Uniqlo / Nintendo t-shirt competition

If you are someone who:

a) likes Nintendo
b) has artistic talent
c) can design a t-shirt

You need to look here!

https://www.uniqlo.com/utgp/2017/us/

(also: funky video)

It's a worldwide competition to design a new Nintendo-themed t-shirt for Uniqlo.

You can win $10000 and a Nintendo NX (or whatever the finished product will be called), signed by Shigeru Miyamoto!

The design requirements are quite strict, so read carefully!

Pokemon Rumble U - first impressions

Pokemon Rumble U just came out here in Europe, so I bought a copy, on a spur of the moment thing. 

It's a downloadable Wii U action game where you control a little Pokemon figure, to go into an arena with 3 other Pokemon figures on your side, and fight dozens of enemy Pokemon figures. Sometimes enemies turn into coins when they are beaten, sometimes they turn into capsules containing new toys to add to your army.

The new toys are more and more powerful as you progress.

You can theoretically collect all 649 Pokemon in this game.

There's also a feature where you can use special real-life Pokemon figures in the game, using data transferred by NFC. Unlike the ones you win in battle, these can be powered up, and can be taught new moves. You can also take your Pokemon with you to a friend's house, and use it there. I think this is like the Skylanders games, and the upcoming Disney Infinity.

The special edition I got comes with 2 Pokemon gacha figures - one Black or White Kyurem legendary, and one normal Pokemon. I also bought 2 gachas separately. So I have a White Kyurem, Pikachu, Litwick, and Lucario. Kyurem is 10 times more powerful than the others, starting out. It also comes with a fold out poster which I haven't bothered to fold out. It's a very big box for a downloadable game!

Pokemon Rumble U appears to be exclusive to GAME here in the U.K. - the normal edition is £13.49, the special edition is £19.99 and the gacha figures are £3.99 each.

My thoughts so far - 

1. Pokemon Rumble U NFC figures are super cute, they are all low-polygon and adorable.
2. The game looks very pretty
3. It's very repetitive. Each level is a circular arena with hordes of enemies to beat. Not like the 3DS game where there were different terrains to explore.
4. Not much of a story really. I mean, there is one, but it's very shallow.
5. Not sure whether this is a complaint about the game or the Wii U in general - the gamepad's power ran out far too quickly. Perhaps it's all the NFC stuff, maybe it's just that the gamepad battery doesn't last very long anyway.
6. I don't think there's anything to spend your in-game coins on if you aren't playing with NFCs.
7. Using NFC figures gives the game an unnatural progression in terms of balance. Without them, you are limited to using a Pokemon which is at most as powerful as the toughest thing you beat. You'll swap around from level to level, and collecting 'em all will benefit you. With NFC figures, you are limited to whatever power you could buy - which may well be far beyond the toughest thing you've beaten (making the game super easy), and you will probably want to stick with just your NFC Pokemon as you power them up (switching them depending on type), which I think will make collecting less interesting. But I suppose that depends on the player.
8. The game is very sparse on instructions. It doesn't, for example, let you know how to actually use the NFC figures in battle. There's an option in the main menu to scan them in, and power them up, but when you exit out of that and go into the game, looking at your army of Pokemon, the ones you scanned in aren't there. There are no instructions to say how to add them, either. You have to re-scan them on the character select screen in order to choose them.

On one hand I feel like I've barely scratched the surface, because I'm slowly seeing new features as I progress. On the other hand, I feel like I'm already doing the same thing over and over, possibly because the urge to redo levels to "catch 'em all" is great.

There will be passwords for this game published in Official Nintendo Magazine, and on twitter. The first is 87818558 for a Samurott: http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/53425/first-pokemon-rumble-u-password-revealed-unlock-samurott-now/

Pokemon Black and White - UK events

Here's the list of remaining events for Pokemon Black and White in the UK:

Pokemon UK Black & White events

26/02/2011 - 27/02/2011:

Glasgow Fort - 285 Provan Walk, Glasgow Fort Shopping Centre, Junction 10 - M8, Glasgow, G34 9DY
Brighton - 43-44 Western Road, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 2EB
Preston - Unit 8, Fishergate Centre, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8HJ
London Hamleys - 188-196 Regent Street, , London, , W1B 5BT
Reading - Unit 18, Oracle Shopping Centre Reading, Berkshire, RG1 2AQ

I went to one at a branch of GAME in Meadowhall, Sheffield last weekend. Mainly because everyone who brought along their DS and a recent pokemon game could download a free celebi. I got three of them - one for HeartGold, one for SoulSilver and one for Diamond. :)

This celebi unlocks a cool story event in HG and SS. Also, when a player transfers this celebi and the three shiny HG/SS legendaries to whichever version they choose of the new game, some kind of special event happens. I wish I could store more than 3 Wonder Cards. I've currently got one for Mew, one for Jirachi and one for Celebi, and it seems a pity to have to delete one just for the Johto trio. :/

There were four pokemon Black & White demo machines available. They weren't demonstrating the game on Nintendo 3DS, but on DS lites. (Though they had one in the store and the games have special features that are enabled on 3DS). The demo cartridges were unusually long!

I played the demo of Black (it was too crowded to choose which to play). The demo was quite short; you are a trainer with a level 25 [starter pokemon]. All the menus seemed to be disabled except for one that detected other B & W players nearby. You battle someone, someone else, and go to Dragonspiral Tower to see the legendary of the game. It says "The legendary pokemon have appeared at last. What could they want? A new adventure awaits!" and fades to black, and restarts itself with a different random trainer and starter pokemon.

I didn't learn much from the demo other than there are new pokemon, new legendaries, new setting.

But is there really anything more you could want in a pokemon demo? :)

There was also a special pokemon artist at the event who was painting pictures of the new game starters on people. She was really really good! I didn't ask for one to be painted on me, though!

The only shop I have seen in the UK selling Pokemon Black and White with preorder bonuses is Toys R Us (online), so I have preordered a copy of each game from them. It's just an accessory pack, but that might be good. :)

My Pokémon SoulSilver / Pokéwalker adventures

I bought myself a copy of Pokemon SoulSilver when it came out... and a month of waiting and an insurance claim with the postal service later... [sigh...] I got the game (and HeartGold for my brother).

I really like this remake. Well, I confess - I never actually played Pokemon Silver on Gameboy Color, I started playing Pokemon Crystal sometime last year, which was the culmination / enhanced version of Gold and Silver. And still, that game is so clumsy and the interfaces are so bad compared with recent pokemon games. So, compared to Pokemon Crystal, this is a great remake.

The original games on the Gameboy Color were severely restricted due to memory constraints on the cartridge, and it really showed. Names of items were abbreviated, making them somewhat cryptic sometimes. I found myself having to choose what to discard from my backpack far too often. I found myself having to choose which people to delete from my phone book, not knowing whether the next person would be a useful contact. And there wasn't nearly enough space to store pokemon if you were seriously collecting them. Biggest of all - and I might be wrong about it because I didn't play far enough to see and this is what I've heard - the story in the game included a massive disaster in the Pokemon world... because it was a convenient way to exclude half a region from appearing in the game.

It was clear to me that Pokemon Crystal is a really good pokemon game, and it was massive and advanced for a Gameboy Color game, but here in the 21st century, the awkwardnesses of the interface meant that after a while I stopped playing and waited for these remakes to come out in English.

Pokemon SoulSilver was worth the wait. The game is just that much more pleasant to play, and the balance has been struck well - everything from the original is retained and mini-games and things have been added for fun (I am addicted to the Pokeathlon), but they are completely optional if you don't feel like doing them or want to play in the same way as with the old games. The memory restrictions I mentioned are lifted. And, there is the Pokewalker accessory, for exercise and free pokemon / items!

So today, I finished the Johto region Pokemon League for the first time. I even spent the last week carefully training up a "swinub" from hatching from an egg right the way through and looked up how to evolve it through a "piloswine" to becoming a "mamoswine", just to defeat a trainer with dragon pokemon. (My mamoswine is named Calippo, but I think I should have called it SlushPuppy because its type is ground ice).

And... I watched the end credits, but I still have a long way to go in the game! I have earned one more badge since then, in the Kanto region.

Fun times! The Pokemon world is just such a nice place. The pokemon fit in their environment for the most part very thoughtfully (considering real-world wildlife habitats and behaviors), everyone in the pokemon world is so obsessed with pokemon... but that is an important part of the magic of making the pokemon world constantly feel like somewhere really special.

And so, onto the Pokewalker. I love the pokewalker. It's a little pedometer that you can download one of your pokemon to, and go for "a stroll" together. You can catch pokemon or search for items in exchange for "watts", which are kind of like a payment you are rewarded for walking. Very simple interface, three buttons and an old-style black-on-silver screen. All the same, it comes with a 200+ page manual if you're in Europe, telling you how to change the batteries in every language ever. :P

The pokewalker is just a brilliant device, for me. In my mind, as I walk in the real world with my pokemon literally being a "pocket monster", it gives the real world a little bit of the pleasantness and magic of the pokemon world which just makes me feel lighthearted. And, you get rarer / better items from walking further each day. There has never been quite as good a motivator for a bit of exercise than being given free rare pokemon items! Haha, this beats Wii Fit hands down! I've walked nearly 200000 steps already! Ok, maybe I'm a bit pokemon-crazy, but I really think the Pokewalker is a great addition to this game. :)

My extra life

I was browsing games in a branch of Gamestation today, decided to buy a second-hand copy of Super Mario Galaxy for £14.99 because it was on special offer, and when I got to the till I saw they were selling Zelda Mints (a tin of mints shaped like Link's shield), and Mario Mushrooms with sweets in. I thought to myself "I could do with an extra life" so I bought a green mario mushroom (£2.49). ^_^



There were red ones and blue ones available too, but I thought "I am big enough already, and... aren't the blue ones poison mushrooms??"

The red ones are strawberry flavour sweets, the blue ones are raspberry and the green one is apple. Mostly the tin is cool, though!

You take it's lid off and eat its brains, like a good little zombie. ^_^