amolovesgames

Official tumblog of amolovesgames ! 

[amolovesgames]

KH3

I’ve been playing KH3 on stream MWF for ... a few weeks now and yesterday afternoon I finally “beat” it. I beat the last boss on standard mode. I’m going to be as spoiler-free as I possibly can (I don’t really delve into the plot but I will talk about some of the different worlds that stuck out to me) but I will keep the rest under the cut so please do your best to scroll faster if you’re on mobile :P

To start with let me tell you how much I know of the plot of KH3 based on how I prepared to play KH3. I’ve only played KH1 from start to almost finish (I forgot if years ago when I first played it if I beat it or not but I got up to the stupid dragon at the end of KH1 again recently in prep for this game), and watched a few videos on the plot because of course KH3 is notorious for “confusing plot”. I watched both the Square Enix chapter things they put out + a very well done fan-guide that was about 19 minutes long itself. I felt like, “Okay, I know enough to at least sort of know what’s going on presently in KH3 a bit.” so with that pseudo-knowledge I dove right in.

Next let me just forewarn that plot wise I was basically OK through to the end except for a few spotty things and I also knew who most of the important characters were based on the aforementioned videos and games I had under my belt at the time. I can’t really say anything re: the plot as GOOD or BAD because I feel I don’t have enough information so me sitting here going HERP DERP I AM CONFUZED cannot be blamed ever on this game. No one would expect to watch the last season of a show and be like “WOW I know everything that’s going on right now!! This is so cool and intense!”

Dislikes

On my streams I do carry on a bit of “riffing” type humor but it’s all meant to be good-natured. I do think Sora’s a dumbass and everyone around him -- even goofy and donald -- actually have some semblance of urgency for what is apparently happening around them. But you could also chock most of that up to my ineptitude re: the series plot as a whole. Not sure there. But It was fun seeing what dumbassery Sora and I could diddle with while Spoiler and Spoiler did actual plot-important things.

The only parts I truly did not like cutscene wise were all the sappy disney endings. But Disney movies haven’t been made “for me” since the Little Mermaid era so what are ya gonna do ~ 

The worst part of the game was the Skrillex theme song. I love Utada Hikaru to death but the skrillex part of the song was like nails on a chalkboard

Mechanic~UI~UX~whatevs wise I really did not like a few things here I will list them and why:

1. The pirates of the caribbean “race” In general I really do not like being thrown a brand new thing to do in a game and then IMMEDIATELY expected to be a pro at it. I lost the race the first time because I was so concerned with the enemy ships firing at me (which took off MY health not a ship-health thing) and the Boss’s ship. I also got stuck in some rocks my second time which was frustrating.

2. Frozen’s go-down-a-mountain-but-the-camera-is-backwards-lol-oh-and-dragons-attack-u thing. Wow. It’s one thing to have to ski down a mountain while being chased by dragons or a big snowball or something but when it says “there’ll be health items” and there WEREN’T any health items during the parts where you actually take damage because a dragon laser will go from one side of the screen to the other, BUT OH DONT MOVE BECAUSE ONE DRAGON IS PUSHING FASTER THAN YOU AND WILL HEADBUTT YOU!!! -- just made for a poor experience. I’m sure if I went back it would be an OK challenge but I literally lost a kupo coin on that mountain.

3. COOKING. Yet another thing with new mechanics that they throw you in and you have to be immediately good at otherwise.. you waste your ingredients! Yikes! I ate 1 food the entire game because I refused to go back there.

4. The triangle-swoop thing towards the end of the game. I did that thing once before on Frozen world which was.... at that point about 3 weeks ago. I’m sure if I did that and then immediately cut to this part I would have been OK but even as it stands it would have been HOURS ago and WORLDS ago that I even “had” to think about doing a mechanic like that, so being murdered by some doors flying at me was not fun.

Likes

COMBAT. Combat. COMBAT. DID I SAY COMBAT? That was hecka fun. I didn’t play KH2 and I guess the attraction thing was a .. thing there? But it was new for me and I really REALLY enjoyed that. Being a big carousel or pirate ship and takin out lots of guys was so cool :D

I didn’t understand the riskybusiness part, but it seemed that when i got to low HP occasionally it would flip me into like a shadow-sora, and it was pretty sweet.

The targeting and movement were 198490328490324% better than in KH1 and for that I am glad.

Being able to retry fights and such, along with kupo coins, was pretty nice. Just that small forgiving nature really helped >.>;;

FAVS

Favorite world: If I had to pick, it would have to be Corona. I’m a sucker for forests :P

Favorite Keyblade: Frozen CLAWWWWSSSSS

Least Favorite World: San Fransokyo. I did not like the majority of the movie it comes from and there was a plot hole that kind of ruined it for me.

Least Favorite Keyblade: The star one?? the one with the gun special. The other keyblades were just so much better control-wise than that in my opinion.

Recommended Price: any. Seriously, this game is really good!

* I only recommend that before you buy the game either play KH1 and KH2 (at least) =or= watch a few recap videos so you know who a lot of the people are.

Full playthrough playlist is available on my youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxh0Z276lKHjg5R646lqO7YavKJmFeETd

[amolovesgames]

Donut County

I finished up Donut County  in about two sittings. It could have easily been done in one. However, don’t let that deter you from this adorable, clever, and just plain fun lil nugget of a game.

The developer who made this liked katamari damacy, and if you’re also  a Katamari Damacy fan, like me, you will also be charmed by this game.

You play as a hole. Wait, sort of. You play as a raccoon (mostly one named BK) who works at a donut shop. When someone ordered a donut, he would go on his tablet’s app and conduct a hole around the person’s home -- until the hole got big enough to swallow the entirety of the property.

The gameplay is extremely linear, with a few small detours for a steam badge or two. I was hoping there’d be levels+ or just a free-roam mode. Perhaps someday, but that’s just my wishful thinking.

Aside from the multitude of characters and silly plot line, another thing that sets it apart from a Katamari-like game cycle is the small puzzles worked in to the levels. At one point, you have to buy an upgrade and use it to complete a few levels. The only downside to this is that it’s completely scripted when and where you can use it. Still, scooping up all the bunnies and watching the hole get bigger because... the bunnies... love each other.. (and you know what happens when two bunns love each other very much!) was entertaining.

The length of the game is so short that even though I got the game on sale I feel it was a bit too short for the price. However, let me be clear - I am always in favor of supporting indie / small studio developers, and I do not consider it “far too much” for the gameplay.

Donut County is available on Steam, PS4, GOG (yay), and unfortunately only on iOS devices. http://www.donutcounty.com/

[amolovesgames]

test review!

Will delete later :)

[amolovesgames]

The World Ends With... ME?!?!?!

Today I beat The World Ends With You on Nintendo Switch!

(( Warning, spoilers for the game below... but... it came out on the DS so.. eesh ))

For my set up, I have the Switch sitting on my desk and I use one of my PC monitors to play. I used a single joycon this way. The single thing that frustrated me was the connectivity and accuracy of the joycon. Keep in mind, I’m less than 2 feet from the Switch at all times with the controller.

In shops, I would click on an item and you have to like, drag it to the cash register. This was fine on the DS, but with the joycon I noticed about half the time it wasn’t registering that I was clicking the button, so the UI would do funky things, or I would accidentally click out of the shop or something.

That was only a mild annoyance though compared to when the joycons wouldn’t register the motions I was doing on the screen during battle. There are a few different ways to use the Pins, and for ones that would require pressing on open space, or pressing on a mob, it wouldn’t register that I was doing that the first few times. Most of the time it was just a shrug-off, but when you have bosses turning the screen into a bullet hell and you have to choose between dodging the boss or attacking them -> and your attacks do not go off at the precise moment <- that leads to deaths.

As far as the partner things were going with the joycons, I had a TON of trouble with the second partner, Joshua. His partner ability was activated when you swiped down vertically, and you had to be REALLY accurate. I swiped up and down with the joycon SO many times before it would only register one or two light-beams. Building his gauge up once he got the second part of his power (he moves from raining vehicles down onto your enemies to a single drop of light beam) was almost impossible for me.

Tin Pin, movement on the screen, partner mini-games for attacks, and other things that are kind of super-essential to the game were made just noticeably more difficult than they should have been.

So, that was one issue I had.

The other was the poor ports of some of the boss battles. I don’t want this to be a direct comparison to the DS version because I don’t really remember ALL that much of it, but for the first boss, for example, you have to send your partner to what was the top screen to get bats off the lights so you can see and damage the boss below. I immediately had no idea what I was doing, and continued to just flail the joycon around until I somehow beat it. You could chalk it up to my stupidity, but the game throwing brand new mechanics at you is nothing new.

The furry boss in particular was the most annoying thing and the one time I actually thought “wow this is just bad game design”. Her third phase she takes all your pins and you can’t do the attacking minigame with your partner, but you can summon them, and it’s just a bunch of swooshing into the boss in the hopes you damage her from what I gathered.

I’m *sure* there’s a real way to do it, but it just didn’t feel naturally learned, and that was frustrating.

Now onto things I enjoyed!

I really liked the background stories of the side characters. Beat was by far the most annoying but  his story was probably the most relatable in the long run (though Shiki came pretty close). I liked the nostalgia I felt while playing it, and I’m 100% sure they added some QoL improvements, though I still think they could have added a map of some sort. From one stream to the next I’d forgotten where I was meant to go xD.

I’ve beaten the game, and did the add-on story boss rush thing (albeit needing to do it on easy... shush!) and I still have to do the reports and remix mission, but I am looking forward to it.

>.> looking above, I guess it looks like I didn’t like things more than I did like things, but you gotta remember... I ONLY DISLIKED TWO THINGS and liked everything else! Just that one boss in particular, and the entirety of the joycons being stupid. Ah well, it made for a cute image didn’t it? :)

Odds and sods

- Getting the hang of the tin pin game was a lot of fun. I tend to go silent when I concentrate, so all of a sudden out of nothingness it’s just “WHAT!” and “REALLY?!”

- Matching shapes was a lot of fun

- I do not like anything about Joshua

- Beat has a stand-up comedy routine and I can’t help but feel it’d be mostly a Dane Cook ripoff

- Neku dropping his headphones on the ground was just RUDE those looked expensive + wireless??? yikes.

Can I reccommend this game? Yes

I reccommend this game to those of you who have played it on DS and want updated graphics, QoL changes, and a refresher to the surprising - though sometimes psych 101-y storyline. For newcomers, I can’t wait for you to experience the battle system. I remember when I first played it thinking how fun the battling was! And the fact that you can pick which pins you want based on what brand you like best, what attacks you like doing, etc. is all so much fun!

What price point would I feel good about buying this at? 25-30$ Keep in mind this game already came out at a pretty good price - $39.99, and for that I really didn’t mind picking it up again. I think it’s priced fairly as it’s essentially just an updated port of a game people have probably already played, but if you can get it on sale, I highly reccommend it. Especially so if you enjoy using your Switch. It’s probably a great game to play on the road, too!

HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS GAME RESPONSE? SEND ME AN ASK, REPLY TO THIS POST, OR SEND ME A TWIT ON TWITTER! Amolovesgames twitter || twitch || youtube playlist

[amolovesgames]

So!

^-^ So I finally configured my tumblr here to be more in line with my new logos and such. Welcome! also, im-a-bebop -> amolovesgames

To get live updates on when I’m going live and such check out my twitter I’m going to post some in progress art work here as well as try to keep a link of past videos posted here that come from youtube and twitch. Additionally, as I’ve done before, I will probably post some lengthier thoughts on my feelings about games -- whether it’s relevent to what I just played, am in the middle of playing, want to play, DON’T want to play, etc haha xD My schedule can be viewed on my twitch page here

[amoenalily]

Some photos i’ve taken from NMS-NEXT this past week.

- Redacted planet

- 48-8 A Hauler

- My beautiful Gek walking into the “last” quest Portal <3

This game is so good n.n

[amolovesgames]

Revised thoughts on No Man’s Sky after Next

My last post on No Man’s Sky was about 1.04. I said it was amazing! It was. It fixed a lot of issues.

However, it still was not the game that I and a lot of other people were really hoping for. I did play through a lot of Atlas Rises, but by the time I was getting through it, the ARG was going stronk for what would end up being NEXT, so I put it down in anticipation. Usually when a new patch like that, HelloGames sorta breaks older saves. They hadn’t done a reset in a while, but just to make sure, I didn’t want to start anything I could potentially completely lose with no way back with NEXT.

NEXT finally dropped on Tuesday and holy crap, I haven’t been THIS excited to play a game since FFXIV ARR dropped. Every chance I get I am playing No Man’s Sky. I have two games going - one on PC and one on PS4. They just really turned the game around.

While I was fine with the content they gave us originally and up to NEXT, really, I was - I wanted something else from the game. I wanted to be able to talk to other people who play the game and tell them about my adventures, share stories. A real community. I wanted to be able to do a lot of the things HelloGames originally promised. Words that came from the creator’s mouth - dogfighting, classes of ships handling different, missions, factions, the true day/night thing. And in some of these, they were already there but in bits and pieces. Some weren’t in there at all. Everything just feels so much BETTER.

The terrain and other texture pop-in is so smooth now. They could do a little more work on it but it’s a lot better now than it was (oh, that spikey thing looks interesting OH GOD IT’S A MOUNTAIN!!!).

Then, there’s the MULTIPLAYER. Sean was almost careful in explaining that it wasn’t an MMO. It’s definitely not. But myself and a few friends can join each others’ games and play with them, fight them, trade with them, and gesture wildly at them. I believe there’s a chat feature, too (text).

I love being able to zoom over to another planet and see the BF, h elp him out of a jam, and then fly back to my home system to continue working on my base.

The module update is pretty cool, there’s a real point to spending those nanites now. They have their own little economy.. you can grind for them, spend them on all S rank stuff but then find another multitool and do it all over again.

THE CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION needs so much more I feel...my Korvax got significantly less customization options than any of the other races unfortunately.. but I’ve come to really fall in love with GEK!

caption: my Gek being just GEKTASTIC!!! next to her ship.

Other game systems and thoughts:

- the refining system is just a touch too clunky for my taste. Especially on PS4, without the cursor snap it turns it into a chore. on PC it’s a little easier for me because of the mouse.

- no auto lock on spaceship fighting is actually cool because it does like a little tiny lock on for you, but it also teaches you to aim in front of the ship you’re fighting hehe >:3

- I’ve taken to upgrading my ship bit by bit while I try to make some real cash farming ruins and scanning stuff for that 50-100k a pop (thank you S module!)

- Repairing ...literally everything.. is kind of frustrating but it gives a little more realism to the game. “I just went through a portal and back and my ship basically crashed. Of course something broke on it, duh” - me, last night

- New textures/graphics are really nice. I’ve upgraded my PC some since I last played. I have a 960 still though w/ a coffee lake i5 and it runs REALLY smooth and I was even able to stream on the same PC with it

[amolovesgames]

NMS Patch 1.04

For those of you having issues with PC version of NMS, make sure you get that sexy patch that was released today! It’s amazing!

[amolovesgames]

Journal Pages 1-3

Are literally just filled with maths due to the logic puzzles. Sorry. I meant to type stuff in note form as I go along on PC and doodle/sketch some flora and fauna along with the notes I’ve written down and post those pages. I plan on doing this going forward (along with the maths, but right now there’s literally three pages of just maths as I just kept getting distress call after distress call). So My journal will most likely start on page four for this reason xD 

[amolovesgames]

My new ship I got yesterday! It was about 1.1mil. 

I grinded on one planet selling everything I could and was able to procure about 1.5 mil. I was about to give up and go to the next place on my mission area (I think it wanted me to go to the first space anomaly), when this guy came down! I was so excited. It’s pink! The first pink ship I’ve seen. 

I bought it since it had 23 slots to my 18 (or 19, i forget), and it also had a few great space-mining attachments.

When I hopped in for the first time, I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was -- to see that my vision was different. I absolutely love the radio looking thing on top and the wire running up the side with like duct tape on it xD... so cool!!

[amolovesgames]

Hyperdrive Blueprint

Hi all, 

I actually got a hyperdrive blueprint! A lot of people were worried that they couldn’t get the blueprint for it if they redeem the starter ship, I think. 

I got this from a monolith on like my 8th planet or so, so it seems that blueprints are totally random. 

[amolovesgames]

Favorite race (so far)

Before  the game came out I was really excited to deal with Korvax, as they are robotic (!!) and cool lookin’. The Gek looked pretty cool too. But I have to say, after playing around in worlds the Vy’keen inhabit, I am definitely leaning towards them as my favorite race.

[amolovesgames]

If you don't have twitter or whatever here you go. Just posted these two pics from a good 7 hours or so of playing today. Gonna play more tonight but taking a break to eat and kiss my nice boyfriend. Im the worst at space battles. Like, they zip around me and I can't keep up with them to kill them... Got killed by pirates three times =( I'll do a more comprehensive write up of my experience on ps4 Thursday night most likely, or Friday morning. But I will say these things now: -unique, immersive conversation with npcs -studying languages and learning words -ease of flight and landing makes this game extremely accessible -can spend 4 hours on a barren planet and have an amazing time exploring and finding ruins and treasures. -totally worth the money.

[amolovesgames]

I'm seriously the worst as space battles... XD

[amolovesgames]

Yay no man's sky!

[amolovesgames]

NMS Journal and Streaming Update

Hi all,

I spend 99% of my gaming time on PC, so it broke my heart that they delayed the PC release until Friday. I’m really upset about it, but my boyfriend is very nice and is letting me play his NMS copy until Friday. 

For the PS4 version: I’ll try to save the image of my first planet, possibly a small video of it, but I’m going to post it on my personal blog, not this one. I don’t plan on sticking with the PS4 version as I generally despise using a controller while playing games (I still don’t understand what the hell a touchpad is doing on the controller but whatever).

The silver lining here is it gives me a good three days to really gather my thoughts of what I’d like to do with my journal, and give realistic timeframes for my streams. Additionally, on the off-chance that my streaming setup on PC doesn’t work very well, I can go back and stream on the PS4 during the day. 

My original plan is to draw interesting flora, fauna, and other things on the planets - including monoliths, with the runes as “rubbings” in the journal. I am not sure how much that will pan out, only because I haven’t played the game yet!

Finally, I will also end up posting discoveries over at NMSOrigins most likely, and will provide a link to that once I’ve actually played the game (again, don’t want many spoilers of the stuff already uploaded). 

[amolovesgames]

Starbound Stream

Would anyone be intrested in watching a Starbound stream while we wait for No Man’s Sky to come out?