Amiibo Detestible - Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival

...
...
Well...
Yeah...
Hello beautiful people of the Internet...
And not so beautiful ones...
This is...
Uh... This is not good!
Uh, yup...
But this isn't enough, oh no. Let's take a moment to... 'appreciate' the wonders... of how a game this bad can exist!
Now, now Sin, calm down a second... I assure you this game isn't... you know... it's not that bad.
Yeah right! Just... ugh! This is Animal Crossing... (sigh) Amiibo Festival...

The faces of Tom Nook and K.K. Slider here are accurate depictions of the average Amiibo Festival player.
Bask in the indifference.
The face of Isabelle here is an accurate depiction of the average Ren playing this game.
Don't make it sound like I enjoyed this disappointment!

Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival, released in November on the WiiU, is another example of Nintendo re-skinning their existing IP's to try and turn a further profit. Similar to the Mario Party games, AC:AF is a board game where players aim to collect as many points as possible. In this case, it's money and happiness, which make perfect sense for this game. Animal crossing is like the tamest game for all ages ever made after all. It's just hard to find any enjoyment in the sweet charming world of Animal Crossing in this one. Like I get it Sin, Mario Party, although they've been getting worse and worse since Mario Party 7 came out, is still a widely popular and fun game. So why not get more worth out of the board game concept? Why? I'll tell you why. Because this is not the way to do it!

AC:AF is nothing short of what I would call a 'bored' game. Yes, it does have it's charms, Ren will continue to blather on about them, but it really is just a slow little board game at the cost of £40 or so. The gameplay consists almost entirely of touching an Amiibo to the WiiU gamepad to roll the dice, and choosing which way you move. That's it. There's not even any mini-games, you know, the GOOD part of Mario Party! Calm down a second Sin, jeez... You know board games just like this were a really popular things back in the day, no mini-games or anything. Yes Ren but we paid for a video game. We paid for fun! The game is so simple I could have made it myself pretty damn easily. Where do Nintendo get off selling this thing for full price! AND while you're not restricted to play without using preset guest characters, the game encourages you to buy Amiibos in order to save progress properly if you play a lot. So basically Nintendo have sold us the game Monopoly, except it only comes with the car shaped playing piece and if you want any more you'll have to buy them separate for half the price of the game!

Amiibo. Now with 70% extra rip off.
And no extra gameplay.

Okay yes so it's an overly-expensive electronic board game, that's not to say there's no enjoyment to be had out of it. Animal Crossing games have always been a relaxing experience and this is no exception. The whole point of the game is to move around the town landing on spaces that will trigger events that earn 'happy points' and money, simple as that. The spaces make it immediately obvious what will happen if you land there. Although it's completely down to luck how much you gain or lose, sometimes you'll gain 500 Bells, others 5,000. There's no real way to tell and it drains even more strategy from a largely monotonous game. In addition, the events are so... so... just so dumb that while you'll get a little enjoyment out of them for a while, they'll quickly become dull and repetitive to anyone that isn't a small child. Animal Crossing games have always been fun for all ages, but this one breaks the trend, because I can't see a way that anyone other than a child can enjoy this one for more than one game. "Today I took a shit in the woods. The cops got mad at me but it helped some guy's flowers grow so instead they paid me for it"

"Sin's Chest" "Definitely not Ren's cock"
HEY!

So it may be a bad game but that doesn't mean there's nothing great here. There's a certain kind of Animal Crossing magic taking place here. The game is played around a calendar basis, with a standard game spanning one whole month. each turn is a day in the calendar, and on particular days certain events take place, for example Jingle the reindeer will always come to town on the 24th turn on a December game. It's a nice unique Animal Crossing addition to the game and there's a little bit in there that will make you want to play through all the months to see what there is. Other events also take place daily throughout the week, with half the spaces on the board being related to special NPC's you'll recognize from actual AC games. Katrina the fortune teller comes to town to change your luck and a number of other characters appear. Those events are repetitive as hell though, and you'll wish you never land on those spaces again after the first time trust me. It's always the same, and slows the pace of the game immensely. There's no fun in always knowing what's coming in a party game. 

Ha. Ha ha. I can hardly contain my laughter.
(Excessive laughing)
(Sigh...)

You've been nothing short of ruthless today Sin.
Well I mean I couldn't help it. Mario Party is dull enough. It's deserved for Nintendo leaving us with this filth in place of a game I've been waiting for.
Hey, admit you were still taken in by how wonderful it looks on WiiU.
Oh yes of course, it looks good, but if I can't go fishing properly and build up a lovely collection of fossils then this Animal Crossing is no friend of mine. I barely liked Happy Home Designer too. When are we getting a REAL Animal Crossing game again? I neeeeeeed that stuff.
Sin really loves the little things in life.
Shut up.

Ren Score: 4/10
Sin Score: 2/10

(It's Christmas next week, we'll probably be busy indulging in new games to review for you guys, so there definitely will be no post next week! You have every right to be deeply disappointed in him)

Wrong End... - Corpse Party: Blood Drive

(GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING. THIS GAME IS RATED 18+. SOME IMAGES MAY BE INAPPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN)

H-Hello beautiful people of the Internet... BOO! AHHH! Sin! What the hell!? Oh come on! I couldn't help it Ren you've been practically peeing yourself all week because of this game! I-I can't help it okay!? It's creepy as hell. Finally! A horror game that actually does its job (Only because you're a pussy) - We present to you... Corpse Party: Blood Drive!

Corpse Party: Blood Drive is the third installment of the Japanese cult hit horror franchise and is a direct sequel to the second game Book of Shadows. Although we have never played a Corpse Party game before this one the game provides enough background information that allows us to understand exactly what is going on within the first hour or so. Though it references a lot of names you won't understand, and some terminology from previous games the game very kindly explains events from previous games in character profiles found in the Bonus menu. Considering I expected to be as confused as a headless chicken coming into this on it was a pleasant surprise. It's just a shame that a spooky game I was so looking forward to has a number of... other issues...

Ahhh Corpse Party... Join generic overly protective guys #1 and #2...
And whiny, self-blaming girls #1 and #2...
As they embark on an epic quest to probably inevitably die this time. Because Corpse Party.

CP: Blood Drive sees the main surviving cast of the previous games return to the Nirvana that is Heavenly Host Elementary after becoming convinced that further actions within can revive their lost friends. Except now the dimension is crumbling and an even darker being is at its helm. Heavenly Host itself, all its environments and its atmosphere are stunning. It's dark, bleak... the floor is always full of holes... and there's this amazing 3D sound thing they've got going on, where audio was recorded is a very special way such that you can actually 'hear' the direction sound is coming from. And when you're fully immersed in the game those sounds can be genuinely terrifying!. The only problem with this is that unless you're some spineless entity that accepts everything in a game as gospel like Ren here, you will never be immersed in this one.

And here I was thinking Ren was the only crazy guy that performed Romeo and Juliet with the remains of a dead lover.
What th-!? I Never-! Ugh... I think I'm going to throw up...

In fact, Corpse Party: Blood Drive seems to find itself so scary countermeasures have been rigorously put in place to ruin all attempts at immersion! Loading times are scarier than the game itself! It takes roughly five whole minutes to boot up the game each time you turn it on, and there's basically another minute of loading every time you open the menu, move between areas, trigger a cutscene, use an item, switch the character you're controlling... The list just goes on and on! but sin, at least when it's not loading the game is great right? You're kidding me right? The characters walk so slowly you have to run everywhere but there's a hidden stamina gauge you can't see so you can't run all the time! Oh! Oh! and did I mention the frame rate sucks and that every time the game goes to play one of it's 'amazing 3D sound things' the game lags! LAG! IN A SINGLE PLAYER GAME! My God if I wanted to play a game full of lag I'd go play League of Legends! Whoa... Hey well calm down a little Sin, gosh. I mean hey at least the characters are cute right? Sure they are! there's always something great about a game with adorable little 3D chibi sprites isn't there... Oh wait, except they really don't fit into a HORROR game. Like come on how am I supposed to feel scared when all I can so is stare at those big little eyes!

"Uhm yes excuse me I'm trying to be scary but I think somebody CHOSE THE WRONG GRAPHICS SETTINGS"

Okay okay geez... I get it so the game has a couple... Okay, MANY flaws. But ultimately the reason you play Corpse Party is for the story and shock factor is it not? And boy does it have that! Okay... Well.. Well! The game does a wonderful job of pulling off successful jump scares which is way better than can be said for a lot of games. There aren't actually a lot of enemies in the game, they're difficult to see, and more often than not just seem to appear out of nowhere, so when you suddenly see or hear them there's some genuine "OH SHIT" moments. Oh Ren that's a good point... I just remembered something now you said that. Hm? What is it?

Ren literally jumped out of his skin when this CG appeared
H-Hey c'mon it was totally unexpected!
Yeah, I bet that's what she was saying when she died too.

Well I mean as you would expect a survival horror game such as this has a lot of survival horror-y mechanics to go with it of course. Your flashlight is battery powered- Which is fine! And the batteries last long enough and there's enough of them around that they won't run out which is great! Geez, no need to be so hasty Ren the battery mechanic is, dare I say it, perfect. That was just an example. Oh... No, what I was really going to say was... Well... You're a hardcore gamer like myself aren't you Ren? Ourselves you mean? Okay shut up wise guy. Anyway, don't you just HATE it when it's almost impossible to tell what you need to do in a game to progress? Doesn't that suck? You're making it sound like you're complaining the game is too difficult, that's not like you Sin. Oh no the difficulty is fine in fact I think the game is a challenge which is again a rarity. 

The fact that this early encounter is a character from the previous games is probably a little less impactful than it was on someone who was playing the first game and actually cared about her when she was... you know, smushed against a wall.

Seriously though my biggest problem with this game is that while I hate games making things too obvious, Blood Drive does so well at making important things look irrelevant or regular that you end up spending hours walking around the same few rooms looking for an arbitrary item you can get by burning mundane cabinet #046 in the corner of the starting room! This game doesn't hold hands in any way and I'm still not settled on whether that's a good or a bad thing. It's definitely a good thing, even though I can think of at least three occasions where we've wandered around the school looking for something only to find we had to, say, move a pile of desks away from a door. You know, desks we assumed were there to stop us going through the door for the whole chapter. I don't know I think this game just punishes our overthinking gamer minds. It pains me to say you're probably right about that. We spent an hour repeating one part because of conflicting game mechanics. Since evil spirits will chase you laps around the whole school on sight you can climb into lockers Alien: Isolation style to hide. Providing the spirits don't see you, you'll be fine but the problem is they run so fast while far away it's almost impossible to climb in one without being ripped out of it. So naturally when a scripted event happens where you're pursued by two extremely fast horrific people, our first thought wasn't to hop into the locker a little way in front of us and hope for the best. In fact it wasn't a thought at all until we decided nothing was working why the hell not! Like, it doesn't matter where you go they WILL follow you... you know except when you get in that one locker and then afterwards go to one specific room that for some reason they just won't follow you in! Like what even is that! Hello? Was the department for good game design out the day you made this or what!?

All in all I hate the fact that this game is so much worse than it could have been. The story is still dark, engrossing and full of twists, which is great for the core part of the game that you really want to experience. But with a lot of the actual gameplay elements letting it down it's difficult to get behind a game you can only really enjoy if you can somehow make yourself oblivious to its faults, and that's not easy...

So! that's all for this week folks! We hope you-
NNNNNNNNNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Whoooaaaaa... I've never seen Sin run so fast... See I always knew she was just as scared as-
RRRRRREEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!
AAAHHHHHHHHHHHH HOLY SHIT!

Wow. I've never seen him run so fast before... Serves him right... hehe.

Ren Score: 8/10

Sin Score: 5/10