The BIG Wii Voting Thread, Voting Wii-kly: Thanks For Voting!

If Monkey Ball is a puzzler, then - F**K IT - so is Monster Hunter.

It's not? Of course it isn't. This thread needs sense. Where are these puzzles in Super Monkey Ball? I've asked this before in this thread and (as far as I recall) nobody has come back to me with an answer.

Easy! Monkey Ball's out. We're trying to figure out whether WWSM is in, and (given that it's placed once already) how in it is. Here's a thing, though: Kororinpa places in Metacritic's list of puzzle games. It's a Monkey Ball-a-like, and yet... Current standings are in the OP, as always.

On a different topic, voting for week 6 is over! Back up to 12 votes this week - I would have hoped for more, this being platformers and all, but by this stage forumites seem to have decided whether they're voters or non-voters, which is a shame. Anyway, everyone sent in 5 games, which is great! Interestingly, the top five this week mirror mine, only with a couple of swapped positions:

Fifth place:

Spoiler:

Fourth place:

Spoiler:

Third place:

Spoiler:

Second place:

Spoiler:

Our Wiikly Winner:

Spoiler:

Super Mario Galaxy

Points: 44
First places: 6

The BIG Wii Voting Thread, Voting Wii-kly: Thanks For Voting! - Page 13 Super-mario-galaxy-wii-09

You say:

"After Sunshine, Super Mario 64 DS and a bunch of old GBA ports, I expected this to be merely quite good. Bloody hell! It absolutely blew me away – it was so confident to try different things, so vibrant and so original. I’ll never accept the argument that the Wii was a poor console as it’s the home of Super Mario Galaxy."
"A sheer joy from start to finish, one of the prettiest games I've seen and platforming at it's best, so many imaginative moments and never a weak moment."
"Because Nintendo threw all the adventure game principles out (including their own mechanics for Sunshine) and went "this is how you do a platformer in 3D you dipshits". This game's style is now copied by gas providers all over the country."
"The original had the novelty of flying around space debris and grabbing the stars with some cool new powers. Platforming perfection!"
"I prefer this game over its sequel, enjoyed the levels much more. I liked the inclusion of characters you can talk to throughout levels making the game feel very much like Mario sunshine. For me, the game benefits from the exclusion of Yoshi."
"my favourite mario game by a cosmic mile ( ha! ye see what I done there?)"
"This is the king of platformers in my eyes. Never before had a platforming game gripped me in such a way. Spyro, Crash, Rayman, Sonic... none of these guys brought the same level of enjoyment that Mario and his many galaxies did. Innovative, fluid, and beautiful looking - a true Wii classic."
"Only a complete willy head would vote for Super Mario Galaxy 2 in favour of this, regardless of how excellent Galaxy 2 is. Super Mario Galaxy did it first. An achievement I never thought possible: it bettered every Mario game before it, and I weep for the installment that has to follow it on Wii U.

What can I say about this game? It's almost perfect. It's one of the prettiest (if not the prettiest) looking and sounding games of the last generation, regardless of the fact it wasn't running on 'flashy hardware'. No Nintendo fan can forget the first time they flicked the remote as they leapt into a Star Cannon, beat Dino Piranha, circled the glistening, spherical Beach Bowl Galaxy, ran up the body of a hungry caterpillar, heard the score accompanying Good Egg Galaxy and Gusty Garden Galaxy, made a perfect run through Melty Molten Galaxy... I could go on. Everything wonderful about Mario and Nintendo can be found on this wonderful disc."

I say: As mentioned above, I qualify as a "complete willy head", having given this game my second spot under its sequel. The pathetic postgame, some bloated-feeling stars, a largely pointless hub, and having to collect a hundred purple coins in every comet-affected galaxy were some of the reasons for this. However, there's no doubt that the original did some things better, even without the benefit of being first. Better bosses, better power-ups (besides Yoshi), and possibly the best soundtrack in gaming, which contributed to it feeling more epic than most of your epic RPGs and the like. Add in Mario's habitual brilliant platforming, improved by the addition of the spin jump, and you've got a thing of wonder on your hands.

SM64 is still better though. Yes it is, don't sneer.

Honourable Mentions: (New additions: games in bold were voted for by more than one person. Games in red were someone's first choice.)

Spoiler:

Dishonourable Mentions:

Spoiler:

Bit.Trip Runner: "it just isn't a platformer god damn it!"
LostWinds: "I found it very boring, plain and simple."
Max & The Magic Marker: "Such a one-trick pony. Good idea, but the actual game itself was a complete waste of Nintendo Points. Even LostWinds is better than this."
Mega Man 9: "I was enjoying this until I made it to Wily's Castle. Then, not so much. There is something to be said for old-school game design - Mega Man 9 was silent on the subject."
Mega Man 10: "Like Galaxy 2, suffers from waning innovation. The novelty of playing a classic style Mega Man was great for 9, not so much for 10. Still, it's a great Mega Man game, but there's a reason they grew stale."
Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars: "Could have been much better. Some great ideas there, but like Epic Mickey they just weren't wrapped around that good of a game. At least Epic Mickey was memorable though."
New Super Mario Bros. Wii: "Didnt we already get this on the DS?"
Rayman: No, this isn't a quote. It's me, Balladeer, ranting again about the aesthetic style of the series. I find the characters, almost without exception, incredibly annoying, Rayman in particular. It's the big reason why I'm still barely past the first world in Origins. Music is highly variable too. Right, that's all. Carry on.
A Shadow's Tale: "The whole came is masked in this poorly executed silent hill-esque fog, A classic example of a game that should never have aimed to create 'realism' with its graphics, to the point where even the developers realised halfway through simple block, cell shades would have worked much better.
and drowned out all the work they had done with a veil of Shanghai's finest fog. Marred further by copious amounts of dull backtracking, ruining what could have potentially been enjoyable, interesting platforming and puzzle solving.
Oh did I mention it has a classic rookie NES style fault of giving the protagonist a sword that is about 9FT too short in every scenario."
Sonic Unleashed: "I REALLY DO NOT LIKE SONIC. NOR DO I LIKE SONIC AS A WEREWOLF."
Super Mario Galaxy 2: "As great as it is, it couldn't quite meet the standard of the game it followed. One of the only times you'll ever hear me criticise a game for having too many ideas, it was sad to see that Yoshi didn't get a little more exposure, alongside several of its most fun mechanics/power-ups. A sterling effort, but one that had an impossibly good game to pick up from." (This was given as an honourable mention, but its tone puts it down here!)

Whee! Done done done. Since Runner only got one mention at all, that being someone complaining about its classification, I'm tempted to give it another chance to place in the rhythm category. It might do better there. And do people like the red and bold thing for the honourable mentions?

Another excellent week! Rayman Origins is one of my favourite platformers of all time, but I played it to death on Vita, so I honestly never considered it in the Wii rankings (though I do own it). And it's great to see that the willy heads were overruled in favour of Super Mario Galaxy. Winky Face

How is A Boy and His Blob a platformer first and foremost? Surely it's a puzzle game? That's the set of votes I'm keeping it for.

I liked the highlights and reds for the honourable/dishonourable mentions, by the way. It was interesting to see that I was the only one who voted for Sonic Colours. *sob*

Argh, not another one. Hissy fit

ABahB has enemies and parachute jumping, and the rocket sections remind me of DKCR - surely that it makes it a platform game? Although since it didn't rank, I'm not entirely averse to including it in this week as well, if people agree that it's more puzzle than platform.

I just learnt that it has a hug button. Love

This is another old Wii game I need to catch up on.

Balladeer wrote:: Easy! Monkey Ball's out. We're trying to figure out whether WWSM is in, and (given that it's placed once already) how in it is. Here's a thing, though: Kororinpa places in Metacritic's list of puzzle games. It's a Monkey Ball-a-like, and yet... Current standings are in the OP, as always.

I'd not class WWSM as a puzzler. It's a minigame title to me, always has been, always will. I'd keep Kororinpa as puzzler, just so I have something to vote for more than anything else!

Good list as always from the forum. Glad to see common sense prevailed and Galaxy 1 got the win. Winky Face

Votes shall be coming in very very shortly, as always Balla!

Happy to see that four of my top five made the list. I'd like to know who voted for Klonoa at the top of their list, so I can buy them a pint. Surprised to see that Kirby's Adventure Wii didn't receive a single mention, as it was a serious consideration for my vote. Maybe I just enjoyed it more than everybody else. Anyhoo, some great, great games mentioned - good hustle, team.

~

I don't see why a boy and his blob can't be a puzzler and a platformer. It's a hybrid, and a damn good one at that.

Balladeer wrote:: Argh, not another one. ABahB has enemies and parachute jumping, and the rocket sections remind me of DKCR - surely that it makes it a platform game? Although since it didn't rank, I'm not entirely averse to including it in this week as well, if people agree that it's more puzzle than platform.

I just learnt that it has a hug button. This is another old Wii game I need to catch up on.

I've just revisited a few levels from A Boy and His Blob, and there's (much) more platforming in there than I remember. Will we be able to vote for it as a puzzle game anyway? A puzzle-platformer, if you will.

Yep! It has a hug button, a button to call Blob, and a button to tell him to 'Calm down'.

I'm predicting this will be the most eclectic week yet. I can't see any clear cut winners from the genre lists I've been through.

I gather things like another code come under puzzle, this is a hard week I think.

Yup! As listed in the OP.

Stu_the_great wrote:: I've just revisited a few levels from A Boy and His Blob, and there's (much) more platforming in there than I remember. Will we be able to vote for it as a puzzle game anyway? A puzzle-platformer, if you will.

Yep! It has a hug button, a button to call Blob, and a button to tell him to 'Calm down'.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

You may, if you've been paying very careful attention, have noticed that I'm heavily unwilling to allow overlap. But... given that it didn't rank last time, yes, I suppose. I'm doing the same with Runner anyway.

@Phillips - Kirby's Adventure Wii! I should have at least honourably mentioned it. Embarrassed

At the risk of stirring controversy (which this thread has notably avoided so far Winky Face

) I enjoyed it more than Kirby's Epic Yarn.

Another unsurprising result - I'm another willy head. Razz

Puzzle games? This is going to be tricky. Most of the puzzle games I own are handheld-based. Thinking cap ON!

@Balladeer: Great! I'm a little low on submissions for this week's genre, but with that I should be able to submit at least three.

Who awarded Epic Yarn a first place, by the way? Well done, that person!

masofdas wrote:: I gather things like another code come under puzzle, this is a hard week I think.

There's no point in debating over a game that nobody should vote for anyway Razz

Rayman was a real tough one for me to vote for as I love that game so very much, as quoted I've played it twice, platinummed it twice and I intend to borrow my friends Xbox version to 1000G it, however I couldn't rate it above Epic Mickey as I've not played the Wii version. Speaking of which Epic Micket was robbed! I love Epic Yarn and DKCR as much as the next guy but come on Epic Mickey is amazeballs!
Sonic Colours nearly got a dishonourable mention from me, though I seem to be the only person in the world whose screen seemed to be covered in a grey filter constantly. This made it unplayable to me so I don't have a totally clear view about it. What I played was awful though.
I like the new colour system though it makes me pretty sad I was the only person to vote for A Shadow's Tale.
Finally I've never played Kirby's Adventure so I should probably get hunting down a copy.

The Puzzle week won't be that hard for me as I only own one wii puzzle game (that I remember anyway) anyone care to rattle off a wee list to see if any jog my poor memory?

Zack and Wiki, Sam and Max, Tales of Monkey Island, Hydroventure(We are classing that as a puzzler right?), Boom Blox and Bash Party to name a few off the top of my head.
Does Trauma Centre fit here? I don't remember it in other weeks.

I don't find this round too difficult to pick games for. I'm quite comfortable with my favourite Wii puzzlers. This is where WiiWare starts to shine.

Kororinpa, for me, is a lot hazier than Super Monkey Ball; though it has many more puzzle elements than Super Monkey Ball's zero, it still shares many of the core values as the likes of Mario, Sonic and, er, Bubsy.

Here's another one for you...anyone considering voting for Bomberman Blast? I consider that to be a puzzler too, in that it tests your concentration, relexes and awareness in a confined play area much like games such as Tetris and Mr. Driller do.

I can follow your logic on Bomberman but I think it might be a better fit for other (a catagory I think Monkey Ball would probably serve better in now I've remembered it existed).

Yeah, I seen this 'Other' category a while back...there's honestly only one game on Wii that I think fits in there, and it's the 'Vegetable Barbershop simulation' Bonsai Barber. I can't think of anything else because I believe there is nothing else.

andyman949 wrote:: ...Hydroventure(We are classing that as a puzzler right?)...
Does Trauma Centre fit here? I don't remember it in other weeks.

For Hydroventure... noooo. I don't think so, anyway (haven't played it). It got an honourable mention in platformers (no votes though), but NGamer described it as vaguely Metroid-esque and I'd be inclined to put it in the already bloated adventure week for that. Thoughts?

As for Trauma Centre... It appears in this list, so it would go in by default, but I wonder how puzzley it is. Again, haven't played it, so I defer to those who have. Maybe it could fit in "other"? (Where I'm still inclined to put Endless Ocean.)

I don't quite get this emphasis on "reflexes and concentration" for puzzle games either (awareness I can see). The CoD series tests these, whereas the Professor Layton games don't. Not saying they don't matter at times, but I don't think they're defining qualities for a puzzle game.

I think Adventure sounds good for Hydroventure, it's very explorey.
Wikipedia says Trauma Centre is a Visual Novel/ Simulation game which doesn't help much. Laughing

Sounds like "other" to me! Still open to discussion on that though. (Bringing the number of times I've updated the OP to 37...)

Okay, here's another problem: episodic games. I allowed StH4E1 as a vote last week (much against my better judgement, I might add), but am tempted to include Tales of Monkey Island and Back to the Future: the Game as single votes. Reasoning: Wikipedia has them under the same article. Thoughts? (And in case it's not obvious, point-and-clicks are in this week.)

I forgot about NSMBWii. Oh.

Hey, does And Yet It Moves count as a puzzler? (Don't tell Balla)

No! Don't take the pee. Tongue

Just to clarify my current stance on episodic games, and the one I'll be using unless people pipe up otherwise: if the games have separate Wikipedia articles, like the Sam & Max series, they get voted for as separate games. Otherwise they get lumped together as one, like Tales from Monkey Island and Back to the Future. This keeps it consistent with the vote for Sonic 4 Episode 1 last week. Comments and complaints welcome!

I must say I'm a tad confused about Sam and Max. Are you referring to Sam and Max as seperate voting for Save the World and Beyond Time and Space, 2 seperate boxed Wii games, or are you saying we can vote for the 5/6 episodes in the seasons individually Laughing

If anything I'd say it was Tales of Monkey Island that should be voted for episodically if you wanted as they were released seperately on Wiiware and I've personally never seen a disc for it, though I still think the season as a whole should be voted for as they aren't very fulfilling individually.

With Sonic 4 the 2 games are barely related other than the Metal Sonic cross save thing (which I don't even know if Wiiware had) so I think it makes sense that they're seperated as they aren't really related.

As for Trauma Centre Other sounds fine to me!

Apologies for the confusion:

S&M (eww) are grouped by disc.
ToMI are grouped by series, i.e. one game.

If it's still confusing, check the articles on Wikipedia. Each article gets its own vote!

(Now watch somebody find an example of when I didn't do this in a previous week. Pre-emptive DAMN YOU!

at that person!)

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