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I suppose it does, but consider whose weakness the Rolling Shield is. Once you have done so, the answer will be within your grasp...
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Welcome Back to Digital Pinball Fans - please read this first
The Top 25 Video Game Villains of Every Subtype Imaginable
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I suppose it does, but consider whose weakness the Rolling Shield is. Once you have done so, the answer will be within your grasp...
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- #244
?
And Sumez gets it in one! How did this terror of the deep use his limited technical capacity to such great effect? Dive below for the answer:
22. The Octopus (Octopus)
Developed & Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Game & Watch Widescreen (OC-22)
Year of Release: 1981
Few companies made as sharp a transition of core competency in the 20th century as Nintendo. After a number of industries failed to work out for them in the years following WWII, they transitioned into the toy market in the 1960s, followed by an expansion into the arcade game market in the 1970s, with Gunpei Yokoi leading the charge in both instances. Near the end of the decade, these two shifts in strategy would come together in the form of the Game & Watch line of LCD games. From 1980 through 1991, over 43 million units across 59 production numbers & 1 special prize version of Super Mario Bros. would be manufactured, with the honor roll including Ball, Mario's Cement Factory, Zelda and, of course, Octopus (Mysteries of the Sea/Deep to my British readers).
As with Climber, the fundamental question is what Octopus represents about what made the Game & Watch series such a success for Nintendo over the years. Essentially, it serves as a counterpart to Climber, demonstrating what made the earlier games so compelling, even as Climber showcases the ways in which the designs of the Game & Watch games grew more ambitious over the years. Like many other great games, Octopus starts from a simple foundation and builds from that into something so much more. The simple task of collecting sunken treasure while avoiding its guardian's tentacles grows into a surprisingly deep game of timing and risk vs. reward, especially in Game B (as you can see in the .GIF that Sumez so kindly provided, there are buttons for Game A and Game B on the right side of the Game & Watch unit, with Game B making the Octopus substantially faster).
As I often find myself saying about games of this era, the gameplay is almost radically simple: you control one of a team of three divers, all of whom want to avoid the Octopus' tentacles and collect as much of his treasure as possible. You get 1 point for each piece of treasure, 3 points for returning to the boat with treasure in tow (you cannot return without treasure) and extra men at 200 & 500 points. The foundation of all strategy in Octopus is that the titular guardian will never change the direction of any given tentacle until it has completely extended or retracted, so his movement is somewhat predictable. The situation you want to arrive at is being able to to slip in while the two rightmost tentacles are out of sync, grab a few pieces of treasure, beat feet as soon as the rightmost tentacle is about to grab you and return to the boat for your extra 3 points. Also, be careful on the left side of the screen, as the leftmost tentacle can extend to either the top or bottom of the rope, the better to prevent people from simply turtling. Generally, when attempting to return to the boat, the rule for when the leftmost tentacle is extending is "if it's high, do not fly; if it's low, time to go!" For those so inclined, you can play the original game here.
Although Octopus never received a re-release during the original Game & Watch days, the Octopus must have some friends in the deep, as he has actually become something of a Nintendo staple. His first appearance outside of his original Game & Watch title was Game & Watch Gallery (Game Boy Gallery 2 in Australia), a collection of 4 Game & Watch titles–Fire, Manhole, Octopus & Oil Panic–released for the Game Boy in 1998. The Game & Watch Gallery titles also had modernized versions of the featured titles, featuring the Mario characters and adding some new twists to the classic gameplay. In the modern version of Octopus, Mario takes on the role of the treasure-hunting divers, while extra lives come in the shape of hearts thrown onto the playfield by Lakitu and the Octopus gaining the ability to spit ink, which will cost you one of your lives if it hits you and comes out nearly constantly after 800 points, as well as the ability to put his middle tentacles in two locations, much like his leftmost tentacle in the original. To compensate for these new abilities, Mario gains far more points for the treasure he brings back to his boat, with each piece of treasure equaling 2 bonus points, in addition to the point for grabbing it in the first place; however, he also moves more slowly after every 3rd piece of treasure (50 is the maximum he can carry, in case you were wondering), so speed is still key here. Furthermore, Mario can throw his treasure at a tentacle by pressing B, but this will cost him all the treasure he had gathered on that run, so use this ability sparingly. Octopus made a return appearance in Game & Watch Gallery 4 (Game & Watch Gallery Advance to any Australians reading this) for the Game Boy Advance in 2002, but the Octopus' modern re-design is pretty wretched–horrifying monstrosities of the deep shouldn't be that cutesy, dang it! Also, having the suction cups on the outside of the Octopus' tentacles when they are retracted borders on sacrilege, so I won't be playing Modern Octopus any more than I have to if I should be lucky enough to own Game & Watch Gallery 4 at some point in the future.
The Octopus also appeared in two other re-releases: a Nintendo Mini Classics port in 1998 and an appearance as the star of Game & Watch Collection 2, which was released for Nintendo DS as a prize for Club Nintendo members on April 1, 2010 and cost 800 Coins (the title is currently not listed as an available prize on the Club Nintendo website). The game contains Octopus, Parachute and Parachute x Octopus, a mash-up of the two titles with some interesting wrinkles of its own. You start off on the top screen of your DS, playing Parachute, where you must rescue skydivers by positioning your boat under them such that they land in it. After rescuing enough skydivers, an arrow will point down on the left side of the screen, indicating that the Octopus portion of the game will begin soon. Once you head down, the Octopus portion of the game begins on the bottom screen of the DS, where it plays much like the original, but with two twists–first off, grabbing at least 5 pieces of treasure during the Octopus round makes skydivers worth 2 points each for the next Parachute round; secondly, the Parachute round starts up again in fairly short order, with the helicopter flashing and beeping to let you know that more skydivers are on their way. Furthermore, your misses are NOT tracked separately for the two portions of the game, so it can get pretty miserable if you're bad at one of the two component titles (I always did struggle with Parachute...).
Outside of Game & Watch re-releases, the Octopus has only two other appearances to his name, but both of them are fairly high-profile. The first is in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, where Mr. Game & Watch turns into the Octopus for his Final Smash, becoming invulnerable for the duration of the move and extending & contracting his tentacles with the A button; this is actually the second Octopus reference in Mr. Game & Watch's moveset, as he temporarily dons the helmet worn by the divers for his Forward Smash. The Octopus' second appearance is in Nintendo Land, the pack-in title that comes with the Wii U Deluxe/Premium bundles, where he is featured in Octopus Dance, a rhythm game in which you must imitate the dance moves of the diver. The Octopus can be seen in the background and Nintendo did a fantastic job of translating his classic look into the papier-mache design style of Nintendo Land. Octopus Dance is usually considered one of Nintendo Land's weaker attractions, but it's the thought that counts, right?
As I have said before, few companies are less shy about playing up their past than Nintendo. We can easily forget, in this age of plentiful retro compilations, what a video game company staying true to its roots really looks like. How many other companies would give a character from their relatively hardscrabble early days as a video game developer as much exposure as Nintendo have given the Octopus if they had previously enjoyed successes on the scale of the NES, Super NES and Game Boy? For all its missteps, Nintendo is the only company whose dedication to preserving the best of their roots cannot be gainsaid.
Next Time on The Top 25 Nintendo Villains: Darkness rises when the stone breaks...
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I had a tough time coming up with a good clue for this next one, so here's another hint: this character actually has two canonical in-game personalities.
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Gan[n]on/Ganondorf as the go to guess 
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Gan[n]on/Ganondorf as the go to guess
Not this early in the list, my friend! I'll admit these hints are somewhat vague, so I'll try and make this third one a bit clearer: the series I have in mind started on the Famicom in 1990.
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Marth from Fire Emblem made reappearances in Smash Bros games
Villian was Gharnef
Villian was Gharnef
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- #249
It is indeed Fire Emblem, but not the one from which Marth hails. Here's another hint for you: the lead characters' names are Ephraim & Eirika.
- Mar 17, 2012
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Lyon / The Demon King
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as a total off topic posting:
here:s a history of handheld gaming inn pictures
http://imgur.com/a/k01DZ?gallery
here:s a history of handheld gaming inn pictures
http://imgur.com/a/k01DZ?gallery
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- #252
I'm a bit surprised, actually–if I'm guessing your age correctly, you should have been in the target market for a Game & Watch while they were still being manufactured, albeit in the tail end of that era. Here's a good site to get an overview of the Game & Watch line. Also, I highly recommend the Game & Watch Gallery series–they do a great job of both preserving and updating the Game & Watch line and the first two can be had for a pittance on the 3DS eShop, if you happen to have a 3DS.
I gave that a look a couple of days ago. That was a pretty fun rundown of handheld gaming history–I especially appreciate that they looked at all the Taiwanese & Chinese systems that get no play here in the West. Also, I had so many games on my TI-83 during high school, so I really got a kick out of seeing that mentioned at the end of the gallery.
Anyway, the next entry will be coming in a couple of days. Sean DonCarlos came up with the answer yet again and really looks to be running away with this one. Will he simply scamper off with this list or will somebody rise up to give him a decent challenge?
P.S. Did you two get the messages I sent you about a week ago? I haven't seen a reply from either of you yet...
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Sorry, CC13, yes I did receive your message.
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That is correct, sir! I apologize for the long turnaround on this one, but between PAPA, a terrible cold and the start of Collegiate Chorale, I haven't had much free time recently. What dark secrets does Prince Lyon hold? The answer lies below:
21. Prince Lyon of Grado (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones)
Developed By: Intelligent Systems
Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Year of Release: 2004
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones sits at an interesting point in the history of the Fire Emblem series. As the second of the games to receive an official release in the West, comparisons to Fire Emblem: Rekka no ken (simply called Fire Emblem in North America, Europe and Australia) were inevitable. Generally, contemporary reviews held that the game felt like a very conservative follow-up to Rekka no Ken and that some features, especially the inability to resurrect characters that have died, might frustrate some players, but praised the attention the game pays to its story & characters and the fact that The Sacred Stones did not try to fix what wasn't broken in its predecessor. However, more hardcore fans can point to at least one change that they mostly do not favor; unlike Rekka no Ken, The Sacred Stones has random encounters outside of its scripted missions. This has the effect of making level grinding a far easier task than in most other Fire Emblem games, which obviously makes the game far easier if you take advantage of the random encounters.
The Sacred Stones takes place on the continent of Magvel, which is split into five nations each founded by one of five legendary heroes, along with the young and ambitious merchant nation of Carcino. The aforementioned legendary heroes became such by aiding in the sealing of Fomortiis, the Demon King, with this sealing being enforced by five Sacred Stones, one for each of the nations founded by the legendary heroes. However, 800 years after the sealing of Fomortiis, Emperor Vigarde of Grado goes mad and begins a campaign of world conquest, with King Fado of Renais falling at the beginning of the game. You must take control of his fraternal twin children, Princess Eirika and Prince Ephraim, to rally Renais and the other nations against the Gradoese invaders. You mostly play as Eirika for the first portion of the game (with the exception of one gaiden chapter), but you can choose to either stay with Eirika as she fights off the invaders or accompany Ephraim to the heart of Grado after the end of Chapter 8.
Interestingly, Prince Lyon plays a role in both branches of the story, but his role in each is very different. In Eirika's branch, he seems every bit the good-natured young man that she remembers (having Caellach, a backstabbing sociopath who readily abandons a longtime friend of his once his usefulness has ended, and Valter, a bloodthirsty war criminal with a skin-crawling obsession with Eirika, as the arc villains helps drive this home) to the point where she ends up making a VERY bone-headed move after the two story branches merge (more on that later), but he plays a much more obviously evil role in Ephraim's branch. There, you quickly hear that it was Lyon himself who counseled Emperor Vigarde towards war and it only gets worse when Ephraim meets Lyon face-to-face. When you confront Lyon, he claims that he had only befriended Ephraim and Eirikia to learn to Renais' weaknesses so that he could lay the nation low. Earlier in that chapter, you learn that Emperor Vigarde actually died some time ago and that Prince Lyon used the magic of the Dark Stone to revive his body, but could not quite manage to do the same with his spirit; this is confirmed by the Gradoese magician Knoll at the end of the chapter. The game also takes different approaches to how Lyon's possession by the Demon King is handled depending on which royal sibling you chose, with Eirika's route showing Fomortiis as clearly being in control, while the picture in Ephraim's route is more complicated, with the implication being that Fomortiis has more subtly warped Lyon's thinking, rather than outright dominating him.
Before we wrap this up, I should address one major bone of contention many Fire Emblem fans have with Eirika. After the royal twins meet up, whichever one you chose to go with at the split will encounter Prince Lyon face-to-face. Either way, Lyon will take the Sacred Stone of Renais from you and destroy it, but the method by which he does so differes depending on whether Ephraim or Eirika goes to confront him. In Ephraim's case, he falls victim to a paralysis spell, allowing Lyon to take the Sacred Stone and destroy it at his leisure, but it happens differently with Eirika, who gives him the stone without a fight, believing that this will save Lyon's soul, despite L'Arachel having warned her than Fomortiis had completely consumed Lyon's soul and that he could not be saved. Obviously, many fans view this as an unjustifiably stupid thing for Eirika to do, but that isn't entirely fair. Eirika had not faced the more obvious evil that Ephraim had seen when he first confronted Lyon, so she would naturally be more likely to believe that Lyon could be saved. Also, trying to do anything aggressive could have ended poorly, since Lyon packs some NASTY tomes when you finally do get to fight him head-on.
Overall, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones was exactly the game Nintendo needed for the series. Changing too much from Rekka no Ken would have run the risk of alienating the newfound Western fanbase, so a more conservative approach was probably the way to go, while the lowered difficulty was most likely an attempt to expand the fandom that seems to have not quite worked as planned, but was an understandable tactical decision. Besides, without this game, we would not have the bizarrely awesome Gheb hack (Gheb is a minor antagonist that shows up in Ephraim's ninth chapter, Fort Rigwald, and is, in the words of Blastinus' LP of The Sacred Stones (http://lparchive.org/Fire-Emblem-The-Sacred-Stones/), "beloved by the fandom...in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that he's a misogynistic, narcissistic, cowardly, and downright ugly creature that calls itself a man"; if you're intrigued, you can find recordings of the hack here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1072B79811DCD5E9 (WARNING: link not even remotely SFW)).
Next Time on The Top 25 Nintendo Villains: Release the BOGUS!
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- #255
OK, I really thought this one was right across the plate, but I apparently am terribad at giving clues, so here's another one to help you along: the villain I have in mind hails from Hollywood, CA.
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- #256
It seems I've once again misjudged how easy my clues were, but maybe this one will make things a bit clearer: the villain I have in mind is known for his dangerous spin punches.
- Mar 17, 2012
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I'd say Super Macho Man from Punch-Out!, as he does have a spinning punch and is from Hollywood, but I freely admit I have no idea how that connects to the "Release the BOGUS!" clue.
Captain B. Zarre
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It's a well known meme...
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It is indeed Super Macho Man! As for "Release the BOGUS!", well...actually, I think we'd be better served by explaining that during the actual entry. OK, then, here we go!
20. Super Macho Man (Super Punch-Out!! (arcade))
Developed & Published By: Nintendo
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1984
Super Macho Man has had an odd, though mostly successful, career trajectory. Though always one of the later opponents and never a pushover, he has a knack for getting upstaged in the games in which he appears not only in terms of having somebody higher up the ladder than him, but also in terms of difficulty. However, this suits him well, as while Super Macho Man's arrogant nature certainly makes him eminently punchable, most players would likely prefer a more traditionally intimidating final boss. That said, the position of Super Macho Man in each of his four appearances thus far can help inform us about the changes in game design through the Punch-Out! series and how those changes inform the player's experience.
We begin by looking at Super Macho Man in the original Super Punch-Out!! For those wondering why I skipped Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, I actually haven't–the original Super Punch-Out!! was essentially a glorified expansion pack to the original Punch-Out!!, featuring an all-new cast of five new nationally stereotypical fighters: Bear Hugger (Canada), Dragon Chan (Hong Kong), Vodka Drunkenski (USSR–what a difference almost 30 years makes, yes? Also, this character was renamed Soda Popinski for home versions of Punch-Out!!), Great Tiger (India) and Super Macho Man (USA). To date, this is the only game in which Super Macho Man has appeared in which he is the legitimate final boss (for a certain value of final boss–like many old-school arcade games, Super Punch-Out!! has no proper ending, opting instead to loop endlessly until the player loses; also, Bear Hugger is the final boss starting with the third loop). Interestingly, Super Macho Man's moveset is not terribly different from that of Vodka Drunkenski. Though one could lay this observation at the feet of poor design choices, I have a little more faith in Nintendo than that and it also wouldn't be the first time that somebody had hinted that the worst practices of the USA and its geopolitical rivals are not terribly different. This makes better sense for Super Macho Man than for the other major American boxer of the Punch-Out!! world, Mr. Sandman, whose roughneck demeanor certainly does not bespeak a life in the lap of luxury, while Super Macho Man looks every bit the spoilt yuppie, which his future appearances most certainly confirm.
We next see Punch-Out!!'s tanned titan in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, released for the NES in 1987. Once again, Super Macho Man appears as the champion of the world, but his upstaging at the hands of Iron Mike should surprise exactly no one, given that his name is in the game's title. Still, he couldn't be more different from the hero of the game, the plucky undersized boxer Little Mac, if he tried–his arsenal is largely unchanged from the arcade, but in between rounds, we can see a little more of his personality through some of his trash talk, which includes such gems as "I work on my tan harder than I'm going to have to work on you!", "I don't smoke...but tonight I'm going to smoke you!" and "My body is just so totally cool!", which only reinforce the notions we had of Super Macho Man from the last time we saw him. Compounding his ludicrous image is the infamous pec flex at the start of each round. This only gets worse on both counts in Super Punch-Out!! for the Super NES, where Super Macho Man makes a third appearance as the WVBA's champion of the world, but has an entire 4-fighter Special Circuit after him (though you have to have at least one 4-0 run on the Minor, Major & World Circuits to unlock it), as well as combos that his coach refers to as "exercise programs", further cementing the unappealing yuppie image that Super Macho Man has created over his three appearances (thankfully, the pec flex does NOT return here).
As of the time of this writing, Super Macho Man's last appearance is in Punch-Out!! for the Nintendo Wii, developed by Next Level Games and released in 2009. This is the source of the "Release the BOGUS!" meme I referenced in the initial clue for this entry, but before I explain that, Super Macho Man's position in the game has shifted in an interesting manner relative to his previous appearances. By this point, savvy gamers would recognize Super Macho Man as a fake final boss were he in the champion's spot, so instead, he is demoted to #1 contender in the World Circuit, with Mr. Sandman back in the champion's spot for the first time since the original game. Each opponent has a series of hand-drawn stills before you fight them, showing you exactly what the character is all about (in Title Defense mode, the stills instead show what steps the fighters took to prepare for the rematch). In Super Macho Man's case, his Contender mode video shows him living the Hollywood high life, with him pumping iron, spending big money like it was nothing, attending huge media events and flexing his muscles, all while a number of young ladies follow him around, presumably ooh-ing and aah-ing all the while. His banter before the fight, between rounds and when he knocks you down only confirms the worst, with the pec flex returning & being capped off with a flex of the buttocks, telling the paparazzi that, "Oh, THESE sunglasses? You can't afford these sunglasses–and get your hands off the ropes!" and telling you to "Stay down!" when he knocks you down, just in case you didn't already want to knock that smug grin off his face. He only gets more ridiculous with the surfer-dude overtones to his gimmick, which are at their most overt here, with the Punch-Out!! theme music taking a surfer-rock turn, complete with rock organ, which actually helps to make the losing snippets fairly amusing.
He arguably gets even worse in his Title Defense bout–his intro sequence shows him getting pissy over Little Mac's newfound fame, with his pre-fight banter consisting of an amusing sequence where the spotlight avoids him, while Super Macho Man informs you between rounds that "When I'm done with you, no one's gonna dare take your picture!" The highlights of Super Macho Man's unpleasant nature, however, are his victory animations; in Contender mode, he dons his sunglasses, declares "Welcome to my world!" and climbs the ladder of a conveniently placed helicopter, while Title Defense mode sees him throwing a fit of pique upon finding that the spotlight no longer avoids him; though he initially spurns its attentions, he quickly does a volte-face and is soon back to playing to the crowd.
On a quick side note, here's how to get the infamous "Release the BOGUS!" meme when playing Punch-Out!! Wii. First, you must face Super Macho Man in Title Defense mode (he doesn't have the move that has the "Release the-" part of the quote in Contender mode). At some point in the match, Super Macho Man should do a huge left uppercut; if it connects, you'll hear the proper quote associated with it, which is "Release the BEAST!" However, if you manage to dodge it, Super Macho Man will only get the "Release the-" part of the quote out, with the final word being replaced with one of his quotes for when he misses, such as "Dude!" or "Bogus!" That's all there is to that!
All in all, Super Macho Man works well as what he is: the arrogant, pushy, self-centered antithesis of the all-American hero Nintendo always implicitly wanted players to envision themselves as and made explicit with Little Mac. I can hardly think it an accident that Little Mac hails from Brooklyn and relives the Rocky Balboa story while Super Macho Man is an arrogant yuppie from Hollywood who towers over Little Mac. Either way, Super Macho Man makes for an excellent motivational nemesis even as you wail on him in the ring.
Next Time on the Top 25 Nintendo Villains: ...and in the name of Termina, I will punish the moon!
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Captain B. Zarre
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Majora's Mask from.... Majora's Mask.
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