Friday’s Cup of Coffee, wk 5

Come in, come in! What do you think, is the banner my daughter made nice enough to drink our coffee under? And Britta, no problem, I can serve tea too! And don’t worry, the autumn leaves won’t fall and spoil our drinks! I’m very happy with it, these are all my favourite colours. I’ve asked her to spruce it up for every new season, which should give us something new to look at while drinking our coffee every few months.

• Lots of gaming news this week! I’ve mentioned you will be able to pre-register for Miitomo soon, starting February 17 which should give us a nice bonus (I hope). Nintendo presented their Q3 financial results, and although they were far from spectacular, their shares didn’t suffer: investors seem satisfied with the promises of the first mobile games, the launch of My Nintendo Account and more news about the NX to come soon. Kimishima also promised that the second mobile game won’t be a communication game like Miitomo, but will feature a well known IP.
• Finally, we have a release date: Return to PopoloCrois: A Story of Seasons Fairytale is scheduled to release in North America on March 1, 2016 for the Nintendo 3DS. The game will be available both physical and digital. That’s fairly soon, right? I’ve played my Japanese game for a bit, and here are my initial thoughts on the game.
• With Valentine coming up The Pokémon Company has found a special way to treat your gaming love. They are distributing special greeting cards that tie in nicely with the Pokémon they depict, like the examples I’ve picked here. Sweet huh? There’s a set of 12 physical cards in six varieties. You get Pikachu, Eevee, Mew, Espurr, Charmander, and Magikarp designs. Envelopes and color stickers you can use as seals are included for $17.50. See the Pokémon Centre for these.
  Aside from that, there are 42 images to be downloaded for free from Facebook. Now isn’t that a nice way to surprise your honey?

  

  

  

• Mid January we saw the release of a new Harvest Moon game, The Seeds of Memories. Not from the stable that originally made the series and that is continuing under Story of Seasons now. But from Natsume, who brought us the Lost Valley last year. Now I was enthusiastic about the Lost Valley, but I’ve since learned most people weren’t. To me it felt fresh, I liked the Minecraft-like approach to the landscaping. In this new game Natsume promises to go back to the roots of Harvest Moon, the classic gameplay. Now I haven’t played it myself, but I’ve read that the game will feel familiar like an old glove for HM fans. But that it can be quite a challenge to get the hang of it for people who haven’t played any HM games before, as the tutorial seems to be very sparse.
  Note though, if you want to try the game, that at the moment its only available in iOS, and you need an iPhone 5S or later, and iPad Air 1 or later, and iPad Mini 2 or later or and iPod Touch 6 or later devices. the game costs US 9,99 or EUR 9,99. It will soon be released on Android and later on WiiU too.

  

  

  

• Last night I was sad to hear that Maurice White had died at the age of 74 yrs old. Lately it seems that a lot of famous people from my youth have left us. Earth, Wind & Fire always had a special place in my heart, my first ever record was the single ‘ Fantasy’ . Good memories, listening to Ferry Maat’s Soulshow…Rest in peace, Maurice!

Thanks again for listening, let’s meet each other here again next week, alright? Be safe!