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On the 16th of this month one of my most anticipated games released. That game was Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. Tomodachi Life was the reason I got a 3DS back in the day. I played it a bunch just playing doll house with my miis, many of whom were just OCs I had back then. I didn't really care for Miitopia. It was fun but I never beat it. Didn't even get the switch version. I was very excited when I saw they were making a sequel for the switch, especially remembering Nintendo's promise to be more inclusive in the sequel. I was cautious since I don't trust any big corp these days. It made that moment in the direct where they showed all the flavors of queer you could be hit so good. Obviously not the most robust system ever but seeing the word "nonbinary" in a Nintendo game was a shock to say the least.
So you can be queer, but is the game any good? The short answer: Yeah! It's really fun. The long answer though is that it's complex. After spending a considerable amount of time in Living the Dream and reaching the credits I have some opinions. They're mostly positive but let's start with some of the glaring issues. No concert hall is sad. Most of the "features" from 3DS like Quirky Questions, Judgement Bay, Relationship Tester, and so on, have been removed. While I do miss these features, what I miss more is how they added to the goofy nature of the game. Prime example is the relationship tester putting your mii heads on more realistic bodies. While you still get some of that with the Mii News Network stories, it does feel like the miis go "off model" much less in this game. While talking about gripes, there are a bunch of little things that stick out when using the island builder. These things only stick out as they've done a lot to make it as frictionless as possible. These things are mainly not being able to remove tiles that have objects on them and how cluttered the menus get when picking objects as every color variant of every object takes up it's own space. Thankfully there is an option to expand the menu so we don't suffer from Echos of Wisdom syndrome.
Overall though, I do really enjoy the game. It gives me what I enjoyed the most from the previous Tomodachi Life game, which is just playing doll house. Back during the 3DS days I didn't have all the characters I do now. My 3DS island had plenty of video game characters, friends, creatures, and internet personalities. That was then, and this is now though. Now I have 30 characters and I made all of them as miis to live on this island. Aside from Mii Gunner from Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U and a joke character of "Shiny Onyx", all the miis were my OCs. I have such a blast watching my little personal blorbos interact with each other. I enjoy customizing them with the little quirks to make them act more like how they should. It's just one giant non-canon beach episode where we can put aside the fact that some of these people have done fucked up things and just be pals.
I haven't even gotten into the ways you can customize the island and the miis with the Palette House. Obviously the clothing is one thing but I underestimated how much I'd enjoy making island objects and houses. I was able to make a sphere look like a pokeball and the game would allow me to make it pretty much as small as an actual pokeball and that'd be their house. What can I say, it's awesome. I was not expecting how much they'd let you customize things. Not a fan of the custom wallpaper and flooring options because it's a pain in the ass to get those to tile well given their weird resolution. I made a Zeeky H. Bomb as a food item. I know that won't mean anything to most people. The people who know what I'm talking about are probably also very confused. I don't know why that was the first thing I thought of when they asked me to make a custom food item... but it's there and it gets a chuckle out of me whenever someone says its name.
Which brings us to the most likely why this game is gonna have legs to a lot of people, The Island Lingo system. You can just tell these little freaks to talk about anything and they'll be more than happy to repeat it. Somehow in this Nintendo game there is no word filter... at least none I could find. You want your miis to talk about suckin and fuckin? Go right ahead. Those little creatures will bring up "Fucking litle a wild animal" as a casual dinner topic if you let them. All the terms and phrases you teach them are now just in their little hivemind brains. They'll talk about how they watch Dr. Octagonapuss's streams and how much they love to do crimes. This includes the things you make, almost to a fault. The game loves to use food items and treatures you make in minigames and in cutscenes.
But yeah, game is good. Now that I have all my characters I'm going to continue to play but now I can add the weirdos and freaks and video game characters and have all hell break loose. It'll be great! Have some pictures!
I found this a few days ago and I wanted to give it a proper listen a couple of times before I shared it. This artist going by Lee=Emcee² created a concept album that is basically a musical walkthrough of Cave Story and honestly? It's really good. I'm shocked at how well it flows and just how creative the lyrical choices are. It's a treat to listen to. Reminds me of MF DOOM in the way sometimes heavy sample usage will create dialogue within a track.
Namely I want to highlight track 13, "My Forevers (Couplets)" which is a track based on the bad ending if you escape on the dragon early. Written as if from the point of view of Quote years after the events took place. The sense of regret crushing him. It's a great piece and I'm glad it's included.
WHICH ALSO contrasts with track 20, "My Forevers (Villianelle)" which is based on the normal ending and like track 13, is written in the style presented in the parenthetical. It's bonkers.
Obviously a lot of my enjoyment here is due to the fact that Cave Story is straight up one of my top ten favorite games of all time. You will miss a lot not having that context, but the lyricism on display here is very impressive and shouldn't be written off I feel.
In early-mid October Pokemon Legends: Z-A came out. I bought it pretty much day one and have been loving it. I've beaten the main and post game. I've completed the PokeDex, Mable's Research, Colorful Screws, and all the side missions. It's been an absolute blast. The opening is pretty snoozer with how long they railroad you but once you're let free it feels so good. Running around the city, climbing stuff, finding things. The city like a huge playground just to play around in. There is always something to get distracted with.
The game isn't without faults, but nothing negative I could say about the game would be enough to spoil the fun I had. The new battle system is really interesting and makes you reconsider your priorities in the middle of a fight. On top of that, the battle zones that appear during night time end up giving this almost arcade-y feel to battles. It's fun to blitz through a battle zone and see how many wins or how much money you can make in a single night. My high score for wins is currently 40 in a single night and I doubt I'm gonna get more than that.
It's so nice to have a Pokemon game where you can play dress up again. There isn't as many clothing as I'd like but I'm always greedy for more character customization. First time in a long time where I felt like I was always refining my character's look throughout the game. Every promotion match I got I'd make sure to snap a picture so it's a nice timeline of how my character evolved over time. I'm mixed on side missions locking stuff like hair colors behind them since I'd like that stuff from the start but unlocking more options is a great reason to rethink your style.
Quick opinion rapid fire. Story? Pretty good. Like most Pokemon games there are bits I'm way more interested in than others. I'm glad the one main bit I wanted (AZ stuff) is delivered. Gameplay? Very fun, the new combat is interesting and makes fights more engaging. Visuals and Music? They're Pokemon. Now what that means to you might vary. Graphics have never been my priority and Pokemon music has always been at least enjoyable. Overall, I really like the game. I've already started shiny hunting and doing a second playthrough.
Thanks to a very kind stranger, I've finally finished my Pokemon Home Pokedex. The three problem Pokemon I was missing, Deoxys, Diancy, and Magearna, have been traded to me via a random person I met in some youtube comments. lmao. I left a commend how I was only missing these Pokemon and someone just offered to play through the 3DS games where you could get them and send them to me. Very lucky for me! I gave them some extra shinies of some of my favorite Pokemon for their help. (including Porygon which I have like 15 of or something. Lmao, I went a little wild with that outbreak event when the Switch 2 launched.)
My history with Pokemon has been a bit of a rocky one! You wouldn't guess that given how much I talk about it and how much I play the games nowadays. I started with Red, got Silver, Emerald, and Firered... but when it came to Gen 4 and Diamond, I really lost interest. Maybe it was my age. Maybe I was just interested in other things at the time but Pokemon Diamond really killed a lot of interest I had in the series. I would end up trying every game either through emulation or the actual physical game but I couldn't stick with any of them. Black and White had somewhat slow starts and the multiple rivals kinda bogged things down. X and Y made that even worse with the whole gaggle of friends you have. Sun and Moon's intro section was so slow that I didn't even make it past the school before giving up. (Note: I don't think any of these games are bad, just not to my tastes. If I had a 3DS I would probably try going back to them) Then came Sword and Shield for the Switch.
Sword and Shield really changed the game for me. The intro, while still a bit slow really caught my interest. Meeting the Champion right away and how your rival is related to them. Going into the woods and seeing the legendary. Hop's story as your rival was way more interesting then what I thought it'd be. The story while nothing shocking was still engaging enough that it kept me playing. The Wild Area was a huge deal. It felt so magical to have this wide open space to just roam around and see a multitude of Pokemon. The DLCs only added onto that by being completely "wild areas." I enjoyed the story of the Isle of Armor and the Dynamax Adventures of the Crown Tundra offered to much to do. I was very happy with the Dynamax Adventures because it allowed me to get a bunch of legendaries I didn't have from previous games. Shield will always hold a special place in my heart for getting me back into the series.
With Legends: Arceus alongside Scarlet and Violet I'm now fully back into my Pokemon obsession as if I were a kid again. As is obvious by a bunch of my silly pages being Pokemon themed. lmao. I've even been shiny hunting! That was something I never did in previous games. It wasn't until Shield that I found my first shiny. No surprise it was a shiny Wooloo. Needless to say, I'm very happy about having a complete Pokedex in Pokemon Home. Not only does this mean having that special Magearna but it means I can finally start putting the finishing touches on my living dex. Filling in missing spaces left by evolutions and whatnot. Very much looking forward to Pokemon Legends: Z-A. >w<
Thought I should leave my thoughts about my first year doing Art Fight here.
With this being my first year doing Art Fight, I went in with very tempered expectations. I didn't expect revenges, I didn't even expect anyone I didn't already know to draw my characters While the first happened (which again, not upset by, I understand) I'm happy the second happened at least. I got some burn-out half-way into the month. I definitely wanted to draw some more characters but that just how it be sometimes. I had fun. I'd probably do it next year. I need to make more little reference images. Sad the one character I really wanted art of didn't get any though lmao. Oh well xP
I'm proud of all of the pieces I created this year. I like to think I had some very creative ideas and executed them to a degree I'm happy with. It was really fun just looking at random user's profiles and finding characters I really liked the designs of. I can only hope any piece I did was enough to put a smile on the faces of the creators of these characters. That's all I need. Even if some of them were goofy pictures I made for the sole purpose of making people laugh. I tried to make sure everyone who attacked me got some piece of art in return. It's the least I could do for anyone taking the time to draw my silly characters. if I felt like an image was too simple, I tried anything to spice it up even just a bit. I never drew for points. It's nice to be rewarded for your effort but this was all about having fun and drawing. Sometime I haven't done in a while I gotta admit.
It was a grand ol' time. I went in with some worries about my abilities being subpar but this experience has shown that even it doesn't matter. As long as you have fun, that's what counts... and I did! I had tons of fun!
Thank you Art Fight! Team Crystals 2025 :p