What a labor of love to give on Valentine's Day. A virtually useless trinket that will probably be forgotten when either badges are totally discontinued or the 3DS itself breaks down and isn't replaced. Yet I still did it. I still got my Marx.
Let's take this back a step to what I'm actually talking about.
A few days ago I decided to download the Badge Arcade again to see if anything had changed since the last time I played. You can still find my review of the Badge Arcade near release, but now it was time to review the Badge Arcade near death. What I found was semi-surprising.
The Badge Arcade has changed now so that you get two free tries daily whether you win the practice game or not. This is already a vast improvement to the possibility of not getting a try at all. After all, most good badges will take more than two tries to get anyway, so throwing out a bone is a good idea.
The badges also recycle daily now. Which is also a good thing, since the Arcade's biggest problem always was that the badges took days to recycle. However, there is a double edged sword. Every time you open the arcade- or the three days I did- I opened to a familiar layout of badges.
Pokemon, both pixel and cartoon, animal crossing, vague ones from more unknown games, some sort of Kirby, and classic Mario badges are always there, and a majority of the time they are rather bland. I think they might not do holiday badges either, as I remember a year they did Valentine's Day ones and they didn't do those today
Now I did do a little research and found out that the Badge Arcade effectively discontinued last year. Such as, they were no longer producing new badges. If this is the case, they could've at least recycled old Valentine's Day badges. As it is, two of the days I was almost totally unmotivated on which badges I wanted to try for.
Briefly touching back on the discontinuing; I never even heard of it happening until now. I'm surprised that not someone or somewhere in my vicinity ever said something about it. In a way, it is a shame, because the Badge Arcade seems like it wouldn't be too hard to add new badges. Especially when a large majority of those badges are just Pokemon. Ah well, life goes on.
Though this loss of new badges is a detriment. While they give out plays so much easier, the badges are no longer worth playing for. For those two days, I collected badges that would never go anywhere except for my badge bank.
...And then there was Marx.
(He's the top right one.)
I've got this thing for jesters. I love jester characters, I love jester attire, I'm currently writing a novel about a jester, and even video game jesters usually fall into my category of unhealthy obsession. Marx is one of those characters. I used to write fanfictions about him, I voted for him to be in Brawl, and even to this day I shamelessly await the next Marx cameo.
So when I saw that badge, the only tempting badge, sitting in the Arcade... I knew I had to have it. It was what I came back for- The chance to retrieve one of my favorite characters in badge form. I wanted me some Marx.
I have seen a Marx badge before- or I think I might have. I swear I saw a Marx with his wings folded in long ago, but I couldn't find it in the badge list, so maybe I imagined this. I thought it was in one of those awful catchers with a hammer or a poker or something. This one, indeed, was in one of the terribly ineffective bomb catchers. It did not matter; I wanted Marx.
In case you aren't aware, Badge Arcade loves to hide its best badges in these other types of cranes; bomb, hammer, and poker. Bomb only works if you have something small and close to the edge, (which Marx was neither). Hammer only really works if there's ice or if there's a lot of badges, and even then it tends to glitch and swing early. Then there's poker... Never have gotten it to work. The thing still has a stopping delay which means that you cannot be precise. I got semi-lucky with bomb, but that didn't mean I had a good chance.
So, I did the usual deal. I tried both daily tries and a third practice catcher tries, but Marx was pretty determined not to move. I decided to check and see if I had money in my account... Shockingly, I did. I think it's leftover from when I purchased Oracle of Seasons and Ages, leaving me with a dollar and some change. I sat there contemplating if Marx was worth it.
...To be fair, no. These badges are not worth money.
I did it anyway.
In my defense, I only did it largely because I didn't think I would be able to use that dollar on anything else now that it had sat in the 3DS shop for a year or two. It wasn't going anywhere and for all intents and purposes, it was already used a long time ago. It was more a credit than an actual value.
A few moments later and I had my five tries. It took two of those to get my Marx. I was moderately surprised that he came so easily, but then I found out why.
With some leftover tries, I tried the next Kirby badge machine and almost got all of them. When I was going for a badge, the crane slipped, slid down the badge and grabbed a different one. While great for me, I realized that this was odd, as usually the crane comes to a dead stop and refuses to move if it brushed anything.
It took me all of two seconds to realize that collecting badges became dramatically easier once I had 'purchased' those games. Nice. I mean, I'm glad that I got a sure win, but something about that makes me uneasy. The 'easier' games seemed to work their physics better, so does that mean that the game's physics are purposefully stiffened to coax people into buying?
I think the obvious answer is yes. Still more fair than a real crane game- unless it has a payout rate too- and I came out with something. Even if that something is practically non-existent and is only there to look pretty when I open my 3DS. I wouldn't have done it for anyone except Marx.
Thus, dear Marx, you are my Valentine this year. As I delete the Badge Arcade and say farewell to it for good, I will still have you as a token of my time with it. Years(?) of playing and then I finally cave and pay, all for you, so that you may stare at me every time I open my 3DS.
Rest in Valentines, Badge Arcade. You were flawed, but not forgotten... Or not forgotten forever.
