SNES Game of the Week #53 - SMA*: Super Mario Bros 2

[spanky]

I've never played this either! It looks like there's a translation patch so I fired it up and played it for a bit. Just got past the intro and already got subtly friendzoned by my childhood crush so I'm just having my guy never leave the house and lift weights all day (that'll show her). I'll have a review later this week.

[dsparil]

This is another I've never played although that has more to do with the recentness of the fan translation. It is a little weird that Konami doesn't seem to have ever released a single game in the series internationally even though they are rather unobjectionable. Simulation-based VNs in general have always seemed to fiddly for me so it isn't a genre I play much. I did like Gaokao.Love.100days from five-ish years ago though. It's more like a "part 2" to most dating sims since you start out with a girlfriend and it's about cramming for the Chinese high school finals/college placement exam while also managing that relationship. That was pretty much the most relatable dating sim I ever played.

[kaoru]

I played through TokiMemo twice, but never the SNES one. Once the GB release out of curiosity (it is suprisingly well made and even comes with some voice samples) and then later winning all the girls one after another in the PSP release.

Feb 13, 2023 7:22:35 GMT -5 spanky said:

I've never played this either! It looks like there's a translation patch so I fired it up and played it for a bit. Just got past the intro and already got subtly friendzoned by my childhood crush so I'm just having my guy never leave the house and lift weights all day (that'll show her). I'll have a review later this week.

Fun fact, you can actually win secret characters that way, as they lie outside the stat raising part of the game. Also, Shiori friendzoning you and having insane prerequisites to win over is kind of a meme, Konami changed that in later games and gives you childhood friends that actually act like they like you.

[spanky]

Yeah I get that Shiori is probably supposed to be the "true ending" so her having high standards is understandable. She think my guy is a loser though. Playing this one on emulator on my laptop when I get a few free moments. I'm spending my weeks exercising, grooming in the mirror and failing all my tests (himbo path?). I'm enjoying this more than I thought despite having zero interest in the genre.

[kaoru]

Seeing those numbers go up in the stat raising gameplay is fun, I can relate. It's the main reason why I hate that every romance visual novel gets called a dating sim in the west. If I'm in a dating sim mood, I want to see those numbers grow, not just read a choose your own adventure book, and this way its hard to filter the real dating sims out.

[🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀]

I've never played this, but it's always looked interesting to me. The Game Center CX episode for this one was very funny. IIRC he liked taking the girls on dates at the waterpark and such in hopes of them showing up in sexy outfits.

It's interesting that Konami has never brought any of these abroad. I get why they didn't in the SNES era, but there's definitely a market now. But Konami being in the state it is in now, it's not looking likely. Don't they think westerners have any interest in playing games about dating high schoolers or anything?

(windfisch, good luck with your extremely serious stuff.)

[excelsior]

I haven't played many dating sims myself either. I've played some that were more like visual novels as mentioned. I remember trying Dream Daddy - the game that took the slang term 'Daddy' way too seriously - no, somebody having kids is not a prerequisite to finding somebody attractive.

More on topic, one thing I like about the stat involvement is that it doesn't just serve the male power fantasy as per a lot of games where everybody wants to date you. Instead each character has their own traits they're attracted to. Sure, it's not deep, and Shiori's expectations are both ridiculous and hypocritical, but it does feel like there's some attempt to resemble reality.

windfisch - All the best getting everything sorted out. Hope it all goes well. Look forward to seeing you back here soon. 

[spanky]

I started my third year and I've somehow got every girl hating me...typical! I'll see if I can right the ship...

[spanky]

Alright, so I finished this - it ended more abruptly than I thought. I got the bad incel NEET ending...no college...no job...no girlfriend!

I have very little interest in the visual novel genre but this is a bit more of a sim game and combined with 90s Konami aesthetics, I will admit I found this game really enjoyable. Your goal by the end of high school is to find a girlfriend and some sort of direction in your life. You choose what to do focus on each week (studying, socializing, working out, grooming). These activities raise your stats and you'll need high stats to impress girls and eventually get into college or land a job. On Sundays you can also make a phone call to one of the girls and schedule a date for the following Sunday (or holiday). You can also call your buddy to give you intel on the girls and see your standing with them. Unfortunately you can only make one call a day, so you have to be a bit strategic. Dates typically are typically dialogue with one conversation choice. You want to be nice of course, but you really have to take the girl's personality into account. The athlete girl for example, likes it if you get competitive with her.

It ends up being sort of a harem management sim as through your high school journey, you'll develop friendships/relationships with several girls and you have to keep them all reasonably happy. Why? Well if you neglect them or piss them off, they'll go off and spread rumors about you, poisoning the well with the other girls, including the girl you are seriously pursuing. This is represented by a bomb next to their name on the stats screen. I got into trouble here and at one point had 3 bombs going off at once. I was doing quite well with Saki (blue haired sports team manager) and keeping Nozomi as a backup (green haired athlete) but I was completely neglecting the other girls like Yukari (pink haired, speaks like a robot), Mira (purple haired rich girl snob) and Shiori (childhood friend who friendzones you at the beginning). Things were going great during year 2 but I had to spend my 3rd year defusing bombs and by the time I got to the endgame I wasn't even popular with anyone really. I guess there's a mysterious consolation girl that calls you all the time but she never even showed up at the end.

My character ended up being a bit of my slacker and I spent most of days working out, grooming and socializing. My physical fitness level was somewhere in the 400s, girls didn't seem to care (though Nozomi was following me around a lot) but the butler at the Christmas party was drooling over me...this is probably the most realistic part of the game to be honest. You'd think I could at least become a pro athlete with that score. I got kicked out of like 4 clubs. I picked up my studies towards the end but it wasn't enough to get into a decent school.

I used frameskip to buzz through the game. Even when it's turned on to the highest setting, the text scrolls a little slowly for me. This unfortunately led to me doing some boneheaded things like choosing to rest for 3 weeks in a row and in my rush I didn't make phone calls when I needed to do so.

It's a very charming game and completely won me over, there was something very innocent and nostalgic about it. I'll give it an A.

[windfisch]

Thanks for the kind wishes, 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 and excelsior!

Bye-bye! (for real this time)

[excelsior]

• Publisher - Acclaim
• Developer - Sculpted Software
• Genre - Fighting
• Initial release - September 1994

Nothing, NOTHING can prepare you - ALL the fierce Kombatants of the #1 arcade smash gather for Mortal Kombat II, a battle to defeat the shape shifting Shang-Tsung and his ruthless master, Shao Kahn. Brutal special moves, Friendships, Babalaties, hidden surprises, crushing combos, and outrageous finishing moves - All yours to kommand. Let the Kombat Kontinue...
  

  

[spanky]

Mortal Kombat II is one of the most important games in the SNES library - at least in the context of the SNES/Genesis war. It was the turning point of that rivalry, at least in the US. Nintendo finally lightened up on their content policies and the result was a far superior version of the year's biggest game. My personal memory regarding this game? It came out right around my birthday. I asked for Secret of Mana instead but I made sure to rent this for my birthday party. The neighbor kid across the street had a Genesis and his own copy of the game and I asked him to bring it over. So we set up two TVs in the living room with both versions of the game going. A dozen 4th graders crowded in a room playing the hottest new game and fighting over a copy of Gamepro that had the moves list. Definitely a childhood highlight. 

As far as the game itself, it's one of gaming's great sequels. It's substantial improvement over the first game, more characters, more finishing moves, more secrets, more everything. I like the fatalities in this one the best as they start getting a bit too exaggerated and Python-esque in MK 3 and the modern ones are just far too gruesome for my taste. The change of setting to the surreal Outworld is welcome as well and Shao Khan is a great villain. The tone of the series is really established here. It's grim and brutal with an undercurrent of silliness.

It plays much better and I think this is first fighting game to introduce air combos (which magazines always called "juggling" back then). It enjoys competitive play even today. I could play this game with any number of childhood friends (or anyone my age, really) and there's no doubt they'd have a favorite character and their moves and strategies memorized. While it's fun, in all honesty it still doesn't hold a candle to Street Fighter. MK II is far better than all it's imitators, and better than most SF II clones for what that's worth.

While I think the game is still a blast with multiplayer, the single player experience isn't a ton of fun. The AI is extremely cheap (I just love being thrown out of pretty much any move) and you have to rely almost entirely on exploits, even on "Very Easy" mode. You have a very limited number of continues as well and often my playthroughs would be ended before I even hit the bosses.

There's a part of me that wants to give the game an "A" but I think the weak single player mode holds it back a bit. Let's go with a B.

[dsparil]

MKII is the game the original attempted to be and is actually fairly decent as a multiplayer game. Like spanky said though, the AI is super cheap on every difficulty so it's not very fun single player. I guess for that reason I can't give it higher than a C.

[Snake]

I'll have to revisit Tokimeki Memorial, when I get some time to spend with a translated version.  Just been tied up with life stuff, and juggling between the Super Famicom and PC-Engine versions of Ys IV.

As for Mortal Kombat 2, wow, what a great home version!  It was great to finally see Nintendo corporate move beyond force beating the sweat of Kombatants.   To be honest, I miss the hokey, chopsocky B-movie straight-to-home video vibe of the first Mortal Kombat.  Now the setting has come and evolved into its own universe and back story.  Have to agree on the AI concensus. It feels like cheap - preset attacks that immediately knows each of your move's weakness.  Getting past Shao Kahn felt like an exercise in dumb luck.  Definitely a welcome upgrade in combo and air juggling mechanics.  Although, unlike most fighting games, they chose to stay within a format of giving every character the same uppercut, roundhouse, sweep moves, etc.  I think the most fun thing had to be the visual novelty and story of it all.

Rank B.

[dr_st]

Feb 20, 2023 6:00:55 GMT -5 excelsior said:

Nothing, NOTHING can prepare you for the ultimate arcade translation of Mortal Kombat® II.

The PC DOS version is without a the ultimate contemporary home version of MK2, though. None of the console versions come close, and only the Arcade Kollection of 2011 is completely (or almost?) Arcade-faithful outside emulation.

Although I never played the SNES version and probably never will, I guess a lot of the gameplay elements apply to it, and I can agree with almost everything spanky said.

My personal memory? I accidentally discovered Noob Saibot (you get to him by winning a certain number of matches in a row) while playing against a non-existent second player, trying out fatalities.