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Moco Moco Friends Review

November 21, 2015 Jen Ný Gaming No comments

Moco Moco Friends is a new RPG for the Nintendo 3DS developed by Racjin and published by Aksys Games. This game is set in the world of Dreamtopia, a magical place inhabited by adorable creatures called Plushkins, which resemble stuffed animals. You play as a witch named Moco who has just graduated from Plushkin Magic School. Your goal is to become the world’s greatest Plushkin Master.

Moco Moco Friends is similar to Pokemon, in that you collect and battle monsters. You can clearly see how the designs for some of the Plushkins were inspired by Pokemon (compare Scrunchie with Pikachu, for an obvious example). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however.

Most of the game revolves around exploring dungeons and battling enemy Plushkins. You can take a team of up to three Plushkins with you, with one additional substitute Plushkin in reserve. The rest of your Plushkins are stored in the Plushkin House in town. To acquire more Plushkin friends, you can sometimes make contracts with them after defeating them in battle. You can also summon new Plushkins by giving yarn to your mentor, Michiru’s Plushkin Konpei. There are a total of 120 Plushkins to befriend.

During battle, you can attack, use an item, or rearrange your Plushkins’ formation (which allows you to switch an active Plushkin for your substitute Plushkin or reorder your active Plushkins). You may use one item per turn and each Plushkin can use one of their moves. The moves are a lot like the move in similar games, such as Pokemon. Each Plushkin can learn up to four moves, and you can switch older moves out as they level up and learn new moves (sound familiar?). There is also an “auto” option that allows you to have the game automatically choose moves for you, but I don’t recommend using it, as it would take the fun out of the battle. As the Plushkins take damage, bits of stuffing start to come out of their bodies.

At the end of the battle, sometimes one of the Plushkins you have defeated will want to make a contract with you and become your friend. If you are battling a Plushkin that you really want to be friends with, you can give it an item during battle that will increase the likelihood of it wanting to become your friend.

The dungeons are pretty simple (so far at least. I’m still early in the game). You battle your way through a couple floors until you get to the floor containing the boss battle. All of the dungeons I’ve been in so far have been pretty small, though I’m guessing they will get bigger and more complicated as the game progresses. You can revisit dungeons that you have completed as many times as you want to gather more items or to befriend Plushkins that you might have missed.

In town you will find businesses that let you do things such as training your Plushkins, sewing new items, and gardening to create materials. You will also get new quests to progress the story from Michiru and from townspeople called Gurumins.

The graphics are cute, but simple. You will notice lots of fabric- and knit-themed textures throughout the game. The graphical style reminds me a bit of Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Yoshi’s Woolly World.

Aside from Pokemon, comparisons have also been made between Moco Moco Friends and Yo Kai Watch. I haven’t played Yo Kai Watch, so I can’t comment on any similarities.

I haven’t seen much advertising or many reviews for Moco Moco Friends. The only reason I even knew about this game was because Amazon showed it to me as an item I may be interested in. (A game about a witch who trains adorable creatures that look like plushies? Sign me up!)

So far, I am really enjoying Moco Moco Friends. While it isn’t Pokemon, it is still a fun monster collecting RPG. Though the gameplay is simple, there is still plenty to do to keep you entertained. Overall, this game is worth playing if you are a fan of Japanese RPGs and enjoy super cute things. If you are looking for a cute RPG, give Moco Moco Friends a try.

3D Printed Pokemon Planters

November 19, 2015 Jen Ný Figures and Toys No comments

I recently decided that I needed some house plants, so I got a few 3D printed Pokemon planters from Etsy. I got the obvious Bulbasaur and Oddish, plus Chikorita, which has always been one of my favorite Pokemon.

Since I’m not much of a green thumb, I decided to go with succulents, cacti, and an air plant. These types of plants are supposed to be easy to take care of and difficult to kill. The planters are a bit small, so these plants may need to be transplanted to bigger containers eventually, however.

The Bulbasaur planter is really awesome. I bought this little guy from Etsy seller 3DUniPrint. It’s a high quality print and has a drainage hole on the bottom so I won’t drown my plant if I over-water it. I originally kept the plant with its original plastic pot sitting inside Bulbasaur, but then decided to just re-pot it directly inside of Bulbasaur using better cacti potting mix.

I got my Oddish and Chikorita planters from Etsy seller MultiForm3D. They aren’t as nice looking as Bulbasaur. They are both kind of rough around the edges. Chikorita has a weird bump around the top, and Oddish has a weird discoloration on his face. The discoloration is present on both Oddishes, so I believe it is an artifact from the printing process.

My first Oddish had his foot broken off in transit, but the seller was nice enough to send a replacement. Oddish didn’t have drainage holes on the bottom, so I used the broken one to see if I could drill holes in it without cracking the plastic. Since the drilling was successful, I added drainage holes to the second one and super glued the foot back onto the broken Oddish. The foot came off again after the first super-gluing attempt, but the second attempt seems to be holding.

The opening on the Chikorita planter is too small for any regular potted plants I’ve seen, so I filled it with stones and got a small air plant to stick on top of its head. It looks cute, but the plant had a tendency to fall off sometimes. It would have been better if they had made this planter just a little bit bigger so that small plants that come in 2″ pots would fit.

I also got another cactus that wouldn’t fit in the Oddish planters, so I got a bigger ceramic planter and added a plastic Maractus and Cacnea figurine to keep with the Pokemon theme.

I’m thinking about getting a Venus fly trap later on and planting it in a similar way with a Carnivine figurine. I might wait and see how these plants do before getting types that need watered more often. If these plants do well for me throughout the winter, I will get some more types in the spring.

Don’t Buy Cacti from Home Depot

November 12, 2015 Jen Ný Cool Story Bro No comments

Angel Cactus in Oddish Planter with R2D2

I decided to get some house plants recently. I got a few cute Pokemon planters from Etsy and wanted some plants to put in them. I decided to go with cacti and succulents since they are supposed to be difficult to kill.

I bought two cacti at Home Depot earlier this week. When I got home and went to re-pot them, I found that one of them was already dead. The Copper King cactus I bought barely had any roots attached and upon closer inspection, was hollow inside. I’m not sure the employees there ever actually water the plants.

I also realized that the flowers on each of the cacti were fake and glued on. Apparently this is a common practice at big box stores like Home Depot, Lowes, and Walmart. They glue dyed straw flowers to cacti to attract buyers, since people like colorful things. They are taking advantage of people who don’t know a lot about plants. Having random things glued on can’t be very good for the plant either. It’s like if a pet store were to glue a wig onto a dog to make it look fluffier.

I ended up returning the dead cactus and removing the fake flower from the living one. I should have thought to look closer at the plants before I bought them, especially after seeing some other plants in the store that were painted odd and unnatural colors. It just never occurred to me that a well-known store like that would do something so underhanded. Lesson learned. From now on, I will be buying all of my plants from local nurseries.

Here’s the dead Copper King. After researching online, I found that it’s supposed to be green in the middle with coppery brown spines. This one is brownish all the way through. While looking closely through the spines, I noticed a few holes in the body. It was hollow! Also notice the glue under the straw flower.

Here’s the Angel Wing cactus with the fake flower, and then without. After just a little bit of research on these cacti, it is pretty obvious that it’s a fake flower. I managed to get it off with minimal damage by heating up a knife and carefully cutting at the glue. The final bits of glue on the top of the cactus came right off as I pulled on the last bit of glue holding the flower on after cutting through most of the glue. Ignore the R2-D2 measuring cups in the background. Actually, don’t ignore them. They’re awesome!

Have you ever seen an Oddish with a cactus on his head? A leafy plant would have made more sense, but cacti are awesome!

Pumpkaboo Cosplay and Nyancon 2015

October 5, 2015 Jen Ný Cosplay No comments

We went to Nyancon this past weekend. Nyancon is a free one-day local convention at Lakeland Community College. Even though it is small, only lasts one day, and has free admission, Nyancon is still better than some paid multi-day conventions I’ve been to (I’m looking at you, Shinbokucon!).

There were a lot of different panels going on at any given time, so there was almost always something interesting going on. There were also several different screening rooms, though we didn’t check any of them out (I’d rather spend convention time doing other things, and watch anime at home). The only thing I didn’t like was how crowded the dealer’s room got. The aisles were way too narrow for the amount of people there.

My favorite panel that we went to was Pixlbot’s Retro Game Challenge. It started off with the contestants playing Super Mario Bros. 1-1 with a dance mat instead of a controller. After that challenge, they had to play through several pretty evil Mario Maker levels created by the panelists.

During the week leading up to Nyancon, I decided to put together a Pumpkaboo cosplay to wear to the con and for whatever Halloween events I end up going to. The only new thing I made just for this costume was the headband. I also used the cape I made for my Dragon’s Crown elf cosplay, the boots I got for my Skyrim cosplay, a brown skirt and vaguely medieval-looking belt I already had, an orange dress I bought just for this cosplay, a belt, and two potion bottles filled with yellow sand tied to the belt. I thought potion bottles would be the coolest looking thing to use to represent the yellow circles on Pumpkaboo’s body for a human version of Pumpkaboo. It’s sort of like a Pumpkaboo-themed witch! I also got a pumpkin basket and tied to amber potion bottles too it and brought my Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist plushies that I made last year for Halloween. I thought it turned out pretty good for being mostly a closet cosplay.

Lately I’ve been enjoying gijinka types of cosplay (well… just Pokemon) more than regular cosplay. It’s fun to think of how to design a human outfit for plant- or animal-like characters than to just try to match what a character is wearing.

Anyway, Nyancon was really fun, despite being so small. I think I like smaller conventions better than the larger ones anyway. Smaller cons are less crowded, more relaxed, and have much shorter lines. They tend to be more fun, as long as there is enough interesting programming to keep everyone entertained.

Midoricon 2015

September 29, 2015 Jen Ný Cosplay No comments

We went to Midoricon over the weekend. This was Midoricon’s fourth year, as well as the fourth year Hans and I attended. This year we cosplayed as Inklings from Splatoon on Friday and part of Saturday and Pokemon for the Pokemon events on Saturday. I was Sylveon and Hans was Lucario again.

I didn’t bother making a whole new cosplay for this con this year. I adapted my Sylveon cosplay a bit to be more weather-appropriate. With as many layers as my Sylveon costume was, I didn’t want to overheat in September. I didn’t use the top layer of the costume, and attached the bow and tail to the under layer. I think it still looks cute this way!

For the Inkling, I just used my Inkling hat that I bought on Etsy and a pink polo shirt and workout shorts with a pink stripe. I brought my Splatoon squid plushie to the con so that I’d at least have omething I made myself for this costume!

Midoricon is a lot different than most other conventions. It takes place at a lodge in a state park. For the past two years it has been at Maumee Bay State Park in Oregon, Ohio. It is a lot less crowded and more relaxed than other conventions and there are a lot of outdoor events. Midoricon is my favorite convention that I’ve been to, and if I had to pick on con to go to a year, this would be it.

That said, I think it was better last year. It seemed like there were less people there this year, which makes me worry that the organizers might decide to stop doing this convention. They pushed the date back a few weeks this year, so it might have conflicted with people going back to school.

We got there Friday night, so we missed the Live Action Mario Kart event, which was earlier in the day. We did get to do the Live Action Pokemon Snap on Saturday, though.

I think there were fewer Pokemon cosplayers at the Pokemon photoshoot and Pokemon Snap event this year. It was still fun, though. It’s hard to not have fun being a Pokemon in a game of Live Action Pokemon Snap!

They had the Pokemon Gym Leader Challenge event again this year, but it was on Sunday. We didn’t participate because it was after we checked out from our room and we didn’t want to have to change into regular clothes in the bathroom. I feel like they really should have had all of the Pokemon cosplay events on the same day, so that people could just stay in costume for all of them.

The dealer’s room was awesome, as always. I got a Kyubey plushie, a pink sheep plushie, and a rainbow narwhal plushie. The dealer’s room was smaller than at other cons, but it still had plenty of cool stuff. I managed to find two of the specific things I was looking for (Kyubey and the Amuse sheep plushie). Like at all cons, there were some good deals and some overpriced items. Luckily, my phone reception was good enough to compare prices online!

I’m hoping that next year they take everyone’s feedback into account and make Midoricon even better. I would really hate to see such an awesome convention go down hill. I hope to be able to attend Midoricon for years to come!

We’re going to be a Nyancon this weekend too. It’s a free one-day convention at Lakeland Community College. I will be there as Pumpkaboo if I can get my last-minute cosplay ready by this weekend.

Cynthia Pokemon Center Nendoroid Review

September 7, 2015 Jen Ný Figures and Toys No comments

I have so many figures in my ever expanding collection, I might as well start reviewing some of them on my blog. I just got the Pokemon Center Cynthia Nendoroid from Good Smile. I missed out on the Red Nendoroid, so made sure to get Cynthia before she got too hard to find. Since she is one of the few Nendoroids available in the United States, I just waited for the US version. I bought her from the Pokemon Center on Amazon instead of from the Pokemon Center website for the free two day Prime shipping.

She looks awesome, but doesn’t have as many parts and accessories as most other Nendoroids. She has two faces, a couple extra arms, and one extra leg. The only accessory she comes with to hold is a Pokeball, but she does come with her Garchomp, which more than makes up for the lack of other accessories. It would have been nice if she had one more face, but I’ll probably use the default open-eyed face most of the time anyway.

Garchomp’s arms, legs, and head move to allow him to be posed in different ways. He doesn’t have any extra parts, however. I think it would have been cool if he had an extra head with a different facial expression (maybe a closed mouth), but I guess since he’s considered an accessory for this figure, that might be asking a bit too much.

The paint applications on both figures look great. I didn’t notice any major issues with the paint on either figure. The only slight problem I noticed so far with either figures is that Garchomp’s arm fall off easily when trying to pose him.

The box seems cheaper than the other Nendoroids I have because it lacks a clear plastic window. I’m not sure if that is just how the American versions are made or not, of if it is just this particular figure.

All in all, Cynthia is a worthwhile figure to add to your collection. Just make sure to get her before you’re forced to pay scalper prices! I will most likely get the N Nendoroid when he comes to the US too. I’m still holding out hope that they will rerelease Red due to his popularity. For future Pokemon Nendoroid releases, I’m hoping for Misty, Gym Leader Erika, and Gym Leader Sabrina. Misty with an extra mermaid body would be amazing!

Ditto Plush

August 28, 2015 Jen Ný Cosplay, Sewing No comments

I got bored and made a Ditto plush doll yesterday. He only took about an hour or so to make. I used a pink fleece material for the body, purple buttons for eyes (I didn’t have black), and a thin black rope for the mouth. He is stuffed with Poly-Fil stuffing.

I made the pattern by drawing the basic shape of Ditto onto regular computer paper (while looking at Ditto’s entry in the Pokedex 3D Pro app on 3DS). I also cut a vaguely oval-shaped piece of paper to make the base, then matched it up to the main pattern pieces and cut it down until it was the perfect size. I cut out two Ditto-shaped pieces of fleece and one oval piece for the base. I sewed the eyes and original mouth onto one body piece before sewing them all together.

I originally made the mouth out of pink ribbon, but didn’t like how it looked. I saw that I had some black rope that might look better as a mouth, so I took a seam-ripper and removed the ribbon, then sewed the rope onto the plushie by hand.

Groot Mii QR Code

August 8, 2015 Jen Ný Freebies, Gaming No comments

After I got my New 3DS XL, I decided to use my old 3DS to give myself more Streetpasses. I made a Mii of Groot for that 3DS’s Streetpass. I haven’t put Groot into Tomodachi Life or Smash Bros yet, but he does have his own Pokemon Rumble World game save (partially to farm for Poké Diamond).

Feel free to scan Groot into your 3DS. You can use him in Tomodachi Life, Super Smash Brothers, or any other games that use Miis.

Let me know in the comments in how you have used my Groot Mii!

Here he is with Rocket Zigzagoon.

Kanto Pokedex New 3DS XL

August 7, 2015 Jen Ný Gaming One comment

I was originally going to wait and see if either a pink New Nintendo 3DS XL or a limited edition that I actually like came out to upgrade, but then I found these awesome decals to turn a red 3DS XL into a Pokedex and realized that there was probably never going to be a 3DS design that is this awesome!

Initially I was hesitant to get an XL, and was hoping that the smaller New 3D would come out in the US so I could try them both out before buying. Being a female, I have limited pocket space and I can already barely fit the smaller 3DS in my pocket (small pockets are a scam to also sell us purses, I swear!) and I was afraid that games would look too blurry being stretched out on the bigger screen.

I’ve had my New Nintendo 3DS XL for about a week now, and I can honestly say, it’s difficult to go back to playing on the smaller screen. Games are noticeably blurrier, but I got used to it pretty quickly. The only time I really notice it is when I check the Streetpasses on the old one and then switch back to the new one (I kept my old launch 3DS, transferred everything to the new one, and put a new Mii on the old one to get extra Streetpasses).

So far, I haven’t really used the little analog nub, other than briefly in Majora’s Mask, so I can’t comment on how useful it really is.

The head tracking for the 3D effect works pretty well. Sometimes it can still get funky though if I am holding the 3DS at a weird angle, but it is still a big improvement. The 3D effects look better on the bigger screen as well.

This decal makes it the next best thing to an actual limited edition Kanto Pokedex 3DS. I don’t think that I will ever see an actual special edition 3DS that is as awesome as this!

I also made a felt case for it to keep it from getting scratched in my purse. I think my Pokeball 3DS pouch matches my Pokedex 3DS quite nicely.

I got the decal from argibi on etsy and the pattern to make the pouch from Otaku Crafts.

Pokemon ORAS: My Secret Base

December 18, 2014 Jen Ný Gaming No comments

Nii's Secret Base Team - Amaura, Sylveon, Jigglypuff

If you have Pokemon Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire, come check out my super secret base!

Ruby and Sapphire were the only Pokemon generation I missed out on, so I was pretty excited to get the remake. I still think the starters for this generation are kinda lame compared to every other generation, though. I picked Treecko since his final evolution looked the coolest to me, but I ended up breeding an extra Mudkip and Torchic in Pokemon X to transfer over anyway. One of these days I’ll breed extras of the starters from the rest of the Pokemon generations to send to my Omega Ruby game.

Anyway, I’m still not entirely sure what the point of the secret bases are, other than for fun, but I like collecting the items for my base and decorating it. It almost makes up for not being able to customize your character like you could in X and Y.

My super secret base is located on route 120, right here:

Once inside, my base looks like this:

I have almost as many Pokemon plushies in my super secret base as I do in my real-life living room! Don’t forget to take my flag before you leave.

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