Zippo's Nonsensical Ramblings and Other Stuff

Not the game you expected to hear about next, is it?  We'll get to Wonder soon, but this is a very important game to talk about.  Today marks the thirty fifth anniversary of one of Nintendo's most popular, important and most cherished titles. Super Mario Bros. 3 is where the Mario series established it's core formula, so  to speak. Numerous famous power ups, the world map, minigames in order to said earn power ups, the brothers wearing blue overalls, all of that originated here.  It's also an absolutely incredible game. It's controls, physics,  level design and soundtrack are just fuckin' immaculate. This game hasn't aged a single day since it released, and I'll fight just about anyone on that.  The fact that this game released just a mere three years after the original Super Mario Bros. game in Japan is absolutely astounding. Mario 3 feels like it could just be on a different console. The jump in quality was freaking absurd and not something you see ver...

Ugh. The negativity continues.  You know, when this was announced, I was pretty excited about it. I was like "hey, this isn't Mania 2 of course, but this looks pretty cool!"  Then, as the months went on, I got less and less excited. I just got a feeling, and it continued and continued on.  Now we're here.  I'm not gonna mince words. This game is a huge disappointment, from top to bottom. It's a hot mess. It's got absolutely no rizz, as the kids say.  It's okay in some spots, but there's a lot here that just doesn't work for me. The level design is good, for the first five or so zones. Then... It drops off of a fucking cliff.  I don't know what happened in the second half but I did not like it. At all. Some of the bosses are some of the worst I've ever played in a video game, I fucking swear to Christ, autoscrollers should be banned from ever being in Sonic, what the hell.  And my god, some of the bosses go on for fucking ever. What were...

Man.  Do you guys ever have that thing where you have literally zero expectations for, and it just still somehow disappoints you? This is pretty much that one for me. Sonic Frontiers is not a game I liked very much from the start, and this has soured me on it even more, to be honest.  I mean, yeah, it's cool and great and awesome that Tails, Knuckles and Amy are playable in 3D again for the first time in ages, but when the actual game design there is not up to snuff, it kinda takes the wind out of my sails.  So much here just doesn't feel like it wasn't well designed, there are logical inconsistencies in the actual level design, and some of the stuff there is just janky. Tails is good. But, Knuckles and Amy...woof.  What happened? Knuckles flat out fucking sucks. Nothing about his combat, sections or general control worked for me. Not a one. That was a complete misfire on their end.   Amy is better, but still not great. Why in the worldis her hammer not her...

  Hey! If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you'll know that I'm a huge, huge fan of the original Super Monkey Ball games for GameCube. They're some my favorite games of all time, and they're still incredible games that I can pick up and play anytime, and I still do every few months, they're just nice, cozy, comfort games, ya know?  You'll be happy to know then, that the next installment starring SEGA's favorite simians is in the works at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. That studio is a true workhorse, I tell you what. Two Like A Dragon games and then a brand new Super Monkey Ball game in a full twelve months. They're madmen and that's exactly why they remain the shining beacon of the company.   You'll be even more happy to know that this gane will be on every platform under the sun, that includes PS5, Xbox, Steam and of course, Nintendo's new console. In fact, I'm hearing that this new game will most likely be one of the first games ...