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Full Let’s Play
Grand Block Journey is a traditional Mario experience with a twist. This older episode was developed in good ol’ version 1.3.0.1 of SMBX, but still holds up due to competent and clever stage design. It has a surprising amount going for it, but also a few notable drawbacks.
Let’s Talk About Assets!
These are mostly default for the time with only a handful of custom graphics. Nothing looks particularly out of place, except for maybe the enormous specters in a certain ghost house. The episode doesn’t customize its art style, so it remains consistent in a Mario All-Stars aesthetic. The new sprites generally fit in just fine, while some are edited for the episode’s purposes.
The music branches out more with songs from across the Mario series and some tunes from outside sources as well, both indie and commercial. I recognized a few tracks from Kirby, Pokémon, Hero Core, and Cave Story. This was nice since it helped to keep the episode from being too much of a vanilla experience.
Let’s Talk About Writing!
There is none! Not even an intro to set up the plot. The world lays before you and Mario explores it just because he can. Who needs a reason?!
Let’s Talk About Design!
This is where the real strength of the episode lies because it’s what the most emphasis was placed upon. While it starts out simple enough, it quickly branches out into ideas and gimmicks less often seen in your average Mario game. Stages are generally themed around a certain concept and develop it across the course. An early example is a stage haunted by Phantos where it periodically switches between times when they’re shown and hidden, so when the level goes dark, you have Phantos to dodge until it lights back up. In a late-game stage, a thunderstorm brews over watery terrain, electrifying the water with momentary lightning strikes. There are more familiar gimmicks as well, such as rising lava and tricky ghost houses. The episode has just enough variety to keep you on your toes.
There are five worlds and difficulty ramps up quickly, so the pacing isn’t too gradual and it could feel like the challenge spikes occasionally. Each world has secret exits and connects to a bonus world where stars can be found. The bonus world stages have a more exploratory bend, each with three stars to find in a larger environment. Each star requires a variety of methods to gather; solving puzzles, grabbing coins, and/or defeating monsters depending. Collecting all the stars unlocks one final area with its own series of challenges.
There are a couple recurring gimmicks across the game. Poison shrooms turn up more than anyone would like, but you can tell which boxes they come from because they have an altered animation: the question mark bobs side to side rather than circling the block. Some stages use time stop as a puzzle element, including with the drop box pocket watch. Yoshis and shoes are present, but contained, as stages are usually designed to prevent them from being kept. Shoes have had their pick-up properties removed so you can’t carry them through water. This really isn’t so bad since the game provides plenty of power-ups and 1-ups to work with. You can unlock bonus rooms that provide power-ups if you need additional support. It’s well-balanced for the challenge level.
Boss fights are handled with arena-style combat, sending waves of enemies for you to fend off. It doesn’t go overboard with them, but they are difficult in their own right. Foe placement between waves is indicated with glass circles so you know to get out of the way, though they’re usually placed somewhere you’re unlikely to be standing regardless. Each one ends with a sequence where you must get all the coins before a wave of lava annihilates the room. This wasn’t obvious to me at first; it’s indicated by fiery sound cues and the screen getting redder before time runs out. Even if you don’t get it initially, it becomes clear once it’s happened and you’ll know better for future encounters.
Holding all this back is the design choice to leave out checkpoints. While the stages are stocked enough for reasonable survival, there are definitely moments where checkpoints would’ve helped. This gripe is somewhat outdated since I played it a year ago and it seems the developer may have updated it since then, but having no checkpoints except for boss stages was a real bother in many circumstances. Here’s hoping they were judicious and merciful in adding more than a few.
Let’s Wrap This Up…
While this episode may not be as glitzy as its modern counterparts, I’d say it stands among them well with its innovative design. Working with what they had, the author pushed the boundaries of Mario mechanics to create challenging, deliberate scenarios. You can tell they knew what they were going for and executed upon it capably. I feel some parts are a bit too devious, but wouldn’t really call it unfair (excepting some trial and error moments), and it’s usually intuitive enough to figure out despite the lack of handholding. That’s the mark of a well-made episode in my book.
4/5
Run, run, before you’re well-done!
