The Retro Metro #1: Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!

I am writing about a game arguably weirder than even the ones my peers write about, because it is old (from 1987), it is for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the version I have isn’t even available digitally (but more on that later). You probably are wondering why I play a game from 30 years ago. Simply put, it’s a thing called retro gaming whereby people, especially adults who were kids when these games came out, play old video games for fun on systems that random companies make specifically for these people.

Storyline/Plot

            Basically, in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, you play a boxer named Little Mac, who has to fight a bunch of people in multiple tourneys until he gets to the Heavyweight Champion of the World, Mike Tyson. You box, and then, hopefully, you win. That’s it, nothing fancy.

Controls

If you’ve ever seen an NES controller, you know it’s a rectangle—control pad on the left, then SELECT, START, B, and A (in left-to-right order). You have the perspective of being behind and above Mac, who is much shorter than his opponents. To punch, press B for right body, A for left, and combine these with Up to do head punches. You can dodge attacks with Left and Right, and can block with Down. Select does nothing, and Start causes you to perform the super uppercut which requires a star (which I will explain). Sadly, there is no pause function, so you have to wait until the end of one of the fight’s 3 three-minute rounds or the end of the fight itself if you want to be able to leave for a short time.

Gameplay

To win, you must KO your opponent—either by knocking him to the floor so that he does not get up and the count ends, or knocking him down thrice in a round. (If you are at all confused with boxing terminology, watch the end of Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, or Rocky Balboa.) Both you and an opponent have a health bar; when it drops to zero, you or the opponent are knocked down, or KO’d. Mac can recover by rapidly pressing A and/or B, but this only works well the first two times. When you can’t recover, you lose. (You do have two extra “lives,” but if you lose a second time, you are ranked down in the tournament.) You also have hearts. When you are hit, you lose hearts (less if you block). Once you have zero hearts, Mac turns purple, and can’t punch or block for a time (probably about ten seconds, but I don’t actually know). You also have stars, which you earn them by punching an opponent at a specific time (which changes with each opponent), and, when you have them, can press Start to do a super uppercut. This takes time to charge, however, which can leave you vulnerable.

Characters, Graphics, and Music

Your opponents are all stereotypical people from the capital of their country. Mike Tyson, however, is a real boxer from the time period, whose punches are instant knockouts during the first 90 seconds of the fight. The graphics are pretty good for a NES game, and each character plays a musical “theme” at the beginning of your first round with them, which are pretty cool. The regular, in-fight music is pretty monotonous.

Saving

While this is an NES game, there is a password-based saving system—after you beat a tournament, you get a password that you enter at the game’s title screen to start there. This allows you save, and also to cheat, since you can just Google the passwords and skip ahead.

Wrapping It Up

Now that you know a lot about Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, you probably want to know how to get it. You can either buy the cartridge on Amazon, or purchase it in the eShop on the Nintendo 3DS/WiiU. The cartridge requires you to have an NES or retro system. A commonly bought one (and the one I have) is called a Hyperkin Retron. You can buy one from either Amazon or Game Craze for less than $100. If you buy the game on the eShop, it is slightly different. It is, alas, just Punch-Out!!

You see, Nintendo’s ability to use Mike Tyson as a character was temporary, so after the time was up they re-released Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! as just Punch-Out!!, and replaced Tyson with the fictional Mr. Dream.

 

The Shield: Issue #35 Out!

Welcome to the thirty-fifth issue of the Shield!

 

As you might expect for a pre-break issue, what you’re getting here is all over the place. There’s a review of a classic graphic novel, there’s some literary works (prose and poetry!), there’s a little of music and video games, there’s even some sports, and since the Morales decided to go on hunger strike (you do not want to know), MoralEats needed a replacement, and found a very able one!

Oh, and I am authorized to say, without any exaggeration or distortion, that if you are interested in photographs that are complete trash, boy, have you come to the right issue. Do not refuse to check out the refuse in our artwork department. It’s something out of this world. Or out of a bin. Who knows.

This issue, the Shield welcomes new member Hugo Keith ’18, who plans on telling us all how good music was before the young whippersnappers ruined it all.

Enjoy!

In this issue:

Artwork

• These Photographs Are Garbage (Ben Olyer ’16)

Comics

• V for Vendetta (Aidan Hood ’19)

Fiction

• Faranorth Chronicles: Part 7 (Frederick Rion ’19)

Food

• DimitrEats: The Winking Lizard Tavern (Dimitri Kokkinis ’16)

Music

• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Hugo Keith ’18)
• untitled unmastered. (Will Scheuerman ’17)

Poetry

• Our Suffering Savior (Kidane Malik ’19)
• 100-Word Poems: “Glass” & “Dreams” (Lewis Nazarian ’19)

Sports

• Rowing Is Not Your Average Sport, Part Two: The Race (Parker Grobe ’18)

Video Games

• Rhythm Heaven/Rhythm Heaven Fever (Adam Daughton ’19)
• Ry-Guy Archives #6: Kirby, Kirby, Kirby Copy Abilities (Ryan Murphy ’16)

From the Publisher

We’re always looking for new writers – sports, technology, video games, news, what have you, we’d be glad to have you on board! Just drop us a line. Any and all questions about becoming part of the staff, submitting an article, or the Shield in general, can be directed to the strange creature that lives in Room 252 and answers to “the Morales.”

Until next time, this is the Shield.

Hundred-Word Poems #1: “Glass” & “Dreams”

For the next couple weeks, I’ll be putting in two poems I wrote, each clocking in at about a hundred words. Without further ado:

GLASS

Always moving, never seen,
hyper-viscous, liquefied.
Have it cut you, always mean,
always see the other side

Wash a window, make it clean;
mud is splattered, well, you tried.
From what’s it made? You try to see,
Why, it’s just sand electrified.

What once was gritty, abrasive, rough,
is now the smoothest to the touch.
How hard you try, it’s not enough
to have something transform that much.

Beads and marbles, bulbs of light,
brighten, lighten up the day.
Screens of television might
reveal what news anchors want to say.

Pretty be it, it poisons so
as though an Aconitum’s sting.
See, when broken, all in stone’s throw,
are covered with sharp shards cutting.

See, every upside has a down.
Perfection, in this world of mine;
When reached for, you find people frown
for perfection’s just a state of mind.

Dreams

The worlds collide
As eyelids do
When one begins to dream,
The place you thought
You lived in is
No longer what it seems.

Where up is down
and left is right,
snakes fly and birds can crawl,
the dream world is
unlike what’s real;
can’t comprehend at all.

It seems so real
but so bizarre;
subconscious takes control,
truly the brain’s
a fickle thing
with such an imaginative soul.

Look! You can fly!
You’re being chased!
At school, wait, where’s your pants?!
Then alarms go off;
your fun is done.
So please, dream, while you can.

 

The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Saying something new about Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band went out of style in 2003, when it was voted best album of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. The album, which is supposed to have defined the psychedelic era and pioneered the concept that rock-and-roll could be artistically significant, may, in fact, be almost all hype. Wasn’t Rubber Soul catchier? Wasn’t Revolver more psychedelic? For a concept album, doesn’t Sgt. Pepper lack a concept? What the hell are they wearing? And, most importantly, does the album live up to its hype?

In August of 1965, the Beatles were exclusively a pop band. They catered mostly to “teenyboppers,” the name given to the mindless, sugar-coated, pop-culture-consuming youth of the 1960s. By 1967, they weren’t playing live at all and their songs were being banned from the BBC for drug references. In two years, it seemed like they had gone from an immature, if incredibly popular, pop band, to full-blown artists.

Their 1965 album, Rubber Soul, was a big step forward. The Beatles, thanks to their friend Bob Dylan, had begun regular use of marijuana and were beginning to expand their artistic horizons. Their producer, George Martin, said about the album:

“We had been making albums rather like a collection of singles. Now we were really beginning to think about albums as a bit of art on their own.”

Still, every song on the album is about romance and they only deviate from their guitar/guitar/bass/drums format once, when they incorporate a sitar into “Norwegian Wood.”

1966’s Revolver is where everything changed. The group was coming to the realization that live performances were not doing their musical ambitions justice, and decided to operate exclusively out of their studio. And from that studio came great things. The Beatles worked hard to shed their “pop music” label by incorporating drug-induced tape loops, odd sound effects and a wide variety of instruments not traditionally associated with rock music into these fourteen tracks. Their song topics range from the political (“Tax Man”) to the psychedelic (“Love You To,” “She Said She Said,” “Tomorrow Never Knows”), to the just-plain-weird (“Eleanor Rigby,” “Yellow Submarine”). And the few love songs that do make it onto the LP are, frankly, beautiful (“Here, There, and Everywhere,” “For No One”).

After Revolver, The Beatles receded from the public eye and stopped touring to create the monolithic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rolling Stone magazine writes:

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the most important rock & roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock & roll group of all time. From the title song’s regal blasts of brass and fuzz guitar to the orchestral seizure and long, dying piano chord at the end of “A Day in the Life,” the 13 tracks on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band are the pinnacle of the Beatles’ eight years as recording artists. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were never more fearless and unified in their pursuit of magic and transcendence.”

First of all, the concept of this album is apparent on four of these thirteen tracks, to be generous. And could we even call it a concept? The Beatles dress up like lunatics and pretend to be a novelty band that’s “been going in and out of style but guaranteed to raise a smile.” Some popular albums with a more cohesive concept include Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, The Who’s Quadrophenia, and Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city. In terms of sound, George Martin’s corny sound effects begin to sound quite grating fifty years after their innovative inclusion on the record (see “Good Morning”), and nobody could say that the band was at its most collaborative in ’67. Ringo Starr’s main reflection on the composition of the album:

“The biggest memory I have of Sgt. Pepper … is I learned to play chess.”

Still, Sgt. Pepper does have an undeniable importance. Corny and grandiose as it is, the album had a large impact on the world of rock and roll. It introduced the concept of a rock album being something transcendent. The album cannot be summed up in one or two genre labels. Every song is different from the last, pushing the boundaries of what rock is and is not. The opener is a straightforward rocker with crowd noises and the sound of a pit orchestra tuning up. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is pure psychedelia. “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” is circus music. “Within You Without You” is a five minute sitar jam. “When I’m Sixty-Four” is a Sinatra-esque music-hall tune. And the closer, “A Day in the Life,” is one of the more complex songs the Beatles ever did and quite possibly their best.

All of this does not make Sgt. Pepper the “greatest album of all time,” though. This holds true for all music that anybody has a deep emotional attachment to, but there is something inexplicable about the album that makes it so beloved. The album hasn’t secured its number one spot on all those lists of “greatest albums” purely because of its innovations. If “classic” albums were selected only by this factor, then Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music (an album composed entirely of clanging machinery noises by the former Velvet Underground leader) would be a lot more popular than it should be. While it would be impossible to speak to everybody’s emotional attachment to the album, simply put, Sgt. Pepper is the sound of pure, unmitigated joy.

How much we like something, particularly a piece of music, comes from not only the quality of it, which is subjective, but how well we can put our emotions and feelings into it, and how the music reflects them. Therefore, for an album to be considered good, people must listen to it and essentially pour their heart out. If one can do this and the music lets them feel good about it, then, typically, one might consider that music to be good. The unmitigated joy of Sgt. Pepper has clearly allowed many people to have this experience.

At six o’clock in the morning, after the Beatles finished their new album, sometime in May of 1967, the sound of music filled King’s Road in Chelsea, London. It was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, being played at full volume, with speakers placed in the open window frames. The residents of the neighborhood opened their windows and listened, without complaint, to what may be, for some odd reason inside of us, the greatest album of all time.

These Photographs Are Absolute Garbage

“Crumpled Thunder, Hear My Sigh”

“Peanut M&Ms”

“Red Bull, Run Over”

“Yellowcap”

“Very Sticky”

“Cutlery”

“I Got 3 My Coke Rewards Points From This”

“Full Foam Jacket”

“Not a Safe Alternative”

“Alien Device”

“Cream Cheese”

“Abs”

“Filthy Fork”

“Dragon Simulator”

“Relic of Gang Violence”

“Cap”

“Lip Grease”

“Sticker”

“Assorted Burnt Trash”

“Inferior Soda”

Review: V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta is a graphic novel published in 1988 by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd and Tony Weare. It is full of symbolism, open to various interpretations and, despite its age, it has messages that still apply today.

V is set in a fascist Britain after a nuclear war destroyed current governments. The comic (and movie) are most well known for the seminal Guy Fawkes mask worn by V, the vigilante protagonist; however, although V’s story is important to the overall plot, the comic juggles the stories of many characters. This ensures that the reader sees this unique setting from all sides, and, although it takes time to establish the personalities of all these characters, they all have arcs of their own that make sense by the end. The dialogue is a highlight, with each character having not just their own voice, but a voice that changes throughout the story. This is complemented by the art, which, though occasionally dated, provides a certain roughness to the story’s setting.

All that said, what sets V for Vendetta apart is how many ways it can be interpreted. Of these, three stand out in particular.

The first looks at the story the way it was written, as a warning to a world barely out of the Cold War. In this interpretation, the story is a grim warning of what could have been. It also serves as a tale about fascism as a whole in a world that had already seen the rise and fall of things like the Nazi Party. It shows how a party like that comes to power, but also its flaws and, in a way, its inevitable downfall. Moore also took things farther by showing what everyday life would be like within this regime. V has the censored media depicting people of color as villains, the government eliminating all art from the pre-fascist world, placing people under constant surveillance, tolerating and encouraging corrupt officials, and the people simmering in rage.

The second looks at V with a modern lens and analyzes how it applies to today’s world. This is notable in the Norsefire government’s use of propaganda. In V’s world, posters supporting “unity and purity” cover the streets and people speak in hyperbole about the responsibility of every man to “make Britain great again.” This speaks to us now, as we enter an election full of media coverage and bold proclamations (though we’ll avoid specifics). Furthermore, V‘s world has “resettlement camps” for people of color, different sexuality, and non-Christian religions. This is obviously referring to concentration camps, but in our world, where politicians are calling for a database of Muslim citizens and that they carry ID badges, it fits as well.

The third interpretation, which is much less politically charged, is that V for Vendetta (at least early on) follows the formula of a slasher film from the ’70s and ’80s. It introduces a group of people, then a man in a mask, and then the man in the mask proceeds to kill off those people over time. The metaphor does not last the entire book, but it is interesting to think about.

Though all of these interpretations and its themes of anarchy and moral ambiguity make V for Vendetta a classic graphic novel, it does have flaws. For example, due to the racism of the setting, many of the lead characters are Caucasian men. When coupled with the aforementioned slightly dated art, all of these characters start to blend together by the end. Nor is V for Vendetta a good read for someone looking for action and mystery. The action is more of the tense and slowly-building type, and the mystery is more in the motivations of the characters than in discovering what V looks like under the mask.

However, these flaws barely detract from an engaging read with multiple layers and mature themes that do not pull punches.

Rhythm Heaven (DS) and Rhythm Heaven Fever (Wii)

This is a fun one. Rhythm Heaven is a rhythm game series. (Just going to let that sink in.) Unlike popular rhythm games that involve fingering instruments, tapping buttons in certain locations at certain times, or sliding circles across paths with inhuman precision (I still love you, Cytus), or singing, Rhythm Heaven is very straight forward. In the DS games, the only commands used are tapping the touch screen, holding, and sliding. That is all you do. Rhythm Heaven Fever has even easier controls. You press or hold A. Sometimes, you press B at the same time as you press A. That is it. No third hand is necessary. No expensive instruments are necessary. All you need is a natural inability to notice input lag and the appropriate console. Such simplistic controls forces the game developers to be creative. They certainly were.

I am likely to spend more time talking about Rhythm Heaven Fever, as have played it far more than the DS game. However, the DS game is easily Fever‘s equal.

Fever begins with the Rhythm Test. I am almost certain that the Rhythm Test exists solely to rid your senses of the terrible lag between beginning to depress the button and the button being fully depressed that comes with any game in which the buttons on a controller are used. After the Rhythm Test, you are plunged into Hole in One, where various simians throw golf balls, and you have to time your swings to get unrealistically good shots. Other games worthy of mentioning are Board Meeting, in which you play with a revolving chair and must stop spinning at the right time, and Donk-Donk which, according to the game, is “hard to explain.” It features characters that are officially called “Uh… these guys?”

Generally, the game progresses as follows: you play ten regular games and then a remix of those ten games, in which all the games you just played are compiled. During remixes, the player must react to or memorize the sudden changes between games. The infamous Remix 10 in Rhythm Heaven Fever is worth checking out; it, as well as its DS counterpart, combines every single game up to that point for a total of thirty different games in one remix. Watching perfect runs of Remix 10 will amaze you at how little life the player has. Players pass games by successfully landing 70% of inputs and earn medals for games by landing 90%. I have all the medals in Rhythm Heaven Fever, because I hated myself enough to suffer through Love Rap 2 for three straight hours.

If you really hate yourself, though, go for 100%. Occasionally, a “perfect chance” will appear on a game. You then have three tries to have a perfect run of that game. I always miss the last input. Every time. Every chance. While you are playing a potential perfect run, “Go for a Perfect!” flashes in the corner of the screen. It makes a crashing sound if you miss an input so that, if you are able to control your screams of agony, others will still be able to hear how much of a failure you are. I have invested far too much time in these games, and you should, too. They are under-exposed and are quite good. Please, don’t let me suffer alone.

Any rage or other emotion regarding this article may be directed to the comment section below, or dodongoknight64@rochester.rr.com. I’ll probably answer you. Maybe.

Faranorth Chronicles: Part 7

Merrick followed Adeline as they crept beside the row of boxes. They stopped at the end of the row, and slid quietly to the ground. They propelled themselves on their bellies across the open space, nearly undetectable in the dull light of the nearby fires.

Once they reached another large box, the two sat with their backs to it. Adeline untied a small pouch from her belt. She handed it to Merrick.

“Sprinkle some of this in the provisions,” she hissed. “It’s non-lethal poison. It’ll make ‘em ill for days.”

Merrick took the pouch and crabbed away. He lightly lifted the lid off one box and tossed some poison in. He worked down the row, placing a little poison in each. On his seventh box, he heard a jangle of equipment. He pressed himself into the deep shadow that the boxes provided.

Merrick stood stock-still, barely breathing, with his left hand resting on his dagger. A man’s shadow peeked past his left foot. He heard a cough, a low grumble, and then the shadow slid away.

Merrick relaxed. Damn, that was close, he thought. I’ll need to be more careful.

Suddenly Merrick’s mind jumped to Adeline. She would have her back turned to the guard. Merrick tried to quell his fears. She’ll be fine, he soothed himself unconvincingly. She’s ten times better and more experienced at this then you. But the fear wouldn’t leave.

Merrick clambered onto one of the boxes, sliding himself across. Immediately he saw her, crouched low over a box, surreptitiously pouring poison in. Next he saw the bandit, raising his wooden cudgel to slam it into her head. Merrick sprinted forward, drawing his dagger as he went. He crashed into the rough-looking man, clamping his gloved hand over his face, and stabbing at his chest with the dagger.

Merrick’s dagger slid easily past the man’s patchwork armor, and stuck into his gut. The man flailed violently, swinging his empty fists at Merrick’s face. Adeline dove forward and pinned the man’s arms. She drew her own dagger, sliding it across the frenzied beast’s neck. The two young people sat there, catching their breath.

“Thanks,” Adeline said quietly. Merrick only nodded. The fear from earlier had not entirely left him.

Adeline opened another box. Empty.

Together they stuffed the corpse into the box. They put the cudgel, which would not fit, in a dark recess between two of the boxes.

“How many did you get?” Merrick inquired, his voice barely audible.

“Ten or twelve.” Adeline answered with the same secrecy, “You?”

“About seven.”

“Slacker.”

“I was a bit busy saving your life.”

“You almost got caught, didn’t you?”

“Did I now?”

“Yeah, especially considering how you knew I was going to be in trouble.”

“That was just intuition.”

“I’m not hearing a definite ‘no.’”

A great plume of fire erupted to their north. The duo froze.

From the treeline, they heard Larson cooing furiously. He was signaling a retreat, and there was only one reason for retreat. Someone was dead, injured, or captured. The two locked eyes, then turned to run for the tree line. They saw another fire begin to rage among the tents. That meant that Vidar’s team had successfully withdrawn, and used an arrow to light the fire.

“Hey,” a voice bellowed, “Stop those two!”

 Projectiles whizzed past Merrick and Adeline as they ran. Somehow they reached the treeline unscathed. They leapt and pulled themselves into the relative safety of the branches.

Behind them was a string of bandits, all shouting and brandishing their weapons. Larson stood on another branch, bow drawn, sending arrow after arrow into the crowd.

A spear caught him in the shoulder, and he plummeted to the forest floor. The bandits surged around him, covering his broken body. Adeline and Merrick sat on the branch, stunned. The mob left, dragging the bloodied corpse behind them like some kind of trophy. In the center of the camp, a small group of figures had gathered. Even from this distance, it was easy to spot the massive bulk of Oison and the fact that one of the gathered floated in the air. The third figure, who could only be Vince, stood over a kneeling man.

Merrick heard a sharp intake of breath from Adeline. The prisoner was Mick.

“Listen, and listen good!” Vince boomed. “I know there are more of you out there. I want you to watch while I kill your friend!”

The bandit leader drew his sword and held it above his head. Merrick and Adeline watched as Mick’s head thudded to the ground.

They stood silently in a circle. Of the fifteen who had assaulted the bandit camp, only eight had returned. None of Mick’s team had returned, Larson’s corpse had been taken, and another three had gone missing from the other two groups. The only one not to lose a man was Vidar.

Even for those who had returned, it had been a near thing. Roving hordes of bandits had been sent out, armed with iron blades and golden fire, perusing the shadows for those who escaped. After an hour of running, the eight who remained had met back at the small clump of greenery, tired and shocked.

Finally Vidar shifted and spoke.

“We should report back,” he said, his heart crawling into his chest. “The others must know what happened.”

Everyone nodded their agreement, but no one moved. A few minutes dragged by.

Vidar voiced the need to leave once more. Still no one moved. Time slipped by again.

Vidar asked once more. This time one stood up and motioned for him to lead the way.

They jumped into the dead night air. The rest followed in their own pairs.

Soon, it was just Merrick and Adeline and silence. Eons passed in that room of leaves and wood, with neither wanting to make the first move.

Finally, Merrick broke the stalemate.

“We should go,” he whispered, without any real conviction.

Adeline nodded but didn’t move. Hesitantly, Merrick put his hand on her shoulder and led her towards the leafy wall. They put their masks on then stared at the green veneer. Adeline let out a sigh, which seemed to shudder up and down her spine. Then she, too, abandoned Merrick for the sour night air.

“Never again, damn it,” Merrick whispered. “Never again.”

Then the living bunker was empty.

Rowing Is Not Your Average Sport, Part Two: The Race

Now that I’ve explained the basic premise of rowing in my previous article, it is now time to talk about the actual races.

There are primarily two lengths of race in the USA: 5,000-6,000-meter races in the fall, and 2,000-meter races in the spring.

Most races, regardless of season, have four major parts, but the beginning is different depending on the season. Fall races are time trials, with rolling starts, where boats are sent one at a time onto the course. Spring races, on the other hand, have head-to-head starts from small docks, or just line the boats up at a single point.

Spring is much more competitive. You already push yourself based on the other boats, but now you can hear and see those boats – if only out of the corners of your eyes, because you should be looking forward. Plus, spring has you start from no movement, sitting ready at the catch. This is nerve-wracking because the countdowns can be cut and are often sudden.

In the beginning, many crews do some kind of sequence, such as a “power ten,” where the boat rows extra hard for ten strokes.

After the beginning, the first half of the race proceeds normally, after which crews usually perform a “middle move,” such as another “power ten,” a two-member technique called a “focus ten,” or something else. The second half is where the pressure to pass other boats builds.

And then there’s the sprint, the last part, possibly the largest adrenaline rush in the entire race. This is where the coxswain calls for a build in power and a final sprint, screaming through the headset while his calls are carried through the boat by speakers.

During the sprint, the boat crew greatly increases power and rate, and races can be and are won or lost in these final moments. I have gone to Scholastic Nationals and seen boats tens of meters behind catch up in the very last seconds of the spring.

The only thing I can compare to a boat sprinting is flying. The boat is moving so quickly, and the oars are pushing so forcefully on the water, that the boat actually rises out of the water, and to row as one with so many other, to move together that quickly, is invigorating. You feel as if nothing can stop you.

Ry-Guy Archives #6: Kirby, Kirby, Kirby Copy Abilities

Hello yello, and welcome to another issue of Ry-Guy Archives!

First of all, I finally have a logo to go with my title! You may have been wondering why I call myself “Ry-Guy.” Now you know that . . . it’s a stupid pun involving my name. The more you know!

Anyway, on to the main event. This issue is going to be a little different, because instead of a review or a soundtrack shout-out, I’m doing a top 10 list of sorts. After watching the most recent Nintendo Direct, and seeing the brand new Kirby game announced, I’ve had the pink puffball on my mind quite a bit, and I had the idea of talking about some of my favorite abilities Kirby has copied throughout the series. Before I begin, though, it’s important to note a few things. First of all, I haven’t played every Kirby game out there, and some games I haven’t played in a while, so some abilities may not be on the list because I don’t know about them or because I haven’t used them thoroughly. Second of all, this list does not include Super Abilities from Kirby’s Return to Dreamland or the combo abilities from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, because, let’s be honest, they’d make up the entirety of the list. With these rules out of the way, let’s get started!

Also, read each ability in the voice of Meta Knight from Kirby, Right Back Atcha!

10. Wheel

Who doesn’t love going fast through a level? With Wheel Kirby, speed runs are a breeze, and I just love the satisfaction of running through any enemy standing in the way. The only major downside to this is battling bosses, and the slight lack of control that can ultimately lead to an unpredictable death.

9. Ghost

Ever wanted to play as any enemy from a Kirby game? With Ghost Kirby, you can possess the body of any enemy unfortunate enough to be in your way, then beat up all their friends with that enemy’s attacks. Like Waddle Dees! Oh wait . . . they don’t ever attack. Well, aren’t you merciless now? Think of it like Pokémon!

8. UFO

This is the rarest and most powerful of all of Kirby’s normal abilities. It’s like a mix between Beam Kirby, Laser Kirby, and Cupid Kirby. You have infinite flying power, and charging your lasers can break through any wall in the way. Its biggest weakness? It can’t go through platforms or even down ladders!

7. Ninja

Let’s be honest, we’ve all at some point in our lives wanted to be ninjas. They’re just the coolest things! Quick attacks, stealthy movement, and awesome costumes! Kirby is one cute assassin.

6. High Jump

Despite having infinite jumps in the game, for some reason I love using this ability. First of all, the costume is adorable, with a little cape strapped to Kirby’s back. More importantly, though, this ability is just so much fun! You can control Kirby as he blasts off, soaring right through enemies and leaping very high in just one jump. Think of it as a vertical Wheel Kirby. It controls better too!

5. Throw

I couldn’t believe this was an ability at first, but it proved to be another really fun one! The look of despair on the faces of enemies when you’ve grabbed them and the sheer fun of chucking them through obstacles never gets old. Here’s a tip: when held, the enemy does damage from behind. Try that against a boss sometime, you’ll finish them instantly.

4. Water

I’ve always wanted to see a water ability in a Kirby game, and when it finally happened, it became one of my favorites. Moving around is fun, the moves are powerful and creative, and it’s handy with puzzles. Nothing too special about this one, but it lived up to my expectations.

3. Needle

This is an odd ability, but I love its use and design. As a more defensive option, it really helped me out in Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland. The animation is one of my favorites, with a whole array of spines popping out of Kirby’s body. The design intrigues me, and I don’t know why.

2. Hammer

This one is a favorite of mine, probably because of how much I love King Dedede. He’s my favorite video game character of all time, so it’s only fitting that I adore his playstyle so much. The hammer packs a whole lot of power, while also being able to solve almost every problem. When Dedede is an available playable character, I’d much rather play as him, but the hammer is a fun ability nonetheless.

1. Fighter

This ability has come in handy in so many Kirby games I’ve played it had to be number one. The variety of moves you can pull off, the speed, and the fun you have when using Fighter Kirby cannot be beaten. It’s one of the most generic of all the abilities, but definitely stands out as my ultimate favorite.

Each ability Kirby comes across is very fun to play around with, and there are so many other choices I had to think about before making this list. This is what makes the Kirby series so unique, and I am very excited to see what Kirby Planet Robobot is capable of doing with the new mech suits and their abilities.

Until next time, this has been the Ry-Guy, saying “(insert the sound of a Shy Guy here)!”

(Wow, that actually makes sense now, huh?)