Tag: PC

Cherry’s first dish(It’s actually a game Review!)

Hello everyone! Your new Chef has arrived! As Pinkie already explained, I’m Cherry and will be doing some posts from now on as well as part of the team here on the resort! I’m a little bad at thinking where to start, so I will just get right into it! I love playing games, and I also love cooking! I do quite a lot of cooking my home life and usually try to do my own recipes, so a combination of both gaming and cooking seems like perfect for me. And it mostly is! Lately I have been playing one game in particular, and it is what I will be giving a brief overview of today, so without further ado, here is Chef: A Restaurant Tycoon!

Game Introduction

So! Chef is a Restaurant management/cooking simulator game currently available on Steam! It game out of early access in 2020 and recently had its first expansion(which adds in a bunch of new features primarily focused on Eastern Asia Cuisine).

The premise for the game is pretty simple, you are a chef and you run and manage a restaurant, the rest is up to you! It is a very free game in terms of options. The end-goal is up to you, as is what kind of restaurant and food you wish to be playing with. For some players, the goal might simply be to run a single seafood restaurant. For others, it could be to have a large burger franchise with several restaurants. All of this is available to do!

The character creation

Getting Started

So first things first. After you get past the main menu, the first screen you will see is the character creation! Here you decide how your chef will look. You have a few options, first being body(This is where clothing is. You got a variety of clothing outfits/styles for both a more masculine & femining body, but no specific gender lock thing!) Secondly, you pick a headshape and then a hairstyle. As a finish touch you can then change your chef expression as well as colour for the various things!

Once you feel happy with your Chef, you get to pick a difficulty option. These come in 4 categories: Normal, Hardcore, Relaxed & Sandboxed. Normal is how it sounds, it’s the game with the original settings. Hardcore is more of a challenge run, stakes will be higher and it will be more difficult to manage the resturant.

Relaxed mode is a lighter version of normal. The pace is slowed down, the difficulty curve is a bit easier, allowing you more freedom to pick and play exactly how you want. Finally Sandbox is more of Relaxed. Atop of having easier settings, you start with near infinite money, and enough skill points to create whatever kind of resturant you want from scratch. Otherwise you need to gradually progress to get exactly what you want.

In my personal opinion, I would say that I greatly prefer Sandbox or Relaxed mode. While I really enjoy the game and think it has alot of creativity and fun, the normal difficulty can sometime feel a bit stressful and straining. You get more or less forced to try and minmax various stats for the most optimal way to make money. But if that is what you are into, then go for normal. It’s still fun!

Pick a location!

Next on the list is to actually pick where you want to have your first resturant! You are taken to a pretty large map(Which is randomly generated each new game). You have a variety of districts to choose from. For example, do you want to have your resturant in a factory area, towncenter, out on the countryside and so on. This will determine some things such as price of rent, how many people will come to your resturant and what types of people(As seen on the right of the picture!)

Each district has a few choices of a resturant themselves, which can be varying in size of both the kitchen and dining area. The resturants can also have small traits that will affect customers and rent. A resturant that is in a dangerous neighbourhood will have lower rent, but the richer customers will refuse to come there, for example.

The restaurant layout!

Running a restaurant

Once you have locked in your pick of resturant, you will be taken to the beautiful image above, specifically your resturant! This is the main layout of the game and where you will be spending most of your time. While I will give a rough explaination of all of the options, I only have two deep-dives left to do however(With pictures).

At the top right corner of the screen you can set the name of your resturant. This has no gameplay effects and can be changed at any time you feel like! Below that is a small panel showing some customer statistics. In order from left to right they are: Customers waiting to be seated, customers waiting to order, customers waiting for food, customers eating, customers waiting to pay, and amount of customers who ran out and didn’t pay/just left.

On the right side is your crew management, and here is where you will see your staff and how they are doing. You can also set them to do different tasks here.

And now for the menus! Going from left to right I will explain a bit what each one does before focusing on the two big ones later as a final touch!

So first, starting with the chef’s hat icon is the Skill Panel! Here is where you see the skill level of your Chef and your crew. As you do activities like cooking or serving customers, your characters will level up. You can then spend points to increase their performance or unlock new options. For your main chef, this for example lets you unlock new recipe templates for the recipe creator, which we talk about later!

Next up is the decorations panel. Here are the options for building up your resturant! You have options to change the colours of the exterior and interior, this doesn’t do much other than look nice! The actual decorations, such as tables and wall-art, clocks, shelves and so on, all affect what type of customers will want to come to your resturant! They add to a specific type of atmosphere(examples being Rustic, Modern, Fancy, Cheap). Finally, you also buy your kitchen appliances here, which determines stats for your cooking. In order to fry food for example, you need a fryer. You can add in a microwave to make food cook faster, but lose quality. Fridge to reduce ingredients costs, and so on!

Following the decorations is the staff manager! It’s here you go to hire new staff. Currently there are two types of staff available,waiter and chef. You can also use different ways to seek out more high quality staff by either just asking people on the street, put out ads or hire a recruiting agency.

Menu is next on the line! Here is where you set up your resturant menu with what is available as well as prices. What type of food you got, as well as how much variety and options will all affect your customers. When you unlock new ingredients you also get pre-created food which you can’t edit, so if you don’t feel like creating your own recipes, there will always be things to serve as you progress! The menu offers alot of options, as you can set up the following: Apetiziers, Main Dish, Soups, Salad, Side Dish, Dessert and drinks! Delicious! As a final note on the menu as well, it is here you go to edit recipes you created yourself.

Next up is the Recipe Editor! Here you will create your own custom recipes, which I will go into more detail later, so for now I leave it as it is and move on to the next option!

The next menu is a bit smaller, and simply details your types of customers you are getting and some customer statistics, not alot to say there! It can help you if you are trying to pinpoint a specific customer base, as it will tell you what your customers tends to order, what they like and so on!

After the customer menu is the ingredients panel, which I will cover with the recipe editor!

Next up is the Chef Advisor! It is basically a built in Yelp/Review site for the game. Your previous customers will sometimes rate your resturant with stars and leave reviews. Some can be helpful, others just really stupid. But it’s always good to pay attention to what they are rating as they can rate everything from staff, speed, food and how the resturant looks! The more stars you get on Chef Advisor increases the amount of people coming your resturant!

After the Chef Advisor comes decisions. At the beginning you can’t do that much here, but you still have a few options. On the decision panel you can set staff wages as well as cleaning routines for the resturant. You can also gradually start to unlock different types of advertising. From billboards to blogs to commercials and so on. You will also be able to buy new furniture options, and eventually, set up mulitple resturants! All of these bigger options though, costs influence. Influence is the measurement of your larger success. As your resturant climbs in popularity, you also gain influence, which allows you to do bigger decisions and begin the path from a small diner to a large, five-star resturant chain!

Next is the city map. It will take you back to the screen at the beginning of the game and lets you choose new locations for your resturant(if you wish to move), or if you want to open up a second one!

Following that comes the financial menu, where you can see more details about your costs and income. It is a good way to determie if you need to lower any decisions or change your prices!

The calendar is the next one! It shows you information about dates. You have twelve months, and 4 days every month. Each day represents a full week. During some months there are special events, like christmas for example, that can change how many people come by your resturant!

The last two menus are not very much to talk about, as they are just more information about the resturant/and a secondary rating/Chef advisor, just without the details. So with those out of the way, let’s go into the ingredients and recipe editor as the final parts of this lengthy article!

The vegetable section of the ingredients panel!

So this is the ingredients panel, and it is huge! If you can think of a type of food ingredient, it is probably in here! The ingredients come in sections of Vegetables, carbs, meat, seafood, nuts, fruits, milk products, drinks, spices and so on! There is quite alot of it.
When you start a new game you begin with 10 ingredient points(510 if you play sandbox), which you can use to buy ingredients. As you unlock ingredients, you get more options to add to your recipes as well as pre-created recipes on the menu depending on what you unlock. You earn ingredients points by cooking your custom made recipes!

Each recipe also comes in 3 levels of quality. Silver, gold, platinum/purple. The more higher-ranked ingredients you use, the better the food quality, but the cost of preparing the food is also higher. I really like this system simply because it has so many options!

The main menu for the recipe editor!

Fun with Recipes

Finally, we have now reached the recipe editor, the highlight of this game! Here you have the option to create your own recipes using a basic template! As you first enter the recipe editor, you are greeted with the option to pick what type of dish you want to create, based on the template. Do you want to make a pie, a sandwich, a soup and so on. Once you have picked that, you can customize the image for your dish. This has no gameplay impact and is just for fluff. And finally you name your dish, and decide where on the menu it sits(Apetizer, main dish, dessert etc).

Once you have saved your template, you are taken to the next menu. Here you will have a small icon telling you what ingredients(and the amount of each) you need to make the basic recipe. Once you have those done, the recipe can be created and you can go nuts with everything else! You have every single ingredient you own available to you, and can throw them in as you please in terms of quality an amount. Each ingredient will add stats to the dish, such as fatness, bitterness, sweetness and so on, as well as the flavour, cost, cooking time and calories. If the ingredients matches well in terms of taste, you can gain special buffs, and the recipe quality will generally be better if the ingredients are matching!

And that is all! My first article here on the resort! I hope all of you will enjoy it, and perhaps even get curious to try out the game yourself! I am very happy to be here, to be able to make all the delicious food with my friends(Which I might share recipes with here soon!) and to be able to geek out!
This is Cherry, signing off on her first post! Bon Appetit!

A Love Letter To My Favourite Steampunk Game: A Love Letter to Final Fantasy VI

Dearest Final Fantasy VI, you may not know who I am, you might not remember me. Many have coveted you, many have written about how amazing you are and I know you will long endure after I have gone!  Many will desire you, many will claim they love you as I do, and though I do not question their devotion to you! There is one thing you must know! You are by far my Favourite Final Fantasy game! While I may look at other games and even enjoy spending time with other games a tiny bit more.. Know that while I may prefer to play Chrono Trigger over you.. You would be the game I say I LOVE more.  And since It’s Steampunk month.. and you the correct setting.. I can write you this letter.

Omen

Dearest Final Fantasy VI, We have met so many times before! That time I rented you as a little kid, back when you were still called Final Fantasy III, that time I emulated you  to be able to finish you for the first time when I had no other means.  Back when you finally came out on GBA and I went through an ordeal to be reunited.. and when that Game Boy with your cartridge got stolen.. I downloaded you again  to complete the story one more time. Then I finally downloaded you on PC as well, hoping I could see some cutscenes to no avail. We have met many times, on many platforms.. but somehow we are star crossed lovers. Each time you get closer I tend to lose you again.. such was the case when my laptop screen cracked.  You are the game I had to restart so many times over.. I played the early areas of the game so often I can almost dream them. Yet I never felt any regret. Every battle we fought… every boss and every dungeon , no matter if I progress or not it is always a delight to be with you.

Having a caster as the game’s main character, was the breath of fresh air we needed in this series.. NAY!  In the genre! Little games mirrored this, always favouring the humble knight. Yet by offering us the amazing Terra Bradford you have offered me my favourite protagonist in an MMO.  Both in Gameplay and Story we can sense her progression in so much more than just damage numbers or her saving the world.  Yet you also introduce us to a concept that no other Final Fantasy ..or other game did AS well as you. You make this a story about the entire cast.. and we can even choose who we think is worthy to accompany us to the end!  Never felt so in control of my choices in a JRpg and few have rivalled you since! Your gameplay has been the most enjoyable in the franchise for me, every character feeling completely unique and I’ll even forgive you for Gau.  Your gameplay is challenging but fair, requiring player interaction that involves more than switching one’s role.. and pressing X in time.

You managed to shape your gameplay around the story you wished to tell.. as a prelude of what is to come. You manage to caption personalities through gameplay.. like making the fist fighter.. feel like a character from a fighting game, making the wise and old samurai patient waiting for the perfect chance to strike and making the thief feel wiley and clever. The fabulous king works best if he has plenty of treasure.. and even…that wild thing gets stronger by spending time in the wild.. but let’s forget about him!  Your narrative driven  combat system, as a sign for what’s to come.. when we learn something about a character because you tell us.. we know this is correct because you tell us through gameplay. We know what characters are like.. because we feel what they are like.

Under Martial Law

My dearest game, one can not talk about you, without talking about the Steampunk esthetics you have, your worldbuilding filled with these wonderful gadgets. Once more brilliantly used to enhance your story.  Where the level of technology offers us interesting abilities in Edgar’s class as a Machinist..  but also where the tech level offers us interesting dungeons and daring escapes.   We follow the Story of Terra who is the last known mage. Magic has died because mankind has tried to encapsulate it within the technology of Magitech.  To give us a feeling of grit and this technology you let us start the game with Terra enslaved by a crown that suppresses her free will.. powering a giant steampunk mech called Magitech armor. Without even playing as the real character yet.. we feel what type of world you are trying to build. The town of Narshe made of pipes and gears show us how this world is tied to the theme we are discussing this month. Enemies using hounds, shotguns and flying machines and these giant mechs do not only offer a great challenge that scales with us as we grow and let Terra join the resistance against the corrupted rulers of this land.

A journey that involves finding the spirits of the Espers.. an ancient race of powerful beings.. from another world close to the one we spend most of our time in begins.  We discover more on how Terra has gotten her amazing magic powers.. at a price..    Yet for all magic, there is a magitech, for all creatures we fight there is a robot or a magitech armor.. a steampunk soldier. For every forest there is a factory and we visit cities where everything is in balance.. but we also visit places that lean more into magic and places that fit more into Steampunk.. there is balance.. but by having a world in balance we can also feel it when the story makes that balance shift.  Our characters experience not a journey of just victories.. no Final Fantasy let’s us experience losses just as much.. maybe even more! In fact this game lets us experience the ultimate loss. This game let’s the bad guy win!  However.. just because the bad guy wins does not mean we have lost! We do not only win, we also lose. So in a single game you manage to pack both ends of the gaming experience.. winning and losing.. but unite them as one!

You truly create an oppressed world.. but also a world we can rebuild… a world where our heroes desire things that have nothing to do with the fate of the world.. accept they do.. Later in the game our heroes have to choose between their personal lives.. and the fate of the world.. and you as a player have to steer their destiny so sometimes both can be an option. And while I wish I could leave Gau out of the story even the character I really dislike.. is someone I care about!  I wish he wasn’t in the game.. I wish I did not have to care about him.. but yet I do!  In a master stroke you even manage to make it arguable who is the main character of the game.. luckily both of the characters are among the top 5 female Jprg characters. So you have done so well in telling their tale and making this insanely balanced world.

Aria De Mezzo Caraterre

Oh My hero, my beloved,
I truly love Celeste her Part
This Love Never goes away, forever it is day
The opera scene stole my heart.

I lived in darkness, you were my starlight
Shining brightly from afar
In my time of despair, thank Arceus you were there
Thank you my evening Star.

My dearest Final Fantasy VI if I loved anything more about you then everything else it is your music. I never cry at music.. but when I heard Aria De Mezzo Caraterre be performed in front of me .. I was really happy I did not wear mascara. Celes Chere is a character that gives me goosebumps every time. We see her turn traitor to Emperor Gestahl when they treat her.. one of their generals as a sacrificial pawn. When Locke saves her.. she is empty..she doesn’t know who she is anymore so you decided.. to give her no musical theme. Every character has a musical theme.. but Celes has non.. and then during the Opera scene, where they are trying to draw the attention of an infamous sky pirate to be able to take the fight to Gestahl.. she has to sing about love.. an emotion she is not familiar with..but then her interactions with Locke.. make her find something in herself. After that is done Aria de Mezzo Caraterre becomes Celes, her theme is briljant Final Fantasy VI. I love you for it!

Yet I would not be AS in love with you if this was your only musical feat. After finding her theme Celes theme stays the same troughout her entire journey.. however everyone else theme changes.  Locke’s theme ..the thief is upbeat and screams, plucky adventurer.. but when he encounters a person from his path who has befallen a grim faith that same theme is being played as a sad ballad. When Terra loses control over her body and turns into a monster for a bit her theme becomes warped… her theme mixed with something else. Every character has music that changes.. because that is their journey.. yet you make Celes an exception.. she starts without a  theme and finds her sound along her journey.. she stays her course.. even if she has sad scenes.. the orginally version is a tragedy.. yet to celes it is also a song of strength.. so the song stays the same.. this is the best sound design I have seen in a video game.. I will admit you do not have my favourite theme of all time.. but you play with it the best. Even the music.. completely reflects the story.  Even if your player does not understand the complex story themes.. you will offer them at least an understanding of  the emotional load of a situation.. music bends to the narrative.. I love you for doing that.

Dancing Mad

The Black Mage, The Machinist, The Bard, The Samurai, the White Mage , The Thief and the Monk.. you would be one of the final games that brings so much class to these classes, while they are great in Final Fantasy Tactics and a realm reborn.. you are the game that gave these iconic classes a face. You to me are the pinnacle of what made the old games so great.. and what makes the story of  the newer games so compelling. The Locke, Celes romance is my favourite in any JRPG it felt so earned and genuine.. you would e xpect the male lead to end up with the female lead such as in basically every other narative Final Fantasy game.. but no.. you offer us a romance.. that fits the games narrative more.  And that is what I love about you so much.. you have interwoven everything in your story. You are not just a bunch of part, everything is at exactly the right place. Edgar would not be as interesting if you could reclass him, Terra’s theme would not be as amazing without it’s many reprises to reflect the story.. it never feels out of place. Nothing does. Not a single boss fight, not a single character that is not Gau.  Well there is Setzer!  But he is kinda cool as a person though.. just not as a character.  Of course I love taking Mog along because I can never have enough cute things, though you might be able to miss him… he is such a good fellow kupo!  

You are my pinnacle of Final Fantasy.. with only VII even coming remotely close.. and trust me.. when I say close.. it’s nowhere near still. I love the character designs.. except.. you know who.. I love your graphics.. even that weird cartoony pc look you also used for Mobile is oddly adorable.. and I love your villain. Kefka is such a great villain to top off a game that is already so amazing. His mania.. his evil.. .it hit so much more than say Sin, Sephiroth and Ultimecia combined.  I felt like a kid watching a puppet show going … ooooh you get away now from that river… when Kefka poisoned the waters of Doma.. when Cyan Garamonde held the corpses of his family I cried. The only other villian that made me cry was Sephiroth.. but that was because I was sad.. I lost the pinkest playable character and girl. Here I cried because the mean and cruel Kefka was … the pain that so many would feel.  His laughing sound….makes my skin crawl.. and not a single 16 bit game ever managed to do that. In fact.. .no game ever did this after…. in such a way.  That is also why I love you probably most of any JRPG , you are not my favourite game.

You are a rollercoaster. Everytime I see the Garamonde  family die I feel horrible, every time I have to get my party back.. I can not leave a single character behind because I love  them all. With Chrono Trigger.. I feel content unlocking whatever end I want.. yet with you.. I need to do it all.. everytime.. I feel obligated.. When I see Celes suffer my heart breaks a little. When Terra is sad I feel sad. Your world is hard and cold, the steel and the factories are unforgiving. The snow, the deserts, the treacherous rapids, you put on an amazing Steampunk world.. but one that like most steampunk it isn’t an easy world to experience. There are moments of laughter, moments of sadness and moments of anger.. you offer the full package.. you feel like a real world.. a world I love.. but for a casual bit of fun.. you are kind of too good! Never will a steampunk game ever take your place.. but who knows.. maybe during Steampunk month you will get some rivals.. I hope you do.. not because I want to see you detroned but I because I love you so.. and I want to experience that feeling once more.

The Legend of Zzzzelda: Sword of Ditto Review

Most of you know that Link in most of Zelda games is a reincarnation or an ancestor of the games we played with before. However the timeline of this universe is murky at best.  So how about we would get a Zelda game with a clear timeline?! Nintendo was not up for it so instead Onebitbeyond made a Zelda clone that lets you play as a whole slew of heroes reincarnated throughout time. One game the entire timeline.. that sounds epic right?!…..Right?!

<Disclaimer: I reviewed the STEAM version as trough the eyes of a single player experience, it is possible to play with more which may alter the experience, also other versions can have different forms of content.. this is strictly based on MY play-trough and what I experienced>


Sword of Ditto : Curse of Mormo  starts of super charmingly and funny. The graphical style reminds me a bit of the quasi modern cartoons like Super Adventure Time , Star Versus Evil and Steven Universe. A Dung Beetle named Puku shows up and drags out a destined hero to face the evil queen Mormo as her evil rules again. You get a little green outfit as you hold your sword above your head and the dung beetle drags you into the tower where your character gets promptly killed. He was underprepared. Whoops! A funny intro I will give them that. We then move to the next generation, the world seems slightly more devoid of life.. the town a lot more somber as we play a new hero. This time Puku tells you the basics.. Mormo has two Anchors that you need to destroy.. which are hidden deep in some dungeons. However to get access to these dungeons you need two toys of legends.. weapons with alternate functions if you will such as the bow or a yoyo that is kinda like a boomerang.. or a ring that kind of works like a grappling hook.

You can also gain a big foot! , though I am not sure how they got it at level 1

If you die in the field your bug friend will most likely save you but in some dungeons and the final encounter there is no resurrection possible so if you die there.. the world is ruled by Mormo once again and you have to fight her again. So Sword of Ditto is kind of like a Zelda Roguelite ..which kinda sounds like a bad idea to begin with due to the nature of all the tools you need but the game at least is very forgiving.While I deeply enjoyed the playthrough of the second lifetime.. as it really felt like a classic Zelda.. it would quickly turn to a much worse trip than I would have imagined. I beat Mormo on my first playthrough… now I would have to do it again..I spend all my resources on life potions because I expected this battle to be super rough but it was super easy… so now I had to do it all over again and start from scratch. This did not feel right to me.. something was eating at me, a feeling that  would only get worse.

I like the colours!

Let’s kick of with the positives however. It controls super nice, the fighting is fun, the mechanics are clever and the game looks super great and cute. Even though those pineapple monster things are straight up from Zelda and there is an old man.. cracked walls where you place bombs.. a c-button where you can lay out for toys to actively switch in.. sound effects when you open a door or a chest appears, silver keys for tiny doors and a gold key leading to a boss room in dungeons, even ancient tablets that tell the history of the world… Okay this game is SO much a Zelda clone that is basically a homage.  Yet that feels great to me.. it loves the Zelda games so much that it doesn’t stray from the old formula. Being one of the few persons in the world that doesn’t really like Breath of the Wild (as a Zelda game, I would be fine would this be a new IP but still find it tedious) I was happy I at least got to play something new that till feels like something classic. It does really cater to that need.

I imagine this screenshot with a certain overworld theme!

The combat is great, fun and dynamic, enemies all weaknesses, some are vulnerable to elements, some to toys others simply to your sword and some need to be attacked in the back. I really had some fun discovering the weaknesses. Toys can be leveled up and you can increase your attack power by putting stickers everywhere. Which is a fun way to mod your game. Each generation after the second comes with a Curse from Mormo.. which theoretically can really give you a cool gameplay variant. Some dungeons have their own conditions as well.. such as your sword being nerfed.. or dodge rolling taking mana/battery power. Yet it can be bonuses as well such as extra experience or even attack boosts or elemental immunities.

Why is my bathtub in this game?

There are pots you can break (who would have guessed)  that are filled with certain elements these can alter the battlefield. Such as poison which is a simple dot, fire, which is yet again a dot.. ether ..which if you or the enemy fill their either meter, you crystalise and become stunned.. and some yellow goop that makes everything it touches bleed money. There are plenty of weapons , plenty of NPC’s that upgrade stuff and you can collect celestial crystals to pass a toy or stickers to the next generation. Bombs come in several variaties like exploding ones, ether ones, fire ones and even MICE!… Thats right a bomb shaped like a mouse that crawls over the floor and bombs you. Bombs You?! Sounds familiar.

All in all it’s a very charming looking game, you can even unlock new sorts of heroes to reincarnate as in the next version, such as a luchador, a ninja, a mouse a frog or even a robot. My favorite one was the Kitsune because I love the Yoyo boost they get. Each hero type can level up and gets better stickers and weapons in the next generation which seems like a need idea. This game is like a love letter to Zelda with some clever ideas of their own, so surely this has to result in a terrific game right?  It even has the option to make your controller prompts look all Nintendo like if you hook up a controller.. or Playstation OR Xbox . So much consideration.. and museum keeper I am pretty sure was named old man! So points for that… yet somehow despite all these strengths.. this game did not work for me… at all.

Sometimes searching for pictures doesn’t go as well as you’d like!

Like I said the second generation is great fun to play through..but you go in blind so in the third generation I lacked some tools. As a Curse I gained the “Ether Storm”  which powered up all the enemies to be above my maximum level (levels are a thing here and if you reach Mormo’s one.. you HAVE to fight her in 24 hours regardless if you got all loot or weakened her enough) this created some annoyance. One area was blinking on my map but due to being undergeared and underleveled I could not make my way there. As it turned out I had to go there to sacrifice an item in my inventory.. a token of my victory over Mormo so I could ignite one of five lights! I did not think I had to destroy that item and I did not see the little stubs on the doors as lights just as decoration.. so when I got there at daytime and I can only tribute at night (which I did not know either) I just thought.. oh maybe in a next generation.
Which was wrong.. because you can not send it over to a new lifetime.. which meant.. the second generation victory was for naught. Two hours of play wasted because I failed to see through some mechanic and in turn making my journey harder because now I had to deal with these curses.

You WILL remember because you play the semi-same game about every hour or so

Now one more round would not have been terrible at all if there were more toys to explore, more clever banter to discover and more characters to unlock and level up. However in the third generation I already maxed out my fox boy.. who now had great stuff and passives.. Attack bonuses I would have to give up by playing another class. If I die with a weaker class. .I lose everything I worked so hard to pass on..  I am not against a game punishing your for dying..but  since the game also punishes you for succeeding through curses and taking your items away every two dungeons it kinda feels needlessly tedious at every step, good or bad.
Just get the stuff you need and get out. Which doesn’t mesh well with the Zelda Formula.

Like keep living in a gas station in the desert in a semi dead world.. this game can feel kinda…pointless

The WORST thing though however is the lack of variety.. in the third generation.. mind you this is the second playable one Puku already repeats all his dungeon dialogue from the second generation. In the fourth I discovered you basically alternate between any combination of only four toys to solve dungeons. With two toys per generation needed that means it does not take long to encounter repeats. So puzzles get boring quickly. All dungeons seem somewhat procedurally generated as well which usually works well enough but mostly in the non essential ones (Which you need to explore for more shards so you can pass on your rewards) this can feel a bit odd. Like two treasure rooms spawning adjacent to each other. Double damage modifiers in a dungeon that has no combat at all or puzzles in dead end rooms with no rewards.  I get the charm of Zelda randomisers to keep things fresh but with these added modifiers it just doesn’t work for me . I don’t mind the dead puzzle room so much.. nor do I mind having my sword damage halved when I just need to open a chest. However it can feel incredibly frustrating if you are grinding for levels to encounter half experience dungeons in one filled with chests and enemies..just to walk into a pot breaking one and see experience is double where there is no xp to get.

Still the game looks super adorable and charming! No matter how meh it was to me!

I gathered four out of five light orbs so far and I threw in the towel then and there as I could not stomach any minute of the game any longer. I would need to go to at least generation 7 due to me missing one tribute, but this game lacks so much. Each Toy dungeon has the same boss.. (though with a different skin.. a sword of ditto of the past.. but these are not your characters just some random things) which meant I had to fight that 12 times.. but both also show up during the Mormo fight so technically that would be 24 times .. you fight “dark Link” There are four bosses in the main dungeon.. or at least I just encountered four.. but one of them I only encountered once. and another I encountered six times.  Even dungeon puzzles begin to loop and that is IF you succeed every time.. this would be the MINIMUM level of repeats. By the fourth light I was playing the same game over and over again with my reward being the same dialogue over and over again..hinting only at a slightly different ending at the end.

The Magic School Bus theme goes here!

Each time I got something upgraded and I got something very cool and new.. I either lacked the celestial shards to pass it to the next generation because cool stuff costs more.. or it got overwritten because I wanted to play as another race. I even encountered the same curse three times! Once I had a timer of seven days which was kinda neat ..but most of the time it is just Ether Storm.. which basically means that aside from grinding for Celestial Shards you also need money and food as well so that is just more grinding. Which you can’t always do because you get time-gated.  The world has several themed areas and they appear randomly.. sometimes they drop resources like shiny stones.. or computer chips which you can trade in at shop-keep for new toys..but the price for the good ones is insane.You have to grind them out so hard that you basically can’t do anything else.. since you can’t pass these on to next generations. Of course you then can buy a toy or a sticker which you then can not pass onto the next generation because you have not grinded Celestial Crystals.. so it all can be for nothing.

I bet if you main the bunny hero.. you’ll visit the motel a lot

Never have I seen a game so relentlessly discouraging any form of the completion or punish you for getting good stuff. If you want a good item.. you have to work for it.. then you have to work to pass it on again.. and then subsequently to keep passing it down every generation.
If you make a game that spans six generations, at least give us enemies to carry us through those 6.. or 5 because we see non in the first generation. I would not mind looping after that.. but during the main run it just feels extremely lazy. There are a few important NPC’s such as a fat Catlike Crime Boss, a Penguin who can up your bomb count and a Walrus who can open boxes.. but even though 100 years pass each time they are all constantly the exact same. Even if you save the world.. your house might get more decrepit.. or spots on the world map randomly get switched to something dystopian like a huge junk yard. It almost doesn’t fit.
I might have just gone really unlucky.. but that is no excuse! I still had a bad experience, if that can happen because of simple RNG you still did something wrong.

Did someone make a bad Bunny Joke?! I ‘ll kill them! He is the vengfull one!


I am really angry at this game because it had so much potential, in a way this IS the game I wanted to see come to be.I’d compare it to P.T.  Releasing as a playable demo and you are all like! Oh this is going to be so awesome.. but then they did not know what to do with it further and just loop it. Like Imagine their studio going like”We build a great over world but we can’t make dungeons”  “Randomly gen it and add this reborn mechanic to it.. we can hide that we did we lost inspiration along the way”

I would not go as far to  call it a bad game..because in so many ways it is not.. but it feels unfinished.. and put together by the duct tape of reincarnation. Which is fine.. if you mask the tape afterwards but they did not do that either. It’s like watching at the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.. but instead of all different forms of art.. there is only the creation of adam up there. The rest is the same painting but the clouds have been replaced by lizards clothing colours have been swapped.. they achieve this by instead of actual artwork just putting a sheet of paper over the cloud with a lizard drawn on top and those new clothes are just some cotton balls they jammed up there while cleaning. There is still some beauty hidden in there..but you can’t help but be pissed off at how cheap they went in the end. 

Rarely felt I so conflicted about a game as in it’s purest form the gameplay is solid, the graphics are amazing and the ideas are creative ..even if it very clearly “borrows” form Zelda games. Yet never have I loathed continuing a game as much as this one in recent times. If it ever sells for like 5 dollars or is part of a humble bundle I recommend you get this, play trough the second and third generation and then leave it alone. I tried to complete it .. and the more and more I discovered how lazy it was the more I began to hate it.. which is why I have no choice but to scare it with my lowest rating.. as I really can’t stand playing it any longer anymore.. with the side note that I kinda feel bad about doing it. It doesn’t mean you’ll have to think the same, I just really dislike tedium in games. I hated keeping grinding for arrows and breaking weapons in Breath of the Wild as well.. and no one seemed to mind otherwise either. This to me just feels like playing the same game five times in a row and it punished me for about everything I did. I hate it! Yet I hate that I hate it too.

I am angry I had to grade like this! I wanted to love this!

Five Game Characters I’d Invite to New Years Eve

We are rounding it out, finishing the story of the biggest cross media New Years Eve party I’ve ever hosted. We’ve got a bit of everything , Including Pokémon, Bloggers Anime Characters and now we are up to video game characters. Like every other guestlist I have made, the five guests have to contribute something to the party. Not only because I am mean and lazy, I mean I am lazy but not THAT mean. It’s because I want to set an example that if we can all work together we can throw the most epic party on the fictional  planet where my fictional tropical resort is on. So let’s not waste any time and see which video game characters I’d invite.

Game Guest  1: Donkey Kong : The Bouncer

While everyone is welcome, you still got to have a bouncer, because you still have to have good intentions. When you come to paradise to troll, laugh at the weebs.. or in case you get to drunk and cause trouble you gotta go! Since I would lose a fistfight to a juice box, I really can’t manage this myself. My Pokémon have other things to do.. and one is an evil killer creature, the bloggers I doubt will do much good and I have only two anime characters that could fight..but they have other functions.  I don’t want some gun wielding nutjob like Max Payne or Master Chief to handle my security. I hold a strict no guns policy, unless the guns shoot bubbles. I could have invited Genzo Shibata from Kemono Michi in yesterday’s post but I am afraid of what he will do to my pokémon. I don’t want him to lewd Raticate or Jigglypuff and I don’t want to get suplexed for asking him to deal with someone dressed as a cat girl or something. So I had to make a carefully selected pick. So I of course ended up picking a gorilla what hides in barrels and has a no tolerance policy on piracy. The Kong formerly known as Donkey Jr… Donkey Kong. 

(Such a good bouncer, he even has a suit)

He’s finally here, bouncing for you, if you misbehave you’ll get bounced out too! If you make me cry he will give a slap! As we take you through this Monkey RAP! Huh! DK Donkey Kong! DK Donkey Kong is here! This ape has been a beloved video game hero ever since he tried to rescue his father in Donkey Kong Jr. In Donkey Kong Country he finally took the name of his father who moved on to become Cranky Kong. Thus this Kong never kidnapped Pauline, and thusly has a clean record. Important for a bouncer to have a good record. Punch Out for Wii shown he can fist fight, we see him able to grapple things, he shoots coconuts, which I do not count as a gun but as a gag weapon. He is musical so he can help the band of Jigglypuff and he is very good and hauling barrels. Which means that besides a bouncer I also got someone who can fetch the kegs of beer and barrels of wine. He is indigenous to the tropics so PETA will not bother me either with their silly little nags when it comes down animals in geekdom. And best of all I think Donkey Kong could give some of the best hugs..or crush my spine when doing it after which he would throw fecies at my corpse… he still is a gorilla after all.

(Donkey Kong says he would never do that stuff I said last)

Game Guest 2: Tommy Vercetti : The Designated Driver

While on paradise anyone can have a beach bungalow for the night free of charge, I get that a few people will have to leave early. New years day they visit their family and all of that stuff so I will take care of transportation from and to the island for you.  While Donkey Kong has shown he is capable of driving in the mario kart games I did not think it was a great idea to let an ape pilot a plane or an aquatic vehicle. I mean his cousin Diddy can do that but I am still hoping that Diddy Kong Racing will return one day so I will not be stealing the hatted simian’s time. Big brain tactics going on over here. So rather than give this job to some cutesy little animal I gave the function to Vice City’s greatest narcissist criminal, Tommy Vercetti. I mean the guy has experience with playing taxi for people so he should be perfectly be able to do it. He comes already dressed for a tropical paradise either and he is a master of any vehicle, without gathering skill points or licenses for it. Whether you come by car, boat , plane or even tank Tommy can take care of it. He even might bring a little pick me up for those who are into such things. I am not personally, those things would kill my weak heart and such, but I also do not take a very negative stance against it. To each their own poison and all. So you do you and if Tommy can’t make a sale on the island, we can do a hidden package run all together the next day that sounds like a hoot and a half.

(That suit isn’t that well tailoured I think, I’ll get him a pink suit)

Tommy is used to deal with difficult people, long before he kills them all he helps them with some trivial task like getting them home after a party or the likes, so as long as you are not a big criminal kingpin…or a sex worker…. you will most likely be completely safe when using Tommy as your designated drivers. Just when you review him.. don’t give him five stars.. the military will show up and the party will be a mess. Never give a GTA character 5 stars, it’s a death sentence to them.  Tommy however will take care of you in retro style. The tunes he plays on his radio on the way back keep that party Buzz Buzz going for just a bit longer. How I am sure that he won’t drink an drive? Well Tommy usually only gets wasted when the cops show up or a rival gang tries to take him out, and there are no police or evil gangs on my island. So weirdly Tommy would not get wasted. Tommy can also blend in at the resort very well. He can play a mean round of golf, though Pinkie’s Paradise only has a putt putt course.  He likes investing money into booming business so we might even get an investor of this blog, and even if he is a money hungry criminal.. he isn’t as  money hungry as our next guest.

(Tommy isn’t much of a dancer, so he will stand out from the crowd when you want to go home)

Game Guest  3: Tom Nook:  The financer

Parties like these cost money and that is a resource I do not have. Nearly every wealthy character in gaming is an insane evil soulless  bastard. Handsome Jack will not treat my guests very well nor would Albert Wesker. Ken Masters would probably steal Dark Magician girl from me so he is out as well..he’s kind of a douche anyway.  So let’s look at the more child friendly consoles and series of games. Lara Croft simply wouldn’t be into parties plus I would not know which one of the renitions I would have to invite. Mario should have a lot of coin but whenever he gets hundred bucks he just gains more life essence.. so I doubt he will have over 100 dollars on his account. Which brings me to the most greedy bastard of all. Tom Nook! While he would finance such a triviality as a party without us paying him massive interest this time we will flip the tables around. Amongst all of us we will have laboured many hours for mister Nook, it is time he did something for us in return. If he wants us to buy stuff from him in that new game coming early next year than he better show he is as committed to us as we are to him. You gotta spend a few bells to make more bells. I bet making a raccoon give me money is something PETA will disagree with me on, so I guess I will give Tom Nook a chance to earn some money while financing my party. 

(At least Tom Nook is pleased by my style if he likes Kyary he will like me as well)

So as I told you everyone has a bungalow in Paradise. I guess Tom Nook can sell you all customisations sets for your bungalow should you desire to customise it. Your bungalows will be expandable and if you want to rent a hammock to lie on the beach at New Years Day.. you better bring some cash to pay Tom Nook. He will also rent out the putt putt golf course, for of course a nominal fee, boats, fishing rods and one of those speedboat banana things… new year’s day beach events will all be hosted by Tom. I will be in bed with a hangover anyway so I am honestly not all that bothered.  My bungalow is pink already so I doubt there is aa customisation set I want from and….. OH MY GOD UNICORN WALLPAPER….
Luckily I am immune to Tom Nook’s *cough* charm,  because even after this party is over I still won’t have any money. As soon as I have some though I will spend it on the new Animal Crossing Game of course.

(Sigh.. I should have expected as much)

Game Guest 4: King Knight: The Tabletop Guy 

I love myself a good competition on New Years Eve but Smash would exclude my friend Jilly, the only person in the world who doesn’t like Super Smash Bros so I’d feel said for her to host a big competition like that.  Gaming against each other can also get very insociable , but there is one type of gaming that never does. Tabletop gaming is always neat and cosey. Whether you play a card game, a storytelling game or a co-op adventure you always talk. To save some room at the party, the big board games like Dead of Winter or Fury of Dracula will not be played. To much stuff going on and when drinks spill people will cry. So we opted for a card battling game. Squall is way to emo and a buzzkill to be fun at a party so out with him and Triple Triad. Yugi and Kaiba cheat in their own game, plus the banlist changes about every hour so duel monsters is not viable as well, besides from that I don’t want anyone summoning something that can destroy my Dark Magician girl of my anime character post. Magic doesn’t really have great video game avatars plus it can be a tad elitist and that is not allowed at my party. Gwent is only played by people who love to rip other people to shreds.. so there is only one option left. We shall play Joustus! Since I don’t want to see a big apple fish dancing all the time we also only have one option on who to invite. King Knight.

(If he spins like that on the dancefloor I bet he will make a girl very happy.. and sick)

King Knight is the protagonist in the newest Shovel Knight expansion and it is great. The man has such great flavoring in all of his powers as well as his persona and sense of humor. This make King Knight a perfect party guest. Sure he will think he is superior but the guy is hurting inside and just needs a good cry. Fred might be able to help him, if you read my Bloggers invited post you’ll get that. He is not a great fighter and not that insanely evil… he is just a boy who believes he is a king that’s kinda cute. I am really good at Joustus as well so I could make some serious money at the tables. Maybe even enough to buy that unicorn wallpaper from Tom Nook…dag nabbit!. Joustus is a grid based card games where arrows can indicate movement, you use this to slide pieces around to claim as many “winning” tiles as you possibly can before the board is filled up. However some cards can block being pushed and have special effects and more of that jazz… it actually kinda feels like jousting with all that pushing. King Knight  is forced into the tutorial so he can explain you the finer details, but be warned he cheats. Luckily I don’t have blue fish guys in chests where he buys his cheats from.

(It’s time to J-J-J-J-J-Joustus)

Game Guest  5: Ratchet and Clank :  The Tech Guys

Yes yes I know that’s two characters but they just might as well be one plus it’s my blog so I rule that it counts. With a gaming court, a movie theatre  a fully equipped cocktail bar, a karaoke stage, and a band podium among other facilities there, is a lot of technology to handle. I know nothing of stage lighting and when I blow a fuse in my house I need assistance to realise what happened. So we need tech guys and who is better than Ratchett and Clank. No one really. Though I did consider that grandma from Watch Dogs 3 as well. Ratchett and Clank I’d say would be a lot quicker to respond can have access to difficult to reach spaces and when the party is over they most likely would happily take most of the scrap metal and stuff that is in my way to build weapons from as long as they dont build weapons on the island.  Both are huggable in their own way though I do prefer clank. His solo game I found to be rather enjoyable and I do not like Rachet’s character as much as I do like Clank. Still enough for a good hug though. So yay for cuddly tech support.

(I have no funny comment for this picture so you make one)

What puts Ratchet and Clank a nodge above the other candidates for tech support is their immense creativity. You see Mario is a plumber that can probably fix some leakage or pipes going to the Koopa Kingdom but only if he has the right parts. Being from Brooklyn (yes I am using that one)  he will never have the part that I need and has to wait for the store to open again on January second.I can’t use that sort of behaviour. Ratchet and Clank get the job done .. parts or no parts. If my band’s pyrotechnics do not work THEY will make some for me, if MasterMixMovies projector goes down, they will build me a new one or fix the old one. I can not think of any character that is as flexible as them except for maybe Macgyver but he got badly remade. We can somewhat say the same about this duo, being that their last games haven’t been THAT good, but hey that just means I can employ them cheaper, so Tom Nook is also happy because he is paying their bills.

(It’s fixing time!)

And with this we are all done with the party guest , which means it’s actually time to PARTAY! So everyone who joined me in this adventure, thank you so much for sticking trough untill the end and Happy New Year. Twenty Twenty will be our double digits of hapiness and love! Stay awesome, stay pink, untill we read again, Pinkie is blasting off again! Greetings from Pinkie’s Paradise and Happy Happy New Year.. may the force be with you.

The other Chapters in the New Years Party Arc
-A Pokémon Team For New Years Eve
-Five Bloggers I’d Invite to New Years Eve
-Five Anime Guest I’d Invite to New Years Eve
-Five Movie Characters I’d invite to New Years Eve