Four Swords Misadventures

Hey everyone! I've been kinda running out of ideas for the Fun Stuff articles, so instead of discussing entire  parts of the fandom, I might discuss just one work at a time.

Have you ever been to Newgrounds? That website that hosts Flash animations and games, most of which are made by the site's users?

...No? But, why? That's the place where you can see the best Flash animations about video games!

Also, I noticed that I almost never discussed The Legend of Zelda since this blog opened. Time to at least make a notice about it.

Remember when I discussed Super Mario Bros. Z? That Flash series tht had about two freaking hours of footage? Kinda epic, huh? Well, today's series tried to be just as epic. Four Swords Misadventures is based on the Legend of Zelda Game Four Swords Adventures, in which Link falls victim to a spell that separates him into four Links. Therefore, the Flash series stars Link. And Link. And Link. And Link. And Zelda. And Dark Link. And Cuccos. And a colorful cast. Then again, all four main Links are colored differently, so yes, it's a colorful cast.

The series can be found on Newgrounds, but you can also find it on the series creator's Youtube Page. He made a playlist out of the many videos in the series.
The series can be found as a playlist here. I hope you'll enjoy this link about Links!
And of course, we can't really speak of Zelda Flash without showing this one.

I hope you enjoy this series, and see you Friday for another review!

Are Graphics Repetitions Such A Big Deal?

Designing a game is a heavy task. There are gigantic teams that worked behind about every game you own, and if the credits are anything to go by, there can be hundreds of employees all working on the same video game. They all have their own tasks, and there are smaller teams working on every aspect of the game: The designs, the characters, the music, the programming, the level construction...

 

Now that I think of it, level construction is a pretty big task. Yeah, it is... Without an environment to roam, your player character wouldn't have anywhere to go. Therefore, the level designers are among the most important people in the making of a game. They don't just make the environment; usually they'll also be the ones choosing which enemy will be placed, where it will be placed, how it will act... Oh wait, that last one is made by the programmers. My mistake.

 

Anyway.. One problem with many games, especially platformers, is that at some point we're bound to run out of creativity in the level design. What do many level designers do, then? Easy: They copy bits of a preceding level, add more dangers, and voilà! You got your new level! That kind of thing has been seen in a lot of games, and mostly towards the end of those games. It's more obvious in platformers, especially those in which you can't really skip a level. It can happen in almost any game, actually; some places look damn similar but have just a few details changed here and there to make it different. Elements of the decor and copied and pasted, out of laziness or out of system limitations. It happens more often than you'd think. Are graphics repetitions such a big deal?

Purr Pals

I dunno for you guys and gals, but a whole month talking about Pokémon has... tired me. I might be posting reviews late now... Oh, who am I kidding. If I have problems with my schedule, it's mostly because I have so much university work to do. But I should be done with most of those soon enough, so it's fine.

Yet, despite that, I feel like I need some sort of transition between Kanto and the real world. A transition without any battles, but with cute creatures. I know! I'll review a pet care game! Just let me look through my collection... Ah, there it is!

Pet care games are, as the title says, games in which you have to care for an animal in particular, usually a house pet or another animal that a human can take care of. This subgenre of games includes the ever-famous Nintendogs, and... Today's game, Purr Pals. There are too many dog care games out there. Taking care of a cat, for once, should do the trick. And this one was in the Cheap box at Wal-Mart! ...Oh wait, this can't be good... Can it? We'll see.

Fan Songs - Mario Edition

I noticed something; If I always show everything in a fun stuff article, someday I'll run out of those. So... Well... Here are some songs.

It's crazy how inspiring the Mario series has been to some people. The Mario series has tried to adapt into film (with some pretty awful results), into cartoon series (which probably had some success, as a few seasons were made...), into many comics series (with varying levels of silly or awesome). Videogames? Well, duh.

I already mentioned how fan works can be songs written by bands and published on sharing sites like Youtube... Well, the Mario series is no exception. Lots of songs were created by fans of the franchise, ncluding bands who had some... success. Ever heard this song by Jellyfish?

The art style in this vid is something to be seen to be believed...

I'm experiencing technical difficulties with Blogger at the moment, so here are the links to other videos that contain fan songs about the Mario series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lni0rfv_CHA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iGHv3jf2eQ

You could argue those two are pretty much the same (And I'd agree; same base beat, same game, lots of jokes that can be heard in the two... Heck, the second video reuses footage from the first one!). Eh, as long as they're enjoyable, who cares, right? And the second video seems a lot more artisti-HOLY CRAP THAT VIKING PIRATE GUY!

...I'm sorry, Blogger is too troublesome this morning... Just do with this. I'm deeply sorry.

Overly-Long Levels: Good Or Bad?

I'm a big fan of platform games, such as the Mario series, the Sonic series, the Kirby series... There's something so very simple about them. You appear in a location, you must reach the exit, the end... There's lots of traps around, and enemies roaming the place, and dangers to overcome. Occasionally, there's also the ever-popular endless pit, guaranteeing a instant death to the player character. Some games like to spice it up by adding a puzzle aspect; as an example, you need to find switches and push them in order to access other areas of the level as well as sometimes the exit. In other cases, the game also includes a collecting aspect and you must find an amount of objects in each level. Basic enough. You could say that platformer games don't usually have a big plot. You could be right; ypu could be wrong. Depends on what platforming franchise you're playing. Usually, a platformer means two-dimensional side-scrolling levels.

However, the size of the levels is all up to the designers. Short and sweet, or long and tedious? Again, it depends on the franchise. There are franchises who like to keep it to simple levels, others try to make "marathon levels". This term describes levels that are so freaking long that you need many minutes before actually finishing it. Some games use and overuse those "marathon levels". Of course, each gamer has its own opinion on the matter. Are overly-long levels a good or a bad thing?