Animal Crossing Plaza – Wii U

In today’s Nintendo Direct video, Nintendo announced Animal Crossing Plaza. It’s a free eShop download for Wii U that is much like the WaraWara plaza, but instead of Miis, the plaza is populated with Animal Crossing characters.

Download Animal Crossing PlazaFrom here, you can access a new Animal Crossing news community on Miiverse, where you can post about the Animal Crossing games and view others’ comments as well. For unknown reasons, the Animal Crossing Plaza will only be available through the end of 2014. Here is a video showing what it’s like. At the end of the video, I take a look at the new Animal Crossing message boards on Miiverse as well.

You can set up your profile to display your Animal Crossing New Leaf name, town, and dream address. You can also choose your favorite character to represent yourself. Unfortunately, not all of the characters will be in the plaza every time, so you may need to load up the plaza several times before you’re able to find your favorite. You can also upload your pictures taken in ACNL by putting your 3DS SD card into your Wii U, and attach those pictures to messages you post. Here, I posted about how I was happy when the character Katt moved out of my town, and I attached a picture I took of me dancing in her house.

acplaza-kattWhile the plaza is essentially just a glorified message board, it’s definitely something Animal Crossing fans will want to check out and enjoy. And it’s a free download, so why not?

Animal Crossing Plaza screenshotAnimal Crossing fans, also remember to check out Jeff’s New Leaf Blog, which I update regularly. And if you’d like to follow me on Miiverse, my Nintendo Network ID is jvgsjeff.

UPDATE: I just wanted to mention that since this blog entry was written, Nintendo has added the ability to register your town residents. This way, they will appear every time you load up the plaza. Pretty cool.

Pikmin 3

It’s been nine long years since Pikmin 2 was released, and finally, Pikmin fans have a new game to play. Pikmin 3 has just been released for Wii U and I picked it up today. Once I put the disc in, it downloads and installs an update. That took several minutes, and then I started watching the opening sequence. The first thing that struck me is that the characters speak gibberish. Is Nintendo still stuck in the days of Banjo-Kazooie on N64? Maybe it’s just me, but I’d prefer actual language over “Arry, arry? Oo too roo umplin, wah wah.”

Pikmin 3 - Charlie screenshotAnyway, you start out as Captain Charlie. Your team has three characters, but all three begin the game in separate locations after a crash landing. Charlie stumbles onto yellow Pikmin very early on. You make your way through a snowy area, using Pikmin to clear away mushrooms that block your path.

p3-yellowAfter Charlie reaches a certain point, you switch to controlling Alph instead. He finds red Pikmin at his location. Much as in earlier games, you will order the Pikmin to build bridges, destroy walls, push boxes, and defeat enemies. And when need be, run for your life.

p3-redYou can control the game with a Wii remote and nunchuk, or you can use the Wii U gamepad. So far, I’ve only tried it with the gamepad. It seemed like gamepad controls would be most similiar to the controls of the original GameCube games, which used two sticks. Unfortunately, Nintendo hasn’t tried to keep the same control scheme. I’m used to pressing B to whistle for Pikmin, and now I have to use ZR. And the right stick is not used for directing the Pikmin like it was in the GameCube games, so the controls are going to take me a while to get used to. So far, I haven’t seen an option to customize the gamepad controls.

But controls aside, I am enjoying the game so far. I’ve only played two “days” of gameplay, and the first day is just a tutorial, so I’ve barely scratched the surface.  I’m looking forward to delving deeper into the game in the weeks ahead. I’ll be sure to update my progress from time to time, so be sure to check back!

Zelda LTTP: East Palace

When I left off last time, I was in Kakariko Village. A boy told me the location of the elder I need to see. So today, I headed east to find him. He told me his name is Sahasrahla (bless you!) and he said I need to find three pendants before I can wield the legendary sword. He asked me if I really wanted to find it. The choices were “yeah” and “of course.”

zlttp-yes of courseI responded with a yes, and he told me I needed to first retrieve the pendant of courage from the East Palace. So I made my way there. And even though I haven’t played A Link to the Past in years, I remember this palace well. I also love the moody, atmospheric music in here.

zlttp-east palaceAfter avoiding an endless stream of bowling balls and defeating wimpy skeletons that fly backwards every time you swing your sword, I acquired the big key. A couple screens later, I used it to open the treasure chest and I got a bow! I like how it tells me I can shoot arrows until I run out.

zlttp-bowI then advanced to the ball room.

zlttp-ball roomAt least, that’s what it should be called. But these are no ordinary balls. They will hit you hard if you run into them, yet they have the magic ability to pass through other balls as if they were ghosts.

Anyway, I continued on to the boss room. You have to defeat these six armored knights that bounce around the room in patterns clearly choreographed by Paula Abdul.

zlttp-six dancing knightsThey dance quite well considering all that armor they’re in, and they’ve obviously been rehearsing for weeks. But Link is able to break up their routine with his sword and arrows (until he runs out). Once five of them are defeated, the last one gets reeeeeeally angry at you and starts stomping around. I think he knows his dancing career is over at this point. Once he’s gone, Link gets a heart piece and the pendant of courage.

I then returned to Sahasaharahalaharalara the elder, who told me I need to recover the other pendants. He also gave the pegasus shoes, which let me run real fast and crash into stuff.

Zelda LTTP - Pegasus ShoesHe also told me that a helpful item is hidden in a cave on the east side of Lake Hylia. I went to check it out and I got a cool ice rod.

Getting the ice rod in Zelda LTTPThat’s all for today, but this Link to the Past will continue in the future. See you next time.