Super FamiComplete #102: Mario Paint

 

Title: Mario Paint

Release Date: 05/05/1992

Developer: Intelligent Systems; Nintendo R&D 1

Publisher: Nintendo

Finally another first party Nintendo game, and this one showcasing a peripheral for the SNES. This is another one of those SNES titles that is mainly here to serve as a tech demo for the mouse attachment. Honestly, it's not really a game perse, but instead a program that encompasses several different functions; almost like Nintendo's SNES era equivalent of an Adobe Suite. 

Background

Mario Paint was developed by Nintendo R&D1 and was directed by Hirofumi Matsuoka, a Nintendo stalwart who worked on many projects within the Metroid series, and seems to be regularly attached to Gunpei Yokoi's team. He would later go on to direct Wario Land 4 and the first game in the Warioware series, apparently taking great inspiration from this game in the aesthetic and "create your own fun" style of Mario Paint. 

The aforementioned Gunpei Yokoi serves as a producer on this game, which makes a great deal of sense as he was one of Nintendo's chief engineers when it game to introducing new hardware. His gift as an engineer was in making ideas such as "I want a portable gaming device to play Nintendo games on the go" and coming up with something that wasn't just a functional version of that idea, but one with charm and the ability to connect with its audience. Mario Paint is a primordial attempt at a "maker" game; a virtual studio in which children could create: be it art, simple cartoons, or songs. Now while professional programs take intensive onboarding and tutorializing to become proficient at using, the idea behind Mario Paint is that even a child can get into and use its programs within about five minutes. The skill ceiling on such a program is really quite high as well, as it can be something you tool around with and make nonsense for thirty minutes, or you can actually make some neat (if not stunning) music and art with this program. 

Gameplay

The game has several modes to play with, each with different purposes. The first to talk about is the one that is implied by the name of the game: the drawing board. This is a very simples MS Paint style drawing program with 15 colors, 75 patterns, and 120 stamps available to make some neat art with. As well, you can then put this art into a simple animation of up to 9 frames of animation (woooo). Here are some cool pieces of art I found from around the interwebs...

As well you have the music studio program on here as well. This lets you make simple compositions using 12 different instruments and a series of Nintendo sound effects. Pretty neat! Here are some cool compositions made using this program. 

Finally, the actual bit of "game" in this game is the fly swatter game. It is a game you can play in which you try to swat flies using the mouse. As you swat flies, they increase in number and vigor. After you swat 100 flies, then you fight a boss monster named King Watinga. It's a fun diversion between creating art or music!

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Final Verdict

This is a classic SNES program with a long reaching influence on future Nintendo products. I have fond memories of just messing around with this program when I was a kid, and even though this has since been outmoded and outdated, there was definitely a good bit of joy in returning to it even just to mess around for a half hour. You can see its influence on the Mario Maker series, which plays around with the concept of making your own fun but extends that to classic Mario gameplay. Overall, it is the first step in Nintendo using its branding and ingenuity to step outside of the realm of making strictly video games, at least in terms of a game that had wide reaching appeal and sales to boot (this game sold well over two million copies). So, in my opinion, definitely check it out if you never have played it before, or at least go to a reddit of compilations of art made with Mario Paint. 

Super FamiComplete #101: Battle Blaze

 

 

Title: Battle Blaze (NA)

Release Date: 05/01/1992

Developer: Electronics Application 

Publisher: Sammy Studios

The first game of May 1992 is a bit of a let down. While Street Fighter II's port to the SNES would be out the following month in June 1992, the arcade game had been out for a year and some change by this point; its popularity most definitely led to a glut of cheap knock off fighters hoping to cash in of the craze. Battle Blaze is certainly one of those, and it is fundamentally not a good fighter.

Background

Battle Blaze was developed by Aicom, a developer that had a pedigree for some hidden gems on the NES, like the Mafat Conspiracy (the sequel to the Golgo 13 game), as well as Astynax, and who would go on to make some quality titles for SNK such as Pulstar. The publisher in this case is Sammy, who are well known developer/publishers of panchinko machines. 

Not too much else is known about the development of this game, especially when it comes to the decision to make this a medieval fighter rather than a traditional martial arts fighter. I guess for novelty? To its credit, this is before fighters such as Time Killers and Samurai Shodown. It is weird that this isn't based off of any arcade property: it is a fighting game made only for the SNES. 

The only other weird note about its development was that it wouldn't be released in the United States for another two years. Details are vague about the reasons why, but it is cited that it was due to issues with Nintendo's legendarily stringent approval process. 

Story

This game takes place on the land of Virg, and each year the king of this land holds a Tournament of Champions where he invites the best fighters from across the land to do battle. A demon, though, decides to send phantoms to possess all the participants to help overthrow the kingdom. You play as the son of the king's champion, Kerrell; your father was killed by the phantom, and it is now up to you to defeat the possessed champions and foil the demon's plans. 

The possession angle adds a nice wrinkle, and helps explain why you are fighting the other participants in the tournament, but overall, it's really only as interesting as that conceit. 

Fighters

• Kerrell, the protagonist whom you play in the Hero (basically story mode) mode of the game, looks and fights a lot like Conan the Barbarian. 
• Shnouzer is the werewolf like cat man who was probably the toughest fight in the game. 
• Adrick looks like a dark knight with a big evil sword who can shoot energy beams out of his sword. 
• Lord Gustoff who looks like a really fat Baraka (basically a big Orc with a chompy mouth) who fights with a flail and has horse like legs? He is the weirdest design.
• Tesya who is the attractive young woman dressed like slave Leia. 
• Lang who is only playable in battle mode and looks just like Kerrell.
• Autarch is the main demon whom you fight as the final boss and is just a big red devil looking guy. 

Gameplay

You have a choice of any of the four other champions to fight in any order. Like any fighting game you fight until one fighter's lifebar is diminished, bringing an end to the round. If you win two out of three rounds overall, then you win the match. Once you beat all four champions, you fight the demon last boss and that's the game. All told you can finish the game in about twenty minutes.

As a fighter, the game is extremely basic and makes some really simple but profound mistakes. For one, this feels like the controls are made for the NES. You only have the movement commands as well as a jump and an attack button. It is certainly a weird feeling to press jump as a button in a fighting game, and it gives the game a very awkward feel to play; almost as if you are playing a vs mod in a beat-em-up like Golden Axe. 

You only have four special moves per character, including a grab and a dash, which means you really only have two special moves, as dash and a grab are usually considered standard moves in a fighter. This makes this game a very simplistic and rudimentary fighter, and one that is more about just being as aggressive and as cheap as possible to just overwhelm your enemy. There is not much skill involved at all, and it is relatively easy. I beat the game by continually grab-locking the enemies, and that strategy took me through the final boss.  

Music

The music is one of the better parts of the game, but still nothing too amazing. Check it out.

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Final Verdict

This was a short game to play through, which means it is relatively inoffensive. Overall, though, this is a very skippable game that is immemorable in most every way.