A New Feature Appears!

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A New Feature Appears | Gaming Challenges | Gaming | Video Games | DoublexJump.com

rachmii
A while ago, Kris and I had challenged each other to play a game the other had never played. I challenged her to play Luigi’s Mansion for the Nintendo Gamecube and she challenged me to play Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones for the Nintendo DS. Since then, we had always wanted to do more challenges such as that as well as something a little different. Well, we’ve finally decided to bring it back!

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Yeah, how long as it been? A little over two years? This time around, the challenge has to do with a couple of our favorite laid-back games. Going with the recent announcements from Nintendo regarding Smash Bros Ultimate and new games for the Switch, Rachel has challenged me to play Animal Crossing: New Leaf, while I’m challenging her to play Harvest Moon: Light of Hope. Considering these games are fairly open-ended, we’ve tried to set specific goals for each other. Rachel, what do I need to do to complete this challenge?

rachmii
I have two goals in mind for you. However, complete whichever you’d like before time is up for the challenge. The first goal is to build your house as best you can and completely pay off your debt for a completed first floor along with the first phase of the upstairs, basement, left room, and right room. The second goal is to ensure all your villagers like you, create an awesome town, and make sure your mayor rating is the best it can be.

krismii
Alright then… That sounds doable, although I imagine I may come to you with questions, especially about the mayor rating and such, haha. I have never played an Animal Crossing game a decent amount of time before. I played a little bit of the GameCube game and maybe, like, a day or two of New Leaf when it first came out, but I haven’t played either long enough to say I “played” Animal Crossing.

Rachel Mii Double Jump
Perfect. You’ll be fine. You can ask questions or just use the Internet. What is it that I need to do for Harvest Moon: Light of Hope?

krismii
Light of Hope has a little “story” that I want you to try to complete. While Light of Hope isn’t my favorite Harvest Moon game, it’s decent and simple enough when it comes to growing crops and completing the story. If you’d like, you can also woo one of the available bachelors and try to unlock the requirements that come with getting married. It’ll give you a fuller Harvest Moon experience, but… I never get married in the games, so I won’t require you to do so as well.

Rachel Mii Double Jump
Sounds simple enough! In fact, it sounds similar to what you have to do for Animal Crossing. Except there’s no true story in Animal Crossing. I’m sure if I get stuck on anything, I’ll come to you. Though hopefully I won’t get stuck in a Harvest Moon game. Anyway, we’ll play the games in our own time and come the end of October, we’ll talk about our thoughts and experiences with the games! And see who met the requirements and who didn’t.

krismii
Here’s hoping we both beat the challenge and, hey, maybe enjoy the games while playing!

Will you join us on this challenge? Have any others in mind that we should do in the future? Let us know in the comments below!

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Animal Crossing Movie [Review]

Rachel animal crossing, Home, Kris & Rachel, Movie Reviews , , , ,

Double Jump | Nintendo | Movies | Video Games | Animal Crossing

rachmii
So, about a week or so before the latest Nintendo Direct where Animal Crossing was announced for the Switch, Kris found through Pinterest that there’s an Animal Crossing movie. I wanted to watch it right away. So, naturally, I found the anime on YouTube.

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Rachel is definitely the bigger Animal Crossing fan out of the two of us. I’ve barely played the games. As soon as I saw that pin that mentioned the Animal Crossing movie, I knew Rachel would be interested in it, and she was wicked excited to hear about it. The “movie” on YouTube was about 45 minutes long, so we figured it was a short thing and stuck it on. I wasn’t too sure what kind of plot would be developed on a 45-minute movie based on such an open-ended game.

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It turned out, even though the video stated it was the full movie, it actually wasn’t. It ended in the middle and we ended up finding a different YouTube video that summed up the entire movie in about four minutes. Still, from the 45 minutes we saw, it wasn’t too bad.

krismii
It was rather cute, but I was sitting there for about half of it wondering when something resembling a plot was going to happen. The beginning showcased the excited new resident of Animal Village meeting her new neighbors while working for Tom Nook by making deliveries, and there were random segments of various villagers doing random activities, like the jock monkey jogging everywhere or the penguin fishing all day. The plot seemed to start building up about finding your dream and following it with a touch of aliens thrown in.

Rachel Mii Double Jump
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting too much from it. Animal Crossing doesn’t have a huge story line for the games so I couldn’t imagine what they could do for a movie. The villagers were interesting enough though. And yes, the plot turned out to be mainly Margie the elephant had a dream of becoming a fashion designer and the movie turned into following your dreams and reaching for the stars, which was nice.

krismii
While reaching for the stars, you may find aliens, which is apparently what happened in the 4-minute movie explanation video we saw. We’re not quite sure what exactly happened, but we’re guessing the bottled messages the protagonist kept finding about planting pine trees for a winter festival had something to do with it. All in all, the half of the movie that we did see wasn’t too bad, with little hints of the games thrown into it. Hearing familiar music and jingles was nice, and we giggled when K.K. Slider’s singing not only had the English dub but also the game’s pixel-y rhythm.

Rachel Mii Double Jump
Yeah, hearing the game music in the background was great. It really threw me back into the game. I’ll admit, I could have done without some of the voice acting. A lot of it was high-pitched. Then again, it’s anime, so I’m not knocking it. Overall, it wasn’t a bad movie and I wouldn’t mind having more down the road.

krismii
The movie was entertaining enough, especially while watching it together. It wouldn’t be something that I would watch on my own, but we were able to laugh at the characters’ antics together. It was enough for us to be interested in seeing the rest of the movie and, perhaps, one day we will.

Have you heard of this movie? Have you seen it? Let us know in the comments below!

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Friday Favorites: Super Mario 64 Worlds

Kris P. Friday Favorites, Home, Kristen, Mario, Nintendo , , , , , ,

Double Jump Kris MiiHappy Friday everyone!

Last week, I talked about my least favorite worlds from Super Mario 64. While the game is not my favorite from the Nintendo 64 era, there is no denying how much it defined the face of video games!

frifavesleastsm64

Cool, Cool Mountain

I enjoy snowy worlds. I think they’re generally really pretty to stare at and get lost in, and they tend to have some awesome music. Cool, Cool Mountain had a decent area to explore as well as a fun sliding race with the penguin. It was always amusing to have Mario leap off part of the level to land stuck face-down into the snow on a lower part!

Tick Tock Clock

Aside from having a fun title, Tick Tock Clock was a good challenge. The different stars were interesting to get and having the level’s speed correspond with what “time” was on the clock when you entered the world was a nice mechanic. The look and graphics of the level was a lot of fun, too.

Rainbow Ride

I really enjoy sky worlds and flying around — one of my favorite parts of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was soaring around on the Loftwing birds — and Rainbow Ride was no exception. Sure, the flying carpets were a little slow and could be annoying, but they were challenging and did great in showcasing the level.

What are your favorite courses from Super Mario 64?

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Lost In Blue [Game Review]

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Game Review | Lost In Blue | Nintendo | Nintendo DS | Video Game Review | Video Games | Gaming | DoublexJump.com

Title: Lost In Blue
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Platform: Nintendo DS
Category: Survival
Release Date: August 25, 2005
How we got the game: We bought it

 

 

 

This is a game Kris has had for a long time. I had given the game a go a long time ago when Kris didn’t seem to be too into it. I never finished it and was curious to pick it back up again.

gameplay

Lost In Blue doesn’t have much of a learning curve to it. It’s a Nintendo DS game so, of course, the touch screen is used a good amount. However, you can use the analog stick to move your character around and there’s a task for every button. A allows your character to climb up and down things as well as search for items in the ground. X opens the menu and allows you check the items in your backpack or rest. Y is used when you find Skye and you can hold her hand to guide her to certain places. B allows you to run which is always a fabulous mechanic.

The touch screen is used when digging in the ground. The stylus is used to move the dirt around. It’s also used when you have a spear to fish. Once you see a fish swim by on the bottom screen, you can tap it with your stylus to send the spear down. The only problem with this is that the touch screen is pretty picky. A lot of times I thought I had the fish and it claimed I didn’t. Other times I caught a fish when I clearly didn’t even touch it.

The mic is also used. When making a fire, you need to alternate the L and R buttons to make the spark and then blow into the mic. I played this on my 2DS XL and it took me a minute to actually remember where the mic was.

That’s it for basic controls. The rest of the game play is simple and fairly repetitive. You explore the island as Keith, gathering food, finding new places to explore, and finding items to make new tools to use in order to survive longer. At the end of the day, you can go back to the cave and go to sleep, which will allow you to save your game and then start the process all over again.

Both Keith and Skye have three meters – stamina, hunger, and thirst. These will go down throughout the day. You have to make sure they both have enough to drink and eat. Keeping the thirst up is easy since you can drink from the river. However, making food, especially in the beginning, is hard since you don’t have a lot of resources. However, there are certain foods you can eat raw such as coconuts and carrots found on the island.

The stamina is really hard, especially for Keith. Since he’s the one exploring it goes down fast. He’s really slow at walking so I make him run all the time, which, I’m pretty sure, makes his stamina go down faster. However, when he climbs rocks, jumps, or pushes logs, it goes down even further. Each day is timed so there’s only so much he can do – only so far he can get – before you have to turn around and make it back to the cave. This gets harder the further you explore because you can spend the first half of the day just making it back to where you left off on the previous day.

Once you beat Keith’s story, you can start a new game and have the opportunity to play as Skye.

graphics-music

Being a Nintendo DS game, the graphics aren’t the best. However, they work well enough for the time the game came out. There aren’t any noticeable glitches or the like, so it definitely works. During the dialogue, there were pictures of the character speaking to one another which was a nice touch. It was a shift from the regular game play and animations.

The music was mellow. Seeing as you’re stuck on an island, the music isn’t too epic or anything. It flowed nicely along with the game play. The sound effects, on the other hand, were okay. The sound to gather items – digging in the sand or dirt, spearing fish – were just okay. However, sound effects to show danger – such as your hunger meter getting too low – were spot on and really grabbed my attention while playing.
storyIn this game you play as Keith, a boy who is washed ashore from a storm that made his cruise ship go off course. He’s all alone aside from Skye, a girl about his age who got washed ashore from the same storm on the same ship. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else around. They don’t know if there were any survivors and they don’t know if anyone will come looking for them.

Together, they must survive on the island and find a way off back to civilization. Keith explores daily and gathers food while Skye, whose glass broke and she can’t see, remains in the cave (most of the time) and does the cooking for whatever Keith brings back.

replay-value

This wasn’t a bad game, but it wasn’t great either. I can find myself trying to play this game again, but the beginning is pretty slow. It’s hard to get started because you have nothing. Keith tires easily and is hungry and thirsty so keeping the stamina is hard. There’s a lot to explore and items to find and make, but overall it’s pretty repetitive and can get kind of boring. I love these simulation kind of games but this one is just okay for me.

Lost In Blue gets…
Video game review: 3 Lives3 out of 5 lives.

Have you played this game? What did you think? Let me know in the comments! 

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How We Play The Sims

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How We Play The Sims | The Sims 4 | PC Games | Gaming | Video Games | DoublexJump.com

rachmii
The Sims is a widely known series. With now 4 generations in the franchise, people seem to find bigger and better ways to play the game. When it comes to playing The Sims – or playing God – we tend to have our own styles of keeping track of our many families and their neighborhoods. Then, of course, you have the various challenges that people create and try out as well.

krismii
I think Rachel and I both tend to start off with sim versions of ourselves, which is something that we both have in common. I do, however, enjoy using mods in my games, mostly ones that tend to have to do with enlarging the amount of playable sims in a household or catering more to showcasing the sims’ personalities with their traits. While I enjoy Sims 4, I do miss the amount of traits that Sims 3 had incorporated with their game engine.

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I enjoy using that cheat to add more to the family as well. Sometimes I like to have a lot of kids and it’s just unrealistic (these days) to have them move out right away. I like seeing them all together in one household and get frustrated when there’s too many of them for me to control. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to play without the cheats. I’ve been making my sims do things the hard way and learning skills as they do them instead of having them read books while I fast forward time and type “max motives” until their skills are maxed out.

krismii
I try to play mostly without cheats as well, but I’ve been known to let my sims get ahead a little in their skills when I first start playing a new game. Starting my new sim at level 3 of cooking and logic isn’t cheating too badly, I don’t think, haha. In Sims 4, I also like to cheat to give my sims an extra trait or two to help round out their personality, especially since personality and emotions are supposed to be one of the main focal points of that game.

Rachel Mii Double Jump
Yeah, that’s totally fair. I’ve noticed I experiment more with The Sims 4 though. I used to always create myself, max out my skills, and then just write books all the time. Then I’d get jealous of my own Sim and stop playing for a while. Since you can actually go to work with your Sims with certain careers, I like to do that as well. I love the detective field since that’s what I wanted to be when I was younger. Now I write murder mysteries. So it’s fun to play as a Sim who can solve cases with you… even though it’s nothing too elaborate.

krismii
I like to play out the careers as well, but I’d rather manage a household full of sims with different careers. The “rabbit hole” careers — where the sims just go to work and disappear for a few sim hours — are great to me since I can just throw some sims at work while focusing on the others for a while. I personally always liked the self-employment careers, like writing, painting, and gardening, so I always had a goal to work towards with my sims.

Rachel Mii Double Jump
I agree with that as well. It depends on how many people you have. If you’re just playing the one character though, it’s great to go to work with them so you’re not just sitting there. Then again, you can work on the house a bit. Either way, the possibilities to play the game are endless.

krismii
By the sounds of it, Rachel, you play a little more by the book, so to speak, with a sim and their family. I tend to throw a bunch of friends together and see what kind of chaos happens with the mods and cheats! And this doesn’t even touch on all the sim challenges that are on the Internet!

How do you usually go about playing The Sims? Which version is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below!

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Top Tuesday: Games I Play Over And Over

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Rachel Mii | DoubleJump.comHappy Tuesday!

I was pretty excited from the latest Nintendo Direct. There were a lot of games that I’m looking forward to but some that I know I’ll play over and over again just like I have with the games before it.

Top Tuesday | Games I Play Over and Over | Video Games | Gaming | Nintendo | Nintendo Direct | DoublexJump.com

3. Luigi’s Mansion

This is a favorite of mine and one that I’ve played a few times. This is a game where I feel like I need to be in the mood to play it, but I always get excited for it and into it. Now that Luigi’s Mansion 3 has finally been announced, I can’t wait to play a brand new spin on the series. Plus, I can’t wait to get a hold of the original game for the 3DS and play with a friend… as weird as green Luigi may seem.

2. Animal Crossing

It’s no secret how much I love Animal Crossing. I definitely go in spurts with that game but I’ve gone back to it time and time again. While the real time can be annoying if you haven’t played in a year, I love being able to just pick back up where I left off. Or, wipe our my town and start from scratch… though I don’t like doing that. I’m sure I’ll be playing the new game over and over for a long time.

1. Pokemon

While this wasn’t talked about much at the recent Direct, I’m still super excited for the Let’s Go games and also the new core game that will be out next year. Though we still don’t know anything about that game yet. Either way, I know I’ll be trying my hardest to complete my Pokedexes and catch them all.

Now all I need is a new Paper Mario game and I’ll be good to go.

What are some games you play over and over again? Let me know in the comments below!

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New Switch Editions

Kris P. Gaming Merch, Home, Kristen, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch , , , , , , ,

Double Jump Kris MiiHappy Monday, everyone!

With last week’s Nintendo Direct, a few new Switch editions were revealed. Both of them look great, but we’re not sure if we’d splurge even if we did have the money on them.

djswitcheditions

There have been two new Switch editions that have been revealed, both having to do with a couple of the most anticipated Nintendo Switch games that are slated for released this year — the Pokemon Let’s Go duo and, of course, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. Both of the Switch editions look great to Rachel and me, as we’re suckers for both franchises. With how popular the Nintendo Switch console itself has been and the two video game series, I wonder how many of the new editions Nintendo will sell.

On one hand, many people probably already have a Switch and they’re not too cheap (although, the Nintendo Switch may be one of the cheapest consoles on the market at the moment), especially with all the accessories. On the other hand, people are hyped for Let’s Go and Smash Bros Ultimate and, if people don’t have a Switch just yet, this may be the perfect time to get one.

Seeing the new editions also brought up a question that Rachel and I have been asking ourselves for a while — should we each have our own Switch? Nintendo, I’m sure, would prefer for everyone to have their own console for business reasons as well as to take advantage of the portability and playing games together on the go. Right now Rachel and I are good with sharing a Switch, considering we play together the majority of the time, but we’re both also conscious of the fact that we’d probably want to play our own Let’s Go games at the same time (yes, we’ll be able to play co-op, but we like our own adventures, too).

I suppose we’ll see.

What do you think of the new Switch editions? Are you planning on getting one?

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