Snot Man
Smash Cadet
This week, Japan Time Time finds itself unable to ever freaking shut up about Pikmin.
Greetings, Smash fans! 2008 begins promisingly, as the Dojo has some pretty neat updates in store for us this week. And as usual, Japan Time Time will stop at nothing to point and laugh at them, call them names and insult their moms! This week we'll be leaping really high, complaining about unnecessary sequels and meeting some very strange newcomers from a faraway galaxy! Stay tuned, for Japan Time Time begins right after this completely unrelated imag-- Oh, right, the format is different, now.
Before we begin, though, let me introduce you to the rating system we'll be using this week. I'm glad to say that the Meter recovered from the sorry state you saw it last time. It may be... a little different from usual, but I'm sure you'll love it anyway.
Piiiiiikmin! For some reason, the ratings this week will be judged with a Pikmin theme. If you've played the games, you know that you can have a maximum of 100 Pikmin on the field at the same time. With a hundred of them, you're an unmatchable fighting force of adorable and tiny parasites. But once you go back to your ship after collecting an Ion Defrombibulator guarded by freaking Mothra, your unstoppable army's numbers may very well be diminished greatly! For each day, the ratings will work like this. In theory, a day with a 100 rating means Captain Olimar came back home safe with no casualties at all, and may or may not have his Pikmin slaves carry a statue of him made out of gold or something. Alternatively, a rating of zero means that he went through the day Zapp Brannigan style, sending wave after wave of chirping and helpless plant-things after a robot bug with flamethrowers for eyes, then came back to the Dolphin alone with no one but that loser Louie. Oh, and for the sake of staying sane, let's pretend that Olimar cannot harvest some new Pikmin in the middle of the day. Then it would just get confusing.
You got all that? Let's begin!
WEEK #33: January 7th to 11th, 2008
MONDAY: Melee Stages: Part 2http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/stages/stage21.html
Is this a lavish feast or what?
You know, I didn't think "Melee Stages" broke any box office records, so I've got to admit that I'm surprised they made a sequel. The crew who made the first thought they were capable of doing better, so they gave a second one a shot? The original contract stated that this would be a trilogy, so they're kind of stuck doing those no matter what? They managed to find the one person on Earth who could honestly say "Guys, let's make a sequel to Baby Geniuses and make it about superhero babies!" and hired them? They're really running out of ideas that badly? The world may never know.
At least it's not one of those crappy straight-to-video sequels with none of the original actors. In fact, you might even say it was better than its predecessor! They bring back some of my favorite stages, which is pretty cool. Yoshi's Island is nothing really special, but its theme songs are great. The Great Fox had been strangely missing so far, so Corneria is a good addition. Onett is Ness' hometown. If you're not thinking what I'm thinking, what are you thinking? Also, they forgot to repaint the Tonzura/Runaway 5 van for the American screenshots. Whoops. Brinstar shows us that we just can't have enough lava stages and that Pokémon Trainer can make platforms appear out of thin air so he can, you know, stand somewhere without dying. The Rainbow Ride is one of the only times I can recall where "forced scrolling" was ever a good idea and makes us wonder what the heck the Pokémon Trainer will stand on for THAT. (I predict some kind of rocket surfboard.)
Still, that makes 25 stages confirmed right now, with several more most probably still being kept secret. I hate to agree with Sakurai's insane food metaphors, but that IS pretty impressive. BONUS POINT! ...What? Yeah, I was serious about making that my catchphrase.
TODAY'S RATING: 48 Pikmin out of 100!
TUESDAY: STADIUM: Multi-Man Brawl
Destroying so many really cleanses the spirit.
Hurrah! It's the return of the Multi-Man Mel-- Brawl! And it's got... no particularly interesting new features (aside from online and co-op, but I'm almost expecting that of everything by now). We know the drill by now, how it's impossible to put into words the joy of beating the crap of wave after wave of weak enemies, much like any given action movie hero. No, the most intriguing part of this update is the new team of barely-competent foot soldiers, the Fighting Alloy Team.
As you must know, those grunts' models are often loosely based on existing characters in the game. In the N64 SSB, one of the Fighting Polygons was some kind of terrifying evil velociraptor Yoshi, for instance. Some interesting theories have been elaborated after the Fighting Alloys were revealed. Let's take a look at them!
The Red Alloy is most probably based on the male Fighting Wireframe, who in turn was probably based on Captain Falcon. What could this possibly mean? ...MALE WIREFRAME CONFIRMED!
Meanwhile, Blue Alloy is similar to the female Fighting Wireframe, who was loosely based on either Zelda or scrapped plans for a Zero Suit Samus. But I wouldn't know for sure, as I've never seen Zelda in action in my entire life. I'm pretty sure only Sheik was playable in Melee, come to think of it. If so, ZELDA CONFIRMED!
Now, I've heard some interesting things about Yellow Alloy. Apparently, it could be based on a character a lot of people have been expecting. Say it with me...
One of the residents of planet Geolyte, from Meteos! ...But hold on... Nah, that doesn't make any sense. Wait! Of course! Why didn't I think of that one?
Ico!
This one's easy if you get past Sakurai's ruse. He said it "looks like Kirby" to distract you from the obvious fact that it's based on Betamon. Compare.
TODAY'S RATING: 38 Pikmin out of 100!
WEDNESDAY: Darth Vader & Yoda
You are indeed seeing the legendary purveyor of the Dark Side, Darth Vader, and his Force-wielding nemesis, Yoda.
OH MY GOD, GUYS, DO YOU SEE WHAT I JUST SAW?! That night's Dojo update was a little late, but my brother checked the Japanese site and told me it was really worth the wait. Time passed and the English Dojo STILL DIDN'T UPDATE. I didn't want to ruin it by checking it in a language I didn't understand, though, so I waited and waited. And after twenty minutes or so, finally! I couldn't believe it! Who would've thought those guys would appear in Smash? All common sense dictated that they'd never appear here, but they do. It's stupid, but they do, and we're all glad for it.
...Huh?... Hold on, I've just been informed that I just linked to the wrong page. Let me correct this.
WEDNESDAY: Pikmin & Olimar
WEDNESDAY: PART 2: Pikmin: World Map
Theirs is a fated symbiotic relationship.
There! That's right, we all know Captain Olimar and the Pikmin are tiny creatures a mere few centimers tall, but here they are, fighting Mario and friends as if Rita Repulsa had just supersized them for reasons only clear to her. Maybe the appearance of the Fighting Alloy Team frightened her? Thinking she'd have to face a new team of Power Rangers, she looked into her huge telescope for a monster to grow and saw Olimar. Since the telescope is so freaking huge, she never noticed the size problem nor that it wasn't really a monster, and the rest is history! That's my theory, at least.
You'd think there would be more to say about the inclusion of a tiny astronaut from an awesome Gamecube game with an army of loyal color-coded plant creature things, but I'm pretty much done here! ...Until Friday's entry, at least. Ohohoho.
Oh yeah, and there was a song, too! I rarely have much to say about those, mostly because impressions of songs don't translate well to text, and also because everything is just "okay" when you compare it to Portal's "Still Alive". So it was "okay", but I didn't recognize the song being remixed when I first heard it.
TODAY'S RATING: 97 Pikmin out of 100!
THURSDAY: Snake: Final Smash
He loads a new clip? How can that be?
I expected something a bit flashier coming from Snake's Final Smash, seeing how he already uses a rocket launcher casually to begin with, and his games include giant walker tanks that can shoot nuclear missiles. However, the Smash Ball still has interesting effects on everyone's favorite grizzled supersoldier. First, the Ball immediately kicks Big Boss' super-genes into overdrive, allowing Snake to jump incredibly high.
It's... like he's flying!! Then, he hangs on to a ladder hanging from a random helicopter and starts shooting at the stage with a... grenade launcher? I don't really see how that's particularly more dangerous than the rest of his explosives, but hey, okay. I won't be overanalyzing that, though. The real question here is who's piloting that helicopter? Let's take a look at who the mystery pilot could be.
Otacon: Unlikely, even given his partnership with Snake. While Otacon has worked with several military machines over the years, I doubt he's recieved the formation to pilot a helicopter.
Colonel Campbell: Another ally of Snake, this time one who has recieved an actual military formation. I'm not clear on how those things work, though, so maybe he was just taught how to give instructions to people and give them orders that are more than meets the eye without being completely in on the conspiracy. It's more likely than Otacon, though.
Mei Ling: Given her proeficiency with Chinese proverbs, this makes her more than qualified.
Liquid Snake: Liquid Snake, thanks to his superior, dominant genes, can do anything he wants, including piloting a helicopter. But why would he drop his vendetta against his hated brother, Solid Snake? Perhaps he could have realized the threat of the Subspace Emissary and declared a temporary truce. While his ambition is to create a world where soldiers like him can feel alive, he probably doesn't desire a one-sided conflict in which the enemies of all who live control the terrifying creature, Shadow Bugs.
Fatman: IT'S A FAT GUY ON ROLLERSKATES. The only thing he couldn't succeed at is a diet.
A new character: Maybe this will be a new addition to the rich Metal Gear cast of characters. Maybe this is an unusually young former FOXHOUND agent, something like Helicopter Man or Snot Grizzly. He and Solid Snake would fight crime together, and Snake would say "Helicopter Man, you are the best partner I've ever had", and I'd say "Aw, shucks, Snake, I couldn't do it without you" and then they'd save the world together and be best friends forever. Snake would do all this infiltration stuff and Helicopter Man would take care of computers and things that require fast video game reflexes and stuff. Together, they'd defeat both Liquid Snake in his Metal Gear Mk. 2000 and high school bully Stanley McStupid, then give each other a high five and go eat hamburgers together.
The last one would be pretty cool. I hope that guy gets an assist trophy.
TODAY'S RATING: 57 Pikmin out of 100!
FRIDAY: Pikmin & Olimar: Special Moves
Anyhow, just do your best to not kill off your platoon.
Aaaaaaaah, gimmick characters. We all know from the start that Captain Olimar couldn't be anything but one of those. You have those like Kirby and Zelda, who have one move that changes the way you play them, and then you have the likes of Ice Climbers, Pokémon Trainer and now Olimar & Pikmin, for who success depends on managing their weird quirk as well as possible. I mean, you know your character is unusual when half of its special moves aren't even attacks.
Surprisingly enough, Olimar seems to play a lot like he does in the Pikmin games, with some adjustments made for SSB's controls and gameplay. You'd expect that they'd have to get creative to make him work, but no, they have him doing what he does best: gardening and tossing vicious ****** plants at anything that tries to kill him. The Pikmin Chain is the only thing they made up here (which is too bad because it could be REALLY useful in the actual games), but of couse I'm sure regular attacks will have to involve less canonical things like slapping the opponent in the face with a Pikmin or stabbing them with a shard of Louie's broken space helmet.
But since they went through so much trouble to give each Pikmin its own distinct characteristics, let's take a closer look at each, shall we? In order of appearance...
Red Pikmin is in the lead. Red Pikmin is the leader of the team, likes jazz music and barbecues, and thinks anyone who watches the Superbowl for the commercials is a freaking pansy. Now, you might wonder what happens when there's more than one Red Pikmin, since it's supposed to be the leader of the team. The answer is... nothing! Captain Olimar is the leader of the team, and Red Pikmin is just arguably sentient. It only calls itself the leader of the team to make itself feel more secure about not really wanting, deep down inside, to pollinate girl Pikmin.
Behind him is Yellow Pikmin, whose big ears look very stupid, giving it severe self-esteem issues. It thinks science is awesome, but still hasn't found a good comeback to "So why are they calling it the THEORY of evolution and not the FACT of evolution?" It wishes it could accomplish its lifelong dream of building a giant robot, but no. It's busy following around an astronaut who wants all parts of its spaceship back, including the fuzzy dice and Thing Olimar's Aunt Gave Him That He Doesn't Know What It Does.
Blue Pikmin follows along. Being the only Pikmin with a mouth, it fully takes advantage of that fact to never shut up. All Pikmin can emit adorable chirping sounds when either thrown or dying, but Blue Pikmin takes it a step further. It bought a cell phone thinking that would make it the hottest thing on campus, but quickly ran out of interesting things to say about itself.
Up next is White Pikmin (with flower) and its almost identical twin White Pikmin (with bud). They were excited because they got to appear in the two sequels to a very popular science-fiction movie, but were disappointed when they got lukewarm reviews. White Pikmin (with bud) looks up to White Pikmin (with flower), who is a fantastic cook. The game they come from was made in Japan, where it's more important to mention in a character's bio that they cook well instead of mentioning essential personality traits or backstory elements.
Lagging behind is Purple Pikmin, whose very existence is an open invitation to make a ton of fat jokes. Now, I know fat jokes may offend some people, but I'm sorry, I know a sign when I see one, and Purple Pikmin here is an extremely large sign saying "PLEASE COMPARE ME TO JABBA THE HUTT". Besides, it's not like that would be any more offensive than liking Star Fox Assault or disliking the Ice Climbers, right? All right, okay. Purple Pikmin is huuuuuge. It casts a huge shadow that makes it impossible for other Pikmin to grow because they don't get any sun. Even when it hasn't grown fully, its leaf takes up all the space, because it absorbs all the bacon particles in the air and uses them to enlarge itself. When it's fully grown, it takes a team of Olimar, Louie and a tow truck to pull it out, and when it's finally uprooted, it has to take a nap because all that effort took a lot out of it. But for Olimar, having it by its side is a great asset, as it can just sit on Emperor Bulblax and make the game's ending very anticlimatic. Its butt also has its own regional code.
Okay, I'm done now.
TODAY'S RATING: 85 Pikmin out of 100!
GAME!
1ST PLACE WINNER: Captain Olimar and his Pikmin pals easily nab that trophy this week. Their appearance wasn't a huge surprise, but we were starved for a new character, and his innovative gameplay looks pretty promising!
LAST PLACE LOSER: This was a pretty exciting week overall, so it's good to see that the Fighting Alloys and the "beat the crap out of Fighting Alloys forever" mode is the worst it had to offer. Knock on wood, huh?
THIS WEEK'S OVERALL RATING: 1 Captain Olimar out of 1!
Yipes, it's over already? But I only got started talking about Pikmin! Sigh. Oh well. Maybe I can talk about them more next week! Yes! In fact, I think I'll do just that.
So that's it for tonight, folks! Tune in next week for a new assist trophy: Evil Mushroom Pikmin, an analysis of Pikmin & Olimar's Final Smash (Summon: More Pikmin) and the confirmation of a new stage: on top a really big pile of PIKMIN! Be there! BONUS POINT!
Link to original post: [drupal=448]It's Japan Time Time! (Week #33)[/drupal]
Greetings, Smash fans! 2008 begins promisingly, as the Dojo has some pretty neat updates in store for us this week. And as usual, Japan Time Time will stop at nothing to point and laugh at them, call them names and insult their moms! This week we'll be leaping really high, complaining about unnecessary sequels and meeting some very strange newcomers from a faraway galaxy! Stay tuned, for Japan Time Time begins right after this completely unrelated imag-- Oh, right, the format is different, now.
Before we begin, though, let me introduce you to the rating system we'll be using this week. I'm glad to say that the Meter recovered from the sorry state you saw it last time. It may be... a little different from usual, but I'm sure you'll love it anyway.
Piiiiiikmin!
You got all that? Let's begin!
WEEK #33: January 7th to 11th, 2008
MONDAY: Melee Stages: Part 2http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/stages/stage21.html
Is this a lavish feast or what?
You know, I didn't think "Melee Stages" broke any box office records, so I've got to admit that I'm surprised they made a sequel. The crew who made the first thought they were capable of doing better, so they gave a second one a shot? The original contract stated that this would be a trilogy, so they're kind of stuck doing those no matter what? They managed to find the one person on Earth who could honestly say "Guys, let's make a sequel to Baby Geniuses and make it about superhero babies!" and hired them? They're really running out of ideas that badly? The world may never know.
At least it's not one of those crappy straight-to-video sequels with none of the original actors. In fact, you might even say it was better than its predecessor! They bring back some of my favorite stages, which is pretty cool. Yoshi's Island is nothing really special, but its theme songs are great. The Great Fox had been strangely missing so far, so Corneria is a good addition. Onett is Ness' hometown. If you're not thinking what I'm thinking, what are you thinking? Also, they forgot to repaint the Tonzura/Runaway 5 van for the American screenshots. Whoops. Brinstar shows us that we just can't have enough lava stages and that Pokémon Trainer can make platforms appear out of thin air so he can, you know, stand somewhere without dying. The Rainbow Ride is one of the only times I can recall where "forced scrolling" was ever a good idea and makes us wonder what the heck the Pokémon Trainer will stand on for THAT. (I predict some kind of rocket surfboard.)
Still, that makes 25 stages confirmed right now, with several more most probably still being kept secret. I hate to agree with Sakurai's insane food metaphors, but that IS pretty impressive. BONUS POINT! ...What? Yeah, I was serious about making that my catchphrase.
TODAY'S RATING: 48 Pikmin out of 100!
TUESDAY: STADIUM: Multi-Man Brawl
Destroying so many really cleanses the spirit.
Hurrah! It's the return of the Multi-Man Mel-- Brawl! And it's got... no particularly interesting new features (aside from online and co-op, but I'm almost expecting that of everything by now). We know the drill by now, how it's impossible to put into words the joy of beating the crap of wave after wave of weak enemies, much like any given action movie hero. No, the most intriguing part of this update is the new team of barely-competent foot soldiers, the Fighting Alloy Team.
As you must know, those grunts' models are often loosely based on existing characters in the game. In the N64 SSB, one of the Fighting Polygons was some kind of terrifying evil velociraptor Yoshi, for instance. Some interesting theories have been elaborated after the Fighting Alloys were revealed. Let's take a look at them!
The Red Alloy is most probably based on the male Fighting Wireframe, who in turn was probably based on Captain Falcon. What could this possibly mean? ...MALE WIREFRAME CONFIRMED!
Meanwhile, Blue Alloy is similar to the female Fighting Wireframe, who was loosely based on either Zelda or scrapped plans for a Zero Suit Samus. But I wouldn't know for sure, as I've never seen Zelda in action in my entire life. I'm pretty sure only Sheik was playable in Melee, come to think of it. If so, ZELDA CONFIRMED!
Now, I've heard some interesting things about Yellow Alloy. Apparently, it could be based on a character a lot of people have been expecting. Say it with me...
One of the residents of planet Geolyte, from Meteos! ...But hold on... Nah, that doesn't make any sense. Wait! Of course! Why didn't I think of that one?
Ico!
This one's easy if you get past Sakurai's ruse. He said it "looks like Kirby" to distract you from the obvious fact that it's based on Betamon. Compare.
You are indeed seeing the legendary purveyor of the Dark Side, Darth Vader, and his Force-wielding nemesis, Yoda.
OH MY GOD, GUYS, DO YOU SEE WHAT I JUST SAW?! That night's Dojo update was a little late, but my brother checked the Japanese site and told me it was really worth the wait. Time passed and the English Dojo STILL DIDN'T UPDATE. I didn't want to ruin it by checking it in a language I didn't understand, though, so I waited and waited. And after twenty minutes or so, finally! I couldn't believe it! Who would've thought those guys would appear in Smash? All common sense dictated that they'd never appear here, but they do. It's stupid, but they do, and we're all glad for it.
...Huh?... Hold on, I've just been informed that I just linked to the wrong page. Let me correct this.
WEDNESDAY: Pikmin & Olimar
WEDNESDAY: PART 2: Pikmin: World Map
Theirs is a fated symbiotic relationship.
There! That's right, we all know Captain Olimar and the Pikmin are tiny creatures a mere few centimers tall, but here they are, fighting Mario and friends as if Rita Repulsa had just supersized them for reasons only clear to her. Maybe the appearance of the Fighting Alloy Team frightened her? Thinking she'd have to face a new team of Power Rangers, she looked into her huge telescope for a monster to grow and saw Olimar. Since the telescope is so freaking huge, she never noticed the size problem nor that it wasn't really a monster, and the rest is history! That's my theory, at least.
You'd think there would be more to say about the inclusion of a tiny astronaut from an awesome Gamecube game with an army of loyal color-coded plant creature things, but I'm pretty much done here! ...Until Friday's entry, at least. Ohohoho.
Oh yeah, and there was a song, too! I rarely have much to say about those, mostly because impressions of songs don't translate well to text, and also because everything is just "okay" when you compare it to Portal's "Still Alive". So it was "okay", but I didn't recognize the song being remixed when I first heard it.
TODAY'S RATING: 97 Pikmin out of 100!
THURSDAY: Snake: Final Smash
He loads a new clip? How can that be?
I expected something a bit flashier coming from Snake's Final Smash, seeing how he already uses a rocket launcher casually to begin with, and his games include giant walker tanks that can shoot nuclear missiles. However, the Smash Ball still has interesting effects on everyone's favorite grizzled supersoldier. First, the Ball immediately kicks Big Boss' super-genes into overdrive, allowing Snake to jump incredibly high.
It's... like he's flying!!
Otacon: Unlikely, even given his partnership with Snake. While Otacon has worked with several military machines over the years, I doubt he's recieved the formation to pilot a helicopter.
Colonel Campbell: Another ally of Snake, this time one who has recieved an actual military formation. I'm not clear on how those things work, though, so maybe he was just taught how to give instructions to people and give them orders that are more than meets the eye without being completely in on the conspiracy. It's more likely than Otacon, though.
Mei Ling: Given her proeficiency with Chinese proverbs, this makes her more than qualified.
Liquid Snake: Liquid Snake, thanks to his superior, dominant genes, can do anything he wants, including piloting a helicopter. But why would he drop his vendetta against his hated brother, Solid Snake? Perhaps he could have realized the threat of the Subspace Emissary and declared a temporary truce. While his ambition is to create a world where soldiers like him can feel alive, he probably doesn't desire a one-sided conflict in which the enemies of all who live control the terrifying creature, Shadow Bugs.
Fatman: IT'S A FAT GUY ON ROLLERSKATES. The only thing he couldn't succeed at is a diet.
A new character: Maybe this will be a new addition to the rich Metal Gear cast of characters. Maybe this is an unusually young former FOXHOUND agent, something like Helicopter Man or Snot Grizzly. He and Solid Snake would fight crime together, and Snake would say "Helicopter Man, you are the best partner I've ever had", and I'd say "Aw, shucks, Snake, I couldn't do it without you" and then they'd save the world together and be best friends forever. Snake would do all this infiltration stuff and Helicopter Man would take care of computers and things that require fast video game reflexes and stuff. Together, they'd defeat both Liquid Snake in his Metal Gear Mk. 2000 and high school bully Stanley McStupid, then give each other a high five and go eat hamburgers together.
The last one would be pretty cool. I hope that guy gets an assist trophy.
TODAY'S RATING: 57 Pikmin out of 100!
FRIDAY: Pikmin & Olimar: Special Moves
Anyhow, just do your best to not kill off your platoon.
Aaaaaaaah, gimmick characters. We all know from the start that Captain Olimar couldn't be anything but one of those. You have those like Kirby and Zelda, who have one move that changes the way you play them, and then you have the likes of Ice Climbers, Pokémon Trainer and now Olimar & Pikmin, for who success depends on managing their weird quirk as well as possible. I mean, you know your character is unusual when half of its special moves aren't even attacks.
Surprisingly enough, Olimar seems to play a lot like he does in the Pikmin games, with some adjustments made for SSB's controls and gameplay. You'd expect that they'd have to get creative to make him work, but no, they have him doing what he does best: gardening and tossing vicious ****** plants at anything that tries to kill him. The Pikmin Chain is the only thing they made up here (which is too bad because it could be REALLY useful in the actual games), but of couse I'm sure regular attacks will have to involve less canonical things like slapping the opponent in the face with a Pikmin or stabbing them with a shard of Louie's broken space helmet.
But since they went through so much trouble to give each Pikmin its own distinct characteristics, let's take a closer look at each, shall we? In order of appearance...
Red Pikmin is in the lead. Red Pikmin is the leader of the team, likes jazz music and barbecues, and thinks anyone who watches the Superbowl for the commercials is a freaking pansy. Now, you might wonder what happens when there's more than one Red Pikmin, since it's supposed to be the leader of the team. The answer is... nothing! Captain Olimar is the leader of the team, and Red Pikmin is just arguably sentient. It only calls itself the leader of the team to make itself feel more secure about not really wanting, deep down inside, to pollinate girl Pikmin.
Behind him is Yellow Pikmin, whose big ears look very stupid, giving it severe self-esteem issues. It thinks science is awesome, but still hasn't found a good comeback to "So why are they calling it the THEORY of evolution and not the FACT of evolution?" It wishes it could accomplish its lifelong dream of building a giant robot, but no. It's busy following around an astronaut who wants all parts of its spaceship back, including the fuzzy dice and Thing Olimar's Aunt Gave Him That He Doesn't Know What It Does.
Blue Pikmin follows along. Being the only Pikmin with a mouth, it fully takes advantage of that fact to never shut up. All Pikmin can emit adorable chirping sounds when either thrown or dying, but Blue Pikmin takes it a step further. It bought a cell phone thinking that would make it the hottest thing on campus, but quickly ran out of interesting things to say about itself.
Up next is White Pikmin (with flower) and its almost identical twin White Pikmin (with bud). They were excited because they got to appear in the two sequels to a very popular science-fiction movie, but were disappointed when they got lukewarm reviews. White Pikmin (with bud) looks up to White Pikmin (with flower), who is a fantastic cook. The game they come from was made in Japan, where it's more important to mention in a character's bio that they cook well instead of mentioning essential personality traits or backstory elements.
Lagging behind is Purple Pikmin, whose very existence is an open invitation to make a ton of fat jokes. Now, I know fat jokes may offend some people, but I'm sorry, I know a sign when I see one, and Purple Pikmin here is an extremely large sign saying "PLEASE COMPARE ME TO JABBA THE HUTT". Besides, it's not like that would be any more offensive than liking Star Fox Assault or disliking the Ice Climbers, right? All right, okay. Purple Pikmin is huuuuuge. It casts a huge shadow that makes it impossible for other Pikmin to grow because they don't get any sun. Even when it hasn't grown fully, its leaf takes up all the space, because it absorbs all the bacon particles in the air and uses them to enlarge itself. When it's fully grown, it takes a team of Olimar, Louie and a tow truck to pull it out, and when it's finally uprooted, it has to take a nap because all that effort took a lot out of it. But for Olimar, having it by its side is a great asset, as it can just sit on Emperor Bulblax and make the game's ending very anticlimatic. Its butt also has its own regional code.
Okay, I'm done now.
TODAY'S RATING: 85 Pikmin out of 100!
GAME!
1ST PLACE WINNER: Captain Olimar and his Pikmin pals easily nab that trophy this week. Their appearance wasn't a huge surprise, but we were starved for a new character, and his innovative gameplay looks pretty promising!
LAST PLACE LOSER: This was a pretty exciting week overall, so it's good to see that the Fighting Alloys and the "beat the crap out of Fighting Alloys forever" mode is the worst it had to offer. Knock on wood, huh?
THIS WEEK'S OVERALL RATING: 1 Captain Olimar out of 1!
Yipes, it's over already? But I only got started talking about Pikmin! Sigh. Oh well. Maybe I can talk about them more next week! Yes! In fact, I think I'll do just that.
So that's it for tonight, folks! Tune in next week for a new assist trophy: Evil Mushroom Pikmin, an analysis of Pikmin & Olimar's Final Smash (Summon: More Pikmin) and the confirmation of a new stage: on top a really big pile of PIKMIN! Be there! BONUS POINT!
Link to original post: [drupal=448]It's Japan Time Time! (Week #33)[/drupal]
