Mario Kart 8 is the newest (and 8th if you couldn’t guess, minus the Arcade versions) installment of the Mario Kart series. It brings quite a bit of new stuff while still retaining many old features. While the courses are fun to race on, I feel that’s the main thing the game has going for it. The game sadly brings back several things I’m not too fond of which kind of ruins the enjoyment, despite the creativity of most of the tracks. I will start by saying if you’re expecting to hear tons of good things about the game, this may not be the review for you as I’ll be offering a bit of a different point of view. That said, if you enjoy the Mario Kart Series, you should still enjoy this one and the graphics are lovely, if you care about that kind of stuff.
Tomodachi Life: Random things
Even the smallest details can be pretty fun to take note of–such as how a Mii could be playing with a different dog/cat due to the fact that it’s a “Rent” coupon.
I wish I could have tons of dogs and cats all at once though… I wonder how many different ones there are.
Not to mention it’s still fun to see what happens next–here they are playing the Wii U–Carlos and Jennifer even have Wiimotes!:
It’s a pretty crazy match:
I also managed to unlock another Ranking board!:
I still have two left, but I’m not sure what they are or how to unlock them :(
Jennifer and Zero/Mark went on another trip:
And also went to Japan again too:
Finally, I managed to give her the 10,000 needed for a trip…
…and thus, they went to space!:
Me too, Mii. Me too.
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!
Mario Kart 8 and Tomodachi Life Ramblings
Moving on, I sadly still haven’t been able to unlock Prancer :( Even after doing a 32 course versus match and all the cups… I plan to do 150CC on each next but bleh, super disappointed. I don’t want to play online until I have the Cloud Glider and Prancer Kart so…
I did do some uploads from the ingame uploader thingy however:
My fiancé and I playing–I really love Moo Moo Meadows.
Another of my favorite courses.
I actually got to break a Blue Shell with the Horn in this one.
I actually am really surprised I won–I fell off the track, but ended up landing below it and managed to skate ahead to victory.
SO much love for Moo Moo Meadows.
And trying out the Teddybear Buggy while I continue to try for the Prancer Kart T__T
I seem to play better with my Mii, but I’m really not fond of the outfit in the game. It looks so bulky and the helmet really annoys me. I wish our Miis could just have a few outfits to choose from or something–I’d love to ride in a kart as my Mii with Princess Peach’s crown and dress :(
Also, be sure to check out the latest Nintendo Minute to finish up “Mario Kart MAY-hem” if you have been enjoying Mario Kart 8!:
It has an amazing giveaway at the end (and wow do I hope I win somehow because I’d cry tears of happiness at the idea of a figure of my Mii riding in the Prancer Kart T~T)
As for Tomodachi Life, I’m still enjoying it tons! I just wish more friendship and relationship stuff would happen, but they just seem to so up so rarely even with so many Miis… Still an incredibly fun game though. Hopefully I’ll have another entry soon :) And the review will be up on June 6th! If you are feeling impatient, Nintendo is still uploading fun Tomodachi Life videos:
I hope to record another video soon!
E3 is so close!
So, I’m looking forward to E3. Not necessarily out of hoping for anything specific, but just because I have fun seeing the announcements–it’s part of why I love Nintendo Directs so much. I will be watching all of the presentations and hoping there will be games that get my attention.
Despite that, I don’t really have any predictions like most people do. I mean, I’d expect them to talk about the Ruby and Sapphire remakes (and hope for game footage) plus Smash Brothers stuff, but I think that’s kind of a given?
I do wonder if they will mention Tomodachi Life at all despite it being released before then. Similarly, I wonder if the Wii U version of Pushmo will be out at all despite it being out shortly after E3 and a trailer already being up:
(I am looking forward to getting it–also looking forward to Mario Kart arriving in the mail tomorrow… Sad I had to work today and wasn’t able to go to the Nintendo Store event :( (also looking forward to the Gamecube Controller USB Adapter thing) )
As for stuff I’d LIKE to see… nothing that I actually consider ever has a chance of happening.
The closest I can think of is Little Big Planet 3 which is kind of mixed because:
1. I still haven’t finished 2–still have some Acing to do with the extra packs.
2. I’m not fond of the Move or Vita packs as I don’t find either very comfortable and I feel those would be used even more in a third game.
3. I wasn’t fond of how some items were removed from inventories and re-put in the game to earn again. Some of those items were quite hard to earn in LBP1 as it is–wasn’t fun to have to get them all over again and while I didn’t use most of the ones that this happened to, my fiancé did.
Maybe a chance for a new Modnation Racers? But I think since Little Big Planet Karting happened (which in my opinion wasn’t even as good), it’s unlikely.
I also hope we’ll see stuff of the new Harvest Moon game… which is Story of Seasons and not done by Natsume and is being done by XSEED which is one of Marvelous’ branches so I GUESS that makes sense but I’m still incredibly confused about it.
But like I said, besides that, I truly can’t think of anything in particular I really want to see that has any chance of happening. What kind of things do I dream of that are never going to happen?
1. A Pokemon Snap sequel. I think they could do a lot with it–especially if the 3DS itself acted like the camera. You go around and kind of like how Denpa Man works, you’d see the Pokemon in the real world–possibly based off where you go or what you’re looking at… just randomly generated and you get to try and catch it (or instantly like the Google Map’s Pokemon Challenge thing). Then connect to the Wii U to upload them, show them to Professor Oak, maybe unlock stuff, etc. I just think it’d be really cool.
2. A Pokemon MMO – Besides the fact that as new games with new Pokemon come out (although, I am kind of tired of new Pokemon) there can be expansions, I feel that the idea of Pokemon which is exploring around with these Pokemon you become friends with and also other trainers is really neat and could work well with an MMO. Not to mention there could be two different fighting styles–a turn-based type like the games and a more action-type that is similar to the Anime where you would get control of the Pokemon and actually get to use it to properly dodge or do combinations you wouldn’t normally get to do. You could actually make a secret hide out somewhere, decorate your own room, customize your trainer, and explore every region.
Heck, I’d be happy for a Pokemon game that would just let me go to every region in one already T__T
Regardless, I know those won’t happen, but it’s still kind of fun to dream. And it doesn’t lessen the excitement of E3 for me.
And maybe I’ll even see something for the Xbox I want (enough that I’ll pick up an Xbox One)–sadly, the last Xbox game I really liked was Kinectimals which I couldn’t play that well because our “living room” area isn’t large enough for the Kinect to read us properly :/ So bleh.
There is one thing that I really hope is announced though and will be upset if it isn’t… Jigglypuff better be announced as a returning fighter in Smash Brothers. T__T SHE MUST RETURN.
But yes, now back to waiting @-@ (and dreaming of one day actually being able to go to E3 and see it live!)
Tomodachi Life: Picture Day
Speaking of reactions, the newest Nintendo video for Tomodachi Life features Shaun White and Shaq showing their reactions to certain food items:
Something to keep in mind :P
Baking continued with Red Velvet White Chocolate Cookies
I haven’t mentioned baking in a while which I guess makes sense–things have been busy. Regardless, my fiancé hasn’t been feeling too great and two of his favorite things are Red Velvet Cake and White Chocolate, so I decided to make some Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Red Velvet isn’t really my thing (despite my love of chocolate so not entirely sure why), but these cookies are quite good–though, very sweet. Still was fun to try something new :) And he’s loving them so that’s what counts. Hopefully he’ll feel a lot better tomorrow!
Residents and Experiments
Despite that, our newest residents!
I also did try changing the date in the game slightly to see how it’d go–good news is there’s nothing bad for not playing. Bad news is any date/time change means there will be nothing new for 24 hours–so no money at the Fountain, no new items sold at events, no new store stock, etc. Thus, my “day” is currently kind of boring. Miis are still making friends though and doing their usual craziness so I suppose it’s not a complete loss :P
As for changes between the Japanese and English versions… Off the top of my head:
-When someone is working at the shop that isn’t one of their Miis, they have a bag on their head in the original. In the US version, they have a box on their head.
-The football game was originally Sumo Wrestling. I’m not entirely sure why as Sumo Wrestling isn’t unknown here and I’ve never known of any Football Players to do something like this? Wrestlers would’ve made a bit more sense.
-Most, if not all, the food was changed which kind of stinks. I really love Japanese Food so I kind of wish they just added more stuff we’d know versus removing so much of it. I don’t know if Japanese outfits are gone too, but I hope not. Regardless, I will be sad that now Takoyaki is probably not in the game. Though, maybe that’s a good thing since everytime I’d see it I’d want some and going into the city just for Takoyaki is a pain….
-You donate into a Piggy Bank at the fountain in the US version while you put the money into a box in the Japanese version.
-The Rap Battles aren’t in the Japanese version (I believe it was training or something in the Japanese version?).
-We received two additional song genres (for a total of 8 versus 6) and lost the traditional Japanese one. (Japan had Opera, Pop, Metal, Rap, the Traditional Japanese one, and Rock). Techno, Musical, and Ballad are new to the US game. I wish we could’ve kept that one too though…
There could be more differences, but those are the ones I know off the top of my head (minus the obvious they speak Japanese :P)
I also have seen a lot of people complaining on pronunciation, but you can at least try and get it to pronounce right by clicking the button that looks like “volume” next to the option to put it in how you want to say it–it’s how I got them to say Nike correctly (They kept trying to like Nigh-key, but I spelled it Knee-kay with the option so they’d say it correctly).
Moving back onto actually playing, one of the new favors I ran into is John and Mimi both lost items. I went around to Miis who had Problems and Luigi actually found John’s. He was super happy to get it back:
Meanwhile, Subaru found Mimi’s:
Even though most things weren’t going on today, Tomodachi Quest was still ready to go again–it’s still rather hit or miss how I do:
Meanwhile, Jennifer, Tomoyo, and Tom Trent were hanging out at Tomoyo’s:
Sewing machine experiments continued, but still not much luck:
Also, Space Interior unlocked!
5,000 Dollars… it’ll be a while.
And more hair dye so Tomoyo’s hair is now Dark Greyish Purple:
Carlos took a picture of Brock and Mamoru at Mamoru’s place…
…Though, it does kind of look like Mamoru is about to kick him >>
The fountain is one of my favorite places.
And I could watch her play with Doggys forever:
Things were back to normal the next day with updates happening properly. One thing I’ve found interesting is I seem to still keep finding new things between the news reports:
And smaller things like suddenly getting a bonus gift when buying from the Morning Market.
Unfortunately, there was nothing really neat for sale today :( I did unlock the final Special Interior for getting Jennifer to level 30 though:
I’m not sure what I’d ever use it for. It costs 20,000 dollars.
But I did manage to solve 400 problems:
And dye Misora’s hair:
Just Ragna, Solo, and Rose to go. And maybe Rei too.
…I really should probably stop moving in Miis… but it’s so much fun T~T
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 pre-ordering it!
Shiny things and Friends
I love the Interior Shop. The interiors are just incredibly well-made:
Of course, those are also much more expensive! (Disco is 1,000 dollars while Prehistoric is 3,000 dollars). The simple ones are still pretty nice.
Today, I ended up filling some requests for things people wanted to see such as the song from the Tomodachi Nintendo Direct (WHICH IS AMAZING AND SHOULD BE WATCHED IF YOU HAVEN’T YET! Not enough words for how excited that Direct made me):
As you can see, it still sounds pretty much the same (ignoring that I have more girls and 1 more person than the official video). The first song has a chance from Bounty Hunter to Sailor Senshi as I do not have Samus in my game and it’s Sailor Moon’s 20th Anniversary celebration is still going and thus, Usagi got the namedrop :P The second version does feature no word changes however.
Meanwhile, Kirby entered a Stretchy Face Challenge…
Wow, Kirby.
And even married couples can fight:
While Zero apologized, Jennifer was still pretty upset.
Also, more sewing machine fun!:
…Maybe I’ll try asking Daisy again next time:
or not. Jennifer’s attempt:
If only it had sleeves… T__T
And watching Miis play with Dogs = my favorite thing:
We also unlocked a new ranking:
Anyway, this will probably be the last “daily” entry (there will still be entries, just not every day!), but you can always keep an eye on Twitter for random screens/commentary too
Note: I received the game early from Nintendo. Thank you, Nintendo! :D
Money goes so fast…
After buying some Butter Cookies at the Morning Market, I noticed an Event happening at the Cafe–Mamoru and Brock were chatting.
I was happy to see more people wanting to make friends. I’d love if those popped up more–relationship prompts seem rather slow in the game to me. Of course, sometimes it’s patching fights up too:
…why can’t you just make something cute? T___T
At least I finally got to fix Ami’s hair color!
Livius is next and then I think that’s it. Well, possibly lighter blonde hair for Luna and Rose too. And I guess I should do Misora’s hair as well. Plus can look into making Tomoyo’s Dark Purple/Grey. And pure white for Solo and Ragna. So… 7 Hair Dyes to go T~T
Speaking of things I only need so much more of…
Pop: 6/7
Opera: 6/7
Ballad: 6/7
Rap: 6/7
Techno: 6/7
Metal: 6/7
Musical: Done!
Rock & Roll: Done!
Apparently it was a fighty day though:
Thankfully, they were able to make up as well.
In my effort to try and get more songs, I decided to work on leveling up. Zero took these pictures with the Disposable Camera of Jennifer, Hershel, Kirby, and Jade at the fountain:
And Makoto, Jigglypuff, and Peach at the Cafe:
I managed to give him Pop and Ballad so just one more for Ballad now! Meanwhile, I finished Pop and then managed to get someone else leveled for Ballad (SO BEAUTIFUL). Opera, Rap, Techno, and Metal left @-@
With a few more gifts, I managed to pull Opera as well, but I don’t have nearly enough to attempt the last 3 anytime soon.
Soon, I hit 200 Mii Problems solved!
Yay :D …I didn’t get a Bronze trophy :(
After helping Sakura and Hershel make up, I received another Hair Spray!
Livius was next :D
I love checking in on their house:
I wish you could customize it.
Syaoran had a weird dream during his nap–now I’ve actually seen them all!:
This one uses the inside Camera–more or less outside the window is whatever your camera is looking at. Apparently I’m terrifying :(
I also played more Tomodachi Quest:
Despite 2 party members falling we did it and walked away with some Caviar :D
Meanwhile, Mako, Setsuna, and Peach were chatting in the Cafe.
I then went and bugged Jennifer and Zero at their house again to test the Frying Pan with Zero for fun and since he still has to learn some songs.
After, I managed to get enough Miis for the full Techno performance. I then noticed that the Event in the Park changed to a photo shoot? Curiously, I checked.
To my surprise, they actually took a photo of me… or well tried to–I have my 3DS on the Kid Icarus stand so… enjoy my forehead I guess.
I also decided to give Jigglypuff a Sewing Machine to see what she might make..:
Hmm…. still not a cute dress though T~T
Daisy’s Sewing Machine attempt:
Oooo. Not completely fond of the top but still cute T~T
Finally, Metal and Rap! Which concludes all full group performances :D Ballad is definitely my favorite both alone and with a full group followed by Musical for both. Not sure which after.
After buying another Mystery Bag, I checked the news which let me know about Setsuna trying to eat a bunch of peanuts…
She sadly was unable to get the final bite in.
To end this, we had a new move-in today!:
Matt asked to join my game and so I popped him in :3 Hopefully he finds it nice here on Pink Sea Island! And remember, if anyone else I know wants to be added, just let me know :D
Note: I received the game early from Nintendo. Thank you, Nintendo! :D
Donations and Purchases
(I also gave her a Rent-a-Cat Coupon)
I then headed to the Fountain for Donations:
Look how full it ended up being:
We received a total of $202.20! :D
Hershel was selling Grapes in the Morning Market so I picked up a few.
After spending nearly all my money on various clothes, hats, and food… I noticed “Event” over the Cafe and stopped by to see Setsuna and Mako talking…
…about burgers?! Mako went on to say how stylish Ami was and Setsuna said she had a secret, but ended up not spilling it. She did say they should invite Rei to go with them next time though.
As for the Magic Show…
I don’t think this is what Luke had in mind when he became your assistant, Professor.
Apparently the 8th of each month is now Origami Crane Day.
I hope something actually happens on the 8th of next month.
I then gave Jennifer one of the new hats I got (though, I don’t think I’ll be keeping her in it) and gave her a Laptop which made me replace one of the items I gave her…:
I took away the Study Kit :( I guess I should’ve realized those 8 boxes exist for a reason. I’ll probably work on more Songs next then unless there’s an item I really want her to have more.
Speaking of hats, I also got Mimi a proper one:
Much better.
Unfortunately, Carlos made himself depressed…
He likes Jade, but she likes someone else.
I then stopped in at Jennifer’s where she was playing Wii U with Zero/Mark:
I gave her a Music Box:
So cute T~T I really wish they kept these items… And she got all sad when it ended so I winded it back up and just soooo cute T~T
Awww <3
And she made another outfit with a sewing machine:
I also finally got more hair dye so I was able to do Misty’s hair:
Meanwhile, away from the Apartments…:
And taken with the Disposable Camera:
Usagi, Setsuna, Mako, and Zelda on the Ferris Wheel.
Ran, Rei, Luna, Rachel, Dave, and… one other Mii relaxing in Ran’s room.
Mako, Peach, and Jigglypuff at the Cafe.
Zero, Sakura, and Hershel at the Fountain.
Setsuna and Mako playing Soccer.
I also gave Jennifer some money only for her to tell me how she needs $9,886 more to go to Outer Space… it’ll be a while. For now, I spent some time performing at the Concert Hall.
Plus, I got another Music Box:
This time, Jennifer was the center piece.
James introduced Misty to Victorique which was neat.
Mako also introduced Setsuna and Peach together in one of the videos I did.
And the news for the evening involved Akina saving Luke’s Teddy Bear:
And to end it, Jennifer made another outfit:
And my I totally got carried away with the Photo place Photos…
Note: I received the game early from Nintendo. Thank you, Nintendo! :D
Finally, remember, while I’m mostly adding fictional characters (even if some are based off real people), you can add whoever you want! Even real life celebrities:
Be sure to keep watching Nintendo’s Youtube for more videos with various sneak peaks :D And the official website!