The Disney Teddy Bears

And no, I’m not talking about Pooh–although, he’s definitely a favorite. I’m talking about the Tokyo Disney teddy bears–Duffy and the UniBEARsity line.

I’m going to go ahead and start with Duffy. He is pretty big in Tokyo Disney Sea (he even has his own website!) and a few years ago, finally came over to the US (not too long after getting a female companion–Shellie May).
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To the left in that picture is my Duffy! I picked him up when I went to Tokyo Disney for the very first time several years ago. I adore him to pieces and it made me look up all sorts of things–like the costumes that came out and special releases. They make so many things for Duffy–candy, outfits, special accessories, and even sell special food shaped like him during special events.

As for that pink bear on the right who looks eerily similar to Duffy… I named her Ahim (kudos if you know where the name is from!) and she’s a Disney Bear. Disney Bears were sold in Disney World several years before Duffy, but due to lack of popularity (due to lack of advertising and doing much with them), they were discontinued.

Tokyo Disney then took up the old Disney Bear contract and recreated it into Duffy–a full character with his own story and events. His popularity over in Japan brought the Disney Bear back to the US–now as Duffy the Disney Bear.

Besides Duffy, Tokyo Disney also made the UniBEARsity line for their Disney Stores. Their story given through many videos. I had wanted one for a long time as I thought they looked super cute, but had been undecided on who to get (I really couldn’t afford to get all of them afterall). Eventually, one did come out that really caught my eye–Berry, a UniBEARsity Bear based off of Angel, Experiment 624 from the Lilo & Stitch TV Show. She was apart of a special set with bears based off of Stitch and Scrump to celebrate the anniversary of the movie and was limited to 5,000. I made sure to continue to keep an eye out for her and surely enough, one did pop up at a good price. And today, she arrived!
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She’s around the same size as Duffy and Ahim and I absolutely adore her–she’s super soft as is her bow and she’s just so cute T~T Next, I think I’d like to get her a cute outfit one day…

Tomodachi Life!

Tomodachi Life is one of those games I’ve been really looking forward to! It was nice to see its name for the North American version along with a release date–June 6th! I was super excited to see a surprise Direct put up and a trailer and made sure to watch them as soon as I got home! If you haven’t seen them yet, I’ve embedded them below.

For those who never heard of the games, it has the cartoon-yness of the Simtown games with the craziness of the Sims–but in Nintendo’s own way. You can’t have families together in apartments, but these characters can get married and start a family and will then live together in an area outside the Apartment place. You help out these various characters by looking into their thoughts and ideas and it’s just super cute.

I was actually super impressed with how well the direct made it look both interesting while capturing the craziness of what the game can be. Some highlights of my favorites:
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Every single time Iwata was too busy to talk about the game and Bill’s following commentary :P

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Aww… <3 virtualboy
I feel concerned for these people, but laughed anyway.

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Rollercoaster! I’m not too fond of them personally in real life, but I just enjoyed the scene.

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I hope that dress is available in pink…

I’m really looking forward to making myself, friends, and then kind of doing what I do in the Sims where I may various characters from games and shows I like to see what happens. I can’t wait <3 Other bonus highlights: -The pretty map with Cherry blossoms and fountains <3 -Bill pulling out his 3DS -Super excited for the personality quiz! -This entire show. Was excited during the direct to see they kept it all voiced!

It’s going to be so hard deciding on which room for who…

Disney Magical World Review

So, if you have seen my Disney Magical World blog, you would know I received a copy of the game from Nintendo (THANK YOU NINTENDO). I’ve been having a blast playing it, so I decided to go ahead and post a review about it. You can also read this review over at Zero Reviews, my boyfriend’s website :)

dmw Disney Magical World is a Simulation Adventure game for the 3DS based off a Japanese-only Web game. This game has many different activities you can do while being in a world with many of your favorite Disney characters. It is often referred to as similar to Animal Crossing, but other than customization/collecting and being in real time, I’d say it’s closer to Fantasy Life or Harvest Moon/Rune Factory. However, if you do enjoy Animal Crossing and/or Harvest Moon (or Disney in general), I do think the game is worth looking at. The game isn’t perfect, but its good outshines the flaws and it has a lot more layers and difficulty than you’d expect.

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StreetPass

I ended up going out today (a rare happening as allergies and asthma suck) with my boyfriend to go to the movies (we saw Captain America). I was surprised to not really get any StreetPasses (so many people in the shopping mall), but did at least get two when we stopped at Starbucks for some Iced Chai Tea:
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I sadly only got one puzzle piece and not much help in Flower Town (didn’t do Mii Force as it’s gotten to the point where I need at least 5 people to stand a chance, Warrior’s Way as they didn’t have any of the extra games and the only achievement I still have needs people with the game, and Monster Mansion because they were both different colors so it wouldn’t help with my puzzle box problem), but I did also get them in Nintendogs + Cats, Style Savvy: Trendsetters, Animal Crossing, and Fire Emblem: Awakening.

Since I already had Animal Crossing in, I decided to start there. After that, it was Style Savvy: Trendsetters. After making Nicole a nice outfit, it was a trip to a restaurant to discuss our clothing stores:


Nintendogs + Cats was next:
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I got a Blue Polka-dot bow from Princess and met her in the park with her dog :3

Finally, it was time for Fire Emblem: Awakening. I’m actually super behind on clearing out StreetPass for it (33/50–originally it was at max so I have gotten it down) as I’ve long beaten the game and it’s mostly grinding for supports at the moment. I still made sure to take care of one–although, I don’t think it was who I passed today:
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I wish we could’ve like…selected a player color at the beginning kind of how some of Lissa’s outfits are yellow and some of Maribelle’s are pink. I’d totally pick pink and then maybe my pretty Bride dress could be pink instead T__T (I also wish it was tomes instead of bows… I feel bows for the male class and tomes for this class would’ve worked much better than the reverse..)… It could’ve been so pretty:
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(Ignore the fact that it’s an awful edit) Original:
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Worst. Fight. Ever.

One of the things Elder Scrolls Online has are some single instanced areas which wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t set more or less completely from healing. Besides my normal attack, I only have one other–everything else is a healing ability.

Normally, this still works okay even if it takes a bit. But then there’s bosses who heal and then there’s the issue where they heal more than I can do.

And that was the issue with this boss. Even though you could kill the things healing her, I could only do so many so fast inbetween trying to keep myself alive and do some damage to her so that her health would still be going down.

I’d rather not talk about how long it took. All I know is next level, I think I’ll get another attack skill.

Mario Kart 8!

Recently, a new Mario Kart 8 trailer came out which shows some of the new courses and items. The items seem interesting enough, but I am mostly really excited about the courses. I love seeing the remakes (MOO MOO FARM–I have the theme for that course on my playlist) and it’s actually gotten me a bit more likely to get the game at launch.

Despite that, I’m still a bit apprehensive due to the reasons I haven’t been enjoying Mario Kart that much in the latest installations:
1. Winning in each difficulty wasn’t enough–you need to win and do a certain amount well as well. This is especially frustrating with character unlocking.

2. Drifting is something that originally wasn’t really needed to win the courses in single player which was good, as I’m awful at drifting. It was more for just your really hardcore friends. Unfortunately, this has become more and more common in just the normal gameplay (Similar to how Gen 3 in Pokemon started a whole area that you will have to pray for luck in order to complete it if you do not play competitively–I still don’t play competitively and as a completionist, those areas in each game since always ruin some of my gaming experience) which can be frustrating as no matter how hard I try, drifting and I are not meant to be.

3. Customization being stat based. “Look, you can customize your kart!” “but these parts are totally the best parts” there is truly no point in customization if you’re still forced to be a certain way to be the best/have any chance. Characters have always had stats, yes, but it still had a lot to do with how a person plays–a kart that gives you max in all 3 categories will obviously be better than one that’s rather low in everything due to being an easier to get kart.

I ended up not bothering to get all the characters and kart parts in 7 due to frustrations and it’s the first Mario Kart I didn’t complete so I’m hoping 8 won’t be like that.

I have no desire to play online–I’m more of a just with a few friends or by myself player. That said, I do hope the special Online challenges that they did on the Wii version make a return in this game. I was never particularly good at them, but I had SO much fun doing each one and seeing what they’d bring each week.

Professor Layton and the Daily Puzzle

I don’t know how many people do all the Daily Puzzles, but I always try to! However, I often like to let them build up and then do them in large bundles. I feel it’s a good way to get my puzzle fix and lessen checking everyday.

Of course, this game decided to make it so I can’t do that–at least not for a while. The game has various achievements… the last several being for “doing a puzzle daily” for a certain amount of days in a row–the last one being 50.

I’m up to 17 now… I’ve messed up twice and finally made it so I get annoying email reminders to make sure I do a puzzle a day.

I think what makes it harder is it uses the same format from Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask with there only being about 20 different puzzle types and the difficulty just varies… which really sucks. It’s okay for a few, but I have no interest in doing these same puzzles everytime nor do I find most of them very fun. I miss the more random puzzles of the previous games–though, I do love the little incentives in this game (the Diorama) and the last (The cute little room).

But yes, with my puzzle done for today, it’s just the wait for tomorrow and hopes that I will manage to complete the puzzle streak needed. I have everything else done in the game afterall!

MMOs

Lately, there’s been a lot of discussion (even more so than usual) about when/if Phantasy Star Online 2 will ever be released in North America. The game had a playable English demo at PAX 2012 and was scheduled for “early 2013″… and well, now it’s 2014. And Malaysia is getting an English version very soon while there’s still no news for the North American version.

My boyfriend had talked me into playing the Japanese version with an English patch and in the end, I ended up playing longer than he did. He doesn’t play much anymore which stinks as usually if I do have time to play, he’ll want to play something else…

I think it’s a cute game–I’m pretty happy with how my character looks and I’ve made some nice friends.
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That said, I don’t know for sure if I’d play the English version if one did come out. I don’t like redoing things so… Also, at whatever point they do bring it over, I’m not sure I’d still want to play.

The main issue with the game I have right now are solo quests… the NPCs are just so useless that they aren’t very fun :( And when those are most of the quests I have left (plus I’m hitting the point where you have to do all this crafting and weapon grinding), it’s a bit hard to get motivation to play.

As it is, besides my boyfriend repeatedly dragging me on ESO, he is also really excited for Star Citizen. I am excited by certain prospects of it, but since I’ve never played a game like it, I don’t know what to expect. Right now, I’ve been really loving my little trophy case and fish tank and thus, everyone who has a Golden Ticket taunts me. I don’t care about the skin or anything else, but the little trophy trinket makes me want it so much T__T I really love stuff like that. Trinkets and pets are my things.

The Avenger is probably my favorite ship and I’m happy I managed to get it while LTI was still around. I really wanted to get a Constellation and 325A with LTI, but I couldn’t afford them–I can’t even afford them now. I’m still sad I missed out though.

I’d also, at some point, like to get back to Star Wars: The Old Republic just to finish character stories. But I had such a terrible issue when I quit that I can’t even be excited for things or look forward to that without feeling frustrated. It’s similar to why I left Maple Story (which was one of the few MMOs I really stuck to).

I’d like to find another MMO I can play and completely enjoy, but something tells me I never will. Mostly because people can be jerks. Unfortunately, non-MMOs are less likely to stick around even with DLC around. Like I’m loving being able to explore and collect in Disney Magical World–a game based off a Japanese web game, but there has only been one world DLC which not only is there no confirmation of it coming over to the US just yet, there may never be other DLC like that… Which seems like a shame and a huge missed opportunity. But I’ll keep my hopes up.

TV Shows & Endings

I’ve never been a huge television person as I got older–most of my childhood was a mix of video games and watching cartoons on Nickelodeon and Disney with some other stuff thrown in (Like Sailor Moon and Pokemon) so that is what I grew up with. In fact, I probably watched more shows from when my mother was younger due to Nick at Night than other non-Saturday morning cartoons. As I got older, Television with those kinds of shows became a way to spend time with my family–I’d go up and watch some Lifetime movies and then those Prime Time shows would be on and I’d sit and watch with my family.

That said, there’s always been some I’ve liked, but I’ve found more and more slowly had gone downhill–either during later seasons, character changes (Such as CSI–I miss the original cast group and dynamics–even if some were brought back, it still seemed off without others), or just some things going on for so long. In general, I enjoy a lot of crime scene shows–I like mysteries and things so I tend to find them interesting, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve just started to find them kind of depressing–to see it happening. I still find the characters interesting (thus why I still watch NCIS and Criminal Minds), but I don’t pay as much attention as the cases tend to make me feel down and I don’t want to go to bed with that feeling. Especially with the sadness of Ziva’s Dad and the Director’s wife dying last season in NCIS and Criminal Minds with Reid’s loss when he may have finally found someone and just stop making his life so sad, writers T__T (AND THEY COULD’VE TAKEN THE SHOT AND SHE COULD STILL BE THERE FOR HIM.)

There’s also shows that my boyfriend enjoys that I will watch along with him or some that we both find interesting even if we’re not big fans so those are always random watching experiences, but not enough to get me truly invested–like Sherlock, it’s an interesting show, but I don’t care for the modernization so it’s not really my thing either. I used to watch a lot of Reality Shows with my family which has mostly just gotten down to the Amazing Race and at this point, more because I like to see the cultures and where they go versus whoever happens to be racing. I started to notice that way too often, those who I think really deserve it don’t manage to win (with a few exceptions) and that tends to get saddening too. Survivor, meanwhile, got pulled down by so many returning things that I just stopped caring plus some other odd stuff, but this isn’t really about that either… I still find the challenges interesting though.

Because of that and the few shows I watch nowadays, it’s rare for me to get excited to watch something. To anxiously wait until I get home to see what happens next. Watching the time, anticipating every second… it’s something I haven’t felt in years. And after How I Met Your Mother’s finale, I’m not sure I ever will again.

I’ve seen many series not end completely (Hey Arnold–I still hope for the Jungle Movie, Las Vegas, Moonlight) which is so frustrating as you have so many questions and want to see what happens and then I’ve seen those where the ending kind of stinks, but I can still accept it (Like Chuck. AND SARAH TOTALLY REMEMBERED THERE…). In fact, out of all the shows I’ve seen, I’ve never seen a finale that just broke me as much as How I Met Your Mother’s. I’m just thankful I only started watching a few years ago (though, we had a catch-up of all the seasons we missed before that). The only endings I can think of which I really hated were some Anime’s/Games and I can’t even complain because in some form, they still made sense.

But I have stared at this over and over again and just the short version is I’ve never seen Character development can murdered so fast–with an extra dose of let’s undermine everything. This does include spoilers, so I’m going to go ahead and put the rest under a Read More.

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Officially a Pokemon Master!

Yeeees, with the Power of Google Maps, I HAVE COMPLETED THE POKEMON CHALLENGE:
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Took several hours of trying to figure out my mother’s tablet, but so worth it.

However, sadly it’s an April Fools Joke? Which makes me sad :/ Not very fond of a day where either you make people feel bad or get their hopes up and then drop them mercilessly