About rar and.... Video Games!

See more in the About rar Series!
HEY!! I figured while this blog was still getting on its feet or whatever I'd do a quick series about, I guess, who I am. Specifically: who I am in relation to the things I love and will be talking about on this blog.

Today, we're starting with something I've loved since I was small!!! Very small. A small child.

Today we're talking about video games.

photo by yours truly!

I started playing video games when I was very young, like, 5-years-old. Maybe a little younger. We only had a Nintendo 64 (pictured above) for the longest time, and for it, just Mario Parties 1-3, Mario Kart, and Tetris. (We'd eventually get more games, but, it would be a while!)


Princess Daisy was my idol. I spent years running around the school playground pretending to be various Nintendo (well, Mario) characters. I don't want to make this sound like some Serious Essay, but, I was really invested in video game characters even at age 5. It's really no wonder I'm where I am today, 13+ years later.

I didn't, like, seriously get into video games until the summer of 2008 though! That summer, a pair of my dad's friends went either on a long vacation or a business trip (or, both??) and they lent us their Gamecube!! With it they had Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, Smash Bros Melee, Mario Kart Double Dash, and Mario Parties 5 and 7! (And, a few others maybe, but, they weren't ones I was interested in! I've been Nintendo trash from a very young age...)

I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I have very fond memories of sitting on the floor each morning, sunlight streaming into the room, as I got more Shine Sprites in Sunshine. I have fond memories of playing through Luigi's Mansion with my dad (and, passing the controller to him when the bosses got too spooky for me!). I unlocked all the karts and characters in Mario Kart for them. I played endless hours of Smash Bros Melee---unlocking a fair amount of stuff there, too, and learning how much I loved Roy!

We had to give the Gamecube back, of course, but later that year I pawned a friend of mine out of her Gamecube (she owned two Wiis by then, and had no need for it) and Super Mario Sunshine.

photo again by yours truly!

Before long we had all the games we'd borrowed, along with more! Many a Saturday morning was spent on Super Mario Sunshine again, and before long I bought Paper Mario: the Thousand Year Door, one of my favorite games to this day.

I loved TTYD for it's humor, for it's charm, for it having the familiar Mario characters I grew up with plus a fantastic and deep story, where all the characters I loved had even more personality than ever! I've beaten it I think six times now, still watch the intro story from start to finish upon booting it up, and Rougeport might as well be something like a second home! Delfino Plaza comes close, real close, but there's nothing like exploring the nooks and crannies of a place like Rogueport all over again, and with a wonderful selection of characters to match!

Mario and Paper Mario humor and writing, in general, probably shaped a lot of who I am today! HONESTLY.


The deal was sealed for sure when I started playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It started at my best friend's house (not that we did much more than fly around Ordon on chickens) and continued not long later when I got a Wii myself, and bought it nearly immediately.

I adored Twilight Princess. I'd spend all day playing it in the summer I got it (2009, if you care), go to bed late, start it back up again the moment I was up the next day. And once I finished? I'd reset and start from the beginning within the hour. I probably couldn't do it blindfolded, and I haven't yet tried doing it in one sitting, but I know it like the back of my hand, and it's another one on my top five video games.

Twilight Princess was the first video game I started writing fics about (even if, none of them got anywhere). I can say, with an extreme amount of confidence, that it, along with Paper Mario TTYD and Super Paper Mario are the biggest influences on my writing style and favorite themes. Well, okay, Kingdom Hearts falls in there somewhere too, but... You get the idea.


I was 13 when I got into Kingdom Hearts (had it thrust into my hands by one of my sister's friends who heard I liked video games) and after devoting another summer to it, per the theme, it started taking over my life. I dropped my Zelda fics in favor of a Kingdom Hearts one -- the first I ever finished. I played other video games, but I can't remember any seriously life changing ones over the past five years. (Well, Mother 3 probably, and Majora's Mask, and UNDERTALE for sure, those really stick out, but none were quite as impacting as TTYD or Twilight Princess or Kingdom Hearts.)


I could talk, forever, about my relationship with Kingdom Hearts, but the point of this post is, more than anything else:

I've played video games since I was very young, I was raised on video games, and they have influenced my life in sooooo many ways. I'm the writer I am today because of them, the person I am because of them, and they're definitely among the most important things in my life.

That top five list, if anyone wants it?

• Paper Mario TTYD
• Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
• UNDERTALE
• the Kingdom Hearts series in general
• and then idk specifically on a fifth, but, Mother 3 / Earthbound / Majora's Mask each come to mind. Oh and I guess Mario Sunshine? Hard to pick between nostalgia and Games I'd Really Call My Fave sometimes. (I'm Leaning a little towards Majora's Mask, though, maybe? It's a good game....)

A SMASHING review!!

Today I am here to do a brief review of Super Smash Brothers for Wii U (and 3DS) -- or, Smash 4, as a lot of people have come to call it, since "Super Smash Brothers for Wii U/3DS" is something of, a mouthful.

I finally bought the game -- for Wii U -- two weeks ago, just days before UNDERTALE came out, actually. I'd been wanting it, well, since it was announced, but I didn't have the money to get it for a long while (and to this day still regret deciding to get Hyrule Warriors instead of it...). I was really excited about it because they just kept adding more and more names, and more and more favorites to the roster: Rosalina, Palutena, Bowser Jr, Dark Pit, Lucina.... along with bringing both Roy and Lucas back as DLC!

It's really fun to try out all the different characters, all the new characters, and get a feel for them and some of their new movesets in the game. I spent a few nights after getting it just me against a few computers getting the feel for how Dark Pit played, and thoroughly enjoying myself, along with the concept of "Dark Pit's in desperate need of buffing his Smash skills, but wouldn't be caught dead asking Pit or Palutena for help, so goes to Mario because he's chill and won't tell anyone." (One of my favorite things about Smash is that it creates a universe in which you can imagine cross-universe scenarios like that.... and breeds the idea that all Nintendo characters just, know each other and hang out.)

Smash 4 has a lot of cool new features besides it's large roster, as well!! Team battles are now determined by a glowing outline around your character, instead of their clothes color -- which finally means you can create a team of Mario and Luigi without having to swap their trademark colors, or have an entire team of Links up against one Ganon. Or, as I had fun with the other day, just a team of a bunch of Ness's, here to, kick your butt.

8 player Smash is a lot of fun, too, and now you can really go all out with your team combinations! Or, you know, have you and up-to-7 of your friends play at once without taking turns. Or set yourself up against 7 level 9 computers. Whatever!

some of the Super Bash Sisters

One feature I particularly enjoy is the handicap feature, of all features! It lets you set specific damage to a player. The best way to use this is to set you and your friend(s) at 0% damage, and then all the computers at 300%, and see who can launch the most computers during the span of three minutes!



And, of course, one of the best features of Smash 4 is "Palutena's Guidance", which -- like the codec calls of Brawl -- lets you, as Pit, summon Palutena and more from the Kid Icarus Uprising cast to provide commentary on the fighters on your screen. As a big Kid Icarus Uprising fan, I absolutely love to see this. Listening to Palutena and Viridi and Pit and Dark Pit all talk and joke with each other again was like... coming home. It felt so good to listen to them banter again.

Smash 4 also lets you create custom Mii fighters, which I'm sure everyone knows by now! This article's a year late! Still, you can make a Mii of yourself, your friends, your favorite-fictional-characters-that-are-never-going-to-be-in-Smash, and then set them up as a Gunner, a Brawler, or a Swordsman and give them a combination of different movesets that best match who you think they are, and viola! You can smash with them all you want.

So far, I've only personally made a handful of Kingdom Hearts characters, because, uh,,,, reasons. They all turned out pretty well, in my opinion! It took some getting used to, and I had to really sit down and practice with them before I was 100% comfortable with using them, but my Mii Fighter for Kairi is easily one of my favorite characters to play as in Smash now. She's got a real good moveset.

Of course, making your favorite-fictional-characters-that-are-never-going-to-be-in-Smash into Mii Fighters could lead to something like..... this????

((original audio by prozdvoices on tumblr - here, video by shadowlink4321))

As far as... things I'm disappointed about in Smash 4, well...

I think the selection of stages is a little lackluster, and I'm definitely not paying 20+ bucks to get myself a few new stages to mess around on. Spending 8 dollars on my first real main (Roy) and then Lucas because, uh, Because is about the extent of DLC I'll ever buy for Smash 4, and the fact that you have to pay to have a better selection of stages is kind of... eugh.... Not good.


Every time I play it I find myself missing Melee (my first Smash) for some reason, and I'm not sure why? Brawl never did that to me. Maybe I've just hit the Everything's Discolored By Nostalgia age, but among all the old stages that came back I really miss Fountain of Dreams more than ever, and find myself longing for Melee's bonus points after the end of stage or match. I'd just play Melee to sate the urge, but Melee doesn't have Dark Pit or Lucina or any of the other Cool New Characters I Really Wanna Be, so it's... a dilemma. I'll probably get over it eventually.

Also I'm kind of upset there's no adventure-style mode? Melee had Classic and then Adventure, Brawl had Classic and then the Subspace Emissary, Smash 4 just has... Classic? I understand the sentiments of one of Smash's creators (I forget which...) that didn't want something like Subspace Emissary again because they were mad the cutscenes went up on line. It stinks, but I get it. I just... don't get the complete lack of an Adventure mode at all? It kinda, stinks. Melee's was nothing special. Why not give Smash 4 one like that?

Regardless! Smash 4 is a lot of fun, and I'm glad to have it.

I'll wrap this up with a few of my favorite official promo screenshots from Smash 4...

...largely showcasing Nintendo's long running gag of Peach and Link on a date as Zelda watches angrily in the distance.

(this one's from Brawl!)

A classic.

Oh.... and what's this!?

.....yup!

Bowser and Zelda everyone. The new official Nintendo ship. Deal with it.