Rachel

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Top Tuesday: Favorite Odd Bosses In Super Mario RPG

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Rachel Mii | DoubleJump.comHappy Tuesday!

Super Mario RPG is a favorite game of ours. I always enjoy watching Kris play, humming along to the music, and commentating on the wacky-looking enemies in the game.

Top Tuesday: Favorite Odd Bosses In Super Mario RPG | Nintendo | Nintendo SNES | Video Games | Gaming | Super Mario RPG | DoublexJump.com

Bowyer

Bowyer is the first boss you encounter in the game. He has an interesting character design as he looks like a bow. His main attack is, of course, shooting arrows. He has a funny accent and certainly sticks out in the forest with a bright red, yellow, and green design. His body has stripes and his hair is wild and spiked and he’s got a nice pair of red, crazy eyes going on. I’ve always enjoyed his design because he’s an enemy who looks like a weapon. Which is odd and cool at the same time.

Valentina

What can I say about Valentina? She’s a pain in the butt, mean, and materialistic. Her head looks like Arnold from Hey, Arnold! and has big boobs. She’s also got a bird on top of her head – whether it’s still alive or not, I have no idea. I believe she’s a “human” trying to look like a bird because “Mallow” is apparently Dodo who is, well, a dodo bird.

Booster

Who doesn’t love Booster? He kidnapped Princess Toadstool and wants to marry her but he honestly has no clue what he’s doing. He has dolls of Mario and Toadstool and himself, which is… totally bizarre. He cries when he can’t find his Mario doll. He’s a funny guy though and I’ve always enjoyed his part of the game. His castle is a great level to get through and the music alone makes it all worthwhile. Plus, he reminds me of Wario a bit in looks.

Bundt

Bundt is a cake. Yes, a cake that’s alive. In fact, he was created to be Booster and Toadstool’s wedding cake. As soon as Mario and gang crash the wedding, you battle the two chefs but it turns out Bundt is the true boss. Having a wedding cake as the main boss is a cool concept and, while he’s personified a bit, he still looks like a regular cake which makes it all the cooler.

Belome

I don’t even know what Belome is. A cat? A dog? A frog? He’s encountered in the sewers and looks poisonous. He’s bright yellow with red squiggly designs all over him. He’s got four horns on the top of his head and four eyes which is pretty daunting. Not to mention he’s got a long tongue that he easily scoops up and eats your party members. Yeah… Belome is probably one of the weirder bosses in this game. But, like all the other bosses and enemies, he’s pretty cool. The design choices in Super Mario RPG are top notch.

What are some of your favorite odd bosses in Super Mario RPG? Let me know in the comments below! If you like this post, please share it around.

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E3 2019: Bethesda & PC Gaming Show

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Rachel Mii | DoubleJump.comHappy Thursday!

We’re talking about E3 all week long, even though we’re talking about the conferences out of order, but you know… that’s just how Double Jump rolls.

E3 2019 Bethesda and PC Gaming Show | Video Games | Gaming | Gaming News | DoublexJump.com

Bethesda

I have to be honest – I didn’t care about Bethesda’s conference at all. They were not at all entertaining and a bit boring to watch. Kris and I talked over them half the time we watched. Also, neither of us cared about any of the games they showcased.

I wish I had more to say, but I just really don’t.

The PC Gaming Show

We have a Steam account as well as Origin and even Epic Games. We don’t play on PC as often as we’d like and we’re, of course, always looking for new games to branch out with.

We watched the PC Gaming Show after the fact because neither of us was home when the show was live. Like Bethesda, they didn’t seem to put on a great show either. Neither Kris nor I cared too much for the hosts so we ended up fast forwarding through the talking and only turning it back on for a game. However, if we weren’t interested in the game or it was too bloody and violent, we sped through that too.

There were a couple of games that caught our attention – Starmancer, for one. This game looks like so much fun and has Stardew Valley vibes but in space. Unexplored 2 was intriguing to both of us though I have a feeling I’d be terrible at the game!

Griftlands looked interesting as well. It seems like a choose-your-own-RPG-visual-novel type of a game. We’ll look more into that one when the time comes.

Cristales will be coming to Steam in 2020 but the demo is available now. It looks difficult as you play in the present but can peer back into the past and look ahead into the future. It’s an interesting take on a RPG and I’m looking forward to trying it.

Finally – Plant Zoo. I don’t think I need to explain this one. It’s animals and a simulations game. I’m there. It’s coming out this November, though I hope they do more research on the animals because giraffes rarely lie down and most certainly do not lounge around like they were shown in the trailer. Nicky picky? Yes… but I’m just saying.

What are your thoughts on Microsoft and Ubisoft’s presentation? Are you enjoying E3 so far? Let me know in the comments below! If you like this post, please share it around.

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E3 2019: Microsoft & Ubisoft

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Rachel Mii | DoubleJump.comHappy Tuesday!

E3 always tends to happen at the optimal time when Kris and I aren’t home to watch. So, we’ve been watching the conferences after the fact late at night. I’m really looking forward to Nintendo this afternoon, but we won’t be able to watch that until later either… so let’s talk about some that have already happened.

E3 2019 Microsoft and Ubisoft | Video Games | Gaming | Gaming News | DoublexJump.com

EA & The Sims

Kris touched upon this on her post yesterday but I wanted to add that I too am pleased with what’s coming to The Sims. I’ve been streaming it a lot lately and am looking forward to living on an island and playing with dolphins! …And possibly becoming a mermaid.

Microsoft

Microsoft put on a pretty show. The crowd was hyped and they showcased some great games. Of course, I’m not interested in the shooty-bloody-violence games. However, I was intrigued by Ori & The Will of the Wisps – I still have to play the first one though. Minecraft Dungeons looks like a lot of fun. I’ll admit, I thought it was an update to the original game and I was iffy on it. But since it’s its own thing, it looks pretty cool.

Way To the Woods (the deer game) and Spiritfarer both looked really cute. I’m sure Spiritfarer will be a tear-jerker and Way To the Woods might be as well since I’m not entirely sure of that game’s full story yet. Still, they both look like a lot of fun to try.

Flight Simulator looks cool as well. I’m terrible at plane games, but Flight Simulator looks pretty and I’m willing to give it a try. Hopefully, the controls will be much better than the other plane games I’ve tried. Phantasy Star Online 2 looks great as well. I’ve never played that game before – not sure if I’ve even heard of it before because I live under a rock – but it looks like a lot of fun.

I have the Xbox One but don’t have too many games for it. I had a decent amount for my 360 but barely any of them were backwards compatible and my 360 got the red ring of death and is no longer with us, RIP. In addition to that, I’m first and foremost a Nintendo girl, as you all know. I’m always looking for new games to broaden my horizons and try something new. I think 2020 (since that’s when all these games release) will do that for me.

Finally, of course, there’s Scarlet. Their next console. They talked a whole lot of tech that I didn’t understand, but holiday 2020? I was impressed it’ll be here so soon. It seems like so far away but it’ll be here before we know it and I can’t wait to learn more about it.

Because, really, my Xbox One has to update every other time I turn it on and it takes about a half hour… Scarlet better not have to do that.

Ubisoft

Entertainment wise, Ubisoft never seems to disappoint. Remember when they announced the latest Just Dance game last year? Yeah, that was weird. I appreciate the way they announced it this year. The video and message they had before the dance were nice and the dance was fun to watch as well.

They also opened with an orchestra of Assassin’s Creed, which was fabulous. An orchestra always gets my attention and it’s beautiful. They’re going on tour and I’m sure that will be a lovely show.

I have to admit, I didn’t care too much for the majority of Ubisoft’s games. Yes, they put on a good show, but only two games caught my attention – Roller Champions which is out now and Gods and Monsters coming early 2020.

Gods and Monsters looks epic and something totally up my ally while Roller Champions is something totally different than what I normally play. While it reminds me a lot of Rocket League, I’d love to give it a try.

What are your thoughts on Microsoft and Ubisoft’s presentation? Are you enjoying E3 so far? Let me know in the comments below! If you like this post, please share it around.

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Animal Crossing Switch Wish List

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Rachel Mii | DoubleJump.comHappy Thursday!

E3 is right around the corner and I’m super excited to see what Nintendo has to offer this year! Like many, I’m sure, I’m eager to learn more about Animal Crossing for the Switch. I mean, I hope they talk about it.

Animal Crossing Switch Wish List | Video Games | Gaming | Nintendo Switch | Nintendo | DoublexJump.com

The Big Ideas

I had a list of three or four things that I wanted to see in Animal Crossing Switch. As I wrote them down (because I knew I’d forget them before getting the chance to write this post), I kept coming up with more and more ideas. The list has grown to nine now, so I’ll talk in depth about the ones I really want.

Outside/Yards

I have a kiddie pool in my back room in Animal Crossing New Leaf. It makes no sense to have a kiddie pool in the house – especially if you can’t even use it. A rubber duck is just floating around in it forever alone and, honestly, that’s quite sad. I want to be able to have an actual garden in my yard, not plant flowers randomly about town. I want to have a lawn mower or a shed (more inventory space!), lawn chairs, or something. I want the house to be unique from all the others, inside and out.

Interactive Villagers/Friendship Levels

There are a few different personality types the villagers have. However, they don’t really different from each other that much. I’d like to see more of those personalities, if not new personalities. Give the villagers more things to do and say. When they invite you over, have coffee or something. When they come over, let’s sit and watch TV together. They just roam around mindlessly.

Having friendship levels would be cool too. I mean, it might make more work for an Animal Crossing game, but people are always trying to move in new villagers or get the pictures of their current villagers. Having a friendship level would be a great indicator of that. Plus, the villagers can have friendships with each other and you can settle disputes and such.

More Villagers & Bigger Villages

There are a lot of villagers and only ten can live in your village at a time. Give us bigger towns with more room to build public works projects and allow 15-20 villagers to live in our town. Plus, I was watching a playthrough of New Leaf and they were saying how they would love to see the villagers have different styled houses depending on their personality, such as a mansion or a shack or whatever. That would be so cool.

Different Biomes

Most of the stuff on this list is a long shot, I know. This is probably the weirdest request from me to Nintendo, but… I would love different biomes. Think Zootopia or we could just have multiple towns to travel to and take care of. We could visit the Tundra, Rain Forest, Desert, and more. Animals who live in those areas in real life are most likely to appear in their respective biomes. They have the camping ground so I think they could add two or three biomes off to the side for your town. It’ll be a surprise what you get. Maybe you could add more biomes down the road after you meet certain requirements in the game. I know there are different seasons, but I’m sure there are different bugs and fish that would appear only in the desert and stuff… we could catch Blathers a scorpion!

Honorable Mentions

  • More inventory space – let us have our pocket space plus a backpack that has even more room.
  • More than one save file – yes, this already exists but for the same town. I want to have multiples towns on one game.
  • Interactive decor – some are interactive, but not all. Seriously, if my character has a coffee pot, I want to turn it on and actually drink the coffee.
  • Fishing net – I believe this is in Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. A fishing net can catch eight fish at once. Wouldn’t that make life easier? (But then, yeah, we would definitely need the more inventory space.)
  • Send letters to friends – whether they’ve visited your town before or you have their Switch friend code, we should be able to communicate and send gifts to friends.
  • Pokemon Crossing

Are you looking forward to Animal Crossing Switch? What would you like to see in the game? Let me know in the comments below! If you like this post, please share it around.

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Top Tuesday: Favorite Talents In Octopath Traveler

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Rachel Mii | DoubleJump.comHappy Tuesday!

Octopath Traveler is one of those games that I will think about here and there and get a sudden urge to play again. I have the soundtrack in my car and when the CDs cycled through and one of the battle themes began to play, I itched to play this game again. Most things in the game – the various stories and skills – are similar. However, the talents are unique for each character giving the game eight different talents to pick and choose when forming your party.

Top Tuesday: Favorite Talents In Octopath Traveler | Nintendo | Nintendo Switch | Octopath Traveler | Square Enix | Video Games | Gaming | DoublexJump.com

Study Foe

This is Cyrus’s talent. He’s the scholar of the group and what a wonderful man he is. When you enter a battle with enemies they have small square boxes underneath them that reveal what they’re weak to in order to break their shield get their defense down. The only way to reveal their weaknesses is by trial and error and just throwing whatever you have at them and see if the shield breaks. Cyrus, however, when entering battle automatically uses “study foe” which allows him to reveal one weakness from every enemy. It’s a lot more helpful than you’d think and when he’s not in yourp party, you miss that talent.

Eye For Money

If you know me then you know I love collecting money and treasure in games. Tressa, the merchant of the group, has the eye for money talent which allows her to find money lying around. That’s pretty much it. When you enter a new area, the text will appear at the top right corner of the screen saying how much money Tressa “spotted” from “an unfortunate soul.” Naturally, we get the money and keep it. It’s a great way to make extra cash, especially since you need to buy healing grapes and weapons.

Pick Lock

Therion is the thief of the group and also the character we chose to start our journey with. Being a thief, he has the pick lock talent which allows him to get into certain treasure chests that no one else can. Honestly, since we started off with him and had him in our party the entire game, I didn’t realize this was his talent (Kris was playing). There are purple chests scattered about that only Therion can open but I thought they were just extra special because they were purple and shiny. Not having Therion in my party would be awful if I came across a purple chest. It would bother me so much if I couldn’t get the treasure inside.

Capture

H’aanit is the hunter of the crew and she has her special companion, Linde the snow leopard. Linda also knows two moves that H’aanit can ask her to use in battle. In addition. H’aanit can capture enemies throughout their travel. She can only capture one at a time and have so many trained at once, but she can hold onto them for a while and use them in battle as needed. This is great because it gives H’aanit a wider range of weapons and attacks that she wouldn’t normally have herself.

What are some of your favorite talents in Octopath Traveler? Let me know in the comments below! If you like this post, please share it around.

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Throwback Thursday: Getting Through Paper Mario Sticker Star

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Rachel Mii | DoubleJump.comHappy Thursday!

Paper Mario is my favorite game. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a fantastic game. Super Paper Mario was okay. Paper Mario: Sticker Star… it exists.

Throwback Thursday: Getting Through Paper Mario Sticker Star | Nintendo | Nintendo 3DS | TBT | Video Games | Gaming | DoublexJump.com

When Paper Mario: Sticker Star was released for the Nintendo 3DS on November 11, 2012, I tried not to get my hopes up too much for it. The first two games were great and the third game, for the Wii, was just okay for me. I was hoping Sticker Star would at least be on the same wavelength of Super Paper Mario. I also wondered how it would be on a handheld when the rest of the series was on home consoles.

Sticker Star, to say the least, disappointed me. It’s because of this game, I don’t get my hopes up for any good Paper Mario games that are announced (not that there’s been very many).

I played the game once and never looked back. I beat the game because I wanted to get through the whole thing just to say I did it. With that said, I haven’t picked up this game since late 2012 or early 2013. It’s been a long time and I don’t remember much of it other than it is frustrating.

The sticker concept was pretty good. I thought it was an interesting mechanic to add into the battle system, but it was executed poorly.

The biggest thing I remember about the game was the final battle with Bowser. Certain stickers are needed for the battle and need to be used at specific times during the battle. I tried and failed so many times, wasting lives and stickers. I eventually looked up a walkthrough online and followed that in order to beat the game.

That was my biggest problem – the final battle. It was so anticlimactic because I couldn’t figure it out myself and there was only the one way to get through it. For a Mario RPG game, I’d prefer to throw whatever punches I can, not rely on specific stickers that I may or may not have in my inventory before the battle begins.

I remember lying in bed during the final battle and Kris was lying in her bed playing through the game as well. I can’t remember if we beat it at the same time or not, but the two of us were frustrated together.

When I did beat the game, I didn’t have any sense of accomplishment. In fact, I felt like I wasted my time.

Aside from the battle mechanics and the final fight with Bowser, the game was just okay. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. Maybe someday I’ll try to play it again and relive those frustrating days.

Have you played Paper Mario Sticker Star? Let me know in the comments below! If you liked this post, please share it around.

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Character Spotlight: Baby Peach

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Rachel Mii | DoubleJump.comHappy Tuesday!

It’s time for another character spotlight and Baby Peach was on my radar. I don’t know why since she’s a devil child, but hey. Here we go.

Character Spotlight: Baby Peach | Super Mario Bros. | Nintendo | Video Games | Gaming | DoublexJump.com

The infant counterpart of Princess Peach, Baby Peach is but a minor character. Baby Mario and Baby Luigi are a thing, so Baby Peach and Baby Daisy have made appearances. I don’t have much opinion on Baby Peach because, despite her being in a few games such as Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and Yoshi’s Island DS, I really only know her well through the Mario Kart series.

Mario Kart Wii, specifically.

Baby Peach, no matter what difficulty level or race speed or whatever, she was always in every single race I played and she was always tailgating me. The NPC had it out to get me. Why? I have no idea. The moment I turned on the game and unlocked her character (if she could be unlocked, I honestly don’t remember how that game worked), she was always trying to beat me.

I don’t know why Baby Peach specifically, especially since I was always Yoshi. I imagine there’s probably a better rival for Yoshi than Baby Peach, right?

Still, to this day, I can’t stand her. For that reason only. She will always be the devil to me.

The good news is, I always beat her.

Do you like Baby Peach? Let me know in the comments below! If you liked this post, please share it around.

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