I’ve been playing KH3 on stream MWF for ... a few weeks now and yesterday afternoon I finally “beat” it. I beat the last boss on standard mode. I’m going to be as spoiler-free as I possibly can (I don’t really delve into the plot but I will talk about some of the different worlds that stuck out to me) but I will keep the rest under the cut so please do your best to scroll faster if you’re on mobile :P

I finished up Donut County  in about two sittings. It could have easily been done in one. However, don’t let that deter you from this adorable, clever, and just plain fun lil nugget of a game.

The developer who made this liked katamari damacy, and if you’re also  a Katamari Damacy fan, like me, you will also be charmed by this game.

You play as a hole. Wait, sort of. You play as a raccoon (mostly one named BK) who works at a donut shop. When someone ordered a donut, he would go on his tablet’s app and conduct a hole around the person’s home -- until the hole got big enough to swallow the entirety of the property.

The gameplay is extremely linear, with a few small detours for a steam badge or two. I was hoping there’d be levels+ or just a free-roam mode. Perhaps someday, but that’s just my wishful thinking.

Aside from the multitude of characters and silly plot line, another thing that sets it apart from a Katamari-like game cycle is the small puzzles worked in to the levels. At one point, you have to buy an upgrade and use it to complete a few levels. The only downside to this is that it’s completely scripted when and where you can use it. Still, scooping up all the bunnies and watching the hole get bigger because... the bunnies... love each other.. (and you know what happens when two bunns love each other very much!) was entertaining.

The length of the game is so short that even though I got the game on sale I feel it was a bit too short for the price. However, let me be clear - I am always in favor of supporting indie / small studio developers, and I do not consider it “far too much” for the gameplay.

Today I beat The World Ends With You on Nintendo Switch!

(( Warning, spoilers for the game below... but... it came out on the DS so.. eesh ))

For my set up, I have the Switch sitting on my desk and I use one of my PC monitors to play. I used a single joycon this way. The single thing that frustrated me was the connectivity and accuracy of the joycon. Keep in mind, I’m less than 2 feet from the Switch at all times with the controller.

In shops, I would click on an item and you have to like, drag it to the cash register. This was fine on the DS, but with the joycon I noticed about half the time it wasn’t registering that I was clicking the button, so the UI would do funky things, or I would accidentally click out of the shop or something.

That was only a mild annoyance though compared to when the joycons wouldn’t register the motions I was doing on the screen during battle. There are a few different ways to use the Pins, and for ones that would require pressing on open space, or pressing on a mob, it wouldn’t register that I was doing that the first few times. Most of the time it was just a shrug-off, but when you have bosses turning the screen into a bullet hell and you have to choose between dodging the boss or attacking them -> and your attacks do not go off at the precise moment <- that leads to deaths.

As far as the partner things were going with the joycons, I had a TON of trouble with the second partner, Joshua. His partner ability was activated when you swiped down vertically, and you had to be REALLY accurate. I swiped up and down with the joycon SO many times before it would only register one or two light-beams. Building his gauge up once he got the second part of his power (he moves from raining vehicles down onto your enemies to a single drop of light beam) was almost impossible for me.

Tin Pin, movement on the screen, partner mini-games for attacks, and other things that are kind of super-essential to the game were made just noticeably more difficult than they should have been.

So, that was one issue I had.

The other was the poor ports of some of the boss battles. I don’t want this to be a direct comparison to the DS version because I don’t really remember ALL that much of it, but for the first boss, for example, you have to send your partner to what was the top screen to get bats off the lights so you can see and damage the boss below. I immediately had no idea what I was doing, and continued to just flail the joycon around until I somehow beat it. You could chalk it up to my stupidity, but the game throwing brand new mechanics at you is nothing new.

The furry boss in particular was the most annoying thing and the one time I actually thought “wow this is just bad game design”. Her third phase she takes all your pins and you can’t do the attacking minigame with your partner, but you can summon them, and it’s just a bunch of swooshing into the boss in the hopes you damage her from what I gathered.

I’m *sure* there’s a real way to do it, but it just didn’t feel naturally learned, and that was frustrating.

Now onto things I enjoyed!

I really liked the background stories of the side characters. Beat was by far the most annoying but  his story was probably the most relatable in the long run (though Shiki came pretty close). I liked the nostalgia I felt while playing it, and I’m 100% sure they added some QoL improvements, though I still think they could have added a map of some sort. From one stream to the next I’d forgotten where I was meant to go xD.

I’ve beaten the game, and did the add-on story boss rush thing (albeit needing to do it on easy... shush!) and I still have to do the reports and remix mission, but I am looking forward to it.

>.> looking above, I guess it looks like I didn’t like things more than I did like things, but you gotta remember... I ONLY DISLIKED TWO THINGS and liked everything else! Just that one boss in particular, and the entirety of the joycons being stupid. Ah well, it made for a cute image didn’t it? :)

Odds and sods

- Getting the hang of the tin pin game was a lot of fun. I tend to go silent when I concentrate, so all of a sudden out of nothingness it’s just “WHAT!” and “REALLY?!”

- Matching shapes was a lot of fun

- I do not like anything about Joshua

- Beat has a stand-up comedy routine and I can’t help but feel it’d be mostly a Dane Cook ripoff

- Neku dropping his headphones on the ground was just RUDE those looked expensive + wireless??? yikes.

Can I reccommend this game? Yes

I reccommend this game to those of you who have played it on DS and want updated graphics, QoL changes, and a refresher to the surprising - though sometimes psych 101-y storyline. For newcomers, I can’t wait for you to experience the battle system. I remember when I first played it thinking how fun the battling was! And the fact that you can pick which pins you want based on what brand you like best, what attacks you like doing, etc. is all so much fun!

What price point would I feel good about buying this at? 25-30$ Keep in mind this game already came out at a pretty good price - $39.99, and for that I really didn’t mind picking it up again. I think it’s priced fairly as it’s essentially just an updated port of a game people have probably already played, but if you can get it on sale, I highly reccommend it. Especially so if you enjoy using your Switch. It’s probably a great game to play on the road, too!