Saturday, October 31, 2015

Day Thirty One // Happy Halloween!

Hey guys!
So, this is the final day of October, which also marks the end of this Blogtober! 
I know the challenge I did was only 30 days, so I decided to turn this extra day into a kind of summary!

On the whole, I feel like I did pretty well with planning everything - I actually stuck to writing a couple of posts at a time, made sure I always had one written and saved in case I couldn't find the time to do a day, and I also made sure to try and include pictures/screenshots in as many posts as I could, so you had something nice to look at, you could see what I meant when I was describing things (or the cover of the game in case you were interested) and it breaks up the big chunks of text a bit better - plus I like putting in pictures because I find them interesting! 

I know that some posts were shorter than others, and I apologise for that - I tried to make sure that posts were as long but interesting as I could get them, but sometimes there wasn't a lot to say, or it was a picture challenge instead of one that needed many words, so I decided to let the pictures speak for themselves. Plus, I feel like sometimes I was waffling on a bit too much, so I cut a few posts a bit shorter so I wouldn't be boring you - and myself!

Through doing this challenge, I learnt that, as long as I'm prepared, I can just about handle blogging daily - however, I do feel like I would struggle a LOT if I didn't have some kind of plan. For example, if I had another daily challenge, or a massive list of ideas, I'd probably end up doing another bout of daily blogging, as it's been pretty fun and it's pushed me a lot.

I hope you do still stick with me and my little blog, though - I've had a lot of fun doing this challenge, and I will be continuing to post regularly on here (just not every day!)

I hope you enjoyed my blogging challenge - thank you to anyone who was here for the ride, whether you just popped in and out occasionally, only read one post, or if you were here for the whole challenge (or maybe even longer)! 

Happy Halloween! 
Love, me and the (Animal Crossing) czar of Halloween, Jack!

Friday, October 30, 2015

Day Thirty // All Time Favourite Game!


Hey guys!
Today is day 30 of my 30 day blogging challenge - the final day, in fact! (I'm surprised I made it this far, haha, there's been a few challenging days along the way) I left a photo of the questions in my first blog, where I summarised this challenge, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - what is your all time favourite game?

This is pretty much the hardest question of the lot, aha, and I've struggled to answer it for ages now - I've been deliberating how I'm going to answer it pretty much since day one.
I have a lot of games that I really like - as you'll probably know if you've been keeping up with this blogging challenge (thank you very much if you've read any of them, and especially if you've been amazing and read every single one! <3) and it's been really hard trying to narrow it down to one single game - or even franchise - that I could call my all time favourite!

There's so many different genres of game out there, and sometimes you're in the mood for one kind of game more than others - for example, when I'm in the mood to relax, I'll play something like Animal Crossing, and when I want to adventure, I'll play something like Pokemon or Xenoblade Chronicles.
So, for this post, I decided to have a couple of different answers, as I genuinely cannot choose just one game as a favourite! 

Favourite relaxing game - 
at the moment, I definitely think this would be an Animal Crossing game. I've always really loved New Leaf, since it was released around two and a half years ago, and I've played *most* days, but I'm also really loving Happy Home Designer since it came out at the beginning of this month and I definitely feel myself switch off when I'm playing it. So, the winner of best relaxing game is definitely ANIMAL CROSSING.

Favourite adventure game - 
#this is hard, because if I want something that's a bit more laid back I'll play a Pokemon game (at the moment, I'm working my way through Pokemon Omega Ruby, as I bought it earlier in the year and have been distracted since getting it, oops) and if I want something I really have to think about and immerse myself in, I'll play either a Zelda game or Xenoblade Chronicles. However, purely down to how much I've loved the story and the sheer amount of hours I put into playing it the first time around (well, technically the first two, as my brother accidentally saved over my first file partway through) I'm saying my winner of best adventure game is XENOBLADE CHRONICLES.

Favourite retro/older game - 
the final game I'm choosing is pretty much a no brainer. I've liked playing this game since I was little, and even now, I love the soundtrack, the graphics, and just the game in general. Yes, it's not as retro as it could be, but it's from when I was a very young child so it's like 20 years old or so, and that's retro enough for me. My winner for best retro game has to be SUPER MARIO 64.

I recommend all of these games to everyone, and even if you've never picked up a gaming console before, you should. I love playing games - I always have - and I feel like there's such a diverse gaming franchise out there that you will always find at least one game that someone will like, whether it's brain training and puzzle games, to war games and racing games - you will always find a game you like, and that is the beauty of gaming. 

I hope you've enjoyed this blogging challange - I definitely have, even though I've struggled with it a lot along the way, and I'm happy yet sad that it's all over now! 
Come back tomorrow, when I'll have one final mystery post up! ;)

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Day Twenty Nine // A Game You Didn't Think You'd Like


Hey guys!
Today is day 29 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - what is a game you didn't think you'd like, but ended up loving?

Definitely Xenoblade Chronicles, without a shadow of a doubt. I didn't know who Shulk was when Nintendo put him in Super Smash, and I wondered who he was, so my brother tried to explain it to me but I didn't really care at the time, haha. Then, a Xenoblade Chronicles remake for the New 3DS was announced and he was really excited and pre-ordered it. When it came, he played it endlessly and kept going on about how good it was - he didn't tell me very much about it, as he wanted me to play it when he was done, and I didn't want to at first - I was midway through Majoras Mask, in fact I still am - but in the end, I decided to play it.
I didn't have very high expectations that I'd like it - I didn't think I'd like it at all, in fact, as my brother likes more RPGs and story based games, and I play a lot more games like Animal Crossing and Pokemon (although I like playing RPGs and more adventure/story based games too) and sometimes we don't like the same games. However, after the opening credits and story of the game, I was intrigued, so I decided to give it a chance.
I'm really glad I did, as it's now probably right up there as one of my favourite games, and I like it so much that I ended up buying my own copy (even though it meant having to start again after completing the game)
The thing I like about it is that the story is amazing, the characters are likeable and you warm to them quickly (well...most of them, haha) and I love the fact that there's a ton of side quests to do as well, so you don't just have to stick to the story. You also get loads of experience and the occasional reward if you explore, so it's definitely worth straying from the path and going off exploring more if you can.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Day Twenty Eight // Favourite Game Developer


Hey guys!
Today is day 28 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - who is your favourite game developer?

I really liked the game developer Rare - they used to work with Nintendo, but then moved over to Microsoft. Some of the games they created were some of my favourites as a child - most notably, Goldeneye, Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo Kazooie. I spent so long playing the first two games with my brother - Goldeneye especially, I used to like trying to kill him before he could kill me, although a lot of the time we were on the same team. It was always pretty fun trying to navigate my way through levels, even when I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing! I also used to spend ages playing Donkey Kong 64 - I didn't like it at first, but as I played it more, I enjoyed it more, and now I'm quite keen to download it on the Wii U, as they've remastered it and re-released it for download.
I also really like HAL Laboratory - they've worked on games such as Super Smash Bros, the Kirby series and Earthbound, amongst other huge titles. Kirby is one of my all time favourite gaming characters, and has been for years now, so I'm very pleased that they made Kirby work. Originally, they hadn't decided on a colour for Kirby, so in the Japanese artwork he was white. They debated between yellow and pink, and in the end pink won out, but when you can play as a second Kirby, the default colour for that is yellow, which is pretty cool! 
Finally, of course, who could forget Game Freak - the team which brought us the Pokemon video games! These games were a massive part of my childhood - and I still play them regularly to this day - so this developer had to make my list purely because they pretty much made my childhood amazing! 

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Day Twenty Seven // Most Epic Scene Ever!


Hey guys!

Today is day 27 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - what's the most epic game scene ever? 
*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*
Literally will be pretty big spoilers so avoid if you're planning to play either game!

I actually have two which I think are pretty amazing!

The first one is the scene in Fire Emblem Awakening, where your avatar kills Chrom after nearly killing Validar. For a little bit, you're like OH MY GOD THE PREMONITION CAME TRUE! (at the very beginning of the game, after you've created your avatar, you get shown a cut scene which also walks you through how to play the game, and after you've battled Validar, Chrom turns to you and somehow, Validar takes over your body and you kill Chrom) but then, something amazing happens - Chrom gets up!
It's really confusing at first - I remember being like WHAT IS HAPPENING the first time I played through the game, haha - but then it all gets explained and it turns out, you managed to keep in control of yourself enough to weaken your magic so it wouldn't kill Chrom (which I was really pleased about because he's not only one of my favourite characters in the game but on my first run I was married to him too - sucks to accidentally kill your husband in a game, haha) and then you go on to a battle and it's just all amazing!

The second one is in Xenoblade Chronicles, when you're on Valak Mountain on your way to Sword Valley, and Dunban and Mumkhar end up having a massive, epic battle! It's so good - the dialogue is perfect, the scene is amazing, the music is fabulous (to be fair, the music throughout the game is just amazing all the time, haha, they really know how to make the perfect songs for everything that happens and the areas)  and you just want Dunban to kill him there and then. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but that doesn't happen and you merely end up injuring him, but it's still one of the best cut scenes I've come across in a game so far and you should all play the game or see the cut scene!

Monday, October 26, 2015

Day Twenty Six // Best Voice Acting


Hey guys!
Today is day 26 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - what is the best voice acting, in your opinion?

I really like the fact they have British voices in Xenoblade Chronicles. In a lot of games, the voice acting is with American accents, and I feel that a game like Xenoblade works a lot better with British accents than American ones - for some reason, it's a lot more effective.
I also like it when games don't have much in the way of voice acting - for example, in Animal Crossing, they speak Animalese, which sounds like babbling to us, and in Zelda games, Link doesn't speak - he'll grunt and make the occasional noise, but there's not really any vocals in there, which suits me - I think it'd be really weird if he actually spoke, which is why I'm dubious every time I hear reports that they want to make a Zelda film.
I think that, going by the voices of characters, I really like the voice acting of whoever voices Dunban and Melia in Xenoblade Chronicles, and the guy who voices Chrom in Fire Emblem Awakening, and I just like the voice acting in those games anyway, so if we're going for proper speech in games I'm choosing those two, and if we're choosing voice acting in games where less is more, I choose Zelda and Animal Crossing.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

10 Years Of You Me At Six!



Hey guys!
So, today marks 10 years of my favourite UK band, You Me At Six, and to celebrate I thought that it'd be a nice idea to do a blog post about my top 10 favourite You Me At Six memories! There's probably a LOT more than 10, haha, so it's going to be pretty much impossible to choose, but let's give it a shot anyway! Also, these are in no particular order, they're just my favourite memories!

10 - Q Live, London.
I managed to win guestlist +1 to this show, and I took my boyfriend at the time. For some reason, the venue decided it would be a good idea to have a rope thing as a barrier - please, never do that if you're putting on a show! I ended up being stuck leaning against the stage, haha, I couldn't get up at all and one of the metal poles of the "barrier" was trapping one of my feet. When Josh noticed (and recognised me, aha) he mouthed "are you okay?" at me, so I nodded and then between songs, he told people to move back (so I could at least get the metal thing off my foot) and he ruffled my hair before going into the next song - thanks Josh! I also managed to get a set list from this show, which is stuck on my wardrobe, and I had a little chat with most of them at some point of the night, which is always nice!

9 - Banquet Records, Kingston - TOYC instore.
The day before they did an instore at HMV in London, You Me At Six did an instore at Banquet Records, and me and a couple of friends went along - I think we all skipped school as well, oops :P but anyway, I barely knew any of the songs, and it was the first time I'd seen/met them (as far as I can remember) but it still makes me laugh to look back at pictures and see how young we all looked, and how much we've all changed since then!

8 - Kentish Town Forum, London.
This was back in the days when I used to get to shows first thing in the morning and queue (I pretty much never do that any more, in a way I miss it and in a way I really don't, haha) and I think me and my friends actually turned out to be in a Kerrang! podcast later on (which people used to vaguely remember me from). I remember this show was packed, and I don't remember much apart from being kicked in the head by crowd surfers, but I'm pretty sure it was an amazing show!

7 - The Astoria, London.  
Again, I think I may have skipped school for this, but me and my friends queued all day and we saw Josh nearly get hit by a bike in the cycle lane when they were unloading. Anyway, shows at the Astoria were always amazing (RIP Astoria!) and we were at the front all night - I like the atmosphere at the front, it's more intense in a way - and the show was amazing. I think I caught Max's water bottle too, haha.

6 - McCluskey's, Kingston - HMD release.
I think this was around the release of Hold Me Down, and we went round to the back of the venue and Max was smoking. My friends needed a lighter, so I asked him if I could borrow his and he said yeah, then gave me his and was like, keep it. So, we tried it and it didn't work (thanks Max!) so when we went to the signing, I was like "sign your dud lighter please" so that's currently with my collection of signed stuff. The instore was amazing too, McCluskey's is pretty small so it's always fun going to shows there.

5 - Alexandra Palace, London.
Me and my best friend went to this together, and got a hotel in London too. It took ages to walk there from the station, but it was more than worth it. The show was flawless - they played a good mixture of songs from past and current albums, and the supports were amazing too. It's been pretty surreal going from seeing them play tiny little venues to selling out massive shows like that, it's crazy but awesome!

4 - Kerrang! Radio, Birmingham.
I entered a competition to win guestlist to this show, and promptly forgot I'd even entered. Then, the day before, I got a phone call saying I'd won guestlist plus one for this acoustic show in Birmingham. Needless to say, I panicked, then frantically spent ages trying to find someone to come with me. Luckily, I found someone, so we went to Birmingham the next day for this show at Kerrang! Radio in Birmingham. We met Christian and Loz as well (2 DJs, idk if they're still there now) and they played 6 songs, then we got to hang out with them for a bit outside after we'd got stuff signed (I got a really old poster signed) and it was so good, I'll never get sick of seeing them play acoustic shows.

3 - McCluskey's, Kingston - Cavalier Youth release.
When their last album, Cavalier Youth, came out, me and my best friend managed to get tickets to both the signings/instores they were doing that day - she'd never previously met them before, so she was really excited to get to meet them! It was lovely for me, getting to meet them again, as they recognised me from various other times I've met them, so we had a little bit of a catch up as well as getting my CD signed. The first show was an acoustic - which was so good, as I prefer acoustic versions a lot more - and the later show wasn't, so it was nice to see songs from the album performed both ways. It was also funny getting to see them later on at the second signing and chat again, I miss how easy I used to find it to meet them.

2 - The Roundhouse, London.
Again, we got there stupidly early, so were hanging around all day. Later on, before doors, the friends I'd come with had gone to chat to some people they knew that I didn't, so I was alone near the front of the queue. One of my friends used to work at the Roundhouse, on their radio show, and she asked me if I wanted to come backstage with her to interview You Me At Six. Obviously, I said yes, so I went backstage with her and got to hang out with the band for a while (I didn't actually ask them anything to help with the interview, oops) and then we had a group picture (minus Chris, I think he was on the phone somewhere) before I headed back out to the queue and to find my friends again.

1 - Wembley Arena, London. 
 This show was amazing. They literally put all their passion and everything they had into this show - and made the X Factor final get moved to a different venue, which is pretty damn hilarious - and it really was one of my all time favourite shows I've ever been to. I even cried at a song I'd never cried at before, and I now only ever cry at that one version of it. It was everything you could ever want from a show - everyone was singing along, everything went pretty much flawlessly, and it was just a show I'll remember for the rest of my life!

Day Twenty Five // A Game You Want To Play


Hey guys!
Today is day 25 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.

Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!


Today's question is - what is a game you plan on playing?



Well, I have a list practically the length of my arm of games I really want to play, haha, and I'm forever adding to it, so this is probably going to be a hard one to narrow down. I *could* essentially list them all, but the list would be ridiculously long and probably quite boring, so I'll try and narrow it down to my top 5 - which will also hopefully be the next games I'll be treating myself to!



Pikmin 3. 
My brother downloaded a demo for this a while back, and although I tried playing the first Pikmin game and didn't get very far, I gave this one a try and I ended up really liking it! I'd love to play the full version, as you obviously don't get very far in the demo and I'd like to keep playing and see what happens.



Fire Emblem Fates. 
This isn't out in the UK till next year - boooo - but I'm sooooo excited to play this because the trailers and sneaky peeks I've seen of people playing it makes it look amazing and I like Fire Emblem games anyway, so I cannot wait for this!



Xenoblade Chronicles U. 
I haven't really seen or heard much about this, but from what I have seen and heard, I'm pretty intrigued to see what happens in the game - plus, the world in the game is supposed to be massive, so it'll be amazing to explore and immerse yourself into. 



Yoshi's Woolly World.
 I was tempted to pre-order this when it was first released, but it was around the same time that Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush came out and I couldn't really afford both at once. It reminds me a little bit of Yoshi's Story, but even better, plus the woolly graphics and yarn Yoshi amiibos are just amazing and I need them in my life!



Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy. 
The follow up game to The Miracle Mask, and I think the final installment of the Professor Layton series. I've played all the other games, and loved them a lot - I like puzzles and logical thinking, so I like working out the puzzles and mysteries along the way, plus the storylines of the game are always pretty gripping.





There's so many other games I want to play, too - I have a wishlist on Amazon which is pretty full of games and gaming stuff - but these are probably the ones I want to play the most! 

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Day Twenty Four // Favourite Classic Game


Hey guys!
Today is day 24 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - what is your favourite classic game?

When I was little, we used to have a NES, and it was really cool - we spent quite a lot of time playing on it, so for a few years that was the only console we had.
One of my favourite games on it was Duck Hunt. I wasn't very good at it - I was only a few years old though, haha, so I don't think anyone was expecting me to be amazing at it - but I used to love it when the dog popped up from behind the bushes and sniggered at you, and I remember getting upset when I missed the clay pigeons.
Another game I liked quite a lot was Wrecking Crew. It used to amuse me when you could do the mini game when you were against Wario and, if he was behind the same door you were standing in front of, if you hit it first you could knock him down to the bottom of the level again. I also used to like making my own levels, even though I was never that good at it.
The final one isn't one I liked playing myself, but I used to love watching my dad play Gradius. There were a few times where we sat and watched him play from beginning to end, and it was always really fun to watch. We made up our own names for all the worlds you go through, and some of the bosses, and even now, if I play it on my 3DS, it still reminds me of watching my dad playing it, and me and my brother cheering him on. 

Friday, October 23, 2015

Day Twenty Three // Best Graphics or Art Style


Hey guys!
Today is day 23 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - what game has the best graphics/art style?

Okay, so I really like the games that are coming out at the moment that are like stop motion kind of style!
Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush is amazing because everything is made of plasticine and you can see all the fingerprint indentations on all the characters and scenery, it's so cool! That was one of the things that drew me to this game in the first place, I like it when games don't look the same and they do something different with the graphics. It's such a clever yet simple concept and I think it really paid off.

I also like the look of Yoshi's Woolly World. I've only seen videos of it and the adverts on TV, but much like everything in Kirby being plasticine, in this game everything is made of yarn! They also released some yarn Yoshi amiibos, which look really amazing too!

Going with more traditional gaming graphics, I love the more anime style of the cut scenes in Fire Emblem Awakening, as I've stated before - it's simple but effective, plus you get to put in a lot of detail and I just generally like that style of art anyway! Plus it blends in well with the style of the rest of the game, which makes the experience of playing the game and immersing yourself in it even better!

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Day Twenty Two // A Disappointing Sequel


Hey guys!

Today is day 22 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - which game sequel disappointed you?

To be perfectly honest, I don't really think I've played many games with sequels.
I've played all the Animal Crossing games to date, for example, but they're not really continuations of each other - they have the same basic gameplay style to them, but they change a lot every time they make a new game, so you couldn't really call them sequels.
Same goes for things like Zelda - there's an official Zelda timeline, but as far as I know, the only games that follow on to each other and have the same style/are set in the same time period are Ocarina Of Time and Majora's Mask and, while I didn't enjoy Majora's Mask as much as Ocarina Of Time, I wasn't exactly disappointed by it. 

In my experience, game sequels are usually a lot better than the originals - for example, I didn't enjoy Timesplitters as much as I liked Timesplitters 2 and 3 (although I mainly enjoyed doing multiplayer and side quests than story, aha, but that's because on the whole, I'm not particularly good at shooting games) so, I guess that my answer to this question is simply - I've never really played a game with proper sequels so I cannot really say which one disappointed me because there is none.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Day Twenty One // Best Gaming Story


Hey guys!
Today is day 21 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - what game has the best story?

There's a lot of games I've played that have really good, well written stories that manage to pull you in, and there's been a few that have really immersed me completely. All of the Zelda games are beautifully written, and this is one of the things that makes them one of the more fun games to play, along with the fabulous music - although I've just played a couple of Zelda games so far, and I'm around halfway through a third. My favourite Zelda game, story wise, is probably Ocarina Of Time.

However, I definitely think that Xenoblade Chronicles has the best story of any games I've played!
I won't go into too much detail, just in case anyone reading this hasn't played it and wants to, but this game literally has everything you could ever want - it's full of plot twists, too, which will really help to keep you gripped until the very end. You will feel a real mix of emotions throughout - from panic to happiness to sadness - and you'll literally just want to play for hours on end (in fact, you most likely will - I kept telling myself I'd only play for about an hour, then I'd end up playing for about 3 hours and my 3DS would go from full battery to nearly empty, oops. I also kept forgetting to save as regularly as I would have liked because I was so engrossed in the story.) The is also beautifully told through a generous amount of cut scenes - one of which is probably my favourite cut scene of any game ever, all I can tell you is that there's a battle going on at the time - and the characters are so likeable that it really adds to the story, and you want to see it through to the end so that you can see what happens with the characters and how it ends (incidentally, I think it ends almost perfectly, I loved the ending) and you will never get bored of playing it. I'm currently playing it through again for the second time and I still love it just as much as I did the first time around.
 
 

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Day Twenty // Favourite Genre


Hey guys!

Today is day 20 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - what is your favourite genre?

I really like games that I can keep coming back to, which don't get boring, haha.

I quite like life simulation games mixed with a bit of fantasy - for example, Animal Crossing and Tomodachi Life. You can play them pretty much every day (they're in real time, but you can also change the time if you wish) and there's always something to do! 
For example, every day I play Animal Crossing, I usually run round my town and make sure no one wants to leave (and stop them if it's someone I like) then I'll spend some time running errands for them, selling stuff I don't need, watering flowers, etc - sometimes I even hop on a boat and visit the island! So, there's always something to do, plus your neighbours are adorable little talking animals which, let's face it, is a lot better than real life and human neighbours! 
On Tomodachi Life, your Mii (on Nintendo consoles, you create a Mii which is basically a mini avatar of you, which is seen when you play online and you can use it in certain games too) lives on an island, and you can add other Miis (up to 100, I do believe, and you can add celebrity Miis and all kinds of things) and you unlock more stuff as more things happen. You can get married and have kids, too, as well as play games with the islanders and play Tomodachi Quest at certain times of the day, too - it's a mini 8-bit quest mini game, which is pretty fun!

On the flip side to this, I like adventure and RPG games
For example, three of my favourite games are Fire Emblem Awakening, Xenoblade Chronicles and The Legend Of Zelda : Ocarina Of Time, and they're all this style. Adventure games are a lot of fun - I like it when you have a clear story objective, but there's loads of battles, areas and obstacles to overcome before you can reach the final objective and finish the game!
I also love these games because they all have such different styles - the graphics, the fighting styles, etc - but they're all equally as good in their own unique ways! For example, I warmed to the characters in Fire Emblem a lot, and I loved the pairing up feature in that, but I also love the characters in Xenoblade Chronicles, and the way they're all so different but they all have one common enemy, so they work together with all their different skills to achieve their objective, and I love all the different parts of the world in Ocarina Of Time, and the dungeons and temples are just amazing, even if a few of them are ridiculously frustrating sometimes (I'm looking at you, water temple!)

In case you were wondering, I'm not too keen on shooting games, like Call Of Duty and Halo - I have played a few in the past (the best being Goldeneye and Timesplitters, the worst being Call Of Duty) but they just bore me a lot. I also don't understand the appeal of Minecraft, haha, but maybe that's just me!

Monday, October 19, 2015

Day Nineteen // A Game Setting You Wish You Lived In


Hey guys!
Today is day 19 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - pick a game setting you wish you lived in, and show pictures
*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

I actually have a couple of places I'd like to live.

Colony 9 - Xenoblade Chronicles.



Eryth Sea - Xenoblade Chronicles.


Kittyton - Animal Crossing New Leaf (my main town)







Sunday, October 18, 2015

Day Eighteen // Favourite Protagonist



Hey guys!
Today is day 18 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - who is your favourite protagonist?

In the game I'm choosing, technically there are two protagonists, and I love them both equally so I'm going to choose them both! 

I adore both Chrom and my avatar on Fire Emblem Awakening, both for different reasons, and I don't think that I could choose between them. 

Why I love my avatar/Amyyy - for starters, I got to customise her and I love the customisation, which is always good! Plus, she's a magic user, so I get to use tomes and the Levin sword (which is a magic sword!) as well as normal swords. Plus, you can choose to change what you do as you level up, so you can be an assassin, knight, etc if you don't want to stick with being a tactician! (I did that on my second file, I think I'm an assassin, but I stuck with tacticion on my main file) I also like the way the female avatar and Chrom interact, they're both pretty awkward around each other but it's pretty adorable if you get married (you automatically marry in one of the chapters if you're both unmarried by then) but they make a perfect team, in and out of battle.
Why I love Chrom - he's the Prince of Ylisse, but he has his band of Shepherds, who travel to places around the Kingdom, fighting enemies and trying to bring peace back to the Kingdom, against all odds. He's fiercely protective of everyone, including his sisters, and he gives your avatar a chance, even when others aren't too sure - so we can assume he sees the best in people. His fighting class is Lord, which means he can wield Falchion (which is an amazing, powerful sword) and other swords, and you can upgrade him to a Great Lord eventually too, which I'm pretty sure he is on my file at the moment. Plus, like I said before, him and the avatar bounce off each other so perfectly, they're both so likeable and make the game more interesting! 




Saturday, October 17, 2015

Day Seventeen // Favourite Antagonist


Hey guys!
Today is day 17 of my 30 day blogging challenge, where I'm going to be tackling a gaming challenge I found a few weeks ago that I thought looked interesting. In my blog summarising this, I left a photo of the questions, in case anyone wanted to do it, but I'll also copy the question I'm answering into my post every day too.
Sometimes, these posts may contain spoilers for a game - when that happens, I'll warn you before I answer the question, so you can choose whether or not to read on!

Today's question is - who is your favourite antagonist? 
*may contain spoilers, although I'm pretty sure most people will have played this game already*

There's been a lot of good antagonists in most of the games I've played, so this was a pretty hard choice - however, in the end, I went with the one who stuck out the most for me.
I think that my favourite antagonist is Ganondorf from Ocarina Of Time. He's just so evil and it's amazing.
I will always remember doing one of the final battles with him in his castle, where he fires magic at you and you have to hit it back at him with your sword - kind of like more dangerous tennis. It took me a couple of attempts to do it on my first time battling him, as it's hard to get into the swing of things, but it's pretty fun when you're used to it. After the battle, you have to escape from the castle before it collapses - I think you're given around 2 minutes to escape from the top floor.
Once you've escaped and the castle collapses, you think it's all over.....but is it? No, it is not!
You have to fight him again, but in another form, Ganon. This battle is a LOT harder than the first one, but it's really fun, and the way you deal the final blow is amazing too - however, he doesn't actually die, he gets sealed away, so he can - and will - rise again one day.
He basically just wreaks a lot of havoc on Hyrule - he leaves Hyrule castle and the town within in ruins and builds his own castle, for example, and there's a lot of bad magic everywhere, plus he tries to steal Link and Zelda's triforce pieces so he can completely control everything.
He's like the perfect antagonist, and this is why he's my favourite.