VIDEO GAME: Mario’s Picross (1995)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Mario's PicrossYear: 1995Rating: ETime Played: 666 minutes / 11.1 hours For as many Picross games as I've played, I figured I should probably go back and play the "original" picross video game, Mario's Picross. Since most picross (or nonogram) puzzles are merely black-and-white pixelated images, it made sense to put this concept on the monochrome Game Boy. And while there's nothing significant to write home about in this entry, I can't help but feel that more recent iterations of picross have spoiled me when compared to the early versions of picross to hit the home console market. Some of the charm that Mario's Picross has comes from the artistic style of the puzzles mimicking the "Mario style" (i.e., inanimate objects with elongated eyes). Aside from these puzzles being in-theme for a Mario game, they're still the fairly basic objects that you'd expect out of a Picross game. I'm sure they crammed as many puzzles as they could into a Game Boy cartridge,...
Read More

VIDEO GAME: Oracle of Ages (2001)

by benmweilertNo Comments
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages Year: 2001 Rating: E Time Played: ~30 hours As the second half of the “Oracle” games in the Zelda franchise, Oracle of Ages takes more of its cues from the wildly popular Ocarina of Time than its sister game, Oracle of Seasons, did. While Oracle of Seasons had a fairly unique mechanic (albeit not fully realized), Oracle of Ages had the benefit of its Nintendo 64 predecessor to help craft some of the puzzle-solving that needed to happen throughout its gameplay. And even if I played through using a linked account, giving me quite a few advantages—Oracle of Ages still suffers from some of the Game Boy Zelda titles' limitations. Even if the story in Oracle of Ages isn’t that strong compared to the Nintendo 64 games, it’s at least more fleshed out in terms of characters and their motivations when compared to Oracle of Seasons. The end boss wasn’t nearly as difficult in this game, but at...
Read More

VIDEO GAME: Oracle of Seasons (2001)

by benmweilertNo Comments
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons Year: 2001 Rating: E Time Played: ~30 hours When video games started splitting off into “two-part” versions in the mid-90s, my brother and I would always split who got which game. As a result, I realized that I had never played The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, as I had the Oracle of Ages version. After finishing Link’s Awakening DX, I decided to remedy this situation. While it was evident that this game used a lot of the same assets from Link’s Awakening, there was also ample evidence that the Zelda games on the Nintendo 64 influenced these handheld games. The base mechanic of Oracle of Seasons uses the four different seasons to solve a variety of puzzles in the over-world to progress to each of the eight dungeons. While this sticks to the core Zelda formula, this game's unfortunate aspect is how lackluster the story is. This was weird because of how the Nintendo 64 titles...
Read More

VIDEO GAME: Link’s Awakening DX (1998)

by benmweilertNo Comments
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX Year: 1998 Rating: E Time Played: ~16 hours With the recently-released Switch remake of this game, I realized I never actually managed to play through the original Link’s Awakening. Perhaps one of the first Zelda games my family-owned, I decided to pull out my copy of Link’s Awakening DX and play through it (and thus, save me the $60 on a “new” game). While I played for a bit on the Super Game Boy to get that “big screen” feel, the colors I experienced on the Game Boy Advanced made playing in a handheld mode that much more enjoyable, if not more intimate. After running through the first few dungeons, it became evident to me that I never made it very far in this game when I was 20 years younger. I was content just exploring what I could at the time. However, this also highlights how there were some moments where the next step in completing the...
Read More

VIDEO GAME: Let’s Go Pikachu (2018)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Pokémon: Let’s Go PikachuYear: 2018Rating: ETime Played: 23 hours I hesitated to pick up Let’s Go Pikachu for the sole reason that I already had bought this game decades ago in the form of Pokémon Yellow. I couldn’t justify spending $60 for a re-skin and decreased difficulty to align it with the Pokémon Go-style of catching. That being said, I was able to pick this title up for $20 as a part of Redbox’s video game sale, and I’m glad I did. Sure, the game is the same as before, but there are a few things I still enjoyed about it as I reveled in the nostalgia it brought to me. First off, the visuals are stunning. I think we often forget how limited the Game Boy’s graphics were, but seeing all these classic Pokémon in full HD on my big screen was an experience. I also appreciated how they removed HMs in favor of special techniques for Pikachu to use, which...
Read More