Podcast Episode 25 - Breath of the Wild

Who's ready to get wild? I have once again recorded a podcast. This time it is about the brand new Zelda game Breath of the Wild. Enjoy it!

Party Game Sundays: Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival (Part 1)

When I first saw the announcement of Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival I thought that it could be cool. Mario Party is fun to play with a group of friends, and I really like Animal Crossing. To make things even better the game was supposed to be a free download, and you'd just need Animal Crossing Amiibo to play. Well, that's not what ended up happening. Nintendo decided it would be better to have consumers pay $60 for the game, and two Amiibo. I inexplicably bought Mario Party 10 for $60 so, why not this game where I get two Amiibo as well? I regret everything.

Man, this game is not good. It's not bad either. It might be the most mediocre video game I've ever experienced in my life. I hear you asking "Is it like Mario Party?" My answer to you is yes, it's exactly like Mario Party, except with all the parts where you interact with the game stripped out. It's essentially a digital board game. You roll dice, and that's really it.

CAN YOU FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!?

The quintessential mode in the game is called Board Game. In order to play you need at least two Animal Crossing Amiibo. If you only have two Amiibo you can still have up to four players, but the other two will have to be villagers. On top of that they'll also be at a distinct disadvantage. See, the entire point of Amiibo Festival is to have the most happiness points at the end of a month. You pick a month, and each time every player goes that counts as a day. Every single turn you have to tap your Amiibo to the game pad in order to roll the dice. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs a swift kick in the head, because it means you have to either pass the game pad around the room, or sit right on top of the other players.

Once you roll you get to choose where you want to move. Each time someone who is using an Amiibo rolls they get a single point of happiness, people using villagers don't, because they didn't bring an Amiibo to the Amiibo Festival. If you land on a pink space you'll see an event and get some happiness. If a money bag is on the same space you'll also earn money. Alternatively if the space is purple you'll lose happiness and money instead. There are also special event spaces that change every turn, which have you button through a lot of text for little to no payoff. So, yes you roll a die, and then read an event. Something happens and you arbitrarily gain or lose happiness and money. Sounds fun right!? It's not.

Digby's hype meter if off the charts!

To try and add more depth to the game it layers on a few other mechanics. There is a gyroid at each corner of the map, and if you reach them they'll put a stamp on your stamp card. This nets you a large amount of happiness, especially if you collect all four stamps. My personal favorite part of the game happens on Sundays. Joan the Boar comes and sells turnips, which allows you to play the stalk market. You are allowed to purchase turnips in groups of ten, and then sell them for a profit. Every space has a price that turnips sell for. Sometimes it's high and sometimes it's low. It's like the stock market...

This is all there is to the game. No excitement, just reading. I often just use all of my money to buy turnips and hope they sell high just so I can feel alive while playing. At the end of a game every 1,000 bells you have (Animal Crossing's currency) you get one happiness point. The happiness points tally up and then the game is over. If you have an Amiibo the happiness points are saved to it unlocking new outfits you can wear during the board game...*sigh*

Each Amiibo has six outfits to unlock.

There actually are mini-games, but they're totally separate from the board game mode. After playing through a board mini-games unlocked. In order to play them you need to use Amiibo cards. Thankfully the game comes with three so you can try them out. Each game is relatively similar and has you swiping the card on the game pad for a terrible random thing to occur. There are about 7 games and none of them are fun or take skill.

What's insane is that I played the board game mode three times. Each session takes over an hour, and nothing really even happens. On top of that the events started repeating IN MY FIRST SESSION! They didn't even write a wide variety of reasons for your character to get happy or sad! How is that possible!? What's even more insane is that after the third session I unlocked the ability to edit the game board. So now I can add buildings to the board to make different events happen. They didn't think that would be a good thing to have from the start? I have yet to see what the game is like with that new addition, but sadly I will find out. I have agreed to play the game once a month with the Sunday crew, so that's great.

This image looks so fun. Why isn't the game?

I will be back for a second part to let you know if the game gets any better with the addition of new event spaces. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it doesn't.

Game Time - November 2015

I played a lot of stuff in November, but didn't really complete as much as I want to. So now I'm stuck trying to beat 5 more games by the end of the year. Yes, that's right. I was able to cross one game off of my 6 game list in a mere 2 days. I liked Undertale so much that I beat it in 2 sittings! However, I won't be talking about that in here. I have some Undertale related stuff in the queue though, so look forward to that in the coming days. I promise it will be cool.

Oh yeah, I also beat Yo-Kai Watch!, which was interesting. I enjoyed myself quite a bit. Instead of talking about it here I recorded a podcast about it. It's the 10th episode, so check it out right here.

The reason we're here this month is to talk about the games I played, but didn't complete. Well, I guess you can't really complete Battlefront. I did only play it once though... First person shooters just aren't my thing. I'll play it again, but I have a ton of other stuff to do. I definitely didn't beat Yoshi's Wooly World or Fallout 4 though. I still have so much to do, so let's start this edition of Game Time!

Yoshi's Wooly World

I don't want to generalize here, but many modern video games have a lot of violent imagery. Are video games too violent for you? If they are then boy have I got the game for you! A GAME WHERE LITERALLY EVERYTHING IS MADE OF YARN AND MAKES YOU FEEL WARM AND FUZZY INSIDE!

In all seriousness though, have you seen gameplay of Yoshi's Wooly World? Everything in the game is made of yarn, sequins, buttons, and felt. It's the most twee video game conceivable by modern man. The visuals are astounding, but the gameplay isn't on the same level. It's okay, but nowhere near as tight as the original Yoshi's Island was. However, it's clear that Nintendo is going after a different audience with this product.

*SQUEEEE*

Good Feels, the developer behind this game also produced Kirby's Epic Yarn a few years ago. The issue I had with Kirby's Epic Yarn was that it was too easy. By the time I got halfway through the game it took all of my willpower just to stay awake. Wooly World isn't quite that easy, but it's challenge comes mostly from looking for hidden collectibles. This is something that a lot of recent Nintendo games have done to cater to both hardcore fans and those who are less into crazy challenging gameplay. It's a system that works, but it leaves me yearning for more.

As you may expect you control the lovable dinosaur Yoshi on a quest to rescue his friends from danger. It plays a lot like the original Yoshi's Island, but everything is a lot slower. You still shoot eggs (balls of yarn in this case) at enemies with a moving reticle, but there's never any urgency to it. You do have to hit things, but you can take your sweet time doing it.

This is real, I assure you.

To be fair to the game I'm only about halfway through the game, so it could get a lot more challenging in the later half, but I'm not expecting much of a change. I am definitely not finding every collectible though and I'm okay with that. In fact Wooly World may have too many collectibles in each level. To get 100% completion you need to find five hidden pieces of yarn, five flowers, twenty stamps, and have max health (20 HP) at the end of a level. For those of you keeping track that's fifty things per level. That's crazy, and super daunting. Everything is pretty well hidden, so I had to give up on my completionist nature on the third or fourth level to continue having fun with the game.

I am actually having fun with it, and the visuals consistently make me squeal in delight. I just wish that I could have a cute Yoshi video game and a challenge at the same time. Sadly it doesn't seem like Nintendo is going to be offering that to me any time soon.

Star Wars Battlefront

Guys, I don't like first person shooters. That means that I only played Battlefront the first day I got it and pretty much had my fill. I might try it out a few more times, but I just don't have a whole lot of fun playing competitive first person shooters. I don't think they're bad or anything, they're just not for me.

With that said I think that Battlefront is a technical marvel. There are all kinds of arguments about the season pass being priced at $50 dollars and whether or not there is a lack of content in the game, but I think everyone needs to stop and look at the game. Literally just look at it, and I guess listen while they're at it. It's ridiculous how authentic every battle feels.

It's super fun to take these down.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people who watched Star Wars as a kid wondered what it would be like to battle on the snow planet of Hoth. Battlefront is the closest you're going to get to experiencing that battle. The visuals are top notch, and the sound design is superb. DICE is known for their excellent sound design in Battlefield games, but with Battlefront they turned it up to eleven.

It's not just Hoth though. Every battle looks and sounds awesome. You spawn quickly and run out into the fray, and it feels like an accurate representation. The blasters sound just like they do in the movies as their shots whiz by your character's head and explode behind you. Everything is chaotic in a way that feels accurate to the Star Wars universe and I think that's important. This game is and always was supposed to be Star Wars fan service. DICE delivered on that.

I don't like playing as Luke.

Yes, you can complain about a lack of maps, and sometimes unbalanced matches, but in the end DICE made an authentic Star Wars Game. It plays well, and it's one of the best Star Wars games out there. There are a lot of Star Wars games out there, but a vast majority of them are not quality products. If this is the benchmark for quality in new Star Wars games going forward I will buy every single one of them without hesitation.

Fallout 4

Every single time I play this game my feelings about it change drastically. Sometimes I lose myself for hours in the post apocalyptic wasteland, and others I want to throw my controller at the wall. I thought Fallout 3 was okay, which is apparently at odds with the thoughts of everyone else on the planet. I think Fallout is an okay franchise, but I'd much rather play The Elder Scrolls. To the surprise of no one Fallout 4 is just a whole lot more of Fallout 3 on new platforms with newer graphics. This is why I am often unable to deal with how janky the game is. It's largely more of the same. Sometimes to a fault. The game takes a little time to explain to you the games new systems, but leaves you out to dry with all of the old ones. It doesn't even explain how to get into VATS or what it does. Seriously? People who didn't play Fallout 3 will pick this one up and have no idea what the hell is going on.

It's one thing when an NPC doesn't face you when talking, or when they hover off of the ground a little bit. It's a completely different thing when the game crashes every time you try to leave a building, or has the frame rate drop to the single digits if more than three enemies try to fight you inside of a building. Yes, I realize that these things will most likely be fixed in later patches, but that probably won't make me feel any different about the game. There are only so many hours of looking inside of ravaged buildings for crappy items I have in me before I don't care any more.

Who likes the color brown!?

As I said initially there are times I love playing Fallout 4. The companions are mostly written well and the side quests I've stumbled upon have been pretty cool as well. I've only done a few steps in the main quest line though, and I don't think it could get much more boring. That tends to be standard fare with Bethesda RPGs though, the best writing is almost always found outside of the main quest. All you're doing is trying to find your kidnapped son, who probably doesn't even remember who you are.

I will say that the gun-play is a lot better this time around. In Fallout 3 VATS was a necessity, because even if you were pointing the barrel of a shotgun right at someones head it could still miss due to your stats. In Fallout 4 if you have someone in your sights your bullet will hit. VATS is still handy though, because you can get perks and things to do more damage with it. Bethesda also took the time to overhaul the leveling system so that there is no longer a cap. Instead now every level you get a single skill point, which you can put into one of your stats, or a perk. It makes things a lot simpler for leveling.

There are tons of perks to choose from. I think you need to be over level 200 to get them all.

I don't really know what to say about this game. If you liked Fallout 3, you'll like this too. You roam around the post apocalyptic Boston area and ransack buildings while shooting stuff. Sometimes you find cool loot, but most of the time it's worthless. I want to be super excited about this, but when other super polished open world games like The Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid V came out in 2015 I just can't give Fallout a free pass.

GOTY

I initially thought that 2015 wasn't a very good year for games. However after looking at the list of games I completed that came out this year I realized that I was 100% wrong! So many amazing games came out this year, and I haven't even completed a bunch of the ones I want to. As I said before I still have five more games I want to complete before the year is over. Even without those five games I'm having a hell of a time figuring out what my list is going to be.

The main issue I'm having is that I don't know what my GOTY actually is. Up until recently I was sure it was The Witcher 3, but as of right now I'm considering something else.... I don't want to get too much into it. As always there will be a written list and podcast to let the world know what my top ten games of the year are. In fact, I may even have multiple podcasts where I talk to my friends about what their favorite games of 2015 are.

There's a whole lot for me to get done by January 1st. I have a whole lot in the pipe. I'm going to start up Party Game Sundays again, so I need to write one of those by this coming Sunday. I'm going to try and record an Undertale Podcast, and write up something special involving it. I don't want to say what it is in case I don't get it done! I also am theoretically going to record two or tree GOTY podcasts. *sigh* I probably shouldn't have said any of this here, because now I'll feel obligated to get it all done...

See you guys next month!

End of the Year Rush

I had the past three days off, and in those three days I expected to play a lot more video games than I did. This means that I essentially have the month of December to beat six more games, which is a very unrealistic goal that I hope to complete. This is the kind of thing that shouldn't matter at all, but I really enjoy making game of the year lists. I like looking back on the games that came out in a year and seeing how I felt about all of them. It's made even harder by the fact that I tell myself I have to complete a game in order to put it on my list. This doesn't mean I have to 100% the game, it just means that I have to see the narrative or single player portion through to its completion and see the credits. This isn't possible in everything, so it's definitely a case by case basis.

There is only one more game coming out this year that I will be playing, so five of the six games I hope to beat I already have in my possession. I will now rank them starting with the one that I'm most likely to complete.

1. Splatoon (Wii-U)
2.Life is Strange (PS4)
3. Undertale (PC)
4. Yoshi's Wooly World (Wii-U)
5. Fallout 4 (PS4)
6. Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii-U)

Realistically I will probably only finish three of these games before the year is over. If I only beat one of these though, I want it to be Splatoon. For starters the single player is super short, and I'm already over halfway through it. The reason I want to beat it so badly is because I honestly think that it deserves a spot on my top ten list for the year. Nintendo took a huge risk and it paid off.

Life is Strange is feasible as well. It's a 5 episode game where each episode is approximately 2-3 hours long. I have already completed the first two chapters, so I have rougly 6-9 hours left to go. If I actually motivate myself to play it on my next day off I can definitely beat it!

Update: Undertale is amazing. Everyone should play it!
Then we have Undertale. I've seen a lot of people speak highly of this PC indie title, but I have yet to start it. I've heard that it takes around 5 hours to complete, so I hope I can get around to starting it. This is one of those games that I want to try and complete in a single sitting, so I need to block off some time to do so.

I made a huge mistake and purchased Yoshi's Wooly World the other day. I love the game, but I don't think I should have bought it when I did. So far I've beaten 2 out of the 5 worlds in the game, and have had a lot of fun with it. I mean come on, Yoshi is literally made of wool. It makes my heart feel all warm and fuzzy, but I think all the other games on this list are more important in the grand scheme of 2015.

This is where the list makes me want to break down and cry. The main story of Fallout 4 is relatively short, but I have a serious problem when it comes to games like this. I always do as much of the side content as possible. In a Bethesda game like Fallout that is actually a majority of the game, and it's where all the cool stuff happens. When I sit down to play Fallout I intend to main-line the story, but end up running around doing everything else for like six hours. As much as I want to beat the game, I'd rather keep doing all of the side content.

Finally I have Xenoblade Chronicles X. It comes out on December 4th, and there is no way I'm going to complete it. The game is so dense that I can't even begin to fathom how much content is in it. It has MMO style combat like the previous Xenoblade, but takes it into a gigantic open world with a million other systems layered on top. Watching gameplay videos of this game makes me want to cry as someone who would like to beat it before the year it through. This may be the one game I allow myself to put on a top ten list without having completed it. Seriously, it takes like 30 hours to get a robot, which is pictured on the games case! If I don't know how I feel about the game after that long, then its definitely not one of the best games of the year.

So there you have it. This is my goal for the rest of the year. I don't know how many I'll get to, but I'm going to try my damnedest!

Memorable Melodies - Lookin' Fresh from Splatoon

Song: Lookin' Fresh

Game Splatoon

Composer: Toru Minegishi

It's getting close to the end of the year, which has me thinking about all of the games that came out in 2015. As I try to whittle the games I've played down to a top ten list Splatoon keeps popping into my mind. I remember everyone getting excited about it when it was first announced, but I couldn't have cared less at the time.

After playing Splatoon I totally changed my mind. Nintendo took a risk, which they normally don't do. Splatoon is a fresh and friendly take on third person shooters. Shooting ink everywhere is a blast and the game truly feels unique. 

What's even better to me is that the game is overflowing with style. The inklings you play as are way into fashion, and all of the clothing is as hip as it can be. To match the hip and colorful style of the characters the soundtrack of Splatoon sounds like it came from an early Gorillaz album. It's got some sick hip-hop beats. My personal favorite is the shop music. There are four shops, and the song gets remixed slightly in each one. 

I'm here to tell you that the jam playing in the shoe store is the freshest track I've ever heard in a Nintendo game. Seriously, just check it out. In my mind this song and the style of Splatoon are synonymous. 

I hope that the success of this game means that Nintendo will be more willing to go outside of their comfort zone in the future. 

Game Time - September 2015

September was a month of many releases, but I focused my time on three very good ones.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain kicked off the month of the 1st. Honestly this is where I spent almost all of my gaming time for the month. I completed the story, and then proceeded to do every single side mission available in the game. When all was said and done I clocked in close to 70 hours, which is pretty crazy.

Then on the 11th Super Mario Maker came out. Initially I was going back and forth on my decision to buy it. In the end I decided that Mario was the first video game I ever played and I needed to buy it even if I wouldn't play it much. Just as I suspected I haven't played it a whole bunch, but it's still a super cool game.

At the very tail end of the month on the 29th the spectacular rhythm game Persona 4: Dancing All Night graced the Vita with its presence Do you like Persona 4? Do you like dope jams and hot remixes? If so, then this is the game for you! It has all of those things!

This month was action packed. and October is even more action packed! I need to mentally prep myself, so it's time to get all my thoughts on these games so I can fill my head with brand new thoughts! It's Game Time!

Super Mario Maker

I tend to not get much play time out of games that are based around me as a player creating content, and Super Mario Maker is no different. That doesn't mean it's a good game, it just means that it isn't necessarily for me. Sure I can play other people's levels, but that only gives me so much satisfaction. I say Super Mario Maker isn't exactly a game for me, but it is amazing. I think Nintendo has done an amazing thing with this game, and I hope they continue down this path.

People make Super Mario ROM hacks all the time on the Internet. People have gotten so good at Mario that they need something else much harder to conquer. That's something that has been made much easier with the tools available in Super Mario Maker. You can use physics sets, mechanics, and backgrounds from original Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. U. Each plays a bit differently, and obviously looks different. What's amazing is that Nintendo didn't really skimp on the tools. There are so many options for you to make a level, and they're super intuitive. In fact, I'd say this game is the first proper use of the Wii-U's touch pad.

Oh god! So many Wigglers!

When making a level you start with a blank slate that's laid out in front of you in a grid. Each thing you can place takes up one square. You just tap the thing you want to put in the level and drag it to where you want it. It's that simple. Anyone could theoretically make a Super Mario Maker level and that's super cool. It's even better that it has everything you know and love, but the ability to make it ten times more crazy. Take a Bullet Bill launcher for example. They're simple enough. All they do is shoot in a straight line. If you pick one up and shake it around though things get super crazy. The launcher then turns red, and the Bullet Bills home in on the player. That's nuts! You can do this kind of thing for many of the place-able blocks in the game. It adds a cool new element while keeping everything long time players are used to.

My issue with the game comes down to the fact that even though it's easy to make a level a lot of the levels in the game aren't good. Very few people are out there making cool levels that could be in an actual Mario Game. Most levels have so much shit in them you just have to pray that the randomness of the level is on your side and you can actually make it through. Then there are the levels that are actually cool, but they're so hard that you have to try them 800 times before you fully understand what to do. I just want to chill and see cool designs. I don't want to have to rage every single level I'm playing. Once again this is just a fault for me. I know tons of people out there like the impossible challenge, but that's not what I come to a lot of games for, especially Mario. It's even more frustrating to me that the game has become so prolific on Twitch. Whenever I watch anyone play it's them playing the same level for hours on end, which just really sucks.

Most people don't understand that sometimes less is more...

I actually think the game is a masterpiece. The creation tools are very deep, yet so simple to pick up. Even if I don't see a lot of levels I like, there are tons of new ones being created every day. Most of them are super cool and complex and they'll only get better as time does on.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is ridiculous in almost every way. It cost $80 million dollars to make and even then, the final mission was cut from the game. The cost and time it took to make it paid off though, because it is unlike anything to come before it, and may be one of the greatest action games ever made. I don't say this kind of thing lightly, and I sincerely mean it. The Phantom Pain comes together in a way that I never would have expected. It plays well, tells an interesting story, and has more emergent gameplay than almost any other video game. The options for how you can approach every situation are almost limitless. In most games you think of a cool thing to try, and then it doesn't work. In the Phantom Pain I had almost no situations like that. If you can think of something to try, it almost always will work.

At first I didn't know what to make of this game. It has Metal Gear in the title, but it doesn't necessarily feel like a Metal Gear game at first. Metal Gear Solid has always been a third person stealth game, which is loaded to the brim with super long cutscenes and a severely convoluted plot. People often criticize the franchise for having more of the player watching than actually playing. The Phantom Pain takes a different approach in that it's almost all gameplay. Cinematics happen very few and far between. Near the end they happen much more frequently, but you have to play a lot of the game to get to that point. I personally had no problem with that.

You can Fulton sheep. YOU CAN FULTON SHEEP!

It's odd, because recently I've been hating most open world games. They have bad quest writing with little rewards, or nothing to actually do in the open world. The Witcher 3 made me rejoice when it had meaningful quests, and in the Phantom Pain there's a lot to do and it's all fun. Seriously, I did all 157 side missions. 157! That's a whole lot of Metal Gear. Most of the side missions involve just killing people, or extracting certain things, but you can approach it in so many ways that it's incredible. For example in most stealth games, previous Metal Gear games included, once you got caught sneaking around you were screwed. That is no longer the case. If you want to go ham and mow down everyone in your patch that's totally viable. If you want to try to hang around and beat everyone with your fists, that works too. Why not call in a supply drop of a jeep and ride off into the sunset? The world is your oyster. It makes even mundane mission tasks, because you never know what's going to happen.

The way the open world works is bananas as well. Everything is intertwined in a way that I never thought possible in an open world game. It actually reacts to your play style. So if you always go for head shots, then enemies will eventually be wearing way more helmets. To then counteract that you can send your recruited soldiers to cut off the helmet supply chain. I just think that it's crazy that other enemies in the world are aware of your actions. If you attack an outpost and someone escapes, then they will alert other bases in the area. Those bases will then ready themselves for Big Boss, just in case he comes. There are also supply routes between each outpost, so if someone drives through and sees everyone dead, they'll turn around and alert others. It's super intricate.

The Phantom Pain enters the pantheon of games that let you pass time by smoking!

The basic gameplay of The Phantom Pain feels better than its predecessors. In comparison, it feels like a modern game should. It has tight and intuitive controls. This makes it fun to do everything. It's just fun to go around in the world and cause trouble. It's even better to put people to sleep and then balloon them away to your base. Seriously, when you put soldiers to sleep you can Fulton them away to Mother Base, where their stats will then contribute to your base and make it so you can develop more tools to use in the open world. It's essentially like Pokemon, but with tons of soldiers. This mechanic was in the PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker as well, but it's implemented better here.

I can't praise this game enough. I came into the game expecting to not like it. I'm one of the crazy people who really liked watching the insanity play out in cutscenes of the previous games. It took me a while to adjust to the new style of the game, but in the end I think it paid off. The game is actually much better than it would have been as a cinematic fest. Essentially all the out of control silliness was transplanted from the cutscenes to the gameplay itself, and that's really cool. The Phantom Pain is definitely a game I think will be on a lot of people's game of the year list, mine included.

Persona 4: Dancing All Night

I like Persona, and I like rhythm games, so I had to get Persona 4: Dancing All night. The game consists of Persona 4 characters dancing to the smooth sounds of remixed Persona 4 music. I love Persona 4 music, so to hear it remixed was kind of cool. The issue I have with it is that it all kind of devolves into dubstep, which gets tiring after a while. The gameplay is fun and engaging enough to make up for that though.

When playing a song a character will be dancing around on the screen. In a frame around them in a circle there are 6 button prompts. On the left there is up, left, and down on the d-pad. On the right side there is triangle, circle, and x. Circles will start to fly out of the center of the screen, and you have to push the corresponding button of wherever it goes to. Most of the time you'll just be pushing the button in time with the beat, but sometimes you'll have to hold the button, or push two at the same time. There is also another mechanic that has circles emanate from the center of the screen. The game wants you to flick one of the analog sticks when it reaches the circle all of the button prompts are displayed on. This means that you have to take your hands off of the buttons to flick a stick, which is terrible. It's a good thing the game lets you turn on the ability to push L or R instead. It feels much more natural that way, and I don't get why it isn't the default. It doesn't necessarily matter though, because those button presses are optional/ You only need them to get a higher score. Man, saying all of that makes me sound like a crazy person.

P4D is pretty much the embodiment of fan service.

The rhythm game part is why most people will come to the game, but there is also a story mode. I could not stand it. I beat it in about 6 hours, and got very little enjoyment out of it. It's more or less a visual novel with no interaction. Games like Phoenix Wright and Danganronpa give players meaningful choice, or have them interact with the game in some way. Like in Phoenix Wright you collect evidence and present it at the right time. In P4D you literally read and make choices that don't matter one iota. Eventually you'll get a break from the text and be allowed to play the actual game. What sucks is that it's super well written, but there's so much text it feels like a slog.

Rise took a break from being an idol in Persona 4, but this game marks her return to the spotlight. She asked the protagonist Yu, and the rest of the investigation team to be her backup dancers for her special return performance. They agree, and begin to practice dancing. It's all a little too wordy to explain, but they end up getting wrapped up in another mysterious world filled with shadows. In the world they are not allowed to use acts of aggression, so to defeat their enemies they have to dance super hard, so that the enemies understand their emotions. I'm not even kidding. It sounds stupid, and that's because it pretty much is. I'm not lying when I say it's all well written, it's just that I don't really want to read for an hour before I actually get to play the rhythm game I paid for.

You get to read text like this for around 6 hours.

Persona 4 became extremely popular, which can easily be seen by the fact that it was spun off into a fighting game franchise and a freaking dancing themed rhythm game. I never would have imagined that the series could have reached such a critical mass. I think that the developers tried a little too hard with the story though. Sure, Persona is lauded for its great story telling and characters, but do we really need that in a rhythm game? This is the 4th game featuring these characters. I already know them, so why can't I get enjoyment out of playing 30+ remixes and watching their sweet dance animations? It all just feels a little forced and unnecessary, which is a shame, because the core gameplay is so good. It's easy enough to pick up, but super hard to master. As all rhythm games should be!

The Time Has Come

There's a time every fall when a game I want so bad it hurts gets released. That is happening this coming Tuesday. Finally, Disgaea 5 will be making its way to the U.S. I can finally experience the magical grind fest that makes me feel so good on the PS4. Strategy RPGs are my jam, and Disgaea combines that with my love of grinding. The combination is quite deadly for me, because I get in just a bit too deep. My addiction to the game will be strong, but this time I get to share it with the world! That's right, I will be streaming my playthrough of Disgaea 5, and I couldn't be more excited about it.

What's even crazier is that Rock Band 4 comes out the same day. It's the year 2015, and plastic instruments are making their glorious return!

You know it's going to be a good month when my two greatest loves in video games come out on the same day! I am so ready to immerse myself in a strategy RPG and a rhythm game at the same time. Get ready to hear all about both games in the next edition of Game Time.

Game Time - May 2015

This month I played two colorful happy Nintendo games and The Witcher 3, which has one of the most depressing and dark worlds I've ever seen. It was a confusing month, but I loved everything I played!

I'll bookend the post with Nintendo, with some sweet Witcher talk in the middle. Let's get right into it. It's game time!

Puzzles & Dragons Super Mario Bros. Edition

Man, I'm terrible at puzzles and Dragons. I can match three all day, but when I actually need to combo multiple matches together I'm toast. The point I'm at in this game sucks, because I actually have to do that! See, I'm fighting Thwomps, and if I don't kill them in four turns I due instantly! It sucks extra, because I only get three continues! I've died on this stage at least ten times, and can't seem to do anything about it. Despite that, I still think the game is pretty fun. It's essentially the exact same game as Puzzles & Dragons, but you have Mario characters instead.

For those who don't know Puzzles & Dragons is an insanely popular free to play mobile game in Japan. It makes a staggering amount of money every day. It's available in most other languages as well. I played it for a but, but had to stop, because the monsters I had weren't good enough and I didn't really feel like dropping any money into it. The goal is to match three, except the things you're matching are elements. You create a team of five characters and a helper in order to tackle a level. Each character will have an element associated with them, so when you match that element they will attack. Each character has an attack, health, and recovery stat. As you play and defeat enemies your characters will level up and get stronger.

Man, I don't have any Yoshis yet....

In normal Puzzles & Dragons feeding unneeded characters to the ones you use is one of the best ways to get experience, and it often needed to help them evolve into stronger forms. The Mario edition differs from that, because feeding your characters doesn't get them a whole lot of experience. They also will evolve by being fed items you can find as drops during the stages. All around it's a much more kid friendly version of Puzzles & Dragons, because up until the point I'm at is a very easy game. It helps that since it's a full retail game there are no bullshit mechanics keeping you from getting stronger either. Normal Puzzles & Dragons has a stamina mechanic, so you can only play so much in any given session.

This cartridge also has Puzzles & Dragons Z in it as well. I haven't played it yet, but I look forward to it. It's basically a Puzzles & Dragons RPG, so it has the same monsters as the mobile game, but without all the stupid free to play elements. I decided to play the Mario edition first, because it's supposed to be easier. Right now I'm not buying into that though, because I want to take my 3DS and smash it into a billion pieces. I should probably get better at the game!

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

For the first hour or so I really didn't like The Witcher 3. The movement felt awkward, and I didn't understand the combat. After an hour or so, something clicked in my brain and now I am absolutely in love with the game and its world! Everything is so dark and miserable, it's great! Seriously though, since the world is so dark and disturbing it makes everything a lot more interesting.

In case the name wasn't a big enough clue, you play as a Witcher. There are a few Witcher's in the game, but you specifically play as Geralt of Rivia. I had not played the previous two games in the franchise so it took me a bit to get up to speed on exactly who Geralt is and what's so special about him. Witcher's are highly trained humans who undergo a ritual to become infertile mutants. The trade-off is that they have heightened strength and reflexes. The entire goal of a Witcher is to kill monsters for money. Their emotions are extremely nullified, so they rarely show any kind of emotion, which helps with the whole heartless mercenary thing. Turns out most people don't like Witchers, and see them as money grubbing mutants. However, people will still contract them, because there are beasts that need to be taken care of.

Geralt is the definition of badass.

In this game though, the monster killing is only a secondary distraction. The main quest involves Geralt looking for his adopted daughter Ciri, who is being chased down by the Wild Hunt. I'm still not quite sure what the Hunt is yet. They seem like a crazy group of skeleton men who can fly and make everything around them turn into ice and die. They're pretty scary, so I can see why Geralt wants to save Ciri from them.

This is the first entry in the series that is truly open world, and for the first time in a long time I'm enjoying it. The world is insanely large and there are icons everywhere on the map. There is literally something to do around every corner and it's almost all worthwhile. You don't necessarily get good items from everything, but there will at least be some kind of story. The thing this game has that most other games don't is good writing. Almost every single quest I've come across has intrigued me. Everything has a purpose, or at least it seems to have a purpose.

The map in this game is huge.

Traversing the world takes a while to get used to. Geralt has an odd momentum to his movement, so he takes a while to get going and to stop. It's something I've seen a lot of people complaining about, but after the first hour of the game I have absolutely no issue with it now. It helps that there isn't any kind of precise platforming. You just have to get from place to place, Combat is relatively easy to control as well, but it can get pretty complicated if you want it to. Once you get close enough to an enemy you're essentially locked into combat and will begin to strafe around. Square will unleash a quick attack, and triangle will do a strong attack. Geralt also has magic known as signs available to him. I only use about two of them, but they all have uses. He can create a shield. shoot fire, and control minds. I'm playing on the medium difficulty, so I can get by with just kind of hammering on the quick attack button and blocking occasionally. On higher difficulties that's completely different though.

The game really wants you to prepare before you fight its bigger monsters. Like I said, I don't really have to, but I can see why you would want to. There's a whole alchemy system you can brew potions with that I've barely touched. You can make everything from healing potions to oils you can coat your blades with so that you can hurt ghosts better. Every monster will be weak to a specific sign and have some super specific way to defeat it easier. I've had myself some ten to fifteen minute battles, because I didn't properly prepare. That meant that I was doing way less damage than I could have been.

There are all kinds of horrifying monsters in The Witcher 3.

The Witcher 3 is a huge game, and I'm completely engrossed in its world. I can't reiterate enough just how terrible dark it is. One of the monsters in it is literally a miscarried baby. What's interesting is that it's just about Geralt and how he interacts with the world. There isn't necessarily a world ending event that's going to be taking place. Sure, you're trying to save Ciri but she can take care of herself. It's totally believable that Geralt could do all kinds of side stuff while looking for Ciri. I've been playing for like forty hours and I feel like I'm not close to finished. I seriously can't recommend this game enough!!

Splatoon

In my heart I will always love Nintendo, but for the past few years I've been questioning everything they do. They rarely ever take risk and if they do, then they do it halfheartedly. That all changed when they released Splatoon though. Nintendo launched a new franchise on their home console, and to top if off it's a fun online multiplayer shooter! Never in my entire life did I think that I would type a sentence like that. Never!

When I first saw Splatoon a few years ago I thought that it looked stupid. I'll be honest, I bought it thinking that I would hate it. I personally don't really like shooters, but I bought it to support any new IP Nintendo is willing to make. They hadn't made a new franchise on consoles since Pikmin for gods sake! Much to my surprise I started to play Splatoon and couldn't put it down for hours. A friend and I switched off every match and had an absolute blast.

Splatoon just looks like a fun time!

In Splatoon you play as an Inkling, which is a humanoid squid teenager. You get to deck them out in fresh clothing and shoot ink. At the beginning of a match you are randomly put with three other people on a team of four. The goal is to paint the stage your color. At the end of the match whichever team has more of their color on the map wins. It's so simple, but everything about it is satisfying. Nintendo must have focus tested the living hell out of this game. The movement, gun-play, stages, and match time all feel near perfect. Each match is only a few minutes long, so it never wears out its welcome. All the guns feel good, and the physics on the ink are great. You can turn your Inkling into their squid form and swim through your own ink at a decent clip, which just feels right.

As you level up by completing matches you can buy more clothing, and new guns. Clothing has abilities that will help you out a little bit, but nothing overpowered. Nintendo seems to be very keen on the idea that everyone is on the same level. They only have five maps in the game right now, because they claim the game is more fun when everyone knows what's going on. Whether or not that's true remains to be seen. The weapons are going to be changing your experience the most. There are tons of guns that shoot ink at a decent clip, and then there are paint rollers that cover a large area quickly, but you don't have any range.

The paint roller is a very powerful weapon.

This past Monday on June 1st Nintendo unlocked the ranked mode, which is different from the regular battle mode. It has you trying to control specific points on the map. My only issue with it is that I don't have fun while playing it. If you lose, then you get absolutely no reward. It isn't helped by the fact that it has a really severe rubberbanding technique. It's way more about getting kills once you've taken over the point, which goes against everything I think is fun about the game. The good thing is that you can just play regular battle if you want, but it has me worried about future mode that the game will introduce. It's cool that the two modes are so vastly different in what you need to do to succeed.

Splatoon has style. It reminds me a lot of Jet Set Radio, which is always welcome. I've been trying to play it once a day, which is normally something I don't really do. I am still having trouble comprehending the fact that Nintendo took a risk on this franchise. I really wish that other companies would follow suit, because this console generation needs something other than sequels to already established franchises.

All Aboard the E3 Hype Train!

Can you hear that sound in the distance? That's right, it's the E3 hype train! In just about two weeks E3 2015 will be upon us and I couldn't possibly be more excited. There have been very few leaks so far, so either this year is going to be super lame, or there are going to be a ton of surprises. I'm really hoping we get a ton of surprises, Keep your eyes on the blog, because I'll probably be posting some stuff during E3.

Other than that I'll be ready with another edition at the end of June!

Party Game Sundays: Mario Party 10 (Part 2)

Man, it's been a super long time since I wrote the first part of this. Sadly the Party Game Sunday train did not keep rolling along as quickly as I had expected. For many weeks since I wrote about Mario Party 10 there have only been three of us, which wouldn't have been very conducive to playing Bowser Party. However, at long last we wrangled a fourth person in and I was finally able to collect the data I needed in order to conclusively say that Mario Party 10 is a super average game!

That's right, Mario Party 10 is average at best. It's not bad, it's not great, it's just super average. With that said I do think that Bowser Party is the best mode in the game, which is what I had been hearing from most people. Since we've already discussed the intricacies of the regular party mode I'm here to tell you all about how cool Bowser Mode is.

Maybe the next game in the series should be called Bowser Party.

Bowser Party is a refreshing change of pace from the regular Mario Party formula. Yes, something in Mario Party is refreshing. You can play with up to five players in this fun new mode. One person plays as Bowser and they use the Wii-U Gamepad. The other four players, or in our case three, all use Wii-remotes. This means that one person theoretically gets to have more fun, because they get to screw over all the other players in order to achieve victory. It's a really solid role reversal.

As Bowser the goal is to take everyone else out of the game. So the regular players take turns rolling the die as they normally do. They're working together to get as far away from Bowser as they can. Once their turn is over Bowser gets to roll three dice. If he catches up with the other players, then a Bowser mini-game will ensue. There are around 12 unique Bowser mini-games, which all involve Bowser trying to hurt the players. Each player starts off with a set amount of hearts, and once those hearts are gone they're out of the game. You can get extra hearts and revive downed players on the map, so no one is necessarily down for the count. The games are all actually pretty fun. My personal favorite is a game where Bowser tilts the Wii-U gamepad to control where pillars of fire go. The four regular players need to jump over and dodge as best they can, which can get pretty challenging. Almost all of the games have Bowser trying to hit people with things, but they're all different enough to stay interesting.

You do not want to get hit by Bowser!

In true Mario Party fashion there is a lot of rubberbanding. The regular players get extra hearts when they beat the boss at the halfway point of the stage, which is a huge help. Bowser on the other hand will be given extra dice to toss when his opponents get too far ahead. This makes it incredibly easy to catch up, which is frustrating for the regular players, but oh so sweet for the person who gets to play as Bowser. The most Mario Party thing ever happens at the very end of the stage though. If the four regular players make it to the end first then Bowser has to hide the party star inside one of three enemies. The player who's turn is is, must then select where they think it is. If the player guesses wrong, then they get sent back a bunch of spaces and are forced to try again, but with two enemies. It's infuriating that a new mode that is fun, ends up being concluded by random chance, but I guess that's just how Mario Party is!

For some reason you can't choose from all the maps, but you do have Mushroom Park, Whimsical Waters, and Chaos Castle. Each map has its own special features that make the stage feel different than it does in the regular party mode. For example, in Whimsical Waters the four regular players will get to pick from treasure chests at certain points in the stage. Some chests have nothing in them, while others have hearts. The player who is Bowser gets to draw "graffiti" on the chests, which is supposed to throw the others off. It's a cool mechanic.

Bowser can throw his enemies off by writing untrue statements on the screen.

So yes, I think Bowser Party is the best mode in Mario Party 10. As a whole I think that Mario Party 10 is an okay game. However, I definitely do not think that it is worth the full retail price of $50. It's especially not worth that if you don't have any friends to play it with. I can't think of anything more depressing than playing Mario Party alone. I definitely had a good time with my friends though, so I hope that this game gets some DLC maps and mini-games. In the few hours we played we saw literally everything the game had to offer, and it wasn't a whole lot...

Party Game Sundays: Mario Party 10 (Part 1)

Recently we've been taking a break from playing Party Games on Sundays, but today ushered in a new era of Party Gaming. We brought everything full circle and played the newest Mario Party release. I don't think I've ever talked about it here, but Party Game Sundays was initially started to play Mario Party.

One day we decided to play Mario Party, and then things spiraled out of control and we decided we had to play and own them all. Each week we would play another Mario Party game, which culminated with us playing all 9 on New Years Day of 2014. I never really liked Mario Party as a franchise, and I still don't. I do however recognize that it can be fun in the right scenario. 

Even though I dislike Mario Party I decided a long time ago that I needed to purchase Mario Party 10, and that we had to play it. We surprisingly played a whole bunch of it and that's why this is only the first part. We played the Mario Party mode and didn't even get to touch the cool new Bowser mode, which people seem to claim is the best part of the game. We'll get to that at a later date though! 

There's no party like a Mario Party! Well, maybe a doughnut party.

So, I went into this full expecting to hate every moment. I actually enjoyed myself a fair amount. Mario Party 10 is a fun, but deeply flawed game. For some reason it carried over most of the bad gameplay changes from Mario Party 9. Prior to 9 each player would individually roll a die and move the number of spaces they got on the board. The goal was to collect coins by landing on blue spaces, and winning mini-games. The coins could then be spent on stars, and items. Mario Party 9 did away with all of that. Instead all the players are seated together in a car and take turns moving it. Coins and stars were removed in favor of mini-stars. The player with the most mini-stars at the end of the board wins!

On the surface those changes don't sound terrible, but they have some detrimental effects on the overall flow of the game. Purchasing stars and using items actually added an element of strategy to the chaotic shitstorm that Mario Party tends to be. Mini-stars seem to take all of that away. You get them for passing certain spaces and winning mini-games. The problem that we seemed to have was one person would get off to an early lead and then keep the lead. Once you pass a certain threshold it's almost impossible for anyone to catch up. You can lose mini-stars quite easily, but at a certain point it just isn't enough.

Which leads to my other issue with the game, but this one is more just an issue with Mario Party. It's super random. The mini-stars make it even more random. If you're winning by a large margin like I said, then it's very hard for the other players to catch up. It is possible for everyone to lose half their mini-stars quite frequently. This can get super frustrating, because even though you you may be crushing it during the mini-games you can still get totally boned and lose for no reason. Basically what I'm saying is the game takes no skill to win, and it's random. At least before there was a stupid random element to the game, but you actually had to think about where to move and when to buy a star. This is just picking up mini-stars and hoping the game gives you a ton and takes them away from everyone else.

No joke, this was the mini-star spread in one of our games...

All of that aside, the mini-games are actually pretty rad. Mario Party mini-games are usually pretty good and these are no exception. Mario Party 8 had a ridiculous amount of motion control and a lot of the games controlled like garbage. Mario Party 9 did away with that because of all the complaints and did everything with the buttons and d-pad. Mario Party 10 is in the middle. It has a lot of basic motion controls, and a lot of games that exclusively use the buttons. It makes for a wide variety of game controls and game types. We did everything from catch fish to hit golf balls. The game does a good job of varying the activities you're doing. It doesn't seem as if the game has a whole lot of mini-games to offer though. We only played a handful, but we started to see repeat choices and that's a total bummer. It was cool to see that each stage had its own unique mini-boss and boss mini-games associated with it.

The most infuriating part of the game to me is when you tie with someone in a mini-game. Instead of going into sudden death, or using some other determining factor to decide a winner you have to roll a die. Whichever person gets the higher number is the winner! I can't even begin to describe how annoying it is when you desperately need a win, but the person rolls one higher than you. No one deserved that win, because all you did was roll a freaking die! It's 100% chance! My main issue with Mario Party as a whole is that it's too reliant on chance. I realize it's a board game, but in most of them you still need to use strategy. Sure, the first 8 had some semblance of that, but 9 and 10 are completely devoid of it!

I feel like I end up saying this every time I talk about a first party Wii-U game, but Mario Party 10 looks incredible. The graphics are ridiculous, which makes each stage exciting to go to for the first time. The magic fades a bit if you look at some of the background textures, but that's not really the point. Nintendo is great with their art direction and it has been leading to some beautiful games. The sad part to me is that this game costs $50. If I wasn't going to be playing this with a group of friends who will play Mario Party with me again I never would have spent the money on this and if I had, then I would have been severely disappointed. Just by playing through all the maps, we were able to unlock almost everything worthwhile the game had to offer. Yes I'm saying this before having played what is supposedly the "best" mode, so I'll defer my final judgement until after I play it.

This image perfectly represents how I feel about the Mario Party franchise.

Look forward to part two next week!

Welcome to Arcade Assault

Since I finished the Bayonetta Let's Play I've been trying to come up with a new video series. I finally came up with Arcade Assault. For some reason I always force myself to play through arcade mode in fighting games with every single character.

I used to do it in order to unlock characters, and see all of the endings. Sadly arcade endings suck in most games now, and characters rarely need to be unlocked. For some reason I still force myself to do it! For the first game and episode I chose to do classic mode in Super Smash Bros. for Wii-U. There are so many characters to do it with and I need to unlock those sweet sweet trophies!

I recorded the first episode last night, and streamed it as well. I decided that I'll stream smash and put the archives on YouTube, because there are so many characters. When Guilty Gear comes out on  the 16th I'll just be recording myself playing through arcade mode in that. It seems like shorter episodes will be better for most things, but at least for Smash I have so much to get through.

Okay, enough of the introduction. I leave you with the first episode of Arcade Assault!

Game Time - November 2014

I feel like it's been a lifetime since I did the October edition of Game Time. Since that time I have "completed" a let's play and done a whole bunch of streaming. In case you missed me flooding this page with Bayonetta 2 episodes, you can now watch the entire playthrough with the exception of a chapter that got destoryed... Since I posted so much about it on here I won't be taking about it here.

Instead, I will be talking about Assassin's Creed Unity and how it straddles the fine line between being average and terrible. I did however, end up playing two excellent games this month, which were oddly enough both Nintendo games. As you might imagine I played a whole lot of the Wii-U version of smash brothers, but I also miraculously made time to complete Alpha Sapphire!

This month actually made me realize that I'm pretty much an adult now, which is both cool and depressing. I've been thinking a lot about how my gaming habits and time have changed over the last few months, which is why I'm going to be recording a podcast about it tomorrow. So you can look forward to that, but until then it's game time!

Assassin's Creed Unity

The first Assassin's Creed I played was Brotherhood. I watched my brother play through all of the first game, and a college roommate play through most of the second. I ended up really liking it and got hooked on the series. Assassin's Creed 3 let me down a great deal, but I was willing to give the series another go. When Black Flag came out I absolutely loved it, because who doesn't love pirates?

That brings us to Assassin's Creed Unity. Let's just say that just like Assassin's Creed 3 this entry in the series has shaken my faith. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Unity to a certain extent, but it could have been a whole lot better. In fact, it should have been a lot better. A disconcerting trend in modern gaming is that games come out busted and that's not something that should be happening. A lot of games this fall have been totally bunk. Unity wasn't totally busted, but it's certainly not the best.

ohh noo my spine!

The game takes place in revolutionary Paris, so there are tons of people rioting in the streets. With the current generation of consoles Ubisoft wanted to show off how awesome their crowd tech is, so they have the street lines with tons of people. The problem is that every time you run through a crowd the frame rate tanks. For some reason it's not just when there are crowds either it happens frequently. If you can't get the frame rate up with tons of useless npcs on the screen maybe you shouldn't have so god damn many? To make it even worse they claim that the game runs at 900p instead of 1080p to keep the frame rate up. What the hell was it like at 1080p!?

That's only the tip of the iceberg. I had some npcs half into the world, and a corpse fly away and freak out on me. That's the normal kind of jank I expect from an open world game though. My friend Noukeo actually fell through the game world multiple times, and that's a bug that's being reported very frequently. For some reason the faces of characters seem to be melting off for a lot of people too. Ubisoft has issued numerous patches to address these issues, but I've already completed the game, so it's too late for me.

THIS IS IN A SHIPPING VIDEO GAME. OH MY GOD.

It's a real bummer that even if this game ran perfectly it would still be kind of lame. You play as Arno Dorian, who is obviously an Assassin. The overall plot and big bad guy are both pretty lame. There is a lot of good character interaction from Arno and his childhood love, but that's really the best part of the game. You're generally running around assassinating people who are loosely explained by the plot. Since Brotherhood I feel like the plots in these games have been super disjointed with a lot of time skips for no reason. Now that they seem to care so little about the real world plot it's becoming much more apparent.

For some reason I felt like the general gameplay mechanics were worse as well. Personally I didn't like the combat at all. Unity moves away from the free-flow combat and unlimited counter kills of its predecessors in favor of a more challenging system. You can still parry your opponents, but you need to continue hitting them repeatedly. This isn't too bad once you get used to it, it just makes every encounter a chore. It doesn't help that if you have more than two guards on you you're basically toasted. For some reason when you're being ganged up on other guards will run up and just shoot you in the face real quick, which is infuriating. The climbing didn't seem to be as fluid either. I got stuck on geometry way more in this game and had a much harder time jumping where I needed to.

At least the glitches are funny?

To be fair to Unity it tried really hard to be good. The assassination missions in the past few games basically involved running up to a guy, fighting 500 guards, and then just walking away. In Unity they're at least a bit more elaborate. You need to get into locations, which have set entrances and exits. There are events to help you out if you complete them. Sadly the assassination missions alone weren't good enough to make me like Unity.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire

Since Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby came out the same night as Super Smash I wasn't planning on playing right away. However, I couldn't resist the allure of reliving my Sapphire nostalgia. I still have very vivid memories of playing the original on Gameboy Advance. I was so into the game that I hid my progress report from my parents, because I knew they wouldn't let me play for a while. I had a 40 in math at the time, so I got the brilliant idea of hiding it behind the couch. It worked out for around a month, but I forgot I had hidden it and my mom found it while cleaning. So I was able to beat Sapphire, but I ended up not being able to play any video games for over a month. It was totally worth it.

I've always liked the Pokemon series, but I think Ruby and Sapphire were where my love of the series solidified. Before they were fun distractions, but my obsession truly started with Ruby and Sapphire. One night a few weeks ago before I went to bed I decided to start Alpha Sapphire, and I couldn't stop. I have now completed the main story and am on the cool new post game story.

Mega Blaziken is pretty awesome.

In case you were wondering it's basically the same old Ruby and Sapphire from back in the day, but now it has hot 3d graphics like Pokemon X and Y. That doesn't mean it's exactly the same though, there are quite a few new interesting features. The first being that Pokemon actually appear in the grass. So if you're in the grass a shadow of a Pokemon will appear. If you sneak up on it by walking slowly you'll fight it. These hidden Pokemon are generally stronger than the ones you'll randomly find in the grass. You can actually search for pokemon you've run into in the grass as well, and the more you come into contact with them the better they will be.

I try to force myself to go through every game with Pokemon caught entirely during my playthrough. This time I was lucky enough to get two shinies. The first is the shiny Beldum, which everyone can get through wifi from Nintendo. The second is a shiny Magikarp, which came up on my first attempt to fish in the game. I really wanted a Gyrados to go through the game with, so now I have two shiny Gyrados'.

Secret bases are probably my favorite part of the new games.

I wish I had more to say about the game. It's an excellent recreation of the original games. Secret bases are awesome and make their triumphant return. I don't know it's Pokemon. I thought this would be the one that finally made me get sick of Pokemon, but it wasn't. As long as Nintendo keeps putting them out I'll keep buying them.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii-U

My level of hype for this game was unbelievable. The night it came out I was planning on staying up all night and streaming it, but that didn't end up working out. For some reason my local Gamestop didn't receive the Gamecube controller adapters, so I couldn't play locally with Noukeo. So instead we were sitting in my house playing online, so that we could both use our Wii-U game pads. Using a wii-mote is awful for smash. I don't recommend it to anyone. Around 4:30 AM I started to feel like my stomach was going to explode, so I ended up going to bed. The following days I played a ton of Smash, but didn't stream very much of it.

So as it turns out I really like Smash on Wii-U. It looks incredible. It still blows my mind that Nintendo puts out games that run in 1080p at 60fps and games on PS4 can't even handle running most games at 30fps! It helps that Nintendo has killer art direction in all of their games.

Princess Peach is my boo! Seriously she's the greatest.

I stopped playing the 3DS version weeks ago, which I now think was a good decision. While the 3DS game is good the Wii-U version is so much better. As I mentioned previously the graphics are amazing. On top of that there's a ton more content. Instead of every stage having two songs they all have a minimum of five, and there are at least extra unlockable songs! Almost any Nintendo song you can think of is in the Wii-U version to enjoy.

The main thing I like about this version is that I can use a Gamecube controller. I know I sound like some kind of weird hardcore Smash player when I say that, but it's really not the case. I find the Gamecube controller to be very comfortable and it's what I'm used to playing Smash with. Unlike the 3DS I'm not worried that I'm going to rip the analog stick off and I feel much more comfortable hitting the buttons with force. I tend to dodge a lot more and shield better when I'm using a Gamecube controller. It shows that Nintendo is trying to understand their fan base, because most companies wouldn't put out a USB adapter for a two generation old controller.

I kill myself with this move all the time.

The new characters in this generation of Smash are all pretty cool. While I think it's lame that the Ice Climbers are gone, new additions like Little Mac, Rosalina, and Mega Man are awesome. I think Little Mac is my favorite newcomer. I've always thought he would be a cool character and I was right! He's super fast, does a ton of damage, and wears a hoodie. He's like the perfect character for me, except that he has the worst recovery ever. Seriously, if he's like three feet away from the stage he can't get back. It's no good for me, especially since I main Peach who has the best recovery ever. Rosalina is cool as well with her little star friend luma. She's super strong as well, but I just don't want to learn how to use both of them in unison in order to maximize damage.

I really like this version of Smash, and I hope to stream more of it soon. One of the reasons I've hesitated streaming Smash is because I don't think I'm very good at it. Sure I can be competitive with my friends, but I don't think I'm amazing or anything. So when I think about the amount of pro players who stream Smash I get a little apprehensive about putting my play out there. Over the past few days I decided that I don't really care about the skill level of the play I put out there. I just want to stream and have fun, which is what Smash is all about. Hopefully you can look forward to more Smash streams in the future.

Ohhh the fighting games!

I was going to apologize for being light on content this past month, but then I realized that I finished an entire Let's Play of Bayonetta 2, streamed a bunch of Spelunky, and made a whole bunch more videos. I think the fact that I work a shitty retail job has made the past three weeks seem much longer than they actually were.

However, now that it's December I'll have quite a bit of content. I'm going to be streaming as much Smash as I can in my free time. Then once Guilty Gear Xrd Sign comes out on the 16th I will be playing that as much as humanly possible. If you have ever wanted to see terrible Guilty Gear play, then this will be your premiere source for just that!

I've definitely been slacking in the podcast department, but this month I'll have at least two. I will definitely be recording one tomorrow and then later in the month Noukeo and I will be doing a game of the year podcast. I'm trying my best to get content out there and I'm having a lot of fun doing it.

It's been fun, see you guys next time!