It’s been a while (by which I mean about 4 months ago) since my last official Thought Dump. Since I’m approaching the end of my penultimate semester, having just completed one dastard of a project and having to worry about a final exam and another project, I haven’t given much thought to what I wish to write for this Spontaneous Saturday. Therefore…well, here’s Thought Dump 7.

 

I’d like to start with freemium games I’ve been playing on 3DS. Along with the already released ones, Rumble World and Shuffle (the latter of which is now on mobile), there are now two others: Nintendo Badge Arcade and Pokémon Picross. Nintendo Badge Arcade apparently came out about a month ago (although I only learned about it a week ago), while Pokémon Picross came out two days ago.

Nintendo Badge Arcade is where you play crane games and earn badges, which can be used to decorate your HOME menu. Some of these badges can be used to launch applications (specifically System Parameters, StreetPass Mii Plaza, Nintendo eShop, DS Download Play, Sound Studio, Camera, Mii Creator, and Activity Log), meaning they are not entirely pointless. You can pay $1 for five plays, hence the freemium aspect of the game. However, there is a practice machine that you can use once daily (renews at 5:00 AM EST) that could potentially result in one or several free plays, and some days the bunny who runs the arcade may just randomly give you free plays. If there’s anything I dislike about the game, it’s that you can’t back out when given a free play (which would be useful if you got a free play from the bunny and wanted to get more through the practice catcher, then use them all in one fell swoop) and that every time you use up all your free plays, the bunny will ask, “You can swap over to paid play now. Would you like to do that?”, which to me is one of those “I hate saying ‘no’ every time” situations.

Pokémon Picross…well, I can’t say I don’t like it, but there are some things about it that just…make it the most pay2win game ever. Literally. The pixelated Professor Tetra gives you a bunch of Picrites during the tutorial, but then the only ways you can get any further Picrites are (1) by beating further levels, and (2) by taking part in the daily challenge, which has an appallingly low Picrite yield. Want to get to the next area but don’t have enough Picrites? Oh, and you don’t want to pay? Tough luck; you’re stuck with the slow-as-molasses Picrite gain of the daily challenge. I’m especially frustrated that I happened to boot up the game and find that a rare Pokémon appeared in the second area…which I haven’t unlocked yet…which requires 50 Picrites to unlock and I only have 49……………

“Go to the next area to find the rare Pokémon!” I would if I freaking could! Anyway, at least the gameplay is good, but I’d rather do weekly puzzles on Conceptis than have to put up with the crud that Pokémon Picross is made of.

In summary, Nintendo Badge Arcade is not worth paying for, but Pokémon Picross is too worth paying for. Even so, I like to take the “mium” out of “freemium” and get as much as I can out of these games without paying a cent.

12/9 EDIT: Another thing about Nintendo Badge Arcade: on daily updates, it has possibly the longest loading time of any video game I have ever played (and I believe TF2 is the only other contender). Pokémon Picross, on the other hand, loads instantly when you boot it up, every time.

As for the freemium games I already have, well, my Rumble World experience has been enhanced with one heck of a gem: a 1854 Epic Cascoon with Speedy, Snappy, Gutsy+, Lucky++, Effective, and Lingering+. The combination of Bug Bite and Lucky++ gives it maximum coin yield per KO, and Lingering+ makes its Iron Defenses (yeah, Iron Defense is its best secondary move) linger for a very long time. With 651 HP, Iron Defense makes it much more difficult to take down than the 1464 Epic Sandile (with Speedy, Snappy, Gutsy+, Lucky++, Techie+, and Greedy) that I was using before. As for Shuffle, I have S-ranked all currently unlockable stages and captured every Pokémon available except Thundurus (which I plan to catch after my next check-in), and I’ve saved enough coins that I feel I’ll be ready for the next major update.

Any other games I wish to talk about? Well, actually, I won $25 from a giveaway at twitch.tv/360chrism, and I spent $2.99 on The Stanley Parable and $2.09 on Super Meat Boy. Stanley Parable was pretty entertaining, especially in the instances of defying the narrator. Super Meat Boy, even if it is a dated game, is really fun, although quite frustrating. At the time of writing, I have 100% completed Forest and Hospital, 90% completed Salt Factory (18/20 bandages; need to beat 15-20 in Dark World), and 57% completed Hell (completed Light World; haven’t started Dark World), meaning I have completed 63% of the whole game (with 3010 deaths so far). However, I plan to set Meat Boy aside in favor of more important things (like, you know, studies).

 

I want to keep anime talk at a bare minimum here for reasons that I am not at liberty to discuss, but let me just say: One Punch Man is a great show. It really is.

 

Another thing I wish to bring up, that I haven’t in previous Thought Dumps, is Cinq du Soleil (a fantasy story that I talked about in detail on Spontaneous Saturday 11/7/15). As of now, I have completed chapter 4 and am working on 4.5. Why 4.5? Well, I write the story in third person limited, meaning I write as if I only knew what Toru (the main character) was perceiving, and the fourth chapter ends in such a way that…well, let’s just say he’s unable to witness a certain event that was destined to happen to the whole group. Therefore, I am writing chapter 4.5 as if I did not know what anyone was thinking, because I feel it is essential to know what happened among the rest of the group after the end of chapter 4.

 

I guess that’s all for now. So…

Wait, no! I also want to talk about Phoenotopia routing. In any%, I managed to route out Dread Lands, but obviously Mul Cavern is going to be way more difficult to route out, especially without the Lantern. As for 100%…I did manage to get a fresh file up to 100% completion, only to realize that I am now thoroughly confused by the percentage counter. In that file, I had all Moonstones, all Heart Rubies, all Tools, all Misc. items, all Bag Attachments, 5 Chocolate Protein Shakes consumed, and all locations uncovered, but the file still showed 99%. All the testing of the percentage counter was really annoying since checking the percentage counter in the first place takes like 30 minutes: defeating Big Eye, watching a cutscene, escaping from Android 66, watching another cutscene, and waiting for the credits to display the percentage counter. Most of the times I tested it, it displayed 99%, but it actually displayed 97% when I bought the Leather Armor and then the Chain Mail. But, in 99% conditions, when I unlocked the Mystery Bento and Power Potion, the counter showed 100%. This confuses me because I still don’t know whether the Chocolate Protein Shakes and the Bag Attachments influence the counter, nor do I know which of the Mystery Bento and Power Potion (maybe both) influences the counter and how. So, it turns out there’s far more testing to do than I thought. On a final note, from what I know so far, I figure that a 100% run of Phoenotopia would last about 3 hours in-game time.

 

Okay, now I’m done.

 À la prochaine! (Until next time!)