In which I talk even more about Pokemon Shuffle

2 / 25 / 15

If you’ve been watching my twitter, I’ve already been giving random updates on the game, but if not, I wanted to make an entry with some more thoughts as I’ve gotten further into it and also talk about some of the special events going on. But first, look at this lovely high quality Mega Audino from the official Pokemon Shuffle site:

So cute T~T

But yes, moving on! I’m currently up to level 90 which is honestly a complete nightmare and from looking around, I’m not the only one having issues with it. I also have been having a lot of issues with the Expert Stages unfortunately as it seems those Pokemon are the best to use for that level :(

It just really makes me wish the game was an actual game you could buy. I’d prefer being able to play for hours if I feel like it versus only getting to try a few times every few hours. StreetPasses help, but it’s still not perfect. And one of the best ways to get better at something is to keep trying and this is literally a game where you need to keep pausing which actually just makes it even harder.

I’d have preferred the ability to keep trying and would easily take a game I had to buy over the freebie with micro transactions. Despite my frustrations, I’m still enjoying it and having a lot of fun catching Pokemon. Even if sometimes I cry as another Pokemon escapes after the 20th time I’ve attempted a level…

One thing I’ve noticed though is a lot of people writing the game off because it’s “just like Pokemon Trozei” and it reeeeally isn’t. I’m not great at explaining the differences, but as someone who actually does not enjoy Trozei at all, it gets tiring to hear that so often ~~(kind of like everytime Mega Audino is compared to something from Madoka Magica -_-)~~.

But yes! For those who are playing the game or maybe downloaded then stopped, here’s some things currently happening if you Check in:
-To celebrate the game launching, a special stage with Mew is available until March 9th, 2015.
-Daily challenges also have started up recently! Until March 16th, the following events will be happening:
–Every weekend (Saturday and Sunday), Meowth will be available to battle once a day to earn quite a bit of coins. You can not catch him–the stage is literally just to earn coins and it is actually quite helpful.
–Every Monday, you can try and catch Frost Rotom as many times as you want.
–Every Tuesday, you can try and catch Heat Rotom as many times as you want.
–Every Wednesday, you can try and catch Wash Rotom as many times as you want.
–Every Thursday, you can try and catch Mow Rotom as many times as you want.
–Every Friday, you can try and catch Fan Rotom as many times as you want.
Despite their limited times, they do all require a heart for each attempt/play so be sure to have some on hand before they go away!

And now, back to trying to catch Charizard…

Pokemon Art Academy complete!

2 / 19 / 15

So, it’s been a long while since the game has been released, but today I finally managed to complete every lesson + quick sketch thingy. You can check out the “ceremony” in the video below for doing that along with all the various drawings I’ve done:

I kind of liked the license design I had from just completing the normal licenses, but oh well! Every single drawing shown are ones from lessons with the exception of three:
1. Jigglypuff – I wanted to see if Free Paint ones were needed so this was a test. They were not :P
2. Pikachu dressed as Mega Audino – For the Cosplay Pikachu Contest
3. Mega Audino – For the Favorite Pokemon Contest

But yes, it was a fun game and helped me understand construction shapes a bit more! I’m still kind of awful though. Especially at drawing Pikachu despite that being the final exam for each part… But yes, I shall end this with the lovely certificates!:

And if you’d like to see all the art that was shown in a gallery over a video, you can click here for the Pokemon Art Academy Game Diary page.

Pokemon Shuffle

2 / 18 / 15

So, Pokemon Shuffle came out today! It’s a fairly cute game–somewhat similar to Pokemon Trozei, though, I honestly prefer this game. It is free to download, though, the catch is the game is very heavily based off mobile games. You have to wait to get more “hearts” in order to enter a Battle. Each Battle costs a heart (a heart will replenish every 30 minutes), you can buy gems to replenish them instantly (and sometimes get gems for free in the game itself) and also for coins which can be used to get power-ups and great balls.

So far, I’ve only purchased gems once. I have been able to get some of the harder to get Pokemon and you can watch an hour my playthrough of the game below:

That said, while you do not need to pay for anything, the game requires a bit more luck for some things if you don’t–you’ll see a good example when I’m trying to catch Torchic which starts at 45 minutes and 10 seconds or so in. And don’t even get me started on the expert timed ones T___T

You can also check out the trailer below:

Plus Mega Audino is in it and is the first Mega you get and that is amazing:

LOOK HOW CUTE SHE IS.

But yes, despite some frustrations with the heart regeneration and how few coins you really earn, I’ve found myself having a lot of fun with it. Remember, it’s free to download so there’s no reason not to give it a try!

Tomodachi Life: Newest SpotPass Item & Updates

2 / 16 / 15

It’s the 26th of the month which means a brand new SpotPass item!

The Clothing Shop Uniform. It is available in Pink, Hot Pink, Light Blue, and Black. Keep in mind that you have less time to get it as February is a shorter month! I was kind of hoping for a late Valentine’s Day thing or even something silly for President’s Day, but oh well.

Besides that, most of what has been happening on the island is still lots of kids. Many new ones were born:

And most went traveling:

Though, I did move one in!:

And a new couple ended up getting together withRagna setting up Misora and Solo:

Plus, we even managed to get a new camper!:

Along with a letter from one of the kids already traveling:

We also had lots of fun news updates:

Finally, if you missed it, some of the shops had decorated for Valentine’s Day!:

Note: I received the game early from Nintendo. Thank you, Nintendo! :D If you are interested in Tomodachi Life, you may want to look into picking it up!

New Club Nintendo items are up

2 / 2 / 152 / 2 / 15

As mentioned, Club Nintendo did say they’d be adding new items to the store this month and on the first business day of February in the early morning hours, the site went down coming back with various new items. Our first priority was easily the physical items as neither of us enjoys downloading games. If you have less than 150 coins though, you will not be able to afford anything.

Since my fiancé and I both put coins into the one account, we each picked an item. I chose the Animal Crossing playing cards:

Close runner-up:

2016 Desktop Calendar. I really like the 2015 look (as shown), but without knowing for sure how it’d look.. well… I also would like something I’d probably have around longer.

As for my fiancé, he picked the Majora’s Mask Messenger Bag:

He loves Zelda and needs a new messenger bag so!

Runner up:

He really likes Deity Link and if this was a poster, I think he’d have gotten it immediately, but because it is a puzzle, there would just be no where for it to go for a long time. I think if we ever see it for sale somewhere, he will have it. If it was a poster though, I think we’d still be deciding as I sadly only had 1,400 coins available.

Also a close contest for him was the 3DS XL pouch:

As for Smash fans, you’ll be happy to see the next set of Smash Brothers posters:

I do like them, but it wasn’t as big priority for me as the first set.

Finally, there are A LOT of games available and no limit on these so if you don’t want any of the physical items, there may be stuff for you!

Heck, I even saw things I’d want if I didn’t already spend all my coins.

So, some highlights for me and/or m fiancé from the game list (aka games I’d have gotten if I got all the physical stuff I wanted):
Game & Wario (Wii U) – 600 Coins
Harmo Knight (3DS) – 300 Coins
Fluidity: Spin Cycle (3DS) – 300 Coins
New Super Mario Brothers 2 (3DS) – 600 Coins
Clu Clu Land (Wii U) – 200 Coins

I would say Game & Wario and HarmoKnight are the big ones for me though along with Clu Clu Land which I’ve been pretty intrigued about. Also tempting even though I still have the original game– Super Mario World (Wii U) – 200 Coins and Mario Party 2 (Wii) – 250 Coins.

Edit: My fiancé has claimed this section for more of his own picks:
Golden Sun (Wii U) – 200 Coins
Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! (3DS) – 200 Coins
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (3DS) – 200 Coins

But yes, if you have some coins to spend, be sure to do so! You have until the end of June 2015. Also the code for Flipnote Hatena 3D will be out through the “To-Do List” sometime this week so keep an eye out!

Tomodachi Life: New things for February

2 / 1 / 15

So, it is officially February 1st which brings us both a new SpotPass item and a new interior today in Tomodachi Life!

To start, the brand new SpotPass item–a Football Uniform!:

Most likely being released to celebrate the fact that today is the Super Bowl. I personally prefer the Puppy Bowl (and it is what I will be watching), but regardless, this outfit is available in Red, Blue, Purple, and Grey. Even the shopkeepers are getting in the football spirit it seems:

As for the monthly interior, we have the new Skyscraper interior which is largely based off the Fancy Dinner Proposal area:

Anyway, as for random happens on Pink Sea Island…

Link proposed to Zelda and they quickly had their wedding ceremony.

Conan asked Mysty out:

She said yes.

We received some letters and visits from some of the kids who have gone off traveling:

Along with new children being born:

And more being sent off to travel as well:

Random News & Birthdays:

Finally, I’ve been getting QR requests again… Please read the FAQ on the QR page for any QR questions before asking. I will not put up any QRs of real life people I know or characters I’ve made up that aren’t already there.

Note: I received the game early from Nintendo. Thank you, Nintendo! :D If you are interested in Tomodachi Life, you may want to look into picking it up!

The Lost Valley

1 / 29 / 15

If you caught my stream yesterday or watched it on Youtube, you’d know I finally started playing Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in it–Harvest Moon games in general (and I know some people consider this a “fake” Harvest Moon game–I consider both this and Story of Seasons part of the franchise personally) tend to start off slow and Lost Valley is no different.

That said, once I’ve kind of figured out my way around, I started to enjoy it a lot more. I do have some issues with it (I have tons of trouble with landscaping in general so this game is just… incredibly hard for me all around with that), but I still think its a fun game in itself. I do wish characters couldn’t spawn places you can’t get to though… Like, I mean, you could try and make a path up, but I literally ended up doing this from the start of the day until 4AM at one point to get to a character. It just gets kind of ridiculous at times trying to traverse this giant area and essentially the only fix is doing a ridiculous amount of landscaping which takes up a lot of time. Like this may be the first game where I’m not sure when my character will get married. I wish you could invite others to your town as it’d help a lot x-x I’d love to just get everything level (minus certain parts like my way up to the Goddess’ Spring) so I can start doing things… but it’ll be a long time for that.

At least my animals will stay with me. And I really love the cow designs in the game.

But yes, I’m honestly looking forward to playing it more and while it isn’t perfect, most Harvest Moon games aren’t. There’s definitely stuff I’m not looking forward to in Story of Seasons and I feel this game is being too harshly judged.

On Collecting and Commissions

1 / 29 / 15

Despite the name, I’m not entirely sure what order this entry will go (you may be in for a mixed bag), but I kind of wanted to talk about it anyway!

When I’m not playing or streaming games or writing about games, one of my favorite things to do is collecting. Besides my recently made when Mega Audino ended up being leaked collection…:

(look, I even have a cute Collector button: that I made myself >>)

I’ve always collected quite a bit of things. Some of my collections include:
-Dolls (I have so many Barbie Dolls from when I was younger, a complete set of the McDonalds ones they had a tendency to do in the 90s, a few BJDs, several Pullips, an American Girl (Samantha!) and then various dolls of other brands such as Monster High and Liv Doll)
-Plushies (I really can’t go full into what I have here as there really is just that many, but I have a whole bunch of Beanie Babies plus Duffy from Tokyo Disney, 3 UniBEARsity Bears (though, only one is here–two are on the way!), and a Pink Disney Bear from before Duffy became Duffy)
-Cards (Besides a complete set of the Beanie Baby cards when they did those, I have every Pokemon card from the first series (so essentially the Kanto gym leaders are the last set I collected) as well @-@ I still have some random cards to this day–when I stopped doing full sets, I tried to get a lot of Promos and yeah…)
-Rocks (All kinds–I’ve never been too big on jewelry, but I love rocks and gemstones of all varieties.)
-Seashells & Bottled Sand

And of course, Amiibo is just one of the many things I’m collecting right now as well. While I’m not collecting all of them, I still have quite a few I want. I’m happy I managed to preorder the Peach & Toad Mario Party 10 Amiibo–I just need Rosalina and then I’m set for Wave 3… Though, my fiancé has several he wants from the newest wave. @-@

One thing I’ve always enjoyed doing is buying cute creations by various artists on Etsy and DeviantArt and similar websites. I love plushies a lot along with cute sculpted charms and I have so many things from various artists over the years.

The one thing that always surprised me about it though is when it came to OOAK (One of a Kind) products. For me, it always seemed surprising as if the person who made it enjoyed making it and a lot of people liked it, why wouldn’t you want to make it again? Obviously, making other stuff is a given (not many people want to just make the one same thing over and over), but I never really understood why people didn’t want to make things for more people.

I suppose it comes down to those things being worth more in a way–not only just supply and demand, but someone feeling they have this super special thing because they are the only person with it and for me, unless it’s actually a person’s OC, that has never really been something I felt.

I have a lot of things in my Mega Audino collection along with various Custom Pullips that are OOAK. But if the artist decided to make more of it, I wouldn’t be upset. It doesn’t make my item any less special, you know? But that’s something I’ve noticed most people do not think like that. It becomes a huge issue on websites too as I find it incredibly frustrating to be halted by some item limited to such a tiny amount on a website with so many people and I guess I just always look at it that way. Why should more people having something ruin the specialness of yours? I know if I ran into something and fell in love with it and knew it’d be out of my hands forever, I’d be sad. I wouldn’t want someone else to feel like that.

Moving on, commissioning people is always a hard process for me. Partially because I’m really shy and I dislike bugging people, but also because I have a terrible time estimating prices and I don’t want to say no if something is too much because I don’t want anyone to feel bad. It’s not that their prices are too much–it’s just not something I can afford at the moment.

Similarly, after being snapped at for correcting someone, I have a hard time telling someone something is wrong. I’ll love it even with mistakes, but its something I really need to get over at some point. The one thing that frustrates me the most though is when I’m given no updates at all. I’m a very patient person–as long as you keep me up to date, I will wait. I know things can come up, but I think even one message a month or maybe every couple of weeks if I can see the person still being active isn’t that hard.

For example, I commissioned something in August 2013. I received something very similar to it and bigger that I commissioned later by someone else before this was done. Contact has been random and constantly getting worse and despite having finally seen it done earlier this month, it still hasn’t been shipped for whatever reason despite being told so.

If I was just told “Sorry, there’s a shipping delay. I’ll be able to try and ship it *DATE*”, I’d be fine, but at least respond. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, but it is easily the worst I’ve had to deal with.

And when it comes down to it–I don’t want a refund. I want what I paid for. :( It can just be kind of disheartening. And this kind of stuff plus the rarity of Amiibo is probably why I will never end up being comfortable sending any off to customize which stinks as I’d really really really like to.

But yes, I shall end this here. I really enjoy collecting–I just wish it didn’t always become a competitive mess or a endless wait :(

Club Nintendo’s Closing :(

1 / 20 / 15

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t upset… but wow am I upset. Most people felt this was coming with the closure of Japan’s, but I really didn’t want Club Nintendo to go. I just wanted it to get better. I wanted to see the rewards become equal between all the regions. While I can hope that the items they put in are both some great new items and maybe some we never saw come over, I’m trying not to get my hopes up. To be honest, I’d still just rather Club Nintendo stays.

That said, Nintendo WILL be announcing a new program at a later date according to the press release: “Nintendo of America will be announcing a new customer loyalty program at a later date.” I don’t know what the program will be, but I hope it won’t be digital only.

Thankfully, the items that will be put up in February for points to be spent on will be both physical and digital. Though, according to the FAQ, it seems the Platinum and Gold rewards will once again be digital downloads unfortunately. Due to the closure, these will be available to choose from in April.

The last day to do surveys is the end of March. Anything released from today onward will most likely not contain a Club Nintendo code (Quoting the FAQ: “Please note that products released after January 20, 2015 cannot be registered at Club Nintendo, and will not be eligible for surveys or Coins”). And you will have your coins until the end of June so be sure to spend them.

Anyway, I hope whatever they switch to won’t be too different, but if they have to close versus a transition, it isn’t likely :( I just really hope it won’t be digital only, but I will miss registering my games. I still have everything I’ve ever gotten from Club Nintendo. I think to this day, the pink Animal Crossing fan is still my absolute favorite.

But yes, I’ll miss you Club Nintendo. Thank you for the farewell gift of Flipnote Hatena 3D (finally! Yay! Though, I still wish we received it on better circumstances). I will try and look forward to whatever you bring next month.

You can check out the closing FAQ by going to Club Nintendo or clicking here.

In which I talk about Arts & Crafts

1 / 16 / 15

One of my favorite things to do in school was whenever we had Arts & Crafts. This was also my favorite thing to do in a camp I would go to at one of the places we had family vacations. I loved putting together everything, whether it be a Popsicle log cabin, a flower made of tissue paper, a paper bag puppet, just painting/decorating some boxes/sculpted things, or just cutting things out into shapes, I always enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, it is something I’ve never been particularly good at. If you give me all the pieces already good to go, I may be able to pull out something:

This is Princess Raspberrygiggle, made with help from my fiancé from a pattern by Eyes5.

This is the first (and currently only) plush I have made from scratch–others already coming with the fabric already in shapes and just needing to be sewed together in…whatever that basic stitch is called (is it even a basic stitch? DO YOU SEE HOW LITTLE I KNOW ABOUT SEWING).

While I’ve had another pattern I’ve bought that I’d love to try, it has mostly been sitting here as I’m still really too new to do it. Maybe one day (and if I DO manage to, I’ll obviously write about it!).

Plushies are definitely the #1 thing I’d love to do at some point, but between my lack of artistic skill and lack of knowledge on how proportions and anatomy even works, I’m not even sure where to get started on making my own patterns–I can barely even visualize all the shapes in my mind.

That said, with plushies not going to work and after some silly conversations, I decided to play around with puffballs–both a more anatomically correct one and one that was based off a Weepul:

It was a lot harder than expected though and still didn’t come out perfect.

So, I decided to have some fun with Clay… Attempt #1 was a mess:

Baking it went even worse:

It had a terrible journey–between being made in a hotel room, having to ride hours in a coffee cup, accidentally being thrown out by my mother, shipping through Fedex (where it looked like it got punched in the face due to being stuffed with tissue paper), and then it burned in the oven. I’ll still keep and love you, poor first Mega Audino sculpture. Kind of reminded me of this:

Except even that is better.

Regardless, despite feeling discouraged and hating myself for continued amount of suckitude, I decided to go ahead with an attempt two:

Which managed to come out SLIGHTLY less awful. Baking wasn’t perfect, but still went a lot better than the other one:

It was then time to paint… and well…

;~;

Thankfully, with the power of glue:

And that is the Story of Mega Audino sculpt attempt #2.

I’m not sure what I’ll end up making next, but my fiancé REALLY wants me to try making him a Victini & Espeon. I’m pretty sure attempt #2 was a fluke though so I don’t know if I’ll ever make anything even close to decent again :(

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