SNES Game of the Week 118 - Clock Tower

[excelsior]

Perfect marks so far. I figure the only other game that might manage that is Super Metroid.

[🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀]

Finally a game I have played again! Unfortunately, the perfect marks end now...

No, just kidding, I love this game. It truly feels ahead of its time. The Zelda formula, with the dungeon items progressing the story, but also tons of optional stuff you can do whenever you feel like it, feels exactly as it does in later games, and it's just so clever for 1991. Even heart containers and fairy bottles and stuff like that is all here. The way you go between the Light and Dark world is also implemented really well. I was surprised coming back to this game after ALBW how well it stacks up against that game's dual worlds. The difficulty is also just right, I feel, and the dungeons are great, as per usual 2D Zelda standards.

There's a lot of cool touches, like a couple of optional items, and the way the game starts off is great too, and very cinematic. The graphics are a very early-era SNES, and it really made me wish, just like with Mario, that there had been a Zelda game later in the system's life. But yeah, S rank for sure.

[excelsior]

Next week marks this threads anniversary, so the coverage will be a little different - more involved perhaps. With it I will also be easing the rule on covering games in order of sequential releases for IP to only direct sequels, since that seems the more popular opinion.

[personman]

Yeah I can't think of anything to really say. It's S grade and easily my favorite 2d Zelda. The sequel hit it out of the park too.

Guess I have one dumb anecdote. My favorite track of this games ost is this one and always plays on my head when I think of this game : youtu.be/klfLV8ZxmqY?list=PL78C7BAABDB14E289
It just makes me chuckle imagining Link ANGRILY doing some spelunking lol. Sometimes I liked to listen to it while cleaning the house and it helped me focus for some reason.

[excelsior]

• Publisher - Nintendo
• Developer - Nintendo
• Genre - Platformer
• Initial Release - July 14 1993

  

  

[excelsior]

So for our anniversary thread we will be covering Nintendo's own celebratory release of their Super Mario Bros franchise - Super Mario Allstars. And yes, we will be covering each game separately.

Super Mario Bros is obviously a classic, and one I spent many hours on as a kid. That said, the game had already been outdone by Super Mario Bros 3 by the time we had picked them up, so it's difficult for me to see as a perfect game. The Super Mario Allstars version even less so, since whilst a fairly sound conversion I really think the visuals are a mixed bag. Backgrounds really tried to unnecessarily fill out the given space and would look a bit distracting, with some sprites having that cheap, generic look to them. It's still worth playing, but I'd sooner spend my time with the NES version.

Ranking - B

[spanky]

Super Mario Bros is a tough game to rate. It's such a historically important game and was a huge fixture of my childhood. It feels like I'm doing it some sort of disservice to assign a value to it. That being said, I still feel like it's an A on an objective level. It's very fun to play, challenging and loaded with secrets.

The All-Stars port, while pretty neat in it's day is not my favorite way to play the game. The enhancements are nice and all...but blocky graphics of the original NES game are iconic in their own right and the music and sound FX of this version always sound hollow to my ears compared to the NES version. I think the physics have been messed with a bit too. I do like the little graphical flourishes, like Bowser shuddering in horror when you destroy the bridge, or the animations for the Toads upon rescue. At it's heart, it's still SMB but it's hard for me to recommend this version over the original. B.

[dsparil]

For the physics being off, I think it's just related to when you hit a block. Miyamoto has lamented that they didn't get that right. Aside from that, I'm not really sure because the original is too iconic for me to have ever put a huge amount of time into this specific portion of All-Stars. B is right for it.

[vnisanian2001]

I think B sounds about right.

[Snake]

Super Mario Bros. All Star vers. - Rank B

Not a bad way to relive a classic.  On one hand, the old sound effects and 8-Bit music is way too iconic.  But the fresh coat of synth and graphics does make for a nice revisit.  If all else, it has aged well in a timeless kind of way.  When you jump, you basically, mostly commit to it with momentum, as opposed to Mario 2 and 3's sense of mid-jump maneuverability. It's unforgiving nature makes you learn to be more precise.  

[vnisanian2001]

If this image from TCRF is anything to go by, the remakes in Super Mario All-Stars were originally intended to be direct enhancements of the graphics. No major changes whatsoever.

[🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀]

I have to replay it I think. I've played the NES version a lot, but this one not recently, and mostly the PAL release. From what I can gather, the biggest differences gameplay-wise are the brick block thing dsparil mentioned, and the Piranha Plants having a bigger hitbox. I guess I'll fire it up on the Switch this week.

[🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀]

Ok, so I played through it - more or less, I lost my fire flower to a flying Cheep Cheep in 8-4, and then because of that I couldn't get past the Hammer Bro right before Bowser 8 times in a row, so I didn't end up beating it. It's still more or less SMB. Aside from the brick block thing, I don't think I noticed much else about how the game plays, though Bullet Bill blasters seemed a lot more aggressive to me (but I could be imagining things). Also, I feel like the moving cloud in the sky segments with all the coins was non-pass through on the NES, but you can pass through it here. And for some reason you can bounce a fireball off of the top of the flagpoles, but maybe that's a quirk that's also in the NES version that I never noticed. It's been a while since I played the NES version, and I played this with the Pro controller on a new TV, so it's hard to say for sure how different it feels. A lot of the quirks, like how Mario kind of stops and bumps into a wall in mid-air, seem to carry over faithfully.

Anyway, graphically I always found this one a bit weird compared to the other games in the All-Stars collection. Mario's sprite looks kind of bootleg-y (although I like how his run loop is still a really fast 3-frame loop like on the NES), and the backgrounds don't feel as Mario as SMB3 or SMW. There's also some weird choices, like both bridge stages (after the game's two underwater stages) have a desert background, even though in the original they're clearly meant to logically follow the theme of the preceding water stages. Or maybe they're supposed to be dunes in the background or something. It also feels a bit weird to play a 16-bit Mario game with the original SMB1's stricter physics.

In the end, it's still SMB1, though, and SMB1 is one of my favorite games. So I'm giving it an A simply because it feels a bit less polished, and less true to the original in looks, than the other games in the collection.

[personman]

B is probably good for it. I personally prefer it the most out of all the versions since it was the one I grew up with and even though the NES was my first system I just don't have the affection for its look and feel like many do so I'll take the updated graphics and sound of this version any day. Supposedly the physics are off and in my playthrough last year I saw some pretty glaring hit detection issues but I still think it plays plenty well. I'd give it an A but in the face of Mario 3 being in the same collection it definitely has room for improvement. I also really love that the main stage theme adopts the reggae-lite feel that 3 established. For some reason that style always makes me think Mario even more than most of the rest series music.

Reminds me I started the second game last year and it got lost in the shuffle. I should pick that up again soon.

[ommadawnyawn2]

This version is the one I'm most familiar with as it's the first one I owned and the save feature helped me finally get into Mario whereas playing it with friends at their houses we'd only get maybe halfway through at most before giving up.
Weirdly enough I remember beating this before SMB2-3 as I found the straightforwardness and speed more appealing, and even weirder, Lost Levels is the first one me and my brother beat as the last stretch of this one was harder for us (apparently the lakitus are also easier here). I also got used to how Luigi plays and would challenge myself to be constantly running and holding onto the fireflower for longer and longer; a bunch of nights were spent playing the games while my dad and sometimes us were building our countryhouse by day during summer at the time. So this version really takes me back to childhood/early teens in some ways. Yeah there is that one change to the physics when hitting blocks which is mostly worse, but you can mod this out now.
Honestly I prefer the audiovisuals here as well, besides maybe Mario's sprite itself. 

A- for me.