Hello my friend, why don’t you come on in? Have you got some time to share me for a cup of coffee? Or would you like a cup of tea? It’s that time of the week again, time to chat about handheld gaming news!
Mega Stones for four new Pokémon
Pokémon Sun and Moon are keeping us interested! A new Mega Stone giveaway has started giving players the chance to Mega Evolve their Pokémon into powerful forms. This time you can get Stones for Mawile, Beedrill, Audino and Medicham. Just enter the code INTIMIDATE into your game on the opening screen.
Select Mystery Gift on the main menu, then select Receive Gift. Then, select Get with Code/Password, choose Yes, and then Yes again to connect to the Internet. After you enter your code, you’ll get the Mega Stones.
It’s a worldwide event without a set end date, in May this code will also be used for Mega Stones to use on Steelix and Pidgeot. 
SINoAlice looking interesting indeed
Some weeks ago I mentioned the mobile game SINoALICE that is being made by creative director Yoko Taro together with NieR composer Keiichi Okabe. The fairytale characters in SINoALICE all share the wish of “reviving the author,” and they’ll help each other out at times but also kill each other too. Sounds interesting, right?
Trying to explain what it’s all about I’ve included this trailer. The games’ release in Japan isn’t far off (June 2017). Let’s wait and see if news will follow for a Western release.
For fans of Happy Home Designer
If you love Animal Crossing you’ll no doubt know it’s spin off, Happy Home Designer. You got to see all your favourite animals again, and collecting the huge array of decorative materials and furniture was a blast. Years ago I mentioned a game that is so clearly inspired by Animal Crossing, but this time for mobile. Castaway Paradise isn’t nearly as stellar as the original it’s tailored after, but a nice mobile game nonetheless. (find the original article here).
Now the developers have taken Animal Crossings’ spin off and have made a home designer game of their own: Castaway Home Designer. this is what Gamezebo has to say about the game:
With at least 1,000 different items to collect and use to decorate the interiors of the homes, shops and gathering sites of your village there’s a lot of variety in Castaway Home Designer. Completing the objectives for each building adds an impressive layer of challenge to the game. The challenge only increases as the number of buildings you are responsible for decorating and furnishing increases. If you’re looking to maximize returns, meeting the objectives in style still won’t be enough. You’ll also need to really get to know the unique preferences of each building owner/inhabitant.
Sounds good, but they also note that the progress can be very, very slow if you want to play the game for free. Still, it will be something to tide you over until Nintendo finally releases the mobile Animal Crossing game we have been waiting for for ages. The game is available now in the iOS App Store, no release yet on Android though. 
Pokémon Go wins BAFTA award for best mobile game
Last week the British Academy Gaming Awards where given, and Pokémon Go was the winner in Best Mobile Game. It was a contender as well for the most innovative game and in best family game, but in those categories ‘That dragon, cancer’ and respectively ‘Overcooked’ won the award.
Still, we can safely say Pokémon Go changed mobile gaming in the past year, even though reports show that four out of five people that took up the game have stopped playing. The charts below by Insider show the decline of the active player base in the US. Interesting to see that 60% of players are between 18 and 34 year old. Not the teens you’d expect!
IGN reports that the mobile game still has 65 million monthly users worldwide, and that new co-op content is coming to the game. Now that would be great!
Lego City Undercover now released for the Switch
One of the game I loved on my WiiU was Lego City Undercover. The tongue in cheek humor, the vastness of the city you can explore, the assignments Chase gets. It’s one of the games that I hated to put down. Now, the game is re-released specifically for the Switch. The one things players didn’t like about the game were the loading times. And I’ve heard say that they are a bit better on the Switch but still not great.
Still, if I get a Switch, this is a game that I’m seriously considering buying again. Which is a testimony about how much I liked it. Even though I had a hard time driving through the streets of San Francisco as I wrote about here. You can imagine how Lego City’s citizens felt…
Enough for this week I think. I’m still playing Story of Seasons and Layton versus Phoenix Wright, but to be honest not a lot. I was much more into reading this week, reading the Grey Whale Inn mysteries by Karen McInerney. Pretty relaxing stories about the very relatable Natalie who runs an inn on a remote island. Still, the amount of murders on such a small island is quite shocking!
Thanks for reading, and have a happy gaming weekend!
Yeah, I’ve heard of SinOAlice. It looks pretty interesting.
Just going to warn you, it’s likely going to be very dark, as Yoko Taro is considered to be the Gen Urobuchi of the game industry, as, in their works, a lot of people die. And go through pretty brutal things. I’d happily recommend NieR: Automata, though! It’s a good game.
Thanks for the warning! There’s a lot of internet interest for NieR, isn’t there? I’ve seen it mentioned a lot while I keep an eye on the gaming news sites. A bit of a dark game too, isn’t it?
Yep! Thankfully, for the most part, the extremely dark stuff is in the manual. And by that, I mean many short stories written by Yoko himself.
NieR and it’s older brother, Drakengard, are cult classics around the internet. Even though NieR and Drakengard don’t have the greatest gameplay, they get the following they get because of the well-written stories they tell.
It’s worth mentioning that SinOAlice’s fairy-tale theme and concept is very similar to the earlier versions of NieR, which focused on fairy tales. Yoko seems to have a liking for that stuff.
Thanks for the background info, I didn’t know all of that!
Surprised Pokemon Go is still so huge, but then again, Pokemon has never really left the spotlight. I see a lot of people wearing the Poke-bracelets and most of them were in their ~30s! I don’t think augmented reality resonated as much with the younger crowd, because they didn’t grow up playing with black and white sprites on a Gameboy. Seems to have resonated mostly with the crowd who played Pokemon back in the 90s.
I haven’t played in a while but I still love the concept and what it did for the franchise!
I’ve found that it captured the hearts of formerly non gamers as well. I know of four players in my real world vicinity who are still avidly trying to catch them. People that never played anything before. I like that!
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