raocow's talkhaus

Mario RPG and Paper Mario both pull the same stunt, multiple times.
I think in the 1st game, a cop asks Mario for ID. All he has to do is jump to prove who he is.

In Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door they subvert Mario's established celebrity status and many people in the Rogueport areas don't even recognize him.

Here, Mario breaks one of the important rules when traveling to a foreign country. Drinking the tap water.

So, I just caught up with the videos...and I expressed enough annoyance and frustration to pick up a copy of the 3DS version of this game so as to maintain my sanity throughout this LP.

You may be curious to know some of the quality-of-life things they did. Here's some I've seen so far:

Bros. Actions:

• There's no need to alternate Bros. Instead, you just cycle through the Bros. Actions with L and R, and in the event Mario is the lead on a Bros. Action, he will automatically move to the back. Default mode (Jump) is always set to Mario in front. You can also change the Bros. Action with the touchscreen,

  which proves useful later on when you get more actions.

• High Jump requires no timing. Instead of bouncing on Mario's head, Luigi just stands atop it.

Bros. Attacks:

• Modes have been replaced with Normal or Easy. The mechanics have also changed: Easy has no slo-mo mode, nor can you read which button to press. Instead, Easy just increases the timing flexibility for each button press, making it less likely for you to miss a button press. In addition, to make up for the lack of slo-mo...
• You can practice your Bros. Attacks, as well as see demos of what the attacks are supposed to look like. This is a feature from later M&L games, where Bros./Special/Trio Attacks could be viewed as a demo and practiced at any time. As a nice touch, you can not only practice them out of battle (using the game's Guide, another feature borrowed from later games), but also mid-battle. So once you get the swing of things, you can hop back into battle and use the attack with ease.

Other:

• There are a lot of different things the game does to make gameplay much easier. There's Easy Mode, which is a no-penalty mode that makes the Bros. stronger and grinding less arduous (since you get rewards faster). That can be toggled on at any time in the Options menu, and will be offered if you Game Over, especially after losing a boss battle. There is an Assist function, which (as raocow would appreciate) indicates which Bro is being targeted by an enemy attack.
• To minimize tutorializing and the drag it generates, many tutorial aspects of the game have been moved to the Guide. Whenever a new game concept appears, the game will typically indicate a new entry for the Guide that you can choose to review. However, you can also just skip it at your leisure. The Guide is accessible in the Pause menu while on the map, on the touchscreen during a battle.
• When you get the Beanbean Map, you also gain access to a Mini-Map function that appears on the touchscreen and serves as the map for the area you're in. It'll show you all the screens you've been to so far.
• With more buttons, there's a dedicated button (X) where both brothers jump simultaneously. It's very useful, not just because you don't have to worry about hitting both A and B, but you can also set a Bros. Action and still be able to jump around like normal. This is a feature that dates from Paper Jam particularly (though it may have been in Dream Team also).
• There is a Save anytime function on the touchscreen whenever you aren't in battle.

Non-QOL differences:

• Mario and Luigi's standard Jump attack is different. It's now a two-hit combo with timed button presses. This appeared in later M&L games.

If people are interested, I can post more details about QOL stuff with the 3DS remake and any considerable differences.

It really pissed me off they added an easy mode but not a hard mode. In previous games that was just a standard unlock when you beat the game but they just got lazy with the remake and couldn't be bothered to bump a few numbers up or down by like 30%

I agree with raocow that it's pretty interesting that everyone knows who Mario and Luigi are in this game. In fact, he started talking about it just as I was thinking about it. Also, I appreciate that raocow has learned to not try and do an entire area per video. I don't have much else to say here, but it's been nice seeing raocow slowly but surely learn the mechanics of this game.

Ashan wrote: ↑4 years ago It really pissed me off they added an easy mode but not a hard mode. In previous games that was just a standard unlock when you beat the game but they just got lazy with the remake and couldn't be bothered to bump a few numbers up or down by like 30%

Just bumping numbers up would be a really lazy 'hard mode' though? All it'd do is make everything take longer.

I mean if enemies did more damage and you had the same amount of health you'd have less room for error and would have to get better at learning enemies and dodging them. Remember, this isn't a typical tank-enemy-damage RPG, there's realtime dodging you gotta do!

I don't really know how the games that had hard mode balanced it, but I 100%ed Dream Team on hard mode and it was something of a challenge. Which is good cause these games are otherwise pretty easy.

I think Dream Team is the only game to have a legit unlockable hard mode. 'Hard mode' in Bowser's Inside Story (and maybe Partner's in Time?) was an equipable item, and Paper Jam has no such thing (why?!?).

Dream Team's hard mode not only buffs the enemies, but it also limits the # of a type of item from 99 to 10.

As for Superstar Saga's remake, I was extremely dissapointed they didn't add a boss rush. But speaking of the remake, I think it's maybe too early to talk about that kind of stuff? Perhaps we hold off on that, to maybe halfway through the game?

The latest when rao starts swimming

Ashan wrote: ↑4 years agoWhich is good cause these games are otherwise pretty easy.

So?

Two things I forgot in my big post, by the way:

• The 3DS remake adds the Emergency Guard feature from later M&L games. It allows you to minimize the damage from an attack if you can't figure how to dodge one, or fail to execute a response properly, or are just panicking.
• In context-sensitive situations (such as the water puzzles that raocow is facing right now), the 3DS remake simply invokes the appropriate action automatically. Compare to the GBA version, where you have to select the correct Bros. action to do something.

thatguyif wrote: ↑4 years ago

Ashan wrote: ↑4 years agoWhich is good cause these games are otherwise pretty easy.

So?

So it's nice to have a hard mode

Also yeah what Sebby said about dropping the max item held count. It makes you worry a bit more about inventory management. I'm surprised to hear DT was the only one with hard, I guess I just assumed it was in Paper Jam cause it came after. But like I said earlier, I only played through that one time and then never touched it again so I don't remember much about it. Maybe I'm due to give it another run through soon.

Mandew wrote: ↑4 years ago It's moreso because of this:

https://i.imgur.com/Ll7S8rL.png

oh hey I was confusing gameboy advance SP layout with normal advance in my head

"I wonder what twenty different people will go out of their way to explain to me this time"

*looks at comments*

ah, THAT clearly mentioned gameplay element.

if you want a hard mode just reset whenever you take damage instead of complaining about the lack of one

Plutia wrote: ↑4 years ago if you want a hard mode just reset whenever you take damage instead of complaining about the lack of one

Why is it not ok to say you wish the game had a hard mode? Don't gotta act snippy towards people expressing an honest(and also, pretty reasonable) opinion.

Shard1697 wrote: ↑4 years ago

Plutia wrote: ↑4 years ago if you want a hard mode just reset whenever you take damage instead of complaining about the lack of one

Why is it not ok to say you wish the game had a hard mode? Don't gotta act snippy towards people expressing an honest(and also, pretty reasonable) opinion.

The game's hard mode is never changing out of Mario and Luigi's Work Pants.

Cause you are going to have to work alot harder to beat the game.

Honestly, the game's difficulty felt fine in my casual playthrough.

Shard1697 wrote: ↑4 years ago Why is it not ok to say you wish the game had a hard mode? Don't gotta act snippy towards people expressing an honest(and also, pretty reasonable) opinion.

in a world where people are outright harassed for daring to install easy mode and accessibility mods on their games or even asking for any modes in the first place, this is pretty rich

if you're pissed off a game has easy mode for accessibility but not a hard mode maybe consider checking your privilege and this is coming from someone who would absolutely play king's field unironically

"This one game in the series had a Hard Mode which I enjoyed and a later game did not, that's a bit sad" is not getting mad and being an elitist, come on.

I absolutely see where you're coming from re: accessibility and "hardcore gamer" entitlement, but this is absolutely not what is happening here.

if you're getting pissed that easy mode exists and hard mode doesnt

it's just phrasing

Woah guys Plutia's post was clearly a joke, settle down.

is the talkhaus just not going to be able to keep discussions about difficulty modes/challenge civil from here on out or

Rockythechao wrote: ↑4 years ago is the talkhaus just not going to be able to keep discussions about difficulty modes/challenge civil from here on out or

It is honestly pretty embarrassing

Yes, the entire talkhaus

Someone: shares an innocuous thought about game modes

The thread:

Yes, the entire thread