Paper Mario: Post-Finale Quest - The Beginning

Recently, I have discovered the website Backloggery. (Basically, it lets you list all your games and if you've beaten them or not. I ... still have a lot of games to enter in.) One of the few Gamecube games that I had finished was Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (TTYD).

<3

But I had never completed it. There was always one big thing standing in my way: The Pit of 100 Trials.

Additionally, Satoru Iwata, executive producer of TTYD, recently passed away. Iwata played a major role in many significant Nintendo games over the years, including my favorite entry in the Paper Mario series. So, I began...

Part 1: Beginnings

I've finished the game several times, so I was fortunate enough to have a save file resting on my GCN memory card. I begin my quest with a level 27 Mario, all the partners, and almost all of the upgrades for the partners.

Time to start with the boring stuff. In Rogueport, just two houses away from Prof. Frankly's place, is the Trouble Center. Random NPCs ask you to do stuff for them, ranging from a short jog across town, a fetch quest, to another unnecessary, bloated, overly-long trek to locate General White for a second stinking time.

General of what? Hide and seek?

Seriously! This guy's "quest" is one of the few things that I hate about the game. And we ALWAYS find him in his house. After going to all corners of the world!

Indeed

Ahem.

The other quests, including longer fetch quests, were not as bad as this one. Grab an item, bring it to the person in need, get your reward. Only a few of the leftover missions were compelling, as I had already finished the quest that rewarded me with a bonus partner character.

A thief in the night. Just like the mice in MY house!

One of the quests, however, was a bit more challenging than the rest. Poor little Pine T. Jr. lost his dad to The Pit of 100 Trials. The hardest challenge in the entire game, in the hardest area in the entire game, ending in the hardest boss in the entire game.

Oh dear.

Fortunately, there's still a bit of other stuff to do before my final challenge. More developments as they occur. Stay tuned, folks.

Wind Waker; or, My First Zelda

I was never good at NES games. The original Zelda, Castlevania and Mega Man entries still elude me. More specifically, I could barely get past the first screen in The Legend of Zelda for the NES:

I saw this screen a lot

I recently tried to play it again, and actually managed to beat 3 dungeons before taking a break. In N64 land, I had never come across Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask in the wild, so I hadn't owned them either. It hadn't helped that I got the N64 as the system was being phased out of our local Blockbuster.

RIP - I spent my summer paychecks here

However, I got my Gamecube for Christmas, during its lifespan. One game that I was given for it The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. For me, it ranks in the my top 5 of Gamecube games, along with Super Mario Sunshine and Paper Mario 2. However, enough with top 5s.

Since Wind Waker (WW) was my first Zelda game that I played and enjoyed, I never understood the hate that it got. I still don't, but it doesn't seem as prevalent anymore. Sure, the sailing bits could get a bit tiresome, but it was still a bit fun. Exploration! Discovering secret islands! All that jazz.

Link, you've got to find Ganon's secret base!

Because of WW, I came to appreciate 3D Zelda games and would later beat Twilight Princess. I don't have a life story about how the game changed my life, but in my early years of downloading video game sheet music and midis, WW's music was in the mix. Those sites lead me to other great music, and even to the games of those pieces.

Wind Waker's a fun game, and the end boss fight is pretty satisfying.

The end.