Smash Bros. Countdown - #1 - Mario Series

Here we are, the final day of the countdown. These last ten days have been a fun reminder of why I love the Smash Bros. series in the first place. Every franchise is filled with memorable characters, locations and music. The Mario series has all three of these things in abundance.

I couldn't even begin to talk about all of the different games, since there are, like,  a fucking million. He's been a hero, a villain, a tennis player, a golfer, a basketball player, a construction worker, a doctor, a party goer, he's been paper, he's taught typing, and he's even been to space.

He is his own rocket, powered by his severe success.

He's excelled in just about every genre, he's obviously a platforming legend, he's done sports, he drives, he's starred in several RPGs, he's been in fighting games, he's even had a shooter.

Yes, that's a bazooka.

There's not a lot that can be said about the 'stache king of video games. So I guess I'll just sort of rant.

Nintendo is basically the Disney of video games and Mario is it's Mickey. Like Mickey, Mario's face has been plastered on all sorts of merchandise. He's got toys, shirts, school supplies, even plates have the guy's face.

It's a me, breakfast.

Mario isn't the only one who basks in this popularity. Again, like Mickey, he has a huge cast of characters.

 It was unfortunate that they all had to get their heads cut off and put here.

The most important characters one would find in the Mushroom Kingdom, are Luigi, Mario's younger brother, Princess Peach, the monarch of the land, and Bowser, the leader of the Koopa Troop and the arch nemesis of Mario.

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The Mushroom Kingdom wax museum is weird.

A couple other characters to note are Wario, Mario's greedy rival and Waluigi, the Luigi version.

Just gangster.

Let's face it. If you're reading this, chances are you know all about the Mario cast of characters and the things they do. Mario is frigging everywhere. It's hard not to know him. You've played a game with him in it, I guarantee. 

Did you ever see THIS though!?

That's an official render by the way. They're for promotional materials for the next model of 3DS in Japan.

Well, I think we're done. Mario covers basically every aspect of Nintendo and if I wanted to honestly look at the series, I'd never stop typing. I'm also so freaking pumped for Smash Bros, that I can barely focus, so that's affecting this article.

I guess all I'd like to convey is that the Mario games are some of the purest gaming experiences you will ever have. If game has Mario in it, you know that the game isn't gonna have stupid bullshit in it. You know you're gonna have a game that is all about fun gameplay. There's no deep or hidden meaning, it's just a game in the most literal sense of the word, and you are going to have a blast.

In the no bullshit game Smash Bros. 3DS, Mario is lending himself, Luigi, Peach, Rosalina, who is a character from Super Mario Galaxy, Bowser, and Bowser's son, Bowser Jr. as playable characters. That is seven Mario characters. That's a ton. 

There's also a bunch of stages Mario is familiar with. We get 3D Land, based on areas from Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS. There's Golden Plains, based on New Super Mario Bros 2, also for 3DS. We got Rainbow Road from Mario Kart 7, again a 3DS game. There's a stage called Mushroomy Kingdom, a stage modeled directly after world 1-1 from the original Super Mario Bros. Finally there's a stage just called Paper Mario, based on the Paper Mario series.

Sweet balls, this comes tomorrow.

So that's the countdown. We've seen all kinds of Nintendo based goodness and hopefully I showed you something you didn't know and it made you try a new game. That's really what I wanted to do, show you a bunch of Nintendo, and tell you what it means to me.

So now Smash Bros. comes out tomorrow. I'm so excited to start the next chapter of my Nintendo journey. It'll have all of my favorite characters and series and then some. So hopefully I'll see you guys online and, I feel you should do this with every Nintendo game, have fun.

Smash Bros. Countdown - #2 - Donkey Kong Series

Donkey Kong is a game that does something that's fun. I feel like I start all of these with some bullshit description that only exists to begin the article. So for this one, screw it, DONKEY KONG!

Good old DK got his start in arcades in the self titled game, Donkey Kong. In it, DK is the villain and he captures the beautiful Pauline. It's up to Mario, back when he was known as Jumpman, to rescue good old Pauline and defeat the dumb monkey.

RIP in Peace DK.

After Mario dropped an animal off of the frame of a skyscraper, he decided that shit wasn't enough emotional damage to a wild animal. He went ahead and kidnapped DK and locked him in a cage. It was then up to DK's kid, Donkey Kong Jr., to rescue his dad. This marks the only time that Mario filled the role of the villain.

He also destroyed the forest with some kind of chain maze. What an asshole.

Then to get away from Mario, Mr. Kong took up gardening. He got a greenhouse and started hanging out here. Only problem being, that the greenhouse already belonged to a dude named Stanley and he wasn't too jazzed about a huge problem being in his life. His solution was to shoot pure poison up DK's ass. Apparently, no one in the DK universe actually knows how to deal with big monkeys.

I guess this is a garden for horizontal lines and gold bars.

As for DK Jr., his hobby was a lot less fun, and a lot more why the hell was this a game.

He did math. He just did math.

After that, Donkey Kong had no action. Nintendo I guess was tired of animal abuse based games and decided to shelf the huge monkey. The focused on their other franchises, the ones not about destroying wildlife, and left DK in the dust. It wasn't until roughly ten years later, a glorious company called Rareware formed a harmonious partnership and began a reign of video gaming glory that would make all other games suck balls by comparison. Nintendo was so excited to be working with these new gods, that they offered up their collection of franchises and said, "Hey, pick one make a bomb ass game." Rare was like, "We want DK and we will rock your fucking world."

If you hear someone moaning, that's just me. Moaning.

Rare used CGI based graphics and stuffed them into a Super Nintendo cartridge and the result was Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo and it was fan-goddamn-tastic. It took everything we liked about side scrolling platformers and made it legendary. It was one of the best games ever and I will fight you if you say otherwise. Just kidding, but really, I'll eat your legs. It was, and still is, one of the best games ever. It would be very hard to top.

You can rest assured, I am still moaning loudly.

The second game in the series is a god damn masterpiece. The music is perfect, the different worlds you visit are interesting and unique, and the team of Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong was really fun to play as. Seriously though, I can't splooge about the music enough. Go youtube the soundtrack for this game. Then after that, look up Serious Monkey Business. It's a cover album of the soundtrack and it does the actual music so much justice. This is easily one of my favorite Super Nintendo games of all time.

There was a third Donkey Kong Country, and it was fine, but after the pure majesty that was the DKC2, it was just ok.

Meh.

When Nintendo and Rare moved up to the Nintendo 64, they brought Mr. Kong to the next level. They started by giving Diddy his own racing adventure. The game not only solidified how good the Kongs could be, it also brought two beautiful animals into the world.

Look at that bear and that squirrel. Bright eyed and not being wasted by Microsoft.

Diddy Kong Racing was a fantastic god damn game. It's possibly one of the best kart racers of all time. Rare said, "Hey you like the Kongs on the Nintendo 64!?" We were like, "OH MY GOD YES PLEASE! HOLY SHIT!" and Rare was like "Oh yeah? Watch this shit."

Let's put it this way, I've finished moaning.

Donkey Kong 64 was Rare's Mona Lisa. It was perfect. It, with a few of Rare's other games, set a bar so high that so many good games are only fine compared to this. It followed five Kongs as they journeyed through eight huge worlds. Each Kong had unique abilities, and it was up to you to figure out the best place to use each of them. It is so good. Play it, play it so soon, or now even. Good lord it's tasty.

Then Rare had to go and sell themselves to dumb old Microsoft and DK and friends went back to being unused.

I shouldn't say totally unused, they used the DK character to star in a bunch of random games that focused on climbing and other stuff, but none of them had anything on the Rare games.

Oh cool. Playing bongos will make me forget how sad I am.

It wasn't until a little company called Retro Studios came and picked up the series ten years after DK64. They made a little game called Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii and it was brilliant.

We missed you, you beautiful animal.

The game was an amazing callback to the Rare games. Each level offered a new challenge, and the music and settings really made the games feel just like the classics. Most recently Retro made Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for the WiiU, bringing the gorilla into the highest definition.

Whoa. These D's are so H.

So there you go. DK, Donkey Kong. He's had quite a journey, but it's all been fun.

In Smash Bros. 3DS, Donkey Kong and his nephew Diddy Kong are playable characters. As for the stage, we're getting one based on Jungle Japes, an area seen at the beginning of most of the Donkey Kong Country games.

Lol, that's an outhouse on the left.

So, there's only one series left. ONE. HOLY BALLS. If you can't guess what the one franchise one would need to talk about when discussing Nintendo, then what is wrong with you? Nintendo's mascot? It's-a me? He has parties, plays tennis, golf, races karts? No? Well, you'll see.