Review Information
Game Reviewed Nintendo vs. Everyone Else, by Zorak
Review Author Vitiman
Created Jul 13 2021, 5:03 AM

General Commentary and Game Overview
My goodness, how was it that I never got around to reviewing this game yet? "Nintendo vs. Everyone Else" is legendary. It was one of those cornerstone fangames from my adolescence that bluntly threw everything that a fangame could be directly into my face. I can't begin to tell you how much I love this silly, bizarre, and... objectively pretty undercooked little game!

Oh, where to begin... okay, so you see who made that? Zorak? Yes, that's Zorak as in "Zorak the Great", a very early internet alias of Press Start, the maker of Super Mario Storm! Which is also a fangame I love a lot! I don't know why the old CMS opts to keep old usernames like that, but it does, and it probably will. So that's a weird quirk, right? Anyway, Press Start made this bizarre fever dream of a fangame a long, long time ago. Probably 20 years ago! Fueled almost entirely of his many video game loves - as well as a more-than-passing homage to a classic surrealist TV show - the man sought to create the Nintendo fangame to end all Nintendo fangames.

Truly, it's Nintendo versus Everyone Else.
 
Pros - Hilarious, almost unequaled in its comedic content per capita
- The sprite clash is out of this world. Yeah, that's a pro. Wanna fight about it?
- I love love love the MIDI choices here. It's all too off-the-wall and that's what makes it brilliant
- Implements probably the most halfway stable character selection mechanic I've ever seen in an old fangame
- Through all of its glitches, manages to be one of the more charming old school fangames
- I could go on, but I'll cap it off there
 
Cons - Like I said in the overview at the top, "objectively pretty undercooked"
- The RPG World boss with Sailor Moon is a bit unforgiving, especially if you don't know what works best
- The final stretch of the game isn't /quite/ as memorable as everything leading up to it, but oh well - what can you do?
 
Impressions
Gameplay
7 / 10
"Nintendo vs. Everyone Else" is quite an ambitious fangame for its time. It utilizes a very crafty cheat-y method of multiple characters and gameplay styles to a surprisingly enjoyable extent. You can't change characters between levels (and are thus stuck with whoever you picked at the start), which if anything lends the game to some unique replay value. I'd love to place that in the "Replay Value" section but you guys trashed that like a year ago without telling anyone. Oh well! So it goes here instead.

Anyway, so the gameplay is pretty unique. That's nice, but not if it doesn't function well. Well it DOES! I mean, not like... amazingly well. And you'll run across more than a few glitchy areas, but Press Start was smart here. He knew when not to push it too far with the physics and game elements. You're not gonna see anything overly ambitious here... with one exception (I'll get to that). That's what I like about this old, half-assed game: it isn't just heart, it's actually kind of fun to play still? I mean, that doesn't even add up, right? But here we are.

So... about that exception. There's an RPG World, where you help Marth from Fire Emblem take on... Sailor Moon, for some reason. Yes, of all the non-Nintendo RPG figureheads, I definitely think of Sailor Moon - the anime heroine. Well, in the name of the moon, this boss fight will certainly punish you! Unfairly so, in fact. Like your future daughter tumbling from a time portal on top of you, you probably won't see this brutal passage coming in this otherwise-breezy game. Yes, I'm afraid the Death Busters will be hot on your trail for even attempting it. You see, Press Start oversteps his boundaries perhaps the only singular time in the game and tries to code an ambitious (and terribly, terribly lopsided) turn-based fight. Well, I say "turn-based" but it's not really? It's more like... having to wait for your turn to chuck an attack, while Sailor Moon kind of just does it on a fixed cycle. It's probably a counter that keeps resetting, if I were to take a wild guess.

Eventually over the years, I was finally able to figure out what to do and avoided the terrible fate of being... I dunno, mind-controlled by my own father who's also being mind-controlled. What happens when you lose at old fangames? I'm willing to bet it's something like that. I'd have my own little toy room. It would be beautiful.

Overall, what I like about this game is that it's just the right amount of old school jank to be amusing, but largely (with an exception, wink wink) devoid of the kind of jank that makes you angry as heck and delete every file related to it. "Mario in Space" this is not. And that's a good thing.
 
Graphics
10 / 10
This game foregoes the kitchen sink. This game IS the kitchen sink. This game is every goddamn graphic clashed into one, atrocious singularity of clash. This game does not have an art style so much that its art style is "having no art style". This game isn't mimicking 8-bit or 16-bit or 32-bit or even 64-bit. It's just a variety of various vicious bits of varying bites. This game has no unifying continuity of any visual identity and this remains ironically pretty consistent throughout a playthrough.

And I love all of it. It's beautiful. It's simply divine.
 
Sound
9 / 10
The sounds and music are of-the-era, certainly... but the choices are off-the-wall, and it's amazingly catchy. Not much else to say here except that it's pretty dang wonderful. Check it out for yourself - you'll probably laugh at least a little bit at the sight of a depressed Crash Bandicoot scooting off in his go-kart to a one-instrument rendition of the Mario underground music. That's just hilarious.
 
Final Words
7 / 10
An amazingly charming and funny game that, while not for everyone, is still a joy to play if you're the right kind of person. It might even surprise you in how well it's held up with time. Give "Nintendo vs. Everyone Else" a try and see just how bizarre fangames can get - I know that it's inspired me a significant amount over the years.

Comments
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Q-Nova
Jul 17 2021, 3:43 AM
Great review! Yeah, this game is very original and really fun to play! In retrospect, I might have actually been too harsh with my review. At first glance, these old fangames may seem very cheap. After playing so many of them, however, a lot of them are actually very creative, pretty fun, and funny! I've discovered gems like Yoshi vs. Windows, Mario's Mansion, Super Mario PC (the French one), Mario vs Luigi 2, and Toad Strikes Back (the prototype -- the full game is also really good and has a lot of the oldschool fangame charm, but I played that much earlier)! I'm sure there's still more I have yet to play (looking forward to Super Mario Epic 2)! Speaking of Super Mario Epic 2, I think Jeff Silvers described the classic fangame spirit very well in his review for Super Mario vs New Wario Order World Tour:

"This game comes from a time where much more focus was put into simple fun than having a beefy engine."
 
1 like from: Vitiman
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Vitiman
Jul 17 2021, 5:45 AM
Quote (Q-Nova on Jul 16 2021, 10:43 PM)
Great review! Yeah, this game is very original and really fun to play! In retrospect, I might have actually been too harsh with my review. At first glance, these old fangames may seem very cheap. After playing so many of them, however, a lot of them are actually very creative, pretty fun, and funny! I've discovered gems like Yoshi vs. Windows, Mario's Mansion, Super Mario PC (the French one), Mario vs Luigi 2, and Toad Strikes Back (the prototype -- the full game is also really good and has a lot of the oldschool fangame charm, but I played that much earlier)! I'm sure there's still more I have yet to play (looking forward to Super Mario Epic 2)! Speaking of Super Mario Epic 2, I think Jeff Silvers described the classic fangame spirit very well in his review for Super Mario vs New Wario Order World Tour:

"This game comes from a time where much more focus was put into simple fun than having a beefy engine."

You just listed off some of my favourite fangames of all time! I also want to belatedly thank you for helping me overcome the Mario PC hurdle that I mentioned in my ancient review of it (where I got stuck on a World 2 level), and I was playing through more of it the other day. Great stuff!

I think that half the fun in playing old fangames is sticking through with a not-so-perfect engine in a game that oozes with charm. It's a very rewarding experience, in my eyes.
 
1 like from: Q-Nova
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King Piranha Plant
Aug 2 2021, 7:29 PM
It's neat to see a review on this game and find that an MFGGer prevalent from the 2010's is enjoying and praising it more than the 90's era oldbies who were way more scathing, to one of their own classics no less. I remember how absurd it was that we both loved and hated the games of old even way back then - like they were the only fangames around, so we played them endlessly, but we would also just constantly talk about how crappy they were. Looking back these games are indeed actually pretty charming and creative, in the silliest way. Like, they play so badly, but you'll look back in the year 2021 and be like "wow, this person just confidently put 10 playable characters in this game with different moves, and switched the gameplay style literally every single level. Oh, and Space Ghost is here. Oh, and now Star Fox is explaining everything for some reason. Oh, now there/s blood in the game, okay."
 
1 like from: Vitiman
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