In which I talk a bit more about Pokemon Rumble Rush

While I’ve already spoken a bit on Twitter and even in the description of my youtube video, but I just kind of… wanted to talk in length and get some thoughts off my chest.

I love the Pokemon Rumble series a lot. But I like it generally as a more simplistic concept. It’s essentially a toy Pokemon beat-em up game and honestly, I find it works. They can add new levels. They can add more Pokemon as it grows, but it seems they also want to constantly add more features and honestly, I don’t think more features are necessarily bad, but often the ones they HAVE added for Rumble have been rather constrained or convoluted and it doesn’t really need to be.

In a similar sense, while Pokemon Rumble Rush seems to be a bit simpler like the original, it doesn’t seem to know exactly what kind of game it wants to be having both functions that encourage short term play and functions that would be much better with constant playing.

You can absolutely balance these and I will say the game can definitely be played free to play, but it can be a bit frustrating as it almost feels like its mechanics contradict themselves.

Some of the good things the game does is that you can endlessly explore up to three maps at any given time that you did find. They can be overwritten (and you can only lock one of the three at a time) so it’s best to explore until you’re good, but they stick around.

However, the actual map searching is kind of frustrating. Essentially you can have up to 5 feathers at a time and then drop them on a map hoping to land on certain coordinates. I have fairly tiny fingers and yet still constantly do not manage to land where I want to. Coordinates are shared, but without any proper way to put them in, it’s pretty much RNG and just hoping maybe you’ll be close enough the game pities you.

The big “pay” function is the ore system. You absolutely do not have to pay for it. You can have up to three ores queued at a time and one being mined at a time unless you pay for a 24 hour upgrade (which brings it up to two total ores that can be mined at a time). The big issue is if you have a 4th ore, you can not adventure until you get rid of it. On a bright note, you CAN toss it with no penalties if you have all three slots filled. If you want to toss one in a slot or when you have less than 3 slots filled though, you are only allowed to toss up to 10 a day.

For the most part, this is great and I often find myself tossing the regular (Ore) or uncommon (Unusual Ore) ones when it comes down to it as for me, they’re just… not usually as worth it. Ores take 30 minutes to refine, Unusual Ores take 3 hours, and Rare ores take 10. The problem comes when you have three Rare ores and find another. It costs 300 Poke Diamonds to immediately refine a Rare Ore.

Essentially, you can either use Tickets (each ticket removes an hour of wait time) or Diamonds (30 diamonds per hour so 15 diamonds for regular ores) to speed up the Ore mining process. Ores are the main way to get coins (You can earn them from adventuring too or sending Pokemon back, but it’s not much) with 500 from regular ores, 2,500 from Unusual Ores, and 7,500 from Rare ones. They’re also how you get upgrades for your Pokemon which help a lot when it comes to grinding to get over certain walls.

And there are… a lot of walls. I recently got over a particularly brutal one (*shakes fist at the first Blastoise fight*) and have now been trying desperately to get a Gyarados map and a Blastoise map to prepare for my first Charizard boss. What the game does to help with this is that your Pokemon can actually automatically go through the maps and you just need to click through the results which can… help save some time honestly, as again, you will need to grind a lot. I probably farmed at least two hundred grass Pokemon before finally getting a 1,500CP one by some miracle.

Unfortunately, and this goes back to the issue I mentioned above with short play sessions and long play sessions, you have a limit to how many Pokemon you can have at a time so you’ll often end up needing to clear out your box. I usually have to after about 10 rounds of maps and it just… gets tiring. You get SO many Pokemon and it sucks constantly going back and forth.

On the bright side, I really do feel the cons and contradictions are relatively small issues and can probably be fixed up or adjusted with patching. What I’d really love to see if a friend’s system and being able to share maps easier as the RNG is just exhausting sometimes, but over all, I have been enjoying it a lot and while I do prefer playing Pokemon Rumble on a console, it’s not too bad as a mobile game.

In which I talk about something a little different

If there is one thing I really don’t do often anymore, it’s watching TV and movies. I’ve found most TV Shows are just… not that interesting anymore, either due to overdone concepts or lasting much longer than I care for. With movies, while that is a similar issue, it’s also issues with trailers and what exactly passes and I find myself preferring to look things up before actually seeing anything. And even then, I don’t necessarily mind waiting to see something later with very few exceptions.

But of TVs and Movies, the ones that generally coincide with me the least are dramas. I’ve never cared for soap operas or the over-dramatic tragedies of whatever crazy thing happens. This was especially the case with any Asian Dramas I had seen bits of due to knowing multiple friends who are really into them. I just… couldn’t get into them. They felt too over the top. I couldn’t connect to the characters.

Regardless, while looking for references for yet another failed art project that will likely remain unfinished, I stumbled upon this image:

The dress reminding me of my own wedding dress and curious what it was from, I did some searches which brought me to look up a lot more about “Go Back Couple” (Also known as Confession Couple), a Korean Drama.

The plot sounded interesting enough: “A couple has fallen out of love and are having troubles with their married life get sent back 18 years to their 20-year-old college selves and decide to make different choices”. So, I figured I’d give it a shot.

As per usual, I suck at talking about things without spoiling so consider this your warning if you would like to check it out.

I want to say from the premise, it hurt. I could tell the main issue was they weren’t communicating (and while I couldn’t figure out just how far this went, it was apparent to me from the get-go)–she didn’t understand why he did so much to his job, he took for granted all the little things she did, and so when the final straw hit and they decide they want to divorce, it broke me. And I cried. It was the first episode and I was already in tears.

And let me tell you right now, I cried a lot. I’ll admit I’m overly sensitive and it’s really not that hard to make me cry during a movie or a show, but I found myself caring so much for all of the characters so quickly and I really didn’t expect that.

Everything is amazingly acted, I found everything hit such a chord with me in so many ways including some of my own worries for the future. And of course, it wasn’t always sad, there were many more great moments and plenty to laugh and smile about too. I’d actually consider rewatching it which as someone who generally doesn’t rewatch anything, that says a lot for me.

The big thing that comes from their journey, besides generally acting on things they were too shy to or immature to really handle then (as they still have the memories of their 38 year old selves), is learning a lot more about those they care about and also making different choices for the future… But at the same time, still rekindling those feelings for each other and realizing how they fell apart and just how important they still were to each other. At first, it felt a lot of it was just for their son, Seo-Jin, which while I found important (after all, if they didn’t get back together, Seo-Jin wouldn’t exist), I really wish there was more focus on Ban-do and Jin-joo’s relationship and what they meant to each other because that really was the important part. They could take care of Seo-Jin even if they weren’t together, but it was them finding what went wrong and how much they still cared for each other and realized just how much they would do for one another that they started just… taking for granted.

One of the big moments is when Ban-do is given some peaches as they’re Jin-joo’s favorite. Only he’s incredibly allergic. His hands break out in a rash just touching them. And he forgot how much she loved peaches because she would always order any fruit or anything without peaches. She wouldn’t get them anymore because he was allergic.

In a similar sense, we eventually learn what ended up fracturing their relationship was Jin-joo’s mother’s death. They ended up not making it to the hospital as Ban-do ends up getting pulled into a gang fight and thus, they don’t get to see her before she passed away. Jin-joo never got to say good bye and it wrecks her. She’s also angry at him despite knowing that it wasn’t completely his fault, but she had trouble forgiving him. But Ban-do was so busy trying to comfort her and make up for it, he never grieved himself and it wrecked him too.

Through out the series, Jin-joo is clinging near constantly to her mother in the past due to what happened. At the same time, Ban-do is doing what he can to help even while avoiding Jin-joo for a while because he cared for his mother-in-law a lot as well and missed her. Trying to find out if there’s anything they can do at the hospital, trying to just spend more time if possible because who knows when this will end and they’ll be back.

Jin-joo also harbors a lot of anger with her father due to him wanting to “move on”, but in the end, he was just lonely and missed her mother so much… But didn’t want to tell Jin-joo that. Back in the past, her mother tells her to make sure she spends a lot of time with her father and to bring her son around as he will miss her so much which turned out to be very accurate.

I still think a lot about Ban-do’s speech on how hard he tries and it just… doesn’t always work out. And it sucks. It really does. Especially when you have to keep apologizing for failing even when you’re trying your hardest to just make things right. Of course, while Jin-joo and Ban-do’s relationship is the focal point of the series, it’s not the only relationship that ends up getting touched upon with their friends also getting quite a bit of development.

Jin-joo’s best friends are Yoon Bo-reum and Chun Seol. Bo-reum actually dated one of Ban-do’s best friends, Ahn Jae-woo, only for them to break up in the future and Jae-woo to essentially be a wreck for it. The reason they broke up was because Bo-reum apparently can’t have kids and she didn’t want to disappoint Jae-woo. And like the general theme (you’ll be seeing me saying this a lot), communication is just so important and this is why it happened. They get back together in the end and decide to get married and work it out which is great, but Ban-do and Dok-jae (Ban-do’s other best friend) were both really upset with Bo-reum feeling she was just playing with his feelings which was a worry in college as well.

As for Seol, she actually disappeared during their semester and they were never able to find her which is one of the things that gets changed with their going back. She had gone to work at a restaurant to help her family earn money, but in the end, felt ashamed for dropping out of school and couldn’t get the nerve to talk to anyone again about it.
In the back to the past timeline, Jin-joo actually shares how Seol’s mother put up wanted posters which she originally didn’t mention to Dok-jae which gets him to reveal where Seol is as she’s working at his father’s restaurant. This helps Seol reunite with her mother and go back to school and again, as I said, communication is so important.

The story is full of a lot of fun friend moments and bonding and it really hits so many good notes while also highlighting just how important it is to try and talk to those you care about. And I know it’s easier said than done, but trust and communication are the two most important things in every relationship.

I’m not going to talk about Mr. Cheating Doctor jerkface, but I’m happy he got what he deserved and that his wife got a better ending in the future. That said, I hate that he apparently never learns his lesson.

Finally, I want to bring up Min Seo-young and Jung Nam-gil. They aren’t exactly part of the friend groups above, but each have strong story arcs connected to Ban-do and Jin-joo respectively. Seo-young is a ballerina and Ban-do’s first love. He was always too shy to talk to her and while he finally does, he now sees her more like a daughter than someone he’d want to be with. He helps encourage her to take better care of herself and follow her dreams, including merging ballet with her love of hip-hop.

Nam-gil, meanwhile, had asked Jin-joo out to make a point to his father only for Jin-joo to flat out reject him. She ends up befriending him and while Nam-gil grows to genuinely like her, even if she doesn’t feel the same way, she helps him improve the relationship between him and his family.

I will say I adore Seo-young and I’m sad she seemed to have the least amount of time of mode of the side characters. Once her arc is finished up helping her talk to her father and her realizing that Ban-do does not have feelings for her, she’s just kind of… gone. She’s not even given any mention in the future which is pretty sad outside an earlier scene where it mentions she got injured in the future and Ban-do mentions she was his first love.

Nam-gil at least gets a moment in the future where he and Jin-joo pass a glance, though, I wish they did talk or something… I would’ve loved if they ended up becoming friends. I wanted to see both Nam-gil and Seo-young join their friend group so badly.

Similarly, we don’t really see Seol in the future even though we hear from her and do know she is keeping in contact with them. We get nothing new from Dok-jae though which is… incredibly surprising considering how involved he is in the main story and part of the main friend group. I also kind of expected him and Seol to get together but nothing really seems to happen there.

I would say my only big complaints though are:
1. I wish it was a bit longer. I would’ve loved to see more on how everyone was doing and how things were effected. The time travel is a bit wonky because they change quite a few things (One of the biggest is Ban-do tells his parents to invest in something and they actually do which earns them a bunch of money). Jin-joo’s mother sadly doesn’t make it (which is… expected but I guess part of me hoped something would change), but she does have a better relationship with her father. It’s just unclear just how much things changed as a lot of things should’ve had a bigger impact with their future now. As it is, while specific changes happened to people around them, for Jin-joo and Ban-doo, it was more like they were just put back into their original bodies as the divorce was still pending and they just didn’t complete it… But so much changes around them. It really didn’t take away my enjoyment from the series at all, but I just felt like I had a lot of questions.

2. The way they get sent back to the future is by re-getting their wedding rings. We’re then showed a clip of a God and Goddess, played by the same actor and actress as Ban-do and Jin-joo respectively, tossing these rings to essentially explain how they were magic. This was just… so silly and unneeded and I would’ve loved that time put more into the characters we had seen and a stronger epilogue over trying to explain something I found myself not even questioning.

Anyway, on a final note, I loved the music in the series so much and wish there was a full high quality version of Jang Na-ra, Jin-joo’s actress, singing this song. I also have a lot of 90s Korean music on my playlist now. So many catchy songs.

Let’s talk about the Detective Pikachu Movie!

So, anyone who has spoken to me about it knows I have been looking forward to this. Since Detective Pikachu was just a game concept, I’ve been excited, I loved the game, I couldn’t wait for the movie, and had high hopes for it from the get-go. And when it came down to it, it definitely hit a lot of my expectations. I adored it and it’s probably going to be one of the few times where I actually pick up a Blu-ray of a movie myself. And possibly the soundtrack as well.

This post will not be spoiler-free so if you haven’t seen the movie OR played the game, you may not want to read beyond the next few paragraphs. I will say, however, that the movie did fix some of the issues I had with the game which was nice.

If you’re looking for a movie adaption of the game though, that isn’t what this movie is. More accurately, it’s a redone version of the concept of Detective Pikachu. The only things brought over from the game are: Detective Pikachu, Tim Goodman, Harry Goodman, and Roger Clifford. Similarly, some Pokemon from the game do make it into the movie, but not all of them. As for the plot, other than R being at the center of the plot, everything else is quite different in the long-run.

This isn’t really bad and I think the movie is still great on its own (and genuinely gives a more satisfying ending), but if you’re looking forward to seeing some scenes from the game on the big screen like I was, you may be a bit disappointed. I knew it would be different from the game, but I didn’t expect it to such an extent.

Despite this, I did enjoy the movie a lot. It does a great job at taking the game’s material and even does a much better job at the finale. The music is great (though, a bit surprising), the acting was fantastic, and it was a really heartfelt movie. I want to see more movies in this universe so badly and I adore Ryme City. I’d love more games as well. I even pre-ordered the Art and Making of Pokémon Detective Pikachu because one of the best things with the movie is just… all the attention to detail. Like I wish I could’ve just paused to take everything in more often than not because it goes by so fast and there is SO much to take in. I loved seeing all the Pokemon so much too and while there wasn’t a huge amount (Only about 7% of the total amount of Pokemon right now), it didn’t really take away from my excitement. Considering time and costs, I’m guessing that’s part of why, but I hope we’ll see more Pokemon in the future. Please include Mega Audino, guys.

I will say I was a bit mixed on the casting before seeing the movie. I didn’t really understand why they picked a different voice actor for Detective Pikachu, why Tim Goodman’s appearance changed, or any of the other changes… But it honestly worked out. Justice Smith does an amazing job as Tim Goodman and brought so much to the character, Ryan Reynolds did an amazing job as Detective Pikachu, and Kathryn Newton’s character, Lucy Stevens, who essentially takes over for (and takes the character much further than) Emilia Christie, is just a really great character and it really made the movie feel more like a group over just Tim and Pikachu with Emilia generally being off to the side. Lucy was already good to go, so to speak.

As for any further… Well, that goes into spoiler territory now.

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Pocket Camp: Cherry Blossoms and Tea Parties

While for the most part, I’m still rather hands off with Pocket Camp, it, unfortunately, knows how to drag me back in–ignoring that Animal Crossing is a very special franchise to me, the recent themes the last month with one of its newest fortune cookies and some of their events was entirely my aesthetic along with adding in some more of my favorite villages (Just waiting on Cookie and then all of my favorites will be here… I know she’s in the data so just give me her already, Nintendo ;~; ).

The hard part though, while I am proud of my camp site to an extent, is the game also is so bittersweet to play. I’ve spoken enough about how much the fortune cookie system and constant events are just against the point of Animal Crossing so I won’t repeat it, but it makes it… really sad to play. I will say that not caring makes it less frustrating to play, but not caring is also against how I enjoy playing games.

It hurts to pick it up and just… not care. Because then it just makes me wonder what’s the point and Pocket Camp has kind of burnt me out enough with one of my favorite systems paired with a lot of other complicated feelings with the series. Not to mention my worries with how much the Switch version may take this–Animal Crossing is a real time game, it really doesn’t need more incentives to play every day.

Regardless, ignoring my frustrations, there is still so many nice items and features in Pocket Camp and the new Tea Party fortune cookie paired with the new cherry blossom themed items and camp environments have essentially fully allowed my camp to really hit the best it could be (Just… waiting for Cookie’s arrival):

(This is also taken at my favorite time of day in Animal Crossing–6PM, it’s the same time of day you’ll visit my town at in the Dream Suite)

And a more full view:

I mean, maybe we could still get some better Amenities (or even be able to have more than two… I miss my Castle), but it’s still pretty nice. There’s a lot of items I really want to get too and/or missed out on (Mostly fountains), but I’ve already maxed out my camp site anyway and I’m not sure I’d replace anything for them. I also am glad I was able to fit too rugs to help even it out a bit more. That said, part of me still wonders if it looks better with the Castle:

Originally, I had hoped to use the Cherry Blossom from the event, but Katie’s Cherry Blossom item actually ended up working much better:

I do miss Celeste being around though. Regardless, Katie’s swing just makes me wish even more our character could bother interacting with things.

Besides some camp site adjustments, I also updated my room in the game:

I also played around with possible Cabin layouts:

Before just fully going into a Tea Party theme:

But seriously, between the tea parties and cherry blossoms, it’s not a huge surprise I popped in for a bit… I mean, even the Fortune Cookie’s appearance was my entire aesthetic:

To end this off, I gave a few villagers some new accessories I felt fit them:

Though, I suppose Diana’s would work better in a different color. I’m really happy I got Marina so soon–I really don’t have much left to offer to Gulliver (and crafting the same items over and over again sucks) and still have several villagers I still need to get from him -_- So I’ll have to work towards that a bit during my next Pocket Camp check-in I suppose.

A Day of Pocket Camp

While I’ve still more or less quit the app, I do still have it on my phone incase of any future connectivity, miracles happen to not make it give me constant anxiety and to make fortune cookies just not suck entirely, or an event I really like. I’ve even uploaded a couple of videos, one especially recently, for the Cabin Grand Opening and the Valentine’s Day Best Friend gift (why could I only give it to one, game. Let me have multiple best friends

Regardless, with the power of leaf tickets because this sure wasn’t happening otherwise, I succeeded:

And I even managed to get a few extras too.

Unfortunately, as Pocket Camp continues to break my hopes and dreams, I get to watch the hours dwindle out for the Candy Cluster Muster event where I’m just two pieces of candy short and can literally do nothing about it.

I bought all the Seasonal Packs including it to use towards my fishing endeavors. And the only other thing that could give candy is the current fishing tourney… but only up to 6,400cm. I am currently at over 18,000, due to my need for pink crystals because I really love rocks and crystals and also the color pink, which is long after the candy amounts. So, I can not earn anymore and the event ends at rollover tonight to likely bring in some new events so you never have a moment to breathe.

Sorry, Isabelle, I tried. But it is literally impossible for me to finish all your goals today.

Honestly, my biggest thing is this just goes back to my biggest problems with Pocket Camp–needing to check in to such a point to make sure you never miss anything paired with having to work in the game’s tight limits. You can go through every single hoop and put your utmost effort on that last day, but still fail because the game limits how much it’ll let you do. Especially if you don’t have any leaf tickets to spare. And in some cases, even when you do, it still won’t be enough.

Regardless, I took the time to do a few other things too such as inviting some new villagers to camp and am doing my best to get both Diana and Flurry invited (Just… waiting for their furniture to finish crafting):

(Sadly, the new skip feature was on automatically and I just kept forgetting to tick it off so no screenshots for some–as per usual, ACPC does a great job with new quality of life features, but still hasn’t done any adjustments to the constantness of it all)

I’m still waiting for Marina and Cookie to be added. I know their data is already in the game and it’d be nice to have all my top favorites in my campsite (With the 8th slot rotating a selection of the villagers in second place). Regardless, once Diana and Flurry are invited over, I’ll likely be completely on break again until something else pops up. Or Marina and/or Cookie get added.

As always, I couldn’t help but take a few pictures too such as handing out crystal barrettes in the campsite as the twinning continues:

I also gave another fortune cookie a shot as I like suffering, but I still didn’t get anything good:

I wanted the cake sets, but I only got a chair. I also tried my luck with the stained glass one (FOUNTAIN), but didn’t do well with that either :/ Though, seeing how it was the grand prize, I wasn’t expecting much. I really hate the fortune cookies in this game so much. I wasn’t fond of them in New Leaf as it is– I didn’t need them to come back even worse.

Anyway, to finish this off, just a simple question:

Why are the lemons green?
(And no, the perfect lemon being yellow does not count)

Let’s talk about Arcade Spirits

So, for those of you who pay attention to my Youtube Channel, twitter, or even read my first entry of the year, you’ll know that I recently played the game in full and it was one of the games I was most looking forward to this year.

Did it hold up to my expectations? It absolutely did. I had a lot of fun with it. I had a lot of fun with the references. This will go into spoilers so if you do not want to be spoiled, I’d recommend stopping at this sentence. I played through all the routes and most of the different paths (I say most because no matter how hard I tried, I somehow still managed to always get Sue on my side. I’m honestly too scared to have it go differently at this point. I’ve also mainly just played as Kind and with a “bad” playthrough (Essentially trying to do terribly with everyone), Gutsy, and somehow still passed having no idea what I was doing).

I’ll likely be going back and forth on what I liked and disliked based on my train of thought, but honestly, any flaws I will be mentioning felt really negligible compared to what I did enjoy. I can only think of two things that really felt off-putting to me a bit (and in general with that scene for most characters) and one thing that upset me a lot, but that’s all personal stuff and your mileage will absolutely vary . I don’t think most will have an issue with the latter especially–I’m just sensitive. That said, I think the game can have personal effects on a lot of people for various reasons due to its themes as well.

I always loved arcades so getting to work at one in the game was a lot of fun. Whenever we went on vacation during the summer, I would always go to the arcade and along with occasionally playing a racing or shooting game, I’d play the crane game. A lot. I usually would go back to our room with tons of plushies I won. The fact that I could not actually play a crane game in the game made me sad, but at least I could watch one in the arcade itself :P

I may have just been a floor attendant at first, but I liked being around all the prizes. I would’ve gotten one of those bears. The red one that is third from the left, specifically.

My personal favorite routes were Percy’s, the friendship route (for one specific reason I’ll get to), and Teo’s. I actually didn’t expect to like Teo’s route that much as I generally don’t care much for overly flirty characters and he’s just a bit too much for me, but he’s actually balanced really great on his route and it’s a lot nicer than I expected and on a “how much did I enjoy dating this character”, he and Percy are kind of tied.

Going by character traits alone, Naomi, Ashley, and Percy were my favorite characters. I found there were things I could relate to with every character such as Naomi’s dreams, Ashley’s self-worth (though, my reasons are different than hers, Ashley is one of the characters I really found the most interesting to learn more about. There’s so much more to Ashley than I expected), and Teo’s inability to take a break. Seeing the characters grow is so interesting and I never really found myself bored on any of the routes as I got to learn more about the characters.

I genuinely didn’t expect to be too into QueenBee’s or Teo’s stories due to not being into eSports and, as mentioned before, Teo being a bit too flirtatious for me, but both characters had a lot more to them and I enjoyed learning more about them.

I would say the only part of the story where I felt a bit frustrated was during the grand opening of the new arcade. Regardless of route, some issue comes up right before the opening that makes things more difficult and also for the characters to realize how much the player character means to them after they get shot. I’m not upset with the timing or meaning or anything, but I felt some of the issues felt overly forced and that’s really where my issue is.

Naomi’s and Gavin’s situations vary quite a bit based off who’s route you’re on, but they’re highly focused on whoever you’re dating being in the wrong and having to let them know. With Naomi, she paints over a Pengy to look like Pengo and she wanted to put it on the arcade cabinet to get it more attention, but Pengy is essentially heavily copyrite protected and it being painted over like that could cause a lot of problems. And honestly, you know, if you want to paint over some other Penguin to look like the Penguin of a game you love, that’s fine, Naomi. You do you. But using it to advertise/get attention with essentially a painted over figure of something else is really not okay. You could have even asked Juniper and Ashley to draw something up.

As for Gavin, for whatever reason, he decided to up the difficulty on every single game. Arcade games aren’t that easy anyway. It wasn’t needed. And the main thing was to put on his focus about making a profit to keep dreams alive while also then bringing up their relationship when it shouldn’t have been. My main issue here was with the fact that it really felt he was getting better at compromising and then it was like we took two steps back. Considering everything that happened with the arcade, I’m not entirely surprised he went backwards a bit, especially as there is so much depending on the grand opening going well, but this still felt like too much.

Ashley’s is a bit of an odd one for me because I still don’t know how I feel about it. I think, for me, even though I am more comfortable with certain parts of myself, I suffer from that a lot. That everything is wrong and this just… frustration and hate of everything I’ve done. Any project I do, anything I write, (and the player character gives some pretty good advice there that I should probably take but instead I react pretty similar to Ashley so thanks for calling me out, game), and it was just kind of such a pinpoint for me to see because it felt like I was talking to myself. And especially after coming off Ashley being happy with just being herself, I was surprised to see that side. To see loathing like that and how she pushed the player character away. If anything, I would say my issue with Ashley’s was more that I don’t think I could understand how the shooting concluded the situation paired with it hitting me in a way I wasn’t expecting and am still dealing with myself.

With Naomi’s and Gavin’s, it was showing that it wasn’t something they should’ve gotten so upset for and figuring out their priorities so it’s the conflict itself that frustrated me a bit.

Teo’s and QueenBee’s, in a stark contrast to my issue with Naomi’s and Gavin’s, was actually an issue with the player character’s response. For both of them, I was genuinely happy for them. I had no issue with the idea of them going off and just long distance and occasional visits, but I had no way to express that. Teo’s actually gave me one answer to, but somehow it still delved into the Player character not really meaning it and I just kind of wanted to shake everyone. It was such a good opportunity for both of them and I couldn’t really understand the Player character’s selfishness here. Like, yeah, they compromise in the end, but I don’t think they needed to in such a way.

Juniper’s is possibly the oddest to me because, while she does explain how this just finally blew over as for why it’s coming up now, it really did just feel… so poorly timed and odd to bring up. Like… you go to wish them luck on their big project and then add on all these things they aren’t doing. I’m not sure what caused it to just kind of… explode there as it really didn’t feel like the right time (and it gets brushed off again at the hospital anyway and the player character can’t do much on crutches) and just made me feel terrible for something that couldn’t be handled at all at that moment. It’s not like I could leave back to the apartment real quick.

Finally, Percy’s which was the one I enjoyed the most here. I played Percy’s first (and his route is the one I have up on my channel) and due to just how well his flowed, I didn’t even think there would be a conflict there for each character.

Percy rejecting a chance to possibly extend his life/cure his condition because his sister didn’t make it is so heartbreaking, but also makes a lot of sense with his character. His big goal is getting that score she couldn’t have herself and that is all he focuses on. He doesn’t feel he deserves that life. And only when he nearly loses the player character does it really hit him how selfish he was being. It just felt such a natural progression and due to his heart condition and how long he has being the main personal conflict in his route, the player character’s life being what kind of flipped the switch for him felt like such a perfect trade-off that I really didn’t expect every route to have things happen the same way.

That scene is literally my only writing complaint though (outside of Percy’s which I felt was perfect and Ashley’s which hit too close to home). Everything else I found really great.

As for the other scene that hit me a bit, it was Francine’s death. While I was worried that it could happen, I really hoped it wouldn’t. Having lost both of my grandmother’s within the last year and a half, it made me cry quite a bit and I really didn’t handle it too well.

Going back to some of my favorite scenes… Honestly, part of the issue was I truly enjoyed too many scenes and options and you can’t actually do them all in a single playthrough. Every scene helping out in the arcade, whether it be playing detective to figure out an issue or using your body as a cupcake shield, is a lot of fun. And there were so many moments to really learn more about the characters. Similarly, all the scenes at MAX were also really great.

If I could have played through the rest of the game in a maid dress, I would have.

Even during the auction. I loved both of the hanging out scenes with Naomi, but I also loved bidding on everything with Gavin. But if I bid, I couldn’t help save the kittens. These decisions were very hard. Not to mention not being able to hang out with everyone on the boardwalk…

And even when the new arcade was being planned, it was pretty difficult. All of the ideas were great. Being able to stream directly from the arcade? Amazing. Better prizes? Always good. Tickets for everything? YES. I wish it was possible to say yes to more options to make things even more amazing.

I will say though, it made me sad that if you do end up going in a relationship, whoever your two lowest friendships are will just kind of… leave. I tried so many things to keep friendships up only to realize you can actually only keep everyone around on the Friendship route. And to be honest, I felt like I spent less time with the characters during the friendship route so I was surprised that was the only way they stayed.

The only thing I wish the game had is a gallery feature of some sort. While I loved the prizes and concept art, I would have loved an area to see all the illustration moments with my character.

At least I took a lot of screenshots. And also recorded my first playthrough.

Anyway, this is getting long so I’m just going to sum it up a bit:
-If you like games, there’s a lot of fun references that you can enjoy even if a visual novel isn’t your type of thing!
-While the customization is a bit simple (And I wish at the least my character could be a bit shorter), I feel all the color options and the niceness of being able to pick your pronouns makes up for it–yeah, maybe the character isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but an ambiguous character helps lessen anyone feeling left-out.
-Why couldn’t I actually have the Mr. Moopy plushie I got at the beach in my room? Why isn’t there an actual one I can have in my real room? These are the real questions. (don’t worry, they’re rhetorical :P)
-All the characters are really interesting and I loved getting to know their stories.
-The ending varies a lot more than I expected based on your main personality trait which is really cool.
-I AM SO HAPPY YOU CAN TURN ON INDICATORS. I have a lot of trouble understanding sarcasm so it was really helpful for me to pick an answer that meant what I thought it would and not get blindsided by something like a “Hi” being turned into a “Hi you suck go die” without warning.
-It’s nice being able to just stick to friendship if you want.
-Francine’s family is overly spiteful T__T why would you do that ;~;
-Even though I kind of had an idea of what would happen plot-wise with Deco Nami (and most of everything with Sue–just… not the relation even if I figured her gang was working for him), it didn’t ruin any of my enjoyment of the plot.
-I need my own IRIS.

The game really does make you think about what you would sacrifice for your dreams and it’s hard. I’ve been struggling a lot in real life with a job that really takes a lot out of me and makes it hard to really focus on things I do enjoy (like… 100%ing games, writing, reading, baking, and cooking… And especially traveling which is the most expensive thing on this list) and it’s so hard to juggle if your dreams are really worth it sometimes. There’s a lot you really need to put into it and sometimes you forget just how much work you do. You can’t always just wait for it and you need to be ready to take that step and the game genuinely makes you think more than you’d expect it to.

And with that said, I am really looking forward to the sequel.

Miitopia’s Finale (and Pokemon’s pause)

So, I had asked people if they’d rather see everything together or in separate posts on Twitter and separate posts won! Thus, some of these entries may be a bit short, but I hope people enjoy them regardless.

I think, in general, I need to get more comfortable with shorter entries and not always worry about it so much. This one is still a bit grouped, but that’s because I will be bringing up some issues in relation to the capture cards I use and my computer which has to do with the recent videos of Miitopia, but also why Pokemon now has to be on pause (which is a shame as I felt up to playing more recently–both Pokemon and Miitopia).

Regardless, I finally did something I had been hoping to for ages now: I beat Miitopia.



Sure, there’s still post-game, but it’s so nice to have finally hit the finale. In general, the game is a lot of fun antics-wise, but it’s really supposed to be silly and kind of contradicts itself in that regard.

The game has the monotony and grind of a normal RPG, but with less freedom to actually move around going into rails and choices for which way you feel like going… And honestly, I think part of my issue is I wish they just stuck to one. It’s incredibly monotonous to play through the same level 6 times just to hit each diverging path. It doesn’t change up enough and there isn’t much strategy to the game (which I will admit I don’t mind) when you can only control the player character. Your party members always work on their own so most of the time, I feel like I’m just holding the B button to fast-forward to get through as quickly as possible.

I love when unique things happen. I love the story. But the gameplay is so exhausting and if it wasn’t for a friend’s help with leveling, I’m not sure when I would’ve gotten to level 50 in order to continue (which… I likely didn’t need to, but it’s how I feel most comfortable playing).

Despite that, I really want to see the game fully through. The credits were really nice as well and I am happy I played the game, I just… Wish there was more to it I guess? I don’t know, it’d be neat to see the characters grow more too rather than it being eventual repeating dialogue. I don’t know if I’ll fully complete the post game or get all the medals (though, I’d like to, but I may do most of that off a recording), but I hope I can at least see all the different areas.

Sadly, at least some of the medals are a “wait until the quest you need” pops up which is… annoying. Quests switch out daily and it’s a bit frustrating. Even though I believe certain areas are judged by a day of the week, I don’t really enjoy having to wait for a specific day to be able to do something unless the entire game is like that… Which Miitopia is not.

Finally, I will say I really enjoyed the credits, it was pretty cute.



Our next area currently seems to be the Beach, which is nice, but I sadly don’t know exactly when we’ll be continuing it.

And this wraps around back to what I mentioned at the top with both this game and Pokemon and honestly, pretty much every console (whether hand console or home console) system I have.

Essentially, Windows 10 uses up a lot of RAM. Even more so with recent updates. And without enough RAM available, the console recordings lag and the 3DS recordings have audio delay. If I’m lucky after first restarting, I may be able to get something for a while, but there’s no guarantee and right now I’m not in a position to be able to buy (or even set my computer up with) more RAM.

I could, of course, just record 3DS games without sound, but I know most people don’t want that. Similarly, while the small skips for console recording isn’t the end of the world, that actually really bugs me (I play enough things without sound that watching a video muted works fine for me), but it just sucks being so powerless to do anything about it.

So, once those issues are ironed out, hopefully both series can come back. I desperately want to finish the Pokemon games before the Gen 8 game comes out and even more so, I really want to clear most of this backlog before Animal Crossing. But we’ll just have to see how it goes.

A Year in Review. Or something like that. & Most Anticipated 2019 Games

I don’t usually write posts like this, usually feeling my activity kind of speaks for itself, but this year, unless you follow my MCL/Beemoov game blog, I haven’t done much of anything.

There’s a lot of reasons for this. For one, we’re in the process of moving so everything is being packed up and moved around. The other is that it had been a very rough year and I’m still recovering from it.

And trust me when I say nobody is more disappointed by the lack of things completed than I am. As someone who usually finishes a game within about a week tops unless it’s something more real-time focused like Animal Crossing, having some games still incomplete (Such as Let’s Go Pikachu which I have not played since getting the Cascade Badge and Miitopia is years old at this point. Ultra Moon is over a year as well).

I’ve already spoken a bit about Ultra Moon and part of why there’s been such a pause (And losing the footage of the climax of the game sure didn’t help), but in general, it comes down to: Lack of time combined with needing something a bit more light-hearted/that I can just enjoy and relax in. Similarly, the reason I’ve played a lot of Visual Novels lately is reading helps me relax, I don’t have access to many books on hand, and I need something simple right now due to stressing too much.

I’ve mentioned before how I feel like I’m slowly no longer having a place in gaming and while part of it is due to my own busy schedule, a large part of it is due to games being focused on an audience that not only have I never been apart of, it’s one I don’t wish to join.

I have nothing against those who do enjoy it, but it’s not why I started playing games and it’s a bit disheartening for me. Such as Super Smash Brothers that ended up removing my favorite feature, trophies, in lieu of spirits that have various skills you can give your character. I’d still prefer trophies. I don’t care about figuring out the best spirits for my play style and character. In the end, we mostly got it as my husband would still play with friends and I wanted to check out the story mode. Which sadly was also disappointing to me. It’s not bad and it has interesting moments and cute Easter Eggs, but it feels more like a challenge mode and I never cared for those. At least we can always use any character we have unlocked so far (just… Hope you have one you’re good with unlocked already), but as I mentioned before, I find most people who really enjoy some of those super hard challenges do for the challenge themselves and so it sucks if there’s a Spirit someone may really want and just… keep failing. Some challenges I kept working towards for over an hour. While I am proud for having every part of the map we’ve done 100%’d so far, it’s not really what I’m playing for and it doesn’t give me that sense of achievement. Maybe because I’m a perfectionist, but if I failed once, it doesn’t matter if I get it eventually–I already feel like a failure.

That’s definitely not the best way to think of things, but I think it’s part of why the whole “It’s not the end result, but the journey you take to get there” thing doesn’t work for me. I’m not against hard work, but no matter how hard I work, I just don’t feel good enough if I didn’t finish already.

And that’s also part of why there’s a lot of things on the back-burner right now. For one reason or another, I had to stop and I’m the type of person who really has a hard time picking something back up once I put it down which is why I never really put things down usually.

I’d like to hope this year, maybe I can get a lot of those games and other projects of mine that are in progress done. Maybe also further some other things important to me, like learning languages and maybe getting the chance to travel more again soon. I think in general I just desperately need a change of scenery.

I’m still inching closer to getting some things done, so it may be a slow progress, but it’s some kind of progress nonetheless and I’m thankful most people have been patient with me as I slowly get each part up. I really should learn to record in advance and properly schedule things, but I’ve never been good with schedules (Mostly because my life is insane and things can change at the drop of a hat).

Finally, to make this a little less solemn, I want to talk about the games I am looking forward to most in 2019:

1. Animal Crossing

While I am still pretty burnt out from Pocket Camp, I am hoping once we see official footage for the upcoming Animal Crossing game, it could help re-ignite my flame. Animal Crossing is a very complicated series for me that holds a lot of memories between playing with family to meeting a lot of close friends to also a bit more painful memories that I don’t want to go into.

One of the things that will be nice is getting to talk to many of those people again. The other thing is worrying that the same thing that ruined another game for me could happen in a combination of some personal matters and the burn out.

I think there’s a lot of promise for the game. I think there’s a lot they could do right. But I will admit, especially with the constant stream of events in Pocket Camp and some of the patches is recent Nintendo games (Such as Mario Tennis Aces and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate) that they could end up just making it a little too much.

There are ways to do it, of course, and Animal Crossing is a real time game. It doesn’t need all of these bricked walls. I always had mixed feelings on the way monthly items were given, but I am absolutely terrified of the idea that they may just put in weekly to bi-weekly events with new items and bonus objectives and I get that it’s there to give people things to do and reason to check back, but it just stresses me out. I feel anxious all the time worrying I’ll miss something if I’m not constantly checking in and that isn’t fun. That isn’t fun in the slightest.

Animal Crossing has so many events and things already that it really doesn’t need constant extra content added–especially not any time soon. I’d also rather them work on it to be the best it could be before releasing, even if that means the game could be pushed back, rather than getting a big expansion down the line.

I feel pushing things before they’re ready has become a trend recently and it really needs to stop. I get really wanting a game to come out. I get being excited for a fandom. But I feel there’s such a large amount of impatience and entitlement nowadays about when something should and why they don’t have it yet (and it’s been like… so much worse in the AC fandom with how much it’s grown since New Leaf) and it’s not fun to see. And I feel that is part of what contributes to rushing products out and the added content later.

2. Ooblets

I’ve been following Ooblets for ages now between the Discord, Patreon, their shortly lived mailing list that may make a comeback, and really every bit of their social media.

It’s a combination of so many of my favorite games in a super adorable art style–there really isn’t anything not to like. Also, Perplamps and NonPlayerCat are really sweet.

Regardless, just everything about Ooblets makes it hard not to be excited and I’m looking forward to something to put a lot of time into without constantly worrying I’m running out of time.

3. The New Pokemon Project.

Despite my mixed feelings on Pokemon right now, Pokemon has a very big place in my heart and nothing can change that. I know it’ll likely have some new battle mechanics I don’t care for and even more Pokemon and things so I’ll just keep my hopes simple: Better customization and better catch mechanics.

ORAS still had some of the best catching mechanics to me and I’d really prefer to go back to that over Gen 7’s gimmick. Also I never want to see motion controlled catching again (paired with needing to catch so many of the exact same Pokemon to boost chances of certain ones spawning and other things) which is easily the biggest reason I’ve had trouble playing more of Let’s GO. I knew some Pokemon would be rare, but I didn’t think they’d be that low of a chance. I can’t stand seeing more than the amount of Pokemon I need when they look the same (So, as an example: I would never want more than 3 Geodude and only if I didn’t have Graveler or Golem yet. Another example would be no more than four Pikachu–three male and three female, and again, only if I didn’t have any Raichu yet. The two extra Raichu would be to trade for Alolan Raichu–one of each gender). I can’t really explain why, but it really bothers me organizational-wise and that’s part of why I struggle.

I tend to be very possessive with my Pokeballs incase something rare I need DOES show up so needing to swing over and over again at the same Pokemon to even get some to show up stresses me out. And as much as I hate battling, I will take it over catching the same Pokemon over and over that I don’t even need (this is why I don’t do breeding outside of Pokemon you can’t get otherwise).

4. Jenny LeClue

There still isn’t a full release date so it’s possible it could be pushed back further, but I love mysteries and have been following this for a while and even have it prordered soooo….

5. Arcade Spirits

This is a visual novel game I played the demo of recently and actually really enjoyed for a multitude of reasons to the aesthetics, writing, and interesting customization. While I don’t record everything, I actually played around with a lot of the choices even after finishing my recording.

I’m really looking forward to the full release in February.

6. Mineko’s Night Market

I get to solve mysteries, run a cute store, and make friends with cats. How could I not look forward to this?

Anyway, that sums it up for the most part. Hopefully I can finish more of my backlog before things start dropping at least and hopefully this year will be better than the last.

In which I talk a bit about Ultra Moon & general channel stuff

So, for people who may follow my Twitter or actually read my Youtube descriptions, you likely recall me saying I wanted to finish Ultra Moon before Let’s Go Pikachu releases next month. Unfortunately, as also mentioned on Twitter, the recent recording corrupted after less than half the total footage recorded.

Between Rotomdex’s reminders and my own obsessive saving, I couldn’t redo the footage. It’s just gone. And it’s incredibly frustrating as it was the first time I really enjoyed playing. It was footage I was actually happy to see. Happy I had recorded. Only for it to be gone due to a corruption.

While I was able to figure out WHY this issue happened and thus, make it so it wouldn’t happen again, that sadly doesn’t help save anything else. I also uploaded the recording, unlisted, for people to still watch the part that isn’t if they want to, but I didn’t publish it.

And this is just… Kind of soul crushing. I’ve been struggling playing much of anything lately. I know people are probably tired of seeing Visual Novels popping up–I can’t say it’s my favorite thing either, but I really enjoy reading and unfortunately, reading is about all I’ve been capable of doing lately.

For those who have been enjoying the random visual novels, I’m glad! I technically have a couple of other things recorded, but I don’t know when/if I’ll upload them sadly… Or maybe I will just unlisted with Public playlists.

Anyway, back to Pokemon: As mentioned, the footage is dead and there is nothing else I can do. I tried so hard, but it’s just… gone. And it’s heartbreaking because it was the climax of the game. So many scenes I would’ve loved to keep recorded (and I worked so hard in the plaza to have the outfit I wanted for these scenes too) only to not have it at all now.

I did, however, take a good amount of screenshots. On a disheartening note though, I really hoped to get more screenshots and when I missed them, I tried to make myself feel better by saying I could get them from the video later. CLEARLY THAT ISN’T HAPPENING.

Regardless, I’m going to go through some of the screenshots and my thoughts to at least keep some memory of the episode around. So, let’s get started.

I left off in my last video getting to Aether Foundation after Lillie and Cosmog were taken, so that’s where we pick up.



It’s pretty similar to the original, just with some of the new characters making an appearance in the process. It ends the same.

Lillie gets her Z-Powered form and I cry because she gets a ponytail and I don’t have that option despite being on a tropical island. Also her backpack is way cuter than my bag.

Anyway, we’re off to the next island and we have to go see the Exeggutor to get the flute. And despite my issues with a lot of the mechanics, outside of Trials, in Alola, I really do like the environment.

We get the flute and after going through the canyon which I got flashbacks to how much I hated doing enough in Moon, we get the fancy flute playing scene which is honestly one of my favorites and I want a real Moon Flute.

They added a lot to this scene which just makes it haunt me even more that I will never have the recording of it now.


That said, putting so much in this and with Necrozoma really made everything with Guzma and Lillie’s mother become a lot more anticlimatic.

I kind of failed my first Warp Time, but I did get to have a pretty picture in the best warp area so not too bad:

I don’t expect to use the Warp system anytime after this (I have the legendaries from past games and I have no interest in shiny hunting) so I at least feel a bit lucky that I landed here, even if by mistake.

I got the right one on my second attempt though.



It was then time for my next trial with Mina which was… Honestly kind of cool.

I liked visiting the other trial leaders and honestly, my only real complaint is that there wasn’t more variety. I didn’t care about battling nearly all of them again and while talking was nice, I don’t know, with how unique each trial felt, I kind of wish it was a little different than battle most of them.

The rainbow flower was so pretty though.

After that, it was off for my final Grand Trial. And then I finished that and headed to the league–stuck in the cave before the top of the mountain which is where I stopped recording.

I don’t know when I’ll get the next part up due to a handful of reasons:
1. I’m still really upset about losing over four hours of footage.
2. I had expected my team to actually LISTEN to me after finishing all the trials, but apparently they do not until after you become Champion… Which means I still have to deal with them disobeying me which just… sucks.
3. As mentioned, I’ve been really struggling with playing things lately.
4. We may be moving very soon and have been having to pack up a lot of stuff which also means just not much free time right now.

So while I hoped to finish Miitopia and Ultra Moon… I just don’t know if that’s viable right now, unfortunately. :(

Super Mario Party thoughts

So, while I haven’t been able to do much lately for various reasons, I have been spending some time playing Super Mario Party and just, generally, thinking a lot.

As usual, this is more of an “off the cuff” thought/opinion article over an actual review, but there’s some things I wanted to say about the newest game in the Mario Party series and it felt like a good opportunity to take some time to post on here.

In general, my main feeling with SMP is that it’s a good first step. I’m so happy the car is no longer part of it and I missed moving around on the board. I also find most of the minigames quite fun.

My main issues are some of the games’ mechanics paired with the boards themselves.

All the boards feel relatively small is the biggest issue. Stage hazards/mechanics are mild or annoying (such as Megafruit Paradise and the pipes/bridges), and it just feels kind of… lifeless? Bland?

It’s like all the makings are there for a good game, but it fell short in actually pulling them off. I just genuinely don’t enjoy the boards and while moving around is fine, it just isn’t much fun to me.

I am probably in the minority saying this, but I especially dislike the character dice blocks. Some dice are honestly just better than others. Combine them with the ally system, which honestly feels so overpowered and can give quite an advantage, not just in the boards themselves, but also the minigames, and it’s just… tiring? I kind of wish I could turn the mechanic off because while I can maybe make an agreement with a friend I’m playing with, I can’t change anything with the computers.

While some people say it makes the game more strategic, I don’t want some kind of Mario Party meta–I want to just pick the character I like best without thinking about what dice will be best for this situation. And when it comes down to it, it makes certain allies much more useful than others.

I also miss the original 1-10 dice blocks and items, though, with the smaller boards, I can understand this change and just hope it’d be reverted when bigger boards come into play.

On a similar note, while part of me is okay with Bowser being a playable character, the game feels wrong without Bowser Spaces. The Unlucky (And Very Unlucky which… are just an annoying twist that barely does anything) Spaces are relatively anti-climatic and the Lucky Spaces also don’t really add much. They feel more like leftovers from 9 and 10’s systems and just don’t feel as relative here.

Speaking of anti-climatic, the Hidden Blocks… Having the spinner, which you can’t even stop so it takes longer for no reason as well, ruins some of the surprise as you know what to expect based on where the spinner lands. If it’s random and you can’t time it, just let the character hit the box and get it over with. I’m also sad to see Boo switched out for Lakitu, though, as it functions the same it doesn’t feel as much of a loss as the Bowser spaces being removed are.

Partner Party… While it has some interesting mechanics/puzzles, I wish it just functioned like a normal party with teams. I don’t care for moving at the same time or most of the ways it functions–especially because trying to land on a specific space can get frustrating incredibly fast.

I also just… wish there were 3 bonus stars still? Not sure why it was lowered to two.

I guess the best way to explain this is it feels like the game was kind of… compacted to some degree while adding some convoluted mechanics. Everything feels very slow. And while I understand why the Joy-cons need to be used having played many games that really focus on specific vibrations, I find playing with a single Joy-con really uncomfortable (And I have tiny hands!) so I wish I could use a Pro-controller or something.

It’s like it’s so close to being one of my favorite Mario Party’s, but still falls short in a lot of sections.

Some final notes I don’t really have much to say on:
-I wish the on-map versus space games had more instructions. You’re just kind of tossed in there.
-In general, more instructions on some games would be nice–I lost one because I didn’t realize ammo could run out.
-I don’t know if I’ll ever get to manage to play Toad’s Rec Room to its full extent. I haven’t had a lot of free time lately nor do I know anyone who lives super close who also has a Switch and I just wish there were ways to set these up even for people who may only have the one Switch. I know they can be played as is, but I feel doing it plain is just kind of bland.

Despite my negativity above, there’s still quite a bit I do like about the game and I AM having fun with it, even if I wish some things were changed a bit, so here are some things I am enjoying:

-Minigames. I actually like the minigames quite a bit. While I definitely have my favorites, I don’t think there are any I particularly dislike, though, some I really just don’t enjoy the controls for. That said, this is on par with Mario Party in general–even 9 and 10 I liked a lot of the games.
-The story. It’s simple, but it’s cute and I like that it ties into all the modes versus a separate mode you need to play to do it along with letting you play who you want to in the process.
-The Plaza. It’s just… nice being able to walk around. I wish it was a little easier to tell if there was something new for you to do, but it’s still a fun feature. I wish there were ways to build it up or something beyond just earning the gems–kind of like the little collectibles/souvenirs you could get (I loved that parade…). There are stickers in the game, but it being focused to one little spot down a pipe and just being able to look at them otherwise makes it a bit lackluster, even though I love stickers. I wouldn’t want them removed, but I wish they weren’t the only collectible thing.
-Despite not being big on Rhythm games, I actually found the ones in this game fun and I’m glad just doing all the modes was enough despite how much I suck at them. I will admit I wish they were more precise on exactly what beat you’re timing to–that’s always been my biggest issue with Rhythm games because I focus on too much at once.

And, of course, my favorite mode is River Survival. I have wanted a full co-op option for so long and the only thing I’m sad about is that it doesn’t have online. It kills me that they added online just for the normal minigames and I wish they added it in full as it’d be nice to actually play a 4 person party with all four actually being people and this mode as well. That said, there isn’t tons of variety with the games and it can a bit tiring to compete. I feel like they could’ve done twists on some of the versus games as well to help put in more variety.

The computers aren’t terrible, but they can really cause issues in certain modes or when it comes to rowing.

But it’s so nice having one where everyone can work together.

All in all, I’m having fun playing (even if I don’t see myself replaying much once I have everything unlocked) and I’m hoping the next Mario Party will at least continue in this direction… Though, I wouldn’t mind certain things not making a return.