A Green Mushroom

Pokemon Sun was fun for a Pokemon game!  It's still Pokemon but if that's what you're looking for then this is a really good version of it. In fact, I would say this is my favorite Pokemon game at this point.  I've played about half of the generations and this is the first time the story got me to care about it at all.  Plus, all the modern conveniences continue to roll in and make this game better. There's not a lot to say besides it's Pokemon again and it's a good one.  If you want to hear me go on about it for awhile then check out the podcast episode from a few weeks back:

Before starting this chronological series sampling, Tri Force Heroes is the Zelda game I had played most recently.  It only came out last year and I played it right when it released.  I didn't think my opinions of it would have changed much, but I was interested to see how it held up in the context of the rest of the series.  Mostly, I was curious where it would rank. I actually just picked up my old save file for this one since the game is designed to be replayed.  You unlock different costumes and levels as time goes on so I figured I would start with the full game unlocked this time. I was quickly reminded that hell is other people.  Well... sometimes.  When you get grouped with random people online it's always a grab bag.  You never quite know what you'll get.  Maybe someone will disconnect.  Maybe someone will just not understand the puzzle even if you walk them through the entire thing with emotes.  Maybe they'll just stand...

A Link Between Worlds is my favorite Zelda game.  If I wasn't so close to the end of my playthrough of the series I wouldn't be confident enough to say that, but now I am. It takes everything I love about all the 2D Zelda games before it and includes those elements... then improves upon them in many ways.  Plus, it renders them in a cool 3Dish way on the 3DS.  A Link Between Worlds is also a huge homage to Link to the Past, which has been sitting at my number one spot in the rankings up to this point. And it really shows.  Everything from the overworld to the dungeons pays tribute to Link to the Past.  It's not a one to one copy or direct rip off but there's no question that this is supposed to be the same world and deal with the same themes.  It was a brave choice since it could have made this game feel like a retread instead of something new.  Instead, it feels amazing. I love the open and non-linear style of Link Between Worlds.  ...

After wrapping up A Link to the Past I fired up Link's Awakening on my 3DS Virtual Console almost immediately.  I was really excited to get into the next game, especially one that I hadn't played since the Game Boy Color days. And wow, it has not aged well.  I know I beat this game on Game Boy Color when I was a kid but it just doesn't hold up anymore.  The screen sizes are too small for anything super interesting to happen on any one screen.  I know that's a conceit to the Game Boy and Game Boy Color but even later GBC games like the Zelda Oracle games feel better than this. Not to mention the player messaging.  If it were just the screen size and graphics that make the game feel aged I could deal with it but the killer thing for me is the horrible player messaging.  It's super difficult to know where to go next or what to do next.  It completely killed my momentum and generally made me want to be playing anything else. So, I'm going to set ...

Bravely Second was the last game in my gaming backlog.  I picked it up for a trip a few month ago and just never got around to playing it.  Now I have! I have to say, the underlying systems in this game are great.  Everything I loved about Bravely Default is here and most of it has actually been improved upon.  The old systems have been tweaked in good ways and the new systems just add to the game.  I love everything they're doing from a mechanics standpoint. But... after five or six hours with Bravely Second the story still failed to grab me.  It's set in the same world with a bunch of the same characters and I think that's a major stumbling point.  They all had a complete story arc and now they feel shoehorned into another adventure.  The new characters interact with the old characters and I just fail to care.  Maybe if I buckled down and pushed on further it would change. For now I just need to set this game down and know I'll co...

Metroid Prime Federation Force is a game I really wanted to like.  It's another one that I tried out via Gamefly because I was unsure about it... and I'm glad I did. It's not that this is a bad game.  It actually looks like a really solid game, but only under the correct circumstances. This game seems like it would be great if I were playing on a New 3DS and had four friends in the room with me.  Or even having four friends I could coordinate with online.  But, I'm here by myself with a 3DS XL. It seems like this game was built from the ground up with four player co-op in mind and playing single player just feels lacking.  The fact that I'm not playing on a "new" 3DS means I don't have that analog nub that functions as a second analog stick.  So, instead of traditional dual analog stick FPS controls it's a huge step back. Again, this game isn't bad, it's just not for me.  If you do happen to have four friends to sit down with an...

I'm finally completely finished with Fire Emblem Fates.  This game is definitely in the running for my game of the year pick. The Revelation campaign is the third and final campaign in the game.  It's highly recommended that you finish both of the other campaigns first to get the most out of it and I can see why.  Revelation pulls from both of the other stories and gives you the details about what's happening behind the scenes.  It's the middle path, and the one I think I would have chosen if given the option initially. It's super cool to see all these main characters that had to fight and kill each other in the other two campaigns finally meet as allies.  It allows for all sorts of interesting conversations.  Pairing up troops from opposite sides of the war was especially fun. Not to mention that the ending of this campaign felt like the true ending of the game.  Both of the others were satisfying but incomplete.  Playing through all th...

I finally got back around to my Fire Emblem Fates Conquest campaign and finished it off!  I really liked it! I was sitting at around 60% done with the campaign.  I had jumped into it right after finishing Birthright in the first week that Fates came out and just gave myself burnout on the game by playing so much.  Now, coming back to it, it only took me another two days to finish off the campaign and wrap it up. It's really cool to see the other side of the story.  Birthright covers siding with the Hoshido side and Conquest is about picking the Nohr side.  This is definitely the darker story.  Hoshido is more conventional and you get to be the "good guy" pretty clearly.  The Nohr side sees you trying to change things from within an evil kingdom even though you're trying your best to not be evil.  It's actually more interesting because of that. But, it's also the harder campaign by far.  Birthright has some challenges but most levels...

I had never played a Rhythm Heaven game before and when Nintendo stealth launched this one on the eShop I heard a bunch of people I trust say that it's a great jumping on point for the series. It's essentially a "best of" from the Rhythm Heaven series and the gameplay itself is made up of a ton of different mini rhythm games.  As someone who likes music games I thought this one might be for me. It kind of is and kind of isn't.  I like the rhythm games and have fun with them but each one individually is way too short for my taste.  I'm used to music games where you play through an entire song, not a minigame that takes less than 30 seconds.  I feel like I haven't really been able to sink my teeth into any of the minigames enough to enjoy them because of their short length. That being said, what is there is really fun.  I played this game pretty solidly for a few days and then put it on the backburner for 3DS games.  I think I'll dip back into ...

Pocket Card Jockey had me hooked for a week or two straight.  I really wanted to absorb it and see if it had legs before writing about it.  I'm still finding myself going back to it fairly consistently so I thought it was time. Pocket Card Jockey is a 3DS eShop title you can pick up for like $6.  In it you are a jockey riding horses in professional horse racing, but you suck at it, so by some magic power you are able to play a version of solitaire instead which powers your horse.  It's super weird but also really really good. The solitaire variant is perfect for it too, because it's super simple.  All you have to do is tap a card on the touch screen that's one below or one above your current card.  Suits, colors, all that stuff is thrown out the window in favor of simplicity and the game is all the better for it. Plus you're racing and growing your horse.  There are sections in each race where you use the power you've gotten from solitaire to...

I beat Birthright within a week of picking up Fire Emblem Fates and I loved it! Fire Emblem Fates sees you taking on the role of Corrin, a prince or princess (you choose) who was raised by the Nohr royal family but then soon finds out that they were a member of the Hosido royal family that had been captured at a very young age. If you're unaware of the Fates situation, basically there are three campaigns but you don't buy them all together.  You purchase one version of the game and get that as your first campaign.  This is either Birthright (which I picked) or Conquest.  Birthright sees you siding with Hosido the family of your birth while Conquest will keep you with the family that raised you. Once you beat that campaign you get the choice to purchase either of the other two campaigns at half price and download them directly into your existing game.  The third campaign, Revelations, is a middle path that ties both of the other two together. All of the ca...

I downloaded the brand new Fire Emblem Fates earlier today when it released and after picking up the Birthright version I had enough time to sit down and play it for one full charge of my 3DS battery. My initial impressions are really good.  It has everything I loved about the first 3DS entry in the series, Fire Emblem Awakening, but it's been refined and added to.  The core of the combat system is still the same as is the relationship system and I'm really happy with that.  It didn't need big changes.  The minor tweaks they've done are for convenience. The biggest difference I've noticed right from the start is the attention paid to the story.  In Fire Emblem Awakening it had a very typical (and stereotypical) story that was easy to predict even though it was well executed.  In Fire Emblem Fates they've created three unique storylines depending on a key choice you make near the beginning of the game.  I'm already seeing huge ramifications and ...

Over the past couple days I've gotten to start digging into Final Fantasy Explorers.  It's a Final Fantasy spin-off game for the 3DS. It's basically Monster Hunter by way of Final Fantasy. After somewhere in the 6 to 8 hour range with the game I'm feeling very "meh" towards it.  I love the premise, getting to use Final Fantasy classes against monsters in the world.  But the game itself feels slow and directionless. It has really bad messaging to player.  It's hard to know what to focus on or what to do to improve your character.  There's also almost no story, which is typically something that keeps me invested in Final Fantasy games. I've finding Explorers less fun than I hoped it would be.  But it's not a straight up bad game.  There can be moments of fun against enemies or fighting giant eidolons out of the Final Fantasy lexicon like Ifrit and Shiva. I think I'm going to put this one on the backburner.  It might be better su...

I picked up Steamworld Heist when it suddenly appeared on a bunch of "game of the year" lists in early January.  I had been interested in it since I loved Steamworld Dig but for some reason the release date (near the end of December) had totally slipped my mind. If I would have played this before the end of the year it would easily have been in my games of the year post. Steamworld Heist is a 2D sidescrolling turn based strategy game with skillshots and trajectory skills.  It's awesome. You all know I love a good turn based strategy game, and this is a great one.  It follows the aesthetic of Steamworld Dig but beyond that similarity it is it's own game.  Steamworld Dig was a dig deeper and upgrade your character sort of game.  Steamworld Heist is all about being a ROBOT SPACE PIRATE . Maybe I should have put that up at the front of the post. YOU ARE A ROBOT SPACE PIRATE!  It's so much fun. The progression mechanics of acquiring new gear and ...

I grabbed Pokemon Omega Ruby before heading out on my last trip and finally got around to beating it the other day. Every once in a great while I get the craving for a Pokemon game and this one did the job just fine.  It has Pokemon, gym leaders, a story, the Pokemon League, and everything that comes with a Pokemon game.  It was fun to play through fairly quickly. The thing that I noticed most of all is how much extra stuff  they've added to Pokemon games over the years.  I can see how it would be nice if you're going to devote hundreds of hours to Pokemon to have all these side activities, but I'm just in it to play through the game once and then move on.  When I was really into Pokemon as a kid it was with the original two generations of the game.  They were just about Pokemon, leveling up, and beating the game.  I guess that's still all I want. These modern incarnations of Pokemon have so many side activities it's almost overwhelming. ...

Triforce Heroes is the newest Legend of Zelda game on 3DS.  It came out two weeks ago but I still haven't see much coverage of it.  Maybe it's because Triforce heroes isn't structured like a typical Legend of Zelda game, it's basically a follow-up to The Legend of Zelda Four Swords. If you don't know what that means... it's essentially multiplayer Zelda. The main conceit in making Zelda multiplayer is that the open world exploration is completely gone.  Instead, the game is structured into zones which contain levels which contain stages. You connect online and choose the zone you want to play in.  This will match you with other people who also want to play levels in that zone.  Once you have a party of three you enter the zone and cast your vote for the level you want to play.  It does a little roulette spin and choose the one of your three votes randomly.  Then you actually enter the level and play through the four stages within it as a team...

One of the items on my Gaming To-Do List the other week was the generic "Fall Releases".  It's a big category and I'd like to dig into it more. The reason I didn't list specific games is because I'm not sure what I'm going to pick up yet.  For one of the first times ever I'm near the end of my gaming backlog, so I'm really excited for the new Fall releases.  The release season has already started with games like Metal Gear Solid 5 and Super Mario Maker but it always seems like things truly get crazy in October and November. Here are the games I know I'm going to get for sure.  I either have these pre-ordered or I plan on picking them up day one: Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes (October 22nd) Fallout 4 (November 10th) StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void (November 10th) Star Wars Battlefront (November 17th) Two of those I already have paid in full and the other two I'll grab digitally right when they release.  But, that's no...

I ran into another hang up with visual novels.  I've been trying to play a variety of them lately and I've given up on everything except for Professor Layton vs Pheonix Wright.  But, I'm almost ready to give up on that too. A big issue I run into with these games is my reading speed.  I read a lot and I've been reading a lot for as long as I can remember.  Because of that, I read really fast.  I read much faster than these games display text. I basically end up just mashing the A button or tapping the screen as fast as I can to get the text to show up faster.  I wish they would either display more text on the screen at one time or increase the text display speed. And the worst is when they slow down the text to a crawl for dramatic effect.  It's so infuriating.  Ugh! I can tell I'm almost done with this venture into the visual novels left in my backlog.  I'm down to just the one last game and I'm either going to power through and ...

Last week I mentioned that I've finally gotten around to some of the visual novel games I've been meaning to play.  My final thoughts were about how the pacing of Danganronpa seemed to be better than the other games I had tried. I was very wrong. The pace of the narrative slowed way down and I got extremely frustrated with it.  The game has murders and trials and I saw the obvious conclusion of the cases almost immediately.  It took forever for the characters to draw the same conclusions.  It was infuriating. So I stopped playing it.  I'm officially walking away from Danganronpa.  It quickly became too frustrating slow for me. I tried going back and playing a little bit of Dual Destinies but that has some pacing issues of it's own. The one game in this vein that I'm still slowly picking away at is Professor Layton vs Pheonix Wright.  The Professor Layton portions of the game are redeeming it enough that I keep coming back for sh...

I've really been working through my backlog this year and I've finally made it to a few visual novels that I've been meaning to play.  Namely: Phoenix Wright Dual Destinies Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright Danganronpa I utterly failed to get into Dual Destinies.  The pacing was so unbelievably slow.  I was led to believe that these games had a lot of gameplay mixed into their narratives, but it turns out that Dual Destinies is mostly narrative.  It's much more like reading a book than playing a game. I moved on to Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright.  I've enjoyed a bunch of the Layton game in the past.  Typically they have a bit of narrative followed by a puzzle followed by a bit of narrative.  And this one is structured similarly.  When I'm in the Layton sections of the game I have a lot of fun and make a lot of progress.  Unfortunately, the Phoenix Wright sections suffer from the same slow pacing as Dual Destinie...