I just beat __

Super Mario Odyssey (Main story complete)

This was one of the fastest times I've ever beaten a Mario game (6 days) because of how hooked on it I was. I outlined my reasons why I enjoyed it in my earlier post in What game did you last play???, but yeah 10/10, this was amazing.

The final boss was pretty good, probably the best out of the mainstream Mario games so far imo, also
The bit at the end where I got to control Bowser was brilliant, and the story ending where Peach turns them both down was good
Shame it scrapped the playable credits like in Galaxy 2, but otherwise the ending of this game was just as good as the rest of it
Also getting to have the Mushroom kingdom was good, I had heard from online that Peach's castle would be explorable and would be like Mario 64, but sadly it turns out that only the main room is present. However, the remake of the Castle theme from SM64 was really good, and I appreciate the SM64 reference of jumping into the paintings to replay bosses.

I'm probably going to go for 100% since I know that something cool happens once I get enough moons, I'll see how many I can do on my own and then look up the rest (otherwise I could be searching forever), whilst trying to avoid spoilers for the true ending. Not sure how long that'll take but I'm aware there's 880 moons in total. Wow that's a lot. But for some reason the shop on the moon seems to sell an indefinite number? And the number the Odyssey requires is way less than that. Idk I guess I just have to wait and see.
 
I just beat Metroid Zero Mission for the first time.

Honestly, I was kind of disappointed by it. It's a remake of the first game, and it's definitely the superior version. And the early parts of it were really fun and well designed. However the stealth section in the last part of the game really brought the experience down for me. I'm already not a fan of stealth sections in general, but in Zero Mission you get stripped of every item/weapon/suit you've obtained up until that point. It would've been fine if it were over quickly, but I felt that it overstayed its welcome WAY too much. I also wasn't a fan of the 2 bosses in this section.

What's worse is that the stealth section wasn't even in the original. It was something added on in the remake, and I think I would've enjoyed the game more if it just weren't there.
 
Not only did I beat Samus Returns again, I also 100% it (Which I don't do very often)! If you want to get into the Metroid series, I say start with this game. It's a remake of Metroid II, but it's got so many new abilities and QoL features that it doesn't feel like it.
 
I beat Super Mario Bros. warpless.
 
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (Main story completed for the first time)

I got this game over a year ago I'm pretty sure and in between other games like Dream Team and the two Super Mario Lands I gradually played through DKCR3D, and today I finally beat it.

I stand by earlier comments I've made on this site that I regret buying this. Not because I don't like it - I do think it improves the original (I believe there are some extra postgame levels, the new mode with 3 hearts and extra items is cool too, and of course, having this game on the go is awesome), I just think that as I already had the Wii game it didn't have enough additional content to justify spending the price of a whole new 3DS game.

I've ordered Tropical Freeze (the Wii U version - as much as I'd love to expand my new Switch's library beyond just Odyssey it was way more expensive) which I'm going to try next, I've got high hopes for this game as it seems to be regarded as an improved sequel to Returns.
 
I finally got the chance to play through Bowser's Fury, so here's my thoughts:

This game is AWESOME! I started it, beat it, AND 100%'d it all in one day (And I didn't use any guides)! I was kinda disappointed by 3D World when it first came out, but Bowser's Fury is exactly what I would've wanted. A big sandbox Mario game with a creative scenario that isn't "Bowser kidnapped Peach" again. It has so many mechanics and ideas that I HOPE are in the next big 3D Mario game. I'm a little worried that Nintendo making Bowser's Fury means that we won't get another new 3D Mario game for a long time though. But even if that's true, having this game makes the wait easier.

My biggest problem with the game though is Fury Bowser. It's cool during the first playthrough, but when going for 100% it gets SO old and tiring. Sometimes I'll be in the middle of a task, then Fury Bowser comes out and I literally cannot progress until I wait for him to go away. But even then, sometimes he just DOESN'T LEAVE FOR SOME REASON?! I literally set my Switch down for several minutes, went to do something else, came back, and he was still active. I can use my Bowser amiibo to summon him whenever I need him to break some of those bricks, but I would honestly prefer it if there was an amiibo that MADE HIM GO AWAY. Even once I collected all the Fury Bowser related cat shines, he still kept coming back. It was really annoying when I was trying to get those last 5 or so cat shines.

TL:DR - Bowser's Fury is great
 
Mario Golf World Tour.
I got the 1st place triple crowns and end credits. Mannnnn I've come a long way. It was not too long ago I was struggling to get better than a double bogey. But now I'm getting pars and birdies on the regular and occasional eagles.

Now I'm onto Smash Bros 3DS - Mario playthrough.
 
Super Mario 64 (N64 version) (100% completed for the first time)

Back in the summer of 2019, I got my Wii U for the first time but instead of starting with actual Wii U games (my first game original to the Wii U was 3D World in December 2019), I started with Virtual Console games as I hadn't taken an interest in older games until after the Wii shop channel went down, my first being Super Mario 64, which I'd heard was an extremely popular game and the predecessor to the two Galaxy games (which I'd grown up on and absolutely loved) and Sunshine (which I'd played earlier in 2019 and found only ok). So SM64 was the first game I really played on my Wii U, and alongside Superstar Saga was what I mainly played in the summer holiday of 2019, and was a start of a shift in focus away from Minecraft and towards Mario that later led me to joining this community, and I still have nostalgia for how cool I found it that it could be played on the TV or on the gamepad. Shortly before returning to school, I amassed 70 stars and beat the main story, I then got another 10 or so and then I basically quit that save file. I had another couple of saves in the meantime, getting 30-40 stars but none more than that.

Well in the last couple of weeks I finally decided to come back to that very same save file that was my first experience of playing this game, and today I swooped 8 coins in Wing Mario Over the Rainbow, flew into the star and got my 120th star.
I knew Bowser had different dialogue so I beat him again, I also cannoned on top of the castle and talked to Yoshi and flew around with the Wing Cap.
I had vaguely known what the post 100% rewards were but not exactly so it was still nice

Even though it's not a game I love so much, I wanted to 100% it because it's a classic and I knew there were iconic secrets, and it actually wasn't that tedious or bad (like SPM where I basically had to pull out my guide and go around buying a million recipes) as much as it was very difficult at times. The game is about exploring for the stars, so fully exploring the game was satisfying.

As for my thoughts on the game as a whole, the good parts include the non linear exploration of the 15 courses and the secret castle stars, Sunshine kind of went for the same thing but imo didn't pull it off as well, Odyssey did blow this game out of the water but I didn't play that until very recently. The fact that on starting the game for the first time, and every start after that, it puts you in the peaceful garden where you can just mess around, something that not even Odyssey has quite done since. The castle itself serves amazingly as the hub world from which to go into all the worlds, and its music is great. Even though I didn't grow up on this game, it has been a couple of years and it was my first game I played on the Wii U so there is some nostalgia value I guess and it has a great classic feel to it.

The negatives I think first and foremost are the physics, movement, and camera which all feel very sloppy in comparison to 3D Land, 3D World, Galaxy 1 and 2, and Odyssey imo. Especially the camera, which isn't analog like Odyssey and Sunshine, true the two Galaxies didn't have analog camera but it still felt a lot more natural in those games and didn't feel like I couldn't see nearly as much. Of course the game is still very vanilla and doesn't really have original characters but for a mainline Mario game my expectations weren't too high. The music is good I guess, Dire Dire Docks / Jolly Roger Bay being my favourite track, but it is annoying how repetitive it is as for instance Bob-omb Battlefield, Whomp's Fortress, Tall, Tall, Mountain, and Tiny-Huge Island all use the exact same track. I also feel this game was a little bit on the hard side, especially the 100 coin stars needed for 100% completion (Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride were the most stressful because I was always afraid of falling off and losing all my coins), and a lot of that difficulty comes from how janky the physics and camera were which is hardly a good thing.

So yeah, overall I like the game but not as much as most other 3D Marios, I can definitely get why people who played this as their first 3D Mario, possibly even their first 3D game, like @Count Olaf would love it so much as it was extremely revolutionary for its time and that explains why it's often looked back on as one of the best games of all time. But personally, as someone who played it for the first time in 2019, aged 16, having already played the two Galaxy games which I've always seen as being far more refined than their two predecessors, I don't love it but I don't see it as a bad game at all.

(Edit: I'm considering getting SM64DS but not sure yet)
 
Last edited: