Super Mario Galaxy Walkthrough

 As I mentioned before, I started recording for a Super Mario Galaxy walkthrough on June 5th this year and finally completed all 242 stars on June 24th.  However, due to computer problems editing, I had yet to publish this walkthrough.  Of course, it would have been wonderful to publish this walkthrough in August right before the big reveal that it would be ported to Switch but it was not meant to be.  However, I'm writing this to announce that after many many hours editing, the walkthrough is finally fully edited (70 parts).  At the moment, I'm uploading them one by one to Youtube, making sure I didn't make any mistakes (already caught a few that I have to correct) and making custom thumbnails (also getting timestamps) but all things considered, I should hopefully have the walkthrough published in a few days (barring any unforeseen circumstances such as internet outages or hard drive failures).

I hope this walkthrough will help you beat this amazing game.  It was a blast to create but a beast to record and edit.  The finished files take up around 110gb so it may take a while for them to upload though.  As soon as everything is in the clear and everything checks out, I'll make everything public and publish it (then start SMBG2!)

What happened to the channel?

What happened to the channel and why have there been no new videos since March?  Short answer: my computer.  My computer was going on 8 years old this year and when I would try to record things, it would lag and freeze.  This was a huge reason my Resident Evil marathon was exclusive to Mixer at the time because my computer would freeze every time I tried to stream.  It was especially bad trying to edit the videos, as the editor would crash after just a couple edits or moves.  I managed to somehow get Super Mario Galaxy to record, probably due to the settings being at 480p but even then it would still lag horribly at times, forcing me to rerecord videos.  I finished recording it in June and my full intention was to get it out by August, however, my video editor actively worked against me, freezing every time I tried to render or edit a video and corrupting a ton of videos as it attempted to render my videos.

Unfortunately, this came to a head a week or two ago when my computer started clicking when I was operating it.  The hard drive was going out and all my stuff was in danger of being lost (20+ years of stories and pictures, several raw walkthroughs that needed to be recorded, etc).  Thankfully, due to my Youtube channel, I have a 5TB external hard drive so I threw everything I could on that and went computer shopping.

I managed to pick up a beast of a computer too.  It's been a long time since I could run computer games without lagging and now I'm running a lot of them at ultra 120fps.  That means I can finally record PC walkthroughs again, something I haven't done since Scribblenauts (in 2014).

Of course, transferring everything over, my videos wouldn't edit in either of my video editors that I used.  I tried reinstalling codecs and various other things but the only viable solution was to either get a new editor or convert 250+ videos to another format.  Thankfully, I found OpenShot editor and I'm enjoying it a lot.  It's been working fabulously for my editing and I've been very productive with it.  In the last week, I've managed to edit together most of my Super Mario Galaxy walkthrough and it should be ready in the next week or two (I still have to make custom thumbnails and grab the timestamps for everything).  In fact, just a progress update on editing:

MARIO: 100% done and edited

LUIGI: Currently editing Kitchen Dome galaxies.

My intention at this time is to finally edit several walkthroughs I have finished after I finish Super Mario Galaxy (it's kind of a monster walkthrough with nearly 70 videos, each roughly 15-45 minutes long).  I have Leisure Suit Larry fully recorded, as well as Final Fantasy Adventure and Resident Evil 1 with Jill (still need to record Chris's walkthrough), as well as Lion King SNES, DKC2, Spyro GBA and Phoenix Wright.  I plan to also record Super Mario Galaxy 2 soon and possibly other ones like Portal or Yakuza.

I am truly sorry for my hardware issues stunting the growth of my channel but I hope you look forward to the projects that are coming out soon.

Zelda Quest 1: Twilight Princess

After thoroughly enjoying both Link's Awakening and Breath of the Wild, my thirst for Zelda was not quenched at this point in time.  One game I really wanted to fire up was Twilight Princess HD, a game that I had yet to finish on Wii U and hadn't beaten since it released in 2006 (and even then, I was racing my buddy to see who could complete the game first).  So it quickly became a prime target for my next Zelda adventure.  At this point, my wife took a keen interest and the official Zelda Quest was birthed.

One thing that was so cool about this game is the duality between the twilight realm and the normal realm.  Playing as wolf link seemed much less cumbersome this time around and I loved the dark, gritty tones of this game (though I think Majora nails it better).  And I can honestly see why fans think this is a top tier Zelda game.  Then again, it's got a ton of OoT references and has the realistic and dark undertones so naturally a lot of people will enjoy it.  Plus you could finally unfreeze Zora's Domain (though not in the way people wanted).

Let me start by saying that this game has some amazing dungeons.  I love the Snowpeak Ruins.  It feels so awesome exploring a snow covered mansion and it's such a fresh take on a dungeon.  Even City in the Sky is so much fun with the double Clawshots, even though there are some annoyances with it.  Plus there are some unique and fun items in this iteration.  I like the spinner and the ball & chain is really cool (but essentially a Megaton Hammer on a chain) but reinventing the iron boots to work on magnetized tracks was awesome and made me think of them in a new light.  There's a lot of good stuff here!

I loved the fact that you could challenge the Hero of Time to learn new moves as well and there were so many OoT callbacks in this while still maintaining its own identity.  Seeing how the events of OoT played out after the credits was awesome too.  In fact, the storyline with Midna and Zelda as well as the Twilight Realm vs the Normal realm while still numerous side plots like Ilia or King Bulblin was great.  Plus the final boss was EPIC.  This was definitely a great Zelda to play for both the gameplay and the story.

However, the collectables and minigames were kind of weird.  I wasn't a fan of having 5 Heart Pieces to a container and catching golden bugs was alright.  Sumo wrestling with Gorons was hilarious though even if you have to cheat with Iron Boots.  The Cave of Ordeals and the new Wolf version were also more boring than anything and the fact that you have to do the wolf version four times sucks.  Plus the world map being segmented the way it was is kind of annoying, especially with how open and free form Wind Waker was.

All in all, Twilight Princess was a blast and a lot more fun than I remember it being.  It has an interesting story and I love the soundtrack to it too (Midna's Lament is definitely one for the Youtube playlist).  The wife loved the duality between light and darkness, the storyline and wolf link and easily put this near the top of her list (though I predict nothing will dethrone BotW).

At the end of it, I had completed the game 100%.  All 45 Heart Pieces, all 10 Bugs, every upgrade, both caves of ordeal done, etc.

OVERALL RANKINGS:

1. Zelda: Breath of the Wild

2. Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

2/ Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

WIFE'S RANKING:

1. Zelda: Breath of the Wild

2. Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

Pre Zelda Quest 2: Breath of the Wild

I'll be completely honest.  My thoughts on Breath of the Wild are like a roller coaster.  When I first got it for Wii U, I was absolutely captivated by the beauty and freedom and this feeling persisted when I picked up the game for Switch.  However, this copy was soon absconded by the wife who proceeded to play it for 450+ hours, searching all the nooks and crannies and even starting a separate file just to re-experience it.  However, when I rebought it a third time (after getting my own non shared Switch), I began to grow frustrated with the game.  I loved the exploration aspect but felt the game punished you hard for it.  It seemed like exploration was purposefully obtuse and whenever I would get anywhere decent, I would run into a powerful enemy who handed my butt to me, forcing me to trek back.  To be honest, it was offputting and for the better part of two years, I put off playing the game because of it.

However, after enjoying Link's Awakening, I decided it was time.  And boy, am I glad I did.  The game is incredibly flexible and despite the unforgiving beginning, once you start completing a few shrines or unlock new powers from the Divine Beasts, the game really starts to open up and become a blast.  I loved exploring the world, learning about the war against Calamity Ganon, doing side quests for people and unlocking all of the Shrines.  The atmosphere is awesome and while I hated the fact that weapons and shields broke at first, once I got used to it I was having a blast and enjoying the system.  Solving shrines is so fun because of the freedom the game gives you.  If you can imagine a unique puzzle solution, chances are if you can pull it off it will work.

Not only that but a lot of the side quests are unique and fun.  Finding a questionable statue with a background of double edged dealing or helping create a new town is so fun and awesome.  While I stand by how annoying the game is at the start, please put some time in and enjoy the game.

One thing I do NOT recommend though is collecting all the Korok seeds.  Yes, I ACTUALLY managed to collect all 900 Korok seeds in my playthrough of this game.  You only need about half to get all the max pack upgrades.  Finding the remaining 450 is a huge waste of time and only rewards you with a golden pile of poop that makes Hetsu dance.  That's it.

I managed to get 100% on the map completion but I have a few side quests left to do (4 if my count is accurate) and I still have to do the master trials to unlock the powered up Master Sword.  However, I have completed all 120 shrines, all named locations, all DLC shrines and sidequests (aside from the above mentioned Master Sword quest) and all korok seeds.  I even picked up all the amiibo armor but I have yet to upgrade everything and likely I don't plan to do so due to the overwhelming time it would take to do so.

HIGHLY recommended game.  I don't think it's as good as the hype leads you to believe but it's still fantastic.  Definitely play this one.  As far as how it compares to LA, there's hardly a comparison here.  LA is a fantastic game but short and sweet while BotW is long and will keep you occupied with tons of content and freedom unlike many other games out there.  For me, it's definitely better but LA is still fantastic.  As far as my wife's feelings go, it's one of her all time favorite games and one that she has spent three weeks of her life enjoying.  There's no question that it will top her list unless by some miracle she truly enjoys one of the other games in the series.

OVERALL RANKINGS:

1. Zelda: Breath of the Wild

2/ Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

WIFE'S RANKING:

1. Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Pre Zelda Quest 1: Link's Awakening Switch

Link's Awakening remains one of my favorite childhood Zelda games.  I used to love playing the game on my old chunky Game Boy on recess, discussing tips with my friends or showing off our progress and naturally, I was extremely intrigued with the Switch remake and bought it on release.

Immediately upon firing the game up, I was enamored with the art style, beautiful music renditions and hit with a huge nostalgia wave.  This game oozes charm and dspite being a weird one off style game with platforming elements, Goombas and a SimCity reference, this game was just awesome and I was severely disappointed when I 100% the game after a short 15 hours.

I love the atmosphere and updated graphics this game brought.  The setting being on an island outside of Hyrule and trying to collect instruments to wake up the Dream Fish is a unique and interesting plot, though due to the limited Game Boy hardware there's not a whole lot here.  Despite that, I loved Wind Fish Island and it's unique geography.

The dungeons were a lot easier than I remember them being however.  None of them proved a real challenge, even the Eagle's Tower (which I was thoroughly dreading).  However, they were quite fun, despite being more simple than I remembered and the tools you got from them were awesome.  I love blazing things with the fire rod or nabbing an upgraded tunic that increases my attack and it felt like there was a real sense of progression while playing this.

A lot more collectibles were introduced in this one but despite this, I found most of them easy to find, especially after getting the seashell tuner.  Still, I love that they fleshed it out more and increased your max health.  Plus the new Mario collectibles were fantastic and fun to go for.

However, the new Dungeon Maker was a huge disappointment.  Like many others, I was excited to have a "Zelda Maker" only to be vastly disappointed when I learned it was mainly just rearranging existing dungeon rooms together into one large one.  You couldn't even place treasure chests or customize the rooms!  This could have been an incredible feature and selling point but instead it's a novelty that wears off quickly.

All in all, this game is a fantastic remake, a bit shallow but kept me interested all the way.  Great remake but barely scratches the Zelda itch.  If you can pick it up for cheap, do so you'll love it.  Because the wife wasn't involved, her opinion won't be included yet.

OVERALL RANKINGS:

1. Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

WIFE'S RANKING:

N/A

Zelda Quest: A Personal Undertaking to complete all Zelda games

Back in September of 2019, Link's Awakening would receive a full remake and be released on Switch.  Naturally, being a huge Zelda fan, I decided to pick it up and fell in love with it.  However, because of its short length, I decided to continue on with the series and beat Breath of the Wild, which at that time I had yet to do.  This sparked a huge interest in the series and I decided to start a personal quest I entitled my "Zelda Quest", which is to beat all Zelda games as close to 100% as possible.  I managed to start up Twilight Princess HD, a game that I had on the backburner, which sparked the interest of my wife.  After discussing it with her, who has spent 450 hours in BotW but yet to experience the other games, she joined me and asked that we play the games in "timeline order".  Despite my warning that timeline order is subjective, we decided to use an official timeline from the encyclopedia and start the quest officially with Skyward Sword once Twilight Princess is over.  However, both LA and BotW were retroactively added to the quest, despite my wife being somewhat absent for them.

During this quest, we will be actively going over what we liked and didn't like and ranking the games in order.  Of course, we will be excluding obvious titles like Link's Crossbow Training, the CDi games, etc.  However, other than that, nothing will be left out!  I hope you enjoy our journey and our thoughts!

New review is up!

After several years away, I managed to write out a new review and post it to GameFAQs.  The interface has changed quite a bit since the last time I wrote a review and now allows pictures and formatting but I had already finished it before realizing this.  Irregardless, if you're curious how RPG Maker MV plays on PS4, feel free to check out my new review on GameFAQs!  I'm not sure if this is a return to form but it's definitely been a while!

Q&A June 5, 2020

Hey guys, I came in to update my progress on the multiple projects I have behind the scenes going on and where I've been only to realize it's been a year to the day since my previous Q&A post.  So, without further ado, here's another one that should hopefully answer your questions about what's going on!

YOUTUBE/LIVESTREAM CHANNEL QUESTIONS

Q: What's going on with your channel?

A: It's been a crazy year so far (and that's without all the craziness of the world included!).  At first, I posted a video updating about how COPPA would affect my channel.  In that time, I was able to record and upload a new walkthrough as well as unhide several other previously recorded walkthroughs.  My best friend and I created the Don and Jerry Show and worked exclusively on that from December of 2019 to February of 2020 with the hopes of launching on February 28th but lots of things happened that prevented that.  In mid February, my 8 month old kitten was killed by an animal in our back yard which took the wind out of my sails for a while.  I was scheduled for a 2 week vacation in March but it was cancelled with the Coronavirus and I was diagnosed with Tinnitus which prevented me from doing any editing.  That finally cleared up in late May and while I did record a few new walkthroughs (Mega Man X2 and Leisure Suit Larry for example), I couldn't edit them until recently due to the ringing in my ears making using headphones very difficult.  Now that things are calming down, my intention is to record, edit and upload several new walkthroughs, one of which is Super Mario Galaxy.  I also hope to finish editing our previously recorded 7 podcasts and get that live as well.

I do apologize for the lack of content but I hope you understand why.

Q: Have you been livestreaming lately?

A: Yes!  I started a Resident Evil challenge in April but due to my computer deciding that it isn't powerful enough to stream with the Elgato anymore, I have been streaming exclusively on Mixer for the time being (I hope to rectify this very shortly once I can go computer shopping again).

Q: What's the RE challenge and where did it go?

A: The RE challenge was my intention to play through all 8 numbered RE games on stream and beat them, with 4, 5 and 6 being blind runs.  Unfortunately, 5 burnt me out severely on the series.  This is coupled with 50+ playthroughs between March and May leading to my burnout.  I will return to it once the burnout goes away.  In it's place I hope to stream Duke 3D, Forever, Doom/II/II/2016 and FFX.

Q: When are your next Mega Man/Mario walkthroughs coming out?  Are you gonna play any new series?

A: To be frank, I never know when my videos come out because I record these walkthroughs for fun mainly, not for notoriety or any other reason.  Because of that, the walkthroughs come out when I manage to finish them.  However, as of June 5, I have started Mario Galaxy with the intent to record all 252 stars.  Mega Man 11 will likely not be out until I can get my Elgato to record smoothly again in anything above 720P.

As far as new content goes, yes, I have Leisure Suit Larry recorded as well as Mega Man X2.  I also intend to record Phoenix Wright for the 8th time (every previous attempt was marred by technical limitations or corruption).  I also started recording Super Mario Advance 2, Super Mario Bros 3 SNES and the last few Sonic games on Genesis so hopefully I can get some content out soon!

DON & JERRY SHOW

Q: What is the Don and Jerry show?

A: Basically, my best friend of multiple decades and I got together after getting new microphones and decided we wanted to make our voices heard.  We enjoy talking about things and wanted a platform to essentially hang out and discuss new topics as well as answer Q&As.  We enjoy recording it but I hope you enjoy listening to it too.

Q: When is it coming out?

A: Don and I have been extremely busy and unable to work on the podcast lately.  I hope to finish editing our first seven podcasts relatively soon and release them so we can have more timely releases every two weeks like planned.  Stay tuned to @DonandJerryshow on twitter for announcements.

Q: Can I get involved or ask questions?

A: Sure!  Send us a question on Twitter using #DNJQNA or join our discord and ask us there!  discord.gg/88pn3kF 

GAMEFAQS QUESTIONS

Q: Are you planning on returning to contributing?

A: The toxic attitude has been getting slightly better over time so I may return to writing reviews but at the moment, with all my projects, no.

Several Previously Recorded Videos Now Available!

I apologize for the lack of updates regarding my channel.  I have been working with my best bud on a podcast for several months and it's been a lot of work recording, editing, setting up structures and plans for it and I'm nearing release!  It's called the "Don and Jerry Show" and it will be live on https://donandjerryshow.podbean.com hopefully soon.  We've been working steadily on it since December 2018 but it really only came to fruition around September of last year, when we put our nose to the grindstone to get everything ready, recorded and edited.  We'll be updating people @DonandJerryShow on twitter with news on that project so I hope you'll enjoy.

I know my last posted video, COPPA, was a bit of a downer.  But as I went through my recorded videos, I was surprised to see that several had not been made public despite being uploaded for years.  The first of these was Castlevania 3, which I had to reupload several parts due to Youtube being stingy and not letting me save it as public.  I had recorded that one at the end of 2018 and it took quite a bit of work to do as C3 is insanely tough and I recorded six different walkthroughs, one for each character on normal and hard and split all paths up between them.

The second was Softporn Adventure, which is the first title in the Leisure Suit Larry series and not actually pornographic (it's text based only).  I uploaded it in mid 2018 but wasn't sure if I wanted to have a video entitled "Softporn" and whether it would actually get taken down.  But as there is no porn in it, I decided to publish it.

The last was Super Mario Bros Deluxe, which I uploaded October of 2019.  It was all ready to go but I still hadn't made custom thumbnails for it so I decided to do that and publish them.

There's also one more I recorded the other day for Mystery House, the first ever Sierra Online title and the first ever adventure game with graphics.  It's an oldie but I love it and you can play along with it too if you like as it's freeware.

I hope to have more projects finished soon after I finish up the remaining D&J podcasts.  Don and I also recorded TMNT 1989 for our separate Youtube channel, Don and Jerry Show, and that will be live soon after I write an intro song for it.

Hope to see you guys soon!