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- #201
It seems that my clues continue to be harder than I intend, so hopefully this next one can lead you to the answer: the game I have in mind came out for the Game Boy in 1992.
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Welcome Back to Digital Pinball Fans - please read this first
The Top 25 Video Game Villains of Every Subtype Imaginable
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It seems that my clues continue to be harder than I intend, so hopefully this next one can lead you to the answer: the game I have in mind came out for the Game Boy in 1992.
- Mar 17, 2012
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You skipped over Mario Bros. (before he became "super").
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- #203
Ah, yes! That one had slipped my mind for some obscure reason (I think it was because I was thinking of the Super Mario platformers as the "main" Mario series). Thank you for the catch–I've gone back and edited the original post to reflect the existence of Mario Bros. and I'll award you one bonus point for helping me find that slip-up. Do you care to try for your third straight by guessing the first honorable mention? Here's the recap of the clues so far:
-He wields a hammer.
-The protagonist of the franchise only gained his signature ability in the second game of the main series.
-After the first game, this villain became far less villainous, only appearing as the primary antagonist in remakes of the first game & spin-off titles.
-His premiere was in a Game Boy title released in 1992.
What do you think all that adds up to?
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Also, for the villain: King DeDeDe from Kirby's Dream Land.
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- #205
That's the one! Why did such a high-profile Nintendo villain fail to make it into the main list? Well, he really went soft after the first game, as we'll see below:
H1. King Dedede (Kirby's Dream Land)
Developed By: HAL Laboratory
Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Game Boy
Year of Release: 1992
Outside of JRPGs, Japanese gaming series have a strong tendency to stick with the same core group of characters, even over long stretches of time, with only minor additions and subtractions along the way. Nintendo have proven themselves no exception, especially where classic antagonists like Bowser, Ganondorf and Master Hand are concerned. Outside of Fire Emblem and Pokemon (both of which fall under the aforementioned JRPG exemption), the Kirby series has proven a rather odd exception. In addition to its rapid rotation of villains (only Dark Matter has been the primary antagonist in more than one mainline Kirby title, with the quest to defeat him stretching out over Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3 & Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards), Kirby's first antagonist, King Dedede, has been present in almost every Kirby game ever made (Kirby and the Amazing Mirror is the odd one out amongst the platformers, while only the nigh-forgotten Kirby Slide, an e-Reader sliding puzzle game made to promote Kirby: Right Back At Ya!, is not graced by the presence of Pop Star's ruler), but has only been the Big Bad in Kirby's Dream Land and several of the spin-off titles.
Looking at King Dedede's trajectory across the 12 main games of the series, we can see a clear arc in the evolution of his character. Kirby's Dream Land, the first game in the series, definitely has the lowest stakes, with the objective being to get Pop Star's food back from King Dedede. On a related note, this is also the only game where Kirby's only form of offense is to spit out inhaled objects. King Dedede has relatively little to do with the game itself, showing up at the end for a reasonably satisfying final boss fight, only for Kirby to trounce him and return all of Pop Star's food (though things are MUCH less cut & dried in the game's Extra Mode).
Kirby's Adventure represents a sharp swerve for both Dedede and the Kirby franchise. Although the game takes pains to let you know that Kirby can now swallow many of his foes to gain their powers, King Dedede's turn is a much sharper one. Initially, it looks like more of the same from him, as he has broken the Star Rod (an artifact that allows the residents of Pop Star to have peaceful dreams) into six pieces and distributed those pieces among his underlings; however, after you take him down at the end of Rainbow Resort, the story takes a surprisingly shocking swerve, as Kirby learns that King Dedede was actually trying to save Pop Star from the depredations of Nightmare, who had corrupted the Fountain of Dreams and intends to spread bad dreams across Dream Land to gaine more power. This softening trend would continue in later games, but not without interruption.
The so-called "Dark Matter Trilogy" (Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards) places King Dedede in the role of a frequent possession victim of Dark Matter. In all three games, Dark Matter takes control of King Dedede, who serves as a Disc One Final Boss in the first two games and an early mini-boss in Kirby 64. This would not be the last time that somebody would take control of King Dedede for their own ends, with Drawcia creating a fake King Dedede as one of her underlings in Kirby: Canvas Curse and Yin-Yarn making him into a literal puppet (made of yarn, no less) in Kirby's Epic Yarn. Also, the end of his boss fight in Kirby Mass Attack indicates that he may have been possessed yet again, most likely by Necrodeus, the antagonist of that game.
King Dedede's characterization would take a step backwards in the Super NES compilation game Kirby Super Star. There, he served as the final boss of Spring Breeze, an abbreviated remake of Kirby's Dream Land that incorporated the ability to gain powers into the original game's gameplay. His only other appearance was as a boss in The Arena, a boss rush mode that is the final unlockable game in the compilation. On a related note, Kirby Super Star Ultra also included Revenge of the King, a remake of Kirby's Dream Land's Extra Mode (a harder remix of the game), which had Masked Dedede as its final boss and one of the final 4 bosses of The True Arena. Masked Dedede is basically a heavily souped-up version of the original King Dedede fight with far more moves and no flinching when hit during hammer-based moves. To date, this is King Dedede's last appearance as the final boss in any Kirby game.
After his absence from Kirby and the Amazing Mirror and a fake Dedede appearing in Kirby: Canvas Curse, Dedede continued to soften in Kirby: Squeak Squad. As Kirby mistakenly believes Dedede to be behind the theft of his strawberry shortcake (no, really, that's the backstory for the game), King Dedede serves as the first boss of Squeak Squad. However, it turns out that the culprit was not King Dedede, but rather The Squeaks, whom you end up chasing through the rest of the game to get your strawberry shortcake back. Dedede launches Kirby into Nature Notch and that is the last we see of him in Squeak Squad.
Finally, Kirby's Return to Dream Land (Kirby's Adventure Wii to my European readers) brings Dedede's roller coaster journey to its natural conclusion. Here, he makes his first default playable appearance in a Kirby title (he had previously been playable in both Kirby Air Ride and Kirby: Canvas Curse, but needed to be unlocked in both games, while certain levels in Kirby 64 had him taking Kirby on a piggyback ride). This should be no surprise to anyone who played through The Subspace Emissary back in 2008, where King Dedede started out with the Subspace Army, but eventually turned out to be the linchpin of the effort to defeat them. Players 2, 3 & 4 can play as him (Player 1 is stuck with standard Kirby) and make use of the might of his hammer, which mostly plays like having the Hammer power with Kirby (minus the Hammer Swing while jumping and having infinite Hammer Throws).
Looking back at King Dedede's body of work, we see that he becomes less and less villainous as the scale of the game he is in grows. At one end of the scale, we have Kirby's Dream Land, where King Dedede is the final boss; at the other, we have The Subspace Emissary, a sprawling crossover epic where he is arguably the biggest contributor to Tabuu's downfall. Even the apparent outlier of the series, Kirby Super Star, can be made to fit, since King Dedede's relative villainy still decreases compared to the other minigames' Big Bads (especially the Big Bad of Milky Way Wishes). In my opinion, this pattern represents a brilliant stroke on HAL Laboratory's part–they knew that as the scope of the Kirby series grew, Dedede's fairly provincial wrongdoing wouldn't leave very much of an impact, so they softened him up over time to allow him to have some meaningful role to play in the series. Given Kirby's reputation as Nintendo's 'experimental' franchise, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to propose that this was a precursor to the similar softening of Super Mario antagonist Bowser, whom players could first control in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. If nothing else, it shows that Nintendo's penchant for placing its characters in novel genres and scenarios isn't limited to its umpteen different Mario-derived video game series.
Next Time on The Top 25 Nintendo Villains: This next entry is actually an ensemble of sorts, so I'll give a clue for each of its members, arranged alphabetically by name:
1) Black Rose has nothing on this lady of larceny!
2) Ain't no mountain high enough...
3) Your path is drawn before you...
4) Game Freak used Rhythm Game. It's super effective!
5) Roy will lead the way...
6) Is all that we see or seem just a dream within a dream?
7) You ain't never had a friend like me!
EDIT: I forgot to clarify that you only have to get one of the seven correct to get credit for this one, so take a stab at any that you think you know! You'll also get another point for each correct guess beyond the first, so you're probably best served by trying to guess as many antagonists as you can.
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- #206
Perhaps an all-star honorable mention entry wasn't quite the stroke of genius that I thought it would be. Allow me to reiterate that you only need to correctly guess one out of seven to get this one right, but if you have more than one correct guess, each subsequent correct guess will be worth an additional point. Also, to help you along, here's a clue about each of our Nintendo Mystery All-Stars:
1) The hero of this antagonist's game was himself previously the antagonist of a Super Mario title.
2) This title is part of a long-running series of Nintendo handheld games.
3) In this game, you use the stylus to draw a path for your character to travel along, using a limited supply of paint to do so.
4) The game I have in mind here is a downloadable title.
5) The primary antagonist of this game showed up as an ally of the heroes in the next game in the series, which was the first of its series to be released in the West.
6) The game I have in mind here was the first handheld title in its series.
7) Only one entry in this series has seen a Western release.
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OK, you guys do understand that each clue out of the set of seven is referring to a different antagonist, right? With that in mind, here's a third batch of clues:
1) This antagonist allies herself with the protagonist of the series when he faces off with the Black Jewel.
2) The game I have in mind here came out in 1986.
3) The game I have in mind uses mini-games instead of conventional boss battles with the exception of the final boss.
4) A set of bonus levels in the game is based around music from the Pokemon franchise.
5) This game comes from a long-running series of turn-based tactical RPGs.
6) Your objective in this game is to collect the eight Instruments of the Siren to awaken the Wind Fish.
7) The series this game hails from is co-developed by Nintendo and Tose.
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6. The Nightmares, from Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.
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That's correct! Do you care to take a crack at any of the other six? If not, I'll probably have posted the next entry by late afternoon.
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1. Captain Syrup, from the Wario series.
5. Minax, from Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress.
The others I do not know.
5. Minax, from Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress.
The others I do not know.
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- #212
#1 is right on the money; #5 is...not. Since you seem to have a yen for old-school PC games, I'll make you a deal: if you score either 20 points on this list or the single highest amount of points across this and the next list, I'll make list #4 The Top 25 Pre-1991 Western PC Game Villains.
#3 is indeed Kirby: Canvas Curse. I was starting to wonder if this whole list was just going to end up as a dialogue between me and Sean DonCarlos! Anyway, here's our first 'All-Star' Honorable Mention entry. For stronger lists such as Nintendo, old-school Japanese gaming, Western console & handheld games since 2001 and Western PC games of the 1990s, there will be far more quality options than slots to choose from. Thus, I may decide to have an Honorable Mention made up of several mini-entries instead of one larger one, usually with an eye towards making a broader point about the category of gaming under scrutiny. With that in mind, let's give a big hand to The Nintendo Handheld All-Stars!
H2. The Nintendo Handheld All-Stars
Developed By: See below
Published By: See below
Platform: See below
Year of Release: See below
Nintendo's dominance in the dedicated handheld market is so taken for granted by most gamers that any serious challenge to it is practically guaranteed to be newsworthy. Predictions of the next generation being the one where Nintendo stumbles have long been commonplace, but their Game Boy and DS lines have survived challenge upon challenge, even weathering the once-invincible juggernaut that was iOS gaming, which has lost much of its luster to the flood of low-quality software that many Nintendo practices were explicitly designed to prevent, while the 3DS has gone from strength to strength. How has Nintendo proven so evergreen in the handheld market? Hopefully, we can find at least some of the answers below.
H2-1. Captain Syrup (Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3)
Developed & Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Game Boy
Year of Release: 1994
Few franchises have been quite the mother of spin-offs that the Mario franchise has been for Nintendo. To put that statement in perspective, here's a list of Mario-affiliated series that would, counting titles expected to be released either this year or next year, independently qualify as Video Game Long Runners according to TVTropes (the minimum requirements are 6 games released across 10 years): Donkey Kong Country (6 games from 1994 to 2010), Mario Kart (10 games from 1992 to 2013), Mario Party (13 games from 1998 to 2013), the Mario RPGs (9 games from 1996 to 2013, including Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, the Paper Mario series and the Mario & Luigi series), Mario Tennis (6 games from 1995 to 2012), Mario Vs. Donkey Kong (6 games from 1994 to 2013, including Donkey Kong '94 and the proper Mario Vs. Donkey Kong games), Super Mario (16 games from 1985 to 2012, plus 2 games that bear Super Mario Artifact Titles), WarioWare (7 titles from 2003 to 2013), Wario Land (6-8 titles from 1994 to 2008, depending on whether or not you count Wario World and/or Wario: Master of Disguise) and the Yoshi series (11 games from 1991 to 2014). Among these, Wario Land is unique in starring not Mario or one or more of his friends, but rather one of Mario's former enemies (WarioWare isn't centered on its ostensible title character in quite the same way as the Wario Land series).
Right from the start, Wario Land makes itself as different from from the Super Mario series as it can. For starters, even though Wario isn't the villain anymore, he's not quite a hero, either, shoulder-tackling pirates who did nothing to incur his wrath for the sake of shaking a coin or two out of them, while his overarching motivation is to locate a missing statue of Princess Peach, then ransom it back to the Mushroom Kingdom, then use the money to get himself a nicer castle than Mario's (he got kicked out of Mario's castle at the end of Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins). In addition, the game subtly implies the old moral that money can't buy happiness in a very clever way. In most Mario platformers, coins serve as a method of gaining extra lives; however, Wario Land takes a different approach, with the coins essentially representing your score and determining how nice a house you get at the end of the game, while you must instead collect 100 hearts to gain an extra life (hearts were used as substitutes for 1-Up Mushrooms in the first two Super Mario Land games). Though this is not as daunting as it sounds, as each enemy you defeat gives you 1 heart and each small heart icon gives you 10, extra lives are still trickier to come by for Wario than for Mario. The series as a whole also takes a noticeably different tack from its parent, playing out more as a puzzle-platformer than the more action-oriented Super Mario games. This would become more prominent in later entries, which actually remove lives altogether in favor of finding different ways to fold, spindle and mutilate Wario to get past the obstacles that stand between you and your desired treasure.
Captain Syrup herself would have only limited appearances in other Wario games, but her appearance in Wario Land: Shake It! was a crowning triumph for her. In that game, she allies herself with Wario, running a shop you can buy upgrades from with your winnings from the Shake Dimension. However, she was actually playing Wario for a sap the whole time, using him to do the heavy lifting while she swoops in and collects the Bottomless Coin Sack–which was the reason Wario intervened in the first place–at the end of the game as payment for having gotten Wario to help get rid of the Shake King and free Queen Merelda. Hopefully, we'll get to see just how opulently Captain Syrup has lived with her infinite coins sooner rather than later...
H2-2. Dragalo (Climber)
Developed & Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Game & Watch Crystal (DR-802)
Year of Release: 1986
Nintendo's Game Boy and DS lines are widely and rightly lauded as representing some of handheld gaming's brightest moments, but the earliest of Nintendo's gaming success stories was overshadowed until relatively recently. Super Smash Bros. Melee introduced a large number of gamers to Mr. Game & Watch, the retroactive mascot of Nintendo's Game & Watch series of handheld LCD games. Though the games had previously proven popular enough to receive reissues in the form of both the Mini Classics line of LCD games and several compilation games for the Game Boy & Game Boy Color, it was the appearance of Mr. Game & Watch in Melee that brought the series to the attention of mainstream Nintendo fandom. This newfound popularity could even have influenced the design of the DS, as a similar design was first seen in the Multiscreen series of Game & Watch titles, all but 3 of which opened vertically like the DS (Mario Bros., Rainshower and Lifeboat opened horizontally instead).
Since the import of the Game & Watch series should be clear enough, a different question emerges: why Climber? Though sales figures are difficult to ascertain for Game & Watch titles, only about 250K were made, which made it a modest success, but not a breakout hit like some of its sister titles. In addition, it came about during the twilight of the Game & Watch series' run, with only 9 of the 60 Game & Watches produced being released from 1987 to 1991. However, the transitory nature of the era of Climber's release, a time when Nintendo were in the midst of switching gears from the arcade & LCD markets to the home console business, actually makes it a prime candidate to pick apart to see what made Game & Watches so successful for Nintendo.
One of Nintendo's longest-standing design principles is Game & Watch creator Gunpei Yokoi's philosophy of 'Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology'–that is, innovating within the bounds of common & well-understood technology. The Game & Watch line's design symbolizes this philosophy perfectly–its LCD design was derived from the number of LCDs and semiconductors floating around because of Sharp and Casio entering the calculator market, while the initial idea for the series came from Yokoi observing a bored businessman playing with his LCD calculator. As one might expect, this has a habit of leading to very simplistic early games as the designers get a feel for the technology at hand, while later games are much more refined, since the designers have a much better feel for the tools at their disposal. This pattern bears out almost to a T with Game & Watch–compare the Silver & Gold Series games, such as Ball, Judge or Lion, with something like, say, Mario's Cement Factory, Safebuster or Zelda and the difference in refinement of mechanics should be immediately apparent.
In addition, Climber shares many similarities with the Nintendo hit Ice Climber, though a direct inspiration of the latter by the former has never been confirmed. Though the design adds some elements, most notably a boss enemy in the form of Dragolo and a magic platform that lets players lucky enough to land on it advance 7 floors instantly, it also differentiates and adapts itself by subtracting certain elements. Chief among these is the absence of any floor-crossing enemies or enemies that can force the screen to move, which is almost certainly a good design decision, as the limited range of movement in a Game & Watch title would have made avoiding both such foes a dicey proposition at best. In addition, the fact that Climber can only move 1 square horizontally during a jump makes for some tense periods of strategic waiting, as you hope that the right pattern of Blockmen to allow you to pass on to the next floor appears, though the predictable jumping may make the jumps somewhat easier. In terms of elements added, spiked vines force quick decision making when Climber is on a moving platform.
Game & Watch may have been in its commercial twilight in 1986, but excellent titles like Climber show that Gunpei Yokoi's design philosophy could still squeeze a few more enjoyable games out of the aging design elements of the line. Climber would be recommissioned in a Wide Screen edition in 1988, while the Game & Watch series would continue on for a few years before the release of Mario the Juggler in 1991, which plays much like an update of Ball. After that, it would hit the remake circuit in the mid-1990s, starting with the Europe-and-Australia-only Game Boy Gallery and continuing on through 4 more Game & Watch Gallery titles for the Game Boy line of handhelds, with 2 Game & Watch Collection games for the Nintendo DS being released several years later as Club Nintendo exclusives. The spirit lives on, though, and Game & Wario looks to be a fitting (if heavily tongue-in-cheek) homage to the series responsible for launching Nintendo into the video gaming limelight.
H2-3. Drawcia (Kirby: Canvas Curse)
Developed By: HAL Laboratory
Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo DS
Year of Release: 2005
Nintendo often catch substantial flack for failing to innovate in their major IPs. It is true that Nintendo have a strong tendency to favor sticking with established characters, but this is a deliberate design choice on their part, not to mention best business practice when Nintendo have such a stable of video gaming icons to choose from. The criticisms of repetitive gameplay mechanics seem to mostly be derived from the New Super Mario Bros. series of 2-D platformers, but once again, their old-fashioned sensibilities are a conscious choice on Nintendo's part and they do at least incorporate incremental changes in each title. Even if other franchises grow repetitive, though, Kirby can always be counted on to find ways to mix things up, with Kirby: Canvas Curse being one of the best examples of how well everyone's favorite cream puff can do at making innovative gameplay fun.
In what probably amounts to a pretty normal day for Kirby, a painting-native sorceress named Drawcia curses Kirby, turning him into a ball; however, her magic wand finds its way to Kirby, allowing him to draw himself trails to travel on. In addition to drawing trails with the stylus, you can also dash by tapping the stylus on the screen, which is how you absorb an enemy's powers for your own; dashing while you have a power equipped will also use that power. As of the posting of this entry, the Balloon ability is unique to Canvas Curse. Gained by inhaling a Bloon enemy, it allow Kirby to freely float upwards, but you can also pop the balloon with several taps of the stylus, causing a large explosion that will take out any nearby enemies.
Another innovative feature of the game's design is its approach to boss fights. The only conventional boss fight in the game is the final showdown with Drawcia herself. For the remaining boss fights, you face off with Paint Roller, Kracko and King Dedede twice each in mini-games centered around a shape-tracing game, a Breakout clone and a mine cart race, respectively. The repetition of the battles may put some off, but they are still enjoyable and a fun way to wrap up each of the first six worlds.
Kirby: Canvas Curse represents the first look at just how experimental the series would get in the early 21st century. Two of the next four titles after Canvas Curse were radical departures from what one could call the 'Kirby formula' of copy-and-inhale-driven platforming, with both Kirby's Epic Yarn and Kirby Mass Attack doing away with the mechanic altogether in favor of new ones (fun with yarn physics and multiple Kirbys, respectively), with even the more conservative Kirby Squeak Squad and Kirby's Return to Dream Land bringing their own wrinkles to the formula in the form of an item screen on the bottom screen of the DS & Hyper Abilities, respectively. Last year, Kirby's Dream Collection marked the 20th anniversary of Kirby–here's hoping to another 20 years of the creativity that makes Kirby great!
H2-4. Gargan (HarmoKnight)
Developed By: Game Freak
Published By: Nintendo
Platform: 3DS eShop
Year of Release: 2013
Pokemon is undoubtedly one of Nintendo's five most important franchises (or, as I have dubbed them, 'The Five Pillars', with the other four being Kirby, The Legend of Zelda, Mario and Metroid). The receipts from the series' first two generations more or less single-handedly saw Nintendo through the lean years of the N64 and GameCube, with numerous spinoffs, including Pokemon Pinball, Pokemon Snap! and Pokemon Stadium also pitching in. The Pokemon series has, for better or worse, undeniably defined its developer, a second-party Nintendo studio called Game Freak. Though Pokemon is one of video gaming's most recognized brands, it also overshadows some of the great work Game Freak did outside of the series, including Drill Dozer, Pulseman and Yoshi, and has so thoroughly dominated their output that HarmoKnight is only the second non-Pokemon Game Freak title of the 21st century; however, I highly doubt that it will be the last.
In a recent effort to diversify their output, Game Freak took a page from Google's playbook and implemented a policy similar to their 20% time policy. Basically, any employee is allowed to pursue their personal projects if they can find at least two other people to help them; after 3 months, management checks in to see if they like where the project is going. If they do, then development continues for another 3 months, after which management reviews the project for a second time; if the project passes its second review, then it becomes an official Game Freak project. The first fruit born of this company philosophy is HarmoKnight, a rhythm platformer for the 3DS eShop.
The premise of the game is simple: you are Tempo, a musical warrior in training who is tasked with returning a legendary staff to Symphony City so that it can be given to a HarmoKnight. However, things take an unexpected turn when Princess Ariana is kidnapped by Gargan, the leader of the Noizoids, who also puts the people of Symphony City to sleep, leaving Tempo and his allies as the only ones capable of fighting off the Noizoid invaders. To do this, Tempo must fight his way through numerous platforming stages, collecting notes along the way either by running into them or hitting enemies and Percussiplants at just the right moment. There are also several variants on this basic gameplay, including a call-and-response model where you see and hear the correct inputs beforehand and must reiterate them to avoid damage (all 5 boss battles use this model), segments where you play as either the nimble archer Lyra or the burly Tyko and his pet monkey Cymbi and mine cart levels.
The main campaign does admittedly fall somewhat on the easy side, but the game has plenty of bonus content to keep high score hounds busy for quite some time. For starters, once you get a Great! ranking on a stage, you gain access to a sped-up version of that stage through the stage selection menu. In addition, completing each of the game's 5 boss battles unlocks a stage utilizing a track for the Pokemon series, which is a nice shoutout to the series that put Game Freak on the map. Finally, there are 5 pinklets to collect throughout the game and you need to find all 5 in order to get past the locked door in Symphony City and access Sky Roost, the hidden eighth world of HarmoKnight.
HarmoKnight is very much on the pricy side (at $14.99, it is currently the 3DS eShop's most expensive download-only title), but the amount of content on offer makes it well worth it. This is a perfect title for fans of rhythm games, platformers or high score hunters. Even if you are none of the above, you should still consider giving it a whirl to show Game Freak that their new approach to game design is appreciated.
H2-5. King Zephiel (Fire Emblem: Binding Blade)
Developed By: Intelligent Systems
Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Year of Release: 2002
Few Nintendo franchises have undergone more of a surge in recent years than Fire Emblem. Ever since Marth and Roy appeared in Super Smash Bros. Melee, the franchise's Western fortunes have skyrocketed, with North American sales alone totaling approximately 1.98 million sales across 6 releases since 2003. The game that came out that year, known as Fire Emblem: The Sword of Flame in Japan, was simply called Fire Emblem in the West and is referred to as Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword by English-speaking fans. As Blazing Sword is a prequel to Binding Blade, taking place 20 years before the events of that game, we will examine it after taking a look at King Zephiel in Binding Blade.
In Binding Blade, there doesn't seem to be too much to King Zephiel at first. With the aid of his army of War Dragons, he seeks to take over the world (OF COURSE!), but not in quite the way that you might think. King Zephiel has decided that humanity should be wiped out so that dragons, whom Zephiel believes will not not repeat humanity's mistakes, shall inherit the earth. His War Dragons were created by Idenn, the Demon Dragon, who was sealed away long ago by the 'Eight Legendary Heroes', of whom Zephiel is a descendant. What could have led Zephiel to his bizarre conclusions?
When we first see Zephiel in Blazing Sword, those who played through Binding Blade will probably be surprised to see just how good-natured he seems. He appears to have everything one could want in a future king of Bern, but his father, the paranoid King Desmond, favors his half-sister Guinivere and wants to see her future husband on Bern's throne instead. Despite this Zephiel and Guinivere are close, though Desmond does try to drive a wedge between them, starting by ordering Zephiel to kill a fox cub he had gotten for Guinivere as a pet. Eventually, Desmond's paranoia overtakes him and he makes two attempts on Zephiel's life. The first time, he sends an assassin named Jaffar and a mage named Nino to do the job, but Nino overhears Zephiel praying for reconciliation with his family and empathizes with him due to her own troubles gaining the recognition of her mother, so she convinces Jaffar to merely knock him out. The second time, many years after the events of Blazing Sword, Desmond, under the pretense of having reconciled with his son, offers Zephiel a goblet of poisoned wine, but the poison fails to kill Zephiel, who, with the aid of his loyal retainer Murdock, stages a fake funeral, during which he proceeds to spring from his casket and murder Desmond when he comes to the casket to see his son's body. 15 years after Binding Blade, Zephiel takes the throne and begins to set the events of Binding Blade in motion.
Nintendo have long had a reputation amongst Western gamers as a kiddy company, but series like Fire Emblem and Metroid put paid to this line of thinking. In particular, the majestic scope of Fire Emblem, concerning wars and dynasties that can stretch for decades, centuries or even millennia, depending on which saga you wish to discuss, helps make it one of Nintendo's most mature franchises. Though it may not sell as well or be as well-known as the more mascot-driven Nintendo fare, Fire Emblem shows that adult storytelling is not beyond Nintendo's means.
H2-6. The Nightmares (The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening)
Developed & Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Game Boy
Year of Release: 1993
The Legend of Zelda truly is a legend among the Nintendo faithful. With 16 entries in the main series alone from 1986 to 2011 and a 17th on the way this November, plus cartoons, comics and a panoply of spin-off games, the franchise's scope, at least, is undeniably the stuff of legends. However, unlike many of the legends of old, the series was not born into greatness; rather, it had to stumble through the growing pains of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link before essentially finding its defining formula in A Link to the Past, but even then, at least one more frontier beckoned: the realm of handhelds. At the time, it might have seemed strange to think that the humble Game Boy could handle a full-fledged Zelda adventure, but Link's Awakening does so with aplomb.
Our story opens out at sea, in the middle of a storm that eventually ends up leaving Link shipwrecked. He wakes up on Koholint Island, in the house of Talin and his daughter, Marin, whom Link initially mistakes for Zelda. Link gathers up his sword & shield and attempts to leave the island, but is informed that he must wake the Wind Fish in order to do so. Doing this requires the eight Instruments of the Siren, each of which resides in one of the game's eight dungeons.
As the game goes on, one finds that most of Koholint Island's resident seem a bit...off. They seem confused by the notion of a world outside the island and out of the lot of them, only Marin seems remotely normal. There actually is a very good plot-related reason for this, which I will not spoil here–let's just say that the bosses you fight throughout the game have a very good reason not to want you to wake the Wind Fish. In fact, this reason is so compelling that in the official manga, Link actually abandons his quest for a time after finding out Koholint Island's secret.
Aside from islands with dark secrets, Link's Awakening also offered many innovations to the Zelda formula. Aside from the Roc's Feather, which enabled Link to jump when you equipped it, Link's Awakening marked the first use of songs as a game mechanic, the series' first fishing mini-game and the first trading sequence in the series. Outside of game mechanics, the game also features the series' first unambiguously fire-themed dungeon (Turtle Rock) and the first of several jaunts outside of Hyrule for Link, along with Majora's Mask, both Oracle games, Phantom Hourglass and Skyward Sword. On a less Zelda-related note, this is also the first reference to For The Frog The Bell Tolls outside of Japan–Prince Richard appears in an early quest and asks you to retrieve his Five Golden Leaves.
The Legend of Zelda has come far since the days of Link's Awakening, but the game has held up remarkably well over the 20 years since its release. If you happen to have either a Game Boy Color or GBA, Link's Adventure DX comes highly recommended. Failing that, you can pick it up on the 3DS eShop for $5.99, which is more than worth it, in my humble opinion. This was one on the unsung system definers for the Game Boy and it deserves a bit more exposure than it has received over all these years since its original release.
H2-7. Ogura (Densetsu no Stafy)
Developed By: Tose
Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Year of Release: 2002
Nintendo are typically excellent at bringing their games to North America and the PAL regions. Fire Emblem and Nintendo Wars were the major exceptions to this at the dawn of the 21st century, but once Marth debuted in Smash Bros., it was almost inevitable that Nintendo would take a chance on the franchise in the Occident, which has, by all accounts, paid off handsomely, while the Nintendo Wars games were rebranded as Advance Wars in the West and fared at least respectably in terms of sales. However, a few games do fail to make it out of Japan–I mentioned For The Frog The Bell Tolls in the entry on The Nightmares, but others include the Daigasso! Band Brothers games (neither one was released in North America and only the second made it to Europe), Joy Mech Fight (a Famicom fighting game released in 1993 twhich copy-pasted its plot from the Mega Man series and placed you in the role of comedy-robot-turned-fighting-robot Sukapon), Mother 3 (the sequel to EarthBound, which itself was the sequel to the never-exported Mother on the Famicom) and The Mysterious Murasame Castle (a Zelda-esque action-adventure game where the samurai Takamaru must defeat a demonic force that has possessed the lords of five Japanese castles; this would later serve as the basis for the Nintendo Land mini-game Takamaru's Ninja Castle, which marked the first Western-released playable appearance of anything related to The Mysterious Murasame Castle in a first-party Nintendo title, though Takamaru himself had previously appeared as a sticker in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and in an unlockable mode in Tecmo Koei's Samurai Warriors 3, which Nintendo published outside of Japan). However, few games that Nintendo bring to the West outright flop, but now, we will look at one of the few exceptions to that rule: the Densetsu no Stafy series.
Densetsu no Stafy (“The Legendary Starfy”) is a series of 2-D platformers that started out on the Game Boy Advance in 2002 (though prototypes of the first game were actually made on the Game Boy Color, but canceled because of the GBA's impending release). The platforming elements work much differently than a conventional platformer, though, to the point that the games are considered to be part of their own subgenre, known as 'marine platformers', since swimming takes a much more central role than the traditional running and jumping. Each level has its own storyline and goal, often some kind of fetch quest, with overall goals ranging from heating a bath for some eels (I think they're eels, at least) to retrieving some sort of lost item. On another interesting note, Tose Software, the developer and co-copyright holder of the series, are famous for being 'ghost developers', working with IPs and licenses from a broad array of publishers, including Capcom, Nintendo, Square Enix and THQ, with The Legendary Starfy being the only property they have worked on to which they hold any IP rights (with Nintendo sharing the rights to the series). This only scratches the surface of the games Tose are believed to have worked on, but any games believed to have been worked on by Tose are known only through the work of amateur or professional investigative journalists, not through Tose's own confirmation, as their 'ghost developer' nature implies a large level of anonymity.
The Starfy series is often compared to Kirby both in terms of aesthetics and the overall feel of the gameplay, but it also shares the aspect of having protagonists who set their games' plots into motion. In this case, Starfy happened to drop the Magic Pot that contained an evil genie named Ogura, who serves as the main antagonist of the first two games. Interestingly, Ogura can be seen as a mishmash of some of the most memorable elements of many higher-profile Nintendo villains, whether it be his Bowser-like use of his numerous children as lieutenants in his evil schemes, his Giygas-like eldritch abomination status and appearance in exactly three games as a major antagonist or his softening towards the hero of the series in much the same manner as King Dedede. However, one element of Ogura stands on his own in one facet where Nintendo's Legion of Doom is concerned: he has been decisively removed from his series in a quite unexpected fashion.
After defeating Ogura at the end of your first playthrough of Densetsu no Stafy 3, you are seent back to the beginning to collect red gems in a harder version of the game. Once you make it back and defeat Ogura for the second time, you face the true final boss of the game: a demonic being with the decidedly on-the-nose moniker of Evil. If you have collected all the red gems, then after you defeat both of Evil's forms (the latter is often considered the hardest in the whole Starfy series), Ogura shows up, carrying one of the red gems on his head, while Evil still rages on in the background. Ogura uses the gem to finally destroy Evil, but this comes at the price of his own life. As the castle begins to crumble, Starfy, Starly and Moe flee for their lives. Once they escape, the credits roll, with a picture of Ogura and the Pochi Ogura (Ogura's children) in what we can only suppose is Heaven at the end of the credits.
After years of Nintendo's Western division deeming the Starfy games 'too Japanese' for an international release, Nintendo would finally give the series a localized version with the fifth installment, known only as The Legendary Starfy in the West. The game did very well upon its localization, with about 570K copies sold in North America and a Metacritic score of 75. Unfortunately, this is the last we have heard of the Starfy series, most likely due to relatively disappointing Japanese sales (about 200K, if GameFreakz is to be believed). Hope springs eternal, however, especially given Nintendo's proclivity for reviving at least one old IP per hardware generation at least as far back as the GameCube, so perhaps everyone's favorite not-a-star-or-a-starfish still has another adventure in him yet...
Next Time on The Top 25 Nintendo Villains: Bad Mario! BAD!
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- Thread starter
- #213
I thought this one would be right over the plate for you guys, but I guess I miscalculated, so here's another hint: the antagonist I have in mind is a Mario villain (no, it isn't Bowser). Also, would you guys like me to split up the Nintendo Handheld All-Stars into multiple posts? I added a few lines between each entry to make it more readable, but I'm still not completely satisfied with the formatting.
- Mar 17, 2012
- 4,293
- 0
Well, at the risk of sounding stupid if this isn't it: Wario.
- Thread starter
- #215
It is indeed Wario! Wario may have gone relatively soft since his debut, but he still has villainous qualities aplenty, as we shall soon see:
H3. Wario (Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins)
Developed & Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Game Boy
Year of Release: 1992
The Mario franchise has become almost synonymous with Nintendo ever since its inception in 1981 with the arcade classic Donkey Kong. Complaints of repetition have begun to dog the games as of late, but the franchise shows little sign of slowing down. It has spawned countless spinoffs, including three cartoon series, two pinball machines, breakfast cereals, comics and, of course, various and sundry spinoff video game series. Of these spinoff series, Wario has always had the most independence from the Big N's #1 mascot; however, Wario's origin as a Mario antagonist is nearly forgotten today.
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins expands on the original in almost every way. With 32 levels (7 of which are hidden), the Carrot power-up (which transforms Mario into Bunny Mario, giving him the ability to jump high and to glide from great heights, much like the Cape Feather form Super Mario World and the Raccoon Tail from Super Mario Bros. 3), three mini-games and six bosses to take down before you can finally take on Wario and reclaim your castle, it should hardly be a surprise that Super Mario Land 2 was one of the biggest Game Boy games at the time of its release, clocking in at 4 megabits. The game takes place hot on the heels of the original, with Mario returning to Castle Land only to find that a would-be castle squatter named Wario has cast a spell on the land and its inhabitants, making them believe Wario to be their master and Mario to be their enemy. To undo this spell, Mario must collect 6 golden coins–one from each of the game's six zones–and use them to open the path to the castle, where he will have to take on the same powers he used all game in the final showdown with Wario.
Wario finds himself in an intriguing double bind where his position on this list is concerned. If the above was all there was to Wario, he wouldn't have made the list (Tom Nook would most likely have taken his place), but his subsequent appearances have rarely had him in the role of the heavy. The Wario Land games largely have him chasing after fame and fortune while coincidentally helping people along the way, while the WarioWare games center on Wario's life much less, preferring to focus on 9-Volt and 18-Volt's love of gaming, Young Cricket's kung fu training, or whatever job Mona has this week. His only real appearance as a major villain since 6 Golden Coins was in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and even then, he was only an underling to Ganondorf. Since WarioWare is so much less centered on Wario, we should look at Wario Land to see what makes its title character so bizarrely appealing.
Wario Land owes its existence to the Super Mario series, but it differs greatly from its parent. Instead of focusing on the more action-focused elements of platforming in a simple dash to the finish, the Wario Land games make you nigh invulnerable and task you with using Wario's amusing injuries to collect as much treasure as possible. I already hit on the differences in tone between the two series in the entry on Captain Syrup, but I should also mention two other titles that are often not considered to be part of the Wario Land series: Wario World and Wario: Master of Disguise. The first game's plot and the second's mechanics perfectly summarize what makes Wario work as a character. Wario World centers around Wario's efforts to defeat The Black Jewel; however, he only cares about doing so because it took over his castle and turned his treasure into monsters, with rescuing the Spritelings trapped by The Black Jewel being only a happy side effect (though you do get a better castle for rescuing all 40). Meanwhile, Wario: Master of Disguise centers around the ability to change into different costumes, each with their own unique powers, using Guise Gems hidden throughout the game and using those powers to solve various puzzles; its eight separate Wario forms is a record for Wario platformers.
Wario has somewhat faded into the background for Nintendo after his peak in the late '90s and early '00s, but he still finds his way into his fair share of games, most recently the Game-&-Watch-inspired Game & Wario. He seems likely to remain a staple of the Mario universe for some time to come, primarily because he provides such a contrast with the straightforward, goody-two-shoes Mario. Frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Next Time on The Top 25 Nintendo Villains: IT'S ALIVE!!!
- Thread starter
- #217
Well, that sounds like Frankenstein's monster, but I'm really clueless. (was never a Nintendo guy, sorry)
You're very much on the right track with the Frankenstein's monster lead. I'll give you a very big follow-up hint: the game I have in mind was never ported to any Nintendo console or handheld.
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- Thread starter
- #218
Let me clarify this clue, since it may be hard to imagine a Nintendo game not being on a Nintendo system: what kinds of games did Nintendo bring to the West before the NES made its way stateside? Also, here's an additional clue: the game I have in mind is a side entry in the Punch-Out! series.
- Thread starter
- #220
That's fairly close, but not quite right. Remember that I said "a side entry in the Punch-Out! series", so it wouldn't be a game with Punch-Out! in its title, but rather a somewhat separate game with some links to the Punch-Out! series. Here's another clue to think on: the game I have in mind was Nintendo's last internally produced arcade game.
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