Final Fantasy XIII-2 Trophy Guide

Welcome to the trophy guide for Final Fantasy XIII-2! This isn't as ridiculous as Final Fantasy XIII but there's still some tricky ones in this game. There's a LOT to do in order to achieve 100% and get every trophy. Ready to travel through time? Then let's get going!

Master of Time Mastered the timeline and obtained every trophy available.
As always, nab every trophy to gain this shiny platinum.

Early Riser Accepted a new fate in a world where everything has changed.
Story-related, can't be missed.

Time Traveler Left behind a normal life, and began a journey through time.
Story-related, can't be missed.

Future Espier Visited the place where clues to the future lie waiting to be discovered.
Story-related, can't be missed.

Past Gazer Visited the place where the saviors of the past dream in crystal.
Story-related, can't be missed.

Threat Facer Acknowledged the threat facing the world, and decided to fight back.
Story-related, can't be missed.

Sooth Seeker Prepared to face a test of your determination in the rift where hidden truths slumber.
Story-related, can't be missed.

Promise Keeper Turned your back on empty dreams and joined the battle to save mankind.
Story-related, can't be missed.

Trigger Finger Obtained five Cinematic Bonus rewards.
Sometimes in some battles, there's a chance to get a Cinematic Bonus, and by that it means that you do a short, simple QTE to deal more damage, or more likely, to finish off a boss. There are 5 bosses that require a QTE, and here they are:

Episode 2 - Bresha Ruins 5 AF: Paradox Alpha
Episode 2 - Bresha Ruins - 5 AF: Atlas (Weakened Version)
Episode 3 - Sunleth Waterscape 300 AF: Royal Ripeness (1st Battle)
Episode 4 - City of Academia 400 AF: Zenobia
Episode 4 - Augusta Tower 200 AF: Proto fal'Cie Adam (2nd Battle)

These aren't hard to perform, but if for some reason you find yourself unable to do it properly, just pause the battle and hit Retry in the menu to attempt the battle again.

Anomalous Witnessed every possible Paradox Ending.
In order to even get the ability to access Paradox Endings, you have to finish the game and defeat Caius and the 3 Bahumut dragons in the final battle. Afterwards, you can return to different times and close the gates in order to attempt to do events again, but different. I'll list the possible Paradox Endings and their unlock criteria below:

A Giant Mistake: Defeat Atlas at full power in Bresha Ruins 5 AF without solving the paradox first to weaken it significantly.

Vanille's Truth: Fight and defeat Caius in Oerba 200 AF, as normally Yeul intervenes and states that the future has already been changed.

Mischievous Mog's Marvelous Plan with Flan: Defeat Royal Ripeness in Sunleth Waterscape 300 AF without first defeating Faeryl to resolve the paradox.

Test Subjects: Defeat Proto fal'Cie Adam in Augusta Tower 200 AF with Paradox Scope active. Only main difference is that is has higher HP and is, as you'd expect, stronger and harder to defeat.

The Future is Hope: In Academia 4XX AF, with Paradox Scope activated and having closed the gate to replay the events, give Alyssa the cores as usual, making sure NOT to skip any cutscenes! When the Live Trigger happens, refuse the artefact to get the Paradox Ending.

Beneath a Timeless Sky: Have the Paradox Scope at the ready while you're in the Void Beyond, during the point where Noel and Serah are separated. Bear in mind that, as he's not only tougher, but it's only you (as Serah) and a single monster, make sure you're very highly developed. I'd recommend a strong monster like the Chichu if you've gotten it from the Archylte Steppe from a red flower patch near the initial entrance to the area, using the Improved Moogle Throw. It's small, but it eats through enemies like nothing once leveled and given the proper buffs and skills.

Heir to Chaos: In the Dying World, when you're playing solo as Noel and facing Caius, having Paradox Scope on will, as you'd expect, make Caius a very powerful enemy. Defeat him to actually kill him and unlock the ending.

Fate and Freedom: During Serah's endless dream, when Lightning offers her hand, accept it instead of denying it to get this Paradox Ending. Not sure if it requires the Paradox Scope or not, since you have the option in either scenario, but just to be safe, have it ready to go at a moment's notice.

The Goddess is Dead: Unlocked after collecting all 160 fragments and then completing the canon ending (The normal one where you face Caius and the 3 Bahamuts at the end)

Epic Finisher Followed the story to its conclusion.
Story-related, can't be missed.

Saddle Sore Went the distance on chocobo-back.
For this one, you have to take a cumulative amount of 10,000 steps while riding chocobos. You won't get the trophy until after you dismount, and I don't think there's any way to count so.. just ride, ride, ride. Ride on yellow ones if you can, since the other ones will slowly eat at your Greens.

Serendipitous Amassed a fortune in casino coins.
Win a total of 10,000 coins in Serendipitous. I don't know if it's cumulative or not, but just try to win big in the slots. Try to have your controller positioned so Auto-Play is held down (I believe that was L1, if I remember right). Just save beforehand just in case. I think you have to get a certain amount of coins from the slots in order to get a fragment so.. Best of luck.

Choco-boco-holic Spent a fortune at shops.
To get this, simply spend a cumulative total of 100,000 gil at Chocolina's shop.

Clock Stopper Responded swiftly to the appearance of enemies.
For this you have to get 100 consecutive preemptive strikes in a row, indicated by the message "GREAT!" appearing. I forget the place I grinded this, but I think it was one of the Bresha Ruins areas, since enemies were quick to dispose of and I think it was easy to get a hit on them. Just find a spot that you're good at getting preemptive strikes on, and keep on grinding. Try keeping track if you think you're making slow progress.

Fragmented Completed an entire fragment category.
See Defragmented.

Defragmented Completed every fragment category.
If exploring every place fully doesn't help you get everything, try looking up certain fragments. Also, you have to encounter/defeat every NON DLC monster, and explore every map 100%, as well as get the Paradox Endings to obtain all 160 fragments. Essentially, this trophy is necessary before you can actually get Anomalous.

Scarlet Medal Defeated a powerful enemy with graceful poise.
Achieve a 5-Star rank in a battle against Atlas. It doesn't matter if it's the weakened form or not, but probably a better idea to attempt this on the weakened form for the sake of time, you know?

Cerulean Medal Defeated a powerful enemy with graceful skill.
Achieve a 5-Star rank in the 2nd battle against Proto fal'Cie Adam. I would assume this means that you can't go into the 3rd battle by incorrectly answering the Live Trigger again (However, at some point, you need to reach the 3rd battle in order to get more entries for your Bestiary!)

Obsidian Medal Defeated a powerful enemy with perfect execution.
Achieve a 5-Star rank in the battle against Pacos Amethyst and Pacos Luvulite. Since everyone plays a bit differently, all I can say is to exploit their weaknesses, maybe using a Librascope so your AI can use the right attacks against them and not hit them with their signature elements. I don't think I had much trouble in this battle, but still, be careful.

Staggering Staggered a significant number of enemies.
For this one,you just have to achieve a total of 50 staggers on enemies. Considering that staggering is a very important process in a lot of battles, this should come very naturally to you as you trek through the game.

Quick-Draw Performed a significant number of preemptive strikes.
Start 50 battles with a preemptive strike. If you don't have this before you grind for Clock Stopper, you'll definitely have it after you work on that one.

Wild Thing Successfully used Feral Link abilities a significant number of times.
Use Feral Link at least 100 times. Using Feral Link is easy, and every monster has its own little QTE sequence, whether it's just one button or another method. Simply use it whenever you can and you'll have this in no time.

No Retreat Fought a significant number of battles without using the "Retry" option.
Go through 50 consecutive battles without hitting "Retry" in the pause menu. Very easy, just make sure in the beginning of the game, you don't run from anything, but don't fight anything you aren't able to take on (Such as the Proto-Behemoths early on in the game) unless you know you're ready.

Strategist Performed a multitude of paradigm shifts.
You have to perform 1,000 paradigm shifts. Not a small number by any means but you can always grind this out on very weak enemies if you wish, but since you'll be switching so often, I'd be surprised if you didn't have this by the end of the game, if not during your Paradox Ending quest.

Budding Hunter Defeated an army's worth of enemies.
Defeat 100 enemies. Yep, 100. Trust me, it won't take long for you to get this one.

Supreme Being Fully developed all abilities.
For this trophy, one character has to reach level 99 in all 6 of their Crystarium roles. It can be Noel, Serah, or even a monster, but.. definitely put priority on Noel and Serah, since they're more important (If they both die, game over). Not as hard as maxing out the Crystarium in FFXIII, but still takes some time.

Big Game Hunter Defeated every worthy opponent.
There are 4 bosses you have to face on the Archylte Steppe, each one I different weather conditions. Defeating these monsters is the key to obtaining more fragments, so ultimately you're going to have to face them if you want 100%. These monsters are:

Ochu, during rainy weather. A Long Gui during sunny weather. An Immortal during cloudy weather, and finally, Yomi, during stormy weather. I believe Yomi will only appear once you've defeated the other 3, but Yomi is the hardest anyway, so be ready for a tough fight.

Giant's Fist Dealt 99,999 damage with a single attack.
To be honest, I believe I followed this exact video to reach this goal, so.. I'm just going to share it, as I think a visual will work better for you all. Credit to PowerPyx for this video, it's wonderful!

Beast Tamer Befriended a most unfriendly monster.
You have to tame a Don Tonberry and have it join you. Easier said than done, naturally, for 2 reasons. 1. It's a rare monster, so making it spawn without Battlemania equipped is pretty much down to luck. And 2. It's rare, so taming it is hard.

I don't think it took me long to tame it but it's been a while. If it helps, this is one of the rare enemies that makes the screen go a bit weird and only appears as a swirling vortex to signify rare encounters. Don Tonberry can be found in Bresha Ruins 100 AF.

Fair Fighter Defeated a powerful enemy on equal terms.
You have to defeat a Raspatil in Oerba 400 AF, but you MUST be on Normal Mode when you fight it! Raspatil is another vortex-spawn enemy, so that can help you find it, whenever it finally appears. This was a really difficult enemy, even when maxed out. There was a video I followed but I completely forgot what one it was but I remember that there was a lot of Pain in it (which actually cuts HP bars down, like.. literally emptying the bar so you can't recover whatever spot is erased) but I know it was a tough one. But I'm sure you can do it, even if you need a video like I do.

Chronosavior Obtained the highest possible result in the battle to determine the fate of the world.
Achieve a 5-Star rank in the final battle against Jet, Garnet, and Amber Bahamut. Again, different strategies for different people, but I'm pretty sure the target time is pretty lenient. If I'm not wrong, the target time is about... 12 minutes. I think when I did this, I beat them in about 8 or so minutes. Just give it your best shot and take 'em down!

And that it's for the trophy guide of Final Fantasy XIII-2. Not as horrendously obnoxious as, say, Treasure Hunter from XIII, but it's still challenging as well. Either way, I really hope you can manage to get closer to another shiny platinum, and I'll see you again soon. Good luck!

*This game took me a total of 1 year and 2 months to complete, following a long hiatus after watching my sister play Lightning Returns and then I went to other games. My first trophy was "Early Riser" which was achieved on February 11th, 2014 at 5:57 PM. My final trophy was "Anomalous" which was achieved on May 4th, 2015 at 9:15 PM along with the platinum, "Master of Time." This platinum trophy is the 19th platinum trophy I have received.*

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Final Fantasy XIII-2

Not sure why it took me so long to return to Final Fantasy as far as the trophy guides go, but then again the last few were decided through random choice. Since I hadn't picked one yet and I was trying to think of something, I looked through my list, saw this, and said "Yeah, let's do this one, sounds great to me!"
So, this game was a lot of fun with the whole time travel mechanic, and the ability to tame monsters and have them join our parties, with their own preset Crystarium so that they could level with us (Leveling is a little more... streamlined in this one, each role stops at level 99, but it's not as hard to reach those as it might sound). The whole element of needing the right monsters with the right roles to fit your team was always pretty cool and it made you have to tame several in order to figure out the right ones to use. Plus you can feed your monsters to, well, other monsters, in order to pass down skills or bonuses, effectively a... simplified version of, say, breeding Pokémon for stats, egg moves, or IVs.

The game feels a little more open than Final Fantasy XIII. Sure you're still... kind of going in a linear fashion, but there's all sorts of ways to go in different paths and see places in different times and get new monsters, items, etc. After finishing the game, you have the ability "Paradox Scope," which allows you to go to certain scripted battles, make them a bit tougher, and if you succeed, you wind up with an alternate ending. There's almost 10 of them, including a bonus ending for the game if you retrieve all 160 fragments and see every Paradox Ending. For example, early in the game, you face a creature called Atlas. However, you weaken it as fighting it at full power that early in the game would be akin to suicide. However, coming back with better stats, abilities, etc., you can defeat it and get a whole different ending. Another example is late in the game when Serah is stuck in a dream-like state, and eventually gets helped by Fang and Vanille to escape from it, but if she stays with Lightning instead, the game ends right there (As a Paradox Ending, but still), so I love the different ways to change the game's events in small ways like this.

All in all, it was super enjoyable after Final Fantasy XIII, even if I watched my sister beat it before I could (Except I didn't take 45 minutes to defeat the 3 Bahamut Dragons in the very end of the game). It's a lot of fun and I think one day I'll have to play it again and have fun playing it again. See you tomorrow for the trophy guide!

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My Top 5 Hopes for Animal Crossing on Switch

So I'm probably not the best one to talk about wanting stuff in Animal Crossing, since I'm fairly content with everything the games have to offer as is. But there's still things I'm sure I'd love to see if/when they finally put a new Animal Crossing game on Switch. Pocket Camp has done so well already, and New Leaf continues to be a huge hit, even nearly 5 years later. But if tradition still goes this way, it's going to be a console release next (To demonstrate, using the US release pattern: GameCube, DS, Wii, 3DS). So, even though this will probably be really boring or uninteresting, here are my top 5 hopes for a new Animal Crossing game on the Switch, in no particular order.

5. Skin Tones

Look, I completely understand the whole tanning mechanic, and it's cool even though I have no use for it personally. But, I think they need to take a little page out of recent Pokémon titles and let us have a skin tone to pick from as well. Like, sure, it's been this way for the whole series, but if you want us to make our experience even more immersive or even just more personalized, you have to let us pick our own skin tones so we can really look like we do. I haven't really seen much of Pocket Camp, or even Happy Home Designer, but I believe both of those games have the ability to let us pick a skin tone. So this might be an actual moot point in this case. But still, more personalization is always a good thing, you know?

4. Optional Part-Time Work?

I guess this is another one that I definitely need to say "hear me out" on. So, I don't know who was a fan of Tom Nook's part-time jobs in the beginning of most of the Animal Crossing games, but that's... half of the example here. You could also work part-time in the Roost café in New Leaf, albeit by being paid in coffee beans based on how well you made the customers happy (You could sell the best coffee beans for... 7000 bells at Re-Tail if you put 'em up for auction, I think).

Well.. what if you could do more? Maybe work part-time at Able Sister's and help Sable use her sewing machine and get paid for your work? Or maybe deliver things for Kicks? Maybe even have Leif give you tasks involving flowers and you have to plant them in a specific spot/area and maybe arrange them in a specific place? These probably don't sound great but you get the idea, right? I think it'd be fun, and it's all optional, you don't have to do anything.

3. Post-Game "Goal"

So, the main "goal" of the game is to eventually pay off your house's mortgage so that you are debt-free with the biggest house you can possibly get, afterwards you can go on doing whatever you want. Fill up your bug/fish encyclopedia? Fill the Museum? Make your dream home? Check, check, and double-check. But what do you do after?

Well, this one is also kind of a moot point since Animal Crossing, most importantly, wants you to live your virtual life the way you want it to. But maybe after you pay off your debt, you can access this place where only VIPs can go, those who've paid off their debts? Maybe you can only find very rare items there, but they're expensive. I guess... think Gracie's seasonal furniture sets, but ones you can never find elsewhere? Ugh.. this list is harder to do than I thought.

2. Mail Between Towns

I understand that the "Best Friend" system in ACNL is meant to help you chat with your buddies in real time, so long as you're both online and registered as Best Friends. But.. I miss how it was done in City Folk. In City Folk, you could send mail to people in other towns, so long as you had them/their Wii registered in your friend list on the Wii (I forget how that even worked, honestly, it's been years).

I would love seeing that brought back, so you can just send mail and gifts to your friends without being forced to get online and visit them. Sure, visiting them is more fun, but make it a valid option so we have a choice, in case we're unable to visit or have visitors, you know?

1. Bigger Towns and Bigger and Better Houses

Okay so, I know that the houses we get by the end are big, spacious, and they're pretty fun as it is, same with our town length. But.. what if we had bigger towns to put more things and to also have more villagers join our merry little lands? Not only that, it doesn't have to be the same kind of house either. I know that ACNL gave us 3 additional exterior choices after our house had all rooms created, but.. I feel like we could do more with the Switch.

Like.. we could have more customization options, even new little touches to our houses. Maybe blinds or curtains on the windows? Maybe add a clothes-line if our clothes get messy (probably won't ever be a feature), or even working kitchen appliances that let us try to cook food that we can eat or even give to our villagers as little gifts in lieu of just the same basic fruits? Like maybe you could learn recipes and go somewhere outside of town to get cooking supplies like milk or sugar or flour, and we'd have a recipe book in the same vein as our encyclopedias? I think it would be cool, but then again my thoughts are all over the place on this list, so I'm sorry for that.

And those are 5 things I'd like to see in an Animal Crossing game on Switch. I know my thoughts were pretty scattered and not very well-written, but when Animal Crossing gives us a lot of content and things to do as it is, it's hard to make a list of what more we could ask for, you know? All the same, thank you for reading and I'll see you again tomorrow!

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Ironic Ultra Moon Progress

For starters, anybody asking about that Mario Odyssey guide I mentioned, remember that I said it was tentative because I needed to know what my best friend was getting me on my birthday. I'll probably still do one another time though, so don't give up on the idea. Anyways, I had a nice end to my birthday yesterday, but as far as Ultra Moon progress, it's kind of ironic and funny.

Remember how last year when I played Sun, I stopped just before Kiawe's trial before sleeping that night? Well, ironically, I stopped just after clearing Kiawe's trial last night. So, in a silly twist, I've made roughly the same amount of progress despite getting a... 2 and a half hour head start above when I got Sun. I don't know why I find it so funny, but I think it's just because of how I've made the exact progress. Then again, I can blame myself for slight distractions, Mantine Surfing, etc.

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Happy Birthday to Me!!

Real fast post today, my best friend stopped by and I showed him the Switch and Mario Odyssey, but then he gave me Pokémon Ultra Moon! I would have preferred Ultra Sun but hey, I won't complain, this works just as well! Thanks a million, Jake, I can't wait to start playing and enjoying this game! This is the best birthday ever, even better than last year!!

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My Top 5 Hopes for Pokemon on Switch

So, as we're all aware, Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are the final main-series Pokémon games on the 3DS, and it was confirmed that the next Pokémon games will be on Switch, and as such, I believe it's safe to say that Generation 8 will be out next direction. I'm sure everyone is still screaming for Sinnoh remakes, or even another set of Kanto remakes, but it looks like this is our next destination in the world of Pokémon. Personally, I'm happy to see Pokémon finally coming to a home console (and also a handheld again, technically), as Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD, while official Pokémon games on the GameCube, aren't classified as "main-series."

I'm sure that even already, this topic has probably been done to death. Then again, everyone always has a list like this for any new Pokémon game coming out. I'm pretty sure I did something like this for Sun and Moon sometime prior to their release last year, too. But I digress, as I tend to do, here are the 5 things that I hope happen in Pokémon on Switch, in no particular order. I would, however, like to point out that, no, walking with Pokémon is not on the list. I know, I should be ashamed, but as far as what I'd personally like to see, it's not on the top of the list. Would I enjoy seeing it come back so I can interact with my Cinders again? Sure, absolutely, but it's not the most important thing, you know?

5. Trainer Customization

This should be a no-brainer, honestly. X and Y pleasantly surprised us by allowing us to not only have more than one skin tone for our character, but also allowed us, for the first time, to customize our characters by being able to purchase clothes, hats, etc. Sure we could never remove our hat, but it was amazing for what we had and it gave us diversity and allowed us to really make our characters closer to us than ever before. While absent from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire due to their nature as a remake, it made a new and improved return in Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon, giving us an additional skin tone for male and female protagonist, but also letting us remove our hats and have more cool and colorful clothing.

It's only natural that, on a system with greater performance and graphics and processing power, we get a return to the customization. All of the ingredients are there, we can alter eye colors with contact lens, girls had access to lipstick colors, and plenty of clothing - cheap and expensive - to choose from, and even hair colors and styles. The only thing I could think of is giving us more hair-styles and maybe more colors, and possibly have all kinds of outfits, with a mix of Kalos and Alola, so we're not just limited to long-sleeves or short-sleeves, or even sleeveless, same for pants, shorts, etc. Basically, take what we already have, expand upon it, and make it even better, you know?

4. A New Eevee or Two

So, I know I'm not alone in this. Obviously, with a new generation, we get a nice slew of new Pokémon. Considering that Alola had more new Pokémon than Kalos, and Ultra Sun and Moon even added5 new Pokémon within the same generation, it's not too much to assume that gen 8 could, bare minimum, grant us about 100 new Pokémon. Will that happen? I have no idea. However, as everyone has noticed, our fun little Eevee trend had a different outcome in Kalos.

After Johto gave us Umbreon and Espeon, each even-numbered generation so far has given us a new duo of Eevee evolutions, with one of them having a natural advantage over the other. Umbreon is strong against Espeon and Glaceon is strong against Leafeon. However, in Kalos, we only got one: Sylveon. Now, the reason that I'm willing to believe is that Fairy type wasn't just brand new, but Sylveon was sort of the "face of Fairy types," because it was one of our first examples of the new type. In fact, it was our first known Fairy type that wasn't a Pokémon that gained a type change, like Clefairy or Gardevoir.

It's very possible that giving us another Eevee (Which would most likely have been, maybe, Dragon) would take away from Sylveon and sort of take away from Fairy type in general. After all, making a new type, then having the attention taken away from it, is never a good thing. Would that have really happened? Who knows? But I think it's safe to say that nobody's going to forget about Fairy type at this point. Not with standout Pokémon like Sylveon, Primarina, Mimikyu, etc.

Anyways, this is getting really drawn-out so, to simplify, I want there to be at least one new Eevee evolution in gen 8. There's still plenty of types we can get to. And if you want to keep the number at an even number, just give us 2 of them (This is, of course, considering that you don't count Eevee itself as its own Normal-type evolution). I'd love to see what new Eevees we could get, how to evolve them, etc. And the Switch could have new evolution methods. Maybe something like... depending on whether it's docked or in handheld mode? I don't know, but there's definitely more possibilities out there.

3. Red... But Expanded Upon

Okay, this probably sounds weird, but.. hear me out. Everybody who's played Gold, Silver, Crystal, Heart Gold, or Soul Silver probably fondly remembers the final challenge: Climbing up Mt. Silver after facing the Kanto Gym Leaders, and encountering Red. It's symbolic, as Red symbolizes us, the player. However, Ethan (or Kris/Lyra) also symbolizes us. Red is us as Kanto's Pokémon League Champion and Pokémon Master, and Ethan/Kris/Lyra is us as the new Pokémon Champion of Johto. It's an intense battle, with Red boasting Pokémon at extremely high levels with powerful moves. It's a struggle, but it's one of the fondest memories we all have, especially after we defeat Red and become the ultimate Pokémon Master as a result of having defeated the strongest Trainer in the whole game, and someone who is highly regarded as the most powerful Trainer in the entire series.

So.. how about something similar with the other protagonists? Brendan, May, Hilbert, Serena, etc. But.. without a battle facility. I don't want to have to go through the hardest battles ever just to face these familiar faces. Obviously we'll probably never have a game where travel to every single region is possible (But maybe one day, who knows), but still, have them come around. You can fight a new duo each day in different spots. Like.. you can face Red or Green (or Leaf as she's commonly referred to) on one day, then the next day you can find Ethan and Lyra, and so on. There's 7 days in a week, so each day could be a new generation. On the 5th and 7th days, you could face the Black/White 2 protagonists or the Ultra Sun/Moon protagonists, respectively, as well as the Black/White and Sun/Moon protagonists. It's probably never going to happen, but it's worth a mention and a thought, isn't it?

2. Cross-Compatibility

So, this one is a pretty big deal, admittedly. Over the years, there's been ways to transfer your Pokémon to future generations. Sinnoh had Pal Park, we could use Pokémon Transporter to bring Unova Pokémon into Kalos, and we can use Pokémon Bank to bring gen 6 Pokémon into gen 7. I don't know how a 3DS-to-Switch transfer could work, but there has to be some way to transfer our gen 7 Pokémon to gen 8, right? I'm sure that eventually we'll get something taken care of for transferring needs, as we usually do. It makes completing the National Pokedex that much easier to do and it saves a lot of frustration. Hopefully there's a method that we can learn about as 2018 rolls out and we hopefully start to learn more about Pokémon on Switch.

Honorable Mention 1: Data-mining and Leaks

So.. this is a personal gripe coming from me, but... please, GAME FREAK, make it extremely hard for the data-mining process to happen! It's happened with basically every recent Pokémon game. I can understand that coding a game is difficult and so is keeping the data safe and secure, but there has to be ways to avoid more situations like this. For example, if you release a demo version of gen 8, which I believe you should, do your absolute hardest to wipe the data that's not necessary so that hackers can't easily find the information.

To be honest, I can see if this winds up happening again, but I truly don't want to see more Chinese Leaks or anything like that for gen 8. It was... pretty shocking when Incineroar, Decidueye, and Primarina were revealed months in advance due to Chinese Leaks revealing the concept art for the 3 of them, and I was disbelieving it as much as I could until the day arrived where they were proven to be 100% real. I sound like a hypocrite considering that I let myself get spoiled on Pokémon details as I can't wait to see new Pokémon and whatnot, but finding out final starter evolutions is something I want to find out when it's officially revealed, you know?

Long story short, there needs to be more precaution taken to avoid more leaks and data-mining. I know you guys are doing your absolute best, but I know that there's got to be ways to prevent this from happening again.

Honorable Mention 2: New Pokeballs?
So I know that we have a ton of balls that have their various catch rates and circumstances and effects, but I know we could still use more. However the only example I can think of is maybe a Dawn Ball, which has a similar effect to the Dusk Ball, but instead of giving a x3.5 catch rate in caves/dark places and at night, it can be used during the day for the x3.5 catch rate, and maybe even in bright places, if any. I know that other balls do the trick just as well, but it would give you a ball for any time of day and it'd be handy to carry around with you, you know?

1. New Pokémon and Type Combos

So.. you might be thinking that this point is redundant, but hear me out again. I'm hoping, honestly, that we receive 100 new Pokémon, bare minimum. Now obviously, creating more Pokémon, especially after reaching a massive 807 thus far, is no easy task. You need starters, box legendaries, an obligatory 3rd legendary that's not as important at first, at least 3 event Pokémon, other legendaries, the regional pseudo-legendary Dragon type, the "Route 1 Normal Type" and "Route 1 Flying Type" and so on. But look at it like this. Gen 6 gave us 72 new Pokémon, and gen 7 has given us 85 new Pokémon as of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, so I don't think it's too big of a stretch to hope for 100, yeah?

As for new type combinations, there's still plenty of combinations that have yet to be done, like Fire/Grass, or Fairy/Poison, for example. And who knows, maybe we'll receive a new type? But I think a new type won't happen for a while, since Fairy is still sort of new, and it brings the total types to a clean, even 18. Then again, they enjoy surprising us, don't they? I just want to see more new stuff, honestly.

Phew! That was more than I even expected to type up, but those are 5 things I hope happen with Pokémon Switch. Will it happen? Time will tell, but they have to start actually giving us information, naturally, as Ultra Sun and Moon just came out last week. No doubt we'll start hearing info once 2018 rolls around, maybe we'll get an early-year Direct to give us some information? I sure hope so. Anyways, thanks for sticking through this long wall of text and making it down here to the end. I'll see you tomorrow for my birthday!

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Schedule While I Wait

So in a week I'll be getting Zelda: Breath of the Wild, so for now I'm going to post a schedule so I can plan out my week while I wait. This is sort of tentative, but I'll try to  make it all work, you know?

Saturday (25th): Top 5 Hopes for Pokémon on Switch
Sunday (26th): Birthday, will do a post according to what my best friend got for me
Monday (27th): Possibly another Super Mario Odyssey guide (Tentative)
Tuesday (28th): Top 5 Hopes for an Animal Crossing game on Switch
Wednesday (29th): Whatever game I choose for the next trophy guide
Thursday (30th): Trophy guide
Friday (1st): Maybe another demo on the Switch
Saturday (2nd): Off day because of getting Zelda, or maybe a small post after a little bit of game time, we'll see

Hope you find something to look forward to! See ya tomorrow!

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Happy Thanksgiving 2017

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there who celebrates it. I hope that you all have a wonderful day and I hope you can all find something to be thankful for. I'm thankful for all of my friends and my family, and for all of the people out there who take the time to look at and support this blog. Just remember, it's thanks to YOU that this blog is still going, because your support helps me have the motivation to continue posting every day, even if it's not that much. Thank you everyone, and I'll see you tomorrow.

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Another Off Day

Besides the fact that tomorrow will also be an off day, I'm honestly just feeling bummed and discouraged due to Pokémon Sun's Battle Tree. I just feel like it's too difficult for me and so, instead of stressing about it, I'm just going to take it easy and relax, you know? I'll see you all again tomorrow.

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Why Bowser is at His Best in Super Mario Odyssey

*Note: The following is just my opinion, and it should not be taken as fact, nor does it mean that my opinion is more valid than anyone elses' opinions. If you disagree with me, that's perfectly fine. If you agree, cool. With that out of the way, let's begin, shall we?*

So in most Mario titles, you face Bowser throughout the game, or you face him once in the final showdown. Whatever the case may be, Bowser is usually the main villain in any Mario game (with a few exceptions). However, I believe that Bowser's best appearance as a villain has got to be Super Mario Odyssey, but before I explain why, I need to explain his roles in other 3D Mario titles (Namely the Super Mario series, which could be considered the main series games).

In Super Mario 64, Bowser has a constant presence within your adventure. His minions are present throughout the 15 worlds in the game, and he has stolen the Power Stars that you, as Mario, have to reclaim in your quest to save the Princess. However, he's not really.. around. You face him 3 times, but that's... kind of it. You know where he is at all times and he's just sort of there for you to face in order to progress to a new location in the castle. In his final battle, his texture is made into a dark rainbow, as a means of showing he's much stronger (also shown by the fact you have to throw him into 3 bombs instead of the 1 you've done in the previous two encounters with him).

In Super Mario Sunshine, Bowser isn't even around until the very end. Instead, Bowser Jr. takes center stage as the main antagonist of the game (although you could argue that Bowser is since he lied to Bowser Jr. and orchestrated the events of the whole game. However, as revealed, Bowser Jr. was aware that Peach wasn't his real mother, but he had no problems with facing Mario and expressed his desire to face Mario again one day). So I guess you could argue that Bowser has a constant presence as well, but he's honestly less involved than his own son is.

Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 sort of have a similar feel to Mario 64, in which Bowser is again a constant presence, and you fight him 3 times, with the final battle being the most climactic of the bunch. However, Bowser and Bowser Jr. are more involved with stopping Mario, as every hub area features a Bowser or Bowser Jr. fight within them, as the father-son duo alternate between hindering Mario's progress. Despite that, Bowser and Bowser Jr. are just, well, there.

In Super Mario 3D Land/World, Bowser is just, well, lying in wait for Mario. You don't even actually face Bowser until World 8 and all you get are postcards to show you what's going on, which is still limited. To be fair, you do face him 3 times in the Special Worlds as Dry Bowser, but it's still not very intimidating, to be honest (I haven't actually played 3D World as I don't have a Wii U but from what I know, you face him in a few worlds, and face him in the final main world as, I think, Meowser, or something like that).

Finally, we reach Super Mario Odyssey. In this game, Bowser is always actively one step ahead of you, and he impedes your progress at every possible turn, whether it's by his hand or by way of his henchmen, the Broodals. Even in the beginning of the game, we see Mario and Bowser having a showdown and Bowser swiftly defeating Mario. In every kingdom Mario goes to, Bowser manages to snatch the wedding item he's come for, and Mario is always too late. Even when you finally catch up to him en route to New Donk City, and face Bowser in the Cloud Kingdom, Bowser, after being defeated, quickly recovers and bombards Mario and the Odyssey with cannon fire, swiftly sending them to the Lost Kingdom to recover while Bowser continues to make his move. Later, Mario is again stopped by Bowser en route to Bowser's Kingdom, by means of the Ruined Dragon, crashing them in the Ruined Kingdom to recover and collect more Power Moons while Bowser heads to his castle and prepares for Mario's eventual return. Finally, after chasing Bowser to the Moon and reaching the Wedding Hall, you can see that Bowser is literally moments from achieving his desire, nearly forcing the Binding Band on Peach - and he probably would have succeeded if Mario never showed up - but you finally stop him after one final battle, after which you possess Bowser to save yourself, himself, and Peach from the collapsing ruins of the Moon.

I love the feeling of Bowser being one step ahead of you. It gives me some vibes of the original Pokémon games, where your Rival was always ahead of you, no matter how fast and how hard you worked to surpass him. Until the very end, Bowser is always a step ahead of you, and your triumphs, while necessary and helpful to the people of each kingdom, don't mean anything as Bowser is still way ahead of you and is, essentially, thwarting YOU at every turn, even if you're doing the same to Bowser himself. It makes defeating him, after all the struggle and effort, so much more satisfying in the end.

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Pokken Tournament DX Demo

So, I'll be the first to admit that I'm kind of bad at fighting games that aren't Smash Bros. I'm not terrible at them, but there are plenty of people way better than me, you know? Still though, I couldn't pass up a little opportunity to try the demo which, while limited, was still very enjoyable.

In the demo, you're told than you can do up to 15 battles before you can't do it anymore (Similar to how on 3DS demos, you can only launch them x amount of times, typically 30), and you can only play as Pikachu, Charizard, and Empoleon. I did a match with Empoleon and one with Charizard, as Pikachu was used in the Tutorial. I did better as Empoleon, but still won both times against the computer.

I have to admit, it was a lot of fun and I could see myself getting into it a bit with some practice, but I don't know... The few non-Smash fighting games I've played (Marvel vs Capcom 3, BlazBlue Continuum Shift, SoulCalibur 2, 3, and 5) have been challenging eventually, but that's the nature of fighting games, they're not meant to be easy games you can just button-mash to win, you have to learn and adapt and other stuff that I'm not currently good at. But still, I did enjoy the demo. As I said, for what little I could do in the demo, I enjoyed it very much and had fun with it.

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Chilly Off Day

So today's pretty chilly and I haven't done an off day in a while, especially after the month of bombarding you guys with Pokémon art, so today I'm just going to relax and take it easy. I'm currently training a few Pokémon up to attempt to take on the Battle Tree in Sun (I wish I had Ultra Sun but I'm sure I will soon enough), and it's definitely the toughest thing I've ever had to do in all my time as a Pokémon Trainer.

Sure, I've once made an EV-Trained team in Pokémon Y and it had a decent amount of Battle Spot success (5 wins, 5 losses), but the Battle Tree is unreal. Honestly I just want to face Red after hitting a 20 streak and defeat him so I can unlock the Battle Legend theme for multiplayer battles with my friends. It's going to be tough but maybe I'll pull through, you know? Right now I have the trio training in Isle Evelup, so they're just doing their thing right now. Anyways, enough of the rambling, I'll see you guys tomorrow!

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10,000

It's finally happened. As I usually say, I don't really care about pageviews as I don't think they matter more than the content that I enjoy putting out for you guys (even if that's not a lot to begin with), but we reached 10,000 pageviews, at last! I can't believe that after only 1 year and 3 months (15 months), we'd make it to 10,000! It still baffles me how that Fire Emblem Awakening Randomizer post is so popular, but I won't complain.

But even though I never have the proper, or best, words to thank you all for the support, all I can do is constantly remind you that I'm extremely grateful, to all of you, for constantly taking a look at this silly little side hobby of mine. As I've stated before, this is the closest things I can do to doing videos on YouTube (I mean, I probably could do videos and stuff, but with a low quality webcam and stuff? Probably not a great idea, you know?), and it means so much to me that you all support me, a silly guy who loves video games too much and has a silly little Cyndaquil as his mascot. I'm sure you'd say that I say it enough times, but maybe I don't say it enough, but I'm truly appreciative of every single view that any of you give me, no matter what part of the world you live in. Wherever you're from, whomever you are, whatever you're looking at when you look at this blog, I'm thankful for you and your support. It means the world to me and always gives me something to look forward to every single day, even if said day is an off day. So, again, thank you so much.

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Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas Demo

So, after seeing some screenshots on the eShop and immediately getting Zelda vibes from it, I decided, why not? So I downloaded the demo and learned that this game was originally a mobile game that was eventually ported, and apparently has a sequel in development, and it's got pretty high scores, so that's already a great indication right there. Also, as of October 2016, it'd sold over a million copies across all platforms, that's also pretty great for what started as a mobile game that came out a few years ago.

The demo is pretty short, once you get a grip on the simple controls, you can probably finish the demo in about 15-30 minutes, depending on how quickly you'll run through it. As I said, the Zelda likeness is pretty thick, but it's still enjoyable. You start off with a stick, but near the end of the demo you receive a sword and shield, using ZR to use your shield. It's a little hard to get used to hitting Y for my sword, as every Zelda game typically has it with the B button (Unless it's Wii Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword, but you get the picture), so I sometimes hit B just by instinct alone, but you get used to it quickly, as on the screen, you'll always see your A, B, Y, X, and ZR buttons and what's on them. Meanwhile, A acts as your all-purpose action button, having you talk and interact with things, as well as doing a quick dash that depletes some auto-replenishing stamina.

You can also find, you guessed it, Heart Pieces in chests, and when you get 4 you gain another heart. You start off with 4 hearts, so that's pretty nice. The whole game has a somewhat isometric look, where you'll be moving in diagonals more than you'll be moving in solid up, down, left, or right directions. There's also a bit of voice-acting in cutscenes, and it sounds pretty nice. The music also sounds really nice as well, with some tracks being done by the legendary Kenji Ito and Nobuo Uematsu themselves. That's some high quality there.

The demo ends when you're about to venture out into the ocean for the first time to search for ancient medallions, so, as I said, pretty short, but it's still enough to give you a taste of what to expect from it. I enjoyed it a lot. If you like Zelda, this game is worth a look if you have a Switch, PS4, or Xbox One, or even a mobile platform. Even if you only try the demo, it's worth a look, at the very least.

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Super Mario Odyssey Achievement Guide

Welcome to the Super Mario Odyssey Achievement Guide! I know this is a little bit out of the ordinary for what I normally do, but they're still listed as achievements in the game so I'd say it still counts, you know? A lot of these have tiers, so they stack, pretty much, but I'll still do my best to help you out with a few of them. Please bear in mind that this guide contains spoilers for Mario Odyssey, and since the game is still relatively new as of the time of typing this guide, please stop reading this right now if you're trying to avoid spoilers of any kind! If you're still here, though, let's move forward!

In post-game, after defeating Bowser in the Moon Kingdom, you'll be able to reach the Mushroom Kingdom and explore the outside of Peach's Castle, with the entirety of the area having a Super Mario 64 vibe to it. upon approaching the castle, a Toad will tell Mario that Peach is gone again, but that she was seen packing her bags and leaving with Tiara. At this point, you can go to any of the main Kingdoms and locate Peach and Tiara to receive a Power Moon from them, but more on that later. Entering the castle, it's pretty small, but by a throne atop the staircase is Toadette in her explorer gear, just like Captain Toad. She'll tell Mario that she's been keeping track of his achievements throughout the world, and will award him a Power Moon for each of the achievements he completes. She then adds all of them to his Moon List for the Mushroom Kingdom, so he can keep tabs on his progress at any time and return to Toadette whenever he wants to get more Moons from her. The following guide is all of her achievements and a brief look at how you'll go about obtaining them. Are you ready to jump up, Super Star? If so, let's-a go!

Rescue Princess Peach Rescue Princess Peach from Bowser.
Self-explanatory, this is one of the achievements you can't possibly miss.

Achieve World Peace Bring peace to all 14 kingdoms in the world.
This one is also self-explanatory, so long as you're actively hunting down the Power Moons and doing everything you can in each kingdom. Kind of hard to miss, honestly.

Power Moon Knight Collect 100 Power Moons.
See Power Moon Ruler.

Power Moon Wizard Collect 300 Power Moons.
See Power Moon Ruler.

Power Moon Ruler Collect 600 Power Moons.
In the game, there are a total of 880 Power Moons, but the grand total is 999, with those remaining 119 Moons having to be purchased from any Crazy Cap store with normal coins, for 100 coins apiece. If you're working hard to grab as many Moons as possible, this won't be hard to get, but obviously won't happen until you reach post-game. When I finished the story, I was somewhere between 500-600 Moons. Just keep on collecting those Moons, and be sure to use Talkatoo and Hint Toad to get some hints to some of those tougher Moons.

Regional Coin Shopper Buy 13 things using regional coins.
Regional coins are the purple coins in almost every area. There's either 50 or 100, and you can check the total whenever you look at your Moon List in each Kingdom. You purchase outfits, stickers, and souvenirs with the purple coins. Mainly you'll be wanting to buy outfits for when an NPC says you have to be dressed in a certain way to enter an area, or just to receive a Moon. If you're like me, you'll hunt down every purple coin first since the game gives you basically all the freedom you need, at least after you beat the boss of the area and are then tasked with getting more Moons to chase Bowser.

Flat Moon Finder Collect 10 8-Bit Power Moons.
See Flat Moon Fanatic.

Flat Moon Fanatic Collect 20 8-Bit Power Moons.
In most cases, seeing a Warp Pipe will take you into a section where you play in a 2D section as an 8-Bit Mario. In some cases, these little segments hide a secret Power Moon in addition to the Moon you'll get normally when you finish the segment. There's more than 20 Moons to be found in these segments, but if you're reading this, I'm going to assume you're after 100% completion, so you've probably already found a good amount of them. Just enter any Warp Pipe you see!

Treasure Chest Hunter Collect 15 Power Moons from treasure chests.
See Super Treasure Chest Hunter.

Super Treasure Chest Hunter Collect 25 Power Moons from treasure chests.
Whenever you see a treasure chest in Odyssey, there's typically 3 possibilities you'll find. The most likely possibility is that they'll have a Power Moon tucked inside. Another possibility is that you'll just find some coins. And the last possibility is that you have to hit multiple chests in a certain order to retrieve the Power Moon inside (Sort of like Mario 64, basically). Regardless, open every chest you find and get the secrets within.

Note-Collecting World Tour Collect 5 Power Moons from taking Notes.
See Note-Collecting Space Tour.

Note-Collecting Space Tour Collect 20 Power Moons from taking Notes.
Sometimes as you run around, you'll come across a rainbow-colored music note. Touching it will instantly make more music notes appear, and you have to collect them all within a time limit to retrieve a Moon. Later on, specifically when you're hunting the Power Moons appearing after opening a Moon Rock, you'll see these notes in 8-Bit segments as well, so keep on looking.

Timer Challenge Amateur Collect 10 Power Moons from Timer Challenges.
See Timer Challenge Professional.

Timer Challenge Professional Collect 25 Power Moons from Timer Challenges.
Scattered throughout the game are random scarecrows that you can toss Cappy onto. Doing so will typically make a bunch of blocks appear in a short platforming segment while you're under a small time pressure. The challenge is to make it to the Moon without relying on the abilities that Cappy lets you, like certain jumping techniques. In some cases, the scarecrow will be next to a door, entering you into a challenge area where you have to platform without Cappy (A nod to the secret areas of Mario Sunshine, where Mario would lose FLUDD briefly and have to rely on platforming skills alone to complete the levels).

Captain Toad Meeter Meet up with Captain Toad 5 times.
See Captain Toad Greeter.

Captain Toad Greeter Meet up with Captain Toad 10 times.
In every Kingdom, you can find Captain Toad somewhere, and after speaking to him, he'll give you another Power Moon to aid you on your quest. He's not too difficult to find, but if you're having trouble, Talkatoo and Hint Toad are always available once you finished the main progression of the Kingdom.

Touring with Princess Peach Meet up with Princess Peach 5 times as she travels the world.
See Globe-Trotting with Princess Peach.

Globe-Trotting with Princess Peach Meet up with Princess Peach 10 times as she travels the world.
In post-game, after talking with a Toad outside of Peach's Castle in the Mushroom Kingdom, you learn that Peach and Tiara have, well, gone on their own little odyssey around the kingdoms, but on their own terms since they're not in Bowser's captivity anymore. Like Captain Toad, Peach isn't terribly difficult to find, and once you're nearby, she and Tiara will call out to Mario. Plus it's not hard to recognize Peach with a little ghost next to her.

Master Sheep Herder Herd sheep collect 4 Power Moons.
There are exactly 4 instances of this in the game. One is in the Sand Kingdom, two are in a secret area in the Wooded Kingdom, and the last is in the Mushroom Kingdom. Save for the secret in Wooded Kingdom, herding the sheep is as simple as running behind it to direct it towards the small corral. A small guitar riff will play when a sheep is successfully herded into the target area, and a Power Moon will be given to you upon the final sheep entering the corral.

Gaga for Goombette Collect 5 Power Moons from Goombette.
In some areas, you'll find a pink Goomba with a red hat, but if you approach her, she darts off quickly until Mario leaves her general area. Usually there are Goombas nearby you have to capture. Simply capture as many as will bring Mario to Goombette, and she'll give him a Power Moon out of love for him in his Goomba form (Sounds like how some Boos react towards Boo Mario in Mario Galaxy).

Lakitu Fishing Trip Fish for Power Moons as Lakitu 3 times.
In a few areas, you'll see a Lakitu fishing, and you'll see manta ray-shaped shadows in the water. Possess Lakitu and fish for the biggest one. You might want to turn on the HD Rumble for this, so you can accurately time your reeling so you don't lose the fish. If you do lose the fish, just move away from the area for a few moments, then return and try again.

Flower-Growing Guru Grow seeds to collect 5 Power Moons.
See Flower-Growing Sage.

Flower-Growing Sage Grow seeds to collect 10 Power Moons.
In some areas, you'll find pots that people wish they could grow plants in. Typically nearby are some small acorn-shaped seeds that you toss into the pot, then after a certain amount of real time, the plants will have a golden piece on the center. Touch it to make the flower boom and collect your Power Moon. If you're trying to get it done faster, there are 3 pots in the Sand Kingdom, and 4 in the Seaside Kingdom and Mushroom Kingdom. If you're stuck on trying to find their location, Hint Toad marks the seed's location on your map when he gives you the hint.

Running with Rabbits Catch rabbits to collect 5 Power Moons.
See Racing with Rabbits.

Racing with Rabbits Catch rabbits to collect 10 Power Moons.
In some areas, you'll find little rabbits who will run from you in small paths in a cycle. I'm not 100% sure on how they work, but after a while they do start to tire out and you can catch them a bit more easily. Typically you should be able to whack them with Cappy, so long as your aim is better than mine and your distance is enough. After they tire and such, you just have to touch them to make them give up the Moon. It's sort of like catching Star Bunnies in Mario Galaxy, just a little harder.

Ground Pound Instructor Dig up 15 Power Moons by Ground Pounding.
See Ground Pound Professor.

Ground Pound Professor Dig up 45 Power Moons by Ground Pounding.
In most cases, this is done when you see a small beam of light coming from the ground. Ground Pounding on the center will make a Moon pop out of the ground. In the 2 instances where you're in an empty room and have to find the Moon's location, you'll need the HD Rumble turned on so you're not aimlessly Ground Pounding every inch of the map.

Rad Hatter Collect 3 Power Moons by throwing your hat on things.
See Super Rad Hatter.

Super Rad Hatter Collect 10 Power Moons by throwing your hat on things.
Sometimes you'll see the familiar multi-color glow resonating off of something you can throw Cappy onto. If you do, toss him and hold the Y button until he exclaims "Cappy!" or just hold it until he Moon cutscene happens. As I said, the telltale sign is when it's a point that has the glowing multi-color aura around it.

Traveling-Bird Herder Collect 5 Power Moons from migrating birds.
In some areas, you'll see birds flying around in preset routes around the map, and they glow. You have to find your way to touching them, whether you're throwing Cappy at them or simply colliding with them, and the Moon comes out. Be careful in some areas though, like in the Sand Kingdom where there's poisonous water. Wherever you hit the bird, the Moon pops out just above the point of impact, so if it's over a dangerous section, just be careful when collecting the Moon.

Wearing It Well! Collect 3 Power Moons by wearing certain outfits.
See Wearing it Perfect!

Wearing It Great! Collect 8 Power Moons by wearing certain outfits.
See Wearing it Perfect!

Wearing it Perfect! Collect 15 Power Moons by wearing certain outfits.
As mentioned earlier, your main use for regional coins is to buy outfits from the different Crazy Cap stores throughout the game. For example, in the Sand Kingdom, a Tostarenan will be next to a locked door in the back of town, stating that you need to wear the clothes of their people in order to gain access to the room. A quick romp for coins and buying the matching Sombrero and Poncho will allow Mario to dress as a Tostarenan and enter the room, where he'll do a quick dance with a guitar and earn the Power Moon inside. Every Kingdom has a small thing like this, and later on, after dealing with the Moon Rocks, the other outfits will also play a key role in getting more Moons, such as the Mechanic, Doctor, and Painter outfits, to name a few.

Hat-Seeking Missile Find 5 Bonneters hidden on peoples' heads.
During post-game, as different Kingdom natives travel the world without fear of Bowser, sometimes you'll find a Bonneter asking you to find their friend who's most likely latched into someone's hat. You'll know you found the Bonneter when you see someone who has eyes on their head, whether it's in the front of back of their head. Sometimes it's a little tricky but it's not impossible.

Music Maestro Play the music that Toad wants to hear 5 times.
In post-game, you'll sometimes run across a Toad with headphones on, asking to listen to music that matches his theme. One such example is a theme that "sounds blocky," in which the correct answer is any 8-Bit tune. By fulfilling his wishes, not only do you get a Power Moon, but he sometimes gives you more music to listen to, so you can have all your favorite tracks at the press of a button whenever you want.

Art Enthusiast Collect 5 Power Moons using Hint Art.
See Art Investigator.

Art Investigator Collect 15 Power Moons using Hint Art.
Throughout the game, you'll come across pieces of art on a wall, which shows an area of another Kingdom, and in some cases it shows Poochy on this spot. Locating this spot and Ground Pounding the spot shown in the art will grant you a Power Moon. Some spots are easy, some are tricky. However, you have to view the art before the Moon is able to be dug up. Even if you hit the exact spot, but haven't viewed the picture, the Moon won't show up! Most of the art will be located on Dark Side once you reach 200 Moons and reach post-game.

Slots Machine Collect 3 Moons playing Slots.
Slots are found in the Sand Kingdom, Metro Kingdom, and Luncheon Kingdom, and lining up the Moon symbols is very easy. You can either do it one at a time, or hit all of them in a row from the side. However you do it, these are easy Moons, for sure.

Koopa Freerunning MVP Win 10 Koopa Freerunning races.
See Koopa Freerunning Hall of Famer.

Koopa Frerunning Hall of Famer Win 22 Koopa Freerunning races.
In post-game, you can find a Koopa next to a Leaderboard in each Kingdom, where you race against him and 3 other Koopas. The races are pretty simple and you can reach the goal however you please. Use this first race to plan out a path and make it as fast as possible. After opening a Moon Rock, you can race again, where they replace one Koopa with a golden one, who is typically the fastest and will take some shortcuts that you've probably taken, so it may take a few tries. In my opinion, the races were pretty easy to complete, honestly.

Supernaturally Sure-Footed Receive 5 passing scores in Koopa Trace-Walking.
In a few areas, you'll find a Koopa who asks you to trace-walk in a circle, or triangle. The catch? The arrows guiding you will vanish moments after you start moving. Despite the name, you can run. I try to move the camera at a certain pace while I walk in one direction, and it's worked pretty well for me. The highest score you'll have to go for near the end of the game is 90 points, but it's not as tricky as you might think.

Quizmaster Answer all of the Sphynx's questions correctly 3 times.
First located in the Sand Kingdom behind the Ruins, answering the first question correctly would grant you access to a room with a chest with a Moon inside. Answering his remaining questions correctly would grant you another Moon. He's found in more locations, including mandatory talk in the Wooded Kingdom. If you get a question wrong, you can try again as much as you like, effectively being able to guess your way to success.

Souvenir Sampler Collect 10 souvenirs and stickers.
See Souvenir Savant.

Souvenir Sleuth Collect 20 souvenirs and stickers.
See Souvenir Savant.

Souvenir Savant Collect 40 souvenirs and stickers.
As briefly stated above, you can also purchase souvenirs and stickers for the Odyssey with your regional coins. If you're aiming for 100% completion, then you definitely have to buy them. You can buy them in any Crazy Cap store using the purple side for the regional coins, but the items and stickers vary based on your current Kingdom, naturally.

Capturing Novice Capture 20 targets.
See Capturing Master.

Capturing Apprentice Capture 35 targets.
See Capturing Master.

Capturing Master Capture 45 targets.
You should have just about all of the targets captured by the time you reach 100% completion. Make sure you don't forget about Yoshi on the roof of Peach's Castle, or Piranha Plants (throw a rock at them, then toss Cappy at them) or their fire-breathing variants in the Luncheon Kingdom!

Hat Maven Collect 15 hats.
See Hat Icon.

Hat Icon Collect 35 hats.
Hats are purchased with regional coins (and a few with normal coins), so just keep collecting those coins and keep buying.

Fashion Maven Collect 15 outfits.
See Fashion Icon.

Fashion Icon Collect 35 outfits.
Just as I stated in Hat Icon, you purchase outfits in the Crazy Cap stores across the world. Typically, you buy a hat and outfit to make the matching pair, so it goes without saying to just use up your regional coins. The total price of everything in a kingdom's Crazy Cap store will add up to the full total of the kingdom's coins (For example, Bonneton has 50 coins, everything in the shop will add up to be 50 coins total, leaving zero leftover).

Moon Rock Liberator Open 14 Moon Rocks.
In post-game, upon entering any kingdom with a Moon Rock still in place, a beacon will point the way to it and Cappy will point it out as well. Hitting the rock will make a bunch of extra Moons appear out in the open, for the most part, and will be marked on your map. Every kingdom (save for Mushroom Kingdom, Dark Side, and Darker Side) has one Moon Rock, so that means for this, you have to open all of them.

World Warper Travel through 10 warp holes.
Warp holes are the paintings that take you to other locations and typically give you a Power Moon and a Checkpoint Flag for future access. The first possible one is in the Sand Kingdom, which has a picture that will take you to New Donk City with a Power Moon. Go through 10 of these paintings to get this achievement done.

Checkpoint Flagger Activate 40 Checkpoint Flags.
See Checkpoint Flag Enthusiast.

Checkpoint Flag Enthusiast Activate 80 Checkpoint Flags.
Checkpoint Flags are, well, flags found in each Kingdom that allow you to fast-travel through a kingdom, so long as you've touched the flag. There's 85 in total, so you generally have to hit all of them, including the secret ones found by using the warp holes, and really, why wouldn't you hit them?

Loaded with Coins Collect 1,000 coins.
See Swimming in Coins.

Rolling in Coins Collect 5,000 coins.
See Swimming in Coins.

Swimming in Coins Collect 10,000 coins.
Just to note, this is cumulative, as it's actually impossible to hold more than 9,999 coins at any one time. I was way past this when I got the achievement, so you should be too, unless you're avoiding coins for some reason, which you shouldn't be.

Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump 10,000 times.
Considering how often you have to jump, and how much you should be jumping after a long jump to keep your momentum, this shouldn't even be remotely challenging for you.

Fly, Cappy, Fly! Throw Cappy 5,000 times.
Same premise as Jump! Jump! Jump! where you fling Cappy so many times that it shouldn't even be a challenge for you not to fling him so much.

And that's all for the Achievement Guide! Something different than what I normally do, but something I think is a nice little touch. Again, the achievements aren't really difficult, but hey, maybe some players want to see it right in front of them. I don't know. But all the same, I hope it helps you guys get closer to 100% completion!

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Super Mario Odyssey

Man.. it feels like it wasn't long ago when it was January 12th and Nintendo revealed the newest game in the Mario series, in a similar vein to Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and even a bit of Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2. But from the get go, I - and several countless people - was ready for this game as soon as it was revealed. The environments looked lovely, I loved how Mario had a lot of expressions and animations, and then we saw the main catch: being able to throw your hat at people and enemies and being able to possess them. Obviously it's limited but it's still pretty fun to be able to control enemies and use their abilities to collect Power Moons.

I was trying hard to avoid any potential spoilers that, well, weren't official videos from Nintendo, in a similar way to how I handle Breath of the Wild (which I'll be getting in just a couple weeks, so excited), where I try to avoid as many spoilers as possible. I couldn't even watch too much footage as I wanted the experience to be fresh and new to me.

Skip ahead to October 20th, just a single week before Odyssey releases, and I'm at GameStop with my dad, looking at Switch prices and getting everything taken care of. While we're there, about to leave, we passed the Switch kiosk that lets you play some demos, alongside the PS4 and Xbox One. Dad told me to play some demos since it's not like we've been out that long, so besides briefly playing demos for Breath of the Wild and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I happily played a demo for Super Mario Odyssey.

The demo takes place in the Sand Kingdom, where the next story task is to reach the top of the tower while tracking down Bowser (2 more missions later and you'd be in the Inverted Pyramid). I used the Switch in the controller setup it was in, as I felt it easier to use than simply holding the Joy Cons in both hands. I collected a few Power Moons before the demo ended, namely the Power Moon on the rooftops of Tostarena, the Power Moon in the ruins that requires a Bullet Bill to reach, and the Power Moon in the shop. Ironically, the demo ended just before I finished the 8-Bit section leading to the top of the tower. Still, though, it was a wonderful time, and it made me even more excited to be receiving Mario Odyssey when I got my Switch.

Skip to 2 weeks later, on November 3rd, and at 9 am, I got my Switch and Mario Odyssey, and the rest is history. I heavily enjoyed the game as I 100% completed it in 3 days. I love everything about the game and I'm excited to replay it again soon while I wait for my birthday and while I wait for Zelda at the beginning of December. I say this all the time, but seriously, if you have a Switch, you NEED to get this game, it's worth every single penny!

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Sonic Mania

You know you made another awesome Sonic game when I keep going back to run through the game for like.. the umpteenth time. But seriously, being the undying Sonic fan I know I am, and knowing how I say I enjoy every Sonic game out there, I can still say that Sonic Mania easily jumped into my top 5 favorite Sonic games. I will admit, I have a soft spot for the older games as well, but I do hold a lot of love for the modern games as well, like Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Generations, and soon enough, Sonic Forces (I don't care what the reviews say, I'll judge it myself and get my own opinion).

So, the game takes inspiration from, at least, Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 (& Knuckles), and Sonic CD, with a few references to other games, such as Sonic 2 on Game Gear/Master System, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, and, from what I read, Sonic Mania's true ending leads into Sonic Forces, which I think is an awesome way to go.

Visually, I love the environments and animation, the animation for all the characters is so fluid and fun to look at. The old games' zones now look refreshed, like Green Hill Act 2 having huge totem poles in the background, or Lava Reef having chunks missing in Act 2 to show off some Robotnik technology in the background. I think my personal favorite part has to be Knuckles' Lava Reef Act 2 boss, where he remembers what Robotnik did to him in the Hidden Palace Zone in Sonic & Knuckles, and therefore stops the same thing from happening with the Heavy King.

The Special Stages have a fun mix of Sonic CD (a UFO being the main target as you chase it down for an Emerald) elements, and elements from other games, such as the polygonal models from Sonic Jam and the orb-collecting from Sonic Heroes. It's just a fun romp through a huge love-letter from the fans. And if I'm being honest, this is what more companies SHOULD do: Find loyal and dedicated fans who know how to work hard on a series they love and let them make something special. After all, fan input is a very important thing for games in general, that's how Sonic Generations got its levels, from polls run on Twitter, asking fans about their favorite levels. It's just a great idea.

I love a few of the throwbacks too, namely the entirety of Stardust Speedway feels like it was taken from Sonic CD and revamped a little bit. After Act 1, your character destroys a machine, complete with Sonic CD sounds, hits a "Future" sign, then dashes so fast that he goes to the Present (Act 1 was Stardust Speedway Past), complete with Sonic CD visual effects and sounds. I love it! And then the boss of Act 2 is a whole race and battle with Metal Sonic, and it just makes me want to pop in the Gems Collection and replay Sonic CD again!

I have to agree with a lot of people, this is one of the best Sonic games to come out, in recent memory. And I'm going to enjoy replaying it more and more and having a lot of fun with it. If you have a PS4/Xbox One/Switch/Steam account, I would highly suggest buying this, it's absolutely worth every single penny, and if you're a Sonic fan, you will not be disappointed.

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