| Super Mario Bros. 2: A Rebuttal to Chris Bores |
[Nov. 23rd, 2009|10:30 am] |
Irate Gamer reviews suck, so I decide to pick one and go through it to point out how totally asinine Chris Bores' videos are. In no way am I saying that this a comprehensive debunking of his review, since he managed to stuff the video so thoroughly with factual errors, that I'm liable to miss a couple. It's not even his worst video. It's just the one that bothers me the most.
Super Mario Bros. 2, the subject of this video, was an innovative and inspirational game that was blessedly bestowed upon the Mario franchise after it had already been released as an entirely different game in Japan. It's also probably my favorite game in the series. Unfortunately, it also gets a lot of retroactive hate. People seem to be making a big fuss about this game, saying that it was a rip-off and that it was the black sheep of the series. But Super Mario 2 was a rousing success for Nintendo. They clearly made the right move. Not only did they invest in a game that earned them a lot of money, but we American players got a superb platformer that we might not have gotten otherwise.
So, I'll post Bores' video here, and then I'll pick through it like wild apes grooming each other for lice. Let's get it on!
0:20 to 0:30
Gahd! Proofread your script, man. You have a lot of filler words that don't need to be there.
I hate to start my critique on this note, since it has nothing to do with the game, but it just makes him sound stupid to say that "Mario is perhaps one of the most recognized video game characters of all-time." Why "perhaps"? He IS one of the most recognized game characters of all-time. He is the mascot that non-gamers think about when they think of video games. I think that solidly qualifies him as being among the most recognized.
0:40
One of the few factual accuracies in the entire video that Bores didn't have to go find on Wikipedia. Super Mario Bros. 2 does indeed stick out like a sore thumb. Good job, Chris.
0:55
"Now, I don't really hate Super Mario 2..."
You're just going to spend the next ten minutes telling us how much it sucks and is too hard and has ass written all over it. But you don't hate it, no.
1:00
"First off, there's nothing remotely familiar in this game that was included in the previous ones."
Previous ONES? What ones? There was only one. This is Super Mario TWO.
Furthermore, why should we care that it's different from the first game? Super Mario Bros. 2 is as different from Super Mario Bros. as Super Mario Bros. was from Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. There was no precedent to expect the same gameplay, especially with other games of the time, like Zelda II and Castlevania II, which were also startlingly different from their predecessors.
1:05 to 1:13
So Chris mentions that all of the enemies are different, but why is this bad? He never says. And for some reason, he's offended that the last boss is different. Again, back in 1988, we had very little reason to expect Bowser to return. Why can't Chris learn to contextualize his criticisms? Oh, because he's a dumbass.
1:45
It's not Toadstool, you nincompoop. Toadstool is the princess. Toad is the name of the fourth character, and he's not worthless. He's the fastest coin picker, and he's the strongest character, with no negative stat effects caused by carrying items.
1:54
Chris ponders the floating door in the sky, in spite of the fact that the previous game had blocks and coin boxes floating everywhere. This was the 80s. Since when did we care that things float?
2:19
Chris knocks the game for being one-player. Later in the review, he praises the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 (aka, the Lost Levels), in spite of it also being one-player. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Also, I can hardly understand what point is being made here. So what? Does Chris seriously not remember how poorly two-player mode was executed in Super Mario Bros.? Since his videos make it clear that he sucks at gaming, I would think that he, of all people, would remember how much it sucked having to play Super Mario Bros. with two players when one would die within twenty seconds and the other player could play in excess of ten or more minutes without dying.
Of course, for Chris to experience that, that would imply that he actually had friends in the first place.
2:26
"Another thing that pisses me off..."
Why does it piss you off?! You're just starting your sentence with a negative and filling the rest in with whatever petty thing you think you can find to complain about. Chris chooses life hearts as the topic of this sentence, but as we'll soon see, he has no real contention with anything concerning this aspect of the game. He's just describing the way the game works and then saying that he hates it or that he thinks it's hard.
2:28
"...the game starts you out with a two-heart health meter."
Um, those aren't hearts. They might be rupees or some form of gem, but they're definitely not hearts. Yes, I know that hearts replenish your meter, but Bores is talking about the meter itself.
I think Bores forgot that he's not playing the Super Nintendo version.
2:30
"And every time you get hurt, they take away an entire heart."
They're not...!!! *sigh*
Wait a sec, An entire heart? How difficult is this game, Chris? This isn't frickin' Zelda. This is Mario. It's not that tough. You're worried about the value of health in a game that most intermediate gamers could finish in an afternoon after getting used to the game mechanics.
2:36
"...they make it very hard to replenish your health."
BALDERDASH! This is one of the easiest games to refill your life meter! It's way easier than the power-up system of the first game. Attacking enemies to replenish health is usually very simple, since they regenerate after you advance the screen.
2:40
"In the first Mario Bros. game, it was really simple. All you had to do was just pound away at coin boxes until you ended up finding a mushroom."
Um, Chris. In Super Mario Bros., mushrooms were in limited supply, and some stages had no power-ups at all. This is much different than Super Mario 2, where you can get your life meter replenishment simply by attacking a series of enemies.
2:49
"But with the second game, they decided to make things much harder."
What's funny about this part is that, for the next several seconds, the gameplay footage actually contradicts Bores' voiceover by showing how easy getting life replenishment is.
3:15
To make a case that the Starman takes way too long to float up the screen, Bores made sure to find the one spot in the game where the waiting would take the longest, the plateau in stage 1-3. Yes, I know he's exaggerating to make a joke, but the subject of his exaggeration is actually an anomaly. Nowhere else in the game does it take nearly that long to get a Starman.
3:20
"Could it move any slower?"
Yes, if you slow the video down...which you did.
3:30
Thank you for closing the door and not subjecting us to graphic "comedy".
3:38
The lid is down when Bores both enters and exits the bathroom. Not the seat...the lid. Now I know it seems like such a minor mistake, but wouldn't you think that Bores might have noticed the lid down before flipping the camera on? I mean, come on!
4:02
One of the few genuinely funny moments in the video. We've all had that rude awakening when Pokey passes through the cactus. Unfortunately, this amusing scene is followed up by a disproportionate amount of rage. Usually, people don't carry on and throw controllers over the Pokey-through-the-cactus trick. And yes, he makes sure to repeat the footage so that we know that it's the Pokey that made him strangle himself with the controller cord.
4:18 to 4:43
The longest stretch in the video without any factual errors. In fact, Bores actually manages to be somewhat entertaining here, even if his disproportionate rage is continuing from the last part of the video. Punching the Birdo is probably the funniest thing he's ever published. And that's pretty sad, actually.
4:45
Bores calls Wart a pushover. First of all, Wart is actually a bit tougher than Bowser. Second, talk about pushovers, all you had to do with Bowser is run underneath him and grab the axe. In later levels, it gets tricky when he throws hammers at you, but his pattern is pretty easy to figure out. Wart, on the other hand, is spitting arcing bubbles at you, while you're trying grab turnips to throw in his mouth. Try not getting hit.
4:55
Bores grabs the last turnip as Wart dies. Not really a criticism here. I just find it interesting that everyone I know does that.
5:10
Chris just flat out says that the game fucking sucks. So much for not hating it.
5:14
"Compared to the other Mario games, this is the one's the worst one of the bunch."
Consider proofreading. There is all sorts of redundancy in this sentence. He could have just said, "This is the worst of the Mario games."
5:20
"Nintendo released a game called Super Mario All-Stars..."
Well, it's not really a game. It's more of a collection cart of multiple games. Sure, I'm nitpicking, but as long as I'm picking on him for proofread errors, I might as well call him out on this one, too.
5:45
Take note of the fact that we're supposed to believe that Chris is playing Super Mario All-Stars, but when it cuts back to him, he's holding an NES controller.
5:54
"After doing some research..."
...by looking it up on Wikipedia.
Seriously, when did he do this "research"? Most people knew about Mario 2 before the internet. It was plainly laid out in every gaming mag, and I believe it also says it in the instruction manual for Super Mario All-Stars. I think Chris was the only person on Earth who was actually shocked to discover that Super Mario Bros. 2 was a different game from the one in Japan.
6:03
"This one continues where the first one left off."
He says it like Super Mario Bros. actually had a story. It's basically the same exact game with different level design. This isn't so much a sequel as a ROM hack.
6:06
When Chris mentions that the game has all the same power-ups, he shows a screen shot with a poison mushroom.
6:10
"This game right here is the perfect predecessor to the first Mario game."
That's SUCCESSOR, you moron! And no, there's nothing perfect about this game, at all. It's extremely difficult. Hey, wait a minute. Weren't you the one complaining about difficulty just a moment ago?
6:25
Good editing on making the game cartridge pop into his hand. Again, this joke would be funny if he wasn't the only one on Earth who didn't know about the Mario 2 switcheroo.
6:30
"This mystery is very confusing, but we must get to the bottom of this."
Not to beat a dead horse, but I just want to point out for the third time that Chris is trying way too hard to make common gaming knowledge seem esoteric and unknown.
6:33
"...and after doing even more research..."
...following a link to another article on Wiki.
6:34
"...I found something guaranteed to flip some shit."
...if people didn't already know and had gotten over it. Chris, seems to be the only one who hasn't.
6:53
"...once you start the game, you will be amazed."
...by the revelation that everyone and their cat has known for the last 15 years.
7:00
Okay, this genuinely pisses me off. Chris Bores proves that research is against his religion by stating that the layout of the levels were "copied" and that the game itself was "stolen". Pardon me for getting into semantics, but there's nothing about this game that is stolen. The game design and stage layout was and is entirely owned by Nintendo. Only the lead characters were licensed.
This is actually not unheard of in video games for the game design and the characters in the game to be held by different companies. In fact, most licensed games are this way. For example, Hudson made Wonder Boy for Sega. Sega owns the Wonder Boy franchise, but Hudson was free to port the game to the NES as Adventure Island. Note that Hudson didn't STEAL anything, because it was their game code in the first place.
And on top of that, this is actually a Miyamoto game. Miyamoto, the father of the Mario franchise, led the development team on Doki Doki Panic. In fact, he had more a hand in that game than he did with the Japanese Mario 2. At the time Nintendo was developing a sequel to Super Mario Bros., Miyamoto was heading a different team to make the first Legend Of Zelda game.
7:18
"Un-fucking-believable!"
Again with the phony rage.
7:27
"Here's Mario."
Actually, the Papa character has the play style of Toad, not Mario. You'd think that Chris would notice this, since he appears to be getting all of this game footage himself. Once again showing that Bores didn't do any research beyond Wikipedia. C'mon, even that Mario Wiki touches on this.
7:45
Now he's giving props to the game for making graphical alterations to match the Mario universe when only moments ago, he was talking about how much of a rip-off this game was for replacing the original characters with Mario characters. Make up your fucking mind!
7:50
Why are we giving props to Nintendo for changing the speed of the waterfall? It's like Chris saw a game alternation, flipped a coin, and decided that he didn't hate it, because it landed on heads.
8:00
"It's unclear as to why they copied it in the first place."
Again, they didn't copy anything. Nintendo localized their own game as a sequel to Super Mario Bros. Also, Howard Lincoln has made it very clear that the reason the Japanese Mario 2 was held back was that the difficulty curve was too high and that the game didn't innovate the franchise.
8:03
"Many have speculated..."
This is like saying, "It's been said." It's amazing how many worthless assertions you can get away with simply by using sentence prefixes such as these. Besides, there is no speculation here. We know why Nintendo didn't want to release the Japanese Mario 2. We have Lincoln's own word on it.
8:12
"Having two of the same thing can get stale and repetitive."
Oh, you mean like having two negative classic game reviewers on the internet? Bah-ZING!
8:25
Bores claims that Super Mario Advance was a complete makeover for Super Mario 2, and yet the only real difference between this and the All-Stars edition was that they added a scoring system and a few new enemies. Besides which, none of the changes to the game even come close to addressing the problems that Bores had with the game in the first place, so what the fuck?
And once again, he's praising the game for being altered even further into the Mario franchise, even though he claimed that the game was a rip-off earlier in the video.
8:44
Chris claims that they added "a lot more power-ups", and yet there are no power-ups in the game, aside from the Starman. He says this as Mario picks a giant turnip, which isn't a power-up. Does Bores not know what a power-up is?
8:45
"Interesting enemies", is what he says as he shows us the giant Ninji. I suppose he likes that guy, because throwing him gives you a free heart every time.
8:50
Chris is relieved, because the easy task of refilling your life meter is now even easier.
You know what? This is actually one of the reasons I don't like Super Mario Advance, because the game is too easy. There are free hearts everywhere, and you get 99 lives on the first level by exploiting the Starman over and over.
9:01
Chris speaks the truth at last.
9:12
I know that Chris isn't making any money off of this... (oh wait, he does sell a DVD) ...but the least he could do is go to a florist and find a better representation of the Fire Flower than whatever plant he has on his dining room table.
Also, Chris is talking to himself here, and doing a fairly convincing job of it. I'm guessing he does that a lot.
9:25
Okay, the Dig Dug gag is pretty funny, but nothing after this part is worth mentioning, so I'm just going to stop it here.
So, that was only one pass through the video. I'm sure if I watched it again, I could find even more. But I figure I might as well leave that to other people to try. Why should I have all the fun? |
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