Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Days 284 and 285: Toy Day!! (and a few days before)

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Happy Holidays everyone :) It was Toy Day yesterday in New Horizons– I did my best to knock it out before having to take care of my own Christmas Eve plans even if it’d probably have been more appropriate a bit later in the day. Regardless, my playthrough of the event is already up on Youtube as well as the day after so feel free to watch those as well if you want to see more than some of the screenshots.

Before we get into all the Toy Day stuff, a little on the lead up! I was really excited to see a tree actually get put outside Resident Services in conjunction with some of the Cedar trees now being decorated.

The Plaza was even nicer at night.

I also received a gift from Maple– a Festive Wreath!

I also got a letter from the Perfect Snowboy with a Frozen Tree.

Finally, some cute screenshots enjoying the Winter mood before we start talking about Toy Day.

Knowing I’d probably be delivering presents, I decided to dress the part the night before. While there is the Festive Dress, the lack of sleeves while in the Northern Hemisphere felt silly so I made use of the Santa Top and a nice skirt. The shoe decision was the hardest part! I was originally leaning towards the black boots, but in the daytime, the brown honestly looked better.

I immediately headed to the Plaza to meet Jingle as soon as I started playing.

As a side note, I really the Resident Services decorations.

My first task was to make some wrapping paper.

I ended up making 14– one to keep, 3 for Jingle, and 10 for the presents I had gotten my villagers. I had hoped to give them their presents before starting the Jingle job, but to my surprise, it seemed I wasn’t able to. I kind of wish I spoke to all my villagers before continuing the next part to see what else they may have said about the Holidays.

So, I headed back to Jingle to give him the wrapping paper.

Jingle then asked me to take over the gift giving as one of the greatest joys is seeing people’s expressions/excitement when giving gifts and he wanted to share that feeling.

Honestly, I agree with him. One of the things I’d love to be able to do, if money situations stop sucking, is give gifts more often to both friends and strangers. I just like helping people. It’d be nice to be able to make more people happy.

It was then time to go around giving gifts! I didn’t screenshot everyone due to some dialogue repeating and also having only so much time to play, but I had a lot of fun giving gifts and seeing the villagers excited. I think what surprised me the most was when some of them gave me gifts in return during all this along with asking to exchange gifts later.










I think Merengue’s, Judy’s, and Teddy’s comments hit me the most. Regardless, with the deliveries done, I made my way back to Jingle.





With deliveries for Santa and Jingle all done, it was time for the gift exchange will my villagers! Again, didn’t screenshot everything due to some repetition, but I did get gifts for everyone!













Honestly, the whole thing was so much more heartwarming than I was prepared for.

As for the gifts from Jingle… I got the gift box DIY and actually made 7 so I can have one of each color.

And after seeing the sled was a lot smaller than I anticipated, I had the perfect place for it.

As for the stockings… I didn’t really have room in the living room, so I ended up putting them in the Kitchen:

As for today, well, I went to check my stockings as advised by Jingle…

Honestly, it’s kind of a gift when you consider it, but it’s really neat for it to be set up like this too.

To my surprise though, when I went to talk to my villagers today, each of them ended up starting out talking about how thankful they were. Once again, some of these hit really deep, even if there was some repetition with my normal villagers.









I don’t know what I wanted from Toy Day or what I was expecting, but it was really warm and fulfilling and I’m glad I got to do it. Tomorrow the new Nook Shopping seasonal items should be available and then it’s just the wait for New Year’s Eve…

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Days 271 & 272: The Snow that broke the Villager’s back

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In general, if you watched my video yesterday, you may already know some of the issues I had, but if not, I’ll be talking about it here along with some other feelings.

This entry, barring these issues, would’ve been posted yesterday, but oh well. Regardless, yesterday snow finally starting sticking to the ground. I actually love when the snow starts falling and I really like the Winter-look (The light mint color of the leaves is so pretty and I wish I could mix parts of Winter and Cherry Blossom season together…) so my general feeling was excitement, at least at first.

I had set aside a small area in advance putting the chess set near Able Sisters somewhere else in the meantime. Unfortunately, there was one “small” problem. The area was too small this time around for the Snowballs to spawn.

I was expecting it to be similar to New Leaf where I could remove a few flowers and have it spawn in the empty spaces, but that… was not the case. I needed a much bigger area. After a quick tour around, there was really only one place that could work and thus, I had to uproot the small orchard behind the village area. As expected, the snowballs spawned there immediately after reloading.

And then it was just… a long time of waiting for a Dung Beetle to spawn as it was the last bug I needed.

With that out of the way, it was time to work on my very first Snowboy. Only to hit a new problem. After measuring out carefully, it turns out there was another frustrating change from New Leaf: You can’t make a Snowperson on flowers. So as I continuously tried to push the smaller snowball onto the large one that I had placed into some flowers to make more room for rolling (especially as rolling them felt harder to control between how they’re kicked (and somehow not destroyed??) early on and then how they roll later– I get it’s more realistic, but I’m not exactly playing a game with Animal Villagers for realism), I also was making the smaller Snowball bigger.

After moving the big one out, I placed some paths down to try and make the smaller one a bit smaller again, but alas, did not manage to do a good enough job and only did a “nearly perfect” Snowboy. Which also meant I couldn’t unlock the Nook Miles Stamp/Card just yet.



With my failure set in stone, I went to donate the Dung Beetle to the museum at least much to Blathers’ delight.



I honestly am curious now what would’ve been said if you completed the museum before the Art collection was in and then beat it again. Regardless, the Dung Beetle now has a happy home though I am kind of concerned about it sharing its exhibit with the Scorpion…

I pretty much stopped playing after that, frustrated, but the next day, I did get my letter from The Farway Museum with the Golden Net DIY. I already had a Golden Net from a friend, but it’s nice to actually earn it.

I then made my way back to Snowball field to suffer try my hand at once again making a Perfect Snowboy. And thankfully, succeeded.



And that was… it. I don’t think there’s really a good way to explain when you just feel your goals kind of begin to crack and shatter, but it’s how I felt between ruining an area of my island, suffering to make a perfect Snowboy, and then getting that stamp where I would need to do this 19 more times to complete it was soul-crushing.

And if I’m not going to complete it, I don’t exactly feel motivated to continue with the other Nook Miles. I’ve mentioned before how Nook Miles Stamps feel so different compared to earning the Gold Badges and I still feel that way. While I felt I had some level of control in New Leaf, I feel like a lot more of the New Horizons ones have walls and other obstacles to make things longer. And like… Why does Snowmaestro need PERFECT snowman? Why aren’t just not-bad ones good enough? I’d think those would be “quality” too. New Leaf was about encouraging you to do what you love. New Horizons is about doing it a certain way to matter.

Maybe I’ll still try some of the more simpler ones like the selling fruit one as I’d like the words for some of the Stamps from that… But as for certain titles from completing Nook Miles+ things and Snowmaestro, among finishing in general, I don’t know if I can deal with anymore.

At this point, I feel more like I just want April to come back around just to upload my Dream Suite and be done with the game because it’s beaten me down so much, I barely want to play it anymore. It’s ironic how the game that added things for “more freedom” can feel so overbearing this time around and it really breaks my heart.

Moving onto something more positive, the other day Judy was unfortunately sick. I still am kind of surprised she’s Snooty, but I really do adore her. And outside of the weirdness of the Block furniture being used (I blame the lack of several sets– I bet she’d have loved the Rococo set), her entire room is just incredibly aesthetic. I hope they make Amiibo cards for all the new villagers.

If I could ever afford to, I’d love to get plushies of all my favorites.

Anyway, I don’t know, I’ll likely still pop in each day for now, but it just… feels so much more like a chore than any fun at this point. I wish I was still enjoying myself.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 261: THE BEST ITEMS…

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(Disclaimer: Some of these photos may be a bit before or after December 1st!)

December is finally here!! And there’s a few reasons I’m excited… For one, I love Christmas a lot. I also love snow. It’s just a fun time of year for me. But as for in-game, the Dung Beetle will be around once there is finally snow on the ground and that will complete my museum!

The first of the month also brought our latest gift from our Mom, a sweater in the Northern Hemisphere, and some new decorations!

I still love the little Snowman in Nook’s Cranny. I want it.

Not to mention Toy Day should be fun and I can work on building Snowpeople (which is less a positive, but I must for the Nook Mile… I’ll do my best to make room for them), but the biggest best thing? THE NEW (or in some cases, returning and newly upgraded) TOYS.

(Just ignore that some of the stuff they sold were also toys I guess)

And most importantly, as you can also see above, THE PUPPY PLUSHIE. LOOK AT IT.

I also very quickly added some others in the house.

I would’ve loved to fit one of each inside the house, but I just couldn’t make it look nice. This was maybe the closest that looked decent, but the room already has space issues:

I did, at the very least, make sure to have one of each outside.



Along with placing some of the other toys as well.

Besides toy placement, I did place more of those Turkey Day garden stands too! I really like them a lot. Part of me still wants to find more places for them.

Also I really do adore being able to sit with my villagers, but also I fee like a campfire on the plaza may not be the best idea.

Finally, while we still don’t have snow on the ground, rain itself is now snow which means I can bust out my adorable Winter outfit.

The fact that the shade of pink for the coat isn’t the same as the shoes kills me a bit, but it’s still pretty cute.

Regardless, besides dressing up myself, I noticed all the Villagers changed into some Winter gear when it started snowing which I thought was really cute.


They even would wear items you gave them if they’re Winter clothing themed so I’m tempted to try and give out more to villagers who’s outfits I think are a bit odd color-wise.

Finally, the Japanese Animal Crossing site added some fun borders to use with the new ability to send photos from your Switch to mobile! So, I went ahead and did a photo with each one:




(Special thanks to Harvey’s Photo Studio where nearly all of these photos were taken :P)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 256: It’s Turkey Day! (And some days before)

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So, for those of you here in America, Happy Thanksgiving! I still don’t fully understand why they decided to change the Harvest Festival to Turkey Day, but here we are.

There was a notice on the Bulletin Board confirming Turkey Day’s date incase of any doubts, though, I’ll admit the stationery used felt kind of odd– not Fall enough, but I suppose it’s accurate for the Southern Hemisphere.

The Villagers were also excited for Turkey Day being close by. Also being able to sit on the plaza and listen to villagers singing is really nice.

Due to the fact that Thanksgiving is pretty crazy here and my family cooks a lot even when we’re not really having anyone over due to the pandemic, I knew I would be really busy this week so I did my best to get everything in advance.

Cookie also asked for a new catchphrase and since she had been using Flurry’s for a while, I ended up just giving her Biscuit because I couldn’t really think of anything.

Finally, Turkey Day was here! I always love when the Plaza decorates.

Franklin was our honorary chef. It’s crazy to think of how much this event has changed over the years.

Regardless, it was time to get cooking.

First up was Clam Chowder.


Second was the Pumpkin Pie (why is this second though….).

Third was the Gratin.

Finally, the Fish Meunière.

With that, we finished off the regular dishes.


Plus the Secret Ingredient versions.



I loved seeing the tables filled with the dishes. I’m just bummed we couldn’t actually get a version of the dishes to keep too. Even if just like “individual” versions.

I would say the not getting to keep the food in some way was one of my two biggest issues with the event– the other was everything about how the Secret Ingredient was handled. Ironically, the one item you got for getting all the Secret Ingredients was the item you got for just finishing all the food with the other just finishing items to be unique. Getting any of the DIY furniture plus the DIY Recipes required doing all the Special Ingredient stuff, though if you didn’t bother, you can just buy them at the Nookling shop starting tomorrow. And that’s fine.

My issue is mainly HOW you got the chance to give them. Rather than being able to select them right off the bat, Franklin would notice it after he already stated the next dish and then just… make the previous dish again? It was just really awkward and honestly kind of stressful as I kept worrying I messed something up.

I’m glad I finished at least. Also some of my villagers in their Chef outfits because I didn’t get to trade with any of them since I got everything out in advance.

My favorite item was easily the Garden Stand. I immediately put some into place.

I’m hoping to go over my town a bit more later or tomorrow incase any other good places for them come to mind. I have a few ideas at least. Just hope I have enough stone.

With that, Turkey Day came to an end… Well, technically it’s going until midnight, but it at least came to an end for my time with it in-game.

Of course, immediately after finishing this, I had to help with continuing to cook for our own personal Thanksgiving so no break just yet… But with it all done, maybe I can take a small break.

Now to just… impatiently wait for December.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Days 248-250, the 1.6 Update! (and some other November days)

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With November finally hitting, we got a new letter from our mom. She actually gave me my favorite version of her kitchen mat which made me really happy. I ended up putting it outside the door to the kitchen.

I also noticed new plaza activities. I’m not entirely sure on the barbecuing in November (though, I do love barbecue), but running through leaves is always fun.

Peanut also finally let me give her a new catchphrase, finally getting her to stop using Teddy’s. Peaches is an ode to her Japanese name.

I’ve also been continuing my K.K. concert going and I really can’t say enough how much it kills me that listening more than once or listening at a friend’s town doesn’t count.

100 was fine when we could just listen to a bunch of songs in New Leaf, but it’s ridiculous in New Horizons. :(

Regardless, the update was finally here and I was actually kind of excited because… NEW STORAGE. Also with what I saw of some of the new items, it’s hard to not be excited. And I do love the Yule Log. I did end up putting the cupcake back, but it’s still pretty. I also made sure to customize it too… and order two more so I could have the original plus two additional colors.

And of course, after taking care of the Yule log, with the heads up from the mail, I quickly made my way to Resident Services.

It takes 500K though and you need to have that in your inventory so since I had to take bells out anyway, I also redeemed some Nook Miles for the new reactions and hairstyles.

With 500K now in my pockets, it was time to upgrade my storage. Unfortunately, I’d have to wait until tomorrow when it’s ready.

On my way back to my house, I couldn’t help but enjoy the falling leaves and all the colors. I haven’t played too often in Autumn for a handful of reasons, but I always love all the different colors.

I also have to say I love the new reactions so much.




(Not picture: The sniffing one)

I haven’t really caught my villagers sitting around, but I’m having fun plopping around wherever regardless.

And thanks to Zed, I got the Pocket Camp phone case right away.

I had decided to check out the Random Dream Suite option now that it was back along with adding my Dream Suite to the pool (Though, I have since re-updated it with the usual time due to having to update to add it). Luna ended up taking me to a dream of Númenor.

The next day, I got a letter letting me know that the Storage expansion was complete!

And Leo also sent me the new Summer DIY– the Summer Shell Rug so I won’t have to worry about it T~T (Along with the other new seasonal ones a day later)

Finally, today, I ended up taking a visit to the official Nintendo island, Ninten, after the Dream Address was finally shared. I was kind of surprised it was sort of… empty for the most part, though still nice.


There is a whole area still clearly under construction though so maybe they have more planned, especially considering we’ll have Mario items next year.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 230: Halloween! (and some random things before)

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So, something I found interesting is that three days before Halloween hit, some of the special villagers actually started dressing up which was really cool to see.

Even Resident Services had some pumpkins placed outside.

And while Villagers weren’t dressed up yet, they were still excited for the season.

Regardless, it’s finally Halloween and I was both excited and nervous for the event. I don’t really enjoy Halloween as I can’t really deal with horror at all and past Halloween events in Animal Crossing have always kind of terrified me so I really can’t say enough how relieved I am that there’s no chasing this time around and tricks aren’t as cruel.

I started a bit early and was surprised to see even more decorations added to Resident Services.

5PM then hit and thus, the event officially started!

Merengue immediately ran over for candy and then also taught me the Scare Reaction.

I feel like my villager trying to look scary is like whenever those images of cute animals trying to look angry pop up.

I did my best to give candy to all my villagers.


I ALSO JUST NEED TO TALK ABOUT TEDDY’S COSTUME…

Even though Diana had kind of similar, the ears aren’t really the same on hers and its a different color than her fur, but Teddy literally picked the same ear type AND color as him and that hat just looks so funny on him.

Meanwhile, Jack was here, of course, and I actually had a kind of hard time finding him at first. While he wasn’t far, he immediately wandered away from the plaza which I didn’t expect. Besides giving me an item, he also taught me the Haunt Reaction.

I still don’t think it looks particularly haunting– it just looks like my character is getting possessed which I guess is haunting in itself, but I don’t feel was what they were going for. I don’t think I’ll really use either anyway, but at least it gets me closer to the Nook Mile requirement.

Even though I didn’t need candy (I did, however, need more lollipops), I went to visit my villagers who were still in their houses. And Maple told me my costume wasn’t spooky enough and she was only giving candy to “scary” costumes and while offended, I did go and change before going back to her house and further houses.

BUT I’M STILL UPSET ABOUT IT… I wanted to just wear my Princess outfit :(

Regardless, I did end up getting some lollipops for Jack which let me get the other things I was missing.

After finishing with the candy handouts, I headed back to my house to work on crafting and customizing everything. I also ended up changing back as Halloween is done. The wand is cute, but I don’t think I’ll ever use it.

I then made one final spot back at the plaza just to get a screenshot with the fog rolling in and the lights actually on. It’s a bit simple, but still nice.

The Aesthetic of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and how it reflects on New Horizons

One of the things I’ve been struggling a lot with in New Horizons is finding myself “happy” with my town. I adored my New Leaf town, but with New Horizons, something has always felt off. And I think part of it is that it’s missing so much of what we’ve had for a long time which almost makes some items feel like a lesser version to pre-existing ones.

But when you compare it to Pocket Camp, it especially feels that way. Pocket Camp has many extravagant items constantly releasing due to being a mobile game and having a gachapon system. There’s a reason I don’t really play it much, but I’ve spoken to a lot of friends who are frustrated seeing some of the fancy items in one game to what we end up in comparison, despite New Horizons being a main game in the series.

I don’t even know how I’d handle the amount of items Pocket Camp has. Inventory management is a huge struggle already due to a combination of lack of storage, smaller side rooms, and terraforming opportunities and restrictions (Like… something we can do in Happy Home Designer and Pocket Camp but not in New Horizons: Putting rugs on the ground). Even if you wanted to fill up every spot of land in your town, you’ll run into issues with certain things spawning and I’m still trying to figure out how to prepare for Snowballs when Winter hits.

Adding in that constant flow of items would be overwhelming in itself, but many of those items are fairly big and as much as I’d like to use them, I know I’d have no room.

I think a lot of people are familiar with my Waterfall Shrine area.

While it came out okay, it is just barely what I had in mind for it. Originally, expecting that you could still do waterfalls from a fourth level even if you couldn’t place any items, I expected my “house area” to be two plains up with stairs going down to the shrine area that would actually be a larger round platform surrounded by waterfalls (Think Phenac City crossed with Zora’s Domain) and stairs heading down from there. In the center, I actually wanted to have something similar to what my campsite looks like in Pocket Camp:

Obviously, that wasn’t possible. You may also notice it’s a bit updated from what you may see in all the pictures I show, but I absolutely love my campsite in Pocket Camp. We have WATERWALLS!! I still don’t really have a fence I super like in New Horizons (and have no idea why the mermaid one wasn’t released) and I would go crazy with that. And being able to have this perfect dreamlike sunset fairy aesthetic? Amazing. I love that kind of fairyland princess of the sea aesthetic and Pocket Camp let me have it, but New Horizons… Well, I’m just praying that the effect will be even close to as nice once April comes back around. I loved seeing the cherry blossom petals in the water of New Horizons and I’m glad I get to have that effect 24/7 in Pocket Camp:

When it comes down to it, especially as Pocket Camp lets you customize the appearance of the terrain, sky, and backdrop including the new 3rd Anniversary Backdrop and I have no idea which one is nicer:

Which background?

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We have lovely fairytale ground with fairytale trees and lovely pastel ground with a pink tree and a fountain and I do not appreciate being targeted like this, game!! The third anniversary event is even all pink ;~; Regardless, the real punishment here is that I can not fuse the two together. In general, there’s a lot of things in Pocket Camp where I’d love to pick and combine things and can’t so I guess if New Horizons ever did have a feature like this, I’d love to be able to mix things together a bit more.

Regardless, going back to my main point– Pocket Camp lets you customize a lot appearance-wise. When New Horizons told us we’ve be getting the option to do terraforming and the fact that there was only one grass style this time around, I genuinely expected we’d be able to customize the looks more too. I get a lot of people love using patterns and we’ve especially seen a great deal of Optical Illusions with the Divider Boards, but I personally have never been fond of it. I generally try to use patterns pretty sparingly (either for clothes, slight furniture accessories, or paths and that’s it) and optical illusions while they can make things look impressive, it’s generally from one angle and it may look nice in the moment, it’s not really something I find I enjoy fully and it’s why I never really did much of one in my town.

And I think unless you do that, due to the lack of options this time around (both in items and customization), it feels harder to make something truly unique. And like, just imagine if we could have different colored sand on our beach? There’s tons of different colors of sand in real world beaches and I’ve even seen people do patterns for it, but patterns can only cover so much.

I have such a love-hate relationship with Pocket Camp because I really love what I was able to make. Heck, most of those items are from early on in the game’s release and now it’s been around for three years. But it’s also the first AC-related game I didn’t finish the catalog because it became too stressful and it misses the core of what makes Animal Crossing.

But I love getting to hang out with special villagers and see all these new flowers (though, if they ever came to Pocket Camp, I’d just want normal plants…).

Or having special scenes with Villagers and getting a special item from them (I just wish I could give one too all my favorites…):

And how can I not love this camp site?

I just want to feel as satisfied with my New Horizons Island and I hope when next April does come around, I’ll at least feel pretty close.

Pokemon Shield: The Crown Tundra is here!

(Please keep in mind this post does contain spoilers! You can also find my entire playthrough on Youtube)

Like with the Isle of Armor, I wanted to really finish with the main bulk of The Crown Tundra before writing about my thoughts. Offhand, it’s hard to say which DLC I liked better– I think they were on equal-footing overall, but some stuff I was looking forward to in the Crown Tundra kind of fell flat unfortunately. Heck, I don’t even feel it took me much longer than Isle of Armor did– they genuinely took the about the same time if you take out some of my very slowly going through Dynamax Raids for Necrozoma.

I feel like Crown Tundra’s strongest moment is with the very first Expedition where the story elements are at the forefront. It went a bit slow at times (I generally figured out what I had to do pretty quickly between the random Carrot seeds, the books at the Mayor’s house, and the various lore tablets and basket at the top of the mountain) and I was even thrown off on what I may be doing wrong which generally just ended up due to me realizing a step further in the storyline before I got to that point.

I also will admit I kind of felt bad for Peony that this was essentially 90% of his entire role during the story:

He pretty much consistently stays in the background throughout almost all of the story after the initial introduction. Nia as well is pretty much an enigma outside of a small selection of scenes. You can always have a chance to see them during a Dynamax Adventure though.

Unfortunately, I don’t plan to do that mode much. While I really liked the idea of doing things with friends, I really thought it’d be the expedition stuff and not… a side mini dungeon crawler. I also didn’t notice a way to actually invite friends online– only locally (and less you can invite and more just only those people would be able to join) (Edit: Turns out if you hit +, you can add a link code to play with friends… Just a matter of actually catching friends to play with then at some point). Maybe it’d be more fun with friends if I could’ve actually played it with friends, but there was just.. nothing for me in the mode. Battling has always been my least favorite part of Pokemon, I have never found the raids or Dynamaxing gimmick fun, I don’t like Shiny hunting, and I already have all the legendaries you can get this way because I have a living dex… The only reason for me to do it was to grind up 200 Ore for the Ability Patch for my Polteageist. And I had to grind it a lot more than I wanted in the first place to not just find Necrozoma, but to catch it which took three or four tries.

I then ended up being given an ability patch for solving Clue ? which meant I was done with the mode unless I changed my mind (or maybe went for Poipole, who knows), but I don’t see myself doing so anytime soon, if ever. I just got so burnt out and found it so tiring and being rushed into decisions even when playing by yourself made it even more frustrating because I had a lot of trouble concentrating on it due to just not finding it particularly engaging.

Regardless, we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves towards the end of the “main” part of the Crown Tundra for me so let’s go back to Clue 1. As soon as they showed the stone crown on Peony’s table, I was pretty sure it belonged to the statue, so it was nice feeling right.


And I really liked Calyrex.

As mentioned, there was a lot of optional lore around and while not necessarily a bad thing (flavor text is always good), I was surprised that wasn’t actually worked into the Clue as well. It literally explained why Calyrex helped them, about his different Dynamax glow color, about how the horse was tamed and why, and why the people were so thankful for him along with Calyrex’s own gratitude for saving him. They’re not really laid out in order and part of me still worries I missed some (my navigation skills are still garbage), but I found it really interesting.

And I think that’s kind of what gets me the most with Clue 1– you help give Calyrex something to believe in again, but the Villagers still just consider it a fairytale and don’t really care. We never change their minds or show them the truth. Even the horse showing up did little to sway their feelings or bring those traditions back.

And while Peony saved the day right after this, I feel like this really sums up how it felt in a way because it really did feel like everything just dropped off and only part of it was resolved.

I guess Calyrex being reunited with whichever horse you chose was enough regardless, but… It just felt like something was missing. Will the snow slow down? Will their crops recover? Will they get more carrot seeds? I don’t know and the more I think about it, the more questions I have.

One other thing that bothered me with Clue 1 research is like… both horses are mentioned. Both Horses can be summoned. Both Horses clearly exist BECAUSE THE POKEDEX REQUIRES IT. It’s not like a form change. How?? Why???? Why are there two horses? And why can we only get one? Did Calyrex tame both and forgot? Did people just only ever see one and always a different one? I just don’t get it. Even if you wanted to bring up the White/Gold-Black/Blue thing, they have entirely different manes. And eat two very different carrots! Making it so you can only get one sucks when both clearly exist and were tied up in this whole thing.

The other Clues ended up being a lot less Story-interactive overall. Clue 2 was essentially just the Regis with a usual mechanic: A Riddle (or flat out instructions really) on the door. Do what it wants and it opens and then you just… light up the pattern for the right Regi and then you can battle/catch it. Regirock required having an Everstone equipped to the first Pokemon in your party, Regice required having a Cyrogonal as the first Pokemon in your party, Registeel required whistling at the door, and finally the brand new Regis required having the previous three.

Unfortunately, you could only pick Regielecki OR Regidrago which… really sucks. Not just for Pokedex completion, but you literally have to have BOTH of them in addition to the prior three to trigger Regigigas.

While Regigigas is not required for finishing Clue 2, it still feels weird to lock it out in that way.

As for Clue 3, it’s by the giant tree and the cutscene is pretty great and reminds me a bit of the second Pokemon movie too. Alas, our Rotom Phone doesn’t have a silence mode and blows our cover, leaving us to find them roaming in the wild.

I honestly have never really enjoyed the Roaming Pokemon mechanic, but I was thankful we had a bit more “control” this time around, even if it was still a pain. Moltres was over on the Isle of Armor and required memorizing its pattern a bit to really get the jump on it. Zapdos was in the regular Wild Area and as long as you keep following it closely enough, you would eventually overtake it despite how it felt… Meanwhile, Articuno stayed in the Crown Tundra, and yet I had a HORRIBLE time finding it. When you get close to it, it’ll clone itself and you need to hit the right one. I messed up the first time, but did get it the second and just… it really wasn’t a fun time.

With that done, after letting Peony know you’ve finished all 3 Clues, Nia shows up ready to participate only for them to all be done, shenanigans ensue and she runs off again, and then you get a gold Expedition suit which honestly I’ll never wear just like the original one but oh well.

After Peony leaves after Nia, you find a Clue ?. Peony has no recognition of it and it’s what leads to finding Ultra Beasts in the Dynamax Adventures and requiring you to find a Necrozoma from Dynamax Adventure to complete. And no, bringing over one you may have from past games does not count. I tried.

I honestly really liked the idea of the expeditions and enjoyed them a lot– I just wish they were a bit longer and there were more of them. And no random luck ones like the Necrozoma one. I much prefer mystery angles. On a related note, the general premise of how your trainer gets roped into the whole thing is just kind of disheartening: Peony plans all this out to spend time with Nia who wants to do her own thing instead and then rather than help you out fully, Peony waits incase Nia decides she wants to join in. I’d have much preferred both of them being part of it or us getting into it all a different way over filling in for his daughter. I generally try not to think about it much as they played it off in a silly way, but every time I do think about it a lot, it just makes me feel kind of down. Peony’s story from his league cards is pretty sad in general.

Moving on, outside of the legendary grinding in Dynamax Adventures, there were other silly rumors and easter eggs too. Like “shaking a giant tree”.

Or talking to 32 people to summon Spiritomb.

And of course, after gathering 15 of those twigs, I managed to get the wreath to get a Galarian Slowking.

While the Expeditions were done, there was still one more bit of research to do with Sonia, the Musketeers, and Footprints.

I actually could’ve started this during Clue 1, but due to bad timing, had missed the initial cutscene highlighting the footprints and only noticed them later. While the footprints were generally more random and abundant, I found I struggled with Terrakion’s and Virizion’s. Both of theirs blended in quite a bit, but I could at least see Terrakion’s easier in the cave… Virizion’s, however, were also smaller in size and it just wasn’t particularly fun. I did like how Keldeo unlocked though.

But I think it would’ve been neat if he wandered into the campsite over just showing up after. Like Regigigas, despite being part of the set, Keldeo is also optional and Sonia will actually leave after you’ve found the other three.

Meanwhile, the Galarian Star Tournament is essentially a double version of the usual Championship Battles. I picked Hop as my partner as it felt only proper.

I will say her tiny wave compared to Hop’s and Leon’s big waves was both very funny to me and also absolutely what I would do so I appreciated it.

I love the new character dialogue and dynamics we see in this mode SO MUCH, but I just… don’t enjoy battling. Part of me would be interested in trying to partner with each character, but I just have no interest in doing so many battles unfortunately. Maybe I’ll try it one day though.

You may have also noticed already, but I was really happy to have Audino back. I even redid the original championship so she’d have the Galar Champion Ribbon.

With the new addition of being able to change nicknames once even if a Pokemon was traded, I really hoped I could finally change her name, but alas, it didn’t let me. I do like the name Ribbon, but I have another Pokemon I had also named Ribbon before they all got bundled together and saying “Ribbon’s Ribbons” sounds silly. I generally just consider her name Celestia in my head as Mega Audino looks like an Angelic Snow Bunny Princess, but that also explains my other big thing… Megas still aren’t here. Maybe it was due to all the legendaries and other throwbacks in the Crown Tundra. Or Pokemon GO’s timing with adding Mega Evolutions into the game. Maybe it was due to the mystery element and clues. Maybe it was because Peony manages to insert “mega” in as many words as he can.

(As a side note, the fact that Audino will run away scared if you get too close breaks my heart. So many people battled it for experience, they’re traumatized now :( )

Regardless, I got my hopes up. Badly. And the moment I realized that wasn’t the case, it hurt a lot more than I expected and even though I had Audino back, she wouldn’t be a Mega Audino this time. And that made the battles feel even more discouraging.

Regardless, I still did my best and finished everything I wanted to. There may be some other Easter eggs I look into later, but for now, I did all the Mysteries, helped Sonia’s research, re-befriended my lovely Audino…

…And completed my dex. And I think that’s good for now.

(You do get another crown, but as I use a ponytail, I still can’t wait it so… :( )

Of course, with that done, I finally got to update my League Card again too.

The code is 0000 0005 YD2G 07 if you would like to download it!

But yeah, overall, I do think I enjoyed the Crown Tundra, but I think when it comes to story, it let down a bit going more for nostalgia than everything and I wish it went more in the story direction.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Days 201-222: Preparing for Halloween & Another visit to Hellmann’s Island!

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Even though I had managed to get a lot of the cataloging and DIYs out of the way, I still had plans I wanted to work towards before Halloween such as hoarding candy for the villagers and Jack along with collecting more pumpkins for DIY crafting. Even though I had no plans to use all the Spooky items, I liked to get all the colors for catalog purposes and craft each item for the completion checkmark in the DIY list.

And while I may have had the DIYs (minus any that you can’t get until Halloween), visting friends’ villagers who were crafting let me get pumpkins or candy so it was still helpful to try and pop by. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen my villagers crafting since I received the last of the Villager Crafting Halloween Recipes so I’m wondering if, since you can’t get extras, they just won’t be making them anymore unfortunately.

Meanwhile, my pumpkins had finally grown. I managed to get three of each thanks to consistent watering. I did end up planting other colors I had gotten from friends to make sure I had at least two of each color.

While I still don’t really enjoy these types of aspects for games, Animal Crossing making it so they can’t die or anything helps lessen the stress of it. The real problem is just the lack of room and with rumors of more possible things too plant for future DIY Recipe materials (as if we’re not suffering from lack of storage already), the lack of having any kind of farm area gets to me.

Especially seeing some of the lovely Pumpkin Patches friends have made.

I had wanted to set something up with the Silo and trees as they did have some nice farming stuff– even making a stable with the Springy Horses, but it just didn’t work out due to lack of space. Even making it so I have only one of each color pumpkin, I only have 8 spaces left. I guess I could try to fit things somewhere though. Maybe just random crops somehow.

Outside of continued Halloween prep, I’ve gotten a lot of interesting letters from villagers– several of which have called out my weird sleep schedule lately. It’s like they know.


As for general island events, the last Fishing Tourney of the year happened recently which gave me my final stamp as I had gotten the Winter one when helping out at a friend’s Southern Hemisphere island. Celeste also stopped by!

Even though I don’t need anything from her still, she’s one of my, if not the top one, favorite special villagers so I always am happy to see her stop by. I still need to keep an eye out for Wisp though….

Finally, to end out some of the earlier preparations, I noticed the Villagers talking about Halloween decorations and changes in the air as Halloween gets closer.

As for today, as mentioned, I had an opportunity to go on a special Island tour :) As for where… Well, you may recall when I visited Hellmann’s Island back in August due to their Charity drive where every spoiled turnip contributed a meal to Second Harvest. Hellmann’s decided to give their island a spooky makeover and reopen for Halloween, including some brand new special costumes showing the Scariness of Food Waste.

Hellmann’s kindly offered to let me visit with a special VIP Tour before they open to the public on Monday and having had a great time when I visited this Summer and being more than happy to help contribute further to charity, I was honored by their invitation!

And of course, after gathering up an inventory full of spoiled turnips once more, I made sure to dress-up for the occasion myself:

All set, it was time to go! You can find the video version of the tour here, but otherwise, here are some photos I took from their Spookified Island and Haunted House!:



And as a parting gift, I even received a lovely piece of candy!

If you’re interested in visiting, You can DM Hellmann’s on Twitter starting at 2:30PM EST until 12:15AM EST from Monday, October 26th, 2020 to Friday, October 30th, 2020 for a chance to stop by! Don’t forget to bring a lot of spoiled turnips :) Or you can always donate directly to Second Harvest!

It was really nice to see them open again for something like this and I had a great time so a big thank you again to Hellmann’s for the invite! ^_^

Pokemon GO: The Journey for an Audino

Now, if you’ve been here before or follow any of my content, you’ll know Audino is one of my favorite Pokemon– #4, in fact! And you may be thinking “wait, what do you mean #4??” and that’s because specifically Audino’s Mega Evolution is my #1 favorite. Second is a tie between Slurpuff and Alcremie and third is Dragonair.

Regardless, I knew Megas would eventually make their way to Pokemon GO so as soon as Audino was announced to FINALLY be showing up, I was ready. Or well, as ready as I could be considering.

It was appropriately around for Valentine’s Day as Audino is lovely, a Pokemon Center Pokemon, and genuinely cares about your wellbeing which is why it’ll heal you even as some of you mercilessly harm it for experience. Alas, to reference it’s “rare” Shaking Grass only appearance in Gen 5 (which let’s ignore that it wasn’t THAT rare and also was common enough in future gens), Audino was made relatively rare and hard to find.

If I had to figure out my biggest problem with Pokemon GO, it’s that it’s incredibly inaccessible to a lot of people especially for a series with so many fans. There are absolutely people who feel it’s done right as Pokemon GO is supposed to get you “out and moving and exploring” but I think it’s a lot more complicated than that and it’s not something that is super easy for everyone.

I suffer from extreme environmental allergies and asthma. Trees, Grass, certain bugs, and dust are just some of the things that trigger my allergies. Add in breathing issues and the tendency to get Sun Stroke at the first sign of Summer and I can’t always go out as much as I want to. Not to mention us currently being in a pandemic where someone with multiple breathing issues would be at risk so!

I also happen to live in a place that just does not get many Pokemon spawning. We had a decent amount during the original footprint days, but it’s only gotten more barren and with no PokeStop or Gym in reach, Pokemon GO has always been kind of a struggle with me usually only hitting goals and completing research during shopping trips or vacation.

Because of that, unsurprisingly, I never saw a single Audino near where I live. And while we did end up going into a more populated area once for some errands, I only saw two, was only able to interact with one, and it ran away after one throw. Needless to say, I didn’t catch an Audino during the Valentine’s Day event.

At this point, my general hope was that, well, it should show up regardless right? It’s been introduced? But I still never saw one. And while a friend was kind enough to hold onto one for me, between the lack of an online trade system and the pandemic hitting, we weren’t going to see each other anytime soon.

In June though, a new Special Research was available– Throwback Challenge 2020 Champion. It cost money to buy, but knowing Audino was part of it and would be guaranteed, I immediately bought it.

Unfortunately, despite my high hopes, I then immediately got stuck on the second Research task requiring me to do 15 Raids and Hatch 15 Eggs. We are well into a pandemic, I already mentioned I can’t even go out that much normally, and the only gym near here nobody participates in.

And while Remote Raids are helpful, there were still a few issues:

  • Schedules and Time Zones – I wasn’t always available when others were to invite me.
  • Bad luck – Sometimes even if I did get invited or caught a raid here, we still didn’t succeed (thus the issue of requiring a win…)
  • Remote Raid Passes in general – You could only get so many “free” ones at a time and they weren’t exactly cheap. As mentioned, I don’t have a super close by gym so I can rarely get coins besides buying them which is something I still think is a huge oversight in the game.

I tried not to get too upset about it– after all, at the time, Pokemon GO still hadn’t announced Mega Evolution was coming so despite my general anxiety, I did my best to stay calm and do the best I could at the moment.

Of course, that changed when over a month ago, we not only got a trailer confirming that yes, Megas are being added, but Mega Audino also got a front and center moment at the start after Mega Charizard and Mega Gengar and before Mega Lucario— all very popular Megas even before it’s fairly prominent part at the ending group shot.

Mega Audino does not get much love. It is one of the few Megas that didn’t even receive a plushie (only getting a Poncho Pikachu one because clearly we needed more Pikachu merch I guess) and even its creation was generally to fit in a place where they needed it, supposedly. It’s honestly a little disappointing as Audino actually had a decent amount of popularity that I thought it would’ve gotten more love with its Mega Evolution, but the fairy love was taken up mainly by Sylveon and Gardevoir while the “cute Mega” slot went to Altaria which had the Contest plot. Mega Evolutions in general have always been a mixed bag for me as I wish they were permanent form changes if anything and heck, some of them could easily be evolutions. Audino is a one stage Pokemon. I would’ve loved to always have a Mega Audino.

Regardless, it was here and even if it still wasn’t permanent (though, I can at least appreciate it out of battle so that’s an improvement. Considering the fact that Mega Evolution is supposed to be triggered partially due to that strong bond, the fact that it can only be activated when in battle is super silly to me), I really wanted to have an Audino to Mega Evolve and thus, I needed to get to work on these tasks.

For eggs, I ended up getting help from friends to help hatch them as I couldn’t personally go out. With that done, it left me with raids.

Thanks to Friends though and way too many Remote Passes, I finally managed to complete Step 2 after over 3 months.

There were still other annoying ones like catching a Dragon Pokemon and Battling another Trainer 15 times, but I did my best to push through the objectives to finally get my Audino.

I named her after the Audino I generally have with me in the main games, essentially thinking of them as the same Audino in my mind. She’s apparently very tiny, but still the best.

And unsurprisingly, I then immediately went and made her my buddy.

Now, it’s just a matter of waiting and doing my best to get her friendship up. So far, I’ve gotten her to Ultra Buddy and gotten three souvenirs from her so far.

I really hope I get her to Best Buddy before Mega Evolution hits. I’d love to also max out her CP, but I’m out of Audino Candy and Rare Candies so I likely will have a better shot at doing that once Audino shows up in raids Mega evolved anyway… And that’s when I hope to use a lot of Remote Passes, assuming I can even get the amount I need.

Part of me really wants to try and get more Poffins, but considering I likely will need to buy a lot of Remote Passes, especially considering the recent changes despite the pandemic still ongoing, I’m just doing my best with what I can. It’s impossible for me to get Audino to Full Excitement each day when I can’t really do everything so I end up getting 4-7 hearts a day depending on things. It’s not the best, but I feel like I’m at least making progress.

I’m not necessarily going to use her super hardcore in battle. Heck, I tend to avoid most of the PVP stuff and I just don’t have strong enough Pokemon for raids, but I’m just happy to have her.

I do hope Niantic changes up limits with Remote Raid Passes though. I never would’ve managed to win 15 Raids without them and this just isn’t really the place where I can find raids. They keep adding higher requirements for things– eggs that take longer to hatch, higher field research tasks, lowering how many gifts your buddy can find, increasing candy amounts and adding new evolution stones for new walls so people won’t be able to get things done right away… And as someone who can’t go out and play every day, it stinks.

A lot of people look at buying coins and getting items as paying to be lazy, but for people who have medical issues that may make it hard for them to play often and do everything, it often feels more like pay to win or more specifically, pay to progress.

My husband stopped playing a long time ago due to inventory and storage issues. We can’t get coins easily so he can’t upgrade his inventory or Pokemon Storage (which… the lack of free upgrade as they keep adding special variants too is an issue in itself… Not to mention more and more types of items) without paying for them. His inventory is full, his storage is full, and most of his inventory is just hoarded Pokeballs because, again, no Pokestop in range so we really can only stock up when we’re out.

I rarely have been able to send gifts to all my friends which has always made me sad. The changes for the pandemic actually let me do so and them lowering it back to 2 has set me right back into feeling guilty accepting gifts when I know I can’t send out anymore right now. I have to play a lot more methodically as well due to worrying about running out of Pokeballs with no easy way to restock even though I have tons right now because I’m used to having that issue. So I only focus on catching Pokemon I don’t have primarily with Pokemon I need more candy of secondly. It makes me complete field research slower as well as so many require catching certain Pokemon and with all the space and item issues, I don’t want to risk using up things I have for stuff I don’t need.

I really like the idea of just being able to hang out with these Pokemon and seeing them in a real life environment, but I know Pokemon GO isn’t necessarily a game “for me” as someone who can’t go out particularly often.

But I’m going to keep trying. And I will make this Audino a Mega Audino one day. But Hopefully much sooner than it took me to catch one.

Edit: We did it! As of Halloween 2020, my Audino and I are now best friends in GO too :D