Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island: 3HN Egg Layer

 Several weeks ago, my wife and I discovered a garage sale at a nearby house. Being a collector of retro videogame cartridges, I am usually open to browsing at garage sales, but certain garage sales are more likely to have older game cartridges than others. Primarily, I look for the age of the house and neighborhood; if the house and neighborhood is around 15 to 20 years of age, the owners are more likely to still have the artifacts of their children's pasts, namely toys and games. I also look for economically middle-class areas because people there probably had enough disposable income to purchase video games back in the day, but not enough to live in a more affluent neighborhood. Also, I tend to think that wealthy people just throw their old junk away, while middle-class people tend to save their junk in the hope that they will sell the junk... in a garage sale. At least, that's what I do.

Anyway, it was at that garage sale many weeks ago that I recovered two SNES cartridges: NBA Jam and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (heretofore Yoshi's Island). As I wrote in my previous post, NBA Jam for the SNES was a shadow of what it was in the arcade, and that's saying much because I wasn't a huge fan of the arcade version of NBA Jam. Thankfully, I only spent about $1.50 on it, so it wasn't a massive monetary drain. Conversely, Yoshi's Island was (as many other reviewers have written) and is a wonderful gaming experience. When it was released in North America in 1995, I was at UCLA starting my third year of study. I have no recollection of its release, mostly because I was a Sega Genesis owner and a sports gamer. Like many SNES games I have since purchased, Yoshi's Island had passed me by at its time of release and was unknown to me for over a decade.

Yoshi's Island is a platforming sidescroller in the grand tradition of most games in the Super Mario Brothers/World franchise insofar as you need considerable skill to leap from platform to level, you encounter ground-scurrying baddies, and it involves Mario. However, Yoshi's Island turns the Mario concept on its head: instead of you playing as Mario and riding Yoshi as in Super Mario World, you are Yoshi and you must carry baby Mario to the end. When you are hit by a baddie, you lose Mario as he floats away in a bubble. Knowing that your very survival in the game depends on retaining and delivering baby Mario to the end of each level, you must recover Mario and keep him safe from danger. All the way, instead of just squashing your foes, as with Super Mario World, you can ingest your opponent by latching onto your opponent with your sticky tongue and pulling them into your mouth. In addition, you can lay eggs and throw them at foes, which is odd because isn't Yoshi a male? Okay, so sea horse males carry their embryo offspring, so I suppose that Yoshi is exceptional like sea horses (and whatever other animals about which I am ignorant).

Yoshi's Island also departs from its predecessors in how it is rendered; the foreground of each level is an oddly harmonious mix of digitized platform elements and ground textures painted as with watercolors and broad black strokes. The background is a bit more reminiscent of Super Mario World with rich and intricate details, yet with virtual brushstrokes that sometimes engender the feeling of strolling through some kind of digital painting. The bad guys range from the familiar mask-wearing guys from Super Mario Brothers 2 (the North American version, that is) to spitting fish and even end bosses that seem to be full of hot air. Yoshi's Island also departs from its predecessors with its music, which benefitted from the capabilities of the SNES with many layers of melody and rhythm. In 1995, I'm sure that players of Yoshi's Island may have been blown away when considering that, only 10 years previous, the music had come a long way from the simple, albeit memorable melodies of the original Super Mario Brothers. If anything, I'd liken this game's music to a much more upbeat Super Metroid or even a game that was released around the time of Super Metroid: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Speaking of Super Metroid, level navigation is also a departure; you don't just go from left to right, but up, down, and all over the place. There are also numerous secret staircases and passageways to challenge the seasoned platformer. Moreover, the jumps and movements require precision and practice, much like Yoshi's Island's ancestors, but the ante is raised with even more frantic platform movements. Added to the tricky gameplay is the concept of non-linear level progress. Watching a playthrough on YouTube, I am reminded of Super Metroid in the ability to retrace your steps in a particular level, though you don't seem to revisit past rooms to find new items that are now attainable because of previously-acquired abilities like in Super Metroid. That said, Yoshi can acquire some nifty abilities as the game progresses, such as blasting tunnels out of rock and those allow you to advance more readily.

This review does not do justice to Yoshi's Island. Since I recently acquired this game, I have yet to scratch the surface of this adventure, but what I've seen thus far has impressed me immensely. As with many games of the past, there is much more challenge (and sometimes cheese) than today's games. I believe that many children and adults are missing out on some of those classic gems, like Super Metroid, Link to the Past, Sonic & Knuckles, and Yoshi's Island. Furthermore, games on the SNES (and some on the Genesis) were able to save your progress, so gaming in the mid-90s had hit that sweet spot of being able to play a meaningful game for a good amount of time, yet being able to walk away and enjoy your day, knowing that you could continue where you left off tomorrow or next week. Nowadays, games are so engrossing and so entrancing that people wile away consecutive days on-screen. Because of this, I continue to mine the past for treasures like Yoshi's Island: games that are wonderfully challenging but easy to set aside for other things, like Euro-style board games.

NBA Jam: 2HN Basketball Buffoonery

During my UCLA days in the early to mid-1990s, the video game console wars were in full effect with Sega and Nintendo jockeying for the top spot in the marketplace, specifically the media war between the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo. At the time, people either owned one or the other and rarely owned both, as if either company loyalty was that important or consoles and games were just too expensive to invest in two separate systems. As consoles became closer to arcade quality in their presentation of graphics and sound, video game cabinet manufacturers seemed to up the ante, having already introduced laserdisc-based games like Dragon's Lair and Firefox (based on the Clint Eastwood movie) and rolling out games with superior graphics, sound, and two-player gameplay like the once-ubiquitous Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, and NBA Jam. Initially, Sega and Nintendo, though capable of (then) superlative home-based video games, struggled to convert arcade-based games like Street Fighter II and NBA Jam to their consoles... but they eventually succeeded with differing results. While Nintendo (and, to some extent, Sega) did well to port Street Fighter II to the Super Nintendo, NBA Jam was not nearly the game it was in the arcade.

For anyone who wasn't born before 1990, let me introduce you to the concept of NBA Jam: it's essentially two-on-two basketball with 1990s NBA basketball stars. Do you like the Lakers? Well, you can play with James Worthy and Vlade Divac. Do you like the Golden State Warriors and long for the days of Run-TMC (Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin)? Cool, because you could play with Hardaway and Mullin. Oh, you say that you love the Bulls? Of course, you can play with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen... or NOT! Instead, you got Pippen and Horace Grant. How about Orlando Magic? Okay, you got Shaquille O'Neal, but you only got Penny Hardaway depending on which console you played the game. Much of who appeared in NBA Jam was dependent on licensing issues and the issues individual players had with royalties and such monetary concerns.

When it came to gameplay, it didn't matter with whom one played because NBA Jam was all about two things: thunderous dunks and fiery three-pointers. The fun of this game was in its uncomplicated, yet undeniably cheesy gameplay which often went like this: with one of your players (it really didn't matter who), you dribble the ball up the floor and either pass to your other player and dunk with heart-pumping authority or you loft a three-pointer from "way downtown." The first dunk of a streak of dunks was rather perfunctory, but the more a particular player dunked, the more acrobatic and gravity-defying the animations became. Likewise, the more a player drained three-pointers, the more the ball would burst into flame and the console or arcade cabinet's speakers would declare that he was "ON FIRE!" or "En fuego!"

The graphics of NBA Jam in the arcade were bright, garish, and eye-popping with each player looking like bobbleheads that are handed out at baseball stadiums as promotional items. Besides that, the uniforms of the players were shadowy reflections of the real-life uniforms, though the home floor of each team was emblazoned with that team's logos and colors to remind us that this WAS the NBA. What was even more indelible in my memory, however, was the sounds of the game: the crowd cheering, the realistic screech of sneakers on hardwood, and the play-by-play announcers' exclamatory remarks all created a hyper-realistic feel that went beyond anything one would watch during an NBA game on television.

In the 1990s, NBA Jam was ever-present in arcades on UCLA's campus and in local arcades and amusement centers I used to visit. I may have played the arcade version of the game once or twice on a lark, but I don't remember doing so. Yet, I'll always recall the NBA Jam announcer blurting, "Rony Seikaly... for three... He's on fire!" even though Rony Seikaly was not known for his three-point shooting. People used to line up their quarters to challenge the reigning player in the arcade; those battles were certainly fun to watch, at least for a few minutes. I never really developed an interest in NBA Jam, but I appreciated its presence in the arcades, at least because the game only added to the animated, noisy buffoonery that was, and still is, inherent to the video arcade lifestyle and motif.

Just last weekend, my wife and I happened upon a garage sale in one of the older homes in our area. Being a semi-avid video game cartridge collector, I reasoned (and hoped) that this older home would have a treasure trove of older games and consoles because the older homes were where peoples lived long enough to accumulate junk from the 1990s and before. Sure enough, I rummaged through a box of discarded and dusty game consoles to find a filthy Super Nintendo console and two cartridges: NBA Jam and Super Mario World 2 (about which I will write later). Both cartridges set me back a few bucks, which I handed to the homeowner with a thin veneer of calm hiding the unrepentant joy and enthusiasm that welled up from within me. Those cartridges were an uncommon find, especially now when savvy sellers are well-aware of the value of retro game cartridges on eBay. I gleefully took both cartridges home, gingerly yet aggressively cleaned the copper pins with Windex and Q-Tips, and washed the outsides of both cartridges with some Greased Lightning and a microfiber cloth. Thankfully, I got both cartridges working in my trusty Retro Duo.

I discovered two things that day: one was that Super Mario World 2 was as awesome as what I had read in a couple of reviews; the other was the NBA Jam on the Super Nintendo was a poor imitation of the arcade version. I played NBA Jam on the SNES for a few minutes to "test" the game's functions and playability and, sadly, found it dull compared to EA Sports' NBA Live series of games. It was just pass-pass-dunk, pass-pass-three, pass-pass-have ball stolen-watch as the computer dunks on my flailing sprites. Oh well... At least the cartridge was cheap and buying it triggered enough of those nostalgic feelings about the arcades of my youth to offset how mediocre NBA  Jam for the SNES was, and still is.

A Brief Defense of Vibram FiveFingers: Why I Won't Be Claiming $94

Two days ago, Runner's World reported that Vibram, the company that manufactures and sells Vibram FiveFingers footcoverings, has lost a class action lawsuit and must pay out $3.75 million to consumers who were subject to the company's claims that FiveFingers would "reduce foot injuries and strengthen foot muscles." Now, any previous buyer can receive roughly $94 in compensation. Then, just yesterday, a co-worker prompted me to claim my $94 because I am a Vibram FiveFingers wearer and it would be easy money. I staunchly refused because, despite the profanity-laden retorts of writers of questionable credentials like this one, my running life was enhanced by Vibrams to a great degree.

In defense of Vibram, to run in Vibram FiveFingers, one has to acclimate to zero-drop running and undo years of running and walking in the elevated soles and cushioning of shoes. Most people, however, put on Vibrams and started running with the same distance and intensity as they did with shoes, expecting magical results. Of course, they got injured because minimalist running is very different from shoe running: one has to develop a more mid-foot landing (with a secondary heel strike), bend his or her knees, lower his or her center of gravity, and increase cadence. If anything, you have to perfect your stride BEFORE you add mileage and pace with Vibrams.

​You know, it's funny that every year hundreds of recreational runners suffer from plantar fasciitis, Runner's Knee, Achilles tendonitis and tendinosis, shin splints, stress fractures, and worse in shoes... and very few people question the credibility of shoe companies and the shoes they design. Yet, Vibram FiveFingers are so easily linked to such maladies and thus pilloried whenever an erstwhile shoe runner launches full-bore into minimalist running without any appreciable period of adjustment​. It's a ridiculous hypocrisy that is not perpetuated by shoe companies as much as it is by people who know nothing about running without conventional shoes. In the Comments sections of the articles to which I linked, I read such enlightened comments as "EVERYONE wears shoes" or "I never see elite runners wearing minimalist shoes." My advice to such people is to put an earnest effort into transforming their strides to a more minimalist approach and then running judiciously with Vibrams or any other zero-drop minimalist footwear. They would find that they feel the ground more and that their calves and quadriceps absorb the shock of impact without having to rely on the high-tech cushioning of modern running shoes.
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Why can't the human body run without shoes? Why must we rely on elevated soles and contoured orthotics to run as fast as we can? Is humanity so flawed that we require such inventions to do what our bodies are optimally formed to do? By the way, if you really believe that people are not born to run, I'd recommend Born to Run because McDougall lays out compelling arguments for human beings as born to be endurance runners... well before modern shoes were concocted. (For a recent article about McDougall's nicely-balanced opinions on running, read this article.)

In summation, I won't be claiming my $94 because I wear Vibram FiveFingers proudly and happily. Sometimes, I run with shoes, mostly to give my feet and legs a break because minimalist running requires my very best form and physical condition. With shoes, people can run with stride deficiencies and gross heel-striking because the shoes compensate for those things. If anything, running shoes make running more accessible for the recreational runner who really has no desire to tinker with their strides. However, Vibrams require your constant attention; Vibrams require acclimation, adjustment, tinkering, and readjustment to work. If you put the work into running with Vibrams, you find that your leg and foot muscles do the work that your shoes do. In this way, I believe that Vibrams have the capacity to assist you in seeking a better stride and foot landing which would, in turn, "reduce foot injuries and strengthen foot muscles." Sadly, Vibram was a bit bold and foolish to make such a claim, especially considering that most consumers are looking for a quick fix and not for footwear that demands a transformation of one's running style.