This time, I was on Team Water Slides(s)!
To be honest though, I really don’t care for Roller coasters or Water slides. The main reason Water Slides won is because if it’s one where I can pick my own speed or like a lazy river type of water slide, I like it while I hate like 99% of Roller coasters. In fact, the only one I’ve gone on where I wasn’t completely hysterical was the Runaway Train on Disney. And just barely.
I’m not really a fan of thrill rides, if you couldn’t tell :P Meanwhile, PAL regions have the much better theme of Eating vs Sleeping. I’d easily be on Team Eating as I feel sleep takes away from getting things done. I’d also be Team Milk Tea for Japan’s <3
Going back to the North American Splatfest, it seems I continue to be unlucky with dates. Yesterday was my birthday so I actually had a lot of things going on and thus, didn't get to play as long as I'd have liked! I did manage to hit Water Slide Queen though:
I even streamed it! Unfortunately, Water Slides lost by 4 points :( I was having horrible matches most of the time–wish I could’ve stayed playing longer when I finally got a good team. In general, I had a lot more uneven match-ups in this Splatfest–I don’t mean 4 vs 4 (though, I did have a few where Rollercoasters had less than 4 people), but that often it was one team constantly demolishing the other over it being pretty even or close. I had a lot more fun with Cats vs Dogs where it just felt a lot more even, even if the dog vs dog matches were annoying (I had no Water Slide vs Water Slide, but I heard some people did).
You can watch my journey of getting to Water Slide Queen over on Youtube. Below is the final part when I hit the rank!:
So, today I wanted to talk briefly about two Indie Games I am pretty excited for. If you look at the title, you can probably tell which they are :P But regardless, I will be mentioning them again anyway!
The first is Jenny LeClue where you play as the titular character. The game is a mystery-adventure game. I love detective games and am always excited to see ones that focus more on puzzles and exploration over games that use a very point & click or I-Spy kind of gameplay. I had a lot of fun playing the Playable demo and while I’m sad I missed the kickstarter, I made sure to at least place a preorder for the game. You can check the trailer out below!:
And here’s two of my favorite screenshots:
As for the second game, that is the recently shown off Slime Rancher. Slimes are always pretty awesome to me–besides looking so squishy and cute, they always have so many variations. And this game is showing that it will continue that trend:
I’m not even sure which I like more. Both are adorable.
The game has you essentially raising a Slime Ranch. You play as Beatrix LeBeau who’s job is essentially wrangling slimes with her vacpack. It looks pretty fun and definitely seems like they plan to have a lot to do and many different slime variations.
You can check out the trailer for it below:
And as a bonus, these slimes remind me a lot of an adoptable some friends of mine owned a long time ago–I’ve chosen two to show off below:
And the nostalgia just makes me all the more excited.
If you haven’t watched the trailer/PV yet for Disney Magical World 2, I’d highly recommend doing so before you continue reading as I will be talking a lot about stuff in this trailer along with pictures.
So, to start, I think this image from the end is likely what the worlds will be:
That said, MANY characters seemed to have their own special areas–it may just be not as big as a World in this game, but closer to the hubs in the last game.
Speaking of which, Castleton is huge in this game:
There are so many different areas and it just looks amazing:
Besides the characters from movies, more general characters from the various old Disney shorts will be showing up too!:
At the moment, there is no confirmation if all the characters will be back, but I find it very likely.
I mean, just look.
These were all the characters & series shown in the trailer–a * means they showed a world, a ~ means they showed an area (either for the parade or something else), but no clear idea if it’ll be a new hub world:
-Unsurprisingly, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Pluto :P
-Rapunzel & Flynn from Tangled ~
-Elsa, Anna, and Olaf from Frozen *
-Ralph and Venelope from Wreck-it Ralph ~
-Ariel, Flounder, Sebastian, and King Triton from The Little Mermaid *
-Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Captain Hook, Smee, Wendy, John, and Michael from Peter Pan ~
-Stitch, Lilo, Jumba, Pleakley, and Nani (and let’s be honest, Angel will most likely be here too) from Lilo and Stitch *
-Alice & The Queen of Hearts – Alice in Wonderland *
-Jack Skellington, Sally, and Zero – Nightmare Before Christmas ~
-Marie – The Aristocats ~
-The entire Beauty and the Beast Cast ~
-The Entire Winnie the Pooh Crew *
-Snow White and the 7 Dwarves *
-Aladdin, Jasmine, and Genie ~
-Captain Jack Sparrow
-Cinderella and Prince Charming ~
While there’s no confirmations for Captain Jack, Aladdin, and Cinderella, considering they all had worlds last time and it seems at least two of the worlds are returning and being expanded, I find it likely the others will get worlds again. As it is, with such a big hub world I have really high hopes maybe we can get more areas through DLC and DLC continued for much longer than the first game.
Unfortunately, it seems you will be fighting ghosts again, but the actual worlds look even more amazing in this game and it seems there is a lot more to do. Cafes will also be returning with a stage that it seems you can have performers on:
Due to all the dancing minigames, I feel that will be taken into some account with the stage and performers. I hope there is a bigger item limit for the Cafe this time. Besides the Cafes though, all previous activities will be returning along with more. The only one I’m not sure about is the Card Album, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it back. Also, it seems Minnie’s outfit I mentioned in the last entry is a possible dress you can get so yay:
Also, if you buy the CD for the theme song of the game, you will get a downloadable code for her outfit:
Which is REALLY cute and I hope there is a way it comes over as I doubt they can do the CD Promotion here unfortunately.
AND THERE WILL BE SO MANY ITEMS:
Plus early purchases will be getting a download code for the Frozen Fever costumes and even better: If you have saved data for the first game, you get a gold mickey balloon and a ticket for some pecos which is really really cool. I kind of wish you could transfer some of your stuff too though! (Big thank you to NyaChan AKA ProfessorBel for these lovely extra tidbits!):
Crossing my fingers for online play T~T That is just such a big thing I really hope they do.
So, today was the very first North American Splatfest! In the usual battle of Dogs vs Cats, I chose Dogs (though, I do also like cats) and battled my way to victory. I expected to be playing a long time, but managed to hit top rank after about 4 hours. I would say 4-5 hours is probably the average time most would need to play, ignoring things like disconnects.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with Splatfest. The Plaza looks amazing, the music is great, and it’s just generally a fun environment. Most of my issues with it were more of the inner mechanics such as:
1. No map switching. Even though you have three maps instead of the usual two, I missed the map switching. :( If Callie and Marie can pause from dancing and singing to give you announcements when you first load up, they could for new ones too! I’m not really sure why maps weren’t changing.
2. Wait times. It wasn’t the end of the world, but considering the delay/push-back of Splatfest was BECAUSE of wait times, the fact that I had waits more often than not of 40 seconds up to 2 minutes or so was kind of annoying.
3. But I’d honestly have rather waited over getting Same Team matches. I still haven’t heard of anyone having Cat vs Cat matches so it seems it may have just been an issue with the Dog team, but these were kind of disappointing as while you could still earn points towards your title and level experience, it still doesn’t add to your team which is the biggest point of Splatfest.
4. Many matches ended up just sorting in 1, 2, or 3 people instead of a full team of four. Those matches never ended well for the other team, although, I did win one match when I only had three.
5. Weird lag issues. I was disconnected from maps twice (once near the beginning and another right after they showed the results while I was waiting for the “Play again” option to come up) and had a lot of the inking but no ink is being placed. Or late kills which involve you somehow also getting killed and just it was really weird.
Despite these issues though, I really did have fun. And thus, I will end this with a lovely Team Dog commemorative picture:
(Inkling!me by Apheros & you can find the original screenshot I took on Miiverse!)
You can also watch below (or go to my Youtube channel) for recordings of the the stream I did on my journey to become the Dog Queen!:
I hope to try and play a bit more later (though, I don’t think I’ll stream) to help support Team Dog some more! I’m very happy that I was also able to hit level 20 while getting to Dog Queen Rank and even had enough money to upgrade my usual attire to all have 3 slots! :) I think I’ll upgrade the School Girl Uniform next once we have some Sea Snails!
Edit for July 5th: The results are in! Team Dog has won! :D Yay! I’ve seen a lot of people upset with how the results went and made a post over on our site’s Tumblr talking about it and why there’s no reason to be this upset (except about the date). You can check out below for a video showing the results and getting our Super Sea Snails (I want a plushie of them)!
So, I had some fun things that I preordered ages ago arrive today which was pretty exciting. Firstly, the GEM series Mimi Tachikawa & Palmon figure arrived!:
Back view:
She comes with a stand, an extra face (not pictured, but it honestly looks just like the official photos as shown below):
And a ponytail:
Which was replaced for her hat in the first two pictures. I honestly had a bit of a hard time setting her up and they are only about 3 inches and aren’t poseable any other way.
Mimi is my favorite Digimon character, but the product itself is honestly a bit overpriced considering. :( I do like it, but I’m not entirely sure why it ended up costing about 6,000 Yen (and that doesn’t even count overseas shipping and buying service fees).
Moving onto the Sakura figma, you may recall my post on the Sakura Figuart. I will say that both figures are great. I think I prefer the face of the Figuart more, but there is a lot I like more about the Figma.
To start, a good way to explain them is the Figma has a bit more accessories while the Figuart seems to have more poseability (though, the Figma also feels a lot more sturdy than the Figuart because of this). The Figuart has an extra face and set of hands while the Figma has 2 extra cards (A Clow Card, a card being summoned/caught, and a Sakura Card), both wands, two sets of wings (The smaller ones that are part of the costume and the big ones for if you have Sakura using the Fly card). While the Figuart’s Clow Card is blank, all three of the Figma ones are of the Fly card.
While I may prefer the Sakura Figuart appearance/face-wise, I easily prefer the Kero that comes with the Figma:
He’s much more dynamic, comes with a stand, and even if his tail isn’t bendable, I just really like this Kero.
As for Sakura herself out of the box:
As you can see, there are several minor differences. As I have the Figuart with the Sealing Wand and a Clow Card, I gave the Figma the Star Wand and Sakura Card. I also just want to point out the stands–Figma stand is much sturdier, but the Figuart stand is much nicer looking and I still love the detail of it.
Here is a front and back comparison of the Figma (Left) and Figuart (right) side by side:
Both are great and pretty similar so it’s really just which you’d rather go with/like more personally :) I’m not sure if I’d have been able to decide if I waited and just picked up one.
And both are cheaper than the GEM Series Mimi and Palmon XP
Splatoon has been out for about a month now and while I covered this a bit in my review, I wanted to talk about it in more detail–especially considering my frustration with the fact that the date chosen for Splatfest is July 4th which is a pretty big day in the USA. While I know the USA isn’t the only country in North America, it does have the most sales of the game and was just an incredibly poor choice.
Before I get to the biggest part of the rant, I do want to say I have a lot of issues with the fact that Splatfest is only one day (If it was 2-3 days, the fact that it’s date is poor wouldn’t matter as you’d still have two other options). You literally have 24 hours to try and get enough points which can take nearly half the day of playing straight to earn them. Also, we still only have one outfit with a skirt. :( And the new Cat vs Dog artwork still stinks.
With these out of the way, it is now on to the thing that inspired this entry: I really hate everything involving the customization and skills in the game. Despite talking about how “fashion focused” the Inklings are, the fact that it’s all preset-skills is really stupid. Even more so with the ones you unlock being random. Even though there’s mixed opinions on how much skills help, due to my poor aim I generally find them really helpful. Some skills aren’t great though and other skills just won’t work well with certain weapons.
It just feels so silly to me. I can understand them being random at first, but at least let people actually be able to select them if they pay snails. Let them pay more snails to do so–even more so if it’s for a main ability. I just feel that can add so much more to the game with customization and skill sets versus it being random and stuck with certain things.
I still wish weapons also let you pick their abilities over being pre-set, but I do feel they do have pretty good sets at least and knowing what you will be getting ahead of time is nice.
It’s just so hard for me to fully enjoy any of Nintendo’s games with customization lately because it’s almost always tied to stats and it’s just really disheartening.
There is a reason region locking can be frustrating and part of it has to do with how much release dates can vary. While some are a bit more understandable (Such as games with a lot of dialogue or ones that may need to be censored quite a bit–something that also has mixed opinions), others are just… incredibly odd. One big example is with the recently released Woolly World in PAL regions. Considering those games are in English, the fact that the US isn’t also getting it is rather odd.
And the fact that Japan is getting it 2-3 weeks after the PAL regions stands out a bit in itself. There’s no explanations as to why and the fact that North America isn’t receiving it for nearly 3 months after Japan is really odd.
A smaller example is what happened with the Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright game–there was one explanation in the fact that they could have been redubbing Luke as his voice varies between PAL and North American regions (although, everyone else is the same)… except Luke kept his voice from those games so it’s another 3 month discrepancy. A smaller delay was with Fantasy Life where we received it a month later–several terms were changed which could be why, but it’s still a question of why that was needed to.
But in general, as long as we get the games eventually, it isn’t really the end of the world as disappointing as it can be when you know most of the world is playing a game you’re super excited for. What I think really gets me though is when it comes to physical goods. Both Japan and PAL regions tend to get such amazing preorders. I mean, seriously:
We only got the scarf and that wasn’t even through preorders. And generally, it feels if we do somehow get something, it’s either exclusive to Gamestop (which after several bad experiences, I just don’t feel comfortable using) or Nintendo World. I live in NYC and this is still so frustrating. In general, if you want to go to a Nintendo World Event, you need to get there the early hours of a day or late the night before–possibly even earlier depending on what. With the Amiibo craze, it’s gotten even worse.
And just… I can’t help but wonder why. Why North America seems to constantly be left out of the loop with physical stuff? Even with Club Nintendo closing, PAL Regions and Japan received so many great things that were never shown here. And I mean, look at the most recent item that as appeared on the PAL region Club Nintendo:
On one hand, even if this showed up on the North America site, I wouldn’t be able to afford it as I already used my coins, today is the last day, and you can no longer register things.
It’s just disappointing and frustrating to see so many amazing things and knowing the only way to get them is if you know someone who’d be willing to grab one for you or buying them overpriced on Ebay. I just wish I understood why. It’s bad enough when so many games are stuck being region specific (STILL WAITING FOR A LOCALIZATION ANNOUNCEMENT ON GIRLS MODE 3), but there’s an extra heartbreaking punch when you see beautiful things for a series you love and know that it’s constantly out of your reach.
The first game up was Kung Fu Panda: Showdown of Legendary Legends which was essentially a brawler game similar to Smash Brothers.
The game is coming out due to the upcoming movie and all roles will be reprised in the game. 20 characters will be available at launch along with 4 DLC characters coming. Not all were available for us to be picked (as some can’t be announced yet), but there was still a good amount there already.
I ended up choosing Tigress while Zero chose Tai Lung. All the stages were lovely and certain objects and areas of the stage could be used to damage your opponents. I would say the hardest part is I never really felt I had gotten the controls down–I feel like I mostly just ended up jumping/floating around regardless of what I pressed and rarely actually did any damage.
Characters also had a special attack that pretty much guarantees knocking out an opponent that can only be used when your “Awesome meter” fills up. Tigress’ unfortunately was not working, but Tai Lung’s special was pretty cool. While the modes, different characters, and mechanics seemed interesting enough, there was just something off about the controls the entire time.
The next game was probably the game we enjoyed the most (and also the one that felt the most “done”). I will start by saying I’m not really an Adventure Time fan–I’ve only seen a few episodes, I know a good amount due to friends, but it’s never been my thing. That said, this game made me want to watch the show and I actually really want to get it regardless.
Adventure Time: Finn & Jake Investigations caught my eye just due to my love of mysteries. The characters are all voiced by the same people in the show and you’re essentially trying to find out what happened. You also can find/earn treasure to fill up a familiar now-empty room.
Despite the fact that the game is in 3D over the usual 2D of the show, it actually works quite nicely.
You can find various clues/interact with many objects (usually shown by a sparkling animation) and hear the characters comment on it. There’s also fight scenes that are done both creatively and fit well into the game’s story.
It’s just a really fun game–my only “complaint” is I’d have loved to see more of it, but if it looks as good as it was when we saw it, I expect the game to do really well.
The employee we spoke to also mentioned that the game is really good on the Wii U so I’m guessing the mystery function works quite well on the GamePad. They didn’t have a WiiU set-up for us to see, but it made me excited regardless.
The next two games are still in Alpha so I won’t have as much to say, but we did get to see both so I want to at least mention them.
Monster High: New Ghoul in School. While it’s not the only Monster High game that introduces the “Design your own Monster and Enroll in Monster High” gameplay, I feel it’s done much better than Ghoul Spirit. There are tons more options, lots of customization things, and much better gameplay. The school is huge, there’s all kinds of cool jump puzzles and puzzles in general, and the writing fits the characters well. While I only have a few Monster High Dolls and you could tell it was still in Alpha, I’m pretty excited to see what they may do with it.
No idea on if you’ll be able to customize your room in the game as well, but I’m hoping!
In an even earlier Alpha Phase than the above, we have the final game we were shown:
Barbie & Her Sisters Puppy Rescue. The game features Barbie, Skipper, Stacie, and Kelly Chelsea (why, Mattel T__T) rescuing adorable Puppies around town. After you clean/heal/take care of the puppy, you can find their owner! Some Puppies may have an owner already that you will be reuniting them with while those without an owner you can find a good home from a list or even keep yourself and have your own puppy army. I will be doing the latter for many puppies.
The game’s main focus is really to teach kids how much work having a dog is as you will have to do things like cut their nails or brush their teeth. The game was still in very early Alpha so most of it wasn’t done yet, but it’s being made in honor of the upcoming movie and will have the same voice cast. There are currently 6 different dog breeds each with 3 different colors/patterns. I’m hoping they will add a lot more than that as even counting color patterns, 18 doesn’t seem like that much (For reference, Nintendogs plus Cats has 19 different dogs before you even go into color/pattern variations).
There’s been so much hate over Happy Home Designer–“why is it a price of a full game”, “we don’t want spin-off games”, “what is the point” and while I can understand some frustration on the Wii U game (although, I personally still think it looks fun), I don’t feel Happy Home Designer deserves it. I feel like if it’s successful, it could bring a lot of really awesome things to the Animal Crossing series. Because I really want to get people looking at a bigger picture (and maybe I’m the only AC fan who didn’t expect to hear about a new AC game just yet), I wanted to list some of the reasons that not only makes me excited for Happy Home Designer, but makes me excited thinking of what this could mean for the next Animal Crossing game.
You’re in charge of people’s houses. Maybe it’s just me, but there was something super disheartening about setting up an area and then having someone plop their house in the center of it. Finally getting to decide where people go is such a relief. And if this is in this game and the Mayor Function continues, what’s to say this kind of thing won’t be in the next “main” Animal Crossing game?
You can still do a lot of things from normal Animal Crossing games. The big things that are gone are fishing & bug catching along with a “smaller” area, but you still build the town up.
You still help villagers.
You still decorate houses (even if it may not be for you).
And you still make friends as you fill up the town. While it may be a bit lessened in some ways, the fun is still there in a lot of areas. And maybe it’s just me, but the home decorating was always my favorite part too.
You have a company car.
Just imagine being the Mayor of multiple villages nearby and being able to use some kind of travel to help out in each one. You can have your own Animal Crossing World and not just a town.
You can place Villager’s Houses.
As mentioned above, this is a beautiful feature and I hope it makes it in the new game.
You can decorate the exterior of various buildings…
…around your Villager’s houses….
and pick various environments to place it in.
While the latter will probably never make it into the main game, so much more exterior customization in various areas can really help make a town more unique.
The new character!
Lottie is adorable.
You can set up houses for the NPCs!
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an area where the NPCs live?
You can finally decorate houses how you want–no more needing to send furniture and hope they use it and don’t replace something you wanted them to keep.
You can help out all your favorite villagers. Have more than 10-12 favorites? No worries about needing to send one away for another as they can all come and get their house decorated. And even come party:
New furniture items:
Plus the ability to place things on the ceiling!:
You no longer need a full space in front–you can squeeze through and place chairs and couches at appropriate lengths away from a table:
Furniture items can be placed outside like Public Works. Furniture is not exclusively for interiors:
And vice versa, things that may have only been able to go outside can be inside too:
Villagers can have jobs! They can be students, they can be a cook, they can be a doctor. No longer will they just bum around and ask you for things.
Villagers can have bigger houses.
Villagers houses in general have much more customization with the ability to pick the style and color:
And even decorate their fences:
And switch things near their houses like bridges:
There are separate carpets and floors:
And you can even choose what size you want them to be:
Easy rotating without having to be up against the object.
Items can be moved in bulk:
There’s different room sizes–they aren’t all perfectly square/cubes. Some can be rectangular.
You can select Nature sounds if you don’t want music.
Villagers can wear head accessories/hats.
In short: Besides so many of these features being great in themselves, many (obviously, not all) of these same things could be previews of what’s to come (and what could happen) with a newer Animal Crossing game as well. And maybe it’s just me, but if I can be the Mayor and work at various places with the NPCs, I think that’d be pretty amazing. And when it comes to your character, they can still dress-up too and change their appearance! And you have more character customizations in general too.
Give the game a try–while it’s still missing some features of a “normal” Animal Crossing game, it brings so many amazing things that could make the next full Animal Crossing game phenomenal. Happy Home Designer is so much more than just interior decorating–you just need to take the time to look.
We pretty much got a mixed bag of everything else and other than a bit of stuff at Sony’s, it’s pretty varied. I’ll start with Sony’s though as it is the biggest and there’s adorable Mascot Parades (that we took lots of photos of).
Like my last entry, due to all the photos please click below to continue reading!
