I have decided to keep another post short this week, mainly because I have had a long day. I am still working through playing The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages before I start doing the linked games. So I have decided that since my brain is positively fried, I will do something I don’t usually do and take a break this week. I know, I know. What will you do without my random weekly musing on videogames? It will be tough, but we can get through this together. However, since I feel it would be rude to end there, I figured I would address a few things about these two games. Now if you do decide to play these two games, you can just find the codes online so that you can just start the linked game from the get-go, but there isn’t much advantage to doing so. The only thing you gain is one extra heart, some more plot dialogue, and a couple extra bosses. Unless you have a list with you of all the secrets already, then you can’t take advantage of the primary way to strengthen yourself in the linked game. After all, you can’t get the full secret without having a preexisting game to work with to exchange secrets between games. So, it is doable, but can also be very tedious. Then again, doing sixteen dungeons and various sidequests might also be tedious to you so I guess prepare well for whichever task you set out to do. I just figured I would say that really quick before I sign off for today. I should finish The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages soon enough, so that will be next week’s focus. For now, I am going to get back to working on life stuff. Thanks for your understanding and have a good night.
A Few More Shalphas
So, I am still playing Zelda, but I haven’t finished with it yet and figured I would buy some time by going through my shiny backlog. I haven’t been as invested in it lately due to a couple too many stupid fails, but I do have some results to show for it. So while I will continue to play Zelda for a while, consider this a bonus. Well, if you are into shiny alpha Pokémon at least.
Now, this one is a bit of a special one for me because this shalpha happened to also be the same as the first ever Pokémon I caught as a shiny in this game. They might be different genders so there is a subtle difference between them, but I still think this giant Toxicroak looks pretty cool. This was the static alpha Toxicroak that spawns in Crimson Mirelands. I just happened to do a map check and found it. This was also the first shalpha that I found here that wasn’t using the outbreak trick.
This one was another first for me. This shalpha is one that I found during a massive mass outbreak. What makes it special is that this is this shalpha wasn’t part of an outbreak. In fact, it wasn’t a static spawn either. I somehow found a shiny alpha Drifloon that randomly spawned in. Very rarely is a random Pokémon that spawns an alpha or a shiny, so imagine how lucky you have to be to randomly find both. This is definitely the rarest shalpha I own because of how I found it. You could probably find shalpha Drifloon in other easier ways such as in outbreaks, but I still think this guy is pretty cool.
The next find was a random occurrence while I was shiny hunting in a massive mass outbreak (MMO). Normally I just fly around seeing if I can find anything cool in any of the outbreaks without having to actually try and clear them out. It usually doesn’t go very well, but every now and then you can hit the jackpot. I managed to get myself a nice red monkey. What is even better is that it happened to be alpha. That is the first shalpha on this list where I don’t have its normal shiny form. It is nice to get the harder one out of the way I guess. Especially because this one can be difficult to hunt. This might honestly be one of my rarer shalpha Pokémon because of that.
Now I have hunted shalphas in just about every possible way at this point. However, there is still one method that I hadn’t really attempted yet. It is known as the permutation method. What it entails is rerolling the Pokémon that spawn after you clear out the first wave of an outbreak of Pokémon in an MMO. Depending on the order you catch them or knock them out, you can reroll the Pokémon that spawn in and that means you can potentially reroll into a shiny. Since the second wave can spawn alphas, you can use this method to shalpha hunt specific Pokémon. The actual method is something I had just started using for regular shiny Pokémon, but I decided I really wanted a shalpha Zorua. So, I decided to do as many resets as it took to find it. It took four attempts. Kind of anticlimactic, but I am not complaining.
My last one is honestly, my favorite just because of how cool it looks. This one is also a static shiny and it caught me completely off guard. I have been hunting the static Luxray on and off for a while now and I have had no luck on that front. However, I have had some luck with getting two static shalphas while completing the map checks afterward. They were the Gligar and Mothim from the last time I did one of these. Somehow we ended up with a third static shalpha and it was a shalpha Steelix. This golden steel snake looks so clean. I think that it is definitely the best-looking shalpha I own and even if it wasn’t my target I am totally okay with that.
Well, that is all for this little catch-up session. Will probably do one of these again at some point if I can. I just need to be in the mood is all. Anyway, see you next time and have a good night.
Heading Back to Zelda
I have put this on the back burner for long enough. It is time to get back into playing some more Zelda games. So that I what I have been doing for the past week. However, I wasn’t playing any 3D Zelda. I wasn’t willing to take that plunge yet. After starting this blog, I realized I prefer 2D Zelda games to 3D Zelda games. That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy the 3D Zelda games, but I have always felt that the puzzles in the 2D Zelda games tend to be more creative. And since something interesting came out on Nintendo Switch Online recently, it would be remiss of me to not play them again. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages share a collective spot as one of my Top 5 favorite Zelda games of all time. There are a few reasons for this. One is because they have interesting mechanics. You can probably guess from the titles alone, but one game has you control seasons while the other has you control time. Both are pretty interesting concepts and have some pretty interesting puzzles and locations attached to them. The other thing I love about these games is that they tell a story when played together. Now I will go more into that at a later time. This time I focused on just one of the games, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. It has been years since I last played it, but despite all that I remembered a fair bit of the game. However, I managed to make some new discoveries as well. I will share a few of them with you now.
First of all, I would like to say that the dungeons have some annoying minibosses. Each dungeon has a miniboss and a boss, but the boss fights are a lot easier to prepare for. you get a boss key and a boss door as well as a bunch of health to signify that the next challenge is going to be something you need to overcome. Most of them have pretty simple patterns too. The mid-bosses don’t give any warning about their presence. You could go into a room and they would just be there waiting to pounce on you. Now, sometimes they are easy to deal with, but that is only when you have full health. These mini-bosses usually always caught me when my guard and health were down, so naturally I would die and get sent to the start of the dungeon. Thankfully, puzzles remain solved after you complete them or I might have lost my mind.
Another thing is there are apparently certain secrets I hadn’t discovered in this game. For instance, there are some special enemies that you can find in specific parts of the map that are elite monsters. You can defeat them, but they apparently lead to an even better reward of some kind if you find them all. I have no idea what kind of reward it is yet, but if I ever find out then I will get back to you on that.
One last thing, remember to try and bring a magic potion with you always. Mugging them from witches is always acceptable, especially because the final boss can be quite annoying without one. Now that is something I wish I didn’t have to remember. Well, I will probably have more to say regarding some of the other bosses once I do a full playthrough, but that will need to wait for next time. Until then, have a good night!
Am I Still Playing Golf? (Update)
Obviously, after all, everything is golf. I’m joking of course, but it is a nice game to chill with a play a couple of rounds every now and then. At this point in time I have beaten every adventure that the game has to offer, except for party mode since I can’t beat myself. Hopefully, there will come a day when there will be new forms of golf, but right now what has really been keeping me going is the daily challenges. Each day they pick random levels from the game and mash them up with some sort of theme. So, while they are levels I have played, they are not necessarily ones I have played recently. It is nice to do a little grab bag once a day. It also helps that a bunch of achievements are tied to playing the challenges. I am still working on the last one, but I am halfway to finishing it. You know, I am surprised myself for playing any sort of golf game for this long. Golf has never ranked high on my enjoyable sports list, but I guess there are exceptions to every rule. I probably will be spending some time every now and then for a while after I get the achievement, just because it is a relaxing way to start the day. I think it is safe to say at this point that I have fallen for this quirky game.
My only problem with this game at this point is that I have no more new content. However, that is just me crying out because I want more. Don’t get me wrong, I will still keep playing. The levels are quick and there is so much variety on display that even playing the same levels doesn’t get old. I just am sad knowing this can’t be my main game right now. I figure that now is the time to get back to a series I have been neglecting. So, next week we will move on from sports and instead head back into familiar territory. How does that sound? Oh, and for the record, it isn’t what you think it is. Just look forward to it. Again it is another short post with an awkward ending, but there is only so much I can say about a game that is this full of creativity. Look, I have to recommend this game solely for the experience of being able to see golf in a new light. So, have a good night, and remember that the only person who can set limits on your imagination is you. You know, that sounded more profound in my head. I should really consider a better time slot for finishing up these posts. Goodbye, and thanks for reading!
Quick Golf Update
This isn’t going to be a long one today. I just wanted to say that I finished the campaign for What the Golf? It wasn’t a long campaign, but it was a wild ride. I have to give props where props are due and say that was a lot of fun. For a golf game to have such an entertaining campaign was quite a shock, but the fact that there is an actual boss fight is crazy. A boss with phases, mind you. Can we just think about that? I am playing a game of golf while also managing to fight against a boss by using everything at my disposal and throwing literally everything I have at it. This is something so interesting to me.
If you had told me that I would be facing off against an evil frog king for the sake of all things golf as the final boss for a golf game, I would’ve thought you mad. The thing I love about this game is that even at the end the game is still filled with such creativity. I have never been a big fan of sports games. The reason is that I could never find the appeal in playing tournaments in a videogame when it would usually be more interesting to just find a game to watch, or maybe even play yourself. One of the purposes of videogames in my eyes is to create things that can’t exist in the real world. Yet, for some reason, we keep adding realism to games because that is supposed to make things more interesting. Personally, I think adding realism isn’t all that great. I don’t play videogames to embrace reality, I play them to ignore it. So I just want to quickly thank this game for showing me that there are no limits to an idea, as long as you are willing to put in the effort. Never thought I’d be saying that about golf of all things, but here we are.
Anyways, that’s all I wanted to say. I enjoyed the game and figured since it was basically the only thing I played this week, I would bring it up again for fun. I still am not sure why this game made frogs evil though. Oh well, a mystery for the ages. See you next time!
Can Golf Be Anything?
Do you ever think that you know something, but it turns out that you don’t know it nearly as well as you thought? That has been my recent experience with golf. When I saw golf, for the first time, I just thought it was a strange sport where people didn’t know how to keep score properly. Also, I found it boring. Golf is a sport for those who possess a lot of patience. That is something I am still working on. Aside from its ruleset, there isn’t much I find interesting about the sport. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought that. I have seen wacky golf games before, but What the Golf? is next-level wacky. Never have I seen a game so insanely bursting with different ways to play. And I do mean insane.
I have only been playing What the Golf? for a couple of hours and I can say it is the most unique golfing experience I’ve ever had. Let me describe a few of the many things I have golfed with in this game. I have golfed with soccer balls, bowling balls, birds, explosive barrels, humans, furniture, and even planets. It is all so random and yet somehow it still feels like golf. It just has the game combining golf with whatever they can. I guess that is one way to keep golf more entertaining. Just use the same golf physics to play different games. Genius!
Honestly, there isn’t that much more to this game. Well, except for this weird bias against computers and frogs. I just wanted to talk about it since it is the most interesting game I’ve played recently. I am very excited to see what else they decide to do to the game of golf. There have already been some fun gaming references in the game so I can’t wait to see what else is in store. I know this one was a short topic, but I can’t say much since I haven’t beaten the main campaign yet. Actually, before I go back to playing some more, can I just say how refreshing it is to play a golf game where the campaign isn’t just one big tournament. Most sports games don’t have a lot of depth to them, so it is nice to see a campaign that feels like an adventure rather than a side story. That is a bit of a hardship since sports are fairly generic until someone decides to mix things up. So far, golf seems to have branched out considerably, and I m looking forward to finding out the answer to the question. Yeah, I never did have an answer, but I thought it would look cool in the title. See you next week!
What Does Free to Play Mean?
The Steam Summer Sale is going on now and that means there are a lot of games at discounted prices. However, this doesn’t apply to every game in the shop as some are labeled as free to play. Honestly, I hate this term. Today, I will talk about why I find it so annoying. First off, a game that is free isn’t necessarily free to play. There are games on Steam that you can play from start to finish without paying a cent. That is what one would normally think of when they think of free. Typically games like these aren’t very long, but how can you complain about an experience that took nothing from your wallet? The answer is that you can’t and that is where things start to get strange. I wouldn’t have a problem if things ended here, but we still have more to cover.
The next type of free-to-play is free with a couple of twists. These games have more of a focus on endless play. The first noticeable difference is advertisements. These games will periodically present ads for other games you can find in the store should you be interested in them. These are relatively harmless, so they aren’t much of a concern. They can be very frequent and in your face though so they can end up being a huge pace breaker. The other thing of note is that lives are limited. If you run out of attempts you are forced to wait to try again at a later point in time. However, you can pay to bypass the wait for extra lives. You just need to spend some money. This may seem offensive, but it isn’t too bad. After all, these games aren’t meant to be beaten. They are more for casual play. They are almost like arcade machines with advertisements. The difference is you have the choice to wait to play again.
There is still another type similar to the last one. The problem is that these ones are much more vicious than the previous type. The previous type was built around endless play and payments were only there to try and help you beat your previous best. Now, things are different because there is an actual progression system. So to make any headway in the game, it is easier if you pay to win. You can choose not to go this route, but your progression will be at a noticeably slower pace than someone using paid items. So now you are forced to make a choice between spending time or spending money. At least when you play a game that you purchased, you shouldn’t have to pay for additional options just to help you play through the game. It’s like getting a demo of a game for free, but you need to pay for the rest of the game in installments. If all I was going to get was a free demo, I would prefer that the game be advertised as a free demo. It seems that is only wishful thinking.
My main problem with this is mainly that the genre of the game is misleading. Just because the game is free to play doesn’t mean it is actually free to play. I get that nothing in life is actually free, but at the very least, I would rather companies not have to resort to advertising in a way that suggests otherwise. While free-to-play does have its own connotation at this point, I would rather they call it costly-to-continue to make it sound more truthful. Is honesty so hard in this gaming industry? Probably. Well, on that note, I will wrap up my thoughts and wish you all a good night before I start talking about MMOs.
I Have a Confession About Zelda
You may have already caught onto this, but I have been going through a slight lazy streak. I don’t mean that it affects my everyday life, it is only affecting how I play videogames. As mentioned in a previous post, I haven’t started The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom yet. I don’t have any excuse for this. I know for sure that all I am doing is depriving myself of the opportunity to play a game that I know I am going to enjoy. However, I do want to say that I have come up with pretty good excuses for gaslighting myself into waiting even longer to play this game. So, I figured I would share them with all of you because putting them into words will help fuel my laziness even further. This is not meant as a way to convince myself to play, but as a vague hope that one can understand my dilemma. Also, I wanted to do this because of a text my friend sent me after the last post. I never said I wasn’t petty.
First off, I do not have as much energy as I did in the past. I used to be able to play games for hours on end with no need for breaks in between, save for the bathroom. I can’t do that anymore. If I can play a game for an extended period of time, it has to be one that doesn’t require a lot of effort from me, like a Pokemon game for instance. There is so much to do in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that it is a little overwhelming and part of me doesn’t want to start playing a big game that I know will require a lot of time investment. Although, that has rarely stopped me before, which leads into my second reason for not picking up the game yet. If I do start, it may be hard to stop. I don’t want a repeat of my playtime in The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.
You might be thinking that is not a bad thing. However, if I play an open-world game, I am planning on dedicating all my time to playing it properly. The free time I have will all be dedicated to just playing that one game. Half of the games I play are already not getting the time they should, so imagine what is going to happen when I open up that case. They might as well be dead in the water at that point. I might not be able to play it for long periods of time, but I will definitely be able to play it at any chance I get and that somewhat worries me. I at least try to keep a balance. Well, the excuse I just gave is also tied to my big confession. Remember how I started with that? Yeah. The truth is that I still haven’t beaten the first game.
I know. I know. I can easily do it at any time. I just don’t want to and because I haven’t beaten the first one, I haven’t played the second one. Since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an improvement in everything the first game had to offer, it would be even more unlikely that I would want to go back and play the original after starting the new one. So, right now I am slowly trying to work my way through the first game so I can eventually play the second. I might not finish it anytime soon, but it is something. Not that these excuses really mean anything. At the end of the day, I use these restrictions to justify the path I am taking for my own selfish reasons. For now, the game will remain on my desk, waiting for the day I open it. Until then, no game! Oh, and another confession, I didn’t have much to talk about this week so I decided to do this because I thought it would be fun. It was. Have a good night!
My Top 5 Anticipated Games from Nintendo Direct 6/21
As you may know, I am a Nintendo fan. It is probably pretty obvious to long-time readers, but I figured I would make it clear. There was a Nintendo Direct a couple of days ago on the first day of summer. Now, I usually don’t get my hopes up because I feel that you should never get your hopes up for a videogame presentation. That is to help minimize the amount of copium you need to take afterward. However, I don’t know what was going on that day because they were showing off some fun stuff and I honestly hate them for it. My wallet is going to be crying this holiday season. In light of the good showing on Wednesday, I figured I’d mention the top 5 games I am most interested in playing. Let’s start with number five.
5. Pikmin 4
Even though I am a Nintendo fan, that doesn’t mean I have played every big franchise they own. I have yet to play a Pikmin game, partially due to not having a GameCube and partly because I thought the series wasn’t for me. However, after seeing some more footage of the game, I might give this series a shot. It honestly looks like a lot of fun. The main reason I am hesitant to pick it up is that I don’t think I should start any new games anytime soon. *Looks over to see my unopened copy of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom silently judging me.* I might be experiencing a backlog at the moment.
4. Detective Pikachu Returns
I definitely wasn’t expecting this one. I wasn’t expecting any Pokémon news this Direct but I was so wrong. I’m actually really glad they went and brought this idea back. In hindsight, it makes sense that they would want to capitalize on the success of the movie with a new game, but I’m not complaining. As both a mystery fan and a Pokémon fan, I am looking forward to this new installment.
3. Sonic Superstars
Since I am more of a Pokémon fan than a Sonic fan, the game looks good when I put it this high. Not only does it look amazing and fun to play, but it also feels like it is adding to the 2D formula, rather than just trying to replicate it. Personally, I think this is the Sonic 4 that fans should have received. Well, I guess I should be more careful with hyping up a game that has yet to come out. On that note…
2. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Listen, it’s a new 2D Mario game. Of course, I am excited about it. It is a little concerning that Mario appears to have taken the wrong shrooms, but I can’t be mad if it means changing the environment in new and interesting ways. Also, loving the diversity of playable characters. My favorite part though was definitely Elephant Mario punting a Goomba to the moon. That sent me.
1. Super Mario RPG
Bro, this game is a day-one purchase for me. Non-negotiable. I have been meaning to play the original for the longest time since it was the game that inspired the Paper Mario series. Now you’re telling me they have remade it from the ground up and I can play it later this year for a fantastic and one-of-a-kind RPG adventure? To put it another way… Geno?! Nintendo, just take my money already!
Well, that’s my rough thoughts on the direct, and come this fall it will be the end of my free time. Not that I had much in the first place. Seriously, TOTK! Stop looking at me like that! I need to go. Bye!
An Overdue Achievement
I wish I could say that I finally managed to get that Hollow Knight achievement that I have been working towards for a while. Unfortunately, I’m not quite there yet. However, recently I realized there is another achievement that I have been waiting on for a long time and last week’s discussion reminded me of it. There was an interesting narrative-driven game that I played back in college. You may have heard of it. It was called The Stanley Parable. At first, one could think of it as just a glorified walking simulator with an enthusiastic narrator. Of course, that is just on the surface. What makes the game unique is that your choices direct the flow of the narrative. If you have ever read one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books, this is in the same vein. The main difference is the attention to the idea of free will. In Choose Your Own Adventure books, the book simply gives you the option to choose how you want with no idea if you are making a good choice. In The Stanley Parable, that is not the case as the narrator tells you the story you are supposed to follow. However, if you exercise your free will then that can cause changes to the narrative that lead to the story being altered and sometimes breaking down entirely. All in all, it is a fun experience with numerous hidden dialogue options that you can find over multiple playthroughs. However, that’s enough about the game and let’s start talking about that achievement.
Now, I should first start out by saying that before doing anything, the first thing one should do is go into the extra settings in the menu and turn on achievement. You even get an achievement for that. That way you should be able to get all of the achievements as you play through the game. Well, almost all of them. One of the most creative achievements is the achievement called “Go Outside.” This achievement is unusual in that it is an achievement that is based on real-world time. This achievement simply states that you cannot play the game for five years. Yeah, that’s right. You cannot get that achievement without waiting for five years since you last played. Now, there may be some ways around that, but I personally decided to take that challenge. It has been so long since then that I forgot about it until recently when I was reminded of this game when writing about Inmost. I wasn’t sure at first if this would actually work and if I had spent five years not playing the game for no reason. Thankfully that wasn’t the case as I got it to pop up immediately after booting up the game again. Then I got distracted and played for a little bit.
I can’t think of many games that have such a long waiting period for achievements, but I am glad I came back to this one without having to mess with my settings or anything. Who knows, I might try to get some of the other achievements I was missing now that I can play this game again. Were there easier ways to do this? Most likely. But as someone who doesn’t mind dropping a project for a while so he can pick it back up later, I felt content knowing that after all this time, it worked. That’s all that matters to me. I’m not saying I recommend this approach, but considering the number of games normally in my backlog, this wasn’t a difficult waiting period. Well, that’s all from me. See you next week!
That Casual Gamer Guy 