WARNING: Galaxy Not For Completionists!
So apparently Nintendo actually made Galaxy suck. That’s right, I got 104 stars, beat Bowser to get the last, and then, as expected, out came ‘collect the 100 purple coins.’ Of course, having first collected purple coins in the process of unlocking the best powerup in the game, I figured that these purple coin stars would have said powerup, or at least be challenging and fun, but instead, it becomes a monotonous grindfest.
So yes, while purple coins may seem deceivingly fun or challenging, given the return to the Gateway Galaxy, both me and my friend who has been helping me have both actually griped about these stars, and that’s definitely not a good sign. My friend, who had previously been rather enthusiastic about obtaining Galaxy and playing on his own has now had his interest severely diminished thanks to these last stars, and he can’t even seriously help either, because he can’t collect the stars, and there’s not that many enemies to help with. And of course watching someone be irritated at the game isn’t terribly fun either.
Thus far, I’ve gotten:
- Good Egg: Quick, at least.
- Honeyhive: Monotonous and boring as hell.
- Beach Bowl: Again, monotonous and boring.
Battlerock is even more annoying as has to be done perfectly the first time (Hello moving platform!) Don’t talk to the Gearmo at the end or you lose a life!
It’s definitely problematic that these stars take upwards of 15 minutes a piece and they’re a drag all the way (and even make you start hating the music, which otherwise was awesome!) It’s even worse that if you screw up and die, you have to start from scratch because it’s a comet level! Getting to do all of the 105 fun stars as Luigi and then these 15 painful stars as him as well is almost not worth the trouble in my opinion…
I’d give my ratings in terms of Nina’s system, but I can’t dig those articles up right now…
Tags: boring, grinding, purple coins, super mario galaxy
November 19th, 2007 at 2:32 am
So, let me get this straight. The entire game owns up to the point that you beat it, but going back to do the monotonous parts is.. monotonous? o.o
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought that part of Mario 64 sucked as well, and it’s common for most Nintendo games to be that way. The Zelda games, Excite Truck in recent memory, also Rare/Nintendo games such as Jet Force Gemini and Goldeneye are like that too. Hell, Mario Kart’s another one.
The first run-through of the games are of course very fun and giddy, and then after you beat the game the type of play changes to be based more around obsession than anything else. It’s definitely rewarding to complete the whole thing, but I never would call it “fun”.. I’d call it masochistic. Nonetheless, I do it, because I want to have it done. It’s just that it usually takes me a year to do so, due to the monotony. ^^;
So, what makes Galaxy different? o.o I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, because it does give life to a game for much longer than the actual plot lasts, and Nintendo does unlockables better than anyone else in my opinion, but isn’t it *supposed* to be unpleasant at times and only for the truly persistent?
November 19th, 2007 at 4:18 am
It’s not so much that it’s going back to do ‘monotonous parts’ as much as ‘enabling parts that are monotonous.’ The purple coin stars did not NEED to be in the game, and until you actually beat Bowser for the first time, you don’t even so much know that they are there. Thus, it’s a lot more like ‘oh hey, the game was fun, now here’s a couple of really annoying stars that you need to grind for if you want to REALLY complete the game’ This isn’t just ‘cleanup’ but actually engineered irritation.
Likewise, once you finally best all 120 you get Luigi unlocked and have to do everything again. That’s not really so bad, and is probably a decent reward for 120 stars. It’s just that those last 15 feel tacked on just to flesh out the 120 you need to get (just like the castle secret stars in 64, but at least those weren’t exactly in the exact same levels), and it’s not like you can tack the star on to some other task (like you can with the red coins in 64 or the blue coins in Sunshine). Your only objective, and only possible option, is to collect all 100 purple coins. I mean, I don’t mind the linearity of the other levels, but the linearity REALLY hurts these ‘collect the coins’ levels, and that’s not been the case before. (e.g. at least for the red coin stars in 64, you could collect the 100-coin star at the same time and not leave the level, or have to focus exclusively on the red coins) Furthermore, on the ‘one-big-planet’ galaxies, it’s almost as if the designers of some of these purple coin stars have gone for ‘How well can we hide that one last purple coin you want?’ rather than making it actually challenging in terms of skill. Instead of ones ability to platform, some of these coins (Honeyhive and Beach Bowl) are based solely on how well you can figure out where the designers decided to put coins. The worse you are at that, the longer it takes, and the more tortuous the quest for the star.
Really, it comes down to a difference between challenging and tortuous. These purple stars are often the latter rather than the former, because, out of the three I’ve seen (and one I’ve heard about as the most challenging in the game) only one has been ‘not irritatingly repetitive’ when it comes to getting the coins. It’d have been a lot better if they were normal 100-coin stars collected along with a standard star, rather than what we’ve done before, just with ‘collecting coins’ as the goal, rather than merely ‘getting through the level.’ Basically, it’s ‘do these levels over, but instead of battling a boss or dealing with some sort of logic puzzle, you need to (and can only) collect coins instead.’
November 20th, 2007 at 11:44 am
The other problem is that the large majority of these stars are unforgiving, unlike the other stars. Missed a purple coin? Well, now you’re screwed because you’re on a moving platform/timed stage/disappearing stage. Hope you like to start the stage over!