Clearance Goodies!

Oops! About a month or so ago, I bought a couple cute plushies at Walgreens that happened to be on clearance, and I completely forgot to write about them! They were only $3.50 each, so I couldn’t resist! 😉

Baby Luigi and Baby Donkey Kong are too cute! Baby DK’s head is so huge, he has a hard time staying upright, haha! I wish Baby Mario would have been there too, but that’s all right. These plush are normally $8.99 each, so I got a great deal!

By the way, I probably won’t be posting for the next week or so, as I have some busy days coming up! Yesterday was my last day of work for 9 glorious days. My husband and I normally take off the last week of July because the 26th is my birthday and the 29th is our anniversary. Assuming the weather holds up, we are hoping to hit up the beach, the pool and maybe some springs. 😉 Have a great week everyone!

Celebrating Kirby with: Hoshi no Kirby!

All righty, let’s start celebrating Kirby’s 25th anniversary! 🙂 As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m going to play through all the Kirby games I own as a way of celebrating the little pink puffball! A couple things to note:

• I’m only going to play virtual console versions/ re-releases if I currently have them. Some I have downloaded, some I have not!
• I’m only going to play games that have Kirby as the main character- no cameos! Sorry, Super Smash Bros. 😉
• I’ll play a game for a maximum of three days before moving on. If I beat the game in that time frame, great; if not, it’s all good!
• I’ll be playing the games in chronological order. Can’t do it any other way!

With those things out of the way, the first game up is Hoshi no Kirby for the Game Boy!

Hoshi no Kirby was released in Japan in 1992. It’s the only Japanese Kirby game I have, and I’m quite fond of it… even if it is just Kirby’s Dream Land. 😉

Anyway! I’ve beaten Kirby’s Dream Land many times over, but never played all the way through Hoshi no Kirby! It’s a pretty short game, so I knew I could make it through in one sitting.

I started out in Green Greens…

which is a pretty easy, breezy level.

The boss is Whispy Woods, a tree that always has a bad attitude for some reason!

Next up I ventured into Castle Lololo…

which ups the difficulty just a bit, and has cool spooky enemies!

The bosses are Lololo and Lalala, who like to push boxes at you for no reason at all. Cute little jerks they are!

Next I traveled to Float Islands…

I always loved the water here for some reason. The little stars in it make it seem so inviting!

The boss of this stage is Kaboola. I did well against her (yes, she is a girl) but suffered a REALLY CHEAP FUCKING DEATH after I defeated her. I got stuck up in the corner of the screen and died right when I was going down to collect my star. That meant I had to fight her all over again! Lame! Ugh, whatever, I carried on…

to Bubbly Clouds!

This stage is home to one of the most terrifying creatures in the Kirby universe: Scarfy. Cute and cuddly looking, it quickly turns into some hell beast that wants to eat your face off if you try to suck it in. Check it out biting me:

Anyway, the boss of this level is Kracko. A giant floating cloud with an eyeball… that’s not nightmare inducing either, no sir!

After kicking Kracko’s butt, I headed to Mt. DeDeDe…

In this final stage, you have to replay all the bosses again before taking on King DeDeDe himself.

He takes a little bit of patience, but as long as you don’t try to rush, he’s easy to beat!

After DeDeDe was defeated, peace was restored to Dream Land!

Oh yeah… after the credits roll, this screen pops up.

This little cheat code allows you to play the “Extra Game” of Hoshi no Kirby. In this version, enemies are faster and more plentiful and the bosses are harder, too!

So there you have it for Hoshi no Kirby! I’m happy I finally played this one all the way though, just to have it checked off my backlog.

Next up is Kirby’s Dream Land for the Game Boy. Yep, I know I just played the Japanese counterpart, but I said I was going to play ALL the games I had, so there! 😉

Oh yeah, and P.S.: I had originally intended to play this game on my actual Game Boy. I figured it would be cool for nostalgia purposes to play the game in its true form! However, I couldn’t get my Game Boy to work for the life of me. 😦 I suspect something is wrong with the screen, but I’m not 100% sure. I may try to repair it (which I have no experience with) so hopefully it’s not dead!

First Impressions: Kororinpa: Marble Mania!

A week or so ago, I was settling in to play some Harvest Moon: Animal Parade on the Wii. As the game was loading, I looked over at my stack of Wii games and got a little sad about all the games I bought but still haven’t played. One game caught my eye, and I decided that I wanted to check it out right then and there! I turned off Animal Parade and began playing Kororinpa: Marble Mania.

Kororinpa: Marble Mania was released for the Wii back in 2007. I remember seeing a preview for the game (don’t remember where) and I thought it looked really fun! For some reason, though, I never saw the game in stores anywhere, and though I wanted it, I never found anywhere that sold it.

About a year ago, I was at GameStop, and imagine my surprise when they had not only Kororinpa, but its sequel as well! Since this was practically the only time I had seen these games in the wild, I snatched them up. Sadly, it took me this long to get around to playing it- but enough of me blabbering on! What did I actually think of the game?

On the title screen, I was met with bright, cheerful colors and equally cheery music. Setting up my profile for the first time was a cinch, and the vibe was pretty relaxing.

This game immediately reminded me of a combination of Super Monkey Ball and Marble Madness. In fact, the similarities to Super Monkey Ball are what drew me to this game in the first place! Anyway, every time you select a level, you are shown an overview and brief description of the stage.

Much like Super Monkey Ball, you tilt the stage to get your marble rolling. Your objective is to collect every red crystal and make it to the goal…bucket thing. Tilting the Wii remote feels pretty natural, though my hands are a bit shaky.

What I think is pretty neat about this game is the fact that the timer counts UP, not down. In other words, no matter how many times you die on a stage (and most likely, you will die) you can just keep going and going and the clock will be stopped when you finally reach the goal. This makes things a bit more relaxed instead of feeling rushed that you have to collect crystals AND get to the goal before the clock runs out.

Also, once you collect a gem, you don’t have to do it again if you die. That’s a pretty great feature!

When you start out the game, you are playing with a regular marble. As the game progresses, you unlock different marbles/ balls/ whatever and they all have different attributes. Most importantly, a lot of them are SO CUTE! 😉

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this game when I played it! I played through the first 10 levels, and it was a lot of fun. The tilt control mechanism can be a bit frustrating if your hands are shaky like mine are, but practice makes perfect. The fact that you are not penalized for dying makes things a little easier to bear.

I just want to mention that since my initial First Impressions play of this game, my husband and I started playing it together! I will note my progress in another entry, since this is just a First Impressions post! Besides, I have some Kirby games to get to! 😉

Pokémon GO Progress: June 2017!

Before I write my First Impressions post for a game I recently started playing, and before I start my Kirby game-playing extravaganza (ha), I wanted to do a post about the progress I made during the month of June in Pokémon GO! So what if it’s already almost midway through July?!

Anywho, I caught several new critters! They are Slugma…

Kabuto…

Scyther…

Omanyte…

Pineco…

Noctowl…

Houndour (he’s pretty badass!)…

Charmander (finally!)…

Bayleef (sorry, didn’t snap a pic when I captured it)…

and Phanpy (so adorable!).

I also evolved my Geodude into a Graveler…

my Spinarak into an Ariados…

and finally, my Evee into an Espeon. I now have all of the evolutions of Evee!!

I also earned two medals: one for registering 30 Johto Pokémon, and one for catching 10 Fire-type Pokémon.

I also leveled up to 21!

So, more good progress in June! I’ve already caught a couple new critters this month, but you’ll have to wait for my July post to see which ones! 😉

Blogging Goals!

If there’s something I’m good at, it’s setting a certain goal for myself… then becoming distracted and doing something completely different! What can I say- I have a bazillion thoughts in my head all at once, a bazillion things I want to get done, and hardly any time to do anything! Anyway, I’ve been thinking about all my video games that I still have not tried, and I think that’s just terrible! My point of all my babbling is this: I’m going to make it a point (notice I did not say the word “goal”) to try all of my games I haven’t yet played! I don’t need to beat them or even get very far in them, I just want to try them out. So expect to see quite a few “First Impressions” posts coming up as I share my experiences!

BUT FIRST, THERE IS SOMETHING ELSE I NEED TO DO!

As I’ve mentioned before, and some of you are probably already aware, Kirby’s 25th anniversary is this year. That got me thinking about all of the Kirby games I own… and how I want to play through them all to celebrate his anniversary! 🙂 There are a few of the games I haven’t beaten (I know, I know, I suck) but I still think it would be fun to play through all of the games I have as a way to celebrate 25 years of my favorite pink puffball! I’ll be sure to blog a thing or two about each game 😉

So there you have it! My new, revised blogging goals for the next few months or so. I do have one First Impressions post that I will do before I start all the Kirby fun, and I’ll still make sure I post any fun new gaming goodies I get. I think I’ll do a wrap up at the end of the month to let you know what other games I’ve been working on, too.

As always, thank all of you so much for reading! Every like, comment, and follow I receive makes me so happy, and I’m so grateful for the friends I’ve made here! 🙂

Why I Love… Donkey Kong Country!

For this month’s Why I Love… post, I thought I’d give a nod to one of my favorite video game series of all time… Donkey Kong Country! This series has captivated me ever since I began playing it in 1994! And yes, the first game in the series is actually just called Donkey Kong Country, but this post is about the series as a whole. 😉

I first played the original Donkey Kong Country over at my friend Jason’s house. (Hey, I mentioned him in my SNES post too! 😉 ) Jason lived in my neighborhood and had a whole room of his house dedicated to gaming! I only had a Game Boy back then, but Jason had home consoles to play, so we often went to his house to play games! One day he showed me a new game he was playing: Donkey Kong Country. He was trying to get past a level called Orang-utan Gang. The moment I saw him playing it, I was hooked!

Those Mankys were a pain in the ass!

The world within this game just seemed so vibrant and alive! I was a kid, so I didn’t understand what it meant to produce those fancy graphics, but I knew it was something special.

Even the underwater levels were gorgeous!

As you know from my previous Why I Love… post dedicated to the SNES, I soon got my own copy of Donkey Kong Country and played it SO MUCH. I memorized the levels, where the enemies were, etc. I probably played through that game more times than any other game. I do recall getting extremely pissed off at one level: Elevator Antics. It was pretty difficult to time the jumps, and that’s probably the first time I ever threw my controller because of a game. (Bad idea, by the way. Don’t do that!)

This level use to PISS ME OFF!

The next game in the series, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, captivated me just as much, if not more, than the original. I fell in love with the gloomy atmosphere right away! This game seemed considerably more difficult than its predecessor and had many more secrets to uncover, too! It took me quite a while to complete this game, and to this day I don’t think I’ve gotten all the DKC coins!

Ghostly Grove was a really cool level!

I also loved the next game, Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble. For me, this is probably my least favorite game in the series, but don’t take that as meaning that I dislike the game. I absolutely love this game, but the atmosphere and levels just didn’t quite grab me as much as the first two. I do remember the level Ripsaw Rage really making me nervous, because you are being chased up a tree by a giant saw the entire time!

Stupid giant saw!

Since the original Donkey Kong Country games were all released in succession, I guess I was hoping they would keep coming out with them every year! Of course, that wasn’t the case. The next true Donkey Kong Country game wouldn’t come out for another 14 years, when Donkey Kong Country Returns was released for the Wii in 2010. The first time I played it, I remember thinking that it was worth the wait!

DKC Returns is an awesome game, although this level was terrifying…

Four years later, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was released for the Wii U, and that is another fantastic entry to the series. This is the game I’ve played the least out of all the DKC games, and I’m not really sure why! I guess it’s just a matter of circumstance.

This game is gorgeous!

Besides the gameplay itself being amazing, I also really love the characters in the Donkey Kong Country series! My favorite Kong is probably Dixie. I love using her ponytail to fly across gaps and kill Kremlings!

Speaking of Kremlings, I was obsessed with K. Rool when I was a kid. Do not ask me why! I think I just thought he was a hilarious villain. I also appreciated the fact that he was something different in every game: a king in the first game, a pirate in the second game, and a mad scientist in the third game! K. Rool and his Kremlings are sorely missed by me in the newer DKC games…

K. Rool was the most difficult to beat in DKC 2, for me at least!

My expression of love for Donkey Kong Country wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the AMAZING music! The music just sets the tone for every level perfectly. I’ve always loved the music that plays during the roller coaster levels in DKC2 the most, but there are honestly so many great tunes in all these games, so it’s hard to pick a favorite!

Not a huge fan of roller coasters in real life, but they are awesome in this game!

The Donkey Kong Country series is, for me, the series that I obsessed about most during my childhood. As I’ve typed this post, I realize I have barely even scratched the surface of memories I have when it comes to Donkey Kong Country. I don’t think any other series has quite grabbed me like this one has, and I still love re-visiting the games to this day!