The Direct is about to start and so I wanted to make a post about my thoughts from it. If you haven’t seen it yourself, you can watch it below:
As mentioned on Bluesky, the thing I’m hoping for most is a way to transfer everyone from the 3DS to the new game. I’d love to be able to pick up from there and it’d be easier than slowly having to try and rescan everyone (especially as I do not have the camera for the Nintendo Switch 2).
Other things I’d love is more relationship options (sure would be nice to make Haruka a girl like she is supposed to be), the expanded customization the Switch version of Miitopia gave us, and in general, I still miss the Mii Plaza and would love something like that for Nintendo Switch 2 and some kind of StreetPass Peripheral.
I also am hoping for a release date, but that’s something I would be surprised if it wasn’t in this.
Regardless, it’s starting now so I’m keeping my fingers crossed :) But I’m pretty sure I’ll still be excited either way.
I already love some of the outfits we see right at the start. I do see a “Create a Mii based off your system” so I should be able to make mine and my husband’s easily, but it’ll be a pain transferring others. There is a bunch of new customization stuff though so I hope we can also edit them as well. That said, it does mean everything will start over so need to re-get outfits and build up relationships from scratch.
Happy to see nonbinary options and that you can pick their romance options for everyone! It’ll make it easier for me to add my friends and them feel comfortable in the game too.
Mocha the teddy bear is the best.
I kind of wish there were some preset topics over just writing them in. Though, it’s possible there are and they just didn’t show them yet.
I love the dolly-dress. I want it in real life in pink.
The rooms look so much more interactive too which is really nice. I also love that it looks like you can decorate the exterior as well to make your island more you. That said, while you can add land, if everyone has a unique house, it feels like it might be a bit small? But maybe your island slowly grows… They do show some big examples with all kinds of different looks so it does seem like it may actually expand after all.
ANOTHER CUTE TEDDY BEAR MII… And Aliens???
The Little Quirks system sounds great. I love that I’ll be able to make a Mii even more like who I want them to be.
Also I love Mocha’s Teddy Bear room.
I might have to make a Teddy Bear Mii myself…
YOU CAN HAVE PETS… CUSTOM PETS… LOOK AT THAT ADORABLE PUPPY. (I also adore her outfit too) The customization honestly looks really amazing, though, I still tend to find it overwhelming…
It does look like Miis can actually live together as roommates and not just as a married couple which is really neat! I’m so excited for all the new ways you can pair Miis up. Apparently up to 8 residents can live together so either a big friend group or family. I am already thinking of pairing Miis up by fandom, though, some may require more than one house…
And we finally got a release date! April 16th, 2026 for both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
Honestly, the game looks great, and I can’t wait for it. I’m also relieved it comes out over a month after Pokopia because I was worried I’d have to try and balance the two. I’m still hoping they might have some kind of transfer option, but if not, I guess I’ll have to get ready to remake a bunch of Miis…
The only thing that still seems up in the air from the 3DS game is if the Concert Hall will return. I’d like to hope so, but I’m surprised they didn’t show it then as it would just be an old returning feature. I guess we’ll have to see. I also REALLY hope it will be easier to earn money this time around because I had a rough time in the 3DS game.
I also hope we’ll actually have all the different regional stuff this time and things won’t be split up again. I’m a little worried since things were shown differently in the directs, but I’d love if we could keep all the different outfits and food in every game this time.
Initially, I planned to do daily posts talking about things, but with the walling of the update and just personal issues, it looks like we’re going with an overview post instead. I was so excited for the update, but I will admit it’s a bit of a let-down for me in some ways.
I don’t mind that there aren’t too many new items (Honestly, I’m relieved if anything), but I’m disappointed about how few rooms we can actually do in the hotel. I’ll talk about it more when we get further in, but for now, let’s just get started. As mentioned in my last entry, you can only do two hotel rooms a day unfortunately.
Before I did the day’s hotel rooms though, I ended up placing some of the new items around.
I then stopped by Resident Services to get the other Storage upgrade– this one cost 1.8 million.
With that then, we headed to the hotel for Rooms 2 and 3. Leilani was working on the outfits so I was able to set two different ones. I might change the hat of the right one…
The options for Room 3 were between Ranch and Simple. I ended up picking Ranch for a more Cottage Core-esque look. As for Room 4, the options were between Kiddie and Dreamy and Dreamy was very much the easy choice for me.
We then had to wait another day. I did a little more item placing (I don’t know if I’ll keep the Kiddie House there or not– it technically blocks that entrance, but it’s not like that entrance was ever really needed). Similarly, the Cat kind of blocks things a bit, but it doesn’t make anything unusable. In general, it’s hard to enjoy more items when I already have most things set the way I want it and no real way to increase the size. If only all rooms could become 10×10 like the ones we can decorate for others.
There was also one last stop to Resident Services to talk to Nook after getting our truly final storage upgrade.
It was then time to design some rooms. For Room 5, I got to pick Skyscraper or Diner and picked Skyscraper. As for Rom 6, I got to choose between a Lodge Room or Retro Japanese Room and since I felt the latter would just be close to what I did for one of the rooms already, I picked the Lodge Room.
The next day, I only had one goal in mind: To work on the next rooms. Room 7 was a choice between Exquisite and Frozen– I picked Exquisite and while I don’t necessarily regret my choice, it wasn’t really what I was expecting. Room 8 ended up being the first choice I actually struggled choosing between and had to have my husband pick for me– Luxurious (Which is what I was expecting from Exquisite) or Antique. We ended up going with Antique.
With that, we finished all the hotel rooms which surprised me, to say the least. I figured we’d eventually get to do every theme with enough rooms to do so (with multiple floors– it’s not like the outside of a building has ever given you any real idea of the inside in this game) so learning there would just be the eight rooms is super disappointing.
I already figured this would be the VIP room based off the initial trailers/announcement and this did end up being correct. You essentially get to pick a villager currently staying there (or scan an Amiibo which you unlock the ability to after finishing the VIP room) to be upgraded to the VIP Room and then pick a theme for the room which includes all the previous themes plus a whole slew of themes only for the VIP room.
What upsets me though is there is only the one VIP room and apparently it will be “cleared out” daily– I worked hard on the VIP room. I don’t want it to be wiped and the idea of it being reset daily just ruined a lot of the excitement for me. I ended up picking the Mermaid Room for the VIP room, but I likely won’t do another one. I have no motivation to work hard on something that will just be reset each day.
Furthermore, we had the confirmation that to do any other themes, we could just… change one of the rooms we already did to a new theme which I also have no interest in doing. Maybe I would prefer doing another theme, but not at the expensive of getting rid of something I already worked hard on.
This ended up dragging the update down with me a lot. While it comes with some great Quality of Life stuff, it’s almost all catered to crafting which is something I don’t even want to see in an Animal Crossing again. Some of the items are cute, but I have little room to deal with it. It still blows my mind that decorating is such a major part of the game and that they had a search option in Happy Home Designer, but couldn’t bring it here for Happy Home Paradise or the new hotel.
The Slumber Islands are neat, and I’d love to put some of my ideas into fruition, but I don’t have the time or patience anymore to deal with it.
Overall, I was just really looking forward to making these hotel rooms and it being so limited really sucks.
I’d like to try and finish my catalog with the new items, but I probably won’t bother much with the new Nook Miles tasks. That said, unless something ends up changing with the hotel so we can do more rooms without losing the ones we already did, I can’t see myself playing much more after all unfortunately.
My ultimate goal may be to get every Villager a vacation house, but my secondary one would be to get the final two ranks. Unfortunately, it’s been a rough month so I only really managed to do one more house before the update:
Lyman – A Variety of Veggies – I feel like I mainly did what I wanted to, but I also had more ideas after I finished. I think making the inside a mix of a farm and restaurant maybe could have worked nicely, but I still think it turned out okay.
Regardless, it is officially update day so let’s talk about 3.0! Much to my surprise, while the Switch 2 Edition update wasn’t quite ready, the 3.0 update already launched early this morning. I expected it to be out this evening so that already turned my day on its head.
With the letter arriving about the new storage upgrades, I figured I’d go to Town Hall first… Except Tom Nook wasn’t there so off to the hotel I went.
I did like that they mentioned Lottie if you have the DLC.
Our first room theme to decorate was a Seaside Room and we had a guest pretty much immediately.
I then popped out to take a brief stop back at Resident Services to upgrade my storage but was stopped by Tom Nook to talk about the new crafting delivery service. I feel like I’ll only use this for however many tickets I’m short after completing rooms as I am a lot lower on crafting stuff than I realized. Probably due to all the storage issues.
Regardless, with that done, I made my way to Resident Services to finally upgrade my storage. It was 1.5 million bells and I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what the cost is for the final storage increase.
And then we celebrated the opening of the hotel.
I then went to make the second room. We could choose between two themes this time: Japanese or Modern. I decided to do the Japanese Room.
And then I was told I’d have to wait until tomorrow to do more rooms which was really disheartening. I was looking forward to spending time today doing all the rooms and seeing it be walled off like this really sucks.
The system itself is essentially the exact same as the DLC, just with some features removed. Unfortunately, they also didn’t really add any such as being able to search which is what I really wanted. I figure without it, I’ll just use the Recommended items and maybe try to find a couple of others if they initially came to my head when the theme is announced.
With a pin put into my plans, I headed to my bed to check out the new Dream Islands.
While I have ideas for two, I kind of forgot how… annoying terraforming is to do so I think I’ll put them on the backburner for now. Unsurprisingly, that meant I didn’t stick around long so I decided to head to Harvey’s Island to scan the Amiibo.
On the way, I ended up seeing Resetti walking around. I probably won’t use the new reset feature, but I know a lot of people who are likely excited for it.
It was then off to Harvey’s Island where we ran into one small issue– I could not find where we had put the Amiibo we specifically put aside for this update. We recently got some of the other Tears of the Kingdom Amiibo so I was able to use those for the new Zelda things, but I still need to find where we put the Splatoon ones…
If we find the Splatoon ones today, I’ll update this post, but otherwise, I guess I’ll make a new post when I can finally decorate more rooms…
With the update on the horizon (no pun intended), I’ve been wanted to try and go back to the one thing I wasn’t really satisfied with how much I still had left to do: Happy Home Paradise. That said, it became very quickly why I had essentially put that goal on the backburner– the lack of any kind of way to search for items and how frustrating searching through the inventory can be, sometimes taking me 10-20+ minutes.
On average, I finish a room in about 20-30 minutes, but whenever I’m having trouble with finding something in my inventory, it gets closer to an hour. It’s such a shame too as Happy Home Paradise fixes my biggest issue with Happy Home Designer by showing ALL the recommended items at all times where HHD would only show whatever new items you earned which would be barely anything as you got to the end of the game to the point where I had trouble coming up with ideas as the themes were too similar.
But the lack of a search bar takes a mode that should be fun and relaxing and makes it feel exhausting instead. I’m REALLY hoping the upcoming free update adds this considering it will be a similar decorating mode.
Regardless, I did my usual livestream thing and tried to get a few Vacation Homes done for our lovely visiting villagers.
Vic – An Adventurer’s Home Base – I pretty much had an idea right off the bat, but as I was still getting used to the controls, I didn’t really manage to do it like I hoped. I kind of wanted the inside to look like a combination of a run-down shack/inn and a tavern, but it didn’t really work out… I probably should have made it a bit bigger. I had a lot more ideas for the outside, but that’s something you can’t really do more about size-wise.
Canberra – International Eatery – I was pretty excited about this one in theory, but spending forever going through the search menu put a huge damper on it. I think it maybe would have worked a bit better if I made a second room be a souvenir room, but I really wanted to have like some of the bigger country souvenirs outside and the smaller ones against the backwall and just could not really get it the way I wanted to.
Bangle – Animal-Stuff Abode – While I’m not one for animal print, I absolutely love the stuffed animals and pet-esque items in the game. I feel like one of my “Dream Worlds” could absolutely be more catered to all of them as there are so many. Despite my excitement for it, I don’t know if I truly pulled it off– I think I should have included more animal-print clothing, but I just kind of ran out of space. After playing other games for so long with more options (Like being able to angle items and wall shelves and stuff), I just kept wanting to do things that I forgot aren’t actually possible in the game.
Hopkins – Bouncy Balloon Bungalow – This one was probably the one I was most satisfied with coming to fruition. While the outside is a bit plain, I feel like I really got the interior the way I wanted to.
I was debating if I should do another or not, but Lottie ended up making the decision for me as apparently, I hit 70 vacation homes completed! Which is both more and less than I expected. Knowing I still have hundreds to do really hurts, honestly…
At this point, I don’t really unlock anything else (I think maybe I could with the Roommate feature, but to be blunt, I don’t particularly have any interest in it beyond ones when Villagers actually request them), but I still really would like to make every Villager a Vacation Home.
I really hope the upcoming update will go better and they finally add a search bar for both HHD and for when we’re making rooms for the new hotel. I still wish they would also say outright if they want one floor or two, but I know that’s unlikely to change.
Addendum as of December 26th, 2025: People asked for my thoughts on Mega Dimension when I finished it. To sum it up, they took everything I hated about the main game and made it worse. Even more point grinding alongside annoying timers. additional RNG, and other temporary mechanics and it just… isn’t fun. I’m sure there are people who will get enjoyment from it (especially those who like shiny hunting), but it is very much not for me. I hated pretty much every moment of it and the final fight (post-game DLC) was infuriating. Like the main game, the highlight is in the stories and characters, but it doesn’t nearly carry the DLC as well.
I hope the next DLC will be much better.
I finished the game in early November (Besides the DLC which has the first part releasing tomorrow (technically in a few hours from now oops)), so I wanted to kind of just ramble on my thoughts with it. This will be another “off-the-cuff” review (so no particular order of thoughts– just me spewing words), but before anything else, I want to state a few things that will explain some of my feelings:
1. I did not like Legends: Arceus. It is one of the only “main” Pokemon games I didn’t even bother finishing. My frustration with it is why I never planned to get another Legends game.
2. Graphics never matter to me and rarely have any effect on how much I enjoy a game. I won’t be talking much about them.
3. I only bought this game because Mega Audino was in it. If Mega Audino hadn’t been confirmed, I had no plans to get it.
In general, I think whether you enjoy this game will depend a lot on why you wanted to play. It’s very much a “your mileage will vary” and even my own opinion goes back and forth, but I will say I was fairly invested in the story either way.
With that out of the way, let’s get to it.
I actually really enjoyed X/Y so I was kind of excited to get back to Kalos and see the story continue to unfold. While it is a bit disappointing to be locked solely to Lumiose City, I didn’t necessarily mind until I remembered one little issue: I constantly got lost in Lumiose City in X/Y and had a terrible time finding my way. While this at least didn’t have the headache inducing camera swinging of my journey with the handheld game, I very quickly got frustrated with the verticality added to the city as I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to get to certain roof tops and it wasn’t always clear if it was an area I just couldn’t get to yet because the thing to help you get up there wasn’t activated or if I was just missing the way to do so.
I think if the roof-top areas were more compact or just… specific areas only, maybe it wouldn’t have bothered me so much, but as someone who struggles with getting around, any time I needed to find my way to a specific roof top often ended up with me feeling especially frustrated, let alone the number of times I accidentally fell off said rooftop and needed to find my way back there. Any feelings I had of them being kind of neat vanished pretty fast especially as despite the numerous numbers of quick-travel spots, you never actually unlock any on the rooftops so it’s always just re-finding your way.
Adding onto the navigational troubles was a new feature that felt especially out of place: Scaffolding. I get the idea that because of all this maintenance going on, there is scaffolding/construction everywhere that turns into these weird obstacle courses, but honestly, they just felt out of place here and like an eye sore. Most of the courses were pretty similar as well while others were just expecting you to either jump off a rooftop or glide a certain way than any kind of actual route through them.
Wild Zones were also a bit frustrating as while you start out with some there right away, most get unlocked as you get further into the story. The issue is that these areas do literally take over the map so old teleports change, you may need to run through a wild zone to get somewhere, and while I’m not sure how it could be done, I really kind of wish they were their own areas instead of places getting made over for them. Or if they were at least clearly set to be ahead of time to help with getting around.
Not being a fan of Legends Arceus, it should be no surprise that I got tired of being chased by Alpha Pokemon really fast. I do not like the system and especially in this game where it is present day and the whole point is to protect from Rogue Mega Evolutions in the meantime while letting people and Pokemon live in harmony– it sure doesn’t feel very harmonious when there is at least one Alpha in every single area. There also just isn’t a lot of room to even run away due to how small the areas are… Plus, the need to use Mega Evolved Pokemon or Plus Moves to be able to even do much to them.
In that same sense, I really did not enjoy the Rogue Mega Evolution battles. While they were less frustrating than Legends Arceus overall, I think my biggest issues were the changes done to Mega Evolution in the first place due to these (I’ll get to that later) and that having to both deal with your own health while also trying to keep your Pokemon out of harm was exhausting. I’ve never been particularly good at dodging which is why I kind of struggle with more extensive battles, but even if I could keep track of everything on screen, I didn’t necessarily manage to react fast enough to handle it (Or sometimes I just panicked and hit the wrong buttons).
When they first mentioned this real-time combat system, I was kind of expecting more control over my Pokemon’s movements, but instead, you really just had your trainer and depending on what attack you picked, your Pokemon may move closer to you. Pokemon also have set walking speeds so even if you’re running for your life, there isn’t any guarantee your Pokemon will stay close to you.
The most frustrating part of the system though is that you constantly have to hold down ZL to target a Pokemon to use an attack. I don’t know why it doesn’t work that once you target them, they stay targeted so you can attack easier, but nope, constantly have to hold it down which just felt so unnecessary to me. It also frequently led to me accidentally pushing the left stick down causing my character to crouch often when in the middle of running for my life which absolutely did not help.
Which brings me to the biggest let-down for me– the change to Mega Evolution being a timed thing instead of a one and done button. Not only was this incredibly frustrating in the actual boss-esque battles on top of needing to build up energy first as that was the main way to do damage (You could also use “Plus moves” from non-mega evolved Pokemon but it also required constantly re-hitting buttons and using up that same mega energy– Similarly, even if you had the energy maxed out before entering these battles, it would be reset when it started to force you to deal with the stupid energy gathering system), but it led to a lot of issues just playing in general:
No other character has to deal with this so where they have neat moments to immediately mega evolve their Pokemon, especially during certain battles in the ending, you’re stuck still trying to farm up energy.
Unless your Mega Pokemon isn’t currently out, that bar is always draining. Just wanted to take pictures? Too bad, you are now timed as the energy keeps dwindling down.
Similarly, they let you run around with a Mega, but it’ll still eventually turn back…
And it’s just… so frustrating. Like fine, if you need to earn energy in the boss battles, still earn the energy slowly, but then let it last. Don’t make it go away or at least let it go down slower in general. I really wish it could have stayed to being one button immediately that stays for the entire battle like how it worked in ORAS and X/Y. These having real-time combat should not have had any change to that. And it makes them feel less special and gimmicky like Dynamaxing where it can only work for a short time. Megas were a form transformation and they shouldn’t have been changed to some stamina system.
Or just, I don’t know, actually add some difficulty/accessibility modes like Megas do not have a stamina bar, your trainer can’t take damage, etc. The biggest issue with Pokemon lately is it wants to appease both hardcore and casual players but it ends up disappointing both because the former will find it too easy and the latter will get fed up with stuff clearly aimed at the former.
Such as the Restaurant Battles which are side quests that involve doing multiple battles in a row without being able to use any items (outside of held items obviously, but if you’re mega evolving, you can’t exactly give them a berry to hold). It’s not something I enjoy so those side quests will end up just… not being completed in the long run. Or the annoying side quests that require you using specific Pokemon only.
Considering I bought this game specifically because my favorite Pokemon was finally back, I was just… so incredibly disappointed that I couldn’t fully hang out with it. Even ignoring the timed issue with photos, Megas were a bit shafted in terms of poses/animations as well. While a Pokemon may have different animations depending on the music you play while taking a photo, for megas, the only pose they get is the “ready to fight pose”. Audino cheers, sits down to sleep… Mega Audino just stands there smiling, but hey, at least they actually modeled their mouth opening which is more than I can say Pokemon GO did as Mega Audino absorbs food through its face. As mentioned, only pose that is the same is the battle pose for obvious reasons, but it feels disappointing that they couldn’t give unique poses (or even just… animate the non-mega evolved poses onto the mega evolution like they did with the ready to fight animation) for the other things.
I really wanted more cute cafe moments, but for both that and sitting on a bench with your Pokemon, mega evolution is automatically undone, regardless of the timer. I also wish we could have multiple Pokemon out with us while we’re sitting at the cafe.
Regardless, for a game that I bought in hopes to hang out with Mega Audino, I barely got to do that due to all of this.
Of course, that wasn’t the only big disappointment for me… Customization was really upsetting as well. I will say if you are more of a pants and jackets type of person, there is plenty to choose from. Lots of hats, lots of shoes, more colors for most things, and even a neat customization option where you can mix and match parts of the same type of item. Unfortunately, there are some styles that are unique or maybe only have one other option and were also be limited in overall colors as well so while some things give you a lot to mix and match with, others fall incredibly short.
The main issue is the lack of skirts and dresses– something that had a lot more options in X/Y. In fact, there is only one actual skirt in the game which comes with tights forced in (which, as someone who was wearing tights anyway, it would have been nice to pick from any tights and not just the designed ones with the mini skirt)– every other skirt is a “skort” which unlike actual skorts that just have shorts sewn into the underside of a skirt, these are skirts in the front and shorts in the back making it feel more like wearing a loincloth in front of some shorts rather than a skort or a skirt.
There are no dresses at all. Despite how many characters around Lumiose may be wearing one.
And it’s like, sure, I guess I can take a cute picture but considering you will usually be seeing your character from behind, I just had to see her wearing these ugly shorts that really didn’t work as well.
I had been so excited about customization considering the long wavy ponytail and cute dresses and skirts in X/Y, but not only do we just have that huge lack of options skirt/dress-wise here, most of the hairstyles are on the shorter side as well with the ponytail being a short straight ponytail because the only long wavy hair is some mid-length style down to your mid-back. If there was at least a ponytail version of it, I’d be a bit less annoyed, but there isn’t. It feels like they put all the detail in the color options at the expense of actual hair styles.
It just really sucks. And especially with the skirt/dress issue, the only excuse I can think of is laziness due to all the verticality and not wanting to deal with any possible issues of dresses flipping up or something which just… I don’t know, you could make actual skorts or just do the weird black blob, who cares, just let me look cute.
Where the game does excel is with its characters, even if it did one thing I really hate, but that is a spoiler so I’ll be talking a bit more generally and mention when we’ll be getting into spoiler territory.
I think every character, including returning ones from X/Y, get a lot more fleshed out in the game. You have more moments hanging out and bonding with them and it helps give more of a connection than a lot of other Pokemon games have with your friend group. That said, while it does a lot for most characters here, I still found myself wondering about a lot of the other X/Y characters where most just get a footnote or cryptic response without more information.
I’m hoping maybe we’ll see more of them in the DLC, but who knows.
Even each Pokemon Center has an actual visually distinct Nurse Joy and you can even find some of them, with unique names, in the Z-A Battles.
The story itself was also interesting to some extent but was definitely carried by the characters more so than anything else. Where things got frustrating was with the choices it gave to our character. Without going into specifics, the most frustrating things were how many choices we got that were either:
-The same thing but said different ways. (To some extent, I didn’t necessarily always mind this as I often wanted to pick just one option of the two, but sometimes my answer wouldn’t be there at all and it becomes a question of why they gave us a choice in the first place)
-It doesn’t matter if there are other choices– there is only one right answer, and you can’t pick anything else. This is something that really killed one of the final choices in the game for me.
There was also a choice during a Mega Evolution side quest where you could pick your favorite mega, but it only actually gave you the choice to pick from the new starter ones. My disappointment was immense.
And with that, anything below this point goes into detailed story spoilers. If you do not want to be spoiled, I’d recommend stopping here, but otherwise, keep reading!
You may recall my post expressing excitement when the game was first announced. I was lucky enough to get into the Coziness test and I’ve had multiple people ask about my thoughts so I figured I’d just write up a post! The Petit Planet Coziness test officially ended November 30th, so it feels like a good time to finally get this up.
A short version is that I think if you like Animal Crossing, this takes a lot of the things that made Animal Crossing fun and manages to make them a lot more relaxing to the point where even the crafting didn’t kill me like most games. The biggest issue, however, is that for some reason, the game features AI through two NPCs (one help bot and one in the multiplayer area) that while you can ignore them entirely like I did, I am really disappointed by its inclusion, and I am hoping these things will be changed/removed by the proper release. There is so much I genuinely really enjoyed, but I do not want to support the use of AI.
With that out of the way, I do want to talk about the things I am enjoying about the game (and some things that are a bit more frustrating or feel odd) which also just highlights how incredibly unnecessary any AI use is needed in the game. Literally, if they took the game as it currently is, removed the AI features, and put it up for sale, I would buy it immediately. I already found the game so enjoyable and fun right off the bat and it’s still in its Alpha stages.
You can definitely see parts that are less developed in the sense that there are only a small selection of characters who can move to your town, the relatively small shop, and only a couple of those characters have special quests to unlock more of their friendship levels, but none of that really took away from me just genuinely enjoying the game. There also was definitely more needed for character customizing– I know I wanted more pink dresses, better ponytails, and I kind of wish we could change our height because our character feels way too big next to some items.
I would say the thing I had the biggest issue with is that currency earning felt very unbalanced. Most things don’t sell for much and so you really had to be constantly grinding to make enough Dough for items. While things do come back pretty often, it still felt like a lot right off the bat that so many items could be 500-2K when most things sell for like 20-30 at most. One thing I really wanted was a pink car skin, but it was 5,000 Dough. I also hit a point pretty quickly where my shop had a daily store item that would cost 2,000 alongside a Dino Onesie that was 15,000. Even if I put in more time than I did (and I do truly think it’s a game I could put in that 10-15 hours’ time like I did with Animal Crossing) as I tried to keep it at 2-3 hours a day due to knowing things would be wiped, I could see it getting really frustrating to spend so much time and barely manage to get some of the things I wanted even though the game does run on real time.
While Dough was the main “normal” currency, there was also Loomi which the best way I can think of describing it is like the Nook Miles of the game. You earn it through tasks/achievements you can complete and while you do eventually unlock some Daily Loomi tasks as well (which is important as you will eventually run out of the other tasks as they’re one and done), there is a cap on how many you can complete each day which kind of ruins the point.
A lot of items that cost Loomi are also on the more expensive side and while there was a point where I felt I had a good rhythm to having enough each day, that did quickly end when I just was running out of one-and-done tasks. Similarly, several items in the shop would go up in price each time you bought them such as the Battery needed for Starsea Voyages (Essentially the games’ version of Nook Mile Islands) and a specific clothing blindbox. I already dislike blindboxes so it going up in price each time was super frustrating, but at least it was another in-game currency.
The last type of sort-of currency were the little puffballs that you earned while just doing things. They are entirely used to level-up Villagers essentially. For the most part, these were actually pretty simple to earn– the only ones that I had a horrible time earning were the Water ones as no matter how much I fished, it seemed I rarely actually got any. All the others were fine though.
You might be thinking “But what about monetization/gacha”? There actually wasn’t any during the Coziness Test/Alpha so I have no clue what could end up being. I’ve seen people thinking Residents which I personally hope not as there are various things unlocked through Residents and customization is such a big deal.
That said, my personal thought was maybe “Luca Fruits”, which are what customize your planet. They are earned both through general gameplay and villagers, but while I hope it won’t actually be the case, it’s something I wouldn’t be surprised if there were premium shop ones.
While I’m not super attached to the purple grass (Pink grass when?), I do love the Sunset Cliffs a lot which is a Luca Fruit I received from one of the residents.
Of course, maybe they will do something entirely different like expansion packs or something. My personal take though is I’d love if they considered making the game a one-time purchase thing instead.
Moving onto the gameplay stuff, you may be wondering how this game managed to be even more relaxing to me and those are essentially a combination of two things:
-No inventory limit
-Most things don’t run away and disappear
The lack of any kind of inventory limit and easy tool switching made it really easy to just do everything I wanted to without going back and forth. That said, you did need to eat fruit or meals you can make to keep your energy up for most tools which could get tiring pretty fast. One of the nice things with the Starsea Voyages is you can go with up to two of your Residents who would essentially help gather things for you which made it a lot more fun. I’d love if this is something they could do on your planet as well if you became good enough friends with then.
When you first do Starsea Voyages, your battery runs out very fast, but it did feel like I was able to upgrade at a decent pace at least which is nice as I really enjoyed doing them. They often had puzzle elements which I found really fun.
As for the second point, you can run all you like with fish, and they won’t run away. You have to actually land your bobber on the fish rather than worrying about being close enough and possibly scaring them– there is no fear of that here. Bugs may start flying, but you can chase after them and catch them. Break your line while fishing? It’s okay, you can try again. This is something I got so used to being something I really had to be careful and stress over and it’s the first time I’ve ever found it relaxing and forgiving.
The ONLY things that really require any kind of more stealth-patience are some of the Sea Creatures like Crabs and Lobsters to the point where it’s almost odd as everything else is so lax. Despite that, I still had a lot of fun getting different ones. The only thing that was frustrating sometimes was when two were next to each other and catching one meant I left “stealth” mode so the other would run away immediately after. Some you could chase and catch, but many would just dig into the sand be gone.
Anyway, I just really hope they reconsider certain things and I’m looking forward to seeing how the game further develops if so.
Let alone that apparently the Upgrade Pack is just $5.
In addition to graphic updates, expanded multiplayer up to 12 players, and using other Nintendo Switch 2 features (such as mouse controls for decorating and designing and the camera), there is just… so many additional things being added as part of a 3.0 update such as:
The Megaphone is back! I always really enjoyed this because finding people can be so tricky so I’m genuinely happy to see it back.
Kapp’n’s family returns with a new hotel on the pier! We get to decorate the rooms and it kind of reminds me of Happy Home Designer even more than the DLC Expansion, especially as it feels like it’ll suggest more things. It seems some older furniture may be returning as well and we’ll even get tickets for various new items from working at the hotel.
Tourists will even wander your island which I think is really neat! I’m excited to make cute outfits for them to wear. Like with Happy Home Paradise, you can use Amiibo to invite characters as well and it seems there is a whole thing with making your island more appealing by crafting requested furniture which also showcased a much-wanted feature: We can FINALLY craft multiple items at once.
We also will finally be getting a storage upgrade in addition to being able to store Trees, Bushes, Flowers, and other foliage which ties into Resetti’s new job which cleans out areas around your island (or even the entire thing) which I think is a nice feature for people who like to change their island up a lot. It’s not really something I’d make use of, but I’m happy for those who it will work for.
As for something I may end up using… Luna’s New Dream World essentially introduces an entire second island (and third and fourth since you can have up to three) for you to decorate without all the buildings on your main island. This is actually super tempting for me to make my full water-pink-themed palace that was tempting, but just not really possible with the restraints on the main island. I don’t know if I’ll make use of all three slots, but I am kind of excited for one. We can apparently set time and weather so I kind of hope we’ll also be able to choose season as well…
It’s really cute that you can terraform and stuff with your friends as well.
We also have various collaboration items being added such as all the Nintendo systems and other neat Nintendo trinkets and FINALLY we can play the systems to play games again like in the original Animal Crossing. Unfortunately, it does require a Nintendo Online Membership because paying for the game isn’t enough, I guess, so that is certainly something that differs from the original game.
In addition to the Nintendo items, we have a whole new LEGO series (with a pink coloration as well!), Zelda items returning with a bunch from Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, and Splatoon items as well alongside new villagers for the latter with Villagers based off Tulin, Mineru, Shiver, and Frye. I’m so excited for the little Seasnails… Definitely want to decorate with a bunch of them. I also love the pink fairy in a bottle.
Everything releases January 15th, 2026 and while the graphic update and additional controls are just for Nintendo Switch 2, the 3.0 update is for both Switch 1 and Switch 2 owners. I’m really excited for it. I should try and get through more Happy Home Paradise before it’s here…
As always, I technically write the first part of these posts a bit earlier to talk about the patch notes that were just released and what I’ve been up to since my last post. If you want to jump straight to my playthrough thoughts from the update, you can click here.
Being a Beauty and the Beast fan, I’m definitely excited for more characters even if I have mixed feelings on another Magical Bundle. I do wonder if we will eventually get some kind of quest for their appearances like with Ariel (and I suppose Ursula as well, but I would hope they wouldn’t do another paid one). I wonder if their quests will work similar to how Joy’s and Sadness’ worked.
I love collecting the companions, but I still wish their premium shop price was lower. The seasonal Moonstone packs are also back which I still really dislike, honestly, but it does seem to be a permanent thing now :(
That said, this is easily the most exciting part of the update for me:
Also, starting on October 22nd, a portal to The Haunted Floating Festival will appear in your Valley! You’ll have until November 11th to explore and solve all the puzzles hidden on this magically haunted floating island full of surprises. Different puzzles will unlock over time, and after solving each puzzle, you’ll get an exclusive reward!
FINALLY. Giving events their own place. I wish they weren’t doing the slowly have more things to do as it goes though. Especially for seasonal events, people can be busy in real life for their own things around that time– making it so people need to keep checking in rather than being able to knock it out on their own schedule stinks.
Not to mention, despite literally giving us a Halloween area, the “Trick or Treat” part of the event will still be spawning in our valleys… and I really don’t understand why they couldn’t fully move it to the new Halloween area instead.
I’m a bit nervous about how expensive the Dream Castle Skins will be, but I like them in theory. I hope they maybe give us some free ones. I won’t be using the Halloween one myself (not my style), but I’d love a pretty pink one.
Expansion Update: For Storybook Vale Expansion Owners, the Teal Baby Dragon and Black Pegasus are both available to collect.
Very excited to be able to get these as well. I wonder if they’ll just be like the other Dragons and Pegasi or if there will be some special way to unlock it. I guess we’ll see soon enough.
Of course, we do have a couple of things to bring up since our last update– more Premium Shop Pets and the Inside Out event finally started which let us finish the new memory for a new pet as well.
As soon as we got on, we had a letter in our mailbox essentially inviting us to go back to the castle where spooky things were happening.
Of course, I did take a quick look at the Star Path first. It’s not really my preferred theming, but I still made sure to get the new pet right away. I would say the main frustration is that there are even more walled off extra objectives this time :/
Getting back to the main point of the update, the castle is essentially covered in spiderwebs and dust with flickering lights. Regardless, we see Lumiere right away who thinks it’s a ghost. As we clean up, some mysterious things show up. We then end up heading to the Garden where Cogsworth is and unlike Lumiere, he feels there is a more scientific explanation for all this.
The plot essentially has us cleaning things up and restoring the castle while gathering up these book pages. That said, there was never really an explanation for the Rainbow Roses…
In the end, it’s discovered that the chaos is coming from an invitation you gave Lumiere and Cogsworth to hold onto because our childhood is incredibly depressing. To cheer us up, they try to host a masquerade just for us.
As per usual with realms, there is also a little bonus thing where if you clean all the dusty furniture, you get pieces of a painting that you can put together at the Fireplace for a reward.
Regardless, with everything now taken care of, and after taking care of a few other things, Lumiere and Cogsworth finally made it into the valley.
Lumiere’s questline involved trying to figure out some mystery happenings in the Valley which ended up being a pair of Critters from the Here and There reunite.
While Cogsworth’s was generally trying to make the Valley a more cohesive place ending with a Mayoral Election. I ended up voting for Jasmine, but I think he’d make a good assistant to her.
It was then onto the new Dream Bundle quests where I just… genuinely really loved the items from it. That said, I’m definitely getting tired of a lot of the purchase packs… The game costs money, you have expansions, the Premium Shop just doesn’t have a good reason to still be here :/
I really want to figure out a nicer place for all this.
At the very least, there were a lot of new items just from general gameplay as well that I really loved implementing into my House.
I had essentially thought I was done, just popping on for new shop things while I waited for the Halloween event to start…
But it turns out there was actually another line of daily quests like the Ursula one had. Unlike those though, these had barely anything to do with Belle and the Beast and were more character’s reaction to it all.
Mirabel wanted to make a community-inspired item, Daisy needed help with her creative process, Kristoff wanted to re-create a quiet hangout moment with the Beast (they walked around and fed the Critters), and Jack Skellington wanted to make a familiar spooky accessory which I honestly hated having to wear.
Mirabel’s quest reward was probably my favorite. I had a lot of fun implementing it as I did more decorating.
Finally, our recent Dreamsnap updates to finish this off!
And with that, this long-awaited post is finally set. I don’t know if I’m going to write about my thoughts during the Showcase on the 15th, but if I do, I’ll probably do some mix of that and the Halloween update… Or just possibly add onto this.
It feels like it’s been a long time since there has been a game trailer or some kind of announcement that made me really want to talk about it beyond just “This looks neat” or “I’m looking forward to it”. That isn’t to say that I’m less excited for games I may be a bit more to the point about, but that sometimes a game hits a specific spot, and I just need to yell about it a lot and this very much did right from the trailer.
If you haven’t watched the trailer yet, you can check it out below:
Otherwise, let’s get to the rambling.
Petit Planet is a newly announced game from HoYoverse/MiHoYo (The creators behind the Honkai series (Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai Star Rail, and the upcoming Honkai: Nexus Anima which I am also pretty excited about as I love the creature designs), Genshin Impact, Tears of Themis, and Zenless Zone Zero). It will be following the usual free to play model which does worry me a bit with this type of game, but I’ll get to my concerns with that later.
Unlike all their other games that use various different battle mechanics (Yes, even Tears of Themis with its card battling lawyer debates), this seems to be their first step into the Cozy Simulation genre. To be blunt, there are so many cozy simulation games I can think of coming out. Many I liked to some extent, others not really as much for me, and all trying to give maybe their own type of spin or just do something better.
An issue I often have with many of them though, which even New Horizons felt guilty of at points, is they felt like a giant collection of “things that could be deemed cozy” rather than really finding a place. Here’s crafting, cooking, farming, and also all those things you like in Animal Crossing which the fun simple nature of it quickly becoming overrun by the grind you’d find more typical in a farming and/or crafting game.
That isn’t to say this game necessarily seems free of that– we very clearly see some kind of farming in the trailer, but we also see a point where the Neighbors are mostly taking care of it instead.
The main thing though is of all the games I have seen that are trying to give off that same kind of charm, this is the first trailer I’ve seen for one of those types of games that actually did give me the same feeling Animal Crossing did.
You essentially have your own planet that you build on and decorate. The Neighbors feel so dynamic. The characters look really cute. There seems to be some tree you build up that also enhances the look of the town. You sail through space in a car to other planets to seemingly find other Neighbors and visit friends. You can give gifts. There are cute minigames to play together. Maybe there is still a bit of farming and crafting, but the actual simulation and decorating part feels like the main focus more so than anything else.
I love the art style and graphics. I love what looks like a museum and cafe… It just genuinely looks adorable.
My favorite Neighbors are probably these two: A pink bunny whose name I’m not quite sure what it is and according to the website, Medowlyn the Sheep who is a Plushie Designer.
Frostia also looks really cute and gives me Celeste-vibes.
One of the things the website mentions is that you can “Decorate the sky, coast & land as you wish” which makes me feel like we may be able to change even the backdrops which is something I hoped Animal Crossing would do in a main game after Pocket Camp, but alas.
Of course, with this being a free to play game, there are concerns on what the monetization system will be. Customization is a HUGE part of these types of games and exactly how much gets monetized can really make or break things. It’s possible they could do a Premium Shop similar to Disney Dreamlight Valley where some items can be bought while others can be earned in-game but considering they usually have some kind of gachapon element, I don’t know if that will happen (though, I think it’d be my preference).
As for gachapon, I think if there had to be something, I’d probably prefer it be certain Neighbors. In most of their games, characters are the gachapon element, but you can also get some characters for free as well through events and the story. I think this would be the main option that doesn’t make you feel like you have to get something, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, unfortunately, certain customization options are what get thrown into the gachapon machine. Regardless, I’ll wait to see how it all works before making any judgements. They just started pre-registration and beta sign-ups and hopefully they will be open to a lot of feedback as these are types of games people are very passionate about and the best way to encourage that fanbase is to let them be able to use their creativity to the fullest.
Finally, there are also these little Puffballs and I have no idea what they do or what their deal is, but this one is my favorite:
Anyway, I’m really excited to see more from the game and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will be as enjoyable as it feels.
You may recall me mentioning the website was having a bunch of updates last month. While most of it has been taken care of, there are still a few last things that are essentially changing over this month. The biggest thing is if you have visited the website often, you likely will have to clear your cache/cookies (CTRL+F5 or your browser should have an option to clear cookies) so it isn’t still loading old assets which no longer will be working!
This may take multiple tries (At one point, I had it where it was loading some, or not all) and while I can do stuff on my end, this is something I can’t fully control on making sure it all works on your end so if you’re having issues, please try clearing cache and cookies and hopefully everything should load in okay.
(Also thank you to everyone who reached out– it makes me happy people care about the website being up and I’m sorry for all the trouble. This should generally be good in the long run but there are always some finicky things with big updates)
