Super Mario Party thoughts

So, while I haven’t been able to do much lately for various reasons, I have been spending some time playing Super Mario Party and just, generally, thinking a lot.

As usual, this is more of an “off the cuff” thought/opinion article over an actual review, but there’s some things I wanted to say about the newest game in the Mario Party series and it felt like a good opportunity to take some time to post on here.

In general, my main feeling with SMP is that it’s a good first step. I’m so happy the car is no longer part of it and I missed moving around on the board. I also find most of the minigames quite fun.

My main issues are some of the games’ mechanics paired with the boards themselves.

All the boards feel relatively small is the biggest issue. Stage hazards/mechanics are mild or annoying (such as Megafruit Paradise and the pipes/bridges), and it just feels kind of… lifeless? Bland?

It’s like all the makings are there for a good game, but it fell short in actually pulling them off. I just genuinely don’t enjoy the boards and while moving around is fine, it just isn’t much fun to me.

I am probably in the minority saying this, but I especially dislike the character dice blocks. Some dice are honestly just better than others. Combine them with the ally system, which honestly feels so overpowered and can give quite an advantage, not just in the boards themselves, but also the minigames, and it’s just… tiring? I kind of wish I could turn the mechanic off because while I can maybe make an agreement with a friend I’m playing with, I can’t change anything with the computers.

While some people say it makes the game more strategic, I don’t want some kind of Mario Party meta–I want to just pick the character I like best without thinking about what dice will be best for this situation. And when it comes down to it, it makes certain allies much more useful than others.

I also miss the original 1-10 dice blocks and items, though, with the smaller boards, I can understand this change and just hope it’d be reverted when bigger boards come into play.

On a similar note, while part of me is okay with Bowser being a playable character, the game feels wrong without Bowser Spaces. The Unlucky (And Very Unlucky which… are just an annoying twist that barely does anything) Spaces are relatively anti-climatic and the Lucky Spaces also don’t really add much. They feel more like leftovers from 9 and 10’s systems and just don’t feel as relative here.

Speaking of anti-climatic, the Hidden Blocks… Having the spinner, which you can’t even stop so it takes longer for no reason as well, ruins some of the surprise as you know what to expect based on where the spinner lands. If it’s random and you can’t time it, just let the character hit the box and get it over with. I’m also sad to see Boo switched out for Lakitu, though, as it functions the same it doesn’t feel as much of a loss as the Bowser spaces being removed are.

Partner Party… While it has some interesting mechanics/puzzles, I wish it just functioned like a normal party with teams. I don’t care for moving at the same time or most of the ways it functions–especially because trying to land on a specific space can get frustrating incredibly fast.

I also just… wish there were 3 bonus stars still? Not sure why it was lowered to two.

I guess the best way to explain this is it feels like the game was kind of… compacted to some degree while adding some convoluted mechanics. Everything feels very slow. And while I understand why the Joy-cons need to be used having played many games that really focus on specific vibrations, I find playing with a single Joy-con really uncomfortable (And I have tiny hands!) so I wish I could use a Pro-controller or something.

It’s like it’s so close to being one of my favorite Mario Party’s, but still falls short in a lot of sections.

Some final notes I don’t really have much to say on:
-I wish the on-map versus space games had more instructions. You’re just kind of tossed in there.
-In general, more instructions on some games would be nice–I lost one because I didn’t realize ammo could run out.
-I don’t know if I’ll ever get to manage to play Toad’s Rec Room to its full extent. I haven’t had a lot of free time lately nor do I know anyone who lives super close who also has a Switch and I just wish there were ways to set these up even for people who may only have the one Switch. I know they can be played as is, but I feel doing it plain is just kind of bland.

Despite my negativity above, there’s still quite a bit I do like about the game and I AM having fun with it, even if I wish some things were changed a bit, so here are some things I am enjoying:

-Minigames. I actually like the minigames quite a bit. While I definitely have my favorites, I don’t think there are any I particularly dislike, though, some I really just don’t enjoy the controls for. That said, this is on par with Mario Party in general–even 9 and 10 I liked a lot of the games.
-The story. It’s simple, but it’s cute and I like that it ties into all the modes versus a separate mode you need to play to do it along with letting you play who you want to in the process.
-The Plaza. It’s just… nice being able to walk around. I wish it was a little easier to tell if there was something new for you to do, but it’s still a fun feature. I wish there were ways to build it up or something beyond just earning the gems–kind of like the little collectibles/souvenirs you could get (I loved that parade…). There are stickers in the game, but it being focused to one little spot down a pipe and just being able to look at them otherwise makes it a bit lackluster, even though I love stickers. I wouldn’t want them removed, but I wish they weren’t the only collectible thing.
-Despite not being big on Rhythm games, I actually found the ones in this game fun and I’m glad just doing all the modes was enough despite how much I suck at them. I will admit I wish they were more precise on exactly what beat you’re timing to–that’s always been my biggest issue with Rhythm games because I focus on too much at once.

And, of course, my favorite mode is River Survival. I have wanted a full co-op option for so long and the only thing I’m sad about is that it doesn’t have online. It kills me that they added online just for the normal minigames and I wish they added it in full as it’d be nice to actually play a 4 person party with all four actually being people and this mode as well. That said, there isn’t tons of variety with the games and it can a bit tiring to compete. I feel like they could’ve done twists on some of the versus games as well to help put in more variety.

The computers aren’t terrible, but they can really cause issues in certain modes or when it comes to rowing.

But it’s so nice having one where everyone can work together.

All in all, I’m having fun playing (even if I don’t see myself replaying much once I have everything unlocked) and I’m hoping the next Mario Party will at least continue in this direction… Though, I wouldn’t mind certain things not making a return.

Why I’m excited for the Let’s Go games

As mentioned on Twitter, I’m a little bit MIA right now, due to life just being a bit too much lately and as someone who enjoys getting things done, it likely frustrates me as much as it frustrates anyone else (though, you’ve all been quite sweet so thank you).

Regardless, I wanted to move onto something I’ve been thinking about a lot because it’s pretty equally split on people I know who are interested in the games and who aren’t. Similarly, with new information coming to light due to various people getting to play over in London along with what I personally played while in Nashville, I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

Because honestly, I wasn’t that excited when they were first announced. I’m tired of remakes. I have trouble with motion controls (more so the fact that I can’t aim), and as much as I love Kanto, I’m also tired of Kanto (they could just do Gen 2 and then we get two towns).

But I found the style intriguing and I loved the character designs of the trainers (I miss Gary though T__T Our new rival doesn’t even look similar). So I figured I may get it anyway.

I’ve mentioned before that Pokemon is a special game to me. I started playing it when I was about 8 and still have fond memories of playing Pokemon Blue on my Gameboy. And with newer generations, since around Gen 3, I’ve been really struggling at finding my place with Pokemon and just not feeling like it’s for me anymore.

While I wouldn’t refer to Pokemon as complicated myself, I would at least say certain things can be convoluted. And that especially is the case when it comes to battling for me. I know some people find abilities make things more interesting, but I’ve never cared for them or held items. I don’t care for EVs or IVs. Honestly, I wish it was just possible to get all Pokemon to the same stats if trained enough and then it just having to do with types and moves. If I had to deal with battling, that is what I’d want. And yes, while others may find that too simple, to me it’s fair.

As mentioned previously, Pokemon has, for me, always been this idea of making these friends and journeying through the region with them and accomplishing all these experiences together. So, having things locked to a certain stat requirement that some Pokemon can never reach sucks and really hurts my experience with the game, honestly. Especially when ribbons or other little in-game trinkets are locked behind it (and when most people going for it don’t even care for those).

It’s made me feel like I just don’t have a place in Pokemon and especially with my struggle going through Moon again with Ultra Moon, I’ve been wondering if I’d even still enjoy Pokemon anymore. And that thought kills me because I have SO MANY memories of Pokemon. I met a lot of friends due to it, it’s a game I hold so dear to my heart, and it’s not even so much that I’ve grown out of it–what I enjoy I still enjoy, but lately I’ve felt the focus is going towards an audience I’m not part of. “Gotta Catch ’em all” being more like “Gotta min-max those IVs/EVs”.

So, seeing Let’s Go which does NOT have a focus on battling is almost like a breath of fresh air. Being able to just explore and catch (which thankfully, seems more timing based now which means maybe I won’t completely suck) Pokemon and seeing the environment come to life (which was also my favorite thing about Pokken) just makes me want to see a big Pokemon game that really brings back all the regions for us to explore all the more. I want to be like Ash and explore every region with this team I bond with. I get that it’d be hard to scale and honestly, I wouldn’t care if they didn’t (People can switch their teams at the start of region if they want to or not, but I think people should be given the choice and that could let people curve the difficulty as they want), but I think it’d be such a great experience.

And being able to play this with a friend and see the environments like this and Pokemon just wandering around have highlighted how much I want something like this. Something focused on the Pokemon and seeing them and the world itself and not “what new gimmick can we add to battling this time”.

While I do wish the game featured more than just the first 151 + whatever new Pokemon they put in like Meltan, I’m still excited to play it and see all the different places in the world. And while I do think some of the restrictions are a little silly (If I want to beat Brock with a Charmander, Caterpie, and Pikachu, I should be free to, game!! Though, I mean I still could once getting admission to the gym), I still think it’s going to be a great game and there’s a lot I’m looking forward to that I hope will make it into future games.

That said… I still wouldn’t mind a non-motion controlled catch system though.

What I hope for from Welcome to Animal Crossing

So, there was a new Nintendo Direct today (the one postponed last week) and much to my excitement, a new Animal Crossing game was announced! (Other games I am excited for: Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Yoshi’s Craft World and you can see a bit more of my commentary over on Twitter) You can also check out the specific announcement below:

Isabelle also made it into Smash, but hopefully she’ll still have time to help us out in the Mayor’s Office when the game comes out next year :) Which brings us to the point of this post– I wanted to take a moment to go over some things I’m hoping to see in the upcoming game.

I’ve already done similar posts in the past and still standby all of those things, but with Happy Home Designer and Pocket Camp, I feel there’s a lot more I’d like to see and well, also not see, honestly.

In general, I think New Leaf is easily one of the best Animal Crossing games so literally just starting from that and upgrading it (Think like a New Leaf+) is a great start.

Being able to place our houses everywhere is great and I hope we see that go further with being able to place other villagers’ houses as well, or at the very least, have the option to do so. Being able to use paths to block things off with the Welcome Amiibo update was great, but I don’t really want to litter my town with paths to do so and it’d be super easy to just have it so Nook can be all “Hey, *name* moved in, would you like to place their house?” and saying “Yes” would put you in a similar mode like placing your own house while “No” would have the house plot be placed randomly.

Speaking of houses, I generally felt the size of the house in New Leaf and Wild World is great, but I’d absolutely take extra rooms upstairs or even larger rooms in general. I’d love to see different room sizes as well from Happy Home Designer.

Happy Home Designer in general brought a lot of great things (And I may get back to it soon, I do still have villagers to give houses) such as: Being able to select a skin color, ceiling items, customizable doors, different room layouts, and exterior customization. I hope we’ll be able to place items outside and maybe for shops and things, actually be able to customize their appearance. Just imagine people’s towns having a different looking cafe or Nookling shop.

I’d also love to see the campsite from the Welcome Amiibo update of New Leaf combined with features from Pocket Camp. Campers showing up there and being able to have villagers visit that way alongside being able to decorate a camp site and camper. I think that’d be really cute. Speaking of Amiibo, I hope we can use the cards and Amiibo ingame as well. It’ll make getting my favorite villagers easier for sure.

While I do love the train scene with Rover (or Kapp’n in non-train cases), I would like to be able to pick my character’s appearance from the start. I mean, I usually get the face I always get answering honestly, but it’d be nice to have hair I like right away and for those who’d prefer a different skin color and not want to wait until Summer when they can tan, I think it’d be a nice option.

Honestly though, I hope it brings in all the amazing items we got to see from Happy Home Designer and Pocket Camp. My issues with Pocket Camp’s mechanics besides, it had tons of great items (Such as the water-paths!!) and I’d love to use them in my main town. While the changing of seasons is a thing to the point where I don’t think we’ll have scenery changes like Pocket Camp has, I still think a lot of cool features from it could be brought over.

As for things I hope that change from New Leaf:
-The furniture limit. At the very least, I hope it’s much greater (City Folk having a smaller one than Wild World still hurts me on a personal level), but I’d love to see it gone entirely. We can only put so many items in a room regardless due to size restraints, we don’t need item limits on top of it.
-The moving mechanic. While I do feel this was a glitch/coding issue based on the Best Friend prompt, I hope this is adjusted. I’d also love a way to permanently set someone to stay so I’d never have to worry about them moving, even if they come back again.
-As mentioned above, villagers being able to place their house wherever.
-More pattern space. And being able to edit patterns regardless. While I understand why this existed, this made it incredibly frustrating exchanging patterns between characters in the same town. Every time I wanted to edit something, I’d have to get it back to the Mayor somehow and it was just really tiring.
-Regional exclusives just being part of everyone’s game. While I made tons of great friends who I am looking forward to playing with, I’d love to be able to learn about different cultures and experience things in my game alone without needing to essentially line up regions to get everything. Not only that, but I genuinely do love hearing about different cultures so I think it’d be a lot of fun to see the different events in every game.
————Similarly, I’d love if some older events made a return to.
-I adore ordinances, but I’d love to be able to set more than one.
-Also more public work space!

I hope we’ll be able to transfer some stuff from New Leaf to the Switch version. Mainly because I might cry remaking all of those patterns.

I’m really curious just what will be new though. I think we can all expect new items at the least, probably some new characters as well (Also we’ll see Lottie return). I’d love if we could actually fully adjust our map ourselves or even increase our town size. I wonder how many villagers we’ll get this time–12? 15? Could we have less if we wanted?

There’s so much to look forward to. And I’m already planning out what I hope to do next <3

A Trip to Tennessee! (Pokemon Worlds and Goals)

So, we ended up going to Tennessee last weekend to see some friends (And well, go to Worlds while there anyway), which if you check my Twitter or are subscribed to my Youtube channel, you likely already knew :P But anyway, it was nice to go somewhere new. I had never been to Tennessee so I had fun just enjoying Nashville.

Before we get into the general trip stuff, I’ll talk about Pokemon and Pokemon Worlds a bit :)

So, we picked up our badges on Thursday afternoon. Figured it was best to get that and the shop out of the way ASAP.

I think I generally liked the colors/theme of the Worlds 2017 stuff better, but I still really liked the lanyard at least. I loved all the Pokemon with the different instruments. I kind of wished there was more merchandise featuring all the Pokemon for this over just Pikachu. They did, however, give out this free poster which was perfect (And we were even given a few extras!):

So, while we didn’t really buy any of the exclusive stuff, we did get these adorable plushies:

And here’s the bag by itself:

We also got some packs of cards with our spectator badges and these were essentially the highlights from our pack openings:

I did not get nearly as nice cards from opening the digital versions :P

They also had a demo station for the Let’s Go games! I was really excited to try them out:

And even got this cute Pokeball stress ball for playing:

I actually had a lot of fun with it. I really like the look of the game and how Pokemon show up and just exploring. The world feels so much more alive which is really nice. The Pokeball controller worked well, though, I found I accidentally would hit the button versus moving it sometimes, but I think that’s more just because I was getting used to it. It also reacted fairly well, but I couldn’t figure out exactly where the timing was for Pokemon who move around a lot and sadly, my time with the demo ended before I could play around with it more.

I’m really looking forward to it though. Now to just… finish Ultra Moon.

Some other miscellaneous tidbits:
-Apparently the demo wasn’t planned. The person we spoke to said they only found out about doing it like a week ago and it was super last minute.
-You may remember the curve ball demonstration during E3. The guy who was walking me through the game said the feature was removed and not in this build. He seemed unsure if it’d be brought back for the main game or not, but it was at least not in the newer version of the demo.

But yes, some pictures from the Pokemon Center, the main room, and where it was being held:

I really loved the stage. I love the buildings being all Pokemon world themed and it just really makes me wish there was some big combined Pokemon game of all the various cities and things we’ve gotten from every game. The Pokemon World is already so huge and there’s so much to see and I wish they’d actually use that versus constant new regions. At this point, I’m just kind of tired of new regions and new Pokemon. I’d mind a new region less if we could visit it alongside familiar ones, but I think there’s plenty of Pokemon at this point :(

Moving a bit more outside the convention center, I wish we got to do more in Pokemon GO, honestly. We seemed to manage to miss every single raid, there weren’t too many Pokestops actually in the main room, my GPS was constantly a bit finnicky, and I just didn’t have much luck with spawns either. I at least finally got a Sneasel and I did get a shiny Sunkern:

Also Tom traded me one of the Shiny Mareep he caught when we had visited back in April so yay :D And I at least got a lot of gifts to send back to people. Since I don’t go out much (and sometimes just can’t especially with the weather lately), I don’t usually have many chances to give gifts out :(

But yes, as to one of the biggest reasons for going, it was to pick up this from a very amazing friend:

This was one of the prizes for the first winner of the Sylveon Girls Battle in 2016 in Japan and one of my most wanted items that featured Mega Audino T~T My next big goal will be Mega Audino Ddakji:

So, if you’re in Korea or know someone who could maybe help with those, let me know! ❤

Going into general Tennessee, it’s time for various random tourist-y pictures and food tours :P

But yeah, I had more fun than I would have expected and there’s definitely more I would like to do and see so hopefully we have time to go again. And hopefully we won’t have another person pulling the fire alarm or another super hot day that destroys me because those were really the only bad things.

As for Pokemon Worlds next year… We don’t have too many plans, but Washington DC is a pretty good location for us, so maybe~

Something I miss with games

While I know this is definitely a minority thought, it’s something I think about a lot, especially when revisiting old games and what really frustrates me with newer games: The required skill ladder.

For me, the difficulty is really the least important part of a game to me. I play the game because of the story, to have fun, the characters, silly little trinkets, etc. I don’t care if a game is too easy, but nothing really frustrates me more than when a game is “too hard”. And some games definitely exist just to be hard! That is totally a thing, but at the same time, some games do add an option so even more “casual” players or those who may have some disabilities can still play it–like for example, Celeste. Celeste came out early this year and actually comes with an Assist Mode which allows you to customize your gameplay experience to an extent. And even with the normal mode, if you do die, you will respawn in that same room and can try again. I think my only real issue with it is that by using the mode, you get a stamp next to your file for doing so… Which I… don’t think it’s needed.

Kind of like if you end up using the Invincibility Leaf in Super Mario 3D Land/World and New Super Mario Brothers 2, you may finish the level, but in some way it won’t be fully completed until you do so without the handicap such as preventing secret areas from unlocking or things gathered not counting.

For some people, whether it be a disability or someone who may not be as well-versed in video games or just may have trouble with certain things (For example, I tend to be pretty good at games and am a quick learner, but to this day my aim is terrible and I am really awful with any kind of games that require aim for something), this may be the only way they can play and despite putting in all their effort into it, even if whatever instance they use is a bit overpowered, they get punished for it and I don’t understand the point of that.

It’s one thing if people were trying for like… high score tables or other things, but most people just want to see everything a game has to offer. They want to earn all the little trinkets, explore all the levels and areas, and just play the game to their heart’s content without hitting some stark difficulty curve or a certain piece that says “You can’t do this because you’re not good enough to” and I miss when things could be completed because the person was dedicated and had a lot of heart even if they weren’t the most skilled.

I still managed to get first place in every course of Super Mario 64 despite never drifting because I didn’t even know drifting was a thing. I managed to earn all the trophies in Super Smash Brothers and Super Smash Brothers Melee because most didn’t require crazy high scores or the highest difficulties. There were very few, unlike the newer iterations where you often need to beat things on the highest difficulty and get certain scores in certain modes and I just… I don’t find that fun. That isn’t fun to me.

And it’s the same issue to me with Pokemon where they have endgame that is for IV/EV trained Pokemon and ribbons and things exclusive to it and again, I feel there’s such… a difference between people who want to play and have fun but still SEE everything with the things they love and enjoy versus those who want to get to the highest skill level. (A good example is the minigames in Super Mario Odyssey–there’s a volleyball one and one for jump rope. They both have high score related achievements in those minigames. My personal preference would’ve been “play once” and “play 10 times” for each and then the high score table just be those who want to see how far they could go.)

And when it comes down to it, people who play for those high scores and high skill requirements are playing for those reasons more often than not. Those are fun for them. The extras/rewards/prize(s) are just bonuses.

But those who maybe just enjoy collecting and seeing everything may not have the ability to reach the skill ceiling that gets higher and higher and it just… It’s disappointing, I guess.

I miss being able to collect without being a super hardcore min-maxing video game strategist and when achievements focused more on progress over high score tables. And it makes me sad that video games seem to be going in that direction more and more, tying the two into one category (Because contrary to belief, not all collectors are hardcore high score table champions–there’s different levels of “completionist”) when it’s… really not.

It just makes me sad because I think one day there will be a time video games won’t be for me anymore and I’m sad for that day to come.

On why I stopped playing Pocket Camp

So, my birthday was about 2 weeks ago (July 18th) and I once again want to thank everyone who sent happy birthday wishes! They always warm my heart <3 But onto the entry itself, as mentioned above, I will no longer be playing the game. I had wanted to mix this with an entry about my birthday to show the birthday greetings along with some other fun stuff from games, but I felt this would be better on its own, especially as people have been asking about it. I have tried very hard to keep up with it. I think anyone who knows me could tell you that I hate giving up and quitting and will usually choose to just "work harder" over saving my sanity and that should say a lot for it to finally have been the final straw for me. The biggest issue is I had been running into is the game just felt overwhelming. Between the constant fortune cookies and all the events, there was too much to keep up with. And it wasn’t done in a fun way.

I’ve said before that I felt Pocket Camp missed the main core of Animal Crossing and I find that true more than ever. If people could trade and earn things with currency and communication the way they could in the original Animal Crossing, that’s one thing, but you can’t. You’re all on your own. And if you can’t give your every waking moment to the game, you likely won’t finish, and the point of a mobile game is to be that you can pick it up, do a little bit, and stop, but with this game that isn’t possible.

The Gardening Event especially is one of the biggest highlights of how much time you need to spend with the game. Constantly checking your flowers, growing and planting new ones, trying to return for friends, and dealing with RNG to even manage to catch enough bugs to progress. Or you’ll miss things, whether it be items, special cutscenes, or what. And it’s not “okay” if you miss things when a core part of the game is actually collecting things in the first place.

And so, every single time they had special NPC items that were Leaf Tickets only, it was pretty iffy from the get-go, but you could usually earn a lot. They then started having event items that required Leaf Tickets to complete which also was pretty bothersome. Add in things like the Golden Fishing Rod for the fishing events and every single Leaf Ticket item not only felt quite expensive, but greedy as well.

And with the recent changes with the Fishing Tourney, it’s even more apparent. I usually bought the Golden Fishing Rod and just barely managed to get enough to be done and still relax a bit, but now I don’t even know if I could without constantly having to buy it and play nearly constantly.

I ended up not being able to play during the garden even last month due to a big personal loss when I was already struggling playing. And after missing it, I didn’t really want to continue. But, seeing how the events are continuing, that seems like the right choice.

The point of Animal Crossing was for an easygoing game where you could make a town your own and relax while doing fun things you enjoy. It was supposed to be lighthearted and give you a place to feel reassured.

The only thing Pocket Camp has ever given me is feelings of stress and failure. It didn’t even feel like much of an achievement if I did finish something–I just felt relieved.

And it makes me sad because I feel like Pocket Camp DOES have some neat features and some things I’d love to see in a future Animal Crossing game, but the way it works has just worn me down to the point where I’m not even in a rush for a new Animal Crossing game. I just hope when one does come out, they will remember the reason people fell in love with that series in the first place.

Pocket Camp Rambles & Other random games

Before I get into the below, I know there were some site issues recently due to a vulnerability with an old plugin. Everything has been fixed and there should be no more issues.

It’s been a while since my last Pocket Camp update, partially because I’m still so annoyed with it. With a game like Animal Crossing, part of the charm is its relaxing nature which just… doesn’t work with Pocket Camp when they’re constantly rolling out updates and locking features behind paywalls. I think if this was any other game besides Animal Crossing, I wouldn’t still be playing. But I love Animal Crossing and keep hoping something will change even if it’s clear it won’t.

And I can’t say this is the only game that has been causing this problem recently. Anyone who follows my MCL tumblr essentially knows what I mean as I’ve been going on with it for over a month after they essentially gave 3/5 routes of an Otome game bad endings paired with a forced break-up and just such bad writing it’s kind of disgusting. I’m not going to go into this more here because I’ve ranted enough and there’s pages of it if you’re curious, but nobody is happy and who knows if they’ll fix the stupid choices they did with that either.

In between my Pocket Camp suffering playing, I’ve also been playing a few other random things, most notably some of the Hogwarts Mystery mobile game, but also getting back to Star Stable Online as they had increased the amount of reputation you got per quest and I am actually curious where the story goes. I still hate the whole needing to invite someone who will get to level 15 for some special items though… I can’t find anyone who wants to :(

As for the Hogwarts Mystery game, I wouldn’t really call myself a Harry Potter fan, but I’m curious about the story and while I hate the gameplay, I keep checking in anyway.

Pokemon GO also got a big update recently (YES, I’m still playing it. Take your hate elsewhere XP) and I’m so happy trading is in… Except that the requirements to trade are ridiculous. There is no reason there should be so much stardust required and so many restrictions, especially when people will mainly be trading to complete their Pokedex anyway. It’s just really disappointing the way they decided to do this–especially considering it’s a feature people have really wanted for ages.

Anyway, back over to Pocket Camp, as usual, there’s been too many events. And the fortune cookies make me cry. But lets go ahead and break this down:

For one, I finished Katie’s Gardening Event.

And Digby also had a Gardening Event that I finished:

While the Gardening Events are cute, I still find them exhausting to actually play :/ If it wasn’t for all the waiting around and you could put as much time into it as you wanted when you wanted, it wouldn’t be so bad, but as is, it’s too dependent on too many variables. Regardless, a few from photos from the recent gardening event:

With a lot of the new content though, I’m slowly starting to find a look for my Camp I really like though:

The only thing is I wish we could mix and match with some of the exterior stuff. There’s so much I’d like to use, but not all of it… I like the normal flowers, but I like the flowers in the grass of the Spring flowers plus the cherry blossom tree, I also love the rivers from the Birches… But yeah, it’d be nice if it could look like this:

Also if I could have the wood under the entire campsite.

Anyway, still a good amount of pictures to go so…

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Some small E3 2018 Thoughts

So, this year I decided to do something differently as I didn’t think I’d have too much to say overall this year for many reasons. I mainly used Twitter for “as it happens” thoughts and figured I’d go on more about the rest after Nintendo’s conference. I worked on this after each conference so… :P I will most likely keep Treehouse Live stuff to my twitter though so be sure to check that out for any opinions I may have on Treehouse things.

EA

EA’s conference was… boring to say the least. But a few things caught my eye, for one, Unravel 2!!

I love Yarny so I was super happy to see this game. And he has a friend now!!

I really want to know their name too. I wish they’d make an official Yarny if only because all of my attempts to make one have gone terribly.

Sea of Solitude was the next game that caught my interest.

I think it looks gorgeous and sounds interesting, but I also feel it may be a game I’d rather watch than play.

The only other game to even kind of get my interest a bit was Anthem… In the sense of customization and being able to play with friends, but it depends on a lot more features and how it’ll work for me to know if I’ll try it or not. At least I know I can be pink.

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Microsoft

They kicked it off with Halo Infinite which honestly looks very pretty.

I haven’t played the last few games, but it has a special place in my heart so depending on it, maybe I’ll try this new one.

Next up to catch my eye with Ori and the Will of the Wisps and it’s so beautiful.

I really want to play it. I still need to play Ori and the Blind Forest though…

I made a few more comments on Twitter, but I will say I am kind of thinking of trying out Kingdom hearts 3 despite not really being interested… The new one just looks very interesting to me. Forza Horizon 4 also looks great and I CAN RACE IN A BUGGY.

I still plan to get Tomb Raider, Ms. Chalice looks adorable and I almost wish I liked games like Cuphead just so I could play as her, and I’m still excited for Tunic, but being already excited not much changed there.

I genuinely really enjoyed watching Xbox’s presentation despite there not being TONS of games I was interested in. It was a lot of fun and exciting regardless.

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Bethesda

So, I don’t really play any Bethesda games so I don’t have too much to say, but here’s a few things:

-All the call-outs. Including on themselves. Wow.
-Surprised they did a concert, but I kind of enjoyed it anyway. I like rock music. The audience needs to learn to have some fun.
-Fallout 76 looks kind of interesting? I’d at least get to play with my husband.
-The Elder Scrolls: Blades… I wasn’t going to try it because mobile games, but I get to create a character and make my own medieval town and so I may end up doing so after all.
-The Elder Scrolls VI looks really pretty.

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Square-Enix

Starting out with Tomb Raider, but like I mentioned with Microsoft, I was already looking forward to it. Nothing showed really made me want it more or less so :P

In general, I think most of what they showed was nice and I really want to hear the full version of Utada Hikaru’s new song. It’s so pretty.

Also really curious about what exactly “The Quiet Man” is… The preview wasn’t really informative.

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Ubisoft

Ubisoft always has to start with some kind of musical performance. I can’t help but worry about them a bit sometimes. Despite the insanity, I still think Trials Rising looks kind of fun:

The next thing to really get my eye was the footage of Rabbids Donkey Kong DLC. I’m not a super big Rabbids fan or particularly fond of tactical gameplay, but I have to admit I really loved the new locations? So many nice places.

Also the music was fantastic.

Still genuinely excited for Starlink! It looks really good and I can’t wait to see all the different things you can buy and put together. And Starfox is in it?! It’s super exciting and Fox looks great.


Even the figures look great.

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PC Gaming Show

So, I was looking forward to this show to begin with because I know Ooblets will be shown during it. But The Sinking City actually caught my eye as well. I really like Detective Games, but I’m also worried it may be a bit too creepy for me. I’ll have to see.

For the most part though, this conference has just felt so… slow and draining, but OOBLETS LOOKS SO GOOD:

DANCE BATTLES. I LOVE THEM SO.

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Sony

Sony… went a really unique way with their presentation–almost a bit creepy? At least to start… I do like the idea of kind of setting up the entire “booth” area for each trailer they did, but at the same time, at least the first was kind of unsettling.

Ghost Giant looked cute, but I don’t have any interest in a VR game. I wish there weren’t exclusive VR games.

The next area seemed a lot more open at least… I also don’t know how to feel about how they keep opening with someone playing a unique instrument of the theme, but it is nice to hear and a big applause to the lovely musicians.

Still pretty excited for Dreams too. Hoping I can maybe make the Little Big Planet idea I’ve always had in mind into reality. Kingdom Hearts 3 also looks even nicer in this trailer. I am so happy Rapunzel is in the game.

Spiderman also looks amazing still. Can’t wait for it :D

Sadly, that was really it for Sony. They didn’t show much, but it was still nice.

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Nintendo

I still have so many questions about the Let’s Go Pokemon games and they weren’t really answered… But Pokeball Plus comes with Mew so now I need one even more.

We also got to see a bit of an upcoming Mario Party which while it looks good and shows some neat functions, didn’t show me enough to know for sure if proper maps are back, cars are gone, and/or if there’s online multiplayer T~T But fingers crossed it’s better than the last few.

The new Fire Emblem looks really good too, but after Fates I think I may just watch someone else play or something… I did enjoy Echoes though, but that was a remake so….

The Smash Brothers trailer is crazy and it’s so nice seeing EVERY single character back. I like how you start with the original roster as it grows too.

Also I want to buy this as a poster. And I can even play as a female Pikachu now aaaah T~T <3 AND AS A FEMALE POKEMON TRAINER YAY. Even though they didn't show much, that was crazy. I will admit I was surprised we didn't hear about several games we still could really use more information on, but maybe we'll hear more about them during Treehouse Live. --------------------------------

Overall Thoughts

For the most part, I enjoyed this E3! More often than not, I felt hyped up even if I didn’t particularly want anything, so I still enjoyed it <3

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp – I’ve played a lot and it’s been suffering

So, I actually thought I had written an entry about like… half the stuff we’ll be talking about here, but apparently I haven’t so let’s get started!

Before I do though, I will admit that I am debating on no longer playing Pocket Camp. I really wanted to love the game, but the game is incredibly stressful with all the events, rarely relaxing, and just feels too overwhelming. The only thing I had to worry about with New Leaf were villagers moving and that’s due to an issue in coding that I hope will be fixed next game.

Anything else, I knew would be back next year or I could trade with friends or, while I didn’t do it, there was always the option to time travel.

But with Pocket Camp it’s just based on what they want to throw at us, limited, solo-mode, and requires a lot of constant playing and it just isn’t fun. It’s really not. And while we get our villagers and nice decorated camp, I feel the game largely misses the entire charm of Animal Crossing with how it works.

Not to mention when collecting is literally one of the main features of Animal Crossing, having many things behind a pay wall isn’t fun. It’s not fun in the slightest. Literally having game mechanics you can’t complete without using their real money currency loot boxes is absolutely awful. I wish I could be like “well, it’s not that bad” but it really is. And sure, I’m sure there’s a good amount of people who have maybe managed to never buy any Leaf Tickets and saved everything, but not everyone has time to constantly check the game to get everything done in the time allocated. Not to mention due to hitting walls (waiting 3 hours for flowers to bloom or villagers to cycle), maybe you have a bunch of time in the morning, but suddenly are out of things to do unless you speed them up somehow.

And these are such classic sleezy mobile tactics. One of the most common things “adventure”-type games do is they have you tapping things for a certain amount of energy points to fill up a bar. You need a certain amount to pass with some being bonuses, but the bonuses often determine how you do in the plot so they’re not really as optional as they’re presented. You usually have anywhere from an hour to 8 hours to do these things where, unless you pay for energy to get it done while you actually have time or so you don’t forget about it, you will be having this game up for that amount of time tapping each time you get a single energy point every 3-5 minutes and praying for a level-up.

It’s not fun, it’s a huge wall, and it’s discouraging to anyone who wants to play a large chunk of a game in a time.

And that’s the thing with Animal Crossing. Not many people pick it up to play for a little while and then are done. People enjoy sinking time into it. It’s supposed to be a relaxing game. There’s all kinds of things for you to do. But Pocket Camp has these walls up and it sucks. It really does.

If it wasn’t for the fact that there might be connectivity in a future AC game, I don’t think I’d still be playing it. But I think, unless there’s a big chance to the Fortune Cookies or I hit the lottery and can afford to suffer trying to get the grand prize, I will end up no longer playing once the current run of Fortune Cookies end. I’ve always been a huge completionist with Animal Crossing. It’s one of my favorite series. So failing at the fortune cookies means I fail at two things: One, the catalog, which I have never failed to complete, and two, the new memory system that I had actually been really excited for before seeing how it worked.

So yeah, I’m bitter, but I think I have a right to be too. Anyway, I doubt anyone is actually here to hear me rant, so lets move onto what I have been doing in Pocket Camp!

For one, thanks to some help, I finally paid off my RV:

Unfortunately, it was pretty unsatisfying. At least it’s done though, I guess.

And Celeste’s item came out and despite it being 350 Leaf Tickets, I had to get it because she’s actually one of my favorite Special Villagers in the game:

And this gets long and image heavy so…

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Opinion Piece: The problem with the fortune cookies (Loot Boxes) in Pocket Camp

I promise a normal Pocket Camp entry will be coming soon, but for now, I just needed to rant a little about this because… Pocket Camp’s leaf ticket system was fine without this and if they had to make it cost Leaf Tickets, there were better ways to do it, but right now it’s just poorly implemented and this is genuinely one of the worst games to have this kind of feature in.

See, the main argument for any kind of random box is that “well, it’s just aesthetic items!! Just collectibles!! They don’t effect gameplay so who cares!!” and that’s a stupid argument because collecting tends to be a big deal in games. In fact, most of the people who put a lot into those things are for those items that may be “just for looks”. They’re “Aesthetic” items for a reason and if there’s an outfit or item you really like in that box, you’ll be pulling for ages unless you get lucky. And it’s just… Not very fun, honestly.

This becomes especially more complicated because a big core of Animal Crossing IS collecting. There’s literally a catalog that tracks every item in the game. They literally just put part of the game behind a paywall. And it’s not even a decently priced paywall.

A special/certain character-based fortune cookie costs 50 Leaf Tickets to buy. These are the [US] Prices for Leaf Tickets (rounded up–usually by just like 1 cent so):
20 for $1
45 for $2
100 for $4
200 for $8
600 for $21
1,200 for $40
2,500 for $80

At best, you’re getting them for about $1.60 each with the larger payments up to about $3 at most if you only buy the lowest amount. On average, you’ll most likely be getting them for about $2 each. There’s 3 different Fortune Cookies, each with 10 items. So 30 total so if you’re lucky and manage to get all the items you need in your first go each time, you’ll spend about $48 dollars minimum (so you’d still have some Leaf Tickets left of those $80 if you went with that)–if you were closer to the average and maybe just doing 100 every so often, then that’s $60.

That’s the price of an actual new game to get everything. And you may be thinking “Well, we can buy some fortune cookies with bells, right?”

Except what Fortune cookies stock is also random. And there is no guarantee the leaf ticket exclusive ones will show up–you could just get Clothing or Furniture (Timmy/Tommy Cookies) ones (which also have exclusive clothing and furniture respectively, by the way. At least you can sometimes get these from villager requests). The fortune cookies will switch out after 12 hours, but only if you didn’t buy both already for the day. You can only buy two cookies with bells so if you bought both immediately, there goes any chance of getting a special character one (or maybe another special character one). Turns out it’s only ever two every 24 hours. They stock once a day so whatever two you get are the two you’re stuck with so hope it’s one of the Leaf Ticket ones, but no guarantees. Pair with the fact that these are limited and at most, you’ll get about 60 tries total to get all the items from each without buying any otherwise. And reminder that there’s 30 items (10 each) so you essentially get two total chances to get all from a certain cookie (Or you can put them all towards one cookie, of course, but it’s still RNG on what even stocks and there’s a chance you could see no leaf ticket exclusive cookies at all some days).

And of course, yes, there’s fortune cookies in the actual games with the Fireworks Event. The main differences there? One, they all cost bells. Two, the amount you can buy with bells isn’t limited. And three, YOU CAN TRADE WITH YOUR FRIENDS. You can’t give or trade or sell any furniture or clothing to friends in Pocket Camp so I am stuck with all these extras and it sucks.

So, you may say “Well, what about the Stamp cards?” and honestly, the amount you need to trade in for the grand prize is ridiculous. You need 10 filled stamp cards to be able to buy the grand prize item. You get 1 stamp for every fortune cookie you buy with leaf tickets–buying with bells gets you no stamps.

That means you would need to buy 100 Fortune Cookies (5,000 Leaf Tickets) to have enough stamps for the grand prize. Similarly, “Rare” (4 star items) need 5 while the others just need 1. Slightly more manageable than the grand prize which would require spending $160. For just one of the three grand prize items.

I will say Pocket Camp is pretty good at giving Leaf Tickets and if you haven’t used any, you may have like… half that saved up, but if you have (and most people have used quite a bit), you’re likely in a bit of a rut now.

I used a total of 3,050 Leaf tickets + the 3 freebie fortune cookies + 1 bell-bought leaf ticket exclusive cookie and these were my own results (25 Marshal Cookies, 22 Rosie Cookies, 17 Filbert Cookies):
-4 Pastry-shop Table
-5 Pastry-shop Chair
-3 Pastry-shop Screen
-2 Pastry-shop Cake Case
-3 Pastry-shop Lace Hat
-3 Pastry-shop Waiter vest
-2 Pastry-shop Counter
-1 Pastry-shop Cake Tower
-2 Pastry-shop Dress
-0 Pastry-shop Kitchen
-2 Pop-star Chair
-4 Pop-star Balloons
-5 Yellow Pop-star Dress
-3 Pink Pop-star Dress
-2 Blue Pop-star Dress
-2 Pop-star Beret
-2 Blue Pop-star Stage
-0 Pink Pop-star Stage
-2 Pop-star Neon Panel
-0 Yellow pop-star stage
-4 Smoke Blaster
-3 Rocket-Launch Lights
-2 Rocket-launch button
-2 Rocket-Pilot Jacket
-2 Rocket-pilot pants
-2 Rocket-pilot boots
-1 Control-room Desk
-0 Control-room Monitor
-1 Rocket-Pilot Helmet
-0 Rocket Launchpad

No grand prizes, several of the commons, and in the case of rares, I had two left for each before managing to finally get the Cupcake tower from Marshal (which at least was one of my favorites so I’m glad I got that). And on top of that, I’m just stuck with tons of extras I don’t want. Nor do I want to give to Gulliver since I don’t find his prizes particularly great, honestly and I got all the villagers and I’m just tired of RNG at this point. I prefer the Gulliver who gave me fun travel trivia. :(

Anyway, I don’t necessarily think this couldn’t work somehow–I think if the prices were cheaper (Maybe like… 10-20 Leaf Tickets per cookie) if it stayed the same with maybe 50 Leaf Tickets or 100 or even based on the item to just buy it straight out for people who maybe just want a specific item (and/or just add the ability to give items to friends!! SERIOUSLY). Another option would be lowering the current stamp totals–4-5 for the Grand Prize and 2-3 for Rares feels better balanced to me. It just genuinely feels so overpriced to buy a cookie.

But honestly, just having this kind of feature in a game where collecting is literally a core part of the gameplay and one of the reasons people play is just genuinely poor taste. And if you really want to argue that collecting is still “optional” and the catalog is an “optional goal”, I’d like to point out that:
1. Animal Crossing doesn’t really have any true goals so yeah, that’s kind of one of the closest you get along with paying off your house and completing the museum (the latter which doesn’t exist in Pocket Camp).
2. Then, if you want a more “concrete” feature this hinges upon–the new Memory system. You need to win the grand prize from each fortune cookie in order to get the item to unlock the special memory. You can’t get the memories otherwise and these memories are the ones that even feature your villager. You can’t unlock all the memories without buying into this and hoping you get lucky.

As cute as Pocket Camp is, it kills me that I feel it’s missing nearly every core point of Animal Crossing and what attracted people to the series in the first place.