Review: Tomodachi Life

Sometimes you come upon a game that doesn’t really feel like a game. Nintendo’s Tomodachi Life is one of those games to me. A life simulation game that comes off as a cross between The Sims and Animal Crossing, Tomodachi Life ends up being an entity all its own through sheer strangness.

Gameplay: 6/10
The gameplay in Tomodachi Life feels like a hands-off version of The Sims. You create your Mii characters (or import them from QR codes) and have them move into an apartment building on a small island.

MMOverdrive: Final Fantasy XIV

I was hesitant about starting Final Fantasy XIV to say the least. It was a P2P MMO that also charged an upfront fee to purchase the game and didn’t even allow you to play a demo beforehand. This is basically every red flag you can have for an MMO. I probably would have kept procrastinating had a friend not made the initial purchase for me. I’ve been playing the game for about 3 months now and I felt like this was a good enough time to start sharing my opinions on the game.

Graphics: 10/10
Let’s not mince words here, this game is beautiful. Right from the opening cutscenes, this game looks and feels like a AAA title. The character customization is detailed but not overly complicated. Many of the story NPC’s are unique and memorable. And the world itself is vast and vibrant. Pretty much everything I want in an MMO. I don’t think I have played an MMO that tops FFXIV in the graphics department and that’s one of its biggest advantages.

Gameplay: 7/10
I have mixed feelings about FFXIV’s gameplay. The controls are easy enough to grasp, with WASD moving your character and the mouse buttons serving as the confirm/cancel/select buttons. Standard MMO fare.

Winter 2014 Anime Season (Part 2)

…And here’s part 2! This will count down the top half of the anime’s airing this season as rated by me. Again, this is only anime that I have watched more than 2 episodes of.

Witch Craft Works – 6/10
The only thing that stopped me lumping this show in with Magical Warfare is that WCW is actually kind of funny. Other than that, it’s basically Shakogan no Shana.

Saki 2 – 7/10
Saki is kind of a niche show. It’s about a group of girls who play Mahjong (and not the concentration-style stuff that’s popular over here, but the poker-style type played in Japan) in their school’s high school club. If you liked the first series, this is more of the same, but it requires you to have seen season 1 to know what is going on. I enjoy it, but I don’t expect anybody who doesn’t find non-physical sports interesting to like it.

Winter 2014 Anime Season (Part 1)

Decided to give my thoughts on this season’s currently airing series that I have followed over the last few months. I’ll be splitting this in half, starting with the worst and moving up to the best. Keep in mind, this is only shows I have watched more than 2 episodes of, and these are meant as short, one or two sentence thoughts.

Super Sonico The Animation – 2/10
I really don’t get the point of this show. They took a company mascot and made a show out of it. It’s mostly fanservice and nothing of substance really happens.