E3 2017 Thoughts – Day 2 (Microsoft & Bethesda)

Microsoft

So, Microsoft started with their “new” console today, or well, upgraded one as Xbox One X. Which is just… genuinely not a great name? I think if anything, especially after the Wii U, people would realize maybe more unique names would be good. The big deal? It’s faster and has 4K resolution.

Except… for me, neither of those are big deals. Ignoring that I don’t even have a 4K TV screen, I’m one of those people who really just stop noticing the differences at this point and so, a bigger resolution is meaningless for me. I also can’t care too much about it being faster as I just… don’t mind waiting much. As it is, we’ve only gotten two games on Xbox One–Sunset Overdrive and Rise of the Tomb Raider, which if it wasn’t for the fact that it came out several months for Xbox One first, we probably would’ve gotten it on PS4 like the first one. We beat the games once and that was it though, so…

I’d also like to point out that the fact that this is now their smallest system has ruined the point of the Xbox S so umm….. Moving past the system, Forza is pretty weird for me as it’s a game I keep meaning to get and everytime something comes up.

That said, I think part of it is that they focus on the graphics and areas and not so much the actual mechanics and things you can actually do in the game, besides, well, race. Also all Racing games need Beetles. Or at least a lovely Horse Carriage.

After many games I didn’t care about (STOP THE ZOMBIES AND POST APOCALYPTIC ADVENTURES. IT’S OVERDONE AND SO ANNOYING) a brief comment on Minecraft that I really can’t expand on, and a few other random tweets that also don’t really get expanded on…

…We got more information on Sea of Thieves which I genuinely do think looks really nice? Plus I love riddles.

It kind of reminds me of Endless Ocean and I want to explore and collect stuff with friends and sail around and it just looks really fun. I just hope people can play together using the same console.

Regardless, this is the first game of the night where it’s one I’d likely get at launch, though, more likely for the PC than the Xbox One. Sad to see it was pushed back to 2018 though, but still looking forward to it and hope we get a more concrete date for it soon.

Next up was a new game which I was very surprised to see. It actually looks really cut and reminds me of the 3D Mario Platformers and Sonic Adventure and I actually really want to play it?

LOOK AT THOSE CUTE GHOSTS AND CARVNIVAL GAMES. So, Super Lucky’s Tale is on my list. And this one I will likely actually play on my Xbox One and also another “must get at launch” title for me.

We then had an Indie trailer and I really wish they spent more time on them? There’s more I’m definitely curious about, but I will take this moment to talk about Ooblets which I am very excited for and plan to get for PC and already have it wishlisted on steam. The game is inspired by some of my own favorite titles–Harvest Moon, Pokemon, and Animal Crossing. You get to plant, grow, and collect Ooblets along with having a customizeable house and character.

There are no words for how excited I am for it–it’s not coming out until 2018, but that in no way dims the excitement. It’s supposed to be shown during the PC Gaming Show tomorrow as well with a surprise so I’ll be sure to talk about it more then :)

Ori and the Will of the Wisps looks very pretty. I never played Ori and the Blind Forest, though, it was on my list… but I heard it was quite sad and well, this game definitely looks like it’ll go that direction too. I really appreciated the live piano playing though. I love pianos.

And that pretty much sums up my Microsoft thoughts! I actually had a lot more to say than I expected and even have multiple games I’m excited for so I’m pretty satisfied, honestly. Bethesda is up later tonight and while I’m not expecting too much, it should still be fun! For now, I’m totally watching the Sea of Thieves co-stream though :P

Bethesda

I’m going to say right now that it’s very likely I will have nothing to say, if anything. I really haven’t played Bethesda games–in fact, the only one I’ve played was a tiny bit of Elder Scrolls Online with my husband. But who knows, maybe there could be a surprise tonight and I do like the Amusement Park theme.

While there were parts of Elder Scrolls Online we had fun, I think the general thing was it just felt kind of a soul-less game with most of the story lacking. While the new area does look nice, I just don’t think it’s enough to get me back into it when I’ve already missed enough (But at least the Bear ended up surviving). In the meantime, please look at this adorable Mudcrab I screencapped from the Creation Club part because it’s the only thing I’ve liked so far:

Amiibo support in Skyrim for Switch is definitely interesting though. While I’m still not too interested in Skyrim, I’m curious if other Amiibo could end up being able to be used for the Switch as well.

I’m guessing we’ll hear more during Nintendo’s on Tuesday if so.

The finisher for Bethesda was… very weird. From the shorts at the beginning, I kind of liked Liesel though? Peggy’s outfit was cute and Liesel was pretty cool, though, clearly needed more training.

And yep, I was more interested in that random weird short on the TV than the game itself so as expected, this was pretty short. But it was longer than I expected it to get so that’s something! I’d have brought up the cute little animated Chameleon that was completely out of place, but the commentary at the end ruined that for me SO….

But yes, tomorrow is the PC Gaming Show, Ubisoft, and Sony :) Looking forward to it!

E3 2017 Thoughts – Day 1 (EA)

Okay, so I’m essentially doing this based on the conferences. So, Day 1 is EA, Day 2 will be Microsoft and Bethesda, Day 3 will be PC Gaming Show, Ubisoft, and Sony, with Day 4’s being Nintendo’s. Any additional thoughts (such as things from random streams, announcements off presentations, or in the case of Nintendo, something during Treehouse Live), will likely be edited into the appropriate entry.

You can also find some quick thoughts over on my twitter. If you’re new here and/or to my Twitter, the important thing to note is I will only talk about things I have thoughts on so this isn’t a full summary of everything that was shown.

EA

When it comes down to it, I wasn’t really expecting to have much to say about EA’s stuff, and well, that expectation holds pretty true here.

In fact, I didn’t even care for anything until about 20-30 minutes here and it was just that a classic beetle will be in the upcoming Need for Speed game, Need for Speed: Payback.

Unfortunately, this Need for Speed isn’t really catching my attention. I used to really love the Need for Speed games and generally like games with a huge story focus, but for whatever reason, it hasn’t worked for me with the Need for Speed series. Payback especially makes me feel like it’s more of a Fast and the Furious game than a Need for Speed game and it just doesn’t work for me. I think I just enjoyed Need for Speed more when it was a bit more casual and just a fun racing title. The games used to be must haves for me, but now they’ve become “maybe I’ll get it eventually” and that makes me sad. It does look interesting, but it’s just not really what I look to the series for. As mentioned, maybe I’ll still get it eventually, but we’ll see…

Next up was A Way Out which I actually think looks pretty interesting. It’s essentially a Co-op prisonbreak game with tons of different ways to handle situations between two friends.

That said, while I think it looks really interesting, I don’t really know if I’d personally enjoy playing it myself. I will likely keep an eye out on it though.

I’ve never cared too much for the Battlefront games so even the Star Wars ones have never really caught my attention. Thinking about it, the only Star Wars game I really enjoyed was SWTOR before it kind of went downhill when it introduced its Cash Shop program. I did think Star Wars 1313 was interesting though, before it was cancelled anyway. That said, I’m sure my husband will be getting Star Wars Battlefront II if it really has improved so I’ll get to try it :P

And that’s it for Day 1! :) Tomorrow will feature any thoughts I have on Microsoft’s and Bethesda’s Press Conferences <3

Just some Pokemon Direct thoughts

I originally was just going to keep it to my small thoughts on Twitter, but I got a few questions about it so I wanted to write something in… more detail and after thinking about it, I guess I have a bit more to say.

I’ll start with Pokken Tournament DX just because I won’t have much to say about it. So it’s Pokken. With the added Arcade characters. And a few more things. And on the Switch. And well, I just don’t really care. I tried really hard to get into Pokken, but in the end just got… bored. Unless some of my favorite Pokemon end up on the roster (or heck, an Audino who’d Mega Evolve), I don’t think it’d ever really reel me in enough to care. I’m not surprised to see a bigger version brought to the Switch, but when it comes down to it, I think I’d rather see a new Pokemon Stadium title which had a side mode being what Pokken Tournament is along with other minigames. I think, in general, fighting games just aren’t as interesting to me anymore.

While I wasn’t pleased with the announcement, especially considering the slow build up on how the Nintendo Switch exists and having a game and it just being Pokken (even though I didn’t expect a main title on Switch yet, I just… constantly forget Pokken exists and it’s like the one thing I would’ve have wanted to see–I don’t even care for the Pokemon Ranger series and I would have taken that) was disappointing and that moment of suspense, despite how small it was, ended up being a big let-down for me. I did really like the trailer they played though and that was probably the highlight of the Pokken part of the Direct for me.

But I did feel it was a bit long. As someone who also really loved all the Pokemon Sun and Moon Shorts leading up to the game, I really wished they had just put the longer up after and had a shorter one to discuss other things. Whether it be more about Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, stuff about updates for mobile games, about WHERE THE HECK IS DEETCTIVE PIKACHU BECAUSE I WANT THAT GAME SO BADLY AND IT ENDED ON A CLIFFHANGER… ahem, or even other side games.

More than half of the 8 minutes was dedicated to just Pokken stuff though and that was really disappointing. There wasn’t really enough content for that to be it. I just hope maybe we’ll see more stuff on Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon at E3 as well. Unfortunately, they only confirmed hearing about Pokken for that too thus far :/

Before I get into my thoughts on Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, I want to briefly address the Switch rumor that accidentally broke out. I’ll admit, I generally don’t look at the Press Releases right away (I like to focus on everything shown first before really going through that) so just from the trailer alone, I didn’t even know there was any confusion. Ignoring people who had made the rumors for ages now, part of the incident was due to an accidental mention on the Press Release which got fixed about 90 minutes later:

We would like to address rumours based on a clerical error on the Pokémon press site; Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon are coming exclusively to Nintendo 3DS family of systems and are not due for release on Nintendo Switch. This listing on the Pokémon press site was made in error and is not indicative of future plans. Please refer to the Pokémon Direct for the full details of the game.

While I do think, before the Direct hit anyway, there were plenty of reasons to believe a game could be on the Switch, there was nothing that hinted to that during the Direct itself. Pokken Tournament on the Switch and the clear 3DS cartridges for Pokken Tournament guy’s nephews was shown in a clear divide and even when the logos showed up at the end, it was with just 3DS mentioned under them. To me, there was no point where it wasn’t the 3DS and while I think a Switch version still could have been cool, I’m not surprised. And considering this is an “Alternative Story” to Pokemon Sun and Moon, it makes sense they’d use the system they already have assets and things built for.

I think what I question the most right now is what “Alternative Story” really means. Is it a sequel? Is it a completely different plot/timeline (Sort of what they did with ORAS versus the original Gen 3 games)? They really didn’t expand on it. At most, we’ve seen what looks like some new totem Pokemon, some new areas:

(This just makes me really want Pokemon stuff in Animal Crossing though)

And things like this where it looks like Solgaleo and Lunala get fused with Necrozma.

And I wasn’t too fond of that in B2/W2 with Kyurem so not fond to see it back.

But in general, it does look like new areas and content, but without more information first, I’m not going to get my hopes too high just yet.

I am hoping for a sequel though. Find out what happened with Lillie and her mom, see the island grow, etc.

At the very least, it’s clear there’s some changes. Besides the new clothing, the room has gotten a make-over with the Nintendo Switch, painted walls, an autograph instead of the Pikachu plush, and even new curtains.

Of course, who knows, it could be a new protagonist rather than just a continuation of our own Story. It could be a separate timeline thing. I just really want to know exactly what it is, at this point, before I get any hopes too hyped up.

I also hope maybe I’ll get to have a Ponytail this time because it was silly not to have one on a Tropical Island. It DOES look like at least one new hairstyle plus new clothes so fingers crossed on a customization update overall. And no colors locked by which game you have because that sucked. :/ Also just… really want something like the Dex Nav back as that made Pokemon collecting so much more fun.

But yes, fingers crossed we hear more about the games soon. If only to expand upon the “Alternative Story”.

Disney Magical World 2: Summer & Tropical Items!

So, I actually haven’t really been checking Disney Magical World 2 too much figuring we would’ve seen anything until the Spring Festival/Easter ends in the game (June 23rd), but to my surprise, a lot of the Summer Stuff started showing up on the first of this month.

There’s general Summer items, Tropical items, and items for the next event–the Summer Festival.

The best thing for me about the Summer Festival is that it uses the normal Friendship Medals so it’s nice being able to spend some more.

While I have yet to see any items show up at the Cart outside of Scrooge’s Store (and I’m pretty sure there are special items to be sold there too), the recipes are already available at the Fortune Tent. As per usual, there’s 6 available for each of the two themes (Summer Festival & Tropical).





Once the decorations change up and I have more furniture, I’ll try and do a fun video showing off the new decorations and items and things :) While that may be a bit off, Donald’s birthday is in 5 days now (June 9th) and will have a special favor available for a special item from his set!

As always, my Twitter is a good place to see some quick DMW2 updates as well <3

Top 20 things I want to see in the next Animal Crossing

So, with E3 only a few weeks away, Animal Crossing is a game a lot of people are hoping for. It’s been over 4 and a half years since it came out in Japan (and will be over 4 years since those outside of Japan received the game once E3 hits). That’s definitely a good amount of time for a new AC. For reference, the first AC came out in the US in 2002 (In Japan, it came out in 2001 with the E+ version coming out two years later in 2003). Wild World then came out 2-3 years later in 2005 and is one of the closer relates dates we’ve had between the US and Japan with just about 2 weeks inbetween releases. City Folk, with the closest release dates (in fact, the US got it 4 days earlier than Japan) came out in 2008–3 more years. We then had New Leaf 4-5 years later. I’m still not sure why we had over a half a year delay between New Leaf coming out in Japan in November 2012 and coming out everywhere else June 2013, but I hope that whatever new Animal Crossing is coming, the release dates will be very close if not a Worldwide release.

There’s been so many rumors right now about the chance of an upcoming Animal Crossing, including a possible leak from a magazine (though, I won’t personally take it as proof until a more trustworthy source happens), but one thing that really stands out to me is the Mobile App constantly being pushed back. We were told it would connect with the actual Animal Crossing game, but if it keeps getting pushed back, maybe it’s because they want it to come out with the next game? Which makes me feel like a Fall release or an early Spring release next year for Animal Crossing for the Switch is quite likely. That said, we did receive a fairly awesome update to New Leaf just last year which makes me think there could still be another year off (despite 4-5 years already being around the same amount of time it was between the last main AC games). Of course, Happy Home Designer has also been said to not be getting any new content with the final Happy Home Challenge that happened this month and there is still only so much that extra content in New Leaf can really do.

Regardless of when it could happen, I do feel we have a good chance of hearing SOMETHING this E3 even if it may be another year or two off.

Moving onto the point of this article though, I wanted to talk about things I hope to see in the next Animal Crossing the most at this point. This is in no particular order, but just things I hope to see return and/or change up from New Leaf and other AC games.

1. No item limits in the houses and outside. While they’ve thankfully increased it since City Folk’s and Wild World’s terrible 20 item limit to 48, that still can end up being rather small if you use a lot of wall items or counters/dressers/desks. Similarly, you were restricted to about 30 Public Works (and bridges, which are quite helpful, counted against this) and with so many Public Works and places to place them, it wasn’t fun. As long as there is space, I feel like people should be able to place them. Similarly, no limits on patterns (or at least maybe make it memory based instead)–way too often do I have to make more characters specifically for patterns or have to give up on clothes and things due to trying to make my town nice. It’d be nice to just have everything I want if I have enough memory on my system.

2. Being able to decide where a villager’s house can go. One of the nice things with New Leaf is you got to place your own home with Tom Nook. It’d be nice, especially if you’re still the mayor, that when someone new comes in, he’ll be outside waiting for you and ask if you’d like to pick a place for whatever new villager is moving in to put their house. If you say yes, you get into a similar mode when placing your own house, but if you say no, Tom Nook places it himself (so randomly).

3. Being able to vary on villager numbers. With how New Leaf works, you’ll get villagers pretty often up until you have 8. After that, you will get one soon for 9 and then it will vary with you only being able to get a 10th from outside means (Campsite, Friends, StreetPass, etc.). When you have 9 or 10, there is a chance someone will move while you will never have less than 8. I think it’d be neat if people could choose to maybe cap it at 3 villagers (the lowest it’s been possible to have) or up to 15 (which was how many the original had). Personally, I’d probably cap my own town at 12 if I had this choice.

4. Being able to prevent a villager from leaving. And I don’t mean just the “I want to move” prompts you can convince to stay–I mean literally being able to set something so the villager will never even ask to leave. They will always be there. It can be triggered on and off if you change your mind, but this would be nice for those who may want to just be able to play without having to worry about their favorite villagers leaving because they haven’t played for a while.

5. Being able to have multiple ordinances set at a time, but prices rising for each extra one (So it’s 20K for one, 40K for the second, etc.).

6. Be able to experience other culture events in your own town despite what region you may be playing. It’s just a good chance to experience other cultures. And in general, I want to see so many older events come back too. I also want to see items that have become Region Exclusives to find a way back.

7. Be able to transfer things from your New Leaf file. Whether it be your entire town, just patterns, just your character (Similar to Wild World’s transfer to City Folk), or some combination of the above, I think it’d be a nice feature. I’d like at least patterns because wow would I hate to remake all of them, but heck, I’d be happy transferring my town and being able to make it bigger and better too.

8. Similarly, be able to edit patterns even if you didn’t make them. Mostly because this even effects your other villagers in your town from ones you made yourself. Suddenly they can’t edit them and I’ve had some patterns slightly off for ages, but forgot to save on my main character and just… am not up to remaking it for that one purpose. It’s annoying and frustrating. One day maybe I’ll get around to it, but it just seems unnecessary and there wasn’t really a need to make QR codes Edit locked (or heck, at least make it a choice that people can pick if they want it to be or not).

9. Bring back the Dream Suite. It’s so much fun seeing people’s towns.

10. A bigger map. New Leaf has one of the smallest maps thus far so…

11. Being able to place things outside besides just Public Works. And being able to place both these and Public Works on the beach.

12. Speaking of Public Works, more ways to unlock them. Villagers can prompt you for so many things and even lessening the chances made it still pretty un-fun to do. Thus, two options (though, even both could work): Being able to pay bells to unlock a random (or maybe specific) Public Work and/or If you see a Public Work in a Friend’s town or through Dream Suite, being able to request it directly (which may require bells as well possibly).

13. I want a Gyroid in front of my house again. I miss it.

14. Ceiling items. I loved them so much in Happy Home Designer and really want to see them as part of a main game.

15. Being able to have the option to use HHD decorating both for interiors and exteriors. You don’t have to decorate that way (there’s still something fun about doing the classic way), but it comes in handy a lot. Heck, it’d be cool if we could do this to move everything around as needed–maybe placed a house slightly off? Just move it over slightly.

17. Be able to have Patterns under public works.

18. Be able to place things inbetween squares. It was really nice to properly center things and have stuff slightly off and just kind of… slide between them.

19. Being able to choose door designs for your house’s interior.

20. I want Villagers to be able to sing one night at Club K.K. The Concert Hall in HHD is still a beautiful thing.

I’m going to cut it off there because this already has gotten pretty long, but I just hope the people working on the game will look over some of the best things from each and just make things more fun. I will give one last bonus one though for those who made it this far:

Get rid of the Jellyfish being annoying in the Ocean and let us catch them again. I loved having a “pet” in my house for one, but they also are just… frustrating and don’t really have a set trigger like the bees do.

Short Opinion Piece: Thank you, Jeff Kaplan

So, I don’t normally do quick short entries, but this makes me so happy to see and stuff for so many reasons.

I’ll say something even more controversial. I wish we would’ve never added any cosmetic items to Competitive. I think the people playing Competitive should only be there because they really care about playing in Competitive mode, and they want to rise through the tiers – that’s who I think belongs in Competitive.

I don’t think we should overly incentivize players because of cosmetic rewards into the system any more than we already have to the point where if we could do the Men In Black thing and make everybody forget and we would come out with Overwatch again and literally wouldn’t add any cosmetic rewards to the system, so it’s tricky because we get asked the question a lot.

Now, that doesn’t mean that all the cool stuff that we have ideas for couldn’t be given out to players in other ways, so it’s not like we’re just not going to make it, like “Haha we’re taking out football and game over” – it’s more that I would love to give it out in a way where it doesn’t encourage players to be in Competitive mode who don’t want to be there. I think it really takes a really special mindset to be in Competitive, and I think a lot of the problems that we see are players who really don’t want to, or belong there, spending more time than they should there.

—Quoted from part of the many interviews recently that Jeff Kaplan did. This was specifically quoted r/Overwatch.

And just. This is something I’ve been saying for so long with most things and it’s why stuff like this absolutely kills me. Whether it be Pokemon’s various “end-game” stuff that locks BP and Ribbons behind forcing you to use certain Pokemon with certain move sets to having to grind in Overwatch for a golden weapon and/or Spray/Icon (Season 4’s are my favorites thus far…).

Most people who do those modes are doing it specifically for that. The rewards are bonuses. And the only people it ends up effecting are often the people who don’t want to be playing those modes in the first place.

I wish they could change it, but it’s obviously too late now. But ugh, just seeing someone say it gives me hope maybe this could stop happening in the future. It’s just nice to know someone gets it.

I don’t know if I’ll ever, personally, manage to get a Gold Weapon for Mercy. Competitive just gets too toxic for me to feel comfortable in and even if I often do well, I never end up having fun. And if you’re not having fun, what’s the point?

AC: HHD – More houses for today :)

I had promised another HHD stream today, so I wanted to make sure I got some more houses done. Not the longest stream due to having to go out later, but still fun!

Gruff – A classic barbershop.



Rating Address: 0992-5759-684

Cesar – A construction site.



Rating Address: 0295-5759-614

Cally – A nice place to do laundry.


Rating Address: 0691-5759-544

Gladys – A peaceful zen garden.


Rating Address: 0204-5759-514

Kyle – A piped room.


Rating Address: 0504-5759-574

Colton – A noble living space.


Rating Address: 0609-5759-524

AC: HHD – Getting more houses done!

So despite the lack of getting to play these last few days, I’m still going my best to hopefully get more HHD done at a more… regular schedule. Honestly, it’s just so hard sometimes because I adore the game, but the themes just end up feeling so repetitive down the road and I feel like if I at least got a chance to know what they wanted better (like showing me everything they bring over instead of just what items are new), maybe I could help make them more unique, but it’s just hard sometimes. And while I could just go full-tilt into what I want to give them versus whatever theme they give me, I don’t really want to play the game that way.

But yes, onto the houses!

Hugh – Eat, drink, sleep. Repeat.


Rating Address: 0799-5759-657

Vic – A pirate’s refuge.


Rating Address: 0992-5759-597

Lucha – A pro-wrestling arena.


Rating Address: 0792-5759-677

Fang – A chair showroom.



Rating Address: 0395-5759-637

Alfonso – A starry-sky cake dream.



Rating Address: 0791-5759-687

Pompom – A splashy, modern garden.


Rating Address: 0504-5759-697

Becky – A classical conservatory.


Rating Address: 0209-5759-697

Opinion Piece: Meta vs. Casual Play and PVP

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately between things like competitive Pokemon, Fire Emblem Heroes Stat/IV Calculators, and a lot of debate on things as simple as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

I’ve always been a bit odd in the sense that I am constantly kind of at both sides of a place. I like to feel like I’m achieving something and for the most part, I’m a completionist, but I also prefer to be able to play the way I like as I work towards that and it’s something that I feel is becoming harder and harder to do in most games where that line is suddenly blurring and rather than the far-end reaching can be things for a general sense of achievement, a lot of actual things people may want to try for suddenly get tied to it.

Like Smash Brothers. Starting in Brawl, an achievement-based system was put in place and suddenly, you had all these extra things to do with characters that maybe you weren’t particularly good at. It’s one thing when sure, maybe you had to beat Master Hand with each for their final trophies, but at least you can do them on Easy and maybe work yourself up to hard. And I think that’s one of the big things for me because I’ve always loved the trophies and collecting them, but suddenly it feels like a lot of my enjoyment is forced to learning to get to know these characters for this one achievement that has a trophy locked behind it (and there were never enough hammers).

And it can be fun to work towards things and see how far you can go. There have been plenty of games where I pushed the limits or like Maple Story where I frequently managed to get to places that were much higher level just because I wanted to explore. And there’s a lot more fun in choosing that option over feeling like you don’t have that choice because you want to achieve all of a certain thing.

And that’s part of what’s slowly really killing Pokemon for me. When a large amount of the Post game is just an IV Arena for the “best” Pokemon, it ruins a lot of what Pokemon has always meant for me. And I find it harder to ignore every single game between attaching ribbons to it (and sometimes other things as well) and just general “Your party sucks” or “Why don’t you evolve *insertpokemonhere*?” comments that just tend to keep happening. I’m just expecting more and more of the game to end up slowly expanding that part until the Elite 4 literally requires it if not the gyms as well. Like fine, have some battle arenas just for that, but at least don’t tie exclusive items and things to it. Most of the people doing it don’t even care for those things. And the day I stop using my favorites for Pokemon with better stats is the day I just am no longer truly playing Pokemon.

It’s also one of the issues I run into a lot with Fire Emblem Heroes. I’d rather just use my favorites, but with the Arena (which is the main way to earn feathers), special quests for orbs which requires all four characters to live, and the chapters getting harder and harder (and who knows how many there will be–we’re definitely not near the end of the story though), there will eventually be a point where I won’t be able to somehow pull it off. I can barely do the everyone staying alive quests at this point, if any at all. And defeating in 6 turns while trying to not completely die in 10-5 on Lunatic was terrifying.

“But Jen,” you may say, “You don’t need to do it on every difficulty!” which is true, technically, but considering Orbs are the main way to get characters and I am unfortunately not in a position where I can just buy as many orbs as I want and not have to worry, I’d really like to earn as many as I can. I’m still sad I was never able to do all the full team 10th Sanctum quests last time.

In general though, I think any game that kind of encourages the idea of playing with characters you like and then has big focuses on why you should use specific characters instead is just kind of… frustrating.

Overwatch kind of does okay with this because while there are gold weapons in competitive, everyone can earn them eventually just by playing that mode even if they’re not particularly good. I still don’t really care for the mode due to how toxic people can be, but at least there is an option. There is, however, an extra spray and icon for anyone in the top 500 which I have mixed feelings on. At least it’s mostly just an animated version of the one anyone who did the qualifying matches get, but wow do I really like the one for Season 4.

In general though, all of these things also add up to why I also just am not too fond of any kind of PVP thing. When it comes down to it at this point, I know I’m in the minority and when everyone I know is figuring out the best stats for their characters, the best kart pieces and character for their kart, and the best load-out/skill tree to use, it suddenly becomes a lot less fun. And heck, there are times I’ve still managed to pull out a win despite by all measurements being “weaker”, but I don’t really want to play against anyone who is constantly all about the numbers over what they actually like.

And that’s the thing–when it comes to any kind of multiplayer party-esque game, whether it be a fighting game, Mario Kart, Mario Party, or similar things, I actually really don’t like doing anything against people I know. If I’m playing Mario Party, I only steal coins and stars from the Computer because I’d feel guilty otherwise. And I’m like that in pretty much any multiplayer experience I do–I’m all about co-op, not versus play.

For now, I’m just going to do my best to keep playing games the way I enjoy them most, but it’s hard not to worry that eventually that way won’t actually be able to exist anymore.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer – The Final Challenge

So, this May brings us the 20th and final Happy Home Challenge. I’m sad to see them end despite not really having much fun with them anymore. This probably means no more updates for HHD in general as well, but hopefully that does mean we can finally hear more about the mobile game soon. While I know others are eager for a Switch version of AC, I personally am okay waiting a bit longer, though, I know I will be playing it constantly. :P

But yes, onto the final Happy Home Designer challenge!

May 2017 – An underwater emergency. – See, and like… this is why I don’t really have fun with them anymore. I guess the submarine is supposed to be getting water flooded into it? And you want to block it with the Giant Resetti? But it’s so weird

Rating Address: 0190-5755-554

I did my best at least, but I kind of wish it was a better theme to end off with. :( Regardless, even though the challenges are over, we’ll be continuing with HHD until every Villager has had a house made. <3