#i never owned a handheld gaming console ok i have no sense of how things progressed | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tumblunni · 7 years

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BONNU GET A VITA

* ok lol so my regular europe psn name is Bunni89 and this america one is Bonnu98 * if any1 want 2 friend * The screen is really hi def??? what?? its actually kinda hard on the eyes cos its in such a small space. like srsly this is the same sort of quality as my tv and its just.. completely unnecessary. I saw this really cool video once that was breaking down the reasons why the ps vita tanked so hard, and the number one was that it just didnt have any idea what priorities make sense for a handheld console. So much focus on being the most graphically intensive one when thats not even something people value as much compared to home consoles, and the money needed to make it as powerful as a home console means that each unit costs loads to make and has to sell at a stupidly high price. And like.. now even after they’ve lowered the price so much its too little too late. And even if it suddenly became a success they still couldn’t make up the money lost from not selling it at £500 a unit. All that and then the game availability problems and the lack of any real gimmick to set it apart compared to the 3DS, and the fact that “its basically the ps4 but worse” isnt really a good selling point, and the fact that it isnt even very portable for its size and the high quality screen is way more fragile and it doesnt have a clamshell design to protect it.. * Basically I can understand why the vita failed. And even I only bought it now simply because there’s like two intriguing jrpgs that were exclusive to it. And they both failed super hard cos of the console’s low audience, aaaa * Anyway lol back 2 me getting dis vita and checking it out, woop woop! * I legit had NO CLUE that it had a touch screen??? Isn’t that kind of a rip off?? Like seriously wtf was it with playstation and xbox around the early wii and ds era just copying the fuck out of touch and motion controls. like seriously noone is gonna buy your thing with an inferior version of a thing they can buy elsewhere. Focus on your actual strengths! * Tho actually the touchscreen is kinda really good? i don’t think its necessarily the quality but just the layout of the console with the horizontal screen in a fairly big size with your hands on each side. its more conveinient for me with my shaky anxiety hand problems, i usually have a lot of trouble using a regular mobile phone! Sucks that nowadays EVERY phone is touchscreen and theyre always so tiny T_T So yeah typing with double thumbs and having a console to grip to steady myself works a lot better. Tho the 3DS’s stylus is equally conveinient, i just keep losing it lol. I wonder why they didnt make it with one of those chains like the pens at the post office? * WHY ARE ALL THE APP ICONS BOUNCING M&MS LOL I mean i guess its not too ridiculous to do spheres instead of the standardized square icon on every pc ever, but why are they full 3D models that have jiggle physics as you scroll the screen. Its semi addictive to poke them but i wonder how much it cost to develop that?? Your console was already a money loser! * I have officially managed to make a fake american account, woo! Its funny that all it needs to confirm you’re correct is a real post code and town name. I just googled random american place names so now my alternate self apparantly livs in fremont, new hampshire. That one sounded the cutest! i am literally in “Town I Made Up, Place That Doesn’t Exist” though. I wanted to make it “Hey I Made This Account Just To Buy Summon Night 5, Fuck U” but yknow.. character limits. * Summon Night 5 is right there in the psn store and i am crying cos i only just found out that ps vita does not have any inbuilt memory. AAAAAA. Moral of the day: do your research! So yeah i now have to wait about a week for a delivery cos i couldnt find memory cards available anywhere but preowned. Sucks that it uses a console-limited mem card system instead of global SDs like the 3DS. Thats another reason this thing will never win! poor underdog console, but also i can completely understand how its failings were its own damn fault. I just hope that like the gamecube its failure inspires the company to learn a lesson and come back with a better sequel, rather than how the dreamcast killed the whole thing. Tho I mean at least sony has the PS4 that’s doing alright, maybe they should just give up on handhelds entirely? * also wtf why does this thing have mobile phone sim card compatibility?? i hope thats not necessary for anything cos there’s no way i’m connecting my phone line to a random gaming company * COME FORTH SOON, NEXT WEEK. BLESS ME WITH ABILITY TO ACTUALLY PLAY ME CONSOLE. It may have barely any games but i will kill for oreshika and SN5!!!

#blunni thoughts

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mlpsimta · 7 years

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The Nintendo Wii Mini

Just one month ago I purchased my very first Nintendo home console a Wii Mini. When it comes to Nintendo consoles I don’t have any experience at all with them. I own a 3DS since the end of August which is a brilliant handheld system (that I should cover in the future), but not a full blown home console. Nope I don’t (and had never own) even have a NES, SNES or an N64. Mainly because Nintendo was the only gaming company that flown under my radar completely as a child. So I was really excited when I found a used Wii Mini at my local game store and I just couldn’t wait to get my hands on my very first N home console!

Eevee used Helping Hand! The Wii Mini’s FPS has increased!

So I booted up and no picture. I thought OK maybe I just plugged the component cables into the HDMI converter in a wrong way. After I confirmed that I’m indeed not colour-blind and plugged in everything in the right order I ventured into the depth of Google to figure out what was wrong with my system. I could hear the menu tone and even felt my controller vibrating so my Wii Mini couldn’t be defected. A few clicks later I found my answer for the lack of video output. As it turns out the Wii Mini can’t use component cables! So if I wish to play with my console I have to fall back to use composite cables. I was a little frustrated at that point. How a system released in 2012 couldn’t handle component output?! If you don’t understand why that is a problem basically with composite (5 plugs) you can get a much better and clearer video signal than with component (3 plugs), even the PlayStation 2 a console which is by the way older than the Wii can handle it. Luckily I own an AV2HDMI Mini converter so after changing out the video cable and converter I finally was able to see something on my monitor.

See?! I’m not a Sony fanboy! I have a Nintendo console too!

Obviously it wasn’t a good first impression from the little device. It’s never good if the first thing after booting up something you don’t see anything. Now maybe I’m asking too much from Nintendo but I was genuinely surprised that I can’t use component cables. Mainly because the normal Wii was capable to pull out such a trick like that. Anyways I knew that I’m going to lack some features with the Wii Mini, like the lack of internet connection (which is absurd too, but I don’t really care about net) and no SD card support but I just can’t understand Nintendo sometimes (most of the times). According to them the Wii Mini is a cheaper alternative than the original Wii but that shouldn’t be the excuse to sacrifice image quality. No internet and SD support? Fine... You don’t want your console to get hacked. Although if you want to avoid hacking provide a better service than the hackers. Also looking up the prices back when the Mini came out it was only a couple of bucks cheaper. So who at Nintendo thought that the Mini is a good idea? It literally makes no sense.

OK. Enough rambling! What does the Wii Mini can offer you? Well in sort you can play Wii games on it and that’s all. If you wish to use it for as a cheap way to play Wii games (I wouldn’t recommend it) than you are good to go but bear in mind that is the only thing that the device is capable of, and if you wish to hack it to increase its IQ and show it what a present day (or 2010) device can and should do than you are shit out of luck my friend. Now I’m not saying that you should hack or mod anything that uses electricity and you should always support the developers by purchasing their games. All I’m saying is that if you wish to do it on this device than you are going to have a bad time (or a nice challenge). In summary; no internet, no dvd player support the only thing you can do on the system literally is playing Wii game on it.

The starting library, still need to buy a couple more games....

When it comes to games the Wii Mini can handle all of the Wii titles relatively well, just bare in mind that with component cables the picture quality will be a little washed up. Basically the image quality looks like a moving water painting. So I would highly recommend purchasing a basic component to SCART converter that will help a bit. Oh also if you have an old tube TV that would be the best option to hook up your console to. Ok enough image quality back to games... The titles that I currently own are running fine and it’s really interesting to use motion controls too. Currently I own Twilight Princess, Cod MW/WAW/MW3 and other games that I wish to cover in the near future, but this time I only wish to speak about the console itself. I have never really used motion controls in the past so I was a little hesitant first how it will turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised. It took me a few minutes to get used to it and after few hours when I was completely confident and stopped pressing the wrong buttons and learnt how wildly I have to swing the Wii Mote or Nunchuck. Also using the two controllers are really good and they fairly comfortable to hold not to mention that you don’t have to hold your hands close to each other like with any usual controllers. So most of the times I’m just hanging my hands down by my sides while playing (well at least when I don’t have to point at the screen) and it is just sooo comfortable and I really enjoy it!

Gimmicky? Yes. Fun? Hell yeah!

So far I’ve finished Modern Warfare, World at War and I’m halfway through MW3 and Twilight Princess. Using the Wii Motes for aiming in cod is hard at first and it is something that I still not really used to it but it is a really interesting way for playing an FPS game and it gives a good twist to it that I like. Maybe I shoot bullets all over the place not hitting anyone at all but man I like it! Maybe it’s because I have completely missed this motion control nonsense so it’s still new to me but I really want to see this concept not to die. Especially that Sony already has it so maybe if they would do something about it that would be nice. Not to mention if someone who hasn’t played a game before than motion controls is a great and simple way to teach them how to play. Speaking of which!

Also I got my hands on a normal Wii that is protected by Sylveon!

The biggest reason I love this little machine is that it was capable of doing something that I have failed countless times. Mainly introducing gaming to my family members and other friends who are normally trying to stay away from gaming as far as possible. My father really got into Mario Kart! Since I showed him each day he request to play a couple of tracks which is insane because I showed him games before that he would like but never got into them, so to see that he is the one wanting to play is an absolute joy! Other than my dad’s liking of Mario Kart Wii my mom and sister has an interest in Wii Sports and Just Dance 2014. They haven’t really got hooked into them but if I see them bored and I suggest playing a few rounds of bowling or dancing they don’t hesitate to say yes.

Over all the Wii Mini is maybe not the best device (and as of writing this I already got a normal first model Wii) but if you find one at a yard sale and there’s absolute no way for you to buy a normal one, go for it! Playing games with motion controls as I have already stated in this mess of a review a dozens of times is really fun and well made also if you are trying to introduce gaming to someone you care about than a Wii is an excellent system! I often like to give shit to Nintendo when they deserve it, but man when they do it right they do it an outstanding performance. So now that I own some consoles from the Big N and played some of their games I have to say: I’ve got some catching up to do and play some games that I missed completely.

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#nintendo #wii #wii mini #gaming #console #mlpsimta

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4colorrebellion · 7 years

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4cr Plays: Puyo Puyo Tetris

Like many gamers, I have a long-running history with Tetris. I first got a Game Boy back in Christmas of 1993, and it came bundled with Link’s Awakening. Well, being an idiot, I didn’t want Link’s Awakening. I didn’t care that it was free. I wanted some Ninja Turtles sidescroller.

I did get the Turtles game, and it was bad. However, I did give Link’s Awakening a try, despite my earlier protests, and it ended up being one of my favorite games. To this day, it remains my favorite 2D entry in the series.

Then came Tetris.

A couple of months after getting the Game Boy, my teacher took it away when I got caught playing in class. It wasn’t a big deal - she gave it back later that day. However, when she gave it back, there was an extra game. To my credit, I did tell her that it wasn’t mine. She told me to take it anyways - as long as I promised not to play in class. That is how I ended up with my first copy of Tetris.

Again, being an idiot, I thought this Tetris thing looked stupid. I must have learned a tiny lesson from the Link’s Awakening experience, however, as I did slot the cart into the system that night to give it a try.

I never did learn who that copy of Tetris belonged to, but I definitely owe them. I was immediately hooked. I ran down so many pairs of batteries playing that game. To this day, Tetris is just something I have to have on every handheld system. According to my play log, I’ve put about 75 hours into the 3DS Virtual Console release of the original. I must have put hundreds into Tetris DS. I even have a copy of the mediocre Tetris Ultimate for Vita!

Whoever you are, anonymous donor of Tetris, I hope you won the cosmic karma lottery.

I have far less history with Puyo Puyo. And in all fairness, the western world as a whole has far less history with Puyo Puyo. However, I do have one memory from my early days. I never had a Genesis as a kid, but I did love Sonic the Hedgehog. Like a lot of kids I was really into the Archie comics and the Saturday morning cartoon (the good one - the one that, in retrospect, was a total Star Wars knockoff). I did have a couple of friends who owned a Genesis, and one weekend, I went over to see the new games they got for their birthday and watch cartoons. One of those games was called Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine.

In one of the stranger marketing moves of the 90′s, SEGA took Puyo Puyo and inserted Sonic characters. Aesthetically, it’s a mess. Even at the time, my main reaction was that the game looked weird, and that the Sonic connections were only surface-deep. Since I didn’t own any SEGA systems at that point, I never really got into Mean Bean Machine like I did Tetris, but I do have some lingering memories of falling blobs.

This long, rambling, road leads us into Puyo Puyo Tetris - a PB&J mix of the two long-running puzzle titans. Puyo Puyo Tetris is actually old news in Japan - it came out almost three years ago for every system under the sun - but never made it to the west. However, we have a new system, the Nintendo Switch, and not surprisingly, SEGA has taken the opportunity to both port the game and release it world-wide.

Unlike a lot of westerners, and mainly because of my Tetris addiction, this is not my first encounter with Puyo Puyo Tetris. I actually imported it for Vita and played a ton of it there. That being said, I am unreasonably excited for the new release for two reasons:

Even though I own a truly ludicrous number of handheld systems, I have some inexplicable need for a copy of Tetris on all of them. I have a new system (the Switch). I need Tetris. No, this isn’t healthy. Let’s just move on.

I’m not exactly fluent in Japanese. I can parse the menu screens, but my Japanese was absolutely not up to the task of making sense of the story mode.

And oh yes. There is a story mode. In a puzzle game. It also turns out that it makes about as much sense in English as it did in Japanese. But that’s OK - it’s fantastic. We’ll get to that more in a minute.

First, it is worth taking a second to explain the western release, because it is a little confusing. They are releasing it world-wide for both Switch and PS4. For Switch, you can buy it either digitally or physically. The digital release, in the US, is $30. The physical version is $40, but comes with keychains. The PS4 version is physical-only, and costs $30 (and does not come with the keychains). This is due to the insane licensing requirements for Tetris. Because Ubisoft sells Tetris Ultimate digitally on PS4, SEGA cannot release Puyo Puyo Tetris digitally. I have no idea why this does not cover physical copies as well, but I am glad - at least PS4 owners can get this in some form. Because there are no other Tetris games on Switch, SEGA could release in both forms. However, if you want this digitally, I’d recommend getting it sooner rather than later.

OK - that was a bit confusing. To summarize, this is out on PS4 and Switch. It is physical-only on PS4, and comes in both physical and digital form on Switch.

Let’s step back for a minute and cover the basics.

You are probably familiar with Tetris. If not (What are you doing? Go buy a GameBoy!), the premise is that shapes fall from the sky. These shapes, called tetrominoes, are formed from the combination of four squares - just as dominoes are formed from two squares. You control where those shapes fall, and if you can form a solid line between the two sides of the screen with these shapes, the line will disappear. Your task is to keep forming these lines as long as you can, while the tetrominoes keep speeding up their descent. You get points for each line cleared, and bonuses for clearing multiple lines at once - up to a max of four, called a “tetris.” There are a few minor additions, but the basic formula is beautiful in its simplicity.

Puyo Puyo is similar. Colored pairs of blobs fall from the sky. Over time, they fall faster. In this case, your goal is to form combinations of four blobs of the same color. These combinations can be in any configuration except diagonal, so you can have a big square, a line, a cross - etc. - as long as they share a color. Like in Tetris, you get more points for clearing multiple combinations at once. You also get more points for combinations with more than four elements. The biggest twist is the concept of chains. When you clear a combination, the blobs above it fall. If you clear a combo, and the falling blobs form a new combo, then you get a huge score bonus. This builds as more chain reactions occur. The key to Puyo Puyo mastery comes in setting up massive chain reactions.

If you are entirely new to one of the games, they include a series of tutorial videos covering each of the core concepts. I wish they were a bit more interactive, but they do the trick for covering the basics.

In most of the modes of Puyo Puyo Tetris, you play either Puyo Puyo or Tetris. If, like me, you have a ton of love for Tetris and very little experience with Puyo Puyo, this is a fantastic way to get your Tetris fix and explore a new game. The same would hold true for die-hard Puyo Puyo fans. There are a ton of different game modes, and both Tetris and Puyo Puyo are represented excellently. Both games also mix well. In multiplayer, players can choose their game. In both Tetris and Puyo Puyo, scoring will drop garbage pieces on the other player. This means that they can be combined fairly seamlessly, with one player playing Puyo Puyo and the other playing Tetris.

There is also a fusion mode where you can play both games at the same time, with both tetrominoes and blobs falling on the field. It is exactly as insane as it sounds.

So, getting back to the story mode. Apparently this is a staple in the Puyo Puyo series. I guess - as a Tetris player - I’ve been missing out. The “adventure” mode presents a 10 chapter storyline where the Puyo Puyo cast find themselves (a) on a spaceship, with (b) blocks falling from the sky. The spaceship inhabitants aren’t particularly bothered by the tetrominoes, but are quite perturbed by the sudden appearance of falling blobs. Suddenly, the two groups must unite to stop the… falling puzzle pieces. I wasn’t kidding when I said it didn’t make much more sense in English. It’s kind of delightfully nonsensical.

Each chapter is made up of a series of levels where you play either Tetris or Puyo Puyo. In each level, you have a set of three objectives to fulfill. At the end, you get a star rating based on how many you passed. This is actually a fantastic way to get better at each game, as you have targets to work towards. I really appreciate this, as I really haven’t played much Puyo Puyo, and this has really helped improve my skills.

The “Solo Arcade” menu offers a variety of game modes to play, as the title implies, by yourself. You can face off against a CPU opponent in either game. You can play the fusion mode that I mentioned earlier. There is a mode called Swap, where you alternate at set intervals between both games. This is really fun, as you have to keep track of where you left off. There is a Party mode where items fall from the sky that activate as you clear lines or combinations. The Big Bang mode tasks you with clearing set patterns without making mistakes. Finally, there are three “challenge” modes for each game. For Puyo Puyo, there is an endless mode, a mode where you complete preset chains as long as possible, and a mode where the blobs are extra tiny. For Tetris, the standard marathon is present (150 lines). There is also a sprint mode where you complete 40 lines as fast as possible, and the “ultra” mode, where you get the best score you can within a three minute limit.

You can play any of these, except the challenge modes, in local multiplayer as well. Local multiplayer can either be done on the same system, with each player taking a joycon, or over a wireless connection. The online mode also offers the same modes, and you can play either ranked or unranked matches.

There are a couple of nice additional bonuses. As you play, you accumulate credits that can be exchanged for game skins and voice packs for the announcers. There are also trophies for each game that you can unlock.

One of my concerns going into the Switch version was the lack of a “real” d-pad on the system. After putting a good bit of time into the final release, I needn’t have been concerned. The split “d-buttons” on the joycon are fine. I actually think they feel better than the Vita d-pad in the game. The game also looks fantastic on both the Switch screen and on a big TV.

All-in-all, Puyo Puyo Tetris is a fantastic package, and I’m thrilled that SEGA has finally released it to the rest of the world. If you have a PS4 or a Switch, I cannot recommend this enough. It is a packed collection of variants of two of the most important puzzle games in existence, with a huge variety of single and multiplayer modes. I can see this getting a ton of playtime on my Switch.

#Nintendo #Nintendo Switch #Puyo Puyo #Tetris #video games #greg4cr #Puyo Puyo Tetris

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