Chapter 5: Room for More

With her oldest two out of the house, Roxanne decides it's time for more babies! With that, she sets out in search of her next bachelor...

"Do you like cars? I like cars. Almost as much as I like my kids and men."

Don Lothario proves himself to be the most available candidate, so he and Roxanne do the baby making thing at a later date, when Roxanne can invite him over.

Max finds it difficult to sleep without his older brother in the same room as him. It's only now he realizes how much he really missed Andrew and Alexa.

Roxanne loves it when the triplets come and watch TV with her. Even if they just babble about the colors and call every single guy "Dada," it still reminds her she's not alone.

Making babies equals...

Another round of this.

Time seems to fly by, and the triplets are now growing up.

The next few photos I like to call the Derp series.

Derp

Derp

Derp

I've never gotten shots of kids aging up like this, and it was too hilarious to just let it go.

Here's the triplets in their non-derped state.

Bianca

Beckham

Bertram

Only Bertram seems to inherited his father's natural...plumpness. Elsewhere in the neighborhood...

Roxanne decides to visit her oldest twins before she gets too far along that she doesn't dare leave the house until it's time for the baby.

"Hi, honey!"

"Mom! You're pregnant again?"

The kid in the red jacket could very well be Beckham and Bertram's other triplet. But the real triplet is out on the lawn with Max.

"Go baby! Let's win this thing! Oh, wait. I should go to the hospital!"

Like his older siblings before him, Bertram doesn't take Roxanne's impending labor well.

"This is gross, Mom!"

And for some weird reason...this kid shows up and hangs around for several sim hours. He's not a babysitter because Max is there...and I don't think he's Max's friend either...

Roxanne comes home with two little boys, Caleb and Carl.

Babies! 

That wraps up this chapter. I would have shown Carl and Caleb aged up, but I split it up because otherwise you'd have to look at over FORTY photos, and I know your attention span isn't that long.

Here's hoping I can stop being so lazy and get Roxanne's redo blog up and running. Anyways, I'll catch you all later!

Toy Series: Bath-World

Hello everyone! Sorry (once again) I've been a terrible blogger. The holidays is a great distraction for all things productive. But last night as I was getting ready for bed, I thought about all the things that have made me who I am today. All the little pieces and adventures I went on before I knew what writing was.

So we're going to delve into my psyche. You may think I'm a strange little nut (if you didn't already, then I don't know what you're doing here), but these are the true tales of my adventures, and, as best I can recall, all the reasons behind it.

Once upon a time, in a land you probably never heard of, lived a little girl with a nine year age gap between her and her other siblings. Her other siblings seemed large, fierce and scary being so tall and having loud voices and friends and all these things the little girl didn't understand. So the little girl made friends with her neighbors. But neighbors couldn't always come and play, leaving the little girl to make friends with the toys.

There is a reason I bawl like a little baby at the end of Toy Story 3; my toys are my friends, maybe even my family.

This is our story.

My bathtub was pretty awesome. It was the place I could slide down into the tub like a water slide, I could create colossal waves just by sloshing my body to and fro, I could lay on my side, and pump myself around the bottom when the water had all drained out. It also was the place I got my first bump that required stitches, and, when I was bored, would puff baby powder out the window in the hopes of sending a smoke signal to someone (never mind that it was dark and that no one reads smoke signals anymore, I thought I was the smartest kid for using baby powder as a substitute for smoke.)

Bath time was my favorite time of the day. It meant I had free reign of the super deep bathtub in my parent's bathroom. Even though I wasn't supposed to fill it past my belly button, I did it anyway. After all, how could I tell the stories of the deep without the deep? Honestly, it's basic logic people.

Bath-World didn't have a name. I didn't know to name the worlds I created; they just were there. Bath-World is a title I came up with since, well, I have to name it now. Bath-World was inhabited by a wide cast of characters. Belle, Beast, and Mrs. Potts of Beauty and the Beast were there, one of those crazy trolls that were popular in the eighties, cleverly named Trolly (and I never knew if Trolly was a boy or a girl. Part of me said girl, but I think Trolly filled in the guy's part), an old dress-up doll (I'm pretty sure this is the doll I named), Hairy-Kairy Karluda, who always spouted out lacy black mold when I first got in the tub (rinsing her out was a priority, I didn't want those black flecks messing up the water), an over-dressed Hawaiian Minnie Mouse, who sometimes acted as a plug for the drain (she fit in there perfectly), and Motorcylce Mikey, of Ninja turtles was there as well.

I don't remember all of the adventures Bath-World had. I do remember I was obsessed with getting Trolly's hair washed at least twenty times and styled into a little blue play-doh scoop. Sometimes it would work. Other times I couldn't get the hair to mold. Mrs. Potts always had water to give to someone; Belle would always take care of Beast.

There were rules to Bath-World, though. Mikey couldn't go underwater (despite the fact that he's a turtle and this should be no issue for him) unless he had his helmet on. Minnie would occasionally act as the plug while the others went in search of the real plug.

These characters would occupy at least an hour of time until the water had gone uncomfortably lukewarm. Then I'd drain out the tub, making the last few comments I needed to wrap up the story, before Bath-World reset for the next night. No one understood why I needed to take an hour in the tub when I could do all of my business in about ten-fifteen minutes. I just had to play. The bathtub never was just a bathtub. It was my own personal ocean for swimming, my own paradise with no fear of drowning. The warm water took me away from everyone and everything I knew. I was alone with no one to bother me.

Maybe this is why I still take hour long showers.

Skyward Sword vs. Twilight Princess: Combat Gameplay

This is definitely more of a technical review than a story-wise review. When I first picked up the Wii-Mote to play as Link, the controls felt very natural. Move the Wii-Mote, slash the sword. Time your nunchuck thrusts right, Link bashes his shield. It was easy.

And then Skyward Sword happened.

Wii-Motion Plus is required for this game. Rather than hack-n-slash as before, now you had to angle your Wii-Mote to not get blocked by the attack. Worse, the controls wouldn't work the way you wanted them too sometimes. Usually, I'd just end up slashing wildly until one attack worked and I killed the baddy in my way.

Now that's just the everyday mooks you're cutting down in a dungeon. What about Bosses and Mini-Bosses?

For Twilight Princess, it's pretty obvious. Almost every boss has a giant "HIT ME RIGHT HERE" spot and you use the new item you got in the dungeon to take it down. Even the mini-bosses have this. While some of them are a bit more challenging than others, it becomes pretty obvious what you have to do.

Skyward Sword on the other hand...

The first Boss you face is Ghirahim, the main villain of the game. Yeah, and you're still figuring out how the motion controls work. Talk about hard. Even the first Mini-Boss is hard. It's a four-armed skeleton that, while having epic music, cuts you to pieces before you can even get a strike in. Some bosses have this "HIT ME RIGHT HERE" spot, but I feel like the designers were trying to move away from that.

At any rate, while there were some fun moments with the Wii-Motion plus controls, I never felt like I had changed as Swordsman. I was still taking stupid hits because the controls didn't follow my movements. Twilight Princess was easier because I didn't have to think as much. Even if I was freaking out, I could still slash my way through the guy and go off to save the world. Skyward Sword didn't allow me that luxury. Freaking out = getting hurt for no good reason.

Twilight Princess wins this round since I felt it was a little easier to do things. Skyward Sword had good potential, and if we can ever get motion controls super precise, that would be a fun remake to do again.

Twilight Princess: 3
Skyward Sword: 3

And We're Back!

Hey guys! I'm back from the land of NaNoWriMo. I got it done on the 30th, and I'm super proud of myself for pushing myself through the boring parts, and for sticking with it.

I wrote a book in a month. That's pretty awesome, you have to admit.

Anyways, now that I'm back, I'll hopefully be posting more regularly, as well as getting Roxanne's blog off the ground and finishing up her current story and then starting over again.

It's good to be back.

Skyward Sword vs. Twilight Princess: Plot & Story

The stories of Zelda weren't much beyond, "Quest, get item, kill boss, lather, rinse, repeat" until you killed Ganon. But as the games improved so did the stories. Ocarina of Time has one of the best ratings of all time because of the story it told, and the implications of said story.

So how do the stories of Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess measure up? Let's find out.

Oh yeah, SPOILERS AHOY.

A quick side note: The story is the chronological events while the plot is logical structure that connects the events together. We're going to be looking at both here.

The story of Skyward Sword I've summed up a few times in the previous posts, so I'll just talk about what I liked and didn't like. The first half of the story and plot are all dependent on you following and finding Zelda. You get close to doing so, but then Ghirahim shows up and ruins everything. After the first Gate of Time is destroyed, you quest to find the second one. Which then turns into the power up the sword quest/don't let the Imprisoned win. And THEN after that it becomes the "Wait, you can't have the final boss just yet, let's throw in one more Silent Realm just to mess you up," Song of the Hero quest.

So, all in all, the Plot isn't super great. Each dungeon, while giving you something you need/want to progress, doesn't feel like it's furthering the story. It's just...there. I mean, they wait until the second to last real dungeon, to give you your freakin' bow. Do you have ANY idea how useful that would have been earlier?!

As for the story: The game is pretty good at keeping you involved in the story. I remember I hated taking breaks because I wanted to know what happened next. But there were parts where I was like, "Okay, what's with the dig around to find the next dungeon? Can't I just get there already? There's a story to be told here!"

Twilight Princess's story was a bit longer, mostly because there were more dungeons and more places to go and discover, but there also was good pacing. If you just sat down and followed the plot, no sidequests or anything, you'd find that there's never a dull moment. You're busy going to the next plot point. Find the next Fused Shadow, find the Twilit Bugs, Find the Master Sword, Find the mirror, etc. The game does a good job getting you from point A to B that isn't boring or contrived. And each area you go to has secrets to explore later on when you want to do the sidequests.

The Plot is much better as well. As mentioned above, the transitions from point A to point B don't feel too contrived, though, in the early game, you can't get anywhere because of various reasons. You can tell you can go other places, but the game doesn't want you there just yet. But you don't care too much because you've got such a big area to explore the first time. I'll never forget crossing Hyrule Field for the first time. A random thunderstorm rolled in over the Eldin Province, sort of foreshadowing what was coming. And while it freaked me out a little, I knew it was epic.

Anyways, Twilight Princess's Story may not have as big an impact on the Zelda francise as Skyward Sword (SS being the first chronologically), but the story is a better one, and a more enjoyable one. So Story and Plot goes to Twilight Princess!

Skyward Sword: 3
Twilight Princess: 2

Skyward Sword vs. Twilight Princess: Supporting Cast

And we're back! Sorry I've been away for so long. My brain is full of too many stories and I can't keep up with all of them at once. Anyway, let's return to Hyrule and compare two stories to each other.

The supporting cast in any game is crucial to how the plot progresses. After all, you have to know the people you're saving in order to care about saving the world. The supporting cast is crucial in the Zelda series.

Twilight Princess's cast is quite large, though you'll easily pick out familiar faces as the game progresses. Among these are the crew from Ordon village. You spend much of the game tracking all of them down, and then restoring Ilia's memory (which I have to admit didn't make all that much sense to me. Sorry, I don't like Ilia). But once you've rescued them all, they sort of drop out of the plot. The next main group would be the Resistance group that meets in Telma's Bar. The group members help you along your way after you retrieve the Master Sword, warning you about the dangers the next area will possess. They also show up to give Link a hand in Hyrule Castle. And I loved the fact that they showed up. It proved that these guys really meant what they said about trying to save Hyrule from a force that they didn't fully understand. I wish there were more guys like them showing up in the final battle.

Skyward Sword's cast is much smaller, which gives you a more intimate feel with everyone. One of the main side-quests to gather gratitude crystals is based on you knowing everyone in town. The main secondary character you'll encounter is Groose, who is in it for himself and for Zelda. But once he gets it through his skull that he's not the Hero chosen by the Goddess, he stops feeling sorry and starts becoming industrious, hinting at the future society that the people of Skyloft will one day build below. There's also Fledge, a shy boy who eventually works his way out of his shell (thanks to you and your hard earned rupees. I dont' like Fledge either...).

So which cast is better? Personally, I liked the big grand scope of Twilight Princess, but also the small intimate feeling of Skyward Sword as well. Once you returned to Skyloft for the first time after being below the clouds, you realize how small your world actually is compared to Hyrule below.

And the cast of Skyward Sword was a bit more helpful than Twilight Princess. Ilia is the biggest offender to why I don't like the Twilight Princess cast as much as I do Skyward Sword. She steals your horse, makes you feel bad for her for most of the game until you restore her memory, and I really don't like her at all. Fledge is the offender for Skyward Sword. He mooches off you and your rupees to get Stamina potions so he can do more push-ups. Yet he then ends up running a mini-game where he pays you fifty rupees usually. Where's THAT money coming from, eh, Fledge?

Anyways, Skyward Sword's supporting cast is a lot more helpful. Everyone knows who you are after a while, and they all want to help you on you quest to save Zelda. Everyone cheers you on in one way or another, while in Twilight Princess, some characters are unaware of what's going on throughout the whole game. Twilight Princess is a bigger game, so it's harder to know so many people, but there comes a point where you have to say, "I can't help you if you're being so stupid to not see that something is seriously wrong with Hyrule!"

So my vote for best supporting cast goes to Skyward Sword. Twilight Princess will be making a comeback soon. I can feel it.

Skyward Sword: 3
Twilight Princess: 1

SORRY ABOUT BEING A HORRIBLE BLOGGER!

Okay, I apologize. I have been a horrible blogger. My groove was thrown off and I haven't got back into it.
Also, I'm smack dab in the middle of NaNoWriMo, so my energy has been drained and focused on that. I haven't written anything I want to share on the internet yet (boring background exposition), so no excerpts yet.
I'm planning on giving Roxanne her own blog so you don't have to dig through a bunch of posts just to find it. Then you can also read Roxanne's story in a nice single read. :)

Sorry guys. I'll get better at this blogging thing.