Disney Magical World 2 and the grand return of so many stickers

According to my records, I’ve played Disney Magical World 2 for a little more than half the amount I dumped into the first game, which has the honor of being one of my most-played games on the Nintendo 3DS, bumping elbows with other critical darlings like Animal Crossing: New Leaf and…Netflix. I’m not even near a 50% completion rate. That first game was a super addictive life simulation thing with more than two handfuls of quests to constantly be working on that came out right at the time I needed it to most, and the sequel is all of that again plus more. I got it and Pokémon Moon shortly around the same time last year, and I haven’t touched the latter for more than a couple of hours in November. Sorry, my cute l’il Rowlet baby, I promise to be back shortly.

Once more, you the player, using either a custom character or the Mii that is on your Nintendo 3DS, arrive in Castleton and are magically the only person able to help everyone with their multitude of problems. These include reuniting a musical band of sea critters in The Little Mermaid‘s realm, ensuring Pooh has enough hunny for a picnic, helping those seven dwarfs clean up in preparation for Snow White’s arrival, and so on. There’s a bunch of new, big name worlds to explore–alas, still not an inch for The Incredibles–and each realm is ripe with materials to collect, characters to interact with for special items or side requests, and larger story missions that take you to dungeon-like locales to fight off ghosts using your magic wand. A couple worlds, like Lilo & Stitch and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, feature mini-games too though they aren’t worth spending a lot of hours on.

The main goal hasn’t changed beyond collecting Happy Stickers. Sure, you can grow your café, earn lots of money, tend to a garden, and find new recipes for food, furniture, and clothing, but it continues to be all about them stickers, which are earned by completing specific tasks, such as catching so many fish or clearing a specific number of episodes. Ultimately, these dictate unlockable content or areas and what quests you can take on so it behooves you collect them as you go so you can have more to see and do. Everything feeds into one another, so, no matter what, you are always making progress, which is a thing I love. At the beginning of the game, you’ll see areas locked behind a high number of stickers and think getting there will be impossible, but all it takes is time and dedication. By the end, there’s so much to juggle that you’ll think back at the lengthy opening and how little you could do then and chuckle.

Here’s what was taken away in Disney Magical World 2, much to my dismay: collectible pieces of art every day, whether animation frames or original movie posters, from characters all over in Castleton. Instead, you gather puzzle pieces, and once you acquire a full set and the respective border, you can visit the themed land in the Dream Realm, which mostly exists for silly pictures, but also gaining a bunch of “like” points in one big gulp. “Like” points buy stat buffs, special recipes, and missing puzzle pieces through random chance. I’m not a huge fan of this trade-off. Art is cooler. Also, the dungeons are much more linear with claustrophobic challenge rooms instead of open, almost maze-like corridors to run down and discover enemies or items. When you throw a good party at the cafe, you can now do a song and dance with your guests, which, again, seems to only exist for picture taking. The real reason you throw a big party is to get those characters to permanently show up on a daily basis in Castleton.

So, spoiler territory here–and yeah, I consider this spoilery because if it was something I had known about beforehand it would have definitely lessened the woah factor for me when it happened–but credits roll in Disney Magical World 2 immediately after you earn all 100 stickers and return to the castle square. However, just after that, you are presented with another bunch of quests to keep working towards: pro stickers. These consist of more of the same (build X many pieces of furniture, wear X number of Ace Ensembles), but there are a few others that do demand some time and effort to unlock. Each of these stickers comes with a special item too when you earn it, such as new themed wands and Easter clothing/furniture. I figured the game was mostly over, but nope.

Speaking of Easter, that’s the next time the game will switch over in terms of look and events, starting on April 1. So far, it changed for Halloween and Christmas. I was hoping for at least something for either Valentine’s Day or the month of leprechauns, but alas, no. I wonder if Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh‘s realm will play a prominent role during this upcoming time. Either way, even with the new pro stickers to go after, I won’t be playing this as much until the seasons alter and offer some new outfits/items to enjoy. I really have to get back to Pokémon Moon and then there’s the upcoming remake of Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King.

2017 Game Review Haiku, #11 – Disney Magical World 2

Back to Castleton
Farm, help, dress, build, dance, profit
Even more stickers

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I can’t believe I’m still doing this. I can’t believe I’ll ever stop. These game summaries in chunks of five, seven, and five syllable lines paint pictures in the mind better than any half a dozen descriptive paragraphs I could ever write. Trust me, I’ve tried. Brevity is the place to be. At this point, I’ve done over 200 of these things and have no plans of slowing down. So get ready for another year of haikus. Doumo arigatou gozaimasu.

My five favorite games in 2014

Hello, end of 2014. Boy am I looking forward to seeing you come to a close. To help with that process, here’s my five favorite games from the past three hundred and sixty-five days. I know such a list is a strange thing to see this time of year and that I’m the only one doing it, but please, stick with me. If you wanna know what topped my list in 2013–and really now, why wouldn’t you–clicky click here.

If you take a look at my actual list of games played and beaten this year, you’ll notice there are not many current releases within it. That’s just how I roll, often getting to the big, new games much later in life–mine and theirs–and so I don’t have too fine of a list to pick from, but I’ll make the effort nonetheless and try to come up with some good arguments why I picked X over Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which, if you’re a good little follower, you’ll already know I haven’t touched yet.

Let me mention some of the 2014 releases that don’t get the full thumbs up below. Transistor…man. I really, really wanted to love this game, especially after how Bastion mesmerized me. In the end, I just liked it, favoring the complex and constantly changing combat way more over the muddled story, though I loved elements of how the story was told, such as the terminals and polls Red participated in. And there’s also episodes two through five for season two of Telltale’s The Walking Dead, which did not end up delivering well on the promise of following your Clem, y’know, the one you meticulously constructed via Lee in the previous season, through her next set of struggles. Plus, it stopped being an adventure game early on in the season and turned into a dialogue wheel selector. Boo to that. For season three, I will instead wait to see how it all pans out. As for Dragon Age: Inquisition, just insert a bunch of wet farts here.

All right, here they are, my five favorite videogames from 2014…

Luftrausers

I’ve played Luftrausers on both Steam and the PlayStation 3, ending up stuck at the same spot for each version. I can’t get the blimp to spawn. Here’s the rub; I don’t care. I keep playing, keep dying, keep respawning and trying out new ship builds and listening in fascination as the soundtrack mutates this way and that, and I expect to keep playing Luftrausers deep into 2015. I don’t know if I’ll ever beat it or do well enough to get that blimp to spawn, which would then unlock a bunch of new missions to go after, but it doesn’t matter. The retro look, the killer soundtrack, the feel of launching up off the sub and into the sky, primo target #1 for every object loaded with a gun…it’s pure exhilaration. I’m not great, but it’s great.

Broken Age (Act One)

Ahh. Old-school point-and-click adventure games with a modern look might be my new hot jam. Broken Age (Act One) is a whirlwind of imagination, bright colors, and, alas, pretty simple puzzles. On the surface, its story is cute and fuzzy, but quickly turns dark and upsetting once you begin to see how Shay and Vella are really living their lives. There’s also a fantastic cliffhanger that, if you didn’t know this game was divided into two acts due to financial, timing, and work issues, you’d believe it was planned. While I wish we could’ve seen the conclusion to these two kids’ journeys this year, I expect it to unfold early in 2015. Hopefully the next documentary video will shed some light on that. Oh, and Double Fine was kind enough to include a comic of mine in their weekly gathering of fanart. Obviously, I’m biased.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

My history with the Diablo franchise has been like so: played the first one on my ol’ PlayStation one, using a controller to manipulate a mouse cursor, got into Diablo II a bit on PC during my college days for all the wrong reasons, and then never touched Diablo III. But then the news hit it was coming to consoles and being re-designed for controllers. I was jazzed. However, by the time I got around to thinking of it, an even newer version of the console was released, offering more content than you can shake a stick at, if you’re the shady type that carries sticks around. Anyways, I ran through the campaign once so far with Whisper, my bow-wielding, backflipping assassin, and enjoyed the heck out of slaughtering monsters, picking up loot, and upgrading her skills. I’m not even close to the level cap, and there’s a bunch of new content to try out still. Really worth the then $40 price tag.

Jazzpunk

Here’s a wish I wish: I want to erase all memories of playing Jazzpunk. That way, in a few months, next week, or even after I’m done posting this blog entry, I can play Jazzpunk and experience everything it offers once again, with innocent eyes. The game is only a couple hours long, but it is non-stop gags and goofiness along the way; if you’re a fan of Airplane! you’ll absolutely understand what its going for. I don’t want a Jazzpunk 2, just a chance to eat it all up again, especially the Wedding Qake section.

Disney Magical World

I was hoping to, at this point, already have written a blog post about what Disney Magical World meant to me this year. Still means to me. Unfortunately, I haven’t found the words for that yet, but let’s just say this little Nintendo 3DS title out from left field provided comfort, control, something to focus on when everything else was chaotic and spinning away. Its arrival was timely. I played it every night for a few hours for months straight over the summer and fall, putting it behind Dragon Quest IX and Animal Crossing: New Leaf in terms of hours played. It’s special, an unexpected mix of item collecting and difficult dungeon grinding, of saving up a single ingredient to make a specific recipe to give you that perfect café theme to get a new Disney character to show up and give you special collectible cards or gems to make new wands. It’s full of cycles and things to check in on, and it was a go-to when I needed a distraction. Truthfully, I could still be playing it now, today, but had to put it aside to give some other handheld games their due.

—

And there you go. My five favorites, with words to boot, and I expect to play Luftrausers, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, and the conclusion of Broken Age in 2015, so that makes these games even stronger cases for me.

Here’s the real question though–did you play any of my five favs this year, and, if you did, are we on the same page? Let me know in the comments below.

Disney Magical World is now closed for sticker business

Last night, which I’ll dub Fantasy Life‘s Eve, I finally got the last 100th sticker in Disney Magical World, the one that asks you to acquire a bajillion different pairs of shoes. Yes, this sticker was more difficult to unlock than crafting a secret wand. Go figs. Anyways, there’s still plenty of items to find, recipes to make, parties to throw, crops to harvest, and so on, but I feel fine putting Disney Magical World aside now, accomplishing all the main tasks the game throws at you. I still have a lot to say about this game, though some of it I can’t speak about just yet, as it is still too raw to peel back and examine.

To be honest, I gave up on trying to dungeon grind for the rarer ingredients to make new kicks and turned to a less-than-traditional method to get three more stinky pairs of shoes for my avatar to wear. Evidently, if you use the Spotpass functionality, you can visit other players’ cafés, giving them a “Nice!” if you dig their design work. Giving out one nice earns you an entire new outfit, with shoes to boot (pun intended). Three nices gets you another outfit, and then, at last, five nices nets you a third. And so, instead of spending over an hour grinding away in dungeons for maybe even just the chance to get a Mystic Thread or rare gemstone, I simply visited a bunch of cafés and got what I needed in under ten minutes. Feel free to also hop over to my café, which is called The Drinkpad, and give me a nice as well.

There–I did it. Just popped the cartridge out of my Nintendo 3DS and returned it to its case on my shelf. Well, no, it’s actually in a shoebox on top of my dresser, but it sounds way more normal to say shelf despite me now revealing my strange organizational skills. Grrr. That said, I hesitated for a moment and considered at least putting the cartridge back in my travel case, but really…I could probably play this game off and on for a good long while, much to the dismay of other bereft 3DS/DS titles I’ve barely scraped the surface on, such as The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, and Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. It’s better if Disney Magical World is out of sight.

And here’s some of my final stats (for now) for the myriad collectibles:

• 69/148 outfits
• 17/23 wands
• 169/303 furniture
• 82/126 food
• 20/21 fish
• 68/70 farming
• 212/300 cards collected

Oh man, there are SO MANY outfits to create in this game, and I barely saw half of them. Boo to that. Dressing up is one of my favorite things to do in games, whether it is Grand Theft Auto V or Dragon Quest IX, just give me fun clothes to mix and match. I have no idea what single fish I missed pulling out of the pond, but one can only fish for so long, as the fishing minigame is perfunctory, not amazingly engaging. Lastly, those cards…mmm, probably my favorite collectible to gather in Disney Magical World. Some are concept art-style drawings of the expected cast members, but others are old-timey posters, like of Steamboat Willy and such. I don’t know. I could look at them for days.

Lastly, look at the insane amount of hours I’ve logged in this thing since getting it way back in April:

Clearly, I wouldn’t play a game I didn’t enjoy for such a length, even if it has its dry spell sections, where you are just waiting for crops to grow and people to eat in your café. Again, there’s more to this story than I’m ready to reveal, but this is the only game currently on the 3DS that even comes close to matching logged hours with Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I’m looking forward to discovering if Fantasy Life can overtake that coveted spot, but alas I probably won’t get to play until after Extra Life this weekend.

Disney Magical World is not goofing around

Disney Magical World is possibly one of the most deceptive videogames I’ve ever stumbled upon. At a quick glance, it seems like it is an uninspired stab at trying to steal from the popularity of Animal Crossing: New Leaf, but set within the Disney multiverse. Instead of a house and town to take care of, you manage a popular café and must keep the locals entertained with extravagant parties, as well as running errands. However, there’s more layers to peel back, and they are all built upon the idea of grinding, something I’m usually averse to, but Disney Magical World is always doling out some new goodie or three that will help you progress down one of your various paths. The grinding is far from terrible, and it’s had its hooks me in for a good while.

So far, I’ve noticed a few spots along the way where the game ramps up in difficulty. Getting to about 22-25 stickers is fairly easy, but after that you really have to plan what you plant in your farm, what ingredients you use and save for later, and what dungeon levels to replay in hopes of getting some rarer items you missed the first time through. I think I hit another slow roadblock around 38-40 stickers, and then once more around 68-70. Eventually, you have to just sacrifice your plans and focus on something else, like having Daisy help create pretty froufrou dresses and making Pauly wear them, as they did count towards your Ace Ensemble total. I’m close to finishing up the fishing goals. Seems like the biggest things for me to work on still are creating furniture and throwing parties so all the cool peeps show up–I’ve not seen a lick of Jack Skellington despite some Halloween-themed items showing up in the store.

Right now, I have 77 stickers out of what I assume is a capped 100 stickers. Getting that 77th sticker the other night allowed me to open up a chest, which evidently had the game’s credits in it–along with a “happy crown” to wear. Is this Nintendo’s way of saying the game is over? Not from where I’m standing. I still need to craft a better fishing rod, throw more parties, gain a bunch of funky hairdos, harvest special honey, and so on. I think I only need one more garnet bubble to appease the mighty Donald Duck, and that means another go down an Aladdin-themed dungeon or dive beneath the castle and see if luck is on my side. Either way, it’s probably 20 minutes I have to set aside, just for one single gem, so I can build a new rod to help me catch bigger fish and, I assume, better gems. That might sound maddening, and it probably is, but it’s also extremely satisfying completing these quests. There’s no cheesing it; you gotta make the effort.

Which leads me to the combat, the one aspect I suspect my sister Bitsy will hate when I show her the game this upcoming Christmas. The dungeons are not mindless walkthroughs, but the majority of them are easy to deal with, so long as you have a good outfit (provides health) and a strong wand (determines how much damage you do and how many special attacks you can cast). Strangely, whether it is a tough or easy fight, I find the combat rewarding. It’s all action like Dark Cloud 2, but you can’t lock on to enemies; instead, you can do a twirl to get out of the way and hit them from behind for more damage. Mix this in with timed fights and traps, and you actually have a lot to think about. There’s also something so evil and awesome about the red gems, which revive you if you run out of health, but are also used to open the big treasure chest at the end of each mission. This means that poorer players get poorer and fewer rewards, and skilled players truly reap the benefits of being on top of their game. Combat is a big part of gaining new alchemy items and such, so it is vital to be at least competent at it.

At the beginning of this post, I put out the idea that Disney Magical World is a wannabe Animal Crossing clone. Let me now officially squash that thought; it couldn’t be farther from it. Whereas everyone in your Animal Crossing town has a personality and goes about daily life on their own, the people of Castleton are soulless pods, existing only to give the player a card or quest. If they have neither, you can simply move past them like the New York homeless. Decorating your cafe boils down to putting everything with the same theme in it, which is not very creative, but leads to better bonuses and guests. Yes, you can decorate your bedroom above the cafe as you wish, but it pales in comparison to what you can do in Animal Crossing. The big focus is on dressing your avatar and completing random quests, though I’m also a huge fan of collecting cards from everyone. Some cards are basically old artwork from the golden era of Disney, while other pieces are the same ol’ you-know-whos in stock poses.

I’m really hoping to have 100 stickers unlocked by the time Fantasy Life comes out next month, as I know there is simply no way I can juggle this, that, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and Tomodachi Life. If I’m being honest, those last two have gotten a whole lot less love from me these last few months–my bad. I don’t mean it; I’ve just got stickers on the brain. And gem birthstones. And Pixie Dust so I can complete Peter Pan-themed furniture. And…

Finally live however you want this autumn with Fantasy Life

E3 is the time to drop all those big names, like Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Far Cry 4, Mario Maker, and so on. Evidently, it’s also a great time to let some other news slip in under the cracks of the conference floor and kinda get noticed by everyone there, at least for a moment between playing AAA titles and having their soul sucked dry via those glow-in-the-dark bracelets. For instance, pretty quickly after Nintendo’s digital conference ended yesterday, news popped up that Level-5 and Brownie Brown were bringing Fantasy Life, their RPG/life sim game for the Nintendo 3DS. to North America this fall. More specifically, October.

Eeeeeeeeeeee!

You might remember me writing about Fantasy Life a few times here on Grinding Down. It’s a game I’ve long been pining for, and I’m super excited to see it heading this way. Finally. After something like five years. Must pre-order, and yes, I hope you’re listening, GameStop. I don’t want to end up in another slightly desperate situation like when I couldn’t find a retail copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening for days. Plus, getting the game day one will hopefully show its creators that they made the right decision, and I have to wonder if Bravely Default: Flying Fairy doing so well here played a part in pushing the decision-makers over the edge. Yes, Japan! Give us your strange and weirdly hard-to-market games! Heck, just look at Tomodachi Life as proof that we can handle whatever you got.

A quick reminder of what the game actually is:

“Players embark on the adventure of their dreams as they craft, cast, battle and role-play. The innovative Life system lets players change to one of 12 Life classes at virtually any time to access different abilities. The huge fantasy landscape is filled with surly dark paladins, slick pirate captains and others who share a taste for the unknown.”

Now, there’s one teeny tiny problem. I’m currently playing three life sim games on the Nintendo 3DS–all at the same time. Yup, I’m a master juggler. There’s Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Disney Magical World, and Tomodachi Life, all moving around each other in a dance of dragons, each one roaring for my attention. Granted, they are not identical, and each does something different than the others, but, more or less, I’m an avatar running around in a world measured by real time, living a life. Fantasy Life seems to merge the former two, and I’m really digging the idea of combat and loot–even if it is a little light and thin–to help mix up the daily checklist of talking to everyone I see and harvesting resource after resource. I suspect by the time Fantasy Life‘s cartridge slips into my Nintendo 3DS I’ll be mostly done with Disney Magical World and Tomodachi Life, and then it’ll just be me having to balance the load of my sad, tumultuous reality, the state of affairs in the animal-infested Arni, and whatever profession I decide to go into in this third fantasy life. Maybe a monk, yearning for internal peace.

But yeah, I’m really stoked to see this news. Shame it wasn’t flashy enough for the actual press conference, but it seemed like everything was to pale in the shadow of Smash Brothers. But how excited am I, you ask? Well, Matt Mason pretty much nailed my reaction:

When I saw that Fantasy Life is coming Stateside, I imagined @pabba weeping uncontrollably into his coffee.

— Matt Mason (@MHMason) June 11, 2014

Disney Magical World simply asks you to collect the world

I ended up nabbing a copy of Disney Magical World for the Nintendo 3DS a couple weeks ago and have been chipping away at it ever since. The first GameStop I went to, however, didn’t even have a single copy available since, according to the slack-jawed guy behind the counter, “We got no pre-orders for it.” Hmm. I went home defeated, but returned a few days later to a different GameStop and was lucky enough to snatch from the shelves their only copy. I guess the game isn’t in high demand, since everyone probably has Animal Crossing: New Leaf to keep them busy daily, and I get that. But I was also very curious about what Disney Magical World does differently. Surprisingly, a lot.

First off, you’re not the mayor of this magical castle and the realms surrounding it. Instead, you’re you. Well, at least I am. You can either create an avatar from scratch or use a Mii you’ve previously created, and I love seeing my Mii in action in games like Find Mii 2, so I went down that path. Plus, for a game all about customizable clothes, I want to see what I look like in a Mickey-themed apron–and only a Mickey-themed apron–not some passable clone of an avatar. Anyways, you’re dropped into this magical world with no big, hard goal to complete; instead, you’re out to earn stickers, which will help unlock other areas in the hub world, as well as give you new recipes for clothes, furniture, and other stuff. Early on, you’ll unlock one thing after another, so the pacing and progression is constantly rewarding, but around the 28-33 sticker mark, I hit a lull and had to actively plan on getting some stickers to help keep things going forward. Not a major problem, really, as by then there’s plenty of other stuff to occupy your brain even if, technically, progress is stalled.

See, Disney Magical World is one big collectathon. If you don’t know what that means, it’s a combination of collectibles and marathon, and that’s the fuel driving every action you more or less take here. In all the various hub worlds, spots on the ground will shimmer just like in JRPGs like Dragon Quest IX and Ni no Kuni, indicating an item to find, and these glow spots refresh pretty quickly if you’re looking to grind for, say, balloon apples. You can also gain items from fishing, doing miscellaneous fetch quests, and killing ghosts (more on that later). Some of these items are good for selling, some for mixing to create recipes, and some for making clothes and furniture. And some are more rare than others, requiring you to devote a decent chunk of time to fishing or planting crops to gain ’em. It’s a lot of alchemy without the alchemy pot, and if there’s one thing I love, it’s taking one item and fusing it with another to create something even cooler.

Pretty early on, you end up being the manager of the local café, which I decided to call the Drinkpad. This means you can select and create the dishes served for customers, change the room’s layout and theme, and throw big parties, the kind that might even gain the attention of some of the bigger Disney characters, like Stitch and Cinderella. There are even café-specific quests to complete, and this is where you’ll make most of your money, so long as you keep on top of inventory stock and what the people really want. Eventually, you’ll get to live above the café and can also decorate your bedroom a bit; not to the crazy extent of some other life simulator, but enough to make it feel like yours. I appreciate the ability to change your background music.

Strangely, my favorite aspect of Disney Magical World, so far, is the combat. Yeah, you read that correctly–the combat. Whenever I describe the gameplay of Animal Crossing: New Leaf to someone, I always make sure to mention that there’s no fighting, no boss battles, and hand-to-hand violence. That you just live a life and collect stuff and make your own non-violent fun. And the same can be said here as well, but you also get to take on missions that have you dungeon-crawling and zapping ghosts with your wands. It’s not a very complicated system; you can shoot a blast of energy from your wand with a simple button tap or hold to charge up for a stronger shot. Depending on your gear, you also get a set number of magic spells to use, though you can refill these as you go along, gathering items, hitting switches, and exploring the map. Instead of a roll, you can twirl out of the way of enemies by hitting the shoulder button, and that’s pretty important as, so far as I’ve seen, there’s no way to recover your health along the way. At the end of each dungeon is a boss ghost, complete with a long health bar to deplete, and upon kicking its butt, you’re rewarded even more items for your inventory. It’s not very challenging, but it helps break up the pace of simply running around, farming glow spots.

Honestly, there’s a lot to this game. I’ve not even touched on everything, though this post is now getting kinda long. I’ll write more later, I knows it. But yeah, just like Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Disney Magical World is perfect for picking up and playing for ten or fifteen minutes only to realize a half hour has gone by and I still need to collect more character cards and check on Pooh’s garden and find a pumpkin so I can go to Cinderella’s ball and and and…

The Half-hour Hitbox: April 2014

Well, this turned into a terrible month, and so I haven’t been writing about games a lot here these last few days, but I still continued to add to this thing, like a man who pokes a fire looking for it to grow, to spread. And spread it has, so here are some short paragraphs about the games I’ve played for a bit, as well as the ones I’ve played for a good while and just haven’t gotten around to giving them their fancy own blog posts. All in due time, or possibly never again; I really can’t say right now.

Line ’em up, knock ’em down.

The Everloom

When does a dream become a nightmare? Is it when you can’t escape it? The Everloom is a minimalistic adventure game by Lucas Paakh that dances around these questions while guiding the player through a realm where imagination runs wild. It’s basically fetch quest after fetch quest, and I’d easily dismiss it as flat boring gameplay-wise, but it’s absolutely gorgeous to both look at and listen to. The pixel graphics are crisp and colorful, with some amazing parallax scrolling effects when moving throughout the forest section. Some bizarre characters and outcomes, too.

Where Is My Beard?

A strange and cute little Flash physics-based puzzle game. Man, that was a mouthful. Where Is My Beard? tasks you with rolling a bearded face–also known as a decapitated head–into non-bearded face-shapes to decorate them with facial hair. Sometimes this involves building a bridge across a gap and other times involves playing with gravity just right to that the ball hits every single target. There are 20 levels in total, and only two really roadblocked me for a bit; thankfully, when you refresh the level, all the pieces you put down remain in place, so you can tinker with placement and keep trying things without having to rebuild your schematic from scratch. It’s got a fun art style á la The Binding of Isaac. Oh, and watch out for the crabs…

Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse

A PlayStation Plus freebie for April 2014 and, from what I’ve played so far, a walk in the park. Granted, I only did the first world and am now in the toy-themed levels, but it’s a fairly mundane platformer, and yes, there’s irony there, given that it is set in a fantasy land and magical castle. You walk left and right, you jump on enemies to kill them, you collect things, you throw projectiles, and the bosses all follow a simple pattern. I love me some Disney, but this is just a little too tame for me, though it’s nice that the game came packaged with the original Genesis title as well.

Deadlight

A freebie on the ol’ Xbox 360 this month for the Games With Gold campaign. Deadlight is a mix of Limbo and Shadow Complex, but with zombies–also called shadows–and more of a focus on puzzle platforming and avoiding combat when possible. I haven’t gotten too far, and so far, it’s okay. I’d probably be more impressed if I haven’t read most of The Walking Dead comics–all of volume one–and followed the show so closely, as they are pretty similar in both looks and story-telling. Also, the main character’s jumping is really clunky, and that’s something you want to make sure is right in your platforming game, that jumping to platforms feels smooth.

Disney Magical World

I’ve definitely got a bigger post in the works for this Animal Crossing: New Leaf-wannabe and still own individualistic collectathon brimming with classic Disney characters and gimmicks. Not going to say anymore other than it has surprised me, and it’s kind of what I need right now in my life: a solid bit of distraction that does not make me work too hard to progress.

Metal Gear Solid

Yup, my journey through all of the Metal Gear games continues, and I beat Metal Gear Solid over a couple of sittings, taking around 11 hours or so. As you might expect, I have many things to say about this one and Solid Snake and the use of FMV and remembering locations differently, meaning we’ll leave it for another day. Next on the list is…VR Missions, which I don’t expect to be very exciting, though I do hope they offer more of a challenge than the n00b-friendly ten in Metal Gear Solid‘s main menu. I wonder if I’ll be able to do ’em all.

Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures, Episode 3: Muzzled!

Not really picking up where the last episode ended, Wallace and Gromit meet Monty Muzzle, who comes to town to try and raise money for a dog shelter. Unfortunately, this mustached man has ulterior motives, and it falls upon Wallace and Gromit to save some dogs and get the townspeople’s money back before Monty can slink away. What follows is more of the same single item-only puzzles and funny dialogue. I looked up a solution or two, but enjoyed everything regardless, especially the idea of a fish and chips-flavored pie. Again, this episode ends on a big cliffhanger, one I really hope doesn’t get dropped as we move into the final act of this grand adventure.

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The Half-hour Hitbox is a new monthly feature for Grinding Down, covering a handful of videogames that I’ve only gotten to play for less than an hour so far. My hopes in doing this is to remind myself that I played a wee bit of these games at one time or another, and I should hop back into them, if I liked that first bite.