My favorite area is definitely Monstro town, what’s not to love? and I love how it’s not made up of any structures, it’s just some doors on the wall of a mountain, with this cozy (but not dangerous) little ledge to walk around. and the way the interior is just like, a hollowed out cube in that wall, and the floor even just being the same grass as outside. Everything about it reminds me of early 2010s Minecraft. and the little cherry on top the whole thing is the name of the song, “My Paradise ~ Monstro Town”
I really love Mario RPG, I had forgotten why but this reminded me... It's a game that's undoubtedly the product of passion. The developers cared about this game and knew we would too, it's heartfelt. There's no politics or greed, just a great game by a talented team
7:54 I always used Yoshi in Mario cart 64. Glad to know that every second he was racing, he was loving it. And like the yoshi near the track says. There’s nothing better then getting all your friends together and racing.
I have not played the original game so to be honest I did not even notice the CRT filter, it's so natural. Your videos are comforting as always. Please keep going...
Every single time I've played through this game, I've discovered or realized something new, whether it's viewing a sprite correctly (I didn't realize the tadpoles had eyes until YEARS later), recognizing that the "whoop" sound in Valentina's theme was her laughing, or realizing that Monstro Town is supposed to be an apartment building (Monstermama even calls herself the landlady. How did I miss that!)
Big fan of this series. Whenever I stop to think about how every element of a given place or game was designed by hand from scratch, it leaves me with a lot of appreciation for the devs. Along the same lines, if you're ever interested in doing a series on underappreciated RPG enemies, I'd watch it. Just the random slimes and rats people generally pay no mind to when farming exp.
I like these kinds of videos. It’s quite fun to overanalyse Mario locations. Could you cover any of these games in the future?: - Super Mario Galaxy - Super Mario 3D Land - Luigi’s Mansion - Super Mario 3D World - various Mario Karts (mainly 64, Double Dash, DS, Wii and Super Circuit)
2:10 There's certainly been a lot of advances in the technology used to render CGI scenes in 3D. One of the most visually noticeable advancements was the advent of diffusion and normal maps - technology which simulates what happens to the visual light between when it strikes the object, and bounces off to be absorbed by your eyes. For example, ever shine a flashlight into the tip of your finger in a dark room, and see how the light spreads through the rest of your finger and kinda makes it glow? That's the light diffusing through the flesh of your hand, it's part of why skin looks different from rock or metal. It's part of why a painting of a person which matches their exact skin tone looks noticeably off despite being the same color - the paint diffuses light differently from actual skin. Normal maps, meanwhile, simulated the physical texture of an object. Is it rough? bumpy? Does it have grooves? Craters? Gutters? Gaps, like bricks or cobblestones? Normal maps were used to apply actual depth to such features of objects, as opposed to relying on textures to give the impression of such. Visually, it's the difference between drawing groove lines onto a plank of wood with a pencil or paintbrush, and actually whittling grooves into the wood. Back in the 90s, the technology needed to simulate light diffusion wasn't widespread, so the lighting step was often skipped in 3D renders. Wood, grass, human skin, and metal all reflected light in the exact same way when rendered in this way. Normal maps weren't a widespread technology either; one could model the texture of a surface by hand, but that would be extremely time-consuming and resource intensive. The absence of these techniques is part of what gives renders from the 90s their feel. The technology to achieve higher graphical fidelity, which could properly simulate how light diffuses through materials or interacts with uneven textures, didn't exist (or was prohibitively expensive), so people had to adopt a style that worked well with the lack of diffusion and normals to make something look good back then. Nowadays, as it has been for a while, diffusion and normals are cornerstones of 3D texturing, animation, and rendering. Everyone is expected to use these technologies to increase the visual fidelity of their work. Such expectations didn't exist back then, hence the style-over-fidelity approach many artists took, which I think is pretty cool.
Buddy, I don’t know how these view counts aren’t in the millions. Your voice is so calming, and the thought you clearly put into this content goes beyond a lot of videos I see pushed to the top of my feed. So happy to cross paths with your channel and I look forward to seeing what you get down to! Cheers!
Booster’s Tower hands down is my favorite. The music is so good! Oooh Star Hill that’s a great choice! I always forget about it because you just kinda randomly go there in the middle of the game without being prompted to by anyone (iirc). It’s a bit of a weird area because it kinda comes out of nowhere and has nothing Mario related in it, it feels out of place. I also find it weird that we can even go there to begin with. With all of its deep blues and the ground being made of meteors it feels like it should’ve been an area in space. With the last few areas taking us further and further up until we are in the sky I feel like it would’ve made more sense if we used the Lakitu bus to go there instead of a volcano. Maybe that was the original plan and things got switched around in development. Sorry for my ramblings I never really thought about this area too hard until now and it just kinda realized why I find it so strange.
I wanted to have this out before the new game, just to have complete coverage of the original game. And potentially leave an episode covering the remake as a possibility further down the line. I don't have any plans to cover the remake right now, but it'd be cool to compare them sometime in the future.
I've honestly gone super back and forth on it over the months, and I think my BIG problem, is that the particular filter I used kinda looks bad when the video is anything but fullscreen. I really like the filter while I'm playing the game and watching the video back at fullscreen, but in any other size/aspect ratio, it just looks kinda bad. Another thing that was kinda holding me back, is that I can't really get a good filter set up in my video editing software. I want the filter to be not just on the gameplay, but the intro, outro, and any images I add in post to have the filter as well. I think until I figure out a REALLY good one to add in post-production, I'll keep it with no filter.
This might genuinely be my favorite series on RUclips. It’s so refreshing every time
Real talk every pretzel video drop gets me hyped, every once in a while I'll hop onto his channel and binge like 12 videos at a time
My favorite area is definitely Monstro town, what’s not to love?
and I love how it’s not made up of any structures, it’s just some doors on the wall of a mountain, with this cozy (but not dangerous) little ledge to walk around.
and the way the interior is just like, a hollowed out cube in that wall, and the floor even just being the same grass as outside.
Everything about it reminds me of early 2010s Minecraft.
and the little cherry on top the whole thing is the name of the song, “My Paradise ~ Monstro Town”
I really love Mario RPG, I had forgotten why but this reminded me... It's a game that's undoubtedly the product of passion. The developers cared about this game and knew we would too, it's heartfelt. There's no politics or greed, just a great game by a talented team
7:54 I always used Yoshi in Mario cart 64. Glad to know that every second he was racing, he was loving it. And like the yoshi near the track says. There’s nothing better then getting all your friends together and racing.
I have not played the original game so to be honest I did not even notice the CRT filter, it's so natural. Your videos are comforting as always. Please keep going...
Every single time I've played through this game, I've discovered or realized something new, whether it's viewing a sprite correctly (I didn't realize the tadpoles had eyes until YEARS later), recognizing that the "whoop" sound in Valentina's theme was her laughing, or realizing that Monstro Town is supposed to be an apartment building (Monstermama even calls herself the landlady. How did I miss that!)
I think the crt filter fits the games that were meant to be played on a crt.I would like to see you use it in your next videos!
I might tweak it a bit or use another one, but I really like the idea of it. I'll keep what you said in mind ✌️
Cool CRT filter!! it really made the game look more like it was intended to!
Big fan of this series. Whenever I stop to think about how every element of a given place or game was designed by hand from scratch, it leaves me with a lot of appreciation for the devs.
Along the same lines, if you're ever interested in doing a series on underappreciated RPG enemies, I'd watch it. Just the random slimes and rats people generally pay no mind to when farming exp.
15:10 Star Hill is the same Star Hill from Paper Mario 64! I love that location so much in any game. (Partners In Time as well.)
I like these kinds of videos. It’s quite fun to overanalyse Mario locations. Could you cover any of these games in the future?:
- Super Mario Galaxy
- Super Mario 3D Land
- Luigi’s Mansion
- Super Mario 3D World
- various Mario Karts (mainly 64, Double Dash, DS, Wii and Super Circuit)
This is such a cozy series!
I'm surprised you didn't question the hot spring in the sky. Aren't those usually the result of geothermal energy?
2:10
There's certainly been a lot of advances in the technology used to render CGI scenes in 3D. One of the most visually noticeable advancements was the advent of diffusion and normal maps - technology which simulates what happens to the visual light between when it strikes the object, and bounces off to be absorbed by your eyes.
For example, ever shine a flashlight into the tip of your finger in a dark room, and see how the light spreads through the rest of your finger and kinda makes it glow? That's the light diffusing through the flesh of your hand, it's part of why skin looks different from rock or metal. It's part of why a painting of a person which matches their exact skin tone looks noticeably off despite being the same color - the paint diffuses light differently from actual skin.
Normal maps, meanwhile, simulated the physical texture of an object. Is it rough? bumpy? Does it have grooves? Craters? Gutters? Gaps, like bricks or cobblestones? Normal maps were used to apply actual depth to such features of objects, as opposed to relying on textures to give the impression of such. Visually, it's the difference between drawing groove lines onto a plank of wood with a pencil or paintbrush, and actually whittling grooves into the wood.
Back in the 90s, the technology needed to simulate light diffusion wasn't widespread, so the lighting step was often skipped in 3D renders. Wood, grass, human skin, and metal all reflected light in the exact same way when rendered in this way. Normal maps weren't a widespread technology either; one could model the texture of a surface by hand, but that would be extremely time-consuming and resource intensive.
The absence of these techniques is part of what gives renders from the 90s their feel. The technology to achieve higher graphical fidelity, which could properly simulate how light diffuses through materials or interacts with uneven textures, didn't exist (or was prohibitively expensive), so people had to adopt a style that worked well with the lack of diffusion and normals to make something look good back then. Nowadays, as it has been for a while, diffusion and normals are cornerstones of 3D texturing, animation, and rendering. Everyone is expected to use these technologies to increase the visual fidelity of their work. Such expectations didn't exist back then, hence the style-over-fidelity approach many artists took, which I think is pretty cool.
Good idea making this one in light of the upcoming mario rpg remake!
Buddy, I don’t know how these view counts aren’t in the millions. Your voice is so calming, and the thought you clearly put into this content goes beyond a lot of videos I see pushed to the top of my feed. So happy to cross paths with your channel and I look forward to seeing what you get down to! Cheers!
Booster’s Tower hands down is my favorite. The music is so good!
Oooh Star Hill that’s a great choice! I always forget about it because you just kinda randomly go there in the middle of the game without being prompted to by anyone (iirc). It’s a bit of a weird area because it kinda comes out of nowhere and has nothing Mario related in it, it feels out of place. I also find it weird that we can even go there to begin with. With all of its deep blues and the ground being made of meteors it feels like it should’ve been an area in space. With the last few areas taking us further and further up until we are in the sky I feel like it would’ve made more sense if we used the Lakitu bus to go there instead of a volcano. Maybe that was the original plan and things got switched around in development.
Sorry for my ramblings I never really thought about this area too hard until now and it just kinda realized why I find it so strange.
Traded so many Sega games for this one game in the early 90s and it was so worth it. "What was playing this game like back in the day?" I weep
I like the Mario Rabbids reference at 3:41 !
Super Mario RPG Legend of the seven stars. still top 4 snes games i own
"Mario and XCOM, I can't even imagine such a thing"...........ummmmmmmmmmm............Mario and Rabids.....?
The filter takes time to get used to, but it definitely makes the overall picture look better, these games were designed to be viewed like this.
Mario Xcom, isn't that what Mario + Rabbits is doing?
Rly wish you would have used both the old and remake to compare the cute spots, since the remake retains the artstyle for a lot of them.
I wanted to have this out before the new game, just to have complete coverage of the original game. And potentially leave an episode covering the remake as a possibility further down the line. I don't have any plans to cover the remake right now, but it'd be cool to compare them sometime in the future.
Diablo 2 next?
weird = cool
More CRT filter, please.
I've honestly gone super back and forth on it over the months, and I think my BIG problem, is that the particular filter I used kinda looks bad when the video is anything but fullscreen. I really like the filter while I'm playing the game and watching the video back at fullscreen, but in any other size/aspect ratio, it just looks kinda bad.
Another thing that was kinda holding me back, is that I can't really get a good filter set up in my video editing software. I want the filter to be not just on the gameplay, but the intro, outro, and any images I add in post to have the filter as well.
I think until I figure out a REALLY good one to add in post-production, I'll keep it with no filter.