Stretch Panic Linda

I like kinda taking these characters and making my own set with them. I just find Demonica and her area so inspiring for character design.

I just wish I had more sp content to eat from arrgghhh damn you extremely obscure and short game!

the return of demon linda

✨🍀Happy St. Patrick’s Day!🍀✨

From my favorite rebellious girls!

✨💚✨🪰🧣🤖✨😜😝🤪✨🍀🍻☘️✨💚✨

HIPPA LINDA!!

I've been so tired lately.

Misc game fanart stuff that I wanted to draw! Mostly Stretch Panic/Hippa Linda stuff! Also featuring Halloween (Poinie's Poin) and Jam (Snowboard Kids)!

From: Stretch Panic (aka Freak Out!/Hippa Linda)

Wario World review

Wario World has always been one of my least favorite GameCube Mario and Mario-adjacent titles. This might be in part because when I first got it, I bought it together with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Against that excellence, Wario World is pitiful indeed. Returning to Wario World as an adult, I no longer assess it as "bad." However, it is a shallow, simple game: run forward through a bland diorama world, beat things up, grab loot, defeat a boss. Each level has a distinct, usually dark theme, but most enemies are reskins. There is some Wario treasure hunting, but it feels tacked on more than core to the experience. The levels would be basically the same without these little side challenges the player can seek, even if Wario will be angry later on that you didn't nab the loot. The striking elements are the excellent music in the opening level, which is probably the most purely Wario tune ever (no wonder Wario Land: Shake It! features a reprise); the exceptionally grotesque and ugly bosses (a giant lizard in a bikini, a stiff green-skinned MC with gritted yellow teeth, an uncannily realistic but huge human head on a diminutive flying body); all of Wario's fun banter in the instruction booklet (how about putting some of that IN THE GAME?!); and the fun Charles Martinet voice clips. "Have a rotten day!"

But compared to the richness and innovation of other Mario franchise-related GameCube titles, such as Luigi's Mansion or Super Mario Sunshine, Wario World is lacking. For a game that opens with the man himself shouting "Welcome to Wario World!" there is not much Wario to this world. It does not feature familiar Wario iconography or series staples besides the fat man himself. Wario's castle is around, at least that is there. But we have no equivalent to the Gooms, Mask-Guys, or Spearheads who are the stock enemies in earlier Wario titles; no appearance of Captain Syrup, Wario's nemesis; none of the relatively complex puzzling and exploration that define the Wario Land series. Aside from the final level, an intricate raid of a mysterious pyramid in the Wario adventure tradition, Wario World feels like it could have been designed for just about any character, and Treasure happened to choose Wario near the end of development. In fact, the game Wario World most resembles through the soundtrack, graphical style, and oddly dark tone is the earlier 3D Treasure title Hippa Linda, AKA Stretch Panic, AKA Freak Out (though unlike Linda, Wario does not pinch any giant helicopter breasts). Even the narrative is similar: Linda's vain sisters are trapped in a morbid, ironic hell as a result of a cursed artifact; Wario is trapped in a morbid, ironic hell as a result of a cursed artifact.

Even the first Wario Land has a degree of nonlinearity, featuring environmental changes to earlier levels that reward the player for returning. The second Wario Land has a branching narrative structure with multiple endings depending on player choice. The third Wario Land has an even odder structure built around exploration of different pieces of an abandoned world for equipment that can allow further exploration of still more eerie spaces. The fourth has a more conventional structure, but every aspect of the presentation has been burnished to the limits of what the GBA allows. Wario World has no standout features. The mushy game has none of this exploration of surprise and also lacks the visual polish and strong "Wario-ness" of the two later more linear Wario platformers that followed it, Shake It! and Master of Disguise.

Wario World's predecessor Wario Land 4 emerges as the ultimate non-WarioWare Wario title of the early 2000s: Wario Land 4 is wildly innovative, with great graphics, technically impressive and artistically bizarre and dynamic music, a coherent emotional core with Shokora (surprisingly), and the more complex puzzle-solving and treasure-hunting exploration that defines the Wario series. It even features scary, grotesque bosses to match those in Wario World. There are dense, very memorable levels! The main enemies aren't just reskins! Cinematic cutscenes! Experimental albums! Wacky slapstick! Actual lyrical music on GBA!!! The pity is that, as a GBA title, Wario Land 4 comes off as somehow the lesser relative of Wario World, when in fact Wario World is easily the weakest Wario platformer (even if it doesn't make me pull my hair out in frustration like the original Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land).

Saturday,  24  June,  2023........ Warmup.........Bench & Arnold Press........32 Minute EMOM.

WE HAVE PLENTY OF WATER NOW.  THANKS!!

Warmup #1

Armando led us in a fun mobility/flexibility session.

Warmup #2

5  Minute EMOM

20  Light KBS

Robert doesn’t like KBS.

Strength

Bench Press:            5/ 5 / 5 / 5 / 5        Go From 60 To 75% 

SUPERSETS

Arnold Press:           5 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 5        ~Light Dumb Bells

Armando=225     Bernie=215      Ed=145     Tom/Coach=135     Timmy/Rodney=125     Warren A=100     Linda/Cheri=85     Joe/Carolyn=75     Sandy=65     Shannon=55      Sam D/Alicia/Robert=PJ

Metabolic Conditioner

32  Minutes Every Minute On the Minute

9 / 7  Calories Any ERG     +     10 Air Squats

15  Sit-Ups     (20 for the Elite 2nd class)

9 / 7  Calories Any ERG     +      8  Push-Ups

Jump Rope     30  Double  or  60  Single-Under’s

SCORE:     NONE

Notes:

I liked this WOD.  It is Totally unlike anything we have done before.  There was very little time to rest, and not much chit-chat was heard coming from Alicia, Cheri, and Sammy D.   Warning:  The site that I stole this from did it for 40 Minutes.  If you see this again, it will be different.

The girls made iced coffee for those who wanted it.  Several complained that we didn’t have warm home-made burrito’s like Armando made for us before.  These people are easily spoiled rotten.   Quote:   “If it’s a free gym, how can it be worth anything?”

Some of our girls have heard from Sick Sue, and they report she is getting better.  This is report is vague due to HIPPA.  My chief concern is for her safety and comfort, considering the sub-standard health-care she must be getting at home with Herb.  Herb told me he may have to start an IV on her.  HOLY MOSES!!!  If he does, it will be his first attempt since his Intern year at Chicago during the Truman administration.  He said he would try a few times and then call me.  He prolly only stole a dozen 14 gauge catheters from the hospital.  NOTE TO HERB AND OTHER INEXPERIENCED HEALTHCARE WORKERS:  14 gauge is at least 3 times too big.  

Sunday at 0730 and at 1 PM.  Your choice of which workout to attend may depend on the weather.  Check the hourly predictions.    

[Review] Wario World (GCN)

Wario Land staggers into the 3rd dimension.

Treasure are known primarily for two things: shmups and their Mega Drive action platformer titles. The latter parlayed into Michief Makers on the N64, which spotlighted two of their main strengths as seen in the likes of Gunstar Heroes: boss fights, and grabbing and throwing mechanics. Their first 3D game, the odd Hippa Linda on PS2, definitely leaned into these aspects; I haven't played it but it doesn't seem to have reviewed particularly well. Wario World then fits squarely in that legacy, ostensibly a showcase of these same strengths but so awkwardly handled that they become weaknesses.

On the surface it has the hallmarks of a Wario Land game: Wario's a bruiser who can pick up and chuck enemies, tick. He's hunting for secret areas, coins, and treasures, tick. He can use enemies and objects to interact with his environment, tick. There's required backtracking and mechanics seemingly designed just to waste the player's time, double tick! In adapting to 3D, there's more of a beat-em-up focus now which would be fine if the combat was enjoyable.

Wario has a basic punch combo which doesn't get you very far. Most of the time you're expected to stun an enemy, then grab them. From here you can imprecisely throw them, laboriously spin them, or simply piledrive them. Enemies often respawn almost instantly so there's no good reason to do this unless the level design requires you using one of these actions to proceed, or the game outright traps you into a forced fight. Moving Wario around feels zippy and slippery but the fighting itself is slow and your options are so limited that it never really broke through the tedium barrier for me. There's also only a few types of enemies, and most of the time you'll be slogging through the same faces just reskinned for new levels.

Your main objective in a level is to get red crystals to be able to leave. These are only found inside trapdoors leading to either puzzle rooms or Super Monkey Ball-esque platforming challenges. The controls aren't ideal for precision in these tasks, not to mention the very clunky camera. Most of the time you're looking in at levels diorama-style, which works well enough, but rooms like this open it up... it's fine for these contained sections, but I was glad the rest of the game was more rigid. Anyway, when you get to the end you're able (or possibly required) to return to the start if you didn't find enough stuff, Yoshi's Story style, to explore alternate paths or hidden spots. Aside from the trapdoors, you'll be looking for switches to spawn chests, health upgrades (you only get the boost if you find all the pieces within a level!), and the hint-giving Spritelings.

And speaking of characters who make annoying noises, Charles Martinet is out in full force as Wario with oft-repeated quips and what may be the worst pause screen in the world. The joke of him screeching at you is funny for about two seconds, and then it makes this menu unusable as a pause screen for the entirety of the game. Slow clap for that one. The use of voice clips is good for conveying Wario's personality, which otherwise is a bit let down by the oddly lifeless polygon-shifting animations on his 3D model. But to be fair, he does scratch his bum sometimes, which is pretty funny.

Each and every level ends with a boss fight. Well, OK, there's actually only eight levels—even fewer than Wario Land 4—but they're pretty substantial. Substantial enough that replaying them to get more treasures felt like a bridge too far for me. Anyway, add another boss for each of the four worlds and the final fight, and you have 13 boss fights in all. Some of them have good concepts and fun designs but frequently I found them dragging, overstaying their welcome with repeated patterns. The final boss—an uncharismatic jewel with tentacles—is the worst offender, its boring, padded fight a shockingly weak way to close out proceedings.

Although there's only eight levels, each one has its own well-established setting, from forest ruin to creepy circus to sandy pyramid (this one had the best level design for exploring & backtracking). You can also play them in any order, which is interesting if kind of pointless. The worldbuilding is a bit half-arsed though, as all these environments were just magicked up out of Wario's basement by the evil gem. Actually collecting the collectibles could be more rewarding too; treasures unlock Warioware minigames only playable on a connected GBA, Spritelings are the only thing that determine your ending jpg, and coins are used solely for recovering health or continuing after a game over.

I was hoping Wario World would be a hidden gem of Treasure's hoard, but what I got was an unpolished stone. On paper they seem like a good fit for a new Wario adventure in 2003, but perhaps their inexperience with 3D led to this mediocre result. They don't seem to have made another game like it since, either. Wario World is certainly not all bad, but it really should have been a lot better than this.

Stretch Panic / Hippa Linda (PS2)

For some reason, I decided it was time to make more Stretch Panic fanart, to please 13 year old me.

sibling rivalry

Stretch Panic merch??!!! In my 2022??!!

Found from here