MORE Weird FNAF Toys (Freddy's Harem and s'more scary Mari)

I only wrote that post yesterday, and already I have found more of these bizarre FNAF toys on Ebay. I'm not sure if anything will beat the animatronics dressed like TF2 characters, but it might come close enough. I'll start with my first finding that I actually found last night, after my article was finished and done with.

Firstly, this is clearly a set of FNAF toys based on Minecraft. From the blocky bodies, to the weapons, it is clearly Minecraft. The set comes with Foxy, Freddy, Chica, and Bonnie in standard bodies and the Marionette in a sort of Enderman looking one. Marionette seems to also have a Yume Nikki or Undertale Gaster thing going on with his face. Though the box mistakenly says that it is a six pack when there are obviously only five characters. The Minecraft weapons seem really out of place, but I think it's the coloring.

The box is interesting because, most of the time, it looks good enough... Though a little confused. The picture on the top right looks pretty good, but for some reason is in front of Freddy in the middle. There's a weird earless Bonnie in the back left and for whatever reason, Freddy and Chica look scared of... A security guard? I don't know, it's behind Marionette and looks awfully stubby, whatever it is... The boxart is seriously confused, but they are at least still all FNAF characters. That's a plus.

Also, the product name is: Teddy Bear Midnight harem doll building blocks... I'm not kidding. Taking this title apart makes slightly more since. Teddy Bear is Freddy, Midnight could be the night part, they're dolls, and building blocks would be minecraft... But harem? Okay, looking at the exact definition of harem, to see if there's a different meaning than the one I immediately thought of, a harem is basically a group of women. I see one female character here. Where did this become a Harem?!

I mean, Bonnie kind of has a girl's name, and Foxy's also sort of a girl's name, and Marionette wears makeup... Oh wait... So that's the real mystery behind Freddy's, the mystery of how Freddy singlehandedly acquired a harem.

This toy is currently on bid for $5 with no shipping... So the price is pretty low if you want it. What you see is what you get, but having a harem is worth any price. Onto the next thing!

This pack came in a plastic bag with a tiny tag on it. Oddly enough, the tag has pictures of the tiny licensed toys that you can buy; the ones in the small boxes. The toys themselves look... Odd. Firstly, Freddy is absent. The only version of Freddy is Golden Freddy. Instead, there is an Endoskeleton. They have stands that they can pop off of, but the stands aren't really fit for them.

Golden Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica look okay enough. The Endoskeleton is a little tooo big... But it's Spring Trap and Foxy that are weird. Springtrap has pink feet, an oddly shaped head, and is bright yellow. Then there's Foxy... Who is clearly wearing a pink shirt. You can see it in this picture. That's clearly just a pink shirt instead of... You know, no pink shirt.

Next we have a set of bobble heads that might be familiar.

You may recognize these as the mystery figures that I mentioned earlier, with a few changes. Firstly, you may notice the long necks with springs around them. I think these may be bobble heads of some kind, but I don't know if they work. All of the coloring is askew, especially BB who I said would probably be the worst. Once again, the stands do not fit, and they have holes on the top for keychains that they don't have. Other than that, they look pretty close to the originals... Except Marionette.

Marionette's got the strangest red face paint here... And it actually works. If not for the weird spring, the hole, and the awkward stand I would think he looks pretty cool. But I could repaint a normal, legit keychain and get one. I don't recommend these when they're basically repaints of official merchandise.

This lot is another strange one. The characters look to be made of clay and don't seem to have articulation. It's a really mixed bag; some of these look good, some look bad, but the biggest problem is definitely the painting. The painting is really inconsistent. While from afar it looks good, the closer you get the more splotches you find. Another problem is the doubling of characters. Look, you can clearly see three Chicas that look almost identical!

I like the tiny Puppet, but this picture really shows the somewhat shoddy painting job. The articulation is clearly missing here too. They aren't that bad and they are cheaper than the TF2 lot, running at $85 with $32 shipping... But the painting and lack of articulation is a total turn off, especially when it's this expensive.

This next one is very similar to these... But there's one big, BIG difference.

More clay looking figures... Except that these dilapidated looking figures are painted odd colors and some have strange faces. Again, BB stands out as one of the ones painted least similarly to his normal form. Though you probably notice the big, rainbow glowing Freddy in the back. It looks enough like Freddy, but seems to have this mechanism to glow that you may remember from the Marionette in the last series of FNAF toys. I don't know why so many of these have this rainbow light feature, but the toys do look similar enough.

Then there's Golden Freddy and Marionette.

At first I thought that was Golden Bonnie's arm around Marionette's waist. That would've been a weird twist. Instead, Goldie and Mari look quite terrifying. Interesting... But the confused bunch is certainly even more confused than the last one! Look at Chica's chainsaw there; that's insanity. It again runs at $87 with shipping and... No, I just don't know about these. Maybe if they came alone I would buy these two, and they would have to be cheap. This is definitely the most unnerving Puppet of the group.

Now we are onto a very strange set of toys. Because this next set contains both toys and extra stuff... And this stuff holds something a bit concerning. Here we go...

This set literally calls itself a bootleg in the Ebay title. I'm not exactly surprised. The faces and bodies on these are mutated looking, but familiar. In fact, these are all from the lot with the weird coloring... With one big change. These toys come with a puzzle, a lottery(what?), a memory game, a surprise toy, and cards. Here is the entire set below.

Of course all of these are bootlegs, but the arm on them is questionable. Obviously these images aren't all from the game, you can see that they aren't. Some of them look slightly suggestive, some are game pictures, some are cartoon versions of Foxy, and one is...

...Is that Popgoes the Weasel?

Okay, if you don't know, Popgoes the Weasel is a fancharacter in the game Popgoes. The game was recently released, had an arcade teaser, and also has a (punny) connection with the Puppet. Maybe I'm wrong, but that looks like Popgoes, and that means that not only fanworks, but fancharacters are being used to sell fake merchandise. That's... Pretty dirty. Dirty pool, Mister. Dirty Pool. 

I also have no idea what the surprise toy is. 

The next toy is actually a game instead of figures. It's a lottery, I'm not sure how you play a lottery game, but it's another item where the packaging is the best part of the package... So I'll show the game first.

I'm guessing a 'lottery' is like a bingo game. It comes with cards and a picture covered board. The pictures are mostly from the games, which is better than the game before. Though there's a strange picture on the top left of Freddy, Chica, and Bonnie sleeping together. I'm not too sure why this is, but the picture isn't taken fanart at least. Instead, it looks like it was posed in SFM or something similar... Then comes the picture above, that I waited to show...

So, no one told you life was gonna be this way.

Seriously, what? Freddy's got an arm around Mangle, Mangle is against him, Bonnie and Chica are coddling and sending each other romantic looks, and Puppet is holding onto Bonnie's head and giving the peace sign with some really weird shaped find fingers. Friendly Nights at Freddy's? Five Nights with Friends? I don't know, I just get a friends vibe here. It's... Baffling. This is another one that announces it is a bootleg, but this is- Look at this.

I have to end it here. Like with FNAF's TF2 impression, I can't go on past this. Nothing will top this picture, I already know that now. So for now I'll bring this post to a close with a promise to find more weird toys in the future! Believe me, I know I will.

(Even the humans are glowing!)

Weird FNAF Toys (TFNAF2)

So... I know these can't be the real thing, but I've been stumbling upon what I think are fake FNAF toys... Okay, I have a good suspicion they're knock-offs, but I don't want somebody on Ebay going out for blood. I would like to note that I don't own any of these toys and don't know about their quality. I'll start with the big lot of toys.

This is the big lot that I found. The toys seem to be styled off of FNAF World's design primarily, except for a few minor exceptions that you may notice.

These first four are obviously Bonnie, Springtrap, Nightmare, and one of the enemies from FNAF World that I can't recall the name of. Other than the odd eyes, the coloring is mostly fine on Bonnie and Springtrap. Nightmare's blue claws are a little strange, but he looks close enough to the real thing. I'm not sure if this color of enemy is in the game, but it doesn't really matter as much. As you see, Bonnie has a guitar that can be removed from his hand.

Now we get to the weirder ones. Mangle's coloring is a bit off and the face is sort of strange, especially with the smiling second head. The body matches the shape well enough though. Foxy also has weird coloring on him, with missing eyes and a blue muzzle and toes. Not sure what's going on with the blue. Then we have the night guard and the purple man. I can't tell what it says on the security guard's hat, but the blue eyes match Mike's. The purple guy doesn't look like the purple guy in the games, but more like the adaptation taken by fanworks. They are rather similar looking and may be the same model with different coloring. What's weird is that neither of these characters are in FNAF World, so these are (somewhat) original designs. The hammer also is removable.

This is definitely the weirdest group here. We have Nightmare Balloon Boy, whose completely mis-colored and, if I remember right, not in FNAF World. His grey teeth are also pretty unnerving. Then we have Toy-Chica, who has some odd eyes and is missing the words on her bib. The rest of her coloring is fine. There's a stoned looking Freddy who looks close enough, except the eyes. Finally we have Marionette, who looks pretty close except has a pinkish face, misses the tear marks, has incomplete face paint, and his feet are shaped wrong. Sadly enough, I still like him best. (I'm shamefully biased.)

If I found a lot like this at a flea market I would snatch it in a heartbeat. It's so weird looking, but they do look close enough to FNAF stuff to have a little fun with. While the versions of characters differ, with some being from various games, there is one version of every main character and no doubles. That's something worth mentioning... The only problem is the price, which is over twenty dollars, the fact that coloring may be different on the final product (when the coloring is already somewhat off it disturbs me), and the actual quality of the final items. So it's really a mixed bag, and you can be taking a risk here.

But that's not all. In fact, we have another familiar face here; another Marionette.

This one is an 11" high Marionette doll. As a collector of action figures, I can assure you that this is rather tall. In fact, this is closer to the average fashion doll than the average action figure. His proportions are a bit off; the arms look fine, but the legs are too short. The painting job is... Questionable. Through the other pictures, you can see chips in the black part of the mouth. There's some strange lumps around the torso, but I don't know if they're intentional.

The plus is definitely the arms' articulation. It's a shame the head and legs don't have as much. From what I see there's eight joints, nine if the middle moves. He also comes with this odd Freddy doll, which sort of looks like the little Freddies from Nightmare Freddy. He also comes with a base... And get this...

He glows. He actually glows different colors.

I don't even know what to think of this. He looks kind of cool, but the paint job is a little questionable, and I worry about toys that having glowing mechanics. I also don't know if that base would really do a good job of holding him; I think he'll be a little too top heavy. The Freddy that comes with him is also a little curious. He goes at over twenty dollars too, if you count the shipping that is about as much as he is.

Between this and the lot, while I love the Puppet and all, I'd say the lot is a better deal. Even with the odd colors and risk of blue popping around. Mainly because it comes with a lot more and seems like it could get more out of it. If the Marionette was about, oh, maybe ten bucks or less I would say that he would be worth checking out cautiously.

I have one more thing that I just found and it's... Really strange.

This is a lot that looks similar to the one above, except more detailed. This set goes for a whopping $125 with $32 shipping. The lot comes with Marionette, Chica, Mangle, Toy Bonnie, Foxy, Golden Freddy, Purple Guy, damaged Freddy, Spingtrap, Jeremy, and Balloon Boy. I see why these are so expensive; they look hand made in a way and, while sometimes wonky, do have a lot of detail. They even come with a Freddy, a Bonnie, and a silver Puppet mask. I would not spend this much on these, but they do look kind of cool. Their faces even come off! Even Sprintrap's! I'd say Balloon Boy looks closest to the game, but I like Purple Guy and angry Marionette.

Except... Do you notice something? I didn't notice it at first, but something is amiss.

It's the box.

What in the hell is this? This is Foxy with a soldier hat, Bonnie wearing a white hat, Marionette in a fedora, and a close in of Fredbear's face. This baffled me at first; I didn't know what I was looking at. It wasn't until the next picture that I realized what I was looking at... And it's just so wrong.

Just in case you don't know what you're looking at, that's Bonnie holding a medigun, Foxy in a soldier suit, and Marionette dressed as a spy. It's the FNAF characters dressed like Team Fortress 2 characters. What on Earth- I don't know if I'm surprised or if this is hilarious. Puppet's a Spy, Bonnie's a medic, and Foxy is a soldier; someone went out of their way to put them in TF2 gear even though they could've sold them as they were. XD What in the world?! This made the whole thing worth finding. Team FNAF 2.

So that was what I found while looking for FNAF toys on Ebay. I ran into a strange assortment of characters, such as pink-faced Puppet, Rainbow Marionette, and Marionspy. If I find more of these toys I will be sure to post a second story regarding them. For now, I hope you enjoyed this journey into weird territory!

(You mean the happy child?)

A Plea For Peridot: A Letter to the Crystal Gems

Crystal Gems, this is Peridot's sponsor reporting.

As you can see, I've been vouching for Peridot's turn around for quite some time. While she has had a few setbacks along the way, I can assure you that her progress is astounding for someone raised under Homeworld's thumb. Over time we have seen Peridot, an outside Gem, get close to all of the Crystal Gems, including Steven Universe who, sources claim, is of close relation to Rose Quartz.

In notable instances, Peridot has learned to respect Pearls, who she was taught were inferior, she has learned to apologize and to see when she's wrong, and has even started to become interested and respecting of fusion. There's also been a recent incident involving the sharing of paint cans that should be noted. All of this is excellent progress.

However, it has come to my attention recently that Peridot has been thinking of moving into the barn. While I respect her feelings of independence, I don't think this choice is a particularly good one. Peridot is still in a vulnerable position to Homeworld, if they return, and if left in isolation may start to revert to former ways. Though, to be realistic, this is not all her fault.

Peridot has mentioned that there is not enough room at the Crystal Temple. I am actually appalled that you have made her stay in the bathroom as apposed to on the couch or sharing a room with another. There is not even an adequate bed made in the bathtub either. As her sponsor, I believe it is necessary that Peridot it able to acquire her own space in the Crystal Temple.

After all, you all agreed to making her a Crystal Gem, but by keeping her separated at the barn it seems more likely that you didn't really consider what a Crystal Gem is. Moving one from the group but giving them the same title is a lazy way to achieve success. Peridot believes she is a full Crystal Gem now, but in the coming months she will come to question her significance in the group.

You took her under your wing, made her your friend, your ally, so I strongly suggest that room is made and that Peridot is moved into the Crystal Temple. She may not be the strongest, fastest, or more agile gem, but Peridot is a Crystal Gem, and she needs the support and amenities that it provides. She's simply not ready to function as a unit on her own.

While roommate Lapis seems like a good way to keep her from being completely alone, Lapis herself is not obligated to fill the needs that Peridot will need. Lapis is planning future trips to explore the world and this will also leave Peridot alone. In these periods is when she will need support. Peridot does not do well entirely isolated, we know this for a fact.

Crystal Gems, I respect what you do for Earth and I know that Rose taught you enough to lend this support. While I never met her personally, I am under the impression that she would've wanted to keep Peridot close and would've wanted to continue nurturing her. Peridot is not done learning and is not at the level where she can be left to figure things out for herself.

Please get back to me as soon as you can. My concern is for our dear Peridot; I see too many people in her situation get sucked back into their old position.

Sender: Sponsor NRN-111511.
Date: 6-23-16
Summery: Please don't send Peridot away to the barn. -.-

Reviewing Facebook Games: Detective Stories, City Girl Life, Island Experiment, and The Heavens.

Detective Stories: Finding Fun rather quickly.

In Detective Stories you do hidden object scenes and mini games to find clues, collect stars, and solve mysteries. The mysteries vary; I won't spoil much, but the first case is a murder, the second a kidnapping, the third a romantic affair, and the fourth is even a bank robbery case. With the clues you collect you find out more about the criminal and at the end of the case you arrest one of the suspects.

Every crime scene hidden object game takes ten energy points and you can hold about fifty-five. They slowly return over time; usually a point every few minutes or so. Whenever you raise a level your energy is refreshed and you can also earn coffees and such to refresh your energy. Some mini-games also reward you with energy depending on how long it takes you to finish them.

Analyzing clues can sometimes take some time. Sometimes fifteen minutes, sometimes a couple of hours, but usually you have other things you can do while it runs its coarse. In the meantime, you can collect stars by completing the scenes. Not only does this make the scenes more challenging, but after five stars the scenes only cost three points. The stars are used to analyse, examine clues, and question suspects.

You can also customize your male or female detective. You unlock extra features and buy them with money that you get in game for completing the hidden object scenes. After finishing a case it takes a few days for the next to unlock, unless you have friends. In this time you can collect stars on old cases and exchange them for coffee and other energy refueling objects.

I did find one, strange glitch. In the bonus scenes where you have to find the listed items in a limited amount of time, all of the items in the scene, sometimes the list won't show any new items. This actually breaks the scene as even if you use a hint you can't click on whatever it directs you to. I've only seen this happen a few times on that specific challenge.

All in all, I enjoy this game very much and when case five opens I'll be back for more!

Update: Reached case five and am enjoying it a bit more than case four. The game's still going strong!

City Girl Life: Gold digger

For everything City Girl Life does right it takes a massive step in the wrong direction by doing something incredibly awful. It almost seems like a normal Sim game, but it's main two problems is its need to leech on friends and it's addiction to consuming gold. This game wants nothing more than for you to feed it a steady stream of both and if you don't then you'll be punished by not being able to finish really any quests. Well, any quests that actually reward you.

You go to a city and sit in your little apartment filling needs constantly. I thought Sims had needs that dropped rapidly, but this is insane. It is almost impossible to stay dazzling, all needs filled fully, and sometimes you have to be dazzling to choose certain actions. All of the clothing, which sometimes must be acquired to continue on, is incredibly expensive except for the cheapest stuff... And frankly, none of it looks 'good'.

Again, quests are incredibly frustrating. You'll work halfway through one and then get stuck with an item that needs to be requested by a friend. If you don't have a friend who can send you the designated item then you'll have to pay for it with gold. It doesn't help that later in the missions you'll need more items that, of course, both need gold and then take twelve or more hours to complete. Did I mention that a good deal of these missions expire? What's even the point?

Then you might say, "If you don't like the missions then just play the game." Unfortunately I can't... Because there isn't a game outside of the missions. Building a career? Blocked by a friend request wall. Changing apartments? Blocked. New furniture and clothes? Too expensive. This is literally the only thing I can do in this game and it's trying its damnedest to milk me for 'gold'. I had to get gold through looping surveys and playing other awful games to get gold in return, so that I didn't actually have to pay. Not fun.

Basically City Girl Life is a gold digger whose looking for you to shower her in gifts and pay her way through the city, one that rewards you occasionally for all of your effort, but not enough to keep you entertained.

Island Experiment: Slows to a halt.

Starts out as a fun management game, gets to the point where you literally can't do anything. Seriously, it becomes a tug of war between making money and making food, both of which need the other to get in proper amounts. Doing anything involves both of these and getting them together is almost impossible. Even the gems you get, the paid currency, don't actually do much except speed time. Your only chance to get anything done is juggle food and money, get a few lucky breaks, and then waste it all buying or upgrading a building, then starting over once again.

The storyline, or lack thereof, is supposed to be about exploring the island. Most of the time you will instead be stuck at the same camp watching the same characters grow crops and clicking houses for gold. Missions don't lead much of anywhere and the rewards for missions are too minor to help you get into the next one, so you basically have a lot of time to kill along the way.

There's really not much to say about this. Expect to be stuck in an endless loop of looking for gold and food unless you're willing to fork out money or get extremely lucky.

The Heavens: Bribery will get you nowhere.

I've never seen a game so broken. So completely pointless and awful. The Heavens is complete hell. Firstly, you make a bland character of a cult out of a choice of six, then you battle... And battle... And battle... And everything you can do is blocked by a higher level limit, usually, save battling equal level members and the occasional weak ghoul.

And 'equal level' is garbage too. I went from equal battles in level two to level three, where every opponent has two thousand more health, more spells, tends to attack multiple times in a row, and is practically invincible. In one battle I got in a hit, then the opponent cast a heal spell, a power increase spell, knocked me down 800 health, and then chained eleven 'moves' in a row. It's a partial match three game too, it matched eleven in one shot. I was dead before I could attack a second time. Even training and upgrading you character doesn't seem to do much.

Why is this? Well, simple really. You can get a ton of diamonds, the game's special currency, if you go on its link and give it five stars. Five minutes into playing the game and it offered this; at that point it still was decent, but definitely not fun enough to warrant five stars. Sudden change in difficulty aside, the game is incredibly boring. Just battle after battle after battle. I guess that's why they need to bribe me to give them a five star rating.

You can't choose what level you want to fight either. I am stuck in stupidity; it will take me days to reach the fourth level which promised me free gold f I did so, but only a fool would keep playing. This game is a disaster in every way, wanting only a five star rating that it can't fairly achieve.

Beware Inkitt, the Suspicious site that lies!

Ah, Inkitt, a site that came out last year and promises publishing opportunities for new authors. It even has chosen a promising young author to publish from her contest entry!

...Except one, little thing. Inkitt's been around for years. In fact, Inkitt's shady practices expand to a very large degree. It's time to put all the facts together.

I learned about Inkitt when it lured me and other fanfiction writers to a contest that actually rewarded with money. As you probably know or don't, it is illegal to get paid for Fanfiction works. It is a labor of love, one that is supported well enough, but still not our property to sell. Regardless, Inkitt did it. In fact, Inkitt had many fanfiction contests over the past five years.

The furthest back that someone mentioned being lured to Inkitt was in 2010, which means it has existed for quite some time now. There have been many original work contests too... But where are those winners? We know there must have been some, as they promised publishing. Every contest, except the Fanfiction ones, promised publishing the winning works. But then again, where are they? All I could find was the recent winner and the shocking reveal that Inkitt, who has been around since 2010 at least, only appeared last year.

It gets worse. Many users have reported receiving loads of spam once publishing their first story. Not all writers have gotten this, or I believe that's the case, but many have complained of their inboxes filling with tones of E-mails asking for more entries, to invite more friends, and more Inkitt spam.

The site is also incredibly barren. There's little on it and even the cover picture on the front page is taken from Oz the Great and Powerful. I find it especially lazy to use a movie picture to advertise what is such a legit site. I'm being sarcastic with the 'legit' part.

It gets a lot worse too. Oh yes, for the site says that winners of contests are chosen by votes. Indeed, authors can vote, but not only do some stories get hundreds of votes with only a few reviews, but some of the reviews are clearly fake. Most of them are roaring praise and yet seem to have the full title stapled at the beginning or halfway through. There is also some reviews that you can see on numerous stories, worded exactly the same.

Also, now they claim that an A.I. chooses which stories will win. So that means that apparently now voting doesn't matter even though you can still vote. I'm guessing that perhaps this was some sort of defensive excuse, or one to make them sound more advanced than they really are. Regardless, it really is confusing, and usually when something doesn't make sense that means something shady is going on.

Inkitt still spams Fanfiction writers. Recently it has started using another Twitter account too, along with its own 'Inkitt' one. The second Twitter account is called BookrestBookram. It leads to the same site but is a different name, which also doesn't make any sense. That means they are sending out all of these form letter invitations on both accounts, inviting to contests. For a site that claims it gets a lot of good authors and is willing to publish them, it still pushes harshly to lure others in under false pretenses.

Also, I have an account on it that I have tried to delete repeatedly, but they will not allow me to delete my account. This has caused me to grow very concerned about my E-mail and wonder if it isn't safe. The account was created before I realized how awful everything was and I am ashamed to admit that I was, for a while at least, duped.

Before I thought that this was a way to steal work from promising writers, and it may still be, but part of me wonders if it is also part of a money laundering sort of thing. Very strange to use publishing to do so, but the shady practices and lies would make more sense if they were using the fake site to cover income.

Or they could be changing names on books and selling them outside the country. It runs in Berlin, so if anyone's book was published there then nobody here would know and unsuspecting readers wouldn't either. Either way, this site that has existed for so long is claiming itself as a new site and now starting to send more messages to unsuspecting targets than ever.

Look, it's not worth it. The site claims to cut out the middle man for publishing, but then uses shady aspects in 'publishing' your work. Also, if it is publishing the work, then why does it let the book still be readable for free after they decided that it would be released? That's not sound business practice; everyone has access to the story and don't have to pay a dime, so why on Earth would next year 'fans' shell out cash to get it? Oh, because it won't be there next year, and Inkitt will be a budding site claiming it is only a couple of months old.

Be afraid. Run. Don't even try it. If you have a novel worth publishing then do it anywhere else; self-publish, publish through Amazon Ebooks, publish through a publishing company, anywhere is better than a strange site that claims to use Artificial Intelligence to choose its winners.

My Candy Love: Finding love by pacing hallways.

    My Candy Love is an online dating sim that involves multiple choices and rewards depending on relationships formed with the characters. A few years ago I played this game constantly and was coming in every day to get my daily action points so that I could see what I could do next. Basically you woo the boys, make friends with the girls, and eventually unlock specific illustrations depending on which character you impress. One wrong answer will drop your affection, one right one will raise it, and you play through the basic high school drama.

Except that there is one big, big problem with this game. Before I get into it, you gain some energy and some money on a daily basis. Money can be used for buying clothing, but it also can be needed in the episode itself. Little trinkets bought in the storyline, like a CD or a bottle of water, usually run a small amount. At the end of an episode you usually have to buy an outfit for whichever guy's illustration you unlocked, which runs much higher, but at this point you'll have the money.

Before you mistakenly think that this is because the episodes are long, it is not. Many of the episodes are actually remarkably short with few decisions to make. Oh no, it's because of all the excess time that gets wasted in the process. See, let me explain; to continue through the game you have to do objectives in the story. Let's say you have to take papers to Nathan in the office and you're in the courtyard. It takes two energy to get to the hall and two to get to the office. No big deal, right?

Wrong.

See, you get ten energy a day, but every step takes two... So you get five energy a day and they absolutely do not refill before Midnight the next day. Not to mention there is a high chance that the character will not be there. This is a higher problem later in the game when more characters are added, because now you do have a chance to spawn others. So let's say the first time you enter there's nobody, then there's Melody, then there's nobody twice, then you finally find Nathan. That's fourteen energy, if we don't count getting there from the courtyard, and you basically did nothing.

That's on a lucky day too. Sometimes you can wander the school and look for someone so long that you run into other characters multiple times. I've done this so many times that sometimes the other characters simply stop giving dialogue and the random student I need to find is absent. It doesn't help that students' primary location may or may not move depending on the episode. It doesn't help that your choice doesn't matter on whether or not you have to sprint around the school.

In one episode a girl named Deborah comes looking for Castiel, one of the main love interests, and your character becomes suspicious and snoops. Even though I would rather snoop on someone else I get stuck doing this, and I feel both nosy and uninterested. Why can't it be a 'snoop' episode on whichever boy I want? Not to mention that this plot lasts, oh, five or so episodes for a character I really could care less about. Bad boys aren't my type.

There is a big narrative problem here as well, being that I can't choose which episodes I want to do. I know normally that's the point, but if I'm interested in someone else other than Castiel I have numerous episodes that focus on him and end with an illustration of someone else. Kind of pointless. The dialogue is also pretty alarming in two different ways.

Firstly, sometimes I'm hit with two equally offensive dialogue boxes and want to say neither, but can't. Your character by default is pretty outspoken, quirky, gets in the middle of things she shouldn't really, and seems to always say the worst possible thing even when you have a choice. It's hard to get invested in this girl, I guess her name's Candy, because she just screws everything up. I remember high school; drama existed, but I don't remember causing it constantly by saying the dumbest things.

Secondly, it's very hard to tell which dialogue options will help which characters. Sometimes they're obvious, but sometimes they aren't. Like Castiel, for one; one sarcastic answer will be the right one but then the next time you use sarcasm it rapidly drops his moods. Why? The same with Nathan, but his problem is three identical answers. Imagine having, "Okay", 'Yeah", and "Sure" as answers and having one wrong, one neutral, and one right. That's what a lot of Nathan's dialogue feels like.

And you're saying, "It can't get worse." But it can. One wrong dialogue choice can spell you not getting an illustration, and some of the choices are completely asinine. "Hey, X, right or left?" "Err... Left?" "Yeah, I knew you'd agree with me! Let's go outside and stand around." I find the most interesting illustrations are the holiday ones, by far. You can buy them with 100 AP or, you know, just be there on the holiday to unlock them. Some of them bring out really interesting stuff.

It seems like a lot of points, but if you break it down you get a good amount of content, especially since in these episodes you don't have to spend any extra AP, usually get an outfit, get an illustration, and sometimes even a bonus of some kind. For the same amount you can wander the halls. Trust me, I've spent AP easily. When I started playing the other day I had 100 AP for some reason and went through it trying to lead a friend to go to the teacher's lounge, find the teacher, and some dialogue options. It's sort of insane if you think about it.

There's also a few minigames that help you win AP. The first is a daisy petal minigame that nine out of ten times manages to fail. When it doesn't it usually gives only a little AP, literally. The other is whatever 'club' you get in episode three; gardening or basketball. Gardening is where you have to choose sprays and kill bugs while basketball is a pong clone. I chose gardening out of preference, but it's obvious that the basketball minigame is easier to get further in, which gives you more points.

As far as I'm concerned, there should be more minigames. They only give about four points on a really good day, two moves, so adding another minigame wouldn't be that bad. By which I mean one you don't have to pay for; you can play the other club game, but it will cost three points.

Then there's mortal pillow which unlocks at some point... Basically choose random moves and hope you win a pillow fight. Not fun, not interesting, and the points you need to win points are staggering. Even when the boards reset you find people in their hundreds after only a few minutes.

All in all, the challenges the game throws at you are not enough to keep you playing. Take it from me who played for almost a year and then quit without returning until now, at least two years later. The game is cute enough and the characters seem interesting enough, but that doesn't make the experience any better when you literally spend your days walking down hallways, searching needlessly for one specific character.

Play if you have incredible patience, but if you don't just avoid at all costs.

My Top 10 Favorite Video Game Heroines

I know I'll probably have a list that others disagree with, but these are my favorite female characters from video games. Some popular, some not well known, but all ones who I personally could look up to. Also, the photos in this blog were found online under Google Searches. I do not own them.

First let me go over a couple of honorable mentions:

GLaDOS: I really considered putting her on, but even stretching it GLaDOS would be more of an antagonist than a heroine, and not even really an anti-heroine. So I'll bench her until I arrive at a proper list.

Clementine: From the Walking Dead series, Clementine grew through the seasons from an innocent child to one that could protect herself. I still don't feel as close to her as I do these other ten, but she is very respectable, being able to take down both zombies and adults... To be fair I think the only reason she's not on this list is because of my own troubles with the Walking Dead game, which I won't dwell on.

Now onto my actual list.
MY TOP: 10 Favorite Video Game Heroines

10: Faith Conners from Mirror's Edge



I put her so low on this list because she's basically getting a reboot in the near future and I know there's a chance her personality will be changed. Technically that's going to be her canonical character after it comes out so for now I'm talking about Faith from the first game.

Faith's sheer strength and speed is astounding. She leaps over rooftops and takes down blues, 'cops', with little effort on her part to disarm them. Not only that, but Faith fears little, and is willing to get involved in uncovering a large conspiracy to save her framed sister, Kate. She is undeniably loyal. Nothing shakes her faith in her own abilities.

Between her incredible feats of strength and her firm morals, I can have the utmost faith in Faith.

9: Princess Garnet from Final Fantasy 9



In my opinion, Garnet is a princess done right. She's not merely a damsel in distress, but a growing and fluctuating character who goes from needing help to becoming a strong summoner and white mage over the course of the game. Not only that, but taking over as Queen of her kingdom, a feat that most princess characters, like Peach for one, don't ever tend to do. Then she prepares to protect her kingdom.

That being said, Garnet can be naive and too trusting, relying on her mother until the point that the Queen is actually willing to kill her, but does eventually learn and starts to become more cautious. What's great about Garnet is not that she's a perfect character, she's certainly not, but that she's able to learn and grow.

8: Rouge the Bat from Sonic the Hedgehog



Out of all of the female characters in the Sonic line up, which would be quite a long line including the current roster, Rouge is the one whose always stuck with me. While she is primarily a thief, she also works as a GUN agent and does her job relatively well, using her mix of stealth and acrobatics. Rouge is also a skilled fighter and has been able to hold herself against Knuckles, using her strong legs and wings to get a clear advantage.

This is a clear contrast with most of the other female characters, like Cream, whose frequently a damsel and distress, and Amy... Whose also usually a damsel in distress. Rouge wasn't made just to be saved and stands quite well when fighting for what she needs, or wants.

Confident, clever, and not afraid to stand up against anything coming after her as long as there's a big enough jewel waiting for her if she succeeds; Rouge is a strong and independent heroine (when she wants to be).

7: Shantae from Shantae



Shantae's spunk is only outdone by her magical skills as a genie. She can belly dance to transform, whip her hair to take down enemies, and keeps her home safe from any outside threats. What makes Shantae even more impressive is that for a period of time she did lose her magical abilities and was still able to make due with a variety of found weapons belonging to Risky Boots, her enemy who she was stuck in a truce with.

Perhaps she is a little unexperienced, Shantae is still relatively young compared to some of the other females on this list, but she still throws herself in head first and pulls out pretty well. You don't want this girl shaking her fist at you, but you will certainly want her protecting your town.

6: Samus from Metroid



Before anyone asks, Samus is lower on the list because I know she's on a ton of other lists. Still, what Samus accomplished, becoming one of the first female characters to take storm over the others, is quite a feat in and of itself... There's not really anything I can say other than that. Everything's already been said hundreds of times about Samus.

5: Marina from Mischief Makers



Marina is basically an intergalactic maid who takes care of an accident prone professor, but on a more descriptive note she is much more. She's strong, determined, and has a moral compass that always points towards good. Marina's sheer strength and ability to 'shake' things are quite impressive. She works with her cyborg body like a pro and fights creatures double her size.

Not to mention she does truly care for her professor who, in an ironic twist, gets kidnapped so much that it could rival some damsels in distress. She is willing to drop everything and throw herself fully into danger to save him. Her selflessness is certainly remarkable and her reward at the end is to become human, which depending on your inputted age will be either a girl or a woman.

Plus, Marina's one of the only girls I've seen knock around a guy when he gets too handsy.

4: Kazooie from Banjo-Kazooie



Kazooie's got a sharp beak and isn't afraid to use it in more ways than one. Even though Banjo's 'sidekick', her use is shown through exactly how many of Banjo's attacks rely fully on Kazooie. In fact, it seems relatively possible that Kazooie could have done most of the quest on her own. But Banjo and her make a better team and balance each other out well.

Does that affect how good of a character she is? Not at all. She can hold her own fine. It's good to have a friend like Banjo too, as Kazooie's sharp tongue doesn't make her many friends. Then again, she doesn't need to be popular to be happy; she just needs a proper adventure and some baddies to beat. Or maybe a witch head to bat around in a friendly game.

3: Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite



There's no surprise why Elizabeth is here. She is on many top female characters lists, but I think it's worth putting her on it again. Elizabeth is certainly intelligent and, in the beginning of the game, is much more naive than towards the end of the game when she firms up. Through the course of the game she endears hardships and harsh realizations, becoming stronger along the way.

Not to mention her ability to open reality tears; literally tearing reality apart with her hands. This, as well, starts to become more powerful over the game until the point at the end of the game where she can see every reality, or all of the 'doors'. In a way she becomes omnipotent.

...However, I have a small bit of a confession. Personally I like Elizabeth's personality before all of the corruption sinks in; when she is smiles and wonder about her new world. That's the tragedy about her character; there's no going back to that girl she was before when she left the tower. She will always be tainted by what she saw and now sees her world for what it is. The look of someone's dreams shattered.

Elizabeth is both the cage and the bird, flying free and returning trapped again, over and over... On another note, I may be the only person who likes the cage cameo better.

2: Midna from Legend of Zelda


Midna is a perfect example of a side character done right. In a single game the Twilight Princess took storm as one of the first characters, apart from the main three (Link, Zelda, Ganondorf) to really take the stage and make it her own. Midna starts out with her own goals in mind, making an almost one-sided deal to help Link if he helps her, not thinking much of the world of light.

Yet as the story progresses, as she gets closer to Link, she starts to realize her selfish behavior and even reveals how she's been usurped from her throne. Zelda's sacrifice confirms her decision and she rises to stop Zant and Ganondorf by Link's side. Not only does this give Midna fleshed out character development not usually found in a Legend of Zelda game.

Her power alone is obvious early on and only grows with the fused shadow. From a simply sphere of energy that can shatter chains, to killing one of the main antagonists by impaling him with her hair, and finally becoming a larger, more powerful form to break into the barrier surrounding Hyrule Castle. Everything Midna does feels strong while feeling like she could always do more, even when severely injured by Zant midway through the game.

Even though her character was watered down in Hyrule Warriors, to make way for the excessive attention on Lana and a weird focus on shoving Link and Zelda together as a couple, she still pulls out a cool moment when she sucker punches the villain with her hair. Regardless of being a lesser character, Midna still manages to stand out, and that shows something amazing for her.

1: Alice from American Mcgee's Alice and Madness Returns



For years I admired Alice Liddell. She was one of the first female characters who I looked at and could honestly say that she was badass. After losing her parents and sister in a fire, Alice went insane and somehow survived years in a mental hospital before snapping alert inside of Wonderland to take her mind back. Of course there's hiccups along the way, deaths and tears, but Alice still keeps going and pushes herself further, saving herself. Then, after leaving the asylum, must save her mind again from a new threat that may be something there all along.

Alice is strong willed, snarky, and sharp-witted, not to mention especially skilled with a Vorpal Blade. She has a slew of other weapons as well from both games; the Croquet Mallet, the Pepper Grinder, and many more. Normal monsters and baddies don't make her bat an eye, not second guessing herself until stuck in an actual bind, and even then she still manages to push through.

Eventually she rises to claim her Wonderland and becomes at ease with both worlds, for the moment, and finally free of her Survivor's Guilt for being the only one who survived the fire that killed her family. Finally she manages to move on.

Alice is not damaged; she's gone through hell and back but still pulls through with her mind intact enough to know what she needs to do. Whether in the gloomy city of London or the seemingly bright world of Wonderland, she rights herself and continues to fight on. It is quite an impressive feat and while balancing on the edge of insanity at any moment, she continues to survive.

There was no way I couldn't put Alice at the top of my list. She is an impressive heroine who manages to smite the one villain who gave her a run for her money; herself. As of the last appearance of Alice, seeming in the Otherland shorts, Alice is still moving on with her head high and nothing standing in her way.

Thank you for reading! Please click a few ads and stay close by for my 'Top 10 video game Heroines I can't stand'. Title may change.