New Style Boutique 3 Is Here!!

I got my copy of New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star on the weekend and I'm so happy!! I didn't have much time to play it over the weekend due to work commitments but I've already clocked 6 hours of game time.

Getting the game was a bit of a nightmare. Now I'm not one to pre-order games, but I find with rarer games like Style Boutique you do need to pre-order them as stores won't get many copies in or none at all. There's a few stores I can get my game from here and I thought really hard about where to get it from and still messed it up. I originally didn't pre-order the game from EB Games (Australian version of Gamestop) because last time I pre-ordered Fashion Forward with them, they didn't even hold my pre-order and said 'oh lucky we have one here on display'. I was really grumpy about that so it affected my decision to pre-order with them. So I didn't go with them and choose to pre-order with another store instead. So I go into the store by my work a few weeks ago to pre-order the game. After having to repeat the game title three times to girl because she didn't know what I was talking about, turns out the game had a different code on it and it wasn't showing up. They said they'll manually enter it and waive the deposit fee. I asked them if the game would be available to pick on the release day (25th November) and they ensured me it would. I double checked and they said it absolutely would be available as they get orders in all the time. And guess what? I go into the store on the 25th and the game isn't there. I was so angry, they said they definitely would have it and they don't. They said they didn't get the order in but their other stores have it. I asked them 'Do you have a copy I can buy today?' and they said no so I just left and ran straight to EB Games to see if they had copies. Luckily the stars aligned and they had 5 copies! The guy probably thought I was crazy running in asking for a fashion game. I explained what had happened and why I originally didn't pre-order with them and he thought it was amusing.

So I finally had the game, but couldn't play it all day due to work. But I started it up as soon as I got home and I've been enjoying it so far. You can definitely tell it's like the first one (trendsetters) more than the recent one (Fashion Forward). The new clothing items are amazing and I like that customers ask more varied requests. Everyone wants basic items, no ever asked for that in the previous one! The only issue I'm finding is the in-game clock moves quite fast and customers don't appear as much at the boutique as they did in Fashion Forward. Hopefully this will pick up once I progress and finish the main story line.

Will be posting some play journals soon and guides over at my New Style Boutique 3 Guide Blog. I've been taking lots of photos and there's just way too many amazing outfits to take photos of as well!

Where To Buy J-Pop & K-Pop Albums - Online Store Reviews

I've been buying J-Pop and K-Pop albums online for a few year now so I thought I'd share my experiences with the online stores I've used. These reviews are based on my experience with only a few online stores. There are many other sources you can use to purchase J-Pop and K-Pop albums online that I haven't used and there's lots of reviews on google you can consult for more information. I'll list pros and cons of using each site as well as a brief introduction to the main features and my opinion on using the site.

YesAsia
NOTE: An updated review of YesAsia is available here!
This is the main site most people will start out using as it's one of the big online stores that stocks asian pop music albums. It sells a wide variety of items from movies, video games, book, gifts and anime merchandise. The search engine is easy to use and the site stocks a large selection of J-Pop and K-Pop albums.This is the site I've brought the most of my collection from and have been using it for a number of years. I find it's useful for getting the CD-Only versions of J-Pop singles and ones that are hard to buy outside of Japan. The main problem I find with YesAsia is the albums are more expensive than other sources which is due to raising the cost to cover the free shipping item. But some J-Pop albums are ridiculously over priced from what I've research sometimes. Also years ago, they used to ship orders in a box but a while ago they switched to envelopes. And the weird thing about the shipping is that when I receive it, the sender address shows a random man from China rather than a YesAsia address in Hong Kong (which is where they are based). All my orders have been like this which is strange. I've always been puzzled by this, but I'm guessing it's just a merchant or something they use. 

Pros
+ Large selection of albums and merchandise available. It's a good site to use to find the different versions of each album or if you want a certain cover.
+ Great for J-Pop albums that are hard to find outside of Japan Only stores. I've brought a few Dream Ami singles that I couldn't find on other sites.
+ Free international shipping if you order over $39USD worth of items.
+ Good customer service. I've always received quick replies to my inquiries and they will make necessary changes to your order if needed.
+ Free gashapon if you order two Japanese items that have the gashapon icon.

Cons
- Albums can be expensive as YesAsia marks up the prices to account for the free shipping they offer. I find the K-Pop albums can be over priced compared to other sites and once I convert the price to AUD, some end up being outrageous prices for an album of 4 songs.
- Some items displayed on the website aren't actually in stock and will be cancelled from your order. This is one of the things I hate about online stores. It's the worst when stores list items as available, you order and pay for them only to receive an email later stating the item is not available. They always refund your money and offer the free shipping still if you order goes under $39USD. But I wish online stores would not list items if they're not available. This has happened to me three times with YesAsia. Once with a magazine which I wasn't too fussed about and ended up getting it on Amazon Japan. The other two times was when I ordered the B-version of CocoSori's Japanese single. I pre-ordered the item near when it was coming out and then received an email stating it was not available. I asked them to switch my order to the A-version but then I received an email stating that was not available! So YesAsia never even got the CD in but still listed it as available. It's still listed on the site now but as out of print. Luckily a friend in Japan offered to get the CD for me which was lovely after all that trouble.
- Packaging of the orders isn't as good as it used to be. The albums are sent in an envelope with bubble-wrap. I've had a number of K-Pop albums come with the corners slightly damaged or marks on the cover. This is one of the main reasons I'm thinking of switching to another store for K-Pop, receiving my order is good condition is important to me.

YesAsia Items

Amazon Japan
The Japanese version of Amazon is a fun site to use as they stock unique products you can only get in Japan. I use Amazon Japan to buy all my game books and magazines which are only available in Japan. They have a good range of J-Pop available and it's best to buy albums around the time they are released. I've been using Amazon Japan for a few years and I love it! Even though the shipping costs are expensive, the quality of the shipping service is amazing. Takes about 2 days for my items to arrive and they're always sealed and in a box. The most useful thing to do when using Amazon Japan is to translate the reviews into your language and read what people are saying about the item. The ones on the Crayon Pop album are great especially the ones about the DVD because the reviews are accurate about the terrible filming.

Pros
+ Super fast shipping and great packaging!
+ Sometimes you can find albums or singles for cheap prices. I got my After School Bang and Diva singles for under ¥800 and the limited edition version of Crayon Pop's Japanese album for a cheaper price than YesAsia.
+ Use theMP3 section to listen to samples of songs. This is useful if you cannot find a sample of the song on Spotify or Youtube.

Cons
- Shipping costs can be outrageous once you start adding things into your cart. To ship to where I live, it's ¥900 per shipment and ¥300 per item. So I find sometimes the costs add up once you convert it to your local currency. It's best to compare prices on a few different sites before deciding on where to buy.
- Certain items will not be available as they cannot be shipped to your location or outside of Japan. You could get around this using a proxy service but I've never tried that (one day I'll give it go as there's lots of good albums available second hand). Sometimes you put items in your cart and when you go to pay, it will tell you it will not ship to your country. That's a bit annoying as some items even say they will ship on the listing but it doesn't tell you until the payment part.

Amazon Japan items

KpopMart
I've only used this site once and I wasn't happy with it, so I never used it again. Based in South Korea, they offer a wide selection of K-Pop albums and official merchandise. It's a good site for posters and pre-orders. The only time I've used it was to buy Crayon Pop's album Vol. 1 Evolution Pop. It was listed as a cheaper price than YesAsia and you got a free poster if you pre-ordered. So I ended up pre-ordering the album from there and the poster isn't really free as you have to pay shipping. Now to what turned my off ordering from them again. I had to pay $12 USD in shipping costs (that's way more in AUD) and I didn't even get a tracking number. I feel if you're paying that, there should be a tracking option. So my order got shipping eventually when the album came out and the only way I knew it was coming was by talking to other people who ordered the same album who lived nearby. However when my order came, I noticed how awful the packaging was. I was surprised it made it to me in one piece! It came in a large box which was 50% destroyed and all that was in the box was the poster tube and the album wrapped in some bubble wrap. Amazingly that album wasn't damaged with the awful packaging. Turns out the stock KpopMart had of Crayon Pop's album was also faulty as the CD's were not secured properly and were popping out. Mine had this issue as the tabs the CD's were held on had come off the album. I just glued them back on as they weren't damaged with my album. I did read the KpopMart was offering exchanges on the album so other people had the same issue. I think that's more to do with the album being made for the cheap as it's literally in this cheap cardboard box.

Pros
+ Great for pre-orders and posters!
+ Counts towards the Hanteo chart
+ Useful for older albums as they have a good quantity of albums in stock.

Disney Magical World 2 - Trip Down Memory Lane

Last month I finally 100% completed Disney Magical World 2 on the 3DS. I made a previous post talking about completing the game and my game percentage was actually over 100% because I had downloaded the DLC items. I noted that I would post my collection of pictures from the game and I finally collated them all together. 

Disney Magical World 2 is a adorable game that lets you talk photos when playing the game. I had lots of fun talking silly photos with various Disney characters using the greetings feature. You unlock different greetings in the game, some normal everyday greetings and lots of ridiculous ones. My favourite poses were the outrageous ones like appearing surprised and looking up. I ended up with quite a collection of pictures of my character posing in a silly fashion.

Pungdeng-E プンデンイ 1st Japanese Album Ppi Ppi Ppa Ppa ピピパパ - Review

If you haven't heard of the awesome group called Pungdeng-E, you're definitely missing out. They are a music group from Korea who has a fun, bright and unique image. A while ago, they release their first album in Japan where they have a large following. Thought I would review the album as it's one my favourites in my collection.

Pungdeng-E 1st Japanese Album Ppi Ppi Ppa Ppa 日本盤1stアルバム ピピパパ

The album is titled Pungdeng-E 1st Japanese Album Ppi Ppi Ppa Ppa ピピパパ and features six amazing tracks. Japanese versions of  ピピパパ Ppi Ppi Ppa Ppa and ペチュポサム Baechu Bossam are included as well as the original Korean versions of Reversal, Cotton Candy, Al-Tang and Jal-Tang. No instrumentals are included on the album and it is basically a introduction to the group as it includes their discography as well as new Japanese versions. It comes in a standard jewel CD case and no OBI was included in the album.

Here is the track listing for the album:

1. ピピパパ (Japanese Version)
2. ペチュポサム (Japanese Version)
3.  ヨクチョン Reversal
4. ソムサタン Cotton Candy
5. アルタン Al-Tang
6. ザルタン Jal-Tang

The cover features a colourful layout and shows the three members in their individual colours; red, yellow and blue.  Colourful word bubbles are scattered about and the album title is displayed in the top right hand corner.

Front Cover

The back cover continues with the individual colour theme and the groups logo is featured. Here you can find the track listing showing the Japanese titles for the songs. Inside the CD case, there is a bright orange CD and a lyrics booklet. Japanese lyrics are included for the first two tracks and the rest have the Korean lyrics. Producing credits are listed on the last page of the lyrics booklet. There was no pictures unfortunately in the lyrics booklet and I would've liked to have seen at least one group picture.

Back & Front Cover

Inside of the album

New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star Demo Review

So the demo for New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star was released a few weeks ago and now that I've played it a few times, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the demo. Now I'm just reviewing the content of the demo and not the content of the final game. The actual game won't be out until later this month and the anticipation is killing me waiting for it to be released.

At first I was surprised the demo was available so early! I thought it wouldn't be released until at least November. It's your typical Nintendo demo that only allows you to play it 30 times. I've never actually gone over this amount, but maybe you can re-download the demo if you reach the maximum amount of plays.

New Style Boutique: Styling Star is the fourth installment in the series and this game seems to be a lot more story specific than the previous one. Nintendo seems to be pushing the popstar angle of the game and the careers of the pop stars will be influenced by your activities such as picking their outfits. It's an interesting new concept and it's nice to see Nintendo trying to put an actual in depth story line into the game rather than random events that happened (i.e. the Five Sisters in Style Boutique 2). I haven't seen enough of the story elements to comment on whether I like them yet, but it's great to see Nintendo brought back some male characters into the game. 

And on that topic, men's fashion has also returned! Now to be honest, I didn't like the men's fashion aspect of New Style Boutique because I got bored dressing the male character's up. I prefer designing outfits for females as I have more creativity for that. I also found my boutique would only get male customers after a certain amount of time and that was one of the reasons I stopped playing New Style Boutique. I could never get female customers to appear for months no matter what I tried. I guess a lot of people like the male aspect as a lot of people tell me they wish the game had dating or you have a boyfriend. I guess I'm just too old for that feature to appeal to me haha.

The new items look amazing!

Now on to aspects of the demo that I found interesting and enjoyed in the demo:

• There's a wide range of customisation options for your characters appearance. I always get stumped on the height one for some hilarious reason. Having to pick between medium height and tall height is such a difficult decision for me! 
• Boutique assistants have returned but the demo said you won't be able to change them around like you could in a previous game. Not sure who I will pick in the end as none of the options jumped out to me as amazing. 
• Contact cards have been revamped and thankfully it now tells you items you have sold to the customer before. Thank you Nintendo! This used to annoy me so much with the main characters in Style Boutique 2 as I forgot all the time which items I had given them before.
• The ability to customise your nails! Oh my good, I was wishing this would be in the next game and I can't believe it is! You can only pick from per-designed ones though, but at least that's something. 
• Achievements are an excellent new feature. Now I'm a person who enjoys achievements as I like having something to work towards to. It looks like there will be plenty to obtain judging from all the categories shown in the phone menu.
• You can finally wear glasses and earrings at the same time! Now if only we could wear necklaces and scarfs together. The watches and bracelets look amazing too!
• The headphones look pretty cool, I'm interested to see if they only belong to certain brands (i.e. Stage Dive) or if you can get them in a range of styles.
• Recommendations from brand representatives will be available at the Exhibition Hall. I'm intrigued at what this will entail and whether limited edition items will return from New Style Boutique.
• Amazing online features were mentioned and finally we can visit other player's boutiques!! The last one game had the worst multiplayer ever and I'm glad we can finally be able to share our own designs.

 

Nails have finally been included in the game!