#but i want miitopia. why do i want miitopia

[gnomey22]

"Proud Protector"

I was rewatching Season 1 a few days ago (as you do), specifically S1E3 from Erica's introduction onwards, and one line hit me like it never had before, even if I noticed it on previous rewatches.

Simple Bob, when initiating his Proud Protector move, says "I will heal you, by killing the enemies before they can kill you." Which is exactly the same mentality Erica has in early S2, when she's starting out as a warrior. This is not new information to me, but I always passed it off as a cool parallel that ultimately doesn't mean much.

Now, I realise that this was one of the first things Simple Bob ever said to her. Bob, the only halfway decent warrior she's travelled with, due to being the only one who actually puts thought into the healing aspect of battling.

After just how many warriors failed her during the Three-Year Gap, just how many of them completely relied on her for healing rather than doing anything about their own injuries, I think Erica thought back to the only one who hadn't outright disappointed her, and realised that Bob was actually onto something with this quip of his.

She wants to keep the party going, but she doesn't want to be the backbone of the whole operation, and she has a whole lot of anger she needs to project. The violent tendencies of a warrior seem like exactly what she needs right now, and it isn't too far away from her old ways of healing. She's stopping people from getting hurt!

This way, they can't unexpectedly die on her, and even if they do, it can't be traced back to her failure. It's not her job to keep them alive, she's under no actual obligation, it's an idea she can drop and pick up however she wants to. Her party members will stay alive as long as she needs them to, and the enemies will die imminently. She finally has agency in the distribution of death in her life, and she cannot be taken off-guard. Probably.

My favourite thing about this is that Erica probably had a completely neutral opinion on Bob the whole way through. They never had a significant bond, but Erica doesn't grow to hate him like she does with basically everyone else other than Chi. I imagine that even after taking his advice like this, the most positive thought she has about him is respect for his "Shan't" in the S1 finale.

#failtopia #failboat miitopia #failtopia erica #failtopia simple bob #Erica #Simple Bob #why does my brain do this to me #the autism is why #but you get what I mean #If I ever told someone I made a brand #off of overanalysing some random YouTuber's Miitopia game #I don't even want to know how they'd react

[manicplank]

If I shot them out of a cannon what would their reactions be (this is specifically for the noise because of miitopia-)

Shot out of a canon

Peppino: He screams and yells. Once he lands, he starts sobbing and shaking. Why would you do that to this poor man?

Gustavo: He shrieks. He's afraid of heights! Please tell him there's a net or something to catch him.

Mr. Stick: Imagine an annoying shrieking. That's him. He's kicking and flailing. He is not happy!

Pepperman: He goes knees to chest in cannon ball form (as if he was jumping into a pool). He knows the drill.

The Vigilante: He dies. His body isn't solid enough to stay together in air at such high speeds. Rip.

The Noise: He got into the cannon himself and insisted that you launch him. He goes through the air in a superhero-like pose. He probably even gives himself a little theme as his cape blows in the wind.

Noisette: Weeeeeeee!! You launch her into oblivion. She comes zooming back. Again, again! She wants to do it again!

Fake Peppino: At first he was scared, but once he was in the air, he was having a lot of fun. He hops back over and begs to be launched again.

Pizzahead: He thinks it's a lot of fun. He pretends he's a missile. It's so enthralling to him.

Pillar John: Because of his weight, he doesn't go very far. It didn't hurt much, but he still says in a monotone manner, "Ow."

Gerome: He simply accepts his fate. He looks unhappy the entire time.

#pizza tower #noise #the noise #headcanon #noisette #pizzahead #peppino #peppino spaghetti #fake peppino #pepperman #the vigilante #mr. stick #pillar john #pizza tower gerome #pizza tower gustavo

[spiderdotexe]

recently i have been making 'Miis' in Miitopia .. beause i have not started a actual playthrough (i will finish) Yet. why? i do NOT have Nintendo switch Online and i might get that first so i can make the NPCS strange characters. so for now im making these things. (so if you WANT these MIIS! Well. you cant. yet. ?)

#miitopia #miitopia switch #miis #nintendo #deltarune #deltarune noelle #spamton g spamton #marios madness v2 #Hey if youre wondering why the. guy from the scary NES commercial is here. #dont. worry about it okay #by the way spamton can have the big surprised eyes and wink and open his mouth. not pictured here though. so imagine it #i have OTHER miis i havent shown here but if i start that playthrough. i will DRAW them and you will find them out #it will be the Crossover of the Century #i have no plans. except for spamton being a cleric because i find him being a healer funny. Press f1 for #and noelle. well. she Has to be a mage! wizard noelle #NOELLE CAST FIREBALL #sorry for rambling in tags ill do it again. its like Bonus Content!! #i think i based noelles mii after another one i saw? Hii sorry i couldnt use yours. no NSO

[laneiru]

Template Source

Decided to fill these out because it seemed neat, and any way to jot down my mess of a Miitopia headcanon is always welcome.

Don't look too hard on the portraits, I was having one of those days where I seem to have forgotten how to draw things.

Template translations and additional thoughts on my Main 4 under the cut.

Located right next to the portrait:

Name Gender, Personality, Birthday Age, Height, Weight

Personality can be either the Miitopia ones or anything else that you think is fitting.

All of their weights are unknown because I never really think about those things in my OCs.

The sliding scale underneath the portrait:

Strength Awful, Ordinary, Can put up a fight, Quite strong, Unreal

This refers to their general strength, power levels, etc.

Underneath the sliding scale, the following are specific questions about each role:

Reborn

Thoughts on their current face: Like, Average, Dislike Thoughts on humans: Like, Average, Dislike Can still use Dark Curse powers? Yes, No Thoughts on being reborn: Happy, Unhappy, Indifferent

Aoi is pretty much still processing the whole "being reborn" thing, hence their reactions to their new face and humans are along the lines of "it's ok, I guess." But they would eventually come to realise that they are genuinely grateful for being saved.

Aoi can no longer do the monster-creating, face-stealing part of their repertoire. Their magic from here on out is just the usual mage magic, but in a spooky, but harmless flavouring. It's a reason why they prefer the way of the sword instead. Luckily for them, Lema also knows his way around a weapon, and can at least teach them the basics during their travels together.

As for the alternate universe version of them that they look up to, it's Ymir. He is basically a Reborn who is in constant denial about being saved and his life having worth, and had to do the healing and redeeming all on his own. Also, he's from my little OC story-idea, and I just wanted to make a little cameo.

Ex-Dark Lord

Thoughts on HP Banana: Like, Average, Dislike Do they prefer their previous or current job? Previous (Factory worker), Current (New Lumos guard), Neither Mental strength: Strong, Average, Weak Actual personality: Good, Average, Bad

Rui's ok with HP Bananas. He even eats some when he's at work, haha. For his job, it's a little different because he's juggling between the old HP Banana worker one and the current New Lumos guard one. Obviously with that arrangement, he prefers neither and wants something better.

The best I can describe Rui is that he wants to be like Neo:Blood Mage from DFO so bad, but he cannot as he is just a regular person stuck supporting his brother and himself. The added irony is that Aoi actually does pull off the unhinged mage vibe better than he ever could, look no further to their Dark Lord act.

Rui's guard duty in New Lumos is more out of guilt and self-imposed penance. The monsters there seem to be too placid to ever try breaking out, no doubt thanks to Aoi's Curse influence weakening by the day. If nothing else, Rui gets to do some magic practice whenever he's there.

Also, Guardian really did ask Rana to go beat up a 20-year old lmao…... I'm sure all of the party members are older than him, too. So it goes with my OCs.

Great Sage

Do they know other magic than Cure-type spells? Yes, Sort Of, No Physical strength: Strong, Average, Weak Had a mentor in the past? Yes, No Thoughts on helping others: Like, Average, Indifferent

(First one was tricky to translate, but I think the gist was that it's asking if your Great Sage knows more kinds of magic than Cure/Cleric spells, like what's implied in-game.)

What else is there to say about Lema? Bnuuy. Your average prettyboy Sage. His father was his mentor on earth communion, Lema's other type of magic. This was what made the Darker Lord especially dangerous as he could now directly manipulate the environment. It's also how the Darker Lord made the Otherworld, by tearing a hole in the sky in a show of power.

It's also why his version of the Darkest Lord looks like a merging of him and the Otherworld/Darker Lord's Domain! It's the apex of Lema's specialty, but in the trappings of a final boss. (You gotta hand it to Aoi as the Dark Curse sometimes, they know how to pull off the villainous vibes regardless of their host, haha)

Lema can never compare to the iconic nature of Great Sage Yumil for me, but I still like how he turned out in the end.

Hero

Thoughts on their adventuring party: Like, Average, Indifferent Thoughts on fighting: Like, Average, Indifferent, Dislike Favourite Job/s Thoughts on Guardian Spirit: Like, Average, Indifferent, Dislike

(The difference between Average and Indifferent here, I'm guessing, is the implication. Average is more positive-neutral, while Indifferent is more negative-neutral.)

Rana is pretty standard, the only thing that stands out from her is that in regards to fighting: she sees it as an unavoidable, sometimes necessary, part of life. It's just that her kind nature meant she would rather do anything else sometimes. Guardian Spirit is more of a guardian angel figure in my version, so she thinks positively of him.

(Who am I kidding, Guardian is pretty much Great Sage Yumil in a different role lmao)

Also I'm a dummy and drew her in her OC outfit instead of something Miitopia-related.

The two boxes on the right:

Things they like, are good at, etc. Things they don't like, are not good at, etc.

The lowest box:

Other notes

#miitopia #spoilers #art stuff #my ocs

[isbus]

So I’m back…

But this time, I have a tutorial!

Do you have a 3DS?

(If you say yes to that, then we’re cooking).

Do you want to draw something similar if not better than…

THIS?!

Then boy I have a tutorial for you!

Since this was drawn on a 3DS, I can’t really tell you anymore than for a 3DS. Sorry..

Step One: Prep!

Grab your 3DS and go to “Nintendo 3DS Camera”! Or whatever it might be called if you have a “New” one.

Optional: If you want you can take a picture within the game- if it’s capable of doing so.

For me I’m gonna use a screenshot from Miitopia.

Step 2: Background!

Part 1: Plain Backgrounds

If you want something like the following image, follow this part’s instructions.

Take a random full screen sized image. Any image will work as long as it fits the screen perfectly. (Take a screenshot from a game such as Tomodachi Life or Miitopia).

Tap the image so that it says graffiti.

Then use a stamp, such as the dialogue bubble.

Hold the stamp and make sure it fills the corners.

Then you have a plain white background! This one you can press finish,but the other method you can’t.

Here’s a quick video tutorial, because I don’t think I phrased it right!

(I took it on my phone, that’s how easy it is).

Part 2: Backgrounds that aren’t pure white!

If you want to make the starting image (but your own), then follow these steps!

(Once again, I’m using Miitopia screenshots for an example).

Once again, GRAFFITI!

Instead of using a stamp, you might have to just color it yourself. Mainly because the stamp method is harder for backgrounds like the first one.

COLOR THE BACKGROUND, BUT DON’T DRAW ANYTHING ELSE. (Unless you just want to draw a background). Trust me, it’s easier.

Boom! Plain background ready for sketching.

Don’t press finish cause it can decrease the quality with enough graffitiing and finishing.

Step 3: Draw the Base!

You gotta draw that body-ody-ody!

Just draw a bust or whatever is easier for you. “Omg IsBus you have to have drawing skills?!” Yeah I know. How could I?

I’m gonna draw the bust up because it’s easier for me.

(Don’t look at me like that.)

For the plain BG ones, just do the same thing for the rest of the steps but for your screen.

Since the background hasn’t been saved, don’t use the eraser because it will remove the white BG. Unless you are using the first background method, that is. (Use the white pencil.)

Step 4: Draw the character / Coloring Page Step!

On the plain BG you can draw what ever but for me and my Miitopia character, I’m gonna draw him. If you did the color-only-a-part-of-the-drawing method (like I’m doing), you can do whatever still.

Think of the white area as a green screen; you can draw whatever you want on it.

This phase is like the pencil part of a physical drawing. White out the base as you get to parts you want over it (for example: hair or clothes).

Bam! Coloring page!

Part 5: Coloring!

Remember when I called it a coloring page? This is why.

Color the drawing how you see fit!

If you’re using the all white bg, then you might have to use the stickers or the rainbow pencil. I recommend the stickers if you want to shade/shine, but if you want more options, use the rainbow brush.

If you’re basically doing what I’m doing, you can use the colors from the image to color your character!

Once you’re done coloring the image, remember to ink the lines again! Use a medium brush for coloring but a thin brush for inking the lines.

Part 6: Final Details!

For people who want any additional details, or need to clean up edges.

If you did the plain bg you can decorate and clean up as much as you need!

If you’re doing what I’m doing, you can clean up the edges of the white spot and add additional details.

And Voila! You did it!

If you have a 3DS and followed my tutorial, show me what you did! I wanna see it!

Have a good day/night! And thank you for reading!

~IsBus

#isbus #isbus original #original art #original character #original characters #digital art #3ds art #3ds #nintendo 3ds #drawings #digital drawing #drawn on a 3ds #tutorials #tutorial #I wanna see your art #miitopia #the second one wasn’t as good #sorry lol #mission failed successfully #long post #show me what you got

[galaxyseclipse]

Art Prompt: 🗡with everybody.

Or whoever you want to if that's too much.

🗡️: draw a character as if they were in a rpg/dnd character

okay, quick story time: my first thought with this one was -obviously- dnd, but I didn't want to come up with races and classes. so next I was gonna do Fire Emblem, cause that's an rpg that I play on the rare occasion that I forget why I don't.

but then...

I remembered that Miitopia is an rpg >:3c

so have some sillies, being characters from a very silly game

I should replay Miitopia...

#this may or may not get drawn again idk i had fun #eclipse's ask box #my art #splatoon #miitopia #crossover #tsunami(captain 3) #ivory(agent 8) #ika(new agent 3) #four(agent 4) #diamond(splatoon oc) #art prompt #i realized about halfway through drawing ika that i could have made them an elf cause bow #but i felt like thief fit them better #also my first thought for ivory was the pop star but with the male outfit #if you know you know

[ninesnowfang]

Miitopia and how it does AI party members well

saw a post about rare snurp and it got me thinking about the game again wahey! So it's time for another "Vivian talks about some game and its mechanics and why she likes it" Miitopia is a really special game, all of the classes are unique and useful in their own way so there's a ton of variety that everyone can go for, however there is a big difference between your main character and your party members with the sole inclusion of not being able to pick your party member's actions... to a certain degree atleast. This ends up making some classes incredibly overpowered in the hands of the player (Cat for the best damage in the game, Elf because you can just shield everyone immediately, Imp so you can let hyper sprinkled characters attack even more) while they are kinda meh to borderline garbage in the hands of the party's AI, for an extreme example party members that are a Cat will rarely use their best move, feline frenzy and instead go for their regular double hit which does atleast half of the damage that felyne frenzy would do. However this also means that the player character shouldn't neccessarily be stuck supporting the team unless you specifically allow the party to do their maximum damage, or if you know how every class' AI works, Mages in big battles will always start with barrier if they learned it and will always conserve MP if a lower tier spell is enough to finish the fight, Priests focus primarily on keeping your team alive and will prioritize reviving over healing, POPSTAR having the best revive in the game along with the hilarious utility that their relationship share gives, just to name a few. And this is where the beauty of the game really comes to shine imo, the teambuilding aspect, everyone has to use different team setups throughout the game, be it because of random sicknesses or because your teams got seperated so now you have to adjust with what you're given, and knowing what your team will do along with some neat tech like rest spot cycling and knowing the turn orders leads to healerless and sprinkleless teams being able to just, survive and win even some of the tougher fights, most notably darker lord phase 1 and 2 where by now i usually end up having a single super strong character do the fight while two other undergeared characters support *JUST* for the challenge aspect and me wanting to learn the absolute intricacies of this game. And before i end this off, a "quick" list of notable classes that work well when controlled by the AI: Warrior: it's plain and simple and 90% of the time they're hyper sprinkled anyways Thief: surprisingly good at using their optimal skills! Mage: see above Scientist: amazing at using the correct skills in a given situation Imp: They use their defense down kinda frequently but the butt poke too infrequently Princess: having access to an AoE stun is hilariously stupid, MP regen too AND good phsyiscal and magical combat that they use well enough? Elf: It's fucking elf what do you expect from the best class in the game, they tend to not use their shield reliably enough though but they use their MP heal SUPER often Miitopia is such an underrated gem of a game that i genuinely hope gets a sequel that is just as good

#miitopia

[animemangacartoonist2004]

Akko, Lotte, and Sucy: “Who are you guys”? “And why do you look like Mii characters”?

Miitopia Akko, Miitopia Lotte, and Miitopia Sucy: “Because we’re you but in Miitopia style, we came from a portal”.

(I wanted to try Luna Nova posting)

#lunanovaposting

#little witch academia #luna nova #akko kagari #lotte yanson #sucy manbavaran #miitopia

[yumenotambourin]

Just sorta piling up all my AUs to count them

They're all Elfilis-centric because Elfilis

Regular:

Unnamed AU

Elfilis is saved by Neichel before they get captured and the two become besties. Shenanigans ensue.

Gatorade Flavored Ratatouille

Elfilis and the gemini stumble upon a human colony. Elfilis plans to slowly mentally torture the humans for revenge and tries to get the gemini to join them, but Elfilin opposes and Forgo doesn't want to interact with humans ever again. The three fight all the time but still hold onto eachother.

Super Mario Galaxy AU i guess?

Not realky Super Mario Galaxy, but basically the humans already had "planetary warp technology" and Elfilis and Neichel meet up during their intergalactic travels and also Lab Discovera wants to capture Elfilis anyways so they have to do a Mario Galaxy to stop them??? Idk

Unnamed Candy World AU

Mousies wake up in a candy world with no memories of how they got there. Elfilis feels like something is wrong, but they're too overconfident to act on their suspicions. Plus, the gemini have a thing for sweets (which they got from Elfilis themself of course) so they're overjoyed.

Backrooms AU

Morpho traps the rats in a dream that resembles the backrooms (that Lizzie knew of from reading children's minds) to trick them into dying.

Boxed Gemini

In which they are actual siblings. That's it.

Idol AU

There's a whole ass seraphim society now! After beating the living shit out of Boib, Elfilis becomes a super idol. Once again, Morpho wants them dead. Elfilis is fucking terrified and uses their music as a cry for help.

Also Neichel is there as Elfilis' fancy pet and best friend because this was originally gonna be an Elfilis-Neichel swap but there's so little that can be done with that.

elfilingamer87

Elfilis accidentally starts a livestream and everyone cheers. They become rather popular pretty quickly. Elfilin sees this and wants to be a steamer too, so he makes a YouTube channel named 'elfilingamer87' and streams his gameplay of Kirby's Dream Buffet. Unfortunately he ends up having only one subscriber, which makes him extremely sad because he thinks Elfilis will be disappointed in him if they find out. William Afton, a human, tricks him into being experimented on in exchange of fame and knowing who that one subscriber is. Turns out that one subscriber was Elfilis themself, who had been advertising his channel like crazy.

Gijinka:

Normal People AU

Void is actually a corporation where a huge accident took place, leading to the death of four important employees(?) and their partners. Their children (the heroes of yore) are childhood friends who got separated in their teenage years (Elfilis moved to London, the others idk) so with the death of their parents they're trying to find eachother and help eachother out.

Kirby is Meta Knight's adopted son and Meta Knight is Galacta's brother

Despite the setup, this one is also very Elfilis-centric and focuses on them raising their twin siblings on their own.

Miitopia:

The first one I kinda abbandoned

The only non-Elfilis-centric one because Forgotten Land wasn't out yet

Void (who I headcanon as the creator god of Kirby) is trappen inside a universe that is not their own, which leads them to dark curse out

The main hero is Kirby (miitopia), the Great Sage is Nova for some reason and the Dark Lord is Zero.

Great Sage Elfilis

Elfilis is basically Lucifer from Christianity, except that instead of falling down to hell they fall to the mortal world and are thought to be the child of god (who is actually Kirby). And they're also amnesiac.

Elfilin and Forgo are manifestations of their feelings. Forgo becomes the curse and Elfilin sets out to save the world, but Elfilis is intrigued to why this random ass child looks so much like them so he takes him under their wing.

Princet Elfilis

Mousies are very beautiful children who destroy the orphanage they were in to escape and are adopted by King Dream Minecraft. But King Dream Minecraft is a horrible person so Elfilis and Galacta (the head knight of Dreamhorne who became Elfilis' best friend) manage to get him exiled and Lizzie becomes the new monarch.

The first one again but Elfilis

In the first AU, Galacta plays the role of the town guide, and is an ex warrior who was exiled for being too violent and runs a bar now. He briefly takes care of Void.

In this AU, Elfilis there as well alongside Galacta, although they left willingly after a fight with William Afton.

They heavily dislike Void, which leads them and Galacta to get possessed.

#*uses this as notes* #miitopia #gatorade #feel free to ask about this shit if you want to? #idk #the more it goes on the wilder they get lmao #au

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

About Me: Favorite Video Games

So you may not know this, but I’m a gamer. Shocking, right? Who’d ever have guessed it? But to be totally fair here, I rarely talk about video games on Tumblr. I talk about movies, and there have been a handful of times where I reviewed video games, but I focused more on the story, characters, and all that then I did on whether or not the gameplay was good. In my earliest days, before I found my niche, I talked about games a fair deal, but that fell by the wayside so I could focus on films (my true passion).

So hey, look at this! You’re all going to get to see what my favorite video games are now! Remember, everything here is just my personal opinions; I'm not trying to give actual reviews of each of these games in a couple of sentences or trying to sell you on them, I'm talking about the stuff in them that makes me love them. All of this is my subjective opinion, and I'm not asking you to agree with me here, I'm just trying to talk about stuff that I love.

Oh, and here are some honorable mentions: Super Mario Bros. 3, Banjo-Kazooie (I still haven’t finished it and I don’t want to include games I haven’t played through), Kid Icarus: Uprising, Bayonetta 2, Injustice 2, BioShock, Doom Eternal, Super Metroid, Dragon Age II, God of War II, Castlevania: Aria/Dawn of Sorrow, The Wolf Among Us, The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando/Up Your Arsenal, and Heritage for the Future. Also a shout out to Tell Me Why and Life is Strange, games I watched my wife play and loved the story of but that I didn’t actually play myself; the former in particular has all sorts of elements I love in my stories.

Now, without further ado, here’s my top 50! Oh, and only the top 30 have pictures because there's image limits on posts! What a load of BS!

50. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Ok, maybe this game is lacking in a few areas at the expense of its massive customization system… but boy howdy what a system it is! I cannot tell you how much time I’ve sunk into decorating my island, reorganizing my villagers, and just making all sorts of weird themed areas. It’s a lot of fun, and I get to do all this work while hanging with a bunch of weird, cute animals.

49. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle R

The original game was a lot of fun, but even I’ll admit it felt like it was missing something. That something was probably Foo Fighter, but guess what? She’s in the updated rerelease, along with aslew of other new characters like my favorite minor antagonist Mariah and the bane of Heritage for the Future players, Pet Shop! Add onto that a much better campaign mode with some fun little AU shenanigan matches and you have the most loving fighting game tribute to JJBA imaginable! Now if only they’d give Part 8 a little more love...

48. Batman: Arkham Origins

This is the redheaded stepchild of the Arkham series, and on some level I get why. It is very much aping City, right down to the map despite their being some expansions here and there, and the combat is much more of the same with little in the way of evolution, and don’t get me started on the fucking Joker showing up again. But this game also features some of the best bosses in the series such as Firefly and especially Deathstroke, a Bane who isn’t just a mindless mass of muscles like in the other games, and some interesting sidequests that make this early look at Batman’s superheroics a worthwhile entry in my eyes.

47. Miitopia

This is one of the easiest games out there, what with the autopilot combat and minimal difficulty (though there is a big spike late in the game). But the sheer vastness of the facial customization means that literally anyone from all of art or history can take part in a wacky, cliché RPG adventure. Hank Hill can fight the evil overlord Seth MacFarlane with a crew consisting of Chowder, Thor, and Japanese comedian/director/actor Beat Takeshi. If that’s not worth the price of admission, I don’t know what is.

46. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

The DS is where Castlevania truly shined, and my favorite of all the handheld entries is this portrait-hopping journey to defeat a mad artist and his evil vampire children. The locations are pretty great, there’s tons of sidequests and alternate game modes (my favorite is the one where you play as the Old Axe Armor), and there’s an awesome brutal bonus dungeon where you get to fight the bosses from Dawn of Sorrow without the stupid drawing bullshit!

45. Maximo vs. Army of Zin

The original game was a fun, yet very flawed action platformer. This game veers more into the hack-and-slash genre to great effect; it’s not the deepest combat ever, but it’s a lot of fun, with much better platform, bosses, and story than the first game. There’s just something cool about a world that mixes Gothic horror, steampunk, and other fantasy elements together all in one place.

44. God Hand

This is one of the most deceptive games you’ll ever come across. On the surface, it might seem like an ugly beat-em-up, but it’s so much more than that. The bosses are brutal yet fantastic, the music is fucking incredible, and the humor is just the right level of absurd to be incredibly charming. It’s ball-bustingly difficult, but let me tell you, when you finally overcome a fight or a boss battle that’s been giving you trouble? It is literally the best feeling in the world.

43. South Park: The Stick of Truth

‘Member when South Park was funny? I ‘member. And The Stick of Truth really brings back all those memories because this is a hilarious and loving tribute to the series made with the help of Trey Parker and Matt Stone to deliver the playable South Park experience of your dreams. It’s gross, immature, raunchy, and funny, and best of all it doesn’t get too preachy or up its own ass with messages—no, it gets up Mr. Slave’s ass to defuse a bomb. Peak South Park right here, though the gameplay is kind of basic. It’s all carried by that stellar writing.

42. Crash Bandicoot: Twinsanity

This game mainly scores a spot on my list for being fucking hilarious. This is the funniest Crash Bandicoot ever got, with all sorts of wacky gags and clever dialogue. Cortex really is the MVP here, with the constant slapstick that befalls him combined with his snarky dialogue making him a standout. It’s a bummer so much was cut from the game, and it does feel a bit incomplete in some areas, but for what it is it’s a damn fun time.

41. Pokemon White/White 2

It was genuinely hard to pick a single game from the series to go on here considering how much I loved Gens III – V. Emerald perfected the generation I first got into the series, LeafGreen is the definitive Kanto experience to me, Platinum polished up Gen IV’s uneven debut and made it incredible, and SoulSilver is a fantastic remake of the first Pokemon game I ever played (Crystal). But I think I have to go with the Gen V games I played as my favorites. They’re fun and challenging, and while the first game has a ridiculously restrictive regional dex and the second has an overreliance on defunct wi-fi features, the fantastic story and fun new Pokemon make up for it. Can’t be too mad at the games that let me make trashy cult classic B-movies with my boy Garbodor, can I?

40. Batman: Arkham Knight

I put off playing this for years, because I wasn’t happy with some of the things I heard about it, such as a lack of traditional boss battles and an overreliance on the Batmobile. These are still problems, but not near as bad as I feared (obviously, since it’s on this list); everything about the gameplay is the series at its peak. The main story is a bit lacking and ends up being a tad too predictable for me to love it as much as the other entries in the series, but the fact it has Professor Pyg and Man-Bat really helps make up for its shortcomings.

39. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

This game is just as silly and clunky as I imagined an older Bethesda game would be, but to my surprise I think it holds up incredibly well even compared to Skyrim. It’s a bit more complex in a lot of areas, but it’s not too daunting. What really strikes me is how this game actually has a really good story; it’s nothing groundbreaking, but when you look at how bad the Civil War plot in Skyrim was it feels like Shakespeare in comparison. Throw in a ton of unique sidequests with interesting plotlines, a gruesome Dark Brotherhood plot, an interesting villain, and Patrick Stewart for all of about five minutes, and I’d almost say I like this more than Skyrim. Almost.

38. Wolfenstein: The New Order

Sure, it doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel when it comes to FPS games, but does it need to? All I want from a Wolfenstein game is a horde of Nazi motherfuckers to mow down, and guess what this game gives me? What really surprised me was how genuinely cool and likable BJ was. He might be one of my favorite heroes ever after this game. It’s a shame they couldn’t keep this level of polish up in the sequel.

37. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

In a lot of ways, this game is objectively worse than its predecessor. Like the story is ass for sure; I could not give less of a fuck about the Stormcloaks and the Imperials and their stupid civil war if I tried. But the vast world filled with things to do is so much fun to explore, and there’s all sorts of sidequests and shenanigans to get into. This game is pure, stupid fun, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve restarted it just to play as a different race or class. Maybe someday I’ll make it to the final boss. Maybe.

36. Psychonauts

The original Psychonauts is one of the last great platformers, and among them it’s a lot more unique than many of its peers as you’re platforming through the minds of all sorts of wacky characters to help them overcome their issues. Bouncing through the conspiracy theory-addled brain of a disturbed milkman or decimating a city kaiju style inside the mind of a hyper-intelligent mutant lungfish are the kind of off-the-wall ideas this game throws at you, and in my opinion the only thing that could hold it back is if it had a really janky final level that combines meat, circuses, escort missions, and an underwhelming final boss… Oops. Still a great game in my eyes, one that’s 95% perfect.

35. Final Fantasy VI

For a lot of people, this is the best Final Fantasy game, and I definitely see why. It has a truly massive playable roster of unique characters with their own special gimmicks (of which only a handful are actually useful, mind you) and one of the greatest video game villains ever conceived in the mad clown Kefka, plus it is so focused and tightly plotted for the first half of the game. I think that after Kefka takes over the story becomes a lot more aimless and unfocused, but that’s also where the game becomes a lot more fun and challenging too. It’s a bit uneven, but after how hard the opera house scene goes I think it’s allowed to trip a little bit.

34. Dragon Age: Origins

A lot more praise is thrown at this series’ sci-fi sibling Mass Effect, probably because that series is a lot more consistent with how good it is across the board (Andromeda notwithstanding), but I’m much more fond of fantasy settings myself and this game delivers a fantastic one in ways its sequels couldn’t quite manage. This is the only game in the series where I genuinely loved every single party member (especially Leliana) and actively tried to get them the happiest endings possible—yes, even the douchebag anti-villain who joins you if you play your cards right), and the plot is just the right level of epic fantasy cheese seasoned with some delicious side quests. If the dwarf plotline wasn’t such a slog and if Varric was in the game, this would be a lot higher on the list, but this game still holds a special place in my heart.

33. Batman: Arkham Asylum

Our first trip into the Asylum really did kill the notion that licensed games had to be the most obnoxious shovelware schlock imaginable by making a Batman game that actually makes you feel like Batman. Sure, the detective part is a bit minimal here compared to the sequels, but the combat is so fun and refreshing that I’m not too bothered by the lack of crime scene investigations. There’s a clear love for the entire mythos here, and best of all a clear love for the animated series—Hamill and Conroy reprise their roles as Joker and Batman respectively, and Arleen Sorkin gives Harley one last ride before her retirement. It’s a real love letter to the Dark Knight, and it spawned one of the most consistently good video game series around, so I’ll forgive it for having the lamest final boss I’ve ever fought just this once.

32. Kingdom Hearts

What I like about the original game is how it struck such a nice balance in its absurd premise, with it never feeling like the Final Fantasy or Disney elements are really overpowering each other. We have the grandiose, convoluted plots of the former and the magic, whimsy, and awesome villains of the latter combining together into one impressive package. Yeah, a lot of the level designs are dogshit (looking at you, Deep Jungle and Monstro), and some of the stunt casting is really bizarre (Lance Bass as Sephiroth?!) but overall this is a game way better than you’d think by hearing that it’s a game where Mickey Mouse and Cloud Strife exist side by side.

31. Super Mario 64

Mamma mia! It is genuinely impossible for me to not feel nostalgic for this game. So many 3D platformers that came out in its wake took what it did and polished it to absurd degrees, but there’s still something so special about diving back into one of the portraits in Peach’s castle and going through those levels again and again. The music and atmosphere of the game add onto it; every time I play it, I feel like a kid again. It’s just such a charming game.

30. MediEvil

If Tim Burton made a Gothic horror fantasy movie, I imagine it would be something like this game. It really uses the limitations of the PS1’s graphics to the fullest extent, with the jagged polygonal looks of the characters enhancing the experience, and it has such a crazy variety of levels and enemies, from a phantom pirate ship to a crystal cave with a dragon to a village of posessed villagers to an ant hill. Sir Daniel Fortesque is one of my favorite video game protagonists around because of his posthumous journey to live up to the legend fabricated around him.

29. God of War III

Every single one of these games just escalates from the previous one. Oh, you fight the hydra in the opening of the first game? How about you fight through Rhodes and then battle the animated colossus that once stood in its port in the second? And how do you top that for the third game? Beat the ever-loving shit out of Poseidon and gouge his eyes out from his POV. And this game only gets more brutal from there! Titans and gods all fall to Kratos in epic and gory boss battles, but honestly even without that I’d put the game on this list for the simple reason that you get to fucking murder Kevin Sorbo as Hercules.

28. EarthBound

Nintendo’s quirkiest RPG makes the cut, mostly on the basis of how weird and charming it is. At this point I’ve essentially memorized everything you need to do in this game, which is good because if it��s your first time you desperately need a guide or you’ll be fucked. There are points where things get a little too grindy (mostly for Poo’s weapons) but it’s genuinely a game whose charms outweigh any negatives there are. Plus, that final boss battle is something else entirely.

27. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Rebirth and all of its DLC updates took everything great about the original game and polished it into absolute perfection, with so many different item combos you could potentially get and so many bosses and endgames you could encounter. No two runs ever really feel the same, and it’s so satisfying to become so overpowered you nuke the screen every time you attack. The fact there’s a thriving modding community to continually generate new and crazier content also adds to why I have a ridiculous number of hours dumped into this game.

26. Resident Evil VII: Biohazard

This is the first Resident Evil game I ever played and, wow, I sure was missing out all those years! This is one of the most tense survival horror experiences I’ve played through, with a creepy family of hillbilly horrors to avoid as I creep through their ramshackle domicile. It’s fun, creepy, and even a little campy, and it has raised my interest in the rest of the series. Hopefully the game with the giant vampire mommy will live up to how good this one is when I finally get around to playing it.

25. Portal 2

Yes, the puzzles are great, but this game really soars due to its writing. The first game was fun and all, but it was mostly just GLaDOS insulting you the whole time with Chell being an entirely silent protagonist. In this game, we get the lovable idiot Wheatley and the greatest mad scientist ever conceived Cave Johnson to listen to as well, and the way GLaDOS bounces off the former and reacts to the latter help make this game a fun and engaging puzzle-solving adventure.

24. Doom

The legendary FPS series got revitalized after years on the edge of relevancy, and its return is one of the most metal games imaginable. Slaughtering your way through the forces of Hell while heavy metal blares in the background? It really doesn’t get much better than this. While I do think Eternal improved the formula and gameplay in a lot of ways (particularly with the addition of an awesome hub level), I find the original to be way more fun and balanced in terms of difficulty. The lack of Marauders is really what gives it the slightest of edges.

23. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Nobody got left behind for this one. Everyone across the series came back, and then they went and added even more to give us the most ambitious crossover of all time. Ridley, Simon Belmont, Sora, Sephiroth, Kazuya, and more all get to duke it out on the best stages of the series as well as some fresh new ones, and every character plays even better and more balanced than they ever have before. While the single player campaign isn’t quite as exciting as Subspace Emissary from Brawl, it still manages to be a pretty epic quest with fun boss battles. This is just the definitive Smash experience in my opinion.

22. Red Dead Redemption

My daughter has affectionately labeled this game “Horse Movie,” and she’s not wrong. This is a true cowboy experience right here, with lots of gunfights and horse wrangling, and it’s all a blast. The story in particular is really well done, and there’s plenty of fun side quests too. Maybe the gunfights get a bit samey after a while, but it’s an enjoyable open world to explore and is filled with oddities and mysteries galore.

21. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The first Metal Gear game to make the list, and easily the most underrated of the bunch. It gets a lot of flak for the missing final episode that would have had Venom fight the young Liquid Snake, and while it does suck that that moment isn’t in the game, the story still feels plenty complete and well-done without it. Venom might be one of the most fascinating characters in the series, and the game has some of the most brutal gutpunches and tearjerking moments in the franchise. Maybe it’s just because I’m predisposed to love Metal Gear, but I loved this game even though I was well aware of what it didn’t have.

20. Final Fantasy VII

Not to be a basic bitch, but this is my favorite Final Fantasy. I mean, the cast is all so cool and fun, the story is great, Sephiroth is an amazing villain, and there’s plenty of obscure and obtuse ways of finding secrets that make a strategy guide practically mandatory if you want the most out of the game. What’s not to love? I think I was mostly surprised by how good the game actually was; it’s always high on lists of the best games ever, and it definitely earns that. The fact that Aerith’s death still made me tear up despite being common knowledge is a testament to just how amazing this Fantasy is.

19. Mother 3

EarthBound coasts by on its fun, lighthearted quirkiness… but what if you took that and applied heaping helpings of darkness and a more solid story? That’s Mother 3, a beautiful tale filled with the same out there humor as its predecessor as well as a lot of more mature and deeper themes than even the original tackled (mind you, Earthbound wasn’t devoid of deeper themes to begin with, so this is saying something). The ending is one of the few times I have openly sobbed while playing a video game. They need to officially release this in the West, because I will buy it day one. Fuck, I’ll pre-order it!

18. Yoshi’s Island

If this game was only one of the most charmingly animated games ever made, that would be enough to earn it at least some respect. But it’s also one of the best platformers in a series that invented the genre, centered around a truly inspired baby-carrying gimmick and featuring all manner of creative boss battles and one of the most earwormy soundtracks ever made. That’s enough to get it a spot on this list, but the fact it solidified Shy Guys as a Mario mainstay and not just a one-shot enemy? That gets it into my top 20.

17. Spyro Reignited Trilogy

It’s kind of cheating since it’s all three games in one package, but it’s my list, I make the rules. I view this as the definitive way to play Spyro; the redesigns are all fantastic (especially Elora) and the fact Tom Kenny is now the lovable purple scamp across all three games is wonderful. They even made the first game more enjoyable and even visually interesting, even though it’s still the weakest link in the series! And as much of a Crash Bandicoot stan as I am, the fact this game allows you to switch between the newly composed arrangements of the songs and the original Copeland tracks is a big W over the Bandicoot remakes only having the new versions of the songs.

16. Metal Gear Rising

This is perhaps the most badass game ever made. The first level has Raiden battling through a war zone and then fighting a RAY singlehandedly, leaping across missiles and slicing it in half while the most fucking awesome metal music blares in the background. The game just decides to get even more insane from there. People have argued against it being canon for years, but these people are stupid. This game is just as insane and politically-charged as the rest of the series, so in my book, it’s fucking canon.

15. Undertale

This game’s time in the spotlight has faded a bit, but that only makes it easier for me to look back on it and say, “Damn, that’s one of the finest games ever made.” It has all the quirkiness of the Mother series with unique combat and a stellar story, a cast of likable characters, and some of the best boss fights I’ve ever been through. Best of all, it’s a game that practically encourages and even rewards you for being nice! I still love it, even after all the discourse and skyrocketing popularity, and nothing will make me budge on that love.

14. Hades

I’m a big fan of Greek mythology, so this is yet another game that would have had to try really hard to make me hate it. Thankfully, all its efforts were put into areas that made me love it instead. While the roguelike gameplay is well done, the writing and story are really the stars here, with fantastic character interactions between desperate god Zagreus, the gods of Olympus, and the various denizens of the underworld really making this game something truly special.

13. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time

Sometimes this game feels like the designers saw all those articles and reviews comparing the first game to Dark Souls and took it to heart, because some of the levels in this game are absolutely brutal—especially if you’re going for 100% completion. But that same difficulty makes playing through the levels a lot of fun as well; it’s probably the most challenging Crash outing to date. It really polishes and updates the Crash formula for the modern age, and hopefully they expand on this in a future game. If nothing else, it finally lets you play as Dingodile, which is a dream come true.

12. Grand Theft Auto V

It’s wacky. It’s cartoonish. It has a surprisingly good story about three criminals from different walks of life becoming fire-forged friends as they violently work out their emotional issues. There’s just so much to do and so much to see, all sorts of collectibles and side missions, and more black comedy than you can shake a stick at, and all of it is made all the more enjoyable because the main villain protagonists are a likable bunch of nutjobs. Hell, sometimes I just like to hop into a car, put on some tunes, and cruise around until I can cause some mayhem, and the fact that’s just as valid as doing a bunch of story missions really makes me love the game.

11. Silent Hill 2

While the first and third games are good in their own rights, I vastly prefer the psychological horror and the monsters manifesting as living allegories for trauma with heavy and dark symbolism as opposed to the evil cult narrative. Plus, you know, this one has Pyramid Head in it, and his presence makes sense instead of simply being there cuz he’s cool.

10. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials & Tribulations

The Ace Attorney series is one of my favorites, and I love just about all the games in it and even the ones I don’t love always have one or two solid cases that keep me coming back. But pound for pound my favorite game in the series is the third one, the one that lets you play as Mia Fey, introduces the callous murderer Dahlia Hawthorne, and has you match wits with the coffee-guzzling prosecutor Godot. Even the filler cases are entertaining, with the one where Phoenix has to get to the bottom of a murder involving his evil doppleganger being wildly amusing (which is more than can be said for that circus case in the second game or cases two through three in the fourth).

9. Live A Live

Few games can boast the sheer variety this game has on display, with levels changing up their style to give everything from standard RPG fair to a prolonged timed puzzle to a fighting game pastiche to an incredibly tense survival horror experience. We also have the precursor to Undertale here in a ninja-themed level where you can spare everyone you come across or otherwise brutally murder them. And while the stories remain relatively simple in every time period you visit, it doesn’t stop them from hitting hard when they need to, like with the fantasy RPG deconstruction that is Oersted’s chapter. This game would easily have switched places with the next game if the final level played a bit more to the game’s strengths, but hey, it’s still good enough to be in the top 10.

8. Chrono Trigger

Square’s other time travel story is definitely the superior one even if it’s a traditional JRPG through and through. Of course, that is because it completely and fully takes advantage of its premise, with actions you take in one time period affecting others in turn, not to mention the vast amount of bonus bosses and sidequests there are to keep the multiple playthroughs to acquire all the endings fresh and fun. I’ve sunk so much time into getting all the endings on the DS version, and I’ve never once been bored even after visiting the Middle Ages or the ruined future world a dozen times.

7. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

There are few games that I love revisiting more than this one. This is Metroidvania at its peak, a perfect blend of action, platforming, and RPG elements into one glorious Gothic horror monster mash package. What’s truly fun with this one is the myriad ways there are to bust the game right open. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve grinded for hours so that I could dual-wield Crissaegrims and trivialize the Dracula and Galamoth battles.

6. Psychonauts 2

The original Psychonauts is fun and quirky, and is only really held back by a pretty sloppy final level. This game, though? This game is damn near perfect. Nearly every level here is fun and memorable, and the ways Raz has to help each person deal with their mental trauma is a lot more nuanced and tasteful than the original game’s fair-for-its-time takes on dealing with mental illness. The minds of Ford’s old crew as well as Ford himself provide some of the best Psychonauts content to date, and really, who can hate a level that ends with Jack Black as a gay psychic rock star viking performing a musical number to obliterate his own insecurities?

5. Kingdom Hearts II

This is where the Kingdom Hearts franchise peaked, and it’s a high note they’ve yet to reach again. Sure, the tutorial prologue level drags on for quite a long while, but once you get to play as Sora again, ooh boy is this basically the perfect meeting of the worlds of Disney and Square. The Disney worlds are a lot more fleshed out and have twice the plot due to midgame return visits, the combat is more exciting with fun little reaction commands to let you pull off crazy maneuvers, and you get to hang out with Tron and the most based of all Disney heroes, Chicken Little. Best of all, the story manages to strike the perfect balance between being complex and silly without disappearing all the way up its own ass like later entries would.

4. Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

In my house, there was a legend that I had beaten this game to completion one hundred times. I’m not entirely sure how accurate that is, but considering how often I replayed this growing up it can’t be too far off. This is one of the most gorgeous platformers around, and Naughty Dog’s final shot at a genre they’d perfected with their Crash Bandicoot games. Even all these years later the visuals are breathtaking; I still am in awe at how you can see the entire world from atop Snowy Mountain. Every day I cry because they decided to turn the series into GTA clones instead of continuing to explore the gorgeous fantasy world they created in this game.

3. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

The original Crash Bandicoot was the first game I ever played, and the rest of the series were cornerstones of my childhood. Imagine how elated I was when they not only remade the games, but they created the single definitive way to play them! Sure, the soundtrack being redone can be a little hit or miss, but they completely unfucked the brutal difficulty of the first game (and this is even with adding back the ball-bustingly hard “Stormy Ascent” level) and for the most part left the latter two games entirely untouched save a graphical boost and the ability to play as my girl Coco. Playable Coco alone makes this a dream come true.

2. Batman: Arkham City

The Arkham series is one of the most consistently great series, and this is its greatest entry. The titular city is massive, with so many things to do, and the combat and puzzles are polished to perfection. Add in some actual detective work, some truly epic boss battles against iconic Batman villains like Clayface and Mr. Freeze (and also Solomon Grundy, because why the fuck not?), the ability to play as Catwoman, and one of the most shocking and tragic tales the Dark Knight has ever been in, and I’m more than happy to call it my second favorite game ever.

1. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Of course, there was no hope Arkham City had at overcoming this game. This is Kojima’s magnum opus, not least because the entire rest of the Metal Gear series revolves around the events that transpire in this story. After the mindfuck that was the second game, it’s nice to return to a more coherent story, one detailing how Big Boss came to be the man that Snake fought in Zanzibar Land. Everything in the series sprang forth because of the actions the characters take here, and each subsequent game just makes this one better and better. Every single boss battle is unique and engaging, and the final battle is one of the most heartbreaking moments in all of gaming. I still cry every single time I get to the ending. It's such an amazing game, with a relatively simple yet still strong and convoluted story populated with a Russian madman with inexplicable lightning powers, a spirit medium's ghost, and a man who controls bees. God bless Hideo Kojima, that absolute madman.

#about me #video games

[radellama]

Games I played in 2023 - Part 2

Well. These certainly took longer to write than I expected them to. Who knew that I’d have a lot to say AND be incredibly picky about how I said everything?

Me. I knew.

Anyway…

Read part one if you haven’t already, and my resi part will be coming out… soon……… And once again, spoilers of varying degrees and strong opinions moving forwards.

~~~

Tomodachi Life, 3DS

I never had this game growing up, but my friend did, and they gave me a demo via DS download play. I really wanted to have it myself, but it was always so expensive that I could never justify buying it, and I prioritised getting other games that were higher on the list instead. Now that I have my cool 3DS where I can play whatever I want, I finally gave it a try!

It didn’t last long though, as there isn’t really that much to do here.

Similarly to Miitopia, this kind of game is only any fun if you have ideas for funny miis to play with, or are amused enough by using miis of you and your friends. I played for about 8 days, checking in with everyone and trying to put all the Chrono characters in. There wasn’t much to actually do, it felt like pointless unlocks and shopping just for the sake of it, instead of any intrinsic reason compelling me to do so.

Maybe I’m just too old now, and have outgrown the age where I would’ve potentially enjoyed this more, but I doubt that. It’s just boring, and once you’ve played for a day or two, you have pretty much played it all. I know that there’s more to do if you spend the time playing for a few minutes every day, like miis dating or having a baby, but I couldn’t get my otp Magland to like each other and Harland spent more time with Schala than Magus. Also I had to make Magus a girl, cause gay people don’t exist and Nintendo doesn’t allow mpreg.

This is disappointing, especially as I enjoyed Miitopia more than I thought I would. I thought there would be more to this dollhouse style game, but there isnt. There’s some funny charm in the flavour text and such, but ehhhhhh… Just play Miitopia. That vibe is there and there’s more to do in that game.

I’m not going to link any songs, as I didn’t find anything particularly stand out, and as I listen while writing this, I’ve barely made a dent in the track list, so I can’t be bothered. It all just sounds like the classic Wii-DS era Mii music. Whatever.

~~~

Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns, 3DS

I know I did a mock review a few years ago for this one, but. Y’know. This game is pretty good and I like farm sims. All the good stuff I’ve said in previous years about farm sims applies here; I get addicted to them easy and it’s dangerous for me to play them, cause it makes my autism go wheeeeeeeeeeeee

This game is one that’s close to my heart- I played it a lot as a tween and just enjoyed how much I felt like it captured the reasons why I liked the SNES Harvest Moon, while also expanding and adding more fun stuff. The gist of this game is that you are on your way to your farm, when you have an accident and forget which town you were going to live in. Both mayors want you to live in their town, and as you’ll come to find out, they’re fairly competitive against one another. Once you’ve picked your town, and start getting settled in, you’ll have an encounter with the Harvest Goddess, who explains that she collapsed the tunnel between the two towns because she was sick of the arguing- but wants YOUR help repairing relations. You do this primarily by entering the cooking festivals, held four times every month- the more you win, and the closer you get with the townspeople on both sides, the more you’ll be able to access upgrades for your house and tools, along with opening up the tunnel for easy access to both towns.

In the early days, you’ll be spending most your time working on your farm, and foraging on the mountain. There’s three screens on each side of the mountain with various foragable goods, fishing spots and wild animals to befriend – which is plenty to build up your inventory and earn some cash while you wait for your crops to grow. I really appreciate the early days in this game, as it’s not only nostalgic for me, but also a really solid tutorial. The first month is like an overall guide on how to play the game, with each town giving you a gift to start you off (Konohana giving you seeds and tools to grow crops, and Bluebell giving you a cow, which is just a much better deal lmao), showing you how the cooking competition works, and showing how to use the notice board and demonstrating the goal of opening the tunnel. You get a fairly well rounded understanding of most the mechanics you’ll be using, while also getting familiar with what you as a player will personally gravitate towards as you farm, forage, and befriend the locals on either side.

It’s not a lot of story, and it’s a very simple one at that- but it’s all this game needs. I remember as a tween, thinking that if there were ever to be a Harvest Moon movie made, that they should base it on this game; as it wasn’t overly complex, but still had fun characters and an easy to follow plot that would leave a lot of room for an adaptation to do what it needed to in order to make it work. I still stand by that, and will happily write the screenplay. Hit me up.

One cute thing that I love about this game, is that you can get closer with everyone, not just the bachelors and bachelorettes. In some instances, its required, which is a good incentive to give gifts and catch up with everyone when you can. Some date-ables need you to have high friendship points with not just themselves, but friends and/or family members that are important to them, otherwise you’ll be unable to marry them. That’s not the only reason to befriend people, however, as I learnt through this replay that you can unlock special requests once you’re close with certain people. This was an awesome revelation, as it varied the request board in a much needed way- when I was a kid playing, I’d only get super close with the bachelor I wanted and his required people so I could marry him. I didn’t ignore everyone, but I didn’t put much effort into raising their points either. I did this time though, which was great.

The request board is pretty simple, when you check it, there will usually be simple fetch quests from the villagers asking for something or to deliver something to someone else. This ranges from various crops, to foragables and other rarer items you need to collect or create. At the start of each month, there will also be special quests that are much higher in their difficulty, but also reap much greater rewards. In the early game, they’re usually requests for materials to open the tunnel between the two towns, or to upgrade your tools. Once you get closer with others, you can get special timed requests, which usually entail helping out with someone’s crops or livestock before the end of the day. This is a nice, simple mechanic to incentivise collecting items and growing your farm, and isn’t inherently bad.

What does hurt this, however, is how bloated and drawn out so much of this game feels. The special requests to upgrade your farm that I mentioned? ONLY at the start of the month. And, when you’re a year or two in, you can complete these big quests by day three or four usually- definitely before the first week is over. It kinda sucks to be forced to wait around all month just for an upgrading blitz as soon as the season turns over. I just wanted to unlock the mines, but according to the online guides, you need to have your house and property FULLY upgraded... I thought I was. I have the biggest house, both the chicken and livestock paddocks are fully expanded, I got a little more fields and a maker shed to process animal products into things like yarn and cheese and shit... BUT I HAVE TO DO THE BEEHIVES INDIVIDUALLY AT THE START OF EACH MONTH. THERE'S 6 OF THEM. I'M AT YEAR 4 OR 5 I'VE BEEN PLAYING FOR SO LONG... THERE'S NOT EVEN ANY NOTES OR INDICATION IN GAME THAT THERE WILL BE A MINE I JUST HAVE TO MAX OUT MY FARM AND FIND OUT. NOT TO MENTION THAT THERE'S UPGRADES FOR BOTH FARMS TO DO, SO IT TAKES FOR FUCKING EVER… It’s really shit to have the main way to feel progression being spaced too far apart to even mean anything. A simple change, like making the big upgrades available twice a season instead of once would help IMMENSELY. Even to expand upon the request system, and be able to make requests yourself to various villagers once you’re closer to them in order to upgrade your farm. That way, there’s still that focus on the community, and incentivises you to get close to people on both sides, as there will be materials that only one town has. I’m just spit-balling, but the progression needs to be more frequent!

This elongated feeling isn’t just limited to the requests and upgrades. It’s unfortunately present across the whole game. Which is such a shame, as it’s the reason why I never played past the second or third year as a kid. Befriending villagers and getting closer to them takes ages. Progress takes ages. And the food competition takes aaaages. There’s no auto play for it, and there is no reason to drag out an ‘ooohh who’s gonna win!?’ back and forth every. Damn. Competition. You compete 4 times a month, it gets old by like, the third one lol. There’s also a lot about this game that is just vague for no real reason- my biggest gripe being that you can upgrade your livestock’s production output by feeding it treats. In game, you just have someone say that feeding your livestock their favourite treats will increase productivity. The reality? There is a set number of treats for each type of animal, and you have to feed it that set amount for every level up you want to do, for a max of 5 items from that animal. So, where I though it was something like ‘feed the animals various treats to see which is their favourite,’ or ‘feed the cow 10 grain treats,’ - it’s actually ridiculous numbers like the cow needing 7 treats, 15 grain treats, 8 vegetable treats and 1 nutra treat PER LEVEL. PER COW. AND YOU CAN ONLY FEED AN ANIMAL ONE TREAT PER DAY. And there’s no way to keep track of it in game, you have to keep track of it yourself, which, in my opinion, is fucking horrific. I don’t mind the concept of having to feed your livestock various treats to level it up, but at least give some way to know how many to feed it! Have one of the villagers who likes animals tell you this as a reward for getting close to them, and maybe they can tell you how many of each treat you have to go. Or, have it be something you can get the stats of when you examine your livestock with a stethoscope! OR JUST HAVE IT IN THE LIVESTOCK BOOK IN EACH SHED. There’s so many ways that this could be a perfectly fine mechanic, but with it being that bloated and time consuming, it’s just ass!

And while I’m getting into the nitty-gritty of nitpicking- when you do timed requests for other villagers, like picking crops or milking cows, the items automatically go into their storage through an auto animation of the player putting their crops into their pocket. I wish that was an option for me on my farm, as it got annoying having to manually place every individual thing into my pockets when collecting crops and such. It’s things like this that make me want to get back into Stardew Valley again, as simple things like the auto grabber in the livestock sheds was a GODSEND that helped minimise the mind numbing grind, so that I can focus on enjoying the much better grinds that are more enjoyable.

One thing that this game has, that I really enjoyed when I was playing as a kid, is that the date-ables not only have heart events for when you’ve levelled up in your relationship, but also, YOU CAN TAKE PEOPLE ON DATES! If you catch your particular person when they’ve got some free time, they’ll ask if you want to go somewhere with them, and you can choose the location. Picking the right locations will reward you with a little date that goes well, and an increased amount of heart points – and if you pick a place that person doesn’t like, they’ll cut the date short due to feeling uncomfortable. This is really cute and fun, and though I wish you got more than a small handful of rotating sentences to see from your date- it is a nice way to be sure that you ARE close with that person, and can enjoy some time together. What I do wish, is that this was expanded a bit more, and even being able to go on friend dates with people you can’t date. I’d love to go for a walk in the mountains with the cool carpenter lady, or have tea with the grandma who runs the tea house – they’re my friends too, and it would be nice to have them do more than act as essentially set dressing and people to put up requests for you. Due to how simple these dates are, after a few of them, they don’t really feel like dates. The charm wears off when you notice that you’re just watching the two of you stand next to each other, while your date proclaims a random fact that’s not necessarily revealing anything of note towards your relationship with them, or their character. Having these be a bit more interactable would help solve this, as it’d be fun to answer questions the date has for you, or to do something together as a little minigame might be fun. Even something as simple as finding out info from other villagers as you get closer with everyone, and asking your date about the things you hear would be really nice! And, if you’re not dating, and able to go on friend dates, this would be a cool way to get closer with other villagers and learn a bit more about them and the history of the two towns.

One funny thing I noticed with these, however, is that ALL available bachelors or bachelorettes will ask to go on dates if you’re close enough- regardless of who you’re dating or even if you’re married. There is a jealousy system in place, where you’ll get the cold shoulder if you rack up too many jealousy points, and you have the choice to apologise or make it worse when they confront you with it. It’s a bit weird that people would still ask me on dates and get jealous after I was married. Like… Dude, you were at my wedding. There’s the occasional dialogue from other villagers that comments on married life, so it’s definitely not a secret. you KNOW I’m married, but still get pissy when I go on a date with my husband? It’s so silly, and that’s another point where I feel like a friend date system (that’s implemented with care) could resolve that strange point.

Of all the mechanics in this game, one that I simultaneously love and loathe is the filth on big livestock. First of all, I love that it’s such a clear indicator of when my animal is getting dirty, and if I leave it for too long they start to get filth clouds and flies following them. On the other, goddamn they get dirty so quickly. I don’t want to keep washing them every day, its a massive time sink and can be quite frustrating- especially when you’ve got a full barn with half a dozen cows, some sheep and alpacas. If it wasn’t as frequent, that’d be better, cause I don’t really care for the upkeep if I’m being honest. I just appreciate that it’s one of the only things that is communicated very clearly in the game. And, while we’re on the topic of bothersome things regarding the animals, the frame rate goes to hell when all the livestock are outside. It shouldn’t cause the game to nearly crash just by having all the animals outside, and it’s really annoying trying to milk your cow when you’re going at 1fps with massive slowdown. It’d be helped if the dogs and cats you train to herd them don’t cling to you and follow you wherever you go. I don’t really care if it’s cute or how pets act in real life (cause I know, my cats routinely come bother me for head scratches and cuddles while I’m writing these), but it’s really frustrating when you’re trying to pet your livestock and keep picking up 3 dogs in the process. Oh, oh, and one more thing, I grew up with the original DS version of this game, but played the 3DS remake for this; and while there’s not really any changes, the one change is this petting minigame for your livestock. While the livestock is out in the fields, you can sometimes see a little petting symbol above them, and interacting with them while that symbol is playing will launch the minigame. IT SUCKS. Like, yes, you can get extra hearts quickly through this minigame, but it goes on just a little too long, and would routinely crash my game when my black sheep wanted a pet. If the game automatically ended when you reached full hearts, instead of waiting for the timer to run out, that’d improve it- but this is ultimately an unnecessary addition and there’s no way to turn it off. Blehhhhh. You get so much more bang for your buck when farming livestock, but all this faff makes the crop growing seem so much simpler in comparison. I love that you can dig a trench for your crops, which allows you to place fertiliser at one end and it will fertilise the whole row, same with watering! There’s still a massive slowdown if you try to water a particularly large trench, but it goes back to normal when the animation is finished, unlike the animals, who still exist on the screen regardless.

Onto something I genuinely love about this game – the graphics. The style of the game is very cute, with a lot of the pre-rendered backgrounds having a painterly quality to them. The sprite art on the characters is also nice, even if it’s a bit of a generic anime style. I enjoyed seeing how the landscapes changed in each season, and seeing the little decorations put up during festivals is a fun touch. Pair this with the pleasant soundtrack, and it is such a nice, calming atmosphere to lose yourself in as you forage and farm.

Looking at this game more in-depth, it seems there’s a lot about it that becomes frustrating. However, I truly love this game. Within these weird flaws is a really cute game that I enjoy immensely, I just wish it was a little better so I could get more out of it. I deliberately pushed further than I ever played as a kid; I got so far that my animals started dying of old age LMAO. I would recommend playing with the fogu guide, as that was a lifesaver and clearly spelled out some of the vague things the game doesn’t elaborate upon. If you’re someone who likes farm sims, and hasn’t played this, I think that if you take into consideration how bloated it gets, you’ll probably enjoy this one! For at least the first two to three years. Lol.

Bluebell Town

Konohoana Town

Winter Theme

~~~

Story of Seasons, 3DS

Oh boy. I got addicted.

I really should stay away from farm sims, huh?

This game is the spiritual successor to the Harvest Moon series- or, more accurately, what Harvest Moon rebranded to after the split from Natsume. Look into it if you’re interested, I don’t particularly feel like rehashing the history for this write up… These take long enough to write as it is, and I’m just sharing my opinions!

Anyway, this is such a fun and pleasant game!

I’ve been struggling with general life and health issues this year, and I can say that playing this was a great distraction for a few months. It was genuinely refreshing to play a farm sim that was new to me while still feeling like I knew what in store for me. What I found funny about this, was that the sound design is the same as Tale of Two Towns. That was very strange to hear after just giving up on ToTT for being too much of a slog – at least the sound design is pretty good lmao.

The intro to this game is straight to the point, which I appreciated. You’ve been chosen to move to this small farming town and start working on your own lot to help boost the local economy. For your first week, you stay with your neighbour- an elderly woman who knows everything there is to know about farming -and she teaches you the basics. It’s a great safety net to slowly get introduced to the mechanics you’ll need to know, and allow you the time to get acquainted with everyone in town.

The big change for this game is that you will exclusively be selling your goods in the market, which will grow to have a rotating list of vendors to buy and sell from. This is an interesting idea, and is certainly one way to get a basic understanding of a supply and demand economy; but I’m not sure how I feel about it. Because of the focus placed on this market, there’s no shipping bin for you to just sell items at a base price. A few years into the game, you can unlock a personal stall at the market, which I suppose is the replacement for the shipping bin; but you don’t get that until you’ve been well and truly playing for a while. In the beginning, it’s a little rough when you only have one or two vendors- if you miss them and then hit a dry spell, you’ll just have to deal with a bulging inventory until you can sell everything! It gets better once you unlock more vendors, and I assumed as such when playing, but it doesn’t stop it from feeling a bit off-putting initially. Once you start unlocking more vendors, though, it becomes surprisingly in-depth. There’s a strategy to the market, especially when a particular vendor is paying extra for select items or when completing requests. If you sell an abundance of one type of thing, the price for it will drop- which I thought was an interesting application of supply and demand. I’m unsure how easily understandable this all is to a younger audience, as despite my math and business skills being subpar, I am still an adult with a lived understanding of the concepts at play here, and not the intended younger demographic.

I can say that once you get a grasp on all the mechanics at play, this game was a blast! I think my hyperfixation on this game lasted until about halfway through winter of the first year – which is pretty good mileage! The addiction lasted much longer than that, as I genuinely enjoyed playing this game over a couple of real life months. In the first two years, I didn’t really feel bored or at a loss for things to do. There’s a decent pace to the events held within each season- and with limited stamina and particular days to meet with vendors and actually earn money, there’s loads to cram into each day! Will I spend the day working on my farm, will I head to town to talk with my friends, forage for much needed materials and supplies, go bug catching or fishing, even swim in the river to dive for fish or rarer items like gemstones? There’s a lot to do, and it often reminded me of Animal Crossing. The diving when you swim in the river functions the same way, and with the ability to decorate and rearrange furniture in your house and certain areas of town; I couldn’t help but feel it was an interesting mish-mash of Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon.

To help demonstrate progress, there are tourist NPCs that wander the village square and comment on the town and it’s reputation. Once you start to attract more vendors and build on it’s popularity, there will be more of these tourists wandering around, which makes the town noticeably more lively. In the beginning when the town is pretty sparse, they just complain about it being a small country town- but with just one or two more stalls, you not only see a handful more tourists wandering about, but a shift to a more optimistic mindset towards the town too. Dialogue for local villagers will change depending on the reputation of town also, commenting on the popularity of the place and the kinds of wares available in new vendor’s stalls. This is a subtle thing, but I really appreciated it, as it did make it feel like there was a tangible difference happening to the town as I put effort into it. Villagers will comment if you haven’t said hello in a while, and sometimes I came across little events with certain characters, which adds to that local community feeling. I also found it quite amusing that the villagers will tell you in varying ways to leave them alone if you try to talk to them while they are eating. I was also surprised that once the town became more popular, more villager NPCs moved to town- ones you could date! AND, TWO OF THEM HAPPENED TO BE FROM TOTT!? You have no idea how surprising it was to see my husband Cam rock up to town, but his name was Kamil now. And Reina moved to town as well, though her name is… Licorice. I’m so sorry they did you dirty like that Reina... That is a fucking dogs name, not a name for a cute girl...

The visuals of the game are pretty nice, too. I think the watercolour inspired look to the character portraits is nice, though I think the in game 3D models creep me out a bit… There are plenty of QOL additions to this game that I really appreciated; my favourite being the crop fields having a little text bubble pop up labelling what crop it is, and crops automatically went into my pockets when I harvested them!! However, I’m not keen on the UI of the inventory, if I’m being honest. I understand that a scrolling list menu is pretty utilitarian, and keeps the UI clean and simple, but I think I’d prefer to have a more visual inventory so that it’s super clear what I am selecting. There are pictures and more details on the top screen when you select something from the list menu on the bottom screen, but ehhh… It didn’t hit for me, and I often felt a little lost when scrolling through the monotonous design. Nitpicky, I know, but I feel this is a slight downgrade.

There were other little things that became apparent the more I played, and unfortunately culminated into a mindless and sometimes frustrating grind. In the animal sheds, there is a feed dispenser and a treat dispenser, but they are so close together that often when I was trying to grab a treat, I’d end up with a handful of feed, and vice versa. Treats also had to be pulled out one by one, which is just silly when you have a lot of animals to give treats to. My solution to that was to just keep treats in my pocket at all times and map them to a quick select menu; but I would’ve preferred the treats be held somewhere else in the shed so that they’re not accidentally picked instead of feed, and that the treats automatically pulled out the amount corresponding to the number of animals in the shed (ie, if you have 6 cows, you go to the treat dispenser and it will pull 6 out for you in one go- instead of you having to pull out six individual treats).

When feeding animals outside, small animals like chickens and rabbits need to have food placed on a crafted feeder plate, but big animals like cows, sheep, llamas, alpacas and camels can eat directly from grass you’ve planted within their paddocks. This is great in theory, as you can fence off a paddock of your own choosing, and place grass and feeders within so that the animals can eat outside. What sucks about this is that I found the big animals would all crowd around one tile of grass, despite me growing 2-4 for them at any given time. Animals would get stuck on each other, and when I’ve got 16 big animals in the paddock all trying to eat from one tile of grass (which I believe is only 9 servings) it’s just a huge mess. Especially when I’m trying to go around and milk all my cows or shear the sheep and such. In the early days of the game, you’ll need to manually put each animal outside, and bring them inside at night, otherwise you risk stressing out the animal, making them sick, or skipping their produce the next day. When you’ve got a lot of animals, this takes up a lot of time, so its handy to buy dogs when they become available and let them herd the animals! This was present in ToTT, which I loved, but I often found that my dogs would glitch and get stuck in a default pose, or sometimes they’d seem fine and just never herd the animals back inside for bedtime. I had no problems when I only had a few animals in the sheds to herd, but when each shed can hold up to 8 animals, and you can have two small and two big animal sheds on each screen for a total of 32 in each half of your farm (not counting the dogs and cats!) there’s a lot of animals to take care of, and that’s when I noticed the most glitching out. Training the dogs isn’t so bad though, as you can use your whistle to train them for the actual herding, and playing with them by throwing a bone will increase friendship points with them quicker, which will allow them to herd more animals. What sucks a bit about this, is that you cannot play with the pets inside their kennel. Their huge kennels that are perfect for playing fetch. Especially on a rainy day when you have the extra time to play with them cause you’re not watering crops. C’mon. I want to play with the dogs. Another thing that was a bit upsetting was that the cats are next to useless here. You can’t train them to do anything, they’ll just laze around your farm (which is fair enough), but unlike in ToTT, they don’t herd small animals. No, they just randomly collect items here and there. Maybe they’ll give you a stick. Or some stones. If you build up your relationship with them, they may get gems and other valuables, but I found this to be quite basic and unnecessary when getting more dogs to help herd my animals was more immediately useful.

I wish the livestock animals had the same visibly dirty system that ToTT had, it’s one of the only things that was a genuine downgrade compared to that game for me. The animals don’t look dirty, the only visual indicators you get are for when shearable animals are ready to be shorn, as you can see the fluff. If the animal is filthy, you just get a little cranky symbol from them every now and then, or you’ll find out that they’re stinky when you pet them. This isn’t great, as you can miss that when you’ve got a lot of animals to keep track of, but letting them be too dirty for too long will increase their stress and risk them running away or getting sick. When you’ve got 30+ animals to take care of, you don’t want to waste your whole day, every day, brushing them all when there’s other important things to get done. Another thing I miss is the trench digging you could do for your crops. In this game, each tile you till will result in 9 of that crop (ie, plant one potato, you’ll reap 9) – which is awesome! I just think it would’ve been nice to have some trenches or sprinklers to assist with watering, as despite the process not being too bad, especially when you’ve upgraded your watering can, I was pretty tired of it by the end of the third year.

The worst part of this game is the bloated requirements to unlock stuff. This issue is still here, and I’d argue that it’s worse than ToTT! Not only are the requirements vague and hidden, they’re also outrageously stupid. To unlock more vendors, you need to ship a certain amount of particular items- which on it’s own makes sense. I appreciated that some of the villagers encouraged this idea too, but they don’t give any indication for how much of each thing you’ll need to ship. Looking at online guides to help, I was outraged with the numbers. I just think that if the NPCs are already hinting at it to me, there could also be a note book or quest log tab where the player has something like "maybe shipping X amount of Y will work?" so that it's clearer. If I, as an adult, looking up guides to assist, found this confusing and convoluted- I don't think there's much hope for the intended younger audience to see the whole game... Like, saying I should try selling various items is one thing- but trying to figure out with no further clues that what it actually wants is 500 seeds, 10,000 processed goods and 15,000 cooked recipes as just SOME of the criteria for ONE of the two remaining vendors to unlock.... Jesus. I was already very lost at why I unlocked cats but no dogs yet- turns out I needed to fulfill certain requirements, one of which is 30 seperate offerings to the goddess… Just to unlock dogs.

I don't have a problem with the game wanting and encouraging you to use it's systems to unlock more things, it's the fact that it's so vague and bloated I have an issue with. This year’s replay of ToTT was the furthest I’ve ever gotten, and I still ended up giving up before I could unlock everything because it became a slog to get through. Even in this game, where it’s paced much better, it’s still awful! At the beginning, you have the option to play on easy or normal mode, and I chose normal thinking that the differences would be things like managing the animals and crops being made easier, so I didn’t need that. Nope, as I understand it, the only real difference is the number of things to export. And even then, the numbers are still ridiculously high! This is the main gripe I have with this game, its a real dampener on the experience and it makes the time sunk into it with the cost vs reward pitiful. I made it to partway through year 5 or 6 before I gave up, because I was no longer having fun and the grind felt awful. That far into it, I should have unlocked all the basics, like EVERY VENDOR. There will be more cosmetics and recipes and blueprints to buy with new vendors, and when you get close with each vendor, they’ll give you an animal that will either live in the wild areas outside of town, or on the safari once you’ve unlocked it. This is nice! But why do I need to export arbitrarily large amounts of things without any clear indication of how I’m doing!? When a new vendor comes to town, they have a little cutscene introducing themselves with the mayor- why not have them come to town to investigate, or send a letter, or just the mayor suggesting it clearly to you; and say that they’re only interested if certain requirements are fulfilled. That way, it gives a clearer goal, something tangible to refer back to (either have the goal in the same tabs as the requests, or go ask the mayor at town hall) and a much easier time achieving it. There’s potential here, just executed poorly.

I don’t really know how to link this, but there were some other strange things I noticed about this game. The start button does nothing… you have to tap a button on the touch screen to pause the game. I don’t understand why the start button wasn’t good enough, especially when it’s not used for anything else? Also, I don’t know if it’s a quirk of the game, or just my copy, but when planting tress, the softwood and hardwood seeds are swapped. I plant softwood, and I’ll get hardwood, vice versa. Was very weird, so I just planted both to make sure I got some of the tree I wanted, as I’d inevitably forget and confuse myself lmao. There was also never enough fertiliser sold at the shop, and never enough weeds and twigs to find while foraging to turn into fertiliser. I wish it was easier to get a hold of more, as I seemed to have an excess of literally everything else at that point.

But, enough bitching- there’s an auto text mode during festivals and you can skip certain cutscenes! YIPPEE!! A lot of the gripes that I had with ToTT feel like they’ve been directly addressed and renovated in a nice way for this game. There are more things to do throughout the month- there are festivals and competitions regularly enough that it gives you a chance to work on your animals, crops, and fashion sense. The characters feel generally nice to get to know, and cutscenes aren’t just limited to the date-ables you’re romancing- there are farm rivals that will trigger cutscenes as well, and I played a little with one of the kids and she had a little social special event too. The town really felt so much like a small community when you know that getting closer with people can trigger cutscenes and events that show you more about them or your relationships with each other!

The maker sheds are not only easier to unlock, but more varied- there’s plenty of things you can do to the items you grow and gather, like creating more things for your farm, decorations for your house and the town, or even cool outfits and accessories. Did you know that if you equip certain combinations of accessories, you’ll get stat boosts? I didn’t until I read through the guides, and I equiped a combination that regenerated stamina periodically – it was SUPER helpful! Decorating your house, farm and town is fun too. I put it off for a bit because I was focused on the grind to try unlock all the vendors, but when that was seeming pointless, I built a bunch of cool furniture and made some lovely little settings with cute plants and nice decorations. Tourists will sometimes stand close to the decorations and comment on them too, which was a pleasant surprise. And, earlier I mentioned the safari- you can travel to it to forage for rarer items, or whack the mining point to get gems and minerals for upgrading tools and crafting cool furniture and accessories. I really meant it when I said that it didn’t feel like I was running out of things to do!

The music is generally nice too! I really loved that each season has both a day and night theme, I appreciated that after playing so many farming games that just have nighttime ambience when it gets dark. The summer theme for this game is also my favourite, its so pretty and I’d play it on my phone over other themes I didn’t like as much lmao. I was sad to hear the autumn theme was a bit strange and I didn’t like it as much, cause usually the autumn themes are some of my favourites from farming games- and although the winter theme was better, it got repetitive in a negative way real fast. Thats not so bad though, considering there are so many cute songs in this game (I think it’s gotta be double what ToTT had soundtrack wise!) I know for certain that when I hear the spring and summer themes from this game, I’ll have that fun nostalgic feeling when I listen. There is also a music festival held once a year, and in it they’ll play little medleys of songs from older Harvest Moon games – which was such a cute easter egg for older players!

In closing, I’m not sure what else to say, really. I love farming games, and this was a nice reminder as to why. I’m very glad to have played it, and although I still have a lot of gripes with it, I had a lot of fun. Which, that’s the point of a farming game, right?

Summer Theme

Flower Event 1

Competitive Festival

~~~

Nintendogs, DS

I wasn’t originally going to write this the following entry, as these were short playthroughs compared to what I normally self impose for these lists. But, well, here we are. This and the next entry are kind of a call and response to each other too, btw, as I played them both at the same time to compare for the sake of my own curiosity.

Nintendogs was the very first game that I had for my little ice blue DS lite back in the day. I had just turned nine, and this was the very first console that was mine. I had a childlike obsessions with dogs, and this was before I found out how cool cats were! I would ask all the time if my parents could get a big dalmatian with a red leather collar so I could name him spotty. It was a dream I’d held onto since I was two, and my parents were definitely sick of me asking, so it was VERY exciting that I got a dog game, and not only that, but the dalmatian version!

Initially, I just started playing this as a half hearted nostalgia trip- it’s hard when you’re inbetween fixations and NOTHING is fulfilling any entertainment or stimulation needs. It was cute to revisit this game, and I got pretty far, considering I fudged stuff a bit to make it a little more interesting. After all, I’m not 9 with endless time after school and homework was finished!

There’s plenty of things to do with your virtual dogs, you can feed and bathe them, dress them up and play, take them on walks or train them to win competitions! The only ways to make money in this game are to win competitions, or sell items. Good thing you can both find items and train your dogs for 2/3 of the competitions while out walking! While on a walk, if you head to an empty park and have a frisbee, you can practice throwing with your dog until they get better at catching and returning to you. You can also head to the gym where you can train your dog to go through various agility equipment, unlocking more as you progress through the agility trials. Both of these are free to visit, only relying on your dog having enough stamina to make it to these locations and back home again- and like the training at these locations, your dogs stamina will build over time the more you spend time with them.

The other competition is the obedience trials, which is best practiced at home. Training your dog to do tricks utilises the built in microphone, requiring you to direct your dog to the trick you want it to do and then calling out the command. I quite liked these when I was a kid, and while I didn’t get as far this time around, I really appreciate that this game will teach you how to train your dog for everything required to win the trails, but also lets you create new and unique tricks for your dogs. I so vividly remember sneaking onto the computer (I wasn’t allowed to use it without permission, and especially not to use the internet unattended lol) and looking up forums on how to teach my dog particular tricks. If you manage to find and buy a keyboard, you can teach your dog to bark short melodies on command, or even teach it to stand or do flips if you and your dog are particularly close! Some tricks are much harder to teach, obviously, but I enjoy that the game literally gives you an easy guide on how to take care of and train your dog in all aspects, while also giving you the freedom to play around and see what else you can get up to while you play.

As the competitions are so integral to the game, you’ll quickly meet the commentators Ted Rumsworth and Archie Hubbs, who were gay married in my head before I knew what gay marriage really meant. While the commentators can drag on, they’re actually pretty funny and certainly have a charisma about them, working perfectly as a silly jokester who feels more down to earth, and a more straight laced professional who takes those jokes seriously. You can even run into Archie on walks, with his friendly Shiba Inu. He often has nice or silly things to say to you, and sometimes other neighbours will gossip about him, talking about that time he apparently ate a dog biscuit.

There’s also a plethora of items and accessories to find while you play, including but not limited to weird and interesting toys, a Mario Kart RC toy collection, musical records, lost shoes to chew on and funny hats. The musical records were particularly fun for me, and though I didn’t play enough this time around to collect them all, I have great memories with these. You start off with just one white record, and this is one that you can record your own sounds on and replay, with half and double speeds available. I remember mucking around with it as a kid and finding out you can layer recordings on top of each other, and if you record at half speed, it’ll sound like a chipmunk when played at normal speed- so of course I had to make an elaborate record about an alien landing on Earth and telling everyone to go away. Some records, like the nap time and marching band one will have effects on your dogs, such as getting them all sleepy or marching around the room together. There are also four ‘secret’ records you can find that are produced by our very own Archie Hubbs, and these would incorporate snippets of your own record as a kind of remix. You would not believe how funny it was when I showed my sister my version of Giant Socks ft. Fart Noises, you just had to be there…

The visuals are about as sharp and crunchy as you’d expect from a DS game, but I love them. This low poly look with pixelated edges is quite charming to me, and although it’s not the most spectacular graphics ever made, there is a lot of care and detail put into the dog models and all the items and environments you come across. When you save up enough to buy new looks for your house, there are so many gorgeous interiors to choose from once you unlock them all! The soundtrack is similarly iconic, I pretty sure everyone likes the bath time track! There’s also plenty of Mario references throughout the toys and accessories, so it can be quite fun to see what you can collect when you get closer with your dogs.

Unfortunately, as I played on my own for a few weeks, I couldn’t partake in street pass, but you’ll just have to trust me when I say it was pretty good back in the day. You can choose a pup, maybe choose something from your inventory to give as a gift, and close your DS as you went out. I’d often exchange gifts with my sister as we compared trainer level scores, and it was fun meeting with other kids at church on the weekend and showing off all the cool tricks and items we had.

The only real downside to this game is that it takes place in real time, but I don’t find that too detrimental. This is definitely a game meant to be played in short bursts, and as a pet sim, if you’re not all that interested in just hanging out with your dogs after you’ve maxed out the amount of competitions and tricks to teach in a day, I don’t think you’ll get much more out of it. What you see is pretty much what you get, there aren’t really any hidden mechanics that’ll drastically shake up the game, you just buy dogs and hang out with them.

I highly recommend this if you’re looking for a quintessential DS game to play, or just like dogs. It’s cute, has it’s own charm, and is quite frankly iconic. And it has middle-aged man yaoi

Bath Time

Walking the Dog

Friendly Whiff Record

~~~

Nintendogs + Cats, 3DS

I never owned this game growing up, but my sister did. She never played it, so sometimes I’d borrow it and try to play, forgetting each time why I’d put it down previously. This game is a pitiful attempt at recapturing the magic of the first Nintendogs, adding features that no one asked for, and changing or even removing the elements that made the first game work so well.

Lets start with the biggest and worst change, in my opinion. You can’t physically pet your pets. Now, I know what you’re thinking, it’s a pet sim, surely you can pet it? And while, yes, technically, you can, all physical interactions with your pet are via a silhouetted shadow of your pet on the touch screen, while your actual pet is on the top screen. WHY!?

Well, I know why. They wanted to utilise the oh so epic 3D visuals and to do that, they have to keep the pets on the top screen. BOOOOOOOOOO

This design philosophy that prioritises the tech over the actual gameplay is the poison that killed this game, in my opinion. I do not even play with the 3DS slider on because it strains my eyes real quick lol, yet everything important is placed on the top screen to utilise this feature. The bottom screen is delegated to being a permanent menu screen or just a silhouette of your pet. By segregating this tactile element, it’s not only making it difficult to interact intuitively with your pets, but it just plain ol’ feels crap. In real life, when I want to pet my cats, I read out and pet them. In the first Nintendogs, when I want to pet my dogs, it’s really easy to figure out that petting them with your stylus while they’re on the touch screen is how you do it. I just don’t think there’s any reason in defence of making this a hand-eye coordination thing with the silhouette dogs, like. It’s yucky.

Because of these changes, the trails have changed a lot too. The agility trial is now a lure course, where you turn a crank wheel and lead your dog down a race track with lure lines. This is… painfully simple; despite there being elevations to the trails as you progress- like cross-crossing lines and hurdles to jump -it lacks any sort of direction or skill between you and your dog. You just… turn a crank, and honk the horn if you need to recapture your dog’s attention. Turn it just fast enough that they run at their fastest, but not so fast that your dog will lose interest and not so slow enough that your dog will pounce and play with the lure. It’s not complex or even interesting, if I’m being honest, and you just make sure to take your dog to the gym a few times and buy good lures that can go fast and it’s almost a guaranteed win. The disc trials, by comparison, are much more complex. In the previous Nintendogs, the only thing that really changed was the minimum required points needed to qualify for rankings. Here, the further you get, the more things get introduced. There will be sand patches that slow down your dog, and highlighted point zones that give an additional boost to your score. In theory, I get how this is upping the stakes and making it more challenging to win, but it all feels like a moot point as the disc feels so floaty and garbage to throw. It needs a certain weight and spin to it so that you can guess how hard and far to throw for certain points, but nothing I did seemed to work. Why did they change the physics here? The disc was perfectly fine previously, and these new challenges might even be interesting if you could actually direct and throw the disc. The other big gripe with these competitions is that your competitors are on the same screen as you. Previously, you competed by yourself, meaning that if you fucked up, it was on you and your dog, no one else. Now? Other dogs can get in the way on the agility course or disc range. I get that it feels more like a competition, but aren’t we here for the skill demonstration? The most egregious is the obedience trial, as you can’t even compete if you don’t have the AR Cards that came with the 3DS. Like… HELLO!? It’s lucky that it worked by just opening a PDF scan of them on my phone, but a core part of the game like this shouldn’t be tied to something external like that, just for a gimmick. They don’t actually do anything to enhance the competition, they aren’t a core mechanic in how you train your dog, it’s just an awkward thing you have to sit in front of your 3DS while you play! They don’t even do much when you play with your pets at home, the only thing you can do with them is scan them in and then your pet will wear an accessory based on whatever card you scan… but only while you’re in the scanning mode. IF you are going to implement something like this, I think it’s only fair if you get a rare collectable in game thats a fun reward for scanning it in, something more tangible for the effort, yknow? Not this dumb gimmicky shit that’s forced in cause they have to. (I don’t even think there should be stuff like what I just suggested if I’m being honest, the LoZ:SSHD Zelda amiibo is the perfect example of.. wtf why?)

Also, the prize money is not that much, especially for coming first in the championship. I have a feeling that this is due to the fact that you can enter each competition three times a day, per dog, for a total of nine potential competitions - unlike the previous which was three entries total per dog, regardless of competition. While Ted is back to narrate the competitions, it’s clear that they got the feedback of there being too much text to get through, so he’s barely a presence at the start and end, doing nothing more than the formalities of it. I definitely get that it could get tiresome to tap through all the text, but the text was flavourful at least, and if they had more banter between Ted and Archie here, it could’ve helped. Even just having something like… press and hold A to skip. That would literally fix it. And… ARCHIE ISN’T HERE. ITS JUST TED ALONE ITS SO SAD. AND I DON’T LIKE THAT EVERYONE IS MIIS NOW, IT WAS FUN THAT THE ONLY FACES YOU SEE IN THE FIRST NINTENDOGS WERE THE PIXELATED FACES OF TED AND ARCHIE, AND NOW ITS JUST MIIS EVERYWHERE. YOU DIDN’T NEED TO SEE THE PHYSICAL NPC PERSON AS YOU WALKED THE DOG IN THE FIRST GAME, IT KINDA IMPLIED THAT THEY ARE ALSO PLAYING ON THEIR DS JUST LIKE YOU CAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE AN IN-GAME MODEL EITHER. WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKK.

MIIS ARE COOL AND ALL, BUT THIS FELT LIKE IT WAS TRYING WAY TOO HARD! The Wii/3DS era is rightfully iconic, but this just missed the mark. I dunno how else to describe it, but there isn’t that much charm in walking through town and coming across miis- it was fine the way it was in the first nintendogs! The music as well… it just feels like it’s trying too hard to have baked in nostalgia by using the classic wii/mii sounds we all like without bringing anything to the table. Archie technically appears as one of the cashiers of a store you can enter on walks, but I didn’t recognise him cause he’s a mii and he got a bit whitewashed :/

The walks as well… UGH. There was something very nice and deliberate about planning out the walk beforehand and then going out. You can pick where you wanna go, if you wanna try to get the ? Icons that will either be a present or a neighbourhood dog, it was nice. I also liked that it was 2D sidescroller style walking in that game, here it is point of view behind the dog as it runs forward for the EPIQUE 3D GRAFICKS. You don’t get to plan the route, and I disliked how certain spaces were only in certain areas. The more you walk your dog, the more you’ll unlock places like the town streets, mountain streets, beach streets, ect. In town, there is a gym, in the mountain and beach there are public parks, but to get to them you have to catch a sign asking if you wanna go to that section while you’re on the walk. It’s more spontaneous, and I found myself frustrated. If I wanted to go to the gym, I had to make sure I went straight to town and after that, it’s straight home. If I want to go to the park, I have to make sure to get through at least two areas every time and not accidentally run past the park sign- and even then, you don’t know until you get there if there’s going to be another dog there who will muck up your training session. I don’t care, and its annoying for no reason, what was wrong with picking your path beforehand? If they insist on having these segregated areas, why not at least let me pick where I want to start? The only thing that is kinda ok, I guess, is that when you talk to neighbours and your dogs get along, they might invite you to come to the cafe or park with them to let the dogs play for longer. That’s cute, but most the time I don’t wanna do that cause the gym is right behind you and I won’t be able to access it if I go out with you now. UGH. At least there are little cones lines up that if you manage to get your dog to zig zag through them without touching any, you’ll get a gift- but the gifts are always recyclable materials to craft items later and it feels like salt in the wound for getting rid of the agility trails while reminding us that the dogs don’t control very well so its annoying doing the cones anyway!

The interiors you can buy are weird too- theres some nice looking ones to unlock but they all cost a certain amount. That on it’s own is fine, but theres the basic one you start off with that’s free, and then every time you change to one you have to pay. So if I bought the Japanese style interior for $1,000, then bought a different one but wanted to go back to the Japanese one, I’d have to pay $1,000 again. The build is instant, but like? Bruh? This is a bruh moment because in Nintendogs, once you bought a design, it was free to change back to it at any time- it just took a day or two irl to install. WHY WAS THIS CHANGED?

Even something as iconic as bath time isn’t that fun here. I dunno. This game just sucks. If washing the dog isn’t fun, what’s the point. There’s so many stupid changes that just says to me that they didn’t understand why the first one worked, and forced too many new gimmicks without testing to make sure that they were integrated well. Oh and the cats? Literally useless. You can’t take them on walks, and you can’t enter them in competitions. But Rads, I hear you say, real life cats are like that too! And to that I say: THERE ARE ALSO CAT COMPETITIONS IN REAL LIFE! The lure coursing feels much more like a cat thing than a dog one to me, and cats could be trained to go through obstacle courses or do a little dance like obedience trials. The competitions are an integral way to interact with your pet, they help to set goals for how you want to train them and measure your progress, and it is rewarding to win something with them after you put all the effort in. If you have a cat here, I want to play with it, not just throw a toy at it and have it look at me. I have cats in real life that will just stare at me blankly when I try to play and throw toys at them, cmon.

I can’t even be bothered to talk about the other stuff in depth, you get the idea.

This shit sucks.

Lets Go For A Walk [Daytime]

BARC

Cafe Petrov

~~~

Katana Zero, PC

Katana Zero is a relatively unique game; it’s a 2D sidescroller, but not quite a platformer- it has stealth elements, but is more focused on the mowing down of enemies to be a true stealth game. Either way, what you’ve got here is fun, especially once you start to understand the game and how it works.

One massive thing I appreciate is how the narrative elements are so entangled with the gameplay elements. The story revolves around Zero, a bathrobe-wearing, katana-weilding, samurai-film-loving swordsman who is tasked with killing certain individuals, leaving no survivors behind. To assist with these missions, he’s given a dose of chronos- a drug that alters the user’s perception of time, allowing them to slow down and rewind time through precognition. The more missions you go on, the more you slowly find out about the drug and circumstances surrounding it, along with revealing more hints towards Zero and his past.

As he is an amnesica, the only things we know about him is that he fought in the war, as evidenced by his service medal- and that he is a highly skilled, if socially withdrawn, killer. In between missions, he must attend therapy sessions, where he will be briefed on his next target and given a new dose of chronos. There are also little sequences where he befriends a young neighbour girl, and various other one-off sections with colourful characters around town. These all function like interactive cutscenes, meaning that there isn’t much time spent idly holding the controller and waiting for things to happen. You will be playing and making choices, even in quieter moments.

A real stand out factor of what makes this short game so memorable is the delivery. Not only in the gameplay and other details, which I will get to in a moment, but in the text itself! The text boxes have a timed delivery- with colours, animations and some sound effects for emphasis. This is AWESOME and really helps to demonstrate the tone of each conversation, accentuating the flavourful writing. Each character feels distinct in their presentation due to the way their text is literally presented, and when prompted, you get timed responses to choose from when in conversation. You’re given options for how you want to interact with others, from serious to humorous- even given the chance to interrupt people and really piss them off. The writing itself is quite enjoyable, as it knows when to be serious, and when to not take itself so seriously. In certain sections, you can even watch the conversations of certain enemies before they’re aware of your presence, which are quite entertaining to snoop on.

Into the gameplay itself, there is certainly a rhythm to it that takes a moment to fully understand- but once you do, it’s really satisfying. The big gimmick that ties into the narrative is the slo-mo - of which you have a limited amount of time to work in slow motion, which can be incredibly helpful when bum-rushing particularly tricky groups of enemies. The main skills you can utilise are a quick roll, which is practical and fun; melee items, which can be found and thrown across the levels; and your katana, which is a one hit kill for enemies, and can also help with extending jumps and dashes across the levels while you slash away. There’s also a crouch you can use to sneak around levels, but I did not use this often enough to really comment on. For the things I did use, however, I am quite pleased with the deceptive depth built into them. Melee objects seem simple, just pick up and throw; but depending on which item you’ve picked up, you can obscure yourself in a cloud of smoke, throw molotov cocktails or grenades at enemies- or at oil barrels, which was a personal favourite of mine -or simply rely on the tried and true reliability of throwing knives or other blunt impact objects to kill enemies or otherwise interact with the level. Sometimes, you’ll even come across melee that’s more special, like a flame thrower or remote detonation mine that can be used with more tactic.

The main method of killing will be via your katana, it is the name of the game, after all. Most enemies are one-hit kills, only requiring you be in range and slash at the right time to take them down. Some enemies will parry attacks with shields or melee weapons of their own, requiring two or more hits OR for a tactical roll to slash from behind. You can also parry the bullets shot at you if you time it right, flinging them back in the shooter’s direction for a nasty surprise. It’s simple, yet there are options for how you want to approach your enemies- meaning that you can’t blitz through with button mashing alone. You’ll want to pay attention while you learn through trial and error- as once you gain a bit of confidence in your understanding, you may want to experiment with baiting groups of enemies to your advantage- I sure liked playing with this! If an enemy shoots their gun upon seeing you, it’ll alert all the enemies in the immediately surrounding areas to flock to where they heard the gunshot. This can be a pain in the ass if you’re caught off guard, BUT, if you can adapt, or even plan to have this happen, you can wait for enemies right by the door they’ll appear from and slice them straight away. This is the kind of thing I think will seperate a lot of players’ experiences with this game, as the game gives this incentive to get good while being quick and nimble- so if you’re up to the challenge of bettering yourself through the way you behave and interact with the levels, it’ll definitely change the way you feel about the combat! I can tell you personally, just from playing through roughly 3-4 times, my first play that was largely brute force based vs my most recent where I prioritised efficiency and dexterity felt so different- AND BOTH FUN!

While this may sound a little overwhelming, especially when I tell you that you WILL be dying often, the game isn’t discouraging as it allows a quick respawn at the start of the room you’re in- meaning you can try again almost instantly without ruining the flow of gameplay. One of my biggest critiques of the game is, due to how fast paced everything is, I often found myself losing Zero amongst the flurry of guns and katanas, which mucks me up a lot. The only detriment to it being so fast, especially upon respawning, is this. Sometimes I’d get stuck for a second and keep dying on loop at the beginning of a level because my human brain and eyes were lagging behind and unable to physically process the rush of everything going on. This user error was the only thing stopping the experience from otherwise being seamless, so make of that what you will. I can say that I DID get better the longer I played, but I seemingly reset after putting down the game each time. It’s a great indicator for when I was getting too tired to play properly, as it was incredibly quick at pointing out through the rapid fire of stupid deaths when I’d just lost the knack for the session. One thing to counteract this is that there is a plethora of customisable setting within the menu. I had my friend Nika help me adjust everything so that I could play with minimal strain to my eyes, and it was greatly appreciated! I even joked that the tell of a great game is when the settings menus were as robust as the game itself- I’m not kidding when I say there’s a lot to customise! That is definitely the kind of accessibility within gaming I’m after; and I feel so perplexed that an indie game such as this can provide these options, while a large majority of AAA games barely let you remap buttons where you want.

Anyway, aside from the gameplay, the visuals and soundtrack are fantastic. There’s a distinct retro-dystopian-cyberpunk feel here, taking advantage of that tactile analogue feel of late 90s tech. There’s a branded focus on the cyan and magenta colours, which is super fun- but all the environments feel vibrant and detailed, even when they’re not pushing the saturation limits of your screen. You’re really able to see and appreciate the beauty of modern pixel art graphics here; the fluid animations make sprites feel so lively and full of character, there’s so many details in each level to appreciate, the dynamic lighting within levels is fucking gorgeous, and the level design was visually clear without being so in-your-face that it detracts from itself. Like, I noticed that during the levels as you walk through, theres a subtle glow around interactable elements, like floors and doors you can burst through. It’s not calling attention to itself in an obnoxious way, and honestly I find it hard to notice when you’re focusing on the action- but, if you’re ever feeling a little lost, the tiny glow as you get closer can really help steer players in the right direction- in a way that may even be subconscious when you’re not looking directly for it. In fact, I could say something similar for the early levels that teach you the foundations of this game as well. The tutorial sections do a great job of demonstrating the way it wants you to play; once you’re on your own- playing the real deal -I often felt as though there was an open dialogue between myself and the developers, the common tongue being this game. I love when games feel like a conversation in this manner, a back a forth between player and creator in a way that’s memorable- no matter how short the game is.

Pair this with an amazing soundtrack and some brilliant sound design, and you have yourself a winner! Seriously, you don’t know how conflicted I’ve been trying to pick my top 3 tracks here. Everything has a nice cohesion to it, while also being quite broad in sound. There’s a nice, almost vapourwave-esque style to most of the main level’s tracks- something fun and upbeat that showcases the beauty in synth music, and all without being too distracting from gameplay. There’s subtle changes in vibe depending on where you are in the game as well, so it’s not like you’ll ever get bored! And the light jazz sound in the quieter tracks brings a more subdued feeling without taking away any of that charm. I’m glad that the composers had the skill and confidence to pull these various moods together in the game through the music, as it allows for various emotional beats to play without feeling cheesy or abrupt. I already mentioned the sound effects that play during speech text; but the rest of the sound design is greatly appreciated in creating that atmosphere, along with auditory cues to help with gameplay. Even something as simple as the end of every level- where your objective has been completed and you have to walk back through the rooms with the carnage you left behind with nothing but the sound of your feet as you make your leave -is incredibly impactful.

For a game that is so fast paced, I was pleasantly surprised that it let moments just breathe. Walking back through levels, the sessions with the therapist, the nightly routines of watching the news and drinking tea before bed… Moments of reflection, forcing you to just sit and BE with the characters. You can’t avoid it, at least, not in the main story mode. It’s great. For those that don’t care as much about seeing the story in replays, or just want to challenge themselves, there’s a dedicated speedrun mode; and for those that bought the game on steam, theres an April Fool’s patch called Katana HERO, which is a frankly hilarious story of a spirit hunter who is trying to slay all the evil spirits. For something that’s notthedlcbro, there was a lot of effort put into the reskins and new dialogue that was very fun. I found Katana ZERO quite funny in certain moments already, HERO was just an enjoyable step further in that aspect.

I’ve been putting it off until now, but my other major critique is, in fact, with the story of this game. And it’s more of a half-hearted critique, as we are left with a vague twist and a lot of dangling threads that are setting itself up for a continuation. We know from the dev team that they are steadily working on a free DLC update, which is great to hear. However, I can’t help but feel that there could have been a way to keep this short story more self contained instead of relying on this update to tell all. There’s a billion and one examples of games that set themselves up to have a grand conclusion in the DLC or sequel, and end up falling short due to any number of factors- often the worst of which being the time between releases and the stagnating interest from fans as they wait. What we have here story-wise is special, don’t get me wrong, but I find myself being very cautious towards a DLC being able to truly clear up any questions and satisfactorily wrap up the narrative. I want to trust them, as they’ve delivered a great base game and April Fool’s patch, but I’ve experienced all too many games that fall short from things like this, and it’d be a massive shame if the overall experience is soured by leaving players on a puzzling ‘huh???’ for years before getting a conclusion that doesn’t quite live up to expectations. I think it is important to note that their progress on the DLC was likely interrupted due to the pandemic, and for an indie team I’m more than willing to wait as long as they need to get it out- these are just concerns I have, ones that more often than not can hit indie studios harder. I will say, that up until the very last chunk, the game had a fantastic pacing that I vibed with, great escalation and tangible stakes to drive the story, and very charismatic writing that I appreciated. The reveals and rapid fire of new perspectives upon the credits ARE interesting, and I’ve been thinking and talking about them for a while after playing- and that is something I’d like to give credit to. Despite the minor gripes I have, I was left with a great experience, one I’ll gladly replay through the years as I patiently await the continuation. The impact it’s imparted is already enough, as that’s what I’m usually looking for to validate the time sunk into any game that I play.

Lastly, I have no idea how to transition into this, but this game often reminded me of Donkey Kong Country 2 & 3. This game is not at all like DKC 2&3, and if you play either game expecting elements of the other, you will not find them- yet I consistently felt a distinctly DKC sense of familiarity. The way Zero yells when he dies sounds similar to the kremlings when you jump on them, the 2D level progression that’s not quite focused on platforming in a traditional sense yet still has undeniable platforming elements, the minecart section, the reticle aimed at you in the meat packing facility, the banging music and attention to detail… I DUNNO. IT JUST KEPT REMINDING ME OF DKC!? I want to stress that this is a good comparison, as I thoroughly enjoy both games- a lot of effort clearly went into both. ALSO I would enjoy more time with the minecart, it was really fun and way too short. I am a minecart level apologist for both DKC and KZ idc.

To wrap up, I absolutely see why Nika fell in love so hard with this game, and I’m glad I finally got the opportunity to try for myself. It was great to run my first playthrough with her watching, and I have enjoyed poking around and experimenting with the game myself. I feel like there’s plenty more I could say, but you get the picture, so I wont. I’ll just leave you with the only thing left to say-

R.I.P. Strong Terry, you’re lifting with Baby Jesus now...

Sneaky Driver

Breath of a Serpent

Delusive Bunker

Come and See

~~~

Marvel’s Spider-Man, PS4

This is a game that I’ve had on my shelf for a few years now, and I finally decided to give it a go. I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t really have an interest in playing, as I am so completely burnt out on the Marvel-ification of superheroes and also don’t really play these kinds of games much. I bought it because it was $18 on sale and it is one of my best friend’s favourite games. (The same friend who likes Odyssey… He should play better games, I am for reeeeeeeaaaaaaaal)

While the game isn’t that bad, I found myself incredibly bored and under stimulated with the repetitive nature of the gameplay. It does have it’s perks, (which is a massive one-up on Odyssey), and the saving grace of this game is it’s story. It took me a while to get into it, but once you’ve started to get a feel for everything and play past the tutorial sections, you start to see why people enjoy it. There’s a richness to it that has definitely been absent from the most recent entries in the MCU, and it was great to see a Spidey story that wasn’t the same ol’ Uncle Ben With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility spiel. We all know it, regardless of how much you know about Spider Man, and instead I would say it’s a genuine treat to see a Spidey (and Peter!) who have been at this for a while. There’s a lot of flavour text to help support this, through things like the in-game twitter parody, and collectables you find across the map, of which Peter will nostalgically comment on as you inspect them- I found that this did help to make the city feel like something that’s already been lived in, and not just starting up for the events of this game. The best demonstration of this, however, is the relationship between Peter and MJ. They’re exes who are just starting to rekindle their friendship as they cross paths and decide to team up and try to work together as events unfold.

You start the game by putting away Kingpin, and starting a domino effect that starts to put the city at risk. Without his mafia-style grip on the underbelly of New York, smaller criminal gangs are attempting to take over in the absence, which leads to trouble for our hero. There are three main stages to the story campaign, of which I felt the best was the first. While you swing around fighting crime and helping people, you’ll be able to tune into the JJJ livestreams which give an interesting, if vindictive, view of how the people view Spidey and related events- even if he seems a bit too fixated on him and comes up with some wild conspiracies.

I think most fans would say that swinging around as Spidey is the biggest draw to the game- though I’d argue that I found more fulfilment doing friendly neighbourhood activities. There are also various battles and boss battles along with select missions to be had around the map, so there is a lot to do. During the main story campaign, you will take part in scripted events AND play sections where you play as other characters- MJ and Miles. Playing these short sections, which are usually stealth oriented, was overall a nice change in perspective. It helped make the world feel just that little bit bigger and connect various main NPCs to Spidey and what you get up to. In between the three main phases of the campaign missions, there are various side missions and objectives to fulfil- such as various crime related missions where you infiltrate and take down baddies with the help of a local police chief, more environmentally focused missions provided by your friend Harry (who is absent for this game), and little quests given by NPCs in the world who need help from their friendly neighbourhood Spider Man.

There’s a lot going on here, and that is both to it’s benefit AND detriment. I enjoyed doing most of Harry’s eco missions; it not only varied things up with little, but provided a further reminder that Peter IS a scientist, and quite a clever one at that. Plus, you can’t be kicking butt allllllll day! It was also nice to help NPCs out when you could- but there were a lot of missions and quests that felt like copy paste jobs and I got tired of them real fast. In the overworld, while you swing around, you can come across crimes to stop, enemy bases to expose, and later on various little puzzles or skill challenges as you progress. These encounters were grindy and repetitive, and I found that once you’d gained an understanding of both how to enemies behaved and how the combat worked, it’s not actually that in depth! It kinda sucks, actually, because even if you only did encounters that were radioed in, there’s so many that even if you’re not aiming for 100%, you’d still spend a lot of time idly swinging around and doing the same old fights over and over. Encounters don’t feel challenging, they’re just hard because there’s six waves to fight through. Anyone who isn’t a boss is a copy paste from one of four variants of the same enemy. Guy. Guy with weapon. Guy with shield. Big guy. Sometimes you’d get a guy with a rocket launcher or a jetpack, but it’s nothing more than a garnish. I’d have hoped that it at least felt different to fight the different syndicates- the first third has you fighting a Chinese Mafia group, very organised crime based enemies. The second third is mainly escaped convicts after a break out, which is much messier with in-fighting and lack of organisation. And the final third has you fighting Sable Agents, a form of private military/mercenaries for hire who’ve run amuck, and have brute force and numbers on their side. If there were more variation in the feel of these different stages in the story shown through the way you needed to fight and take down these groups, I feel it would’ve helped immensely! But no, all three stages of the story have battles and enemies that are quite literally the same, but just reskins depending on which syndicate, with the Sable agents just ever so slightly different because they have jetpacks and armour. OoooOOoOOoooooh. So gaming. I think that if they were aiming for more of an organic feel with enemy encounters and the like, they should aim higher than for them to be set dressing to eventually ignore, and instead put effort into making battles not only varied and challenging, but enjoyable, too.

Even the most fundamental part of the game- the web slinging -felt fatiguing and tiresome early on. I guess it’s nice, but it didn’t feel too impressive to me. I found the controls rather sticky- pun intended -and felt like I had barely any control over the movement and direction. When I’d run up a building, Spidey felt like he was going all over the place instead of where I’m trying to get him to go. And don’t get me started on trying to get off a building once you start crawling or running across it- he’s stuck and I couldn’t find any way to get him off in a timely manner without resorting to button mashing! It sucked the most when I was in the middle of a car chase or other time sensitive manoeuvring and I’d get stuck on the corner of some dumb building – goodbye momentum! Fighting was also ass, as I’d often get stuck in corners when wall crawling or attempting some of the fancier move sets you unlock later on. I don’t really think it’s that great when so much of a AAA game made me feel like I had to resort to button mashing just to get out of the way…

If that wasn’t bad enough, during the more stealth oriented sections where you play as MJ or Miles, you don’t have access to much, if any, move sets; and have to get by with something much more limited. The stealth sections are ass, and I think people who genuinely praise these sections haven’t played other stealth games. I’m a relatively new appreciator of the stealth genre myself, but cmon, the stealth here is bare bones at best, and is infinitely better when you’re playing as Spidey compared to the mandatory sections with MJ or Miles! Crawling around, finding info and trying to escape unnoticed is so much more fun with Spidey, and although I understand the point of these sections is to demonstrate not only how powerful and skilled Spider Man is, but also how dangerous the enemies are- I just plain ol’ didn’t enjoy them! Some stealth scenes were more interesting than others- I mostly enjoyed creeping around Mayor Osbourne’s apartment – but as a whole, it is just so bare bones and not good enough to have made it to the final cut in my opinion. I don’t know what else they could do to make these more interesting, making more stealth based objectives for MJ and Miles to do during these sequences might be a start. Another thing might be to have more time playing as these characters in a non stealth context, but I don’t feel too solidly on either suggestion.

I’m clearly quite frustrated over these sections, but that’s because, to me, they concisely describe an issue that I have with this game. It’s trying too hard to be a jack of all trades, while being a master of none. So much of this game felt like obligatory game design choices, the safe ones you make because they’re popular and work and can be easily replicated in most AAA games. The very first note that I wrote down for this game was that the map reminded me of the botw map- bad. I don’t enjoy these pseudo open world games that try to put so much busy work in the overworld that doesn't actually amount to much, and it’s boasting points are mainly on the technical specs and not the experience of the game imparted on players. For a hero that’s defining characteristic that sets him apart from other heroes is the fact that he is a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, so much of this game felt about the big picture instead of the little guy. By having so much crap in the world over saturating Spidey’s downtime, it detracted from the feeling of helping the people of New York, and just felt like he was helping the city as a vague concept. Yes, fighting crimes and keeping the city in check is important, but let us spend more time at the FEAST Shelter so we can help out when we want, instead of limiting it to scripted story moments. Even if Peter can’t always get to the shelter, show us more of how Miles is doing once he starts volunteering his time there. And show us more of MJ please, she’s a very clever and interesting character, and to have most of her screen time being limited to shitty stealth sections or cutscenes was a bummer, especially because, although what we get of her is decent, it would’ve been a bit nicer to see more about how the actions of Spider-Man were affecting her work and personal life as well. I feel there plainly wasn’t enough time to get to know these characters, and that they were all severely lacking in those ‘filler’ moments – y’know, the ones that let us know more about these characters and their world when they’re not faced with life or death. Some comments here and there from Peter and MJ wasn’t enough, and in this department, even though I do think the story is solid and the best part about this game, it is too refined when it could’ve afforded to go a lot more in depth. Even things such as important moments regarding Aunt May or Doc Oc didn’t hit very hard for me because we barely spend any time with them- and what little time we DO spend with them is through whatever Peter is directly involved in. Having some time to cut away and SEE how the work Peter and Doc Oc are doing is DIRECTLY impacting the people they’re trying to help, and not just having some random guy show up when the product is nearly finished and the funding is cut. Let us KNOW how hard Aunt May is working in the FEAST Shelter without the director there, and what kind of a toll it’s taking, not only on herself but on the people she’s trying to help. I feel that it was in desperate need of more humanising moments for everyone, and not just Peter. It’s a video game, not a movie! Lean into the fact that there are so many more ways to demonstrate characters and settings through this interactive medium, a comic book character should be one of the easier things to adapt!

The visuals were fine, it’s a pretty standard PS4 game- but I noticed a lot of issues when playing, and some that would’ve been game breaking if not for auto saves. There were instances where enemies got stuck in walls or behind fences and were literally inaccessible to me, meaning that I couldn’t complete battle objectives because the battle was never won. There were also a few times where the camera puzzles set up by Black Cat just didn’t load correctly. The location had everything there to start the puzzle, except for the camera, so I couldn’t start anything until I swung around for a bit and came back, hoping it spawned in correctly this time. The worst example of this though, was that during one of the eco missions, I was supposed to redirect satellite dishes to relink them during a storm. Very simple mission, however, I was swinging around for over 40 minutes trying to figure out what the hell I was missing, because even though I’d linked up everything, the final part of the mission didn’t load in or whatever and I couldn’t complete the mission. It was so frustrating that it marked the end of that play session for me, and when I eventually went to restart the mission, it worked fine and was solved in under 5 minutes. For a game native to the PS4, it wasn’t optimised that well, which is a shame.

The audio was generally pretty nice as well, there’s a few nice tracks, but I don’t really feel that anything was stand out to me; other than the fact that there is a dynamic soundtrack thing going on. This means that when you’re just walking around, you’ll hear the city ambience in all it’s glory (including this cool easter egg). However, as soon as you start swinging, the bombastic track for epic cool spider guy starts playing, and can feel quite awkward when you abruptly jump into a song, especially when you didn’t intend to. The soundtrack has an overall orchestral feel, one that feels on a similar caliber to blockbuster movies, so while I didn’t personally connect with many of the songs, there’s not really anything bad to say about this soundtrack either.

In my final nitpicking, I’m going to get a bit more spoilery than I aim for these write ups. The final third and ending of this game sucked balls. Sable as the main antagonist for the endgame felt bland, and she had a rather abrupt change of heart at the end. I feel she would’ve been a stronger threat if she, and her men, were better not only narratively, but morally too. Having a private military for hire should’ve felt like a threat, and I can’t help but feel if they proved that they ARE better at Spidey’s job and really shaped public perception of him into being an amatuer and a menace, that would’ve been a morbillion times more interesting. By having them just be an oppressive, fascist-lite, military brute force that is just as corrupt and uncontrollable as you’d think it would be, it devalued all level of threat for me. Shouldn’t the main issue here be that Mayor Osborne hiring these guys is not only a smear campaign against Spidey, but something so effective after the main fuck ups at the start of the game that the people of New York are WELCOMING of this protection? I just found it cartoonishly over the top and too simple that the big military guys were arresting and locking up civilians for no real reason, looting them and kicking them out of their building, and otherwise wasting all their resources by focusing on Spidey and not, yknow, resolving crimes and other disputes. Fuck cops, but the very least they could’ve done is make it more obvious that the police can’t do anything anymore, as these guys are stepping in and taking over ALL aspects of life in the city. Having them stated to be crazy oppressive and whatever felt pretty watered down when they functioned exactly the same as the amateur but organised crime of the Masks in the first third, and exactly the same as the chaotic and brutish crimes of escaped convicts. The only tangible difference is that theres more physical layers to peel off Sable Agents when in combat: there’s more towers to pull down and armour to smack off – THATS IT. Part of what should’ve made Sable so much more of a commanding force is that they’re acting in direct response to a viral epidemic started by Doc Oc. Not only do I find it unrealistic that everyone was actually wearing masks during the pandemic, but this whole section just felt like a complete mess, gameplay wise. I found myself most annoyed by the crime system in the overworld, as there will be both escaped cons AND Sable agents shooting you down as you swing through the map. While this is an effective display of how fucked the city has become, I was quite disappointed to find that of all the enemies you can fight in the overworld at this stage, the ONLY ones that count towards map completions are the ones that are radioed in. There’s no other incentive to make it worth my time to fight all these people, no extra things to trade for to gadget upgrades or new suits. Nothing. On top of all this, the actual end of the narrative was rather abrupt and crap tbh. I know with the foresight of having played this years after release that it got it’s own sequels and spin offs, but I’m a firm believer in narratives being able to hold on their own internally without relying on the MCU-ification to make them retroactively better.

In closing, it’s clear that this game was not for me. It’s fine if you like superheros, and don’t care about how thin the genre cocktail of gameplay styles are in actuality - but I think my standards are too high and I wasn’t impressed, especially due to this being a fucking Sony game. I know they have the budget to do better, c’mon. And although I didn’t care for it, there were a lot of options for customising your play experience, like choosing suits, power-ups and gadgets to aid in battle, and the freedom to leisurely explore the map if you’re so inclined. I did 100% the story and all collectables and challenges on the map, but not to a gold-star degree or with the aims of platinum trophy. Fuck that.

At the end of the day, I want to praise the parts of this game that should be standard within games of this budget, but weren’t, and sometimes still aren’t. This is a completely single player game with a large campaign filled with variety and interesting things to do. There is still a demand for games like this, and I’m glad that this aspect was something that not only helped it to sell well, but also show to developers and stake holders that there IS a demand for enriching single player games. There were also a great amount of accessibility features that were fairly easy to access and understand, so those that may need a bit of extra help and adjustments to get through the game are able to enjoy the same experience. These are things that should be encouraged, and for that, I commend it.

But, play a different game if you care about the fighting or the stealth. Neither are done well here lol.

The Golden Age

Anything For A Story

Renewed Rivalries

#rads reviews #goty #hooray thats last years gaming done!!!!

[ghostlyfirn]

It's me, Ghost!!

Other names I go by: Firnen, Snurp, Bubble, N, Mags

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my self-image is usually akin to that of a fictional character (hence why you will see some drawings of characters with added features. usually a crown of some sort. it's because that's how i represent me)

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Kirby

Lethal Company

Wings of Fire

The Upturned

Terraria

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Miitopia

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#pinned #ayo this is my 100th post wth

[scrunkore]

Scunkore Media "Thread" 2023: Part 4

welcome back to the scrunko core

38) Miitopia (Switch, 2021)

Mii games are a dying breed, and honestly I'm not sure why they put this game on Switch when they did, but that's whatever really. It definitely has its fair share of improvements from the 3DS original, with a bit more content and an absolutely fantastic custom makeup tool that lets you make every Mii that much more unique, being put to great use by a whole bunch of creators. The game itself, though... it's still not anything special aside from that, and also its cute story bits and Mii interactions, but those get old well before you actually finish the game. And the game takes a while to get through, too, feeling very repetitive and grindy even while you constantly make progress. Basically, the game does some fun things, but it's not nearly enough to make the whole experience remain interesting throughout. It's just painfully average as an actual game, and I'd really rather have a new Tomodachi Life game, but that seems unlikely at this point. [2.5★]

39) The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Movie, 2023)

I'll never get over the reaction to the casting announcement for this movie, that was the funniest shit to come from that one Nintendo Direct presentation and unfortunately it might be more memorable than the actual movie itself. Chris Pratt Mario is the least of its issues (actually the voice acting is fine) - the plot and indeed most of the characters are pretty half-baked and it feels like they rushed the story through basic plot points between various action pieces, but at the very least that does mean it's never boring. Trouble is, that does mean I can't say the movie is good, despite the really nice-looking visuals and great soundtrack (when it's not using corporate-mandated licensed songs), both clearly made with a lot of love for the series. Sure, it was an entertaining movie, with some fun elements like Jack Black Bowser banging out the tunes, but realistically I think it's pretty average when I'm not giggling at the references - the critics were in fact correct, who knew. Still, does give me some hope for future Nintendo movies, because it was well-made. [3★]

40) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch, 2023)

Breath of the Wild, one of the biggest and most popular games Nintendo has ever put out, finally got its sequel, and it somehow makes that game look like a demo. Everything new that they added results in Tears of the Kingdom blowing Breath of the Wild out of the water - the world map is about three times the size due to the added cave systems and whole new areas above and below Hyrule, the abilities Link gets to use are so much more complex and fun to use (especially the building mechanics), the enemies/bosses and side quests are more interesting, the list really does go on. It even has an excellent story that, while still unfortunately leaning back into "rescue the princess", delivers a really enjoyable narrative only marred by the fact that you can kind of ruin it by viewing it outside of the intended order, but I guess for an open-world game that's fine. I held off on writing this bit because I didn't really know what to say other than "game good", and now I don't want it to go on too long because I'll start rambling. The game is just really fucking good, man. Sometimes things in it are annoying, but I say that about every game, including Breath of the Wild - it may not be a particularly interesting opinion, but I think this game has just about perfected what it wants to be, and I have no idea what the Zelda team is going to do next. [5★]

41) Sonic Adventure (Dreamcast/PC, 1999/2011)

Next time someone tries to tell me that Sonic "had a rough transition to 3D" and it's clear they're talking about this game specifically, I think I might push them out of the nearest window, because that lie has gone on for far too long, though admittedly the ports of this thing have a couple unique issues and that's kinda why I modded the Steam port to be more in line with the Dreamcast version. But regardless, yes, this game is really good fun. It's a pretty unique 3D platformer with an excellent hub world and several different gameplay styles that each offer something fresh - from speeding through levels to fishing for a kind of annoying frog, I do rather like them all to varying degrees. The general vibes of the game as a whole (mainly down to the locales but also things like the incredible music) are pretty cool too, and the solidly enjoyable story - especially the parts with Gamma - is told in cutscenes that may look a bit awkward now but still have a lot of charm to them. Everything culminates in the classic final fight against Chaos, and that will always be really cool despite the actual gameplay of that fight being a bit of a pain. If you haven't played a "good" 3D Sonic game, open your heart up to this one - but do grab the mod loader if you're playing the Steam release. [4★]

42) Sonic Adventure 2 (Dreamcast/PC, 2001/2012)

The sequel to Sonic Adventure is kind of a few steps forward and a few steps back, and production-wise we know it was a bit rushed, which does explain some issues, but thankfully the subsequent ports ended up having less issues than the prior game's. Adventure 2 takes a hit in not having a cool hub world to explore and instead opting for typical menus separating the two routes that include most of the different level types introduced in the first game, and one of those level types (the emerald hunts) is designed so much worse this time around for god knows what reason. In fact, the game can be a bit more annoying to play in a lot of areas, although plenty of the time it's just because it's deliberately more challenging and not actual bad design. But it makes up for anything that might be worse than in the first game by having even cooler presentation, with a stronger storyline featuring everyone's favourite grumpy hedgehog Shadow and better cutscenes, more banger music, and going right up into space for the supersonic finale. So generally it's both better and worse than the first game, but hey, you live and learn. [4★]

43) Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit (PC, 2022)

With the upcoming Sonic Superstars set to feature Fang for the first time since the original Triple Trouple, now's as good a time as any to check out the stellar fan remake that turns it into an awesome 16-bit style game mechanically rather similar to Sonic 3, like the more traditional Sonic 4 that we never got. It's a lovingly crafted game that perfectly re-imagines the zones from the original with much cleaner graphics and refreshed music accurate to the hardware it's trying to replicate, and more spectacular setpieces that give it a whole new burst of character, plus it's full of its own fun original gimmicks and surprises too. A full run of the game getting all Chaos Emeralds and defeating the incredibly cool true final boss won't take you very long, but if you're a fan of the classic games you're bound to enjoy the ride and want to replay it with the unlockable characters too. Definitely a really cool fangame that's worth checking out. [4.5★]

44) Pokémon Infinite Fusion V5.X (PC, 2022)

It's the Pokémon fangame that got all the content creators posting YouTube shorts of the funny things they made in it, and of course, it's easy to see why a game with a fusion gimmick would have so much mass appeal - it's a massive undertaking from the people working on the thousands of different sprites required, and the idea of fusing Pokémon together has been popular for over a decade at this point. And that's a gimmick that the game handles really well, every battle presents you with some new cute combination or hybrid abomination and you never know what's coming up next, plus you'll always be mixing and matching with your own stuff to see what happens and if you can make something completely overpowered (I recommend Shedinja + Absol for maximum cheese). Though, I'm not that big on the core adventure itself, because it's just Kanto again with some Johto and the Sevii Islands tacked onto it, along with more Pokémon of course, and the new story elements are just kind of whatever unfortunately. It's also an RPG Maker game, so there's some jank to be seen, but I'm used to that considering the other things I've played. So all in all, it's hard carried by the fusion mechanic, but at least it manages to nail that, and it's still being updated constantly with new sprites to check out. [3.5★]

45) Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! (Switch, 2023)

I don't feel much for this game, so I'll keep it short. I've only really dabbled in Puzzle Bobble once or twice, and so I figured I'd give this one a whirl, but it wasn't that good all things considered. Sure, it gets the core gameplay right, as it should, and the online multiplayer works pretty well, but what I found pretty annoying was the story mode - a lot of the levels are just stupid and a pain in the ass, at least for me, so maybe I'm not a hardcore Bobble-head after all. The characters are rather annoying too, but maybe that's just in this entry, who knows? If there are better iterations of this series then I'd be down to play those as well, I just didn't like this one that much outside of dicking around with non-story mode content, which was decent enough. [2.5★]

46) Nimona (Movie, 2023)

The once-cancelled Blue Sky adaptation of a comic from ND Stevenson, showrunner of that very queer She-Ra series, actually got rescued by Annapurna and actually came out this year, and boy am I glad it did, not least because of how poorly animation tends to get treated by so many of the large corporations. The movie is an incredibly fun and deeply heartfelt story of people society was all too keen to paint as monsters because of an authoritarian regime, and it's definitely pretty clear about its messages in a way that pretty much anyone can understand. It's also quite well-animated and put together really nicely, and although I have heard that it goes for a more family-friendly angle than the original comic did, it still manages to get everything across effectively and hit the right emotional beats, and it uses its runtime as well as one could expect from it. Also, I gotta say, this one's also very queer - the two most important male characters in the story are gay and get to kiss on-screen which is awesome, and I definitely get gender vibes from the titular Nimona, the awesome transforming girl who gets the most action in the movie. Maybe it's a good thing someone other than Disney released it, because I'm not sure how keen they are about gay people and anti-establishment messaging (this isn't even really a joke unfortunately). But anyway, this movie was awesome, and I hope we do see more projects like it. [4.5★]

47) Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (Switch, 2023)

Ghost Trick has always been one of those really cool and unique DS puzzle games that people have been demanding everyone play for years, and in this case it's easy to see why that's all they were saying about it (in a good way). The story of this game is frankly too good to spoil, with some pretty great twists and turns that it takes, and I highly doubt anyone will be able to predict quite how it ends because that truly blindsided me and I loved it. The excellent cast of characters kind of helped with that too, especially the best boy of all time Missile; it's just very well-written as a whole. Now in terms of gameplay it's no slouch either, delivering some honestly genius puzzles revolving around setting up Rube Goldberg-esque series of movements with various objects that you, a ghost, can take control to prevent people from dying. Some of these puzzles are real head-scratchers, but I think anyone can get through them with enough trial and error, and it is immensely satisfying when you do, so it's a damn good puzzle game. Also worth mentioning, though it goes without saying if you've seen the game before, is that it has a really slick visual style with character designs that pop, and an excellent soundtrack that is very much welcome. Genuinely an incredible game, and I think they should let Shu Takumi do more original projects if this is what he can cook up. [5★]

48-49) Azure Striker Gunvolt: Striker Pack (Switch, 2017)

Had to check out some of Inti Creates' flagship titles when I saw they were doing a Love Live game in a similar style, and yeah, this is a fun type of game that feels inspired by certain Mega Man spinoffs. Both games in this pack have cool run-and-gun gameplay where you can "tag" enemies do deal more damage to them, and of course you kind of have to balance that with avoiding taking damage yourself. Not a problem in the levels themselves, but taking on bosses is where it can get super tricky, especially towards the end of the first game which is just way harder than the rest for some reason (so the first game does seem to require grinding for levels and equipment). So the core gamplay is something I quite like, but I'm not a fan of how it often presents the story as text boxes appearing during the action where you're not going to be paying attention to them because you're busy, and honestly I don't much care for the story and characters anyway (and honestly why are there so many little girls in these games, they even turn characters into them in the second one). I do also enjoy the little gimmick of having straight-up idol music playing at certain times when you're powered up, and the music is just kinda good in general, so there is that. Decently fun games overall, there's not that much left to say about them. [3.5★]

Finally, I'm done catching up on this, future entries will just have their own posts. Hope you enjoy these poorly-made stream-of-consciousness mini-reviews!

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#scrunkore media 2023 #miitopia #super mario #zelda #sonic #pokemon infinite fusion #puzzle bobble #nimona #ghost trick #azure striker gunvolt

[laneiru]

Arttopia 2023 - World Prompts - Days 16 to 18

Karkaton Ascent / Karkaton / Dark Lord's Castle

Woooo yeaaahhh, an opportunity to draw this idea of mine that pretty much stayed the same since the olden days of 3DS version: the party members' escape sequence. What do you mean I still have to draw the backgrounds???

Had to break consistency and made the images a bit larger because of the additional detail. And the one time I get to draw my OCs again, the quality's all over the place. Made me miss the simple shapes of Miitopia scenery for a while there, lmao

It's arranged in reverse order because of the prompt list. Full context is under the cut.

Rana's teammates are imprisoned somewhere in the castle, and of course they all want to escape. Once all three groups are there, it was enough manpower to attempt it, dangerous it may be.

Yumello, Delfina and Emil were the first to leave the group, where Delfina and Emil had the misfortune to be swarmed by monsters so early, and Yumello stayed behind to do an ill-advised attempt at getting Dark Lord Rui's attention (he also had a bone to pick with him for interrupting his long-awaited vacation).

The rest continue their escape, having no time to think about the loss. Zero carves a path for them by tapping into his powers of maximum edge (he doesn't look any different other than looking like a masked Thief/Imp hybrid lmao) and blasting open the castle's main doors. Rui never bothered to fix the entryway after this btw, lmao

They get far into the volcano when Cerberus, not yet controlled by face shenanigans, appears and be vaguely menacing and a roadblock. Emi Lumi, Cedric and Iris then volunteer to stay behind and deal with this menace. Alyssa and Zero strongly disagree at first, but they were eventually persuaded to keep going.

So long as they can get to safety, to Rana, there is still a chance to save them again.

With a heavy heart, Zero brings Alyssa and Miri away to attempt the edgiest of powers: (limited) mass teleportation. Tl;dr: he's really not supposed to use all these cool abilities, as once they emerged from the far side of the volcano, he collapses from exhaustion. Zero was begging at that point to leave him since they were so close, but of course the two were not having it after everything that just happened.

Unfortunately, Rui had already caught up to the farthest group. Yumello did put up a good fight in his stalling attempt (spoiler: he drops the pop star act and used his actual vampire powers), but it simply wasn't enough. As for why Rui was quite apathetic at the party until the jailbreak: simply, entertainment. A change of pace from his usual face-stealing antics. He knows they're capable and will try to escape, he just wanted an excuse to really flex his Dark Lordliness.

The rest is history, and Great Sage Lema arrives late to the scene, finding three faceless adventurers near the volcano.

#miitopia #arttopia #arttopia2023 #spoilers #original character #art stuff #my ocs

[arcademgmt]

HI HELLO ive been brainrotting your miitopia ocs for like the longest time they are just so munchable i literally adore them ,, anytoodles moving on from that !! i have a question that’s been in the back of my little fustercluck of a mindscape:

what is arcade and jamie's relationship ? or, in better terms, how do they view each other and what do they think of each other ??

THANK YOU!!!!! i am so glad someone enjoys my terrible little freaks.

and as for the question. dear sweet lord this is going to be a lot. my apologies for the incoming novel-length post you did not ask for BUT...

so. to preface...

IMPORTANT NOTES

guardian spirit jasira is jamie's adoptive mother, having found him and his relative (her other adoptive son) lost in tschilly peak after losing their parents on a journey gone wrong. in my universe, deities are not supposed to interfere with mortal affairs, which jas cannot stand and finds unfair. obviously adopting mortal children breaks this rule. she was caught when jamie was around 16 and sealed within the antique charm as punishment, but not before bestowing some of her power upon her children. jamie struggles to think this is not his fault. for the sake of the post i will not get into the specifics of how the amulet works in terms of jas communicating with other people but she cannot communicate w/ jamie

rather than the sky scraper having been constructed by monsters for the darker lord, it actually served as a place for aforementioned deities to reside along with the otherworld. jas would sneak her children in there. she was not caught for years until uh. Yeah. this is why jamie has to fight not to blame himself

the dark curse, skyla, was jamie's childhood best friend and became the curse when they were, once again around 16 (rough year for jamie). he and his other friends sealed her away into the cursed amulet she had been wearing (the catalyst that turned her in the first place) but only because they could not figure out how to change her back. jamie swore he would find a way and has been trying for around 5-6 years by the time the events of the game start.

skyla and arc are narrative parallels. this is imperative. both were quite lonely growing up and are deeply insecure and terrified of losing people. both have issues using magic (contrasting issues with skyla not being able to control her super strong magic and arc just. Not being able to use standard magic).

the dark lord killed a good portion of the deities in the otherworld and used their scattered essence to create her monsters. when one of these monsters is killed, the EXP they drop is that essence. this is how divine power is gained... but what actually activates it is essentially determination/passion. this is why arc's power keeps getting sealed away when his friends are taken; he feels defeated, but does not give up, hence how he keeps coming back, much to the dark lord's dismay.

new lumos was a normal city prior to the events of the game. the dark lord started her proper attack there, as new lumos is... less prepared for magical attacks being the most tech-based place in miitopia, as well as the fact that it is densely populayed and on an island that would be difficult to escape quickly. arc grew up in new lumos and survived this initial attack, but had no idea what was to come.

A GENERAL SUMMARY

SO. arcade and jamie properly met in greenhorne as expected. the first thing arc noticed about jamie was how quick the dark lord was to flee from him in what seemed like annoyance rather than fear, like she did not want to deal with him. jamie, on the other hand, felt an odd sense of familiarity in arc. this is for two reasons:

arcade was carrying the antique pendant that jas was stuck in. jamie didn't know this, but could feel an oddly familiar aura coming from him.

this wasn't actually the first time they had met. jamie was the person who got arc out of new lumos, being one of a few people who were taking new lumos residents to safety on the mainland. arc didn't get a good look at the person who saved him, so he did not realize that it was jamie. jamie feels like he's seen arc before, but can't pinpoint where.

jamie becomes a fast friend of the group and seems to cross paths with them a lot because they are actually on a very similar path, considering jamie is also trying to find the dark lord and figure out exactly how to stop her. initially unbeknownst to him, arcade and his friends are building up the divine power it will take to put a stop to her already as they beat the monsters and absorb the divine essence they disperse into.

initially, jamie just intended to support the group along their way and slowly try to ease the burden of saving miitopia off of them (especially arcade), since he felt it was his job, considering it to be his fault.

that was until neksdor, when the original party aside from arc goes missing. this is when he realizes arc has something that is preventing the dark lord from fully stopping him, and that this journey is no longer his. arcade has whatever he lacked years ago that prevented him from changing sky back.

this realization is distressing and bewildering to him. in his mind, this should not have to be a burden arcade carries, but it seems that there is little he can do but support him along the way at this point. he genuinely considers arcade a friend and quietly fears losing another person to this mess, especially as a result of something he thinks is his own fault.

arcade is so much like skyla was. he can see it. the unspoken loneliness and the frustration with self is present, but it's markedly different in arc in a way jamie can't quite pinpoint, which is impressive – jamie has a knack for putting things into words and deciphering emotions, but this has even him stumped.

he debates with himself on whether or not to tell arc about the curse's identity, but it isn't so simple. he believes the curse is not a true embodiment of skyla's full person and does not want the world to learn that it came from her in the case that this theory is true and she is saveable. he wants her to have a second chance. telling anyone the origin of the curse would be a risk. he also doesn't want to make the curse problem more personal and make arc feel obligated to help as a friend. ultimately, he decides he will eventually tell arc, but now is not the right time; it would put more pressure on both of them, and he is trying to reduce pressure on arc.

now on the Other hand. arc is so. So grateful for jamie. jamie is outwardly a very emotionally sound and well-balanced person who has been supporting arc since they met, which he doesn't think jamie owes him at all. he feels he would be totally lost without his gentle guidance.

alongside this, jamie is one of the only true consistents from greenhorne to karkaton. consistency is INCREDIBLY important for arc in this context. the dark lord keeps robbing him of consistency in taking away his friends and abilities, purposely trying to wear him down. arcade has not had a good sense of consistency in his life in general. taking away what he has when he finally feels he has something stable is horrifying to him. for jamie to be there consistently supporting him is something he leans on heavily during that time. jamie goes out of his way to help him relax – stuff like encouraging him to stop for tea and accompanying him on walks when they cross paths.

arcade also needs some sense of direction and guidance when doing things normally, nevermind a world-saving quest. so naturally jamie's guidance is important to him and a huge relief. he wishes he could be that calm and orderly when need be.

and of course Uh. things go Very Wrong! after they beat the dark lord.

jamie showed up to support the gang in the fight and was pleasantly surprised and relieved when he arrived to find they had already beaten her (not that he didn't believe they could. just didn't realize it would be so fast). saw the cursed amulet on the ground and figured the curse was now trapped in there again. unfortunately this was not the case as the little blue freak was free! and when jamie realizes this and that it is going for arc, he protects him and is turned into the darker lord.

what is important here is that jamie did not do this because he knew arc was the only one who would truly be able to stop the curse. that is true, but that wasn't his thought in the moment. his thought was "i need to protect my friend who has suffered enough for reasons i blame myself for". like i want to be so clear here. jamie does not view arc as a tool to any degree. arc is his friend who he feels he owes the world by this point regardless of if he succeeds or not. it wouldn't matter if he gave up fighting the dark lord. he enjoys being around him and feels arc has done so much for him, which he never needed to do at all.

it is not easy for arcade to fight the darker lord. he thinks he is at fault for jamie getting possessed and is utterly distraught about it. he's terrified to proceed without his guidance, but he has to. he has all of his friends back and a mental fortitude that is still unbroken – if anything, he is more determined now (i feel like this is an apt time to mention he has the stubborn personality in-game type as a fun tidbit. he is. Very much stubborn) this is why the dark lord failed to seal his powers away a third time, and this is why he pushes on – he knows he has something that the curse can't fight, even if he doesn't really get what it is and struggles with discrediting his own abilities. and above all, he has to at least try and save the guy who was there to help at every turn. he learned so much from him, and now is the time to utilize it without that guidance.

part of why it is so hard for him to fight the darker lord is how jamie clearly still exists in there. he knows it isn't quite him, but he is in there. the darker lord has his face and speaks with his voice, though it lacks the warmth that the real jamie speaks with. using jamie's conscious, they know how to hit arc where it hurts when speaking to him. and oddly enough, it's no easier for the darker lord to fight arc.

the shattered conscious of the curse and jamie's conscious are fighting constantly in the darker lord's head. the curse has the upper hand, but jamie still manages to hold it back to a degree. this conflict of interest confuses the darker lord, who finds themself not really wanting to kill arc despite them thinking they absolutely should. furthermore, jamie is absolutely horrified at his own body being used as a puppet to treat arc in such a way. he knows that hearing the voice of someone you love speak to you like that hurts. he experienced it when sky first turned into the curse.

now. fast forward to when the darkest lord is beaten and jamie is freed. as he gets up his first thought is like "oh fuck where is arc" and he is TERRIFIED that he is hurt. that his body was used to hurt him, potentially gravely. he hears arc faintly rasp out his name behind him and whips around to see him. it is one of the only moments where he expresses visible fear, even if just for a split second. the relief that washes over him when arc stumbles into him to hug him is overwhelming – he's okay if not a little woozy. the fear quickly fades into solemnity as he hugs back, a little tighter than he usually would.

he finally explains sky's plight to arc and his friends once the curse is trapped. he is afraid to do this, but doesn't let it show. he doesn't want his own emotions to sway the answer to the choice he is about to propose to arc. he expects arc to be mad that he didn't tell him or to think his request is foolish, but this is not the case at all.

arc understands completely. the curse's story is... eerily familiar. there's a sort of cruel irony in how easily that could have been him. the curse is not a whole person, but a manifestation of the negative emotions, both rational and not, that its original form felt. it seems so clear to him, and it seems like a no-brainer to try and save skyla, who was, in a way, another victim of the curse. this assumption was correct. sky was distraught upon her rescue and tried frantically to explain that the curse was not who she was, having been the sum of her own inner turmoil.

postgame, jamie feels able to be a bit more vulnerable with arc. he divulges how he has struggled with thinking things are his own fault and how despite the fact that he can usually make peace with himself and know those thoughts are not true, it is difficult sometimes.

arc is surprised because jamie has never really expressed any form of clear discomfort with himself, but as he looks back, he realizes he has – he just hides it incredibly well. his careful wording of things and calm demeanor mask that self-doubt. jamie is not perfect, and somehow... this is comforting. he doesn't have to be for arc to look up to him. he is not below him. they are both human and share similar struggles, and jamie is comfortable enough to share those struggles with him.

for a long time, jamie preferred to sort of keep to himself and not really talk about his own issues. usually this isn't a big deal for him, as he is genuinely good at being rational about those bad feelings. however, seeing arc interact with his friends changed that a little. seeing how they supported each other and arc's "sometimes we may feel irrationally, but we don't have to ride it out alone" mindset made him feel he could afford to open up a little more, and he doesn't regret it.

i literally could not fit everything about their relationship in one post so this is just. once again a basic rundown focused on them specifically. i could go on and on. good lord

THE TL;DR

jamie and arc are very close friends who don't really realize the extent to which they have helped each other. there is a shared sense of comfort between them that transcends words but doesn't really need to be described. they have learned a great deal from each other :]

#miitopia #miitopia oc #miitopia great sage #i need to lie down THIS TOOK ME TWO HOURS TO WRITE. AND I STILL DON'T FEEL LIKE I HAVE SAID ENOUGH #the real tl;dr is like. theyre platonically gay. does that make sense #like. theyre friendly in a gay way. i literally dont know how else to explain it #magnus infodumps

[emilythedog661]

My ideas for Tomodachi Life 2

So here are some ideas i have if they ever make a sequel to tomodachi life as it's one of my favorite 3DS game and i do also like miitopia but tomodachi life need to be remade for the switch as it's a good nintendo version of the sims franchise (i do also like the sims mainly sims 3 and 4)

Make people chose their own islands and let them place where the buildings go like animal crossing new horizons - i think this was great in animal crossing so why not put it in tomodachi life? the island in tomodachi life confuses me as it's one big island then another island with the fair, park, cafe and photo area on it and it looks like the mini can't reach that island due to it not showing a train station or anything so choosing your own island and then placing where the building go will make it a little more tidy.

Same sex marriage and raising babies - this was kinda fixed in miitopia but in that game, you couldn't get married and have children so in the sequel, have same sex couples, let them get married and let them have babies by making them say they adopted a child but you can edit the baby so it looks like the couple, this would probably fill out of lot of same sex fictional ship and i'm here for it.

change some items - when you reward you mini for a level up, you'll see in the gifts that there's a wii u and a 3DS in there, they need to be changed into a Switch and maybe a retro console as people like the older consoles like a GBA, a nintendo 64 or a SNES, also another idea i have is have more hobbie items as gifts like a drawing pad with a pencil and colouring tools to make your mii a artist , a sewing needle with thread to make your mii a sewer, knitting needles to make your mii a knitter, a crochet hook to make your mii do chochet and etc.

makes cats and dogs perminate to the miis and have breeds to the pets - i don't like that the cats and dogs are part of a pass and then when you give either a shiba inu or a different colour of the same cat, instead when you give your mii a pass, you then help your mii choose a dog breed like a labrador, a yorkshire terrier, a shiba inu, a chihuahua, a shih tzu, a collie, a golden retriever or a cat colour like black, white, orange, gray tabby, double colours, calico, tortoiseshell and etc with different shapes like a chunky cat or a skinny cat, the pet then be chilling in the apartment with the mii and then move to the house when the mii gets married, it will have its own bed, a box of toys, a litter box for the cat, a leash and collar hanging near the door for the mii to take the dog out and when your mii is at location like the beach or park, you'll see them walking their dog on their own or with a friend or a partner.

get rid of the marriage mini game - i hate it, it stresses me out everytime it happens and i just don't like it so instead, when the mii is telling you that they want to get married to another mii, give them a wedding ring from the treasures part and you can watch as the mii proposes to the other mii while you get to either control the fireworks or prepare the food.

decorate the house like what you can do in animal crossing - the apartments look so bare without furniture so why have a furniture shop added to the apartment design shop and use it to design the mii's apartment or house.

Add the editing feature from miitopia - this was a great feature in miitopia so i would love to see it in in this sequel.

That's all i got but if you have more ideas, put it in the comments and i will edit this if i have more ideas 😁

#tomodachi life #tomodachi life 2 ideas #tomodachi life 2 #ideas for a sequel #miitopia #miitopia editing feature