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In those infrequent times recently, when I’ve not wanted to play Monster Hunter and my wife has stolen Animal Crossing, I’ve been skipping merrily through Kirby’s Aventure. Yes, again.
Having already completed various incarnations of it on this Diary over the last 7 or 8 years, I was surprised to find it surprisingly hard this time. Well, not hard. Harder. A bit.
This evening I polished off the last of world 6, finished world 7, and beat the boss(es).
Lovely!
I’m now fully settled into the town of Cheese, and have planted all the trees and expanded my house a bit. Not that I’m making best use of the space in my house:
But anyway. I’ve built two bridges, a street lamp, and the Dream Suite too. I’ve only used the latter to update my “dream”, and haven’t actually visited anyone yet. I’ve been far too busy making all the Bells.
Although I’ve not ditched the traditional TURNIP FRENZY method of getting rich, I’ve found a much more reliable source of the janglies – perfect fruit. For each perfect pear (my native perfect fruit – no other perfect fruit will grow in your town) I sell at Re-Tail in someone else’s town (providing, of course, pears aren’t their native fruit either) I get 3,000 bells. I have over 40 Perfect Pear trees, giving me 3 PPs every few days. I’ve made over a million bells this way in less than a week.
I still have 5,000 turnips to offload before the weekend though, so I’m hoping for a big price somewhere!
More frequently updated Animal Crossing news on my Tumblr: plantallthefruit.tumblr.com
It seems like years ago when I last completed a game. I blame the crippling twin time vortexes of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Animal Crossing: New Leaf, because escape from them is almost impossible.
But, here and there, I’ve worked through the final chapter of the story – playing as Simon. His section actually fits before Trevor and Alucard (which run pretty much concurrently), and although I’d spotted where it was going well before it got there, the reveal after “defeating” Dracula was still excellent.
Dracula himself was really rather difficult. Not only do you have to counter or avoid his attacks, but he alternates between light and dark magic – which you must also do to actually cause him any damage. His “flaming towers” attack is especially deadly, as if you get caught in it, he can easily hit you repeatedly before you are able to recover and dodge. It took a good half an hour to finally best him.
Now I have Hardcore Mode unlocked, but I’m not sure I’ll be up for that. It was hard enough on Normal!
It is The End Times. Again.
Remember Animal Crossing on the Gamecube? I played it daily for months. Remember Animal Crossing on the DS? I played it daily for over a year. Remember Animal Crossing on the Wii? I played it daily for three months until my Wii died and I lost my saved game.
I now have the 3DS version.
In the first week of owning it, I’d played it for 34 hours. It became my most played 3DS game in 5 days – despite having owned a 3DS for more than two years. Not bad considering “it’s not a game”, “it’s boring” and “there’s nothing to do in it”.
All these things there isn’t to do that I’ve done include getting my house, expanding it several times, becoming Mayor, getting a new bridge built, planting all the fruits, winning the first Bug Off, getting lots of Nintendo-themed prizes in fortune cookies, having mysterious people from other towns visit my town and leave me messages and presents, planting more fruits, visiting other people’s towns and giving them fruit and leaving them messages, making not much money on the Stalk Market, taking a boat ride with Kapp’n (who is a bit creepy) to an island and playing “island games”, and digging lots of holes. And planting fruit. All the fruit.
Since this new Animal Crossing game lets you share screenshots on t’tinternets, I even braved Tumblr to create this masterpiece of storytelling: http://plantallthefruit.tumblr.com/
Am I loving the game? Yes. Yes I am. Even Nook’s evil moneygrabbingness. It’s all awesome.
A game with a sub-subtitle? Amazing.
First things first. This is not quite like the Metroidvania Castlevanias that I love so much (like Dawn of Sorrow or Symphony of the Night). It’s also not quite like the “original”, more linear Castlevanias like those on the NES and SNES. And it’s not even quite like the new “reimagined” Lords of Shadow game for the Xbox 360, despite the title and the fact it follows on from that game’s story.
It is, instead, a mashup of all three types of game. It’s pretty linear, like the originals, but it does have some map colouring and exploration (and the “new items unlock new areas” thing) from Metroidvanias. Finally, it has an approximation of the combat from the 360 game, with combos and air attacks and all sorts, plus that version’s art style.
I thought I’d hate it. I actually love it. The graphical style of the 360 title translates to beautiful 3D backdrops, but the game plays out on a 2D game – which is great as I’ve hated every 3D Castlevania I’ve ever played. The combat and levelling up system is a joy, and the game is suitably hard with seemingly impossible bosses that suddenly become walkovers once you learn their patterns and weaknesses – just like all the best Castlevanias.
Without wishing to impart spoilers, I’ve played Gabriel’s intro, then Simon’s bit, and now I’m into Alucard’s bit. Although I think I’m pretty close to the end of that.