I had no idea that I could upload screenshots from my Wii U directly to WordPress. But as it turns out, that is absolutely a thing that I can do. Not sure if it will be a huge boon to me or not, but it’s nice to know. It’s no direct-to-YouTube streaming feature, but it’ll do. It’ll do.
So I played The Evil Within last month. It’s been sitting on my shelf unplayed since, like, January, when I got it at some kind of crazy dirt-cheap price. Seriously, if you go out (on onto your console’s online store) and look for it now, it’s still way more than I paid for it back then.
But honestly, I would have been just fine with paying full price for this bad boy. I loved pretty much every minute of it, aside from one or two mildly frustrating bits. It’s the most recent game by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, and if you have any sort of appreciation for the RE series, it’s made very clear where this games roots lie.
Yoshi’s Island is a perennial favourite around these parts, and what I believe to be one of the most well-crafted television games ever made. My big secret? I’ve never ever 100%ed it.
“But Ryan! You always 100% games!”
Silly rabbit, not always. But yes, usually I will go out of my way to collect all the doodads or complete all the challenges in a game that I really like. Sometimes even in a game I don’t really like, just to prove my dominance over it. Kind of like hate sex.
Anyway, the point is that I’ve never really felt like getting all the collectibles in Yoshi’s Island (or its sequels) was really worth the effort. For one, it’s incredibly difficult; some of those kajiggers are really well-hidden. Secondly, you have to collect everything and clear the stage with full health in a single run, which is just bonkers after world one. Also, it doesn’t really do much for you, outside of a little fanfare. I mean, sure, you unlock a bonus level if you 100% every stage in a world, but those bonus levels are concentrated evil. Kind of like the game is hate sexing you.
Yoshi’s Woolly World is a little bit different. The collectibles can still be an absolute pain to gather, but this game takes it easy on you. Each collectible can be completed independently, you don’t have to get everything in one run, which takes off a ton of the pressure. That means that on harder stages, you can focus on just getting through with full life and not have to search for all the secrets at the same time. Or you can just go back and grab that one thing you missed, and not have to pick up the other hundred things you all ready got for full marks.
More importantly, every collectible does something for you. Well, completing a stage with full life is still just for bragging rights, but the rest hand out goodies on a semi-regular basis.
The flowers, of which there are five in every stage, are the only key to unlocking the bonus stages this time around. You still have to find every flower in the world, but it’s only the flowers that count toward the bonus stage.
The yarn skeins come in sets of five as well, and they will reassemble a new Yoshi for you to play as. These prizes are handed out more liberally, with one unlockable Yoshi in each stage. It’s kind of a fun game to guess what kind of pattern you’re going to get as you collect skeins, as they’re coloured to match the Yoshi that is unlocked in each stage.
Stamp patches are the hardest to get because there are a whopping twenty in each stage, and they’re collected from normal-looking beads that are randomly mixed in with all the other beads (just like the red coins in previous games). For every so many (80, I think?) stamp patches you find, you’re given a new set of five Miiverse stamps. These are perhaps the least desirable prizes, but they’re still something.
Also, there’s a badge that you get later on that highlights all the secrets in a stage. It makes invisible clouds visible, makes false walls glow, and puts a radar pulse on beads that contain stamp patches. It’s a little pricy, but if you save all your beads until the end of the game, you’ll probably be in good shape to buy it for a replay of every stage that you didn’t clear out on the first go.
I still haven’t even finished the game, and I’m not completely certain that I will go back for 100%, but Yoshi’s Woolly World surely makes the strongest case for convincing me to do so. It also helps that the game is a joy to play, and an absolute delight for the ears and eyes as well.
Oh hey I forgot to do the thing.
I got the lot of them for like two bucks at Walmart.
It really is an amazing place
When I was a dumb little kid, I used to think that the word ‘scenario’ was pronounced ‘scenarino’ (like, scene-a-rino). Undoubtedly, it’s more fun to say that way. But it is wrong. Fortunately, I don’t recall ever saying it out loud and being corrected. I probably just figured it out on my own as I got older and less stupid.
That’s a thing that just popped into my head this morning as I was getting dressed. Figured I’d share it. It’s not a very interesting story.
Oh, thank goodness, all the spooky ghosts and goblins are gone for another year.
Wait, no. I like all that stuff. Darn it!
The Beginner’s Guide (PC) – I just. Whoa. Art games, man. (But really, there are some heavy themes in here that take a long time to really digest. And possibly multiple playthroughs.)
Life is Strange: Episode 5 – Polarized (PC) – What. A. Finale. Aside from a weirdly out-of-place (but easily broken) stealth sequence, it was a really great episode. It’s been a crazy ride, and it all culminates in the most impossible choice ever, natch. Seems like most of the internet hated the endings, but I don’t think Dontnot can afford to pull a Mass Effect 3?
The Evil Within (PS3) – It was October, I needed to play something spooky, and this had been in my backlog for well over a year. How even did that happen? But it’s basically just Resident Evil 4 again, so I had a total blast with it. Playing on easy was a great idea, as I feel like certain parts could have been very frustrating if they had been harder.
Bravely Default (3DS) – Made some serious progress. Earned the “bad” ending, which is not so much bad as it is unfinished. Anyway, I’mma keep playing it to the real ending, which apparently is a slog, but whatever. I’m having fun.
Chrono Trigger (DS) – Finally, the madness is over. I have earned every possible ending. Which is a fool’s game. Don’t do it. Just look them up on YouTube. Most of them are dumb. Chrono Trigger is a terrific game, but playing it that much is very draining.
While one of my favourite ways to spend a crisp fall evening is to go for a nice, romantic stroll, it’s not really an activity that I can enjoy to its fullest potential these days.
But snuggling under a thick blanket with video games and a mug of hot chocolate filled to the brim with mini-marshmallows is a good way to pass the time too. So happy right now.
Also there is a piping hot pizza just out of the frame.
It’s hard to think that there was a short period of time where I used to use Microsoft FrontPage to update my website. I wonder how long that lasted. I’ve been working with the WordPress editor for what feels like forever now, but I only remember ever writing in Notepad.
I think that if we’ve learned anything this week, it’s that 2004 was a really wacky year for me.
Often, when I reference a previous work of mine, I will go back and read it over again. When I wrote up that last post, it spurred me to go back and actually read the good ol’ Work Blog (and not only because I had to dig up the link from Angelfire).
I mentioned in the last post that I’d be okay with someone flirting with me anonymously in the present day, but after reading the Work Blog over, I realize that what happened there was not flirting at all. No, I’d completely forgotten that it was a flat-out proposition for sex. You know, as long as I was going to bother doing the detective work.
