Tag Archives: Nintendo

The ebb and flow of Animal Crossing

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I wanted to write about Smash today, but I didn’t do the research I wanted to, so I apologize for the late post. Instead, I’m going to write a small little blurb about Animal Crossing.

Two days ago, I got Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, and now I find that I don’t play Animal Crossing: New Leaf anymore. I love the AC series, but there’s one thing about it that always turns me off as I continue to play: there’s not enough to do.

I’ve upgraded my house to almost full completion, have almost 20 public works projects, all but one fossil, most of the fish and bugs, and my Nook store is one away from being the biggest expansion. In every previous AC game I’ve played, I’ve been able to “beat” the game by expanding everything to its maximum size and almost completing the museum (I could never get all those works of art…). And usually, games come out and I play them, but I was pretty rigorous in my routine to play Animal Crossing every single day until I had everything. Unfortunately, doing jobs for villagers, buying and selling stuff, digging for fossils, and farming bells on the island can only go so far. Even with multi player, the most you can do are tours and self-proclaimed fish and bug-catching contests. At some point, it gets boring (it would be helpful to point out that I am no artist, and so I have spent exactly 10 minutes making a flag design, and that’s it. I’m sure artists get way more out of the Able Sisters’ designing than I do).

Inevitably, though, my interest wanes. Everything becomes a little monotonous, and I eventually stop playing. Unlike in MMO‘s, where dev teams are constantly trying to update their game to keep players hooked alongside guilds forming and whatnot, Animal Crossing is a simulation game, so at some point it feels like you’re living life there, and not here. Or it would feel like that if there were more stuff to do. At some point, you only play for 5 minutes a day because there’s really nothing else you want to do in your town.

Now that that tiny complaint is out of the way, has anyone whom has experienced this notice that, after you’ve beaten the new games and have nothing to do, Animal Crossing suddenly becomes addictive again? It’s crazy how there’s almost a tide to my interest in Animal Crossing. Sometimes it’s very high and I enjoy it, and other times it feels like a chore and I eventually stop, only to come back months later with a fresh desire to play.

This is different than with MMO’s, which I tend to play heavily for a month and then stop completely. No, Animal Crossing somehow ropes me back in when I have nothing to do and becomes my new game of choice. There’s no real competitive value to it, no incentive for me to improve my skills (which there is little of) in the game, so why do I keep coming back?

Has anyone else ever felt this way about Animal Crossing?

Also, except a post about Smash or a review of something next Monday!

Just Sayin’.

REVIEW: Animal Crossing: New Leaf

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There’s a lot I can write about Animal Crossing: New Leaf; so much, in fact, that I could write an essay about it. I won’t be writing an essay, but I would like to skim some of the things that make this game an improvement to the series.

The very first thing is its premise. Instead of simply being a villager, the first player is the mayor of the town. That means that instead of having a fully developed town, you actually have an underdeveloped town. The buildings are scarce, there’s no great tree, and the museum being empty actually makes sense. As the mayor, it’s your job to start projects and develop your town, including the new Main Street that houses all the shops in town.

Almost instantly you can see the improvements. You get to choose the map of your town (of 5 given to you) in the beginning, and from there, you get to select where projects are built. Want a bench by the beach? Go for it. A park? Sure! The amount of customization of your town is a really awesome feature. No one town will ever have the same town buildings and similar layout again. To add to the customization tab, you now have male and female specific clothing, accessories, and shoes. Yes, you can buy shoes. You can even buy socks! You don’t even need to wear socks and shoes if you don’t want to.

The art is very Animal Crossing, very cartoony and fun, but you can see a higher resolution and attention to detail, and the 3D looks fantastic (although I barely play in it). The music is good, but I’m still a fan of the original’s music more. However, 8AM’s music is pretty fantastic.

Everything else is pretty much standard Animal Crossing. So why is this game so great? All the little things that show a nice attention to detail:

– Nook now owns his own real-estate agency instead of being a shop owner/real estate agent. He also has house customizations for your door, mail box, roof, etc… for sale. Lyle, the Happy Room Academy rep, also puts up shop there. The Nook kids now run the actual shop.

– Labelle, working for Gracie in Animal Crossing: City Folk, is now part of the Able Sister’s shop, selling you accessories.

– YOU CAN SIT ON TREE STUMPS

– YOU CAN SWIM! And there’s over 30 new deep sea fish you can only obtain via diving. Unfortunately, to swim you have to have a diving suit on.

– The animals wave when you leave, and they very frequently ask to come over to your house or have you come over to theirs. It’s cool because they actually go to every room in your house.

– You can hang stuff on the wall. It may not seem like much, but it’s cool to finally put clocks on the wall.

– The island is back, and while you don’t have a cool island cabana anymore, you DO have the ability to play cool mini games with friends and make $$$$$$ thanks to the rare bugs that come out after 7PM.

– There are now 6 island-specific fruit instead of 1. It’s nice to see lemons and bananas.

– CLUB LOL!!! Yes, there’s now a night life in your town where you can actually dance to what DJ K.K. is dropping’ down. Unfortunately, it takes quite a while to get Club LOL, and until then you have no access to K.K. Slider. It’s my only real gripe with the game.

There’s so much more to it, but I haven’t unlocked everything, so I couldn’t tell you. So far, the game has been fantastic. If you’re a fan of the Animal Crossing series, do yourself a favor and go pick this up. You won’t regret it!

Gameplay: 10/10

Atmosphere: 8/10

Final Score: 9/10

Just Sayin’

Smash 4 thoughts

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So, last week was E3, and with it came a lot of really awesome stuff (my favorite of which was probably Sony sniping Microsoft about everything people were complaining about the Xbox One), including a trailer and a Nintendo Direct with Sakurai about the next installment of the Super Smash Bros. series. As a long-time fan and past competitor in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I was excited. My thoughts:

– Villager is INSANELY hype. This was, by far, my favorite addition to the game. This man alone has spawned a ton of hype around the Internet at large depicting him as some sort of demonic figure, which I think is hilarious. I will definitely be using him as my main character or a secondary after Kirby.


– MegaMan was also a big surprise, and I think it’s cool they secured him He looks really cool, and I think he’ll be shaking up the metagame competitively. Of course, he won’t be able to do anything against Villager.


– In what is probably the most ridiculous thing Sakurai has done (in a good way), the trainer from Wii Fit is now a character. While a lot of people have been complaining, I LOVE that Sakurai decided to put in such a well-known but obscure character. She looks really fun.


Before I head into the more mechanical side of the game, let me say what I want to be in this game. I like every Smash game. Brawl is my favorite, but it has some very noticeable flaws (as does Melee). This game, I’m hoping, will aim to correct some of those mistakes.


The three big things I want out of this game:


     – Brawl ledges with Melee ledge-grab mechanics.


Let me explain. In Brawl, there’s something know as “auto sweet spot”, which means a character doesn’t need to be perfect about recovery, and will instantly snap to the ledge and grab it. In Melee, this isn’t the case. You have to sweet spot the ledge yourself. However, in Melee, if you roll off the ledge and are CLEARLY off the ledge, your opponent cannot grab it until your roll animation has ended. That’s dumb. Combining the good parts about both games’ ledge mechanics will make for a better ledge-game.


     – Bring back hitstun


In Brawl, you can cancel your hitstun with an air dodge or move. This makes DI less important and combos nigh-impossible. Basically make it what Melee does, and give the characters real hitstun.


     – No grab armor


I don’t know if this is true in Melee, but in Brawl you can grab through a move so that you take the damage but get the grab. This is ridiculously overpowered and can ruin competitive play when it happens by chance since no one attempts to grab armor moves. Take it out so that grabs aren’t overpowered.


Luckily, I got to see a video of an actual match at the Nintendo show floor at E3, and luckily, it looks like at least one of my three has been met. There’s hitstun.


What I also noticed:


– No auto sweet spot


– Brawl’s air dodge


– No tripping


It’s been confirmed that there’s no tripping, which is good (although it never bothered me to begin with) for those who hated it. I’m very happy they kept Brawl’s air dodge. I think it’s way better than Melee’s. Overall, the game looks faster, too.


The art looks amazing. Even on the 3DS the game looks crisp, but on the Wii U it looks fantastic. The move particle effects are really nice, too, as Smash games have never really had particles come out with their moves. You can definitely see Namco’s influence, there.


The new Smash is really looking good to me. Hopefully my other two big criteria are met. Even if they aren’t, the game’s looking good enough for me to jump back into the competitive scene, so I’m very excited for its release. If you’re a Smash fan, I’d go check out smashbros.com for more info about the characters and some videos. It’s lookin’ hype!!


Just sayin’

REVIEW – Paper Mario: Sticker Star

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I’ve been waiting patiently for the moment I could finally write this review. Ever since I first heard about the new Paper Mario game for the 3DS, I was excited. And so, when I finally got my hands on the game the day it came out, I had a lot of hype and expectations riding on it. Did it deliver?

You bet it did!

Plot:

The plot is very standard Mario fare. It’s the Sticker Festival in Decalburg, a part of the Mushroom Kingdom, and during it, Princess Peach is taken by Bowser (again), and it’s up to Mario to save her! There’s really nothing more to say here. It moves the game forward, and that’s what matters.

Characters:

Oh boy. The characters. Besides the ever-amazing Mario, we have Kersti, a sassy sticker from the Sticker Star that joins Mario on his quest, and she is amazing. She calls Kamek a hipster, which not only shows that the people at Intelligent Systems is keeping with current trends, but actively incorporating them.

All the little characters in the game that make an appearance are also great. You can see the time put into every character and their line of dialogue. It’s awesome that, throughout the Paper Mario series, the humor has been consistently enjoyable for me, and that the humor in Paper Mario: Sticker Star holds up wonderfully.

And let’s not forget about the PETEY PIRAHNA cameo (despite him being an incredibly easy boss).

I think the only downside to the characters is that Bowser does not talk. Ever. It’s a little disappointing, but the humor throughout the game with the rest of the cast more than makes up for it.

Atmosphere (Music/Graphics):

The graphics are an awesome twist on the usual Paper Mario style. It looks very similar to Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, but takes the ‘paper’ aspect a step further. Koopa Troopas fold into their shells to attack, enemies can stack on each other, goombas turn into a paper cone, etc… It’s very paper, and that makes it very awesome! One of the bosses is literally made out of paper, and there are references to being in a paper world all the time. There are a ton of references to older games in characters/the world you explore (I’m not going to give an away).

The music is also great. Many of the songs reference old games, but the new music is also great. The battle music, from normal battles to the final boss, are all very memorable. I still hum the battle music in my head sometimes.

Gameplay:

And here it is! Taking a page from the old Paper Mario games, turn-based battles are back. The difference? No partners, no badges, no experience. Just stickers.

It works like this: as you explore, you’ll see stickers laying around, and you can peel them off store them in a sticker album you have. You can then use these stickers to do battle with enemies. Right away, you can see that management of stickers is key. If you’re not prepared for anything, you may find yourself losing to a spiky goomba because you don’t have any iron jump or hammer stickers and you’ll have to run.

The stickers themselves are pretty standard – you have a jump, hammer, fire flower, mushroom, and various others that are references to games in the past and some items used in the Paper Mario series.

Like in the old games, Action Commands are here, and believe me when I say that anyone who has played the old games will probably be successful figuring these out.

So, you have all these stickers, but there’s more to them than just battling. You can also use them to change the environment and solve puzzles. To do that, Kersti allows you to “paperize” objects in the world. Many puzzles involve you peeling off a part of the world and putting it back where it belongs, while others are sticking certain stickers to unlock a door.

What’s more, there are ‘things’: 3D objects (like scissors, a fan, etc…) that you can collect and turn into stickers to solve puzzles and use in battle. These stickers are HUGE, so you can’t carry too many of them or else you won’t have enough stickers after a few battles. But, these stickers are incredibly powerful in battle, and many of the bosses are specifically wear to a certain thing sticker.

And the biggest part of battling is how you attack. Some stickers attack every enemy. Some only attack one. When there’s more than one enemy, you will always attack the enemy in front. That means that you have to carefully plan out which stickers you’ll be using so you don’t waste any. You can also use the Battle Spinner, which, if you match up two or three, allows you to use 2 or 3 stickers in one turn. Of course, you’ll notice that your first sticker will attack the enemy in front, the 2nd in back, and so on. Planning out stickers is very important, especially in the later levels when enemies do a ton of damage, even when you block.

So, since there’s no experience, the only way to grow stronger is to get better stickers. You start out with normal stickers, but soon you’re able to obtain shiny and flashy stickers, which are much more powerful. You also will collect HP-Up Hearts, which increase your HP by 5.

——

Paper Mario: Sticker Star is a throwback to the old games that everyone loves with some new twists and a really, really awesome combat system. If you’re a fan of the Paper Mario franchise, you must buy this game – you won’t be disappointed. Even if you’re not, I think you’d be hard-pressed to really dislike this game.

Score:

Plot: 6/10

Characters: 10/10

Atmosphere: 10/10

Gameplay: 10/10

Final Score: 9/10

Just sayin’

NSMB2 DLC 2 and more thoughts on Pokémon Black 2

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Youmacon, Detroit’s premier anime convention, is happening this week, which I’m incredibly excited for. But, I already wrote about some do’s and don’ts at conventions last Spring, so I’m instead going to post my thoughts on Black 2 (as far as I am), and the new NSMB2 DLC that came out last week. Let’s start with Pokémon Black 2!

Pokémon Black 2

So far, I have 6 badges and am currently stopped at Cobalon (I’m going to RNG him with 31 IV’s and a good nature so I can EV him and hopefully use him in a team if I feel like it), and so far am loving the game.

When I make a team, I generally just look for a team that wasn’t a team caught in the beginning, and try to give myself superior coverage and the like. This time, I decided to copy the team the male protagonist of Black/White 2 in the animated trailer has, and so I have an Emboar, Lucario, and Arcanine (nick-named Slamboar, Dunkario, and Jamanine, respectively). Needless to say, Burgh was a piece of cake thanks to my having two fire-types. To top it off, I caught an Eevee (wild Eevee are incredible), and was going to give myself a Jolteon to destroy water-types, but the one I caught had a modest nature, so I turned it into an Espeon (my favorite pokémon). Coincidentally, I’ve never gotten an Espeon before for an in-game team, so it’s awesome to finally be using my favorite pokémon for the story mode. I normally nick-name my Espeon Anzu, but it’s male, so I named it Slameon. Coincidentally, the next Eevee I caught was Timid-natured, so I will be having a Jolteon soon! I got Genesect (named Genesect because I don’t nick-name legendary pokémon), at the very beginning of the game, and that’s my current team. I have a Ducklett that I use as an HM slave, but once I get the new dragon I’ll be using that on my team.

The game’s story is not too bad. The in-game scenes do not give the animated trailer justice, but I wasn’t expecting anything crazy. I haven’t actually really gotten too deep into the story. I’ve only encountered Plasma a couple times, although the old Plasma team in Driftviel city is pretty cool. Also, it’s AWESOME that you do bump into the other protagonist and that he/she has a purpose. I haven’t confirmed it, but I think she’s the subway boss for the Battle Subway singles, and if that’s true I’ll be really hyped.

Once I finally finish the story mode, I’ll put up my review where I’ll go more into the other cool little features, but those are my thoughts (and my team) so far.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 DLC 2

The two new courses for NSMB2’s Coin Rush are actually really good – they’re much more difficult than their two previous DLC counterparts (which are collect tons of coins and then a more competitive-oriented level). I nailed 30,000 on the first one without breaking a sweat, but the second one I just kinda ran through, but I found a few routes I can use to maximize my score. I need to find a good route for the first level, though. Stupid Boo Houses.

Just sayin’

The 3DS: your mobile entertainment hub for when you’re sick

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Waking up at 4 AM with the stomach flu is never fun, but when I’m experiencing catastrophic abdominal pain and confined to my bed, I know I can always count on my Nintendo 3DS to carry me through the day! And why, do you ask, is the 3DS so useful for when I’m sick? It’s simple: it’s the mobile hub everyone wants!

My revelation about the wonders of the 3DS came to me this morning when I woke up and its bright screen was glaring at me, ready to play the next episode of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix. I thought to myself, “I can lay here and just continue to watch How I Met Your Mother, and I would never have to turn over to grab the remote and turn on my TV.” It hit me then: when I’m sick, moving around = bad, and with the 3DS in hand(s), I can play games, watch Netflix, and even browse the Internet without really moving at all. If it had a thermometer and a way to dispense food I’d never need another device again!

And when it comes time to bring myself out of bed and to the kitchen or the bathroom, my 3DS comes with me. That means when I’m feeling nauseated or hungry, my 3DS can sit neatly in view, allowing me to enjoy Netflix while also fighting nausea or microwaving a nice bowl of chicken noodle soup.

In conclusion, next time you’re sick, grab your 3DS and download Netflix (and if you don’t have Netflix, get Netflix) – you won’t be disappointed.

Just sayin’