crossover with Mickey Mouse and He-Man!) Just as soon as the ink dried on the contract, Disney announced plans for Episodes 7 through 9, beginning with a projected release on 2015… the same year as Avengers 2. With all the money they make from those two movies, Disney will then buy the moon and build Lunar Disneyland or Disney Universe or something. (“The Happiest Place Orbiting Earth”)

Marvel Comics did their"not a reboot" called Marvel Now because, I suspect, all the good names were taken. Aside from bringing back the mutant population and a bunch of new X-Men and Avenger titles, I don't know what all is different. I will say that so far the Uncanny Avengers book is pretty good. The new Deadpool book co-written by comedian Brian Posehn is awesome. DC Comics continued the New 52, which isn't nearly so new. The luster of rebooting their entire universe is wearing away as the realities of throwing away decades of continuity are setting in.

We lost a lot of cool people this year, such as Ernest Borgnine, Jack Klugman, Ravi Shankar, Davy Jones, Maurice Sendak, Andy Griffith, Sherman Helmsley, Phyllis Diller and the first man to walk of the freakin’ moon Neil Armstrong! We need to stop letting these cool people die. Perhaps we can create some kind of cloning device and transfer aging celebrity brains into them or something. We can’t afford to lose the likes of William Shatner, Christopher Lee, Leonard Nemoy, Bob Barker or Stan Lee!

The music industry continued its slow death at the hands of the internet. Soon there will be no stores, only warehouses to send people packages they ordered online. And everything will be sent by pneumatic tubes and we will drink recycled urine and eat Soylent Green… IT’S PEOPLE I TELL YOU, PEOPLE! I still refuse to commit entirely to the MP3 downloadable music format. I still like CD’s. I like having a permanent hard copy of my music with song liners with lyrics and pictures. MP3 albums don’t seem real to me, probably because they aren’t tangible. I do download music pretty regularly, but its mainly stuff that I am sure I can’t find in stores or just the random individual song that I don’t want to buy the whole album to get.

Nintendo’s newest console, the Wii U, launched shortly before Thanksgiving. I’m still not sure anyone noticed. I got one for Christmas (from Lil’ Toaster) that is still sitting in it’s box, next to me, as I wait for a cord or something in the mail to hook it up to the HD TV. I don’t know. This is Tivo-Girl’s domain. I just sit around and look pretty.

I don’t know how well the Wii U will do versus Playstation and X-Box, but I don’t have a lot of faith in it’s success. For one thing, the advertising for the Wii U was abysmal! I swear, I didn’t see a commercial for the Wii U until the beginning of November two weeks before its release! Now I get that gamers are well informed of these things and I knew about it for a couple of years, but what about the casual gamers? Hell, what about getting the kids excited for it before Christmas? A $300 game system (for the basic unit) is something a kid has to work at with his/her parents (through summer at least) to convince them to pay that much to buy it for them, let alone any games!

On a personal level, 2012 has been a monumental year for me. In May, Tivo-Girl and I welcomed our first child… who (for the purposes of cyberspace) is known as Toaster Jr. or perhaps Little Toaster. Either one works, really. I will just refer to him anyway I feel like whenever I bring him up. Maybe someday I will call him ‘Little Ivan Drago’…but only if his first words are “I must break you.” From then on, naptime will be purely on a voluntary basis.

And as for Jonny Prophet… I imagine that he is still hard at work in his lair developing some sort of super weapon to destroy all birds. Thankfully, between surfing the web and the hundreds of cable channels at his fingertips, he’s usually too distracted to do anything more than send me videos of ostriches getting mauled by tigers or try to petition the nation of Australia to restart the Great Emu War.

Hopefully 2013 will be good… maybe less mediocre (beyond, of course, the whole baby being born thing). Anyways, have a Happy New Year… unless you are Chinese, then you have to wait a month. Or if you’re Hebrew and you already had yours in September... in which case, how is 5773 going for you?

Stay Strange this 2013.

Top 10 New Playable Characters I Want in Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U

The Wii U launch is approaching and the anticipatory build-up for this new system has been… well, pretty underwhelming. (Seriously Nintendo, you had NOTHING to show for G4?)  We were promised, among other standard “like you would really put out a new console without this game” franchises, that we would get a new Smash Bros. game. Honestly, that would be my biggest reason to buy the system. I am a huge fan of the Super Smash Bros. series going way back to the N64. I love the unique fighting style and insane gameplay of the series as well as getting to use so many diverse video game characters, each utilizing their own special and often legendary attacks. Now the Gamecube and Wii installments each brought many new characters to the game which really expanded the possibilities of play and I imagine that the Wii U will provide an even bigger array of playable characters to choose from. No two additional characters changed the franchise as much as the inclusions of Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog. Both those PC’s are special in that they are not owned by Nintendo and as such really opened the door to all sorts of dream match-ups and battles. So, here is my list of the Top 10 PC’s, either owned by Nintendo or not, that I want in the next installment of Super Smash Bros.

Honorable Mention: Shadow – The evil Sonic could be awesome, but the game designers would really need to make him different from the blue hedgehog. The best way of doing that is with his Chaos attacks. The problem is Shadow seems a lot like a repeat of Sonic, like Dr. Mario, Young Link and Pichu from Melee.

10. Bowser Jr. – Imagine a smaller Bowser with the same shell attacks as his daddy, except make those attacks slightly less powerful in exchange for greater speed.  It seems inevitable that at some point King Koopa’s favorite kid, and considering Jr. is the youngest of 8 that’s saying something, gets included in a Smash Bros. game. He may offer some unique attacks such as using the magic paintbrush or throwing Koopa shells. I think there is definitely enough potential to make a cool and different character for the game.

9. Tails – He’s one of the characters people asked about when Sonic was revealed to be a part of Brawl. Tails is a fan favorite of the Hedgehog series and being a flying character he could be very interesting to play. Plus his mechanic skills could lend him some weapons and gadgets to attack with.

8. Waluigi – You have Wario, why the hell not Waluigi? I suppose the biggest problem would be making Waluigi distinct, especially after Wario was made so drastically different from Mario. But he is definitely a character that people asked about when they saw he was only an Assist Trophy in Brawl and Wario was a playable character. Maybe Waluigi could be based on various sport appearances he’s made like in Super Sluggers.

7. Bonk the Caveman/AirZonk – Going back in time there was a groundbreaking videogame system known as the TurboGrafx 16 which at the time was the only home console to offer 16 bit graphics. The original mascot for the system was Bonk, a cave-boy with a large invulnerable head that he would use to head-butt his enemies. He was featured in several games before being retired and replaced with his great, great, great… way too many greats to bother listing, grandson AirZonk, who was a punk/cyborg boy from the future. Either of these characters would be cool, or Bonk could ‘evolve’ into Zonk much the same way Zelda could become Sheik or the Pokemon change out in midgame; then you could have a change in gameplay as Bonk is more physical and Zonk is a shooter. 

6. Dr. Robotnik – It only seems fair that since we got Sonic, we should get his nemesis. I’m not sure what his power set would be, partly because I haven’t played very many Sonic the Hedgehog games. Maybe he could summon minions like King Dedede (I think that was his name, he was Kirby’s nemesis) or he could use robotic weapons.

5. Knuckles – Again, it was awesome to get Sonic, but Knuckles was a cool character that can be used to expand the speedster design. Knuckles seems made for Super Smash Bros. as he is a major brawler. I would guess this want of mine has one of the best shots at being made into a PC due to his following.

4. Samurai Goroh – This villain of Captain Falcon first appeared in the game as a trophy in Melee, then as an Assist Trophy in Brawl. I think it’s time he graduates to a full on character. His move-set could be similar to Falcon’s, except slower. In return, however, Goroh can attack with his katana. I could even see a special energy slash attack similar to the “Falcon Punch”

2 & 3. Megaman and Dr. Wiley – This might be wishful thinking as Capcom seems content to make their own fighting games using their own catalog of characters, but I would actually want those two 2 characters (Megaman and Dr. Wiley) and one Assist Trophy (Rush). Now we don’t really need Megaman when you consider Samus is really similar to him, but he is so iconic, plus if he could change out types of blasters (ice gun, fire balls, etc.) he could be really cool. I could see Dr. Wiley having a Shang Tsung type of shape shifting ability where he can summon robot armor resembling (and having the powers of) various robot bosses from the games. Rush could be a flying missile launcher or something, I’m not sure, but he should be there. If they wanted to expand further, I would also love to see Zero and Proto Man join the fray.

1. Simon Belmont – Perhaps another case of wishful thinking (unless a deal can be made with Konami), the hero of Castlevania 1 & 2 has been such a Nintendo icon that he appeared in that bizarre Captain N: The Game Master cartoon. I think he could be an entirely unique playable character. Nobody uses a whip! Samus and Link have a grappling hook, but that’s not the same. Simon could whip opponents and use his leathery weapon to latch onto cliffs to avoid falling to his death. Plus, he could have throwing knives, those ‘wall of flame’ magic things he threw in Simon’s Quest, maybe have options for the flaming whip… I don’t know, there are a lot of possibilities here. All I know is before Brawl came out, there was 2 Nintendo characters I wanted most to appear… one was Pit from Kid Icarus. Poor Simon has yet to join the fight.