September 15th, 2024

Well, I have ... I suppose, a mild concussion. (I like combat sports, that's the context for any random injury I mention.) I feel less "off" today than I have the past couple of days, but it's still a head injury, so I have to take more time off of regular activities than I originally had thought. I'm pretty upset about that, but I suppose that means more time to laze about. Another completely unrelated to video games anecdote I wanted to add: I was sitting outside yesterday and a raccoon pulled up on me. I thought he was a cat until I realized he was not, and we both scared each other. Anyways, onto video games, today is quite the special day. Undertale turns 9 years old today, which feels to be quite strange. I still remember all the deserving hubbub surrounding the game the next following months after it released, so it feels strange to know there are middle schoolers now who were too young then to even know how to not crap their pants. For awhile, what I had in my head for what was popular for kids younger than me never evolved, and I just assummed every little kid still knew what Undertale was and had an idea of FNAF past Security Breach. Time passing is a bit of a wretched thing. About UTDR, a newsletter released. Quite the ominous, yet slightly sweet, little letter written for Chara appeared, likely written by Asriel. But, a progress update for the next Deltarune chapters appeared as well, It seems like we may be in the last final stretches ... I can taste it, I hope we're able to play 3-4 within the next year or two. I've mentioned it a billion times by now, but Deltarune really is my number one favorite game ever, so the thought of some new chapters possibly being so soon makes me quite giddy.

With new releases, I still haven't gotten my hands on funds for The Answer, but I am chipping away slowly. However, I got to play the new Pico update for Friday Night Funkin' this morning ... and I nearly concussed myself again at how graciously wonderful all the music is. I lost my mind when I heard Lotus Juice rapping on a tune, I still can't believe they got Lotus Juice (!!!) on a track for this game. I know FNF gets made fun of a lot for all the content farm slop that gets made for it, but I think a lot of people forget how much effort and coolness really goes into this game. Stay Funky, Hands Up, South remix, Shootin' Ropes, and way too many more songs blew my mind when I heard them. It's just very impressive how far FNF has come as a game. I mean, come on! They got Lotus Juice! I like how many references to other creators and media FNF shows in the game as well, it's fun seeing what you can pick out and recognize (Gogo and Nono!) Speaking about Persona things, because I can't go a log without talking about Persona, I've been looking at Persona Q2 for a spin-off I might want to play. I really like crossovers when it comes to things I like all interacting with each other, so to have a game where Joker, Makoto, and Yu are all there tickles me greatly. But, it made me think about how, timeline wise, Ken is around the same age as Joker and could've feasibly been a Phantom Thief if he was in Tokyo in 2016/2017. I think it'd be really cool to have characters from a previous title come back as an adult to help the next round of random Persona-using highschoolers. Imagine Joker as a mentor in Persona 6, or something. It'd never happen, but it'd be really interesting. Now that I think about it, are the Persona games taking place in the same universe? Is it: Tartarus exists, gets destroyed, then 6 years later Mementos springs up, or are these separate timelines? I don't actually know, I think I'll go digging for lore that lies in subtext once I beat Persona 4, I'm still curious about Igor's deal. I haven't been able to play Persona 4 for very long recently, so Persona progress is skipped for this log. But, I made a cardboard cutout of Adachi for a joke video I made, see image below.

OK ... goodnight, I am quite tired for ... probably concussed reasons.

September 12th, 2024

Hola brotatos, I have nothing to speak of other than Persona. I have been a bit busy this week, lots of school and no longer ill, so normal activites start up again. Can't wither away all day playing video games and sneezing anymore Heehee. But, I got kicked in the back of the head pretty badly yesterday, also by accident, so I gotta take time off again. How miserable. So, if this log is more incomprehensible than normal, that is why ... I'm pullin' some legs, I'm fine except feeling a bit off. If I die in my sleep or something (being dramatic) and these are my last words, I hope this log can appear in a cool disturbing internet video, or something. Anyways, having since beaten Persona 3 Reload, I've been taking a little bit of a gander at FES and Portable. I don't think remakes should ever replace the original game, despite how awesome I think remakes can be. The original game of modern remakes I think, more often than not, are still worth playing: RE4 Remake and the original RE4, for example. While I still prefer the remake, they're two completely different experiences that are still both worth going through. Even with remakes where I prefer the original, like RE2, I still think it's worth playing both. I know I'll definitely play Portable sometime soon for Kotone, but FES I may wait on a bit since I'm pretty sure the story and Social Links for Makoto are nearly identical between FES and Reload. Though, I'm not sure, but I suppose we shall find out in due time. Anyways, hey, wait ... is that TV switching channels...? I hope it's not midnight ...

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 3: I haven't actually gotten too terribly far in Persona 4, I've played for about 4 hours total and am, obviousy, still in April with that run time. But, I have written down many thoughts relating to it, so I thought why not go ahead and detail them here. Speaking about remakes, the first night I played Persona 4, I kept imagining it in the style of a modern Persona game, and it made me quite excited for the possible future prospects of a Persona 4 remake. Not because I think Golden looks bad, I actually really like older games and the style of Persona 4 is really charming, but just because I think it'd be really cool to see. I've already mentioned it before, I think probably in some log about SH2 remake, but I do really like remakes. There's something so cool about seeing an already awesome game get some new paint, it's a whole new experience. I think it's the closest I can get to playing a game again for the first time LOL. I keep looking at this mockup someone on Reddit made for a Persona 4 remake and giggling at all the future Persona titles I can imagine. A remake of Persona 1 and 2 I'd be really happy with as well, and of course Persona 6 would knock some socks off, including mine. I wasn't planning on messing with Persona 1 or 2 since I heard they're quite different from 3-5, but I think I might find some type of way to play Persona 2 sometime. Persona 1 I'm not too sure if I'm interested in, mainly 'cause of the random encounters. I'm not sure if Persona 2 has random encounters, but I know Persona 1 has them, and I genuinely hate random encounters so much that it makes me want to grab a turd out the toilet and clap before flinging it at passerby, or something, I guess. I couldn't think of something to express the anger I feel against random encounters. As a kid, probably 3rd or 4th grade, I was really obsessed with old Nintendo handhelds. So, I grew up playing Pokemon Red on a gameboy, which makes me sound older than I really am, but I remember genuinely despising places like Mt. Moon. What horrible creatures. Anyways, away from that, this is meant to be about Persona 4, let's continue: I discovered that the uncle is indeed a detective, so I've kept a bit of an eye on him. I still am, like, 85% sure it's the smug guy, who I've since learned is named Adachi. He acts like a weenie yet a bit too excitable over these mysterious murders, definitely not very concerned, is a detective, and I've seen him drawn with a bit of a crazy look in his eye ... lots of fingers point towards him, but I suppose there's no telling what there is to come. If it is Adachi, I wonder what his motive would be. Only time will tell.

I have a feeling there's going to be some type of bait and switch, like they want us to think it's someone different, yet it ends up being someone else. I am quite excited to see this story unravel, but for now, let's talk about the characters. Nanako, Yu's little cousin, I felt quite bad for. She should be picking boogers and playing with dirt, or whatever little kids do, just like how Ken should be. I should've gotten my booty up and made my own breakfast! Anyways, Yosuke is definitely my favorite so far. He got kicked in the nuts, fell off his bike into the trash, fell off his bike into the wall, almost peed himself, got arrested, and post mortemly rejected by the girl he likes infront of his new bro friend all in the span of a couple days. He sucks and gets bullied and falls over and gets nut slapped, how can you not love the poor dude? I quite like his friendship with Chie, they're bros and I think one of their first interactions that we see between them being him breaking her DVD and Chie kicking him in the gonads for it tells quite the story. Later, Chie says that she thinks her soulmate may be a girl, and another point is added to the long gay moments list for the Persona series. Anyways, Teddie is introduced, and I wrote down, "if I saw Teddie I'd kick him over and beat him with sticks or hammers, maybe" and, later, I go on to detail an anecdote: I laughed when Yu went inside the TV, because it reminded me of this time my cat was scratching at the grandpa CRT TV that I have, in which has made a few appearances in this log before. The flatscreens at Junes give me a bit of nostalgia too, it reminded me of this flatscreen my grandpa used to have in, like, 2012-2014, or something. It had a line of dead pixels on the right, and I was sometimes convinced Slenderman was inside. Anyways, a dream comes true, and we get to push Teddie over, where in which he squabbles about it. Now, we get pretty cool glasses, where we can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I think Yosuke and Yu look quite dashing in such four-eye'd fashion, what did Maruki say, again? With the constant appearance of fog in this game, which is the real reason we get four eyes, I wonder if there's any Silent Hill crossover things someone made. I'll have to take a gander around later.

Yu awakens to his Persona. Which, because it's a Persona awakening, of course it's pretty freakin' cool. I think out of all the protags' awakenings that I've seen, Makoto's is my favorite. I've seen people critique the awakening scene in the remake compared to the original, and while I do agree that the original was more intense and had better pacing for the scene, Reload's take on it was still quite cool. Anyways, shadow Yosuke appears and a bit of a kerfuffle occurs, and Yosuke's persona is awakened ... I found it to be quite unique. Right now, I'm at the part where they saw Yukiko on the TV, and they're trying to investigate the prospects behind that. Teddie bit me, I'm assuming. I told Chie I was just going to terribly cry. But, things are not over yet, here are some random thoughts I wrote down as well: Persona 4 feels a lot more leaning on the visual novel side than JRPG, which nothing is wrong with, I quite like it. It feels appropriate, I feel like Persona 4 feels more story driven than the other games, but perhaps that's just me being crazy. Not to say 3 and 5 aren't story driven, they definitely are, it just feels like Persona 4 is more of a sit-back-and-watch ordeal, if that makes sense...? This is also a perspective written only 4 hours in, so no one drop any pennies over this. While playing, I noticed Yu has a Persona 3 calendar in his room. I like it when Persona games reference the previous title in a little cheeky way like that, I think I remember Teddie being a little decoration in Persona 5 somewhere. I quite like Marie's fashion sense, but pretty much all of the characters have some type of late 2000s-early 2010s swag on, I like it. The last thing I wrote was: "Adachi looks like he cut his hair on accident."

It is quite late ... I drank some rootbeer while writing this. I hope I dream of it, too. Goodnight to all.

September 9th, 2024

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 2: (Note: some paragraphs were written in the past..!) I'm back so soon... I don't have really anything to report except for a Persona progress, because I beat Persona 3 Reload earlier today and it made me get a bit philosophical, which is strange for a pea brain. Usually, I'll beat games and think about how good they are, which I'm doing now with Persona 3, and maybe I'll think a bit about a sadder moment, but I find myself kind of ruminating on the ending of P3R for the past few hours. I think, last time a game gave me such a deep feeling of bittersweetness with an ending was Omori. I just think these types of games are quite important, they remind me why video games are so significant to me as an art form. Which, kind of sounds childish, but I made an entire website to talk specifically about video games, you could probably already tell I'm kind of strange about it. The way Makoto laid his head on Aigis's lap as he died, the way it was almost like he was just falling asleep, and the way she told him to rest, finally, just made it all so heart-wrenchingly beautiful. But, I kind of feel like it was a perfect ending, I don't really want it to end any other way. It made me think about this memory I have from when I was a kid, when I'd gone to a funeral for a family member. I wasn't very close to him, but I was old enough to remember him out of the handful of times I had seen him before. It was my first real experience with someone dying and me still being able to remember them alive. The ending made me think about a point in the funeral where we were outside, I remember it was a really nice day out and there were lots of flowers. And, with that type of scenery contrasting against where we were, I remember it had made me feel quite bittersweet.

I feel kind of silly that an anime game made me think about death more than I have in years, but being able to be affected so strongly by stories is important to me. I hadn't cried when I first saw the ending, I just felt really melancholic, but when I had thought about it for a couple hours and went back to it, I burst into tears. Which, was kind of funny, cause I ended up flinging the corn I was eating out of my mouth and immediately started laughing because of that. But, seriously, it's not something like I'm so obsessed with fictional characters that I feel genuine grief when they die, it's more that the scenario in general made me think a lot. It made me think about death and tragedy and bittersweet things and the importance that these stories can really hold for people, including me. Oh jeez, I'm crying while writing this. I don't think if I hadn't spent 86 hours playing as Makoto and being able to interact with this entire world so many different artists came together to spend so many years of their lives making that I would've been thinking about this ending as much as I am now. It's just an art form that I hold really close to me, and the fact that this ending is making me feel a lot reminded me of that, and just made me want to cry more. So many relationships in this game are so tragic or bittersweet too, I wanted to talk a bit about that. I have trouble writing down thoughts clearly, so I don't think I can mention all of them or even have much to say, but the relationships that Ryoji, Aigis, and Makoto all have with each other particularly stand out to me. Junpei and Chidori, too, but I'll mention them in a later section. Ryoji having feelings for Makoto I think ends up making Makoto's death feel all that much more bittersweet. I think he's similar to Aigis with the fact that, no matter the universe, he'll always feel some type of connection to the protagonist. I think, in Portable, he actually said something like that to Kotone. Ryoji wanting Makoto to kill him so badly just so Makoto wouldn't suffer when he died was very, very ... tragic, I suppose is the only word I could use to describe that. Both Ryoji and Aigis's relationships with Makoto definitely, I think, being able to be described as love, all while knowing neither could truly be with him, at least for long, just makes it so sorrowful. Aigis keeping her promise by staying with Makoto and reassuring him as he died I think added a layer to their relationship that just makes the ending all that much more bittersweet. I'm using "bittersweet" a lot this log, but it's the only word I can think to use to describe what I'm thinking.

I think the thought of Makoto dying so calmly in Aigis's lap, with the people he's formed such deep bonds with running up the stairs to come see him, and the fact that he had held on until the promised graduation day even known it'd been a month since he sealed Nyx away, just made the whole ending so perfect as a conclusion for his character. But, away from current thoughts, let's go backwards and through the list of things I wrote while playing through the game. Takaya and Jin are back, and I'm quite annoyed about it. I never particularly cared about Strega other than Chidori, and she's not even with them no more, so they prove no purpose to me, Guards! Seize them! We learn that the reason Chidori had told Junpei to stop visiting her is because he had made her afraid to die, which goes back to all the bittersweet or tragic relationships in this game. Junpei and Chidori fluctuate between those two categories depending on the month, as not too soon afterwards she dies to give her life to Junpei. I just kept cursing the game over and over at this point, I just wanted them to giggle together, or something, the eff is this!? Their Personas fuse, which actually gave Junpei quite the OP Theurgy. We go back to the cheery music immediately afterwards, which actually happens quite often in Persona games and it makes me laugh everytime. They did it in Persona 5 after Akechi died too, just immediately went back to the normal music. Makes me lol a bit. Later on, Chidori's sketchbook comes back from the hospital, and it's revealed she had been drawing Junpei. I quite liked the sketch, it's always fun seeing drawings made by in-game characters. Around this time, Ryoji asks to see me in the music room and makes a sudden confession, which flabbergasted me a bit. I knew people liked them together, but I had just thought it was because they were the protagonist and the mysterious dude characters. But, his dialogue to Makoto had put Akechi and Joker to shame, or something. I wonder where I've seen this before, though. A human and a strange thing playing the piano and having something romantically tragic happen between them, I really do wonder where I've seen that before. Fuuka interrupts, and Ryoji disappears, which is quite mysterious and full of foreshadowing, but it's more funny to think that he had just jumped out of the window.

I wrote those previous things yesterday, I fibbed with the date, I beat Persona 3 on the 8th. But, new day, lets continue: 25 bomb shells get dropped in an epic anime battle between Aigis and Ryoji, and my jaw fell off. The spoiler I had heard before about Ryoji was that he was death, but I had no idea about the fact he had been incubating inside Makoto for 10 years because Aigis had sealed Ryoji inside him out of desperation. Aigis gets bodied, and she is no longer in commission for awhile. But, she will later appear again, a changed robot. We also get confirmation that my Pharos theory was indeed correct, and I'm once again proven to have perfect deduction skills (LOL). Pretty much immediately after, Ryoji tells us the world is going to end and there's absolutely nothing we can do, and the only way to die peacefully is to kill him so we forget everything. Hm, asking the dude he has a piano motif with to kill him? I'm really getting some strange deja vu here for some reason. I got a bit of some Maruki flashbacks, and with that and a consult to google, I decided to spare him. Later, Aigis comes back with new resolve, and we can finally start her social link. I really like Aigis's social link and romance route, it feels quite in place for the point of the story that it's at. I think her romance route being so close to when Makoto dies makes it pretty heart-wrenching as well. Later on, we get news that Chidori is indeed alive, but because she lost her Persona, she can't remember Junpei anymore. It's kind of leaning more on sweet than bitter though, because she vaguely remembers him, and Junpei seems to be quite happy. I hope dearly they fall in love again.

Anyways, the Promised Day finally comes, and this part of Tartarus reminds me quite a bit of that mission in DMC3 with the boss rush. We get through Strega, which Jin's fight was ridiculously easy, but Takaya's made my cheeks clench with all the instakills, and then we encounter ... Ryoji?! What a beautful smile!!! I think this boss fight was really cool with all the Arcana phases, it gave it quite the flavor that made my hands really sweaty by the end of it. At one point, I forget what move it was, but Ryoji did a move that hits 2-3 or 1-3 times, and every single time it had hit Makoto, it did a critical. I don't think I've said "WOAH WOAH WOAH!" louder in my life, Makoto was nearly dead by the end of Ryoji's one more. It was near the end of the boss, so I was getting flashbacks to when I got one-shotted by Maruki when he was, like, 2 hits away from dying. Afterwards though, Makoto jumps inside that big ol' moon eye, and I feel as if we might be playing Fear & Hunger 2. Or ... Majora's Mask, probably. He defeats God with the power of friendship, like all classic JRPGs, and he ... dies?! At this point, I had known Makoto was going to die before I even bought the game, that was the one spoiler I knew, so I thought this was the death scene. But, after he had appeared again, I genuinely thought I just got trolled with that spoiler, or it was talking about the bad ending or something. I only found out because I looked up how old Makoto was and it said "17 (at death)," LOL. I couldn't think of any way he could die if it wasn't in the final boss, so to have him slowly get sleepier when with Aigis made it hit me like a bus that he genuinely does indeed die. I think, I rather his death scene stay the way it is than him going out in some super epic battle, I'm pretty glad he didn't die during the final boss now. Anyways, I think Persona 3 Reload is my favorite out of the two Persona games I've played, but we'll see how I think of Persona 4. I'll probably start it up later today : - P

Last little things before I say goodbye: Junpei is kind of OP with omega drive and the critical boost characteristic, and I got at least 1 rank with all of the social links. Maya's was so close to being cool if it wasn't for the fact she a pedophile, thank god Makoto died the next day after she asked him to dinner, SCOOORE! Ok, that's all, adios. Stay tuned for Persona 4 progress report.

September 5th, 2024

Hola good amigos, happy September, and I am ill as of writing. When I made this website, I was sick, so this feels a bit nostalgic to write a wonderful log while coughing. Likely the cause of this illness is a very cool Kikuo concert I went to, which My Time was played at and I nearly crapped my pants out of excitement. It was very fun, despite the consequence I feel now. It's actually not that bad, mostly a cough and a bit of a sore throat, but I'll knock on wood and hope I don't feel worse in the morning. Some more sort of video game related things occurred: Trailers for the Sonic and Minecraft movie both dropped over the time since my last log. The Sonic movie trailer looks dashing, I love Shadow ... And, uh, the Minecraft one was interesting. It felt AI generated for some reason LOL ... At least Jack Black is there, I guess. A few reviews and some gameplay footage I hadn't seen before for the MGS3 remake came onto my radar as well, and it's looking amazing. I'll probably have to play it on console since my computer is getting a bit crummy with age, but I suppose we shall see. Excited to play as Naked Snake once again ...! I also discovered Into The Pit, which is the first FNAF game in years that I don't think looks like booty cheeks. I want to get around to playing it some time, the art is really, really nice. Emio also released a bit ago to some pretty alright reviews ... I heard there's a bit of a plottwist, so I think I may get it sometime to play as well. The next FNF update was pushed a bit back, but was nonetheless revealed to be playable Pico, SICK! Another game releasing in September is: The Answer DLC for Persona 3 Reload, which I say I'm half-and-half excited for. I hate that it's a 35 dollar paid story DLC for an already 70 dollar game, it sucks a bit of the excitement out of its release for me. I don't know much about The Answer, since I'm not trying to spoil myself on Persona 3, but from what I've heard, it seems to be an extension to the main story? Which seems a bit comparable to the 3rd semester in Royal, which comes with the base game once you pay the 60 dollars for it. So, to have The Answer be a 35 dollar paid DLC just feels a bit scummy. Perhaps once it releases, there will be an option to just purchase The Answer separately from the Expansion Pass, and it'll be cheaper. I don't know, but I don't like it.

Anyways, speaking about Persona but before the progress segment: I can't remember if I ever mentioned not wanting to play Persona 4 at first or not. Mainly, it was 'cause none of the characters really caught my eye, which is typically what really drives me to get into new games, and because I got spoiled on the major plottwist and I was super butthurt about it. But, as I've played Persona 3, I took a couple ganders at Persona 4 again and I quite like Yosuke. What really drove me to decide to play Persona 4 is the fact that I realized I didn't exactly know what the plottwist was, and I was kind of just assuming. I got spoiled on it in the first place because I was reading a comment left on a post about Akechi, and the literal first sentence in the comment was "I think the criminal is Akechi, because in p4 the detective is the culprit." After I had read it, I immediately thought of the smug looking guy that I still don't know the name to, and I exited out of the tab and hung my head real low. But, what made me quite gleeful to find out, is that there's actually more than one detective in the game. I'm still suspicious about the smug guy detective, but I actually really don't know. So, it made me quite happy to salvage the mystery a bit for myself. I'm quite excited to play after I beat Persona 3 Reload, especially because I've never played an older Persona title. I'm curious as to how it'll be, and I'm very, very happy that there's still some mystery left for me to find. I was so upset about getting it spoiled that, when I realized I didn't actually know which detective they were talking about, I couldn't stop grinning. Yahoo!

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 2: I've played quite a bit since the last log, I was in June or July and last I left off now was in November. I think the game goes until March, so I'm nearing the end ... I feel a bit sad that Persona 3 isn't as long as Persona 5, which feels insane to me that I'm saying. I think I hadn't gotten into Persona for so long, despite knowing about it, because of just how long Persona 5 is. I thought I would get bored of it fast, or that it'd drag on for too long. But, now after beating Persona 5, I quite like super long games, and I feel a bit sad when a really good game isn't LOL. It's nice to see a story unravel over a month or longer, but it is pretty bittersweet once you finally beat it. However, Persona 5 seems like an outlier in terms of playtime. I think Persona 1-2 were around the 20-30 hour mark, and 3-4 are about 60-80 hours, while Persona 5 is anywhere from 100-150. It makes me wonder how long Persona 6 will be ... Anyways, let's go back in time and detail my digital adventures: The story starts to ramp up, and we find out that Tartarus and the Dark Hour shall disappear once the 12 shadows are defeated ... Which, I was immediately suspicious of, but such an evil motivation won't come to light until far later. Around this time, Junpei stops being jealous of me and he becomes our bro best friend once more. I like the bro characters in Persona games a lot, Ryuji is actually what made me want to get into Persona in the first place LOL. I think the other characters should stop hating on the bros, they are just excited and make terrible jokes, you all just don't get it. I saw people hating on Yosuke ... Which, I still haven't played Persona 4 yet, so maybe there's a real reason for it ... But, after seeing the hate for Morgana, I never trusted Persona fans' opinions.

I like how Fuuka and Moriyama are friends, but something quite bittersweet happens later on involving them, which shall be detailed in time. Anyways, Ken Amada is introduced, but not yet in battle, and we now have the weirdest group of Persona users ever. At first, I thought he was just a normal elementary kid who just so happened to be a Persona user, so I thought it was insane that we were considering messing him up for life or something by bringing him into battle, but we later learn that little bro definitely needed to go to therapy in the first place, which will also be detailed in time. He should've been picking his boogers in a 3rd grade classroom, not whatever was going on. Around this time, I start hanging out with Tanaka, which I think his social link was very enjoyable. The night social links were very fun, I miss both Mutatsu and Tanaka. They were cool, sigh. Anyways, we now go on the classic beach trip, where Mitsuru's dad appears. He looks ridiculously and unnecessarily cool, quite yakuza. Akihiko proceeds to pull up to the beach in a t-shirt and bikini bottoms, and I immediately bust out laughing and couldn't stop. My cousin said: "buddy got that vsco fit," which made me cough and me eyes tear up from far too many ha-ha(s). Akihiko is like an old man teenager, booty cheeks flapping in the wind, it is funny. Some less important things than Akihiko's choice of wear happen: We get more information on the accident 10 years ago, it involves Takeba's dad! I quite like the direction that Tartarus and the Dark Hour are results of some freak experiment, it reminds me of Umbrella. Yukari and Mitsuru have a kerfuffle, and we go check on Yukari after she runs off. Yukari acknowledges how weirdly nonchalant Makoto always is, and then we give her a romantical hug, or something.

Something is watching us from a distance...! I thought it to be Aigis, and just you wait, for they do mention a machine leaving the facility. Anyways, we proceed to try to pick up some BABES at the beach, who are far too old for us. One just so happens to be a bit nutty, and we retreat, retreat! Oh but, giggles, who is that on the dock? It is Aigis! I shrieked a bit when I saw her, I am quite the fan of Aigis. I like robots and little machines a lot, I think they are awesome little things, so to have the robot character finally appear made me click my heels. Junpei and Akihiko get shot down and Aigis naruto runs away, in which we then chase her into the woods. Which, sounds like a serial killer activity, but it was to clear a misunderstanding. Or to forward the plot, I guess. A classic anime moment happens once we find her, and Yukari is jelly, TeeHee. Aigis then shoots Junpei down once again, but in a physical sense, as she shoots him with a water gun. I quite like their dynamic, I think they are great buds. Anyways, back home, Shinjiro has high blood pressure or something and gets pills and medication off the streets for it. It comes up later, so I mentioned it now. While exploring Tartarus, Aigis mentions the point of the evoker is for the Persona user to envision death, which answered the previous log question I had. Aigis could say a fun fact about the most butt booty boring thing in the world and I'd still say: Oh, quite the interesting fact, Aigis. She is awsuuuuuum X - P ! In this same Tartarus exploring session, they messed up my Persona fusion for the first time, and Makoto got knocked out of his chair. Har har ... Later on, the dog, that I forget if I ever mentioned in the first place, appears once more, and got whooped for Akihiko's sake! He looks a bit vampiric with them eyes, but we now have a lovely dog named Koromaru on our team. A bunch of teenagers, a robot, a elementary schooler, and a dog. They are all Persona users and on the same team, I find it quite humorous. I like that you can pet Koromaru though, that's a given in every game. If there is a dog or a cat, there has to be a mechanic to pet them, else the game just sucks. Speakin O' it, I don't like the little human and cat fetch quests where you have to go get them out of Tartarus. I been having an issue where my save files are disappearing randomly, so I had to do one of these segments twice ... and I felt a bit boiled about it. I had only lost 5 in-game days of progress from the first time the save file disappeared, all because I saved in several slots! This is an advice from someone who played old survival horror games: always use all your slots when saving, I beg. It is a very good habit, and its saved me from losing too much when glitches like these happen. Because they do, and they will! It's especially good practice for older games that won't hold your hand, like the older Resident Evils. I can't tell you how many times an older file saved my buns from being soft locked out of those games.

Junpei starts hanging out with the lovely lolita lady from Strega, and we figure out that her name is Chidori. Around this same time, Aigis starts going to school with us, and Yukari is jelly once again, TeeHee. Shinjiro decides to join our team, which I was very delighted about, but terrible storms are to come. Anyways, Junpei starts telling his new girlfriend about Personas and the Dark Hour, and while I giggled at his blinded love, I wasn't very surprised when Chidori kidnapped him. We quickly turn the tables on her, however, and she is now in the hospital with no Evoker to be found. As we move along, Ken is shown to be a smart cookie or something, because he knows a lot about coffee. He's sophisticatedly talking about coffee, specifically. When I was like 8 or 9 or however old Ken is, I was pickin my boogers and drawing little cats. I still do that, he is smarter than me. But, Ken seems to know more about Shinjiro than he lets on ... However, that shall be detailed in time as well. Back at the hospital, Chidori's Persona goes berserk, and Shinjiro just so happens to have some suppressants on hand. What a delinquent, Akihiko seems to think as he whoops Shinjiro outside. It is then revealed that Akihiko has a dead sister who burned in an orphanage fire. Oh... um. Hm, I said that too abruptly. Anyways, we find out something pretty important: Ken has a hamster named hamburger. We then get to see Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Shinjiro in middle school, where Shinjiro reminds me of Sol Badguy more than usual. Another deadly thing said a bit abruptly: we find out that Shinjiro is going to die soon from the suppressants, but not in the way one may think. Before that happens, we get one last little moment, where Koromaru snitches on Shinjiro liking cooking shows. But, the fated moment comes, and Shinjiro is murdered by Takaya after Ken is revealed to be neither a normal kid nor very alright. Shinjiro is one of my favorite characters, both in battle and just generally, so to have him die so soon after gaining him in the party made me get up and start shadow boxing a bit, all the while wailing like a true warrior. They later give you the items he had back, but half of those wails were out of a: "I just bought that armor" concern. At the next trip to Tartarus, I opened an old chest I had missed, and inside was a tuxedo. The text said something like: "this would've looked good on Aragaki-san, but he's not here..." and it made me frown quite deeply. I quite like when games do that, it really reminds you that the people you know now won't always be around, even if it feels that way.

Away from sad things, the reaper begins to chase me randomly through several floors and my buttcheeks clench harder than previously thought possible. Later on, Junpei says TeeHee outloud and starts barking at the study group, aw naw. Back on bittersweet, Moriyama is moving away and causes Fuuka's Persona to evolve. Booo, but also thank you, now Fuuka's Persona looks really cool. Back to strange happenings, (Are you getting whiplash yet?) I beat the, apparently, last shadow, which I doubted immediately because of how easy it was. The Strega dudes I didn't care about killed themselves, and Pharos appears in my room in the morning time. A sweet picture is taken, and it is quickly revealed that the Dark Hour is, in fact, not gone. I knew this wasn't the end, we've been tricked! Ikutsuki is revealed to be a bit nutty, and we are now Jesus on the cross. He's trying to sacrifice us like some type of cult leader, and this feels a bit like something Evangelion-esc. Mitsuru's dad and Ikutsuki have a shootout, in which they both lose, and Aigis and Koromaru proceed to come in clutch. At this moment, I am nothing but mind boggled and hollering for Aigis and Koromaru's wondrous saves, but I also flashback a bit to something I had said earlier to myself while playing. "I bet that guy is evil," I had said, I told you all I have wonderful intuition skills when it comes to Persona, I do! Later on, Chidori tells Junpei to not visit her anymore, and I wail a great cry again. But, at the point I'm at, that arc is still developing, so I hope dearly something may be explained in that department.

The scarf guy, Ryoji, finally makes an appearance, in which he is immediately suspiciously mysterious. I heard a singular vague-ish spoiler about him, so I know I have quite the good mind to be suspicious, Aigis agrees anyways. I have a theory that he's got something to do with Pharos and the 12 shadows that fused, because his appearance after those occurrences feels all too coincidental. We get to go on a school trip, where a bit of a moment occurs with Ryoji, and we have a horrible time at the hot springs. That's where I am at the moment, but before I sign off for the night and do a bit of a PS, here are some last off-hand thoughts: Tomochika's social link sucked, but he gave me a choker, so it's ok I guess. Aigis copied Junpei's "maaan," which is bro points 9000+. And, lastly, Makoto grabbing Ryoji's scarf in the school trip picture made me lol. Ok, that is all, except for one PS: I wasn't going to play Astro Bot because I'm a fake robot fan and butthurt over little big planet, but I saw that there is an Aigis costume in the game, and that it is getting very, very good reviews. So, maybe I'll discard my prejudice against the guy. Ok, that is all, goodnight brotatos.

August 25th, 2024

It's a Sunday morning, I ate a pear and a pancake for breakfast. I can't believe the end of the month is nearing so soon, but I suppose that's just the way it goes ... I mentioned at the end of the last log that a new trailer for the Silent Hill 2 remake came out, but I hadn't mentioned some gameplay released too ; - P I'm really glad that it seems like the public opinion shifted for the better, take a gander and notice that it finally did so after we actually saw extended gameplay and not a few random dookie clips put together by, likely, Konami ... Oh how the tables turn. I knew Bloober was going to nail it just based off the first inkling that they were listening to complaints made by fans, and just the fact that they're Silent Hill fans themselves. If I was asked to make a remake of a game I hold real dear, I'd be geeked out and try my hardest too. It looks like they changed the mirror scene for the better as well. I never really cared about how it looked in the first trailer, just wasn't something I really thought too hard about (fake Silent Hill fan warning lol.) But, now comparing it to how it looks now, I'm really glad they changed it. It almost looks like they straight up pulled the original scene from the game and plopped it into modern times. I suppose I have lower standards for games than other people, so while I thought original trailers had flaws, I never thought the game was going to be straight up bad. Just a different experience to the original, which I'm all for ... But, now seeing how it's improved with this gameplay showcase, I'm extra excited. It's grown to be so faithful while still providing something different. Very, very excited for when this game releases ... I think it's going to tickle a lot of the people that previously wrote it off.

The sound design really wraps it all up in a neat bow and wasn't really something we got a really good gander at before, the way James sounds so terrified when in combat really drives home that he's just some normal dude. It's not like action-movie hero grunts of exertion, it's like straight up fearing-for-life-while-beating-something-senseless kind of shrieks. It's something that really stood out to me, as well as the music and sound effects being very, very faithful to the original. The voice acting is either "off" or creepy as well, I quite liked how Maria spoke in the prison scene. She sounds so monotone, like a doll almost ... which typically would be bad, but for Silent Hill I think "bad" voice acting is "good" voice acting. The only gripe I really have with it is that I feel like the cutscenes start and end too abruptly, but that's it, really. It looks terrifying, and I'm genuinely really excited to play it ... I'll need to replay the original sometime soon. One thing I don't get about remakes is the fact that people get so upset about them, as if the original just up and disappears the moment the remake comes out. In Silent Hill's case, I can kind of see it since it's not relatively avaliable out of emulation and dookie ports, but it's not like the original is lost media, or that the remake is going to replace the original for a majority of people. I just find remakes to be really fun, you're experiencing a game you already like in a whole new perspective. Even with bad remakes, it could introduce new fans to the original that wouldn't have known about it otherwise. I just think people who automatically write off remakes just for being remakes are a bit annoying lol ... and the people complaining about games going "woke" are tweakers, by the way. I miss the ballistics joke in RE4 too, but I don't think that has anything to do with women or gay people as individuals or communities and a lot more to do with companies being afraid of controversy that would not exist to any degree of importance bro. No one would "cancel" Silent Hill 2 remake if they put Maria in her OG outfit except for, like, 2 people on Twitter who never even cared about the original in the first place. You guys just spend too much time on the internet circle jerkin', hatin' on people who haven't done anything lol. Dookie on the companies who just want money, not random hypothetical gay people.

Anyways, Gamescom ends today, I'm pretty sure ... I didn't get to watch all the announcements, but some came across my radar. I'll talk about trailers for upcoming games in a second, but let me talk about some older games that I discovered. I watched a video on Ready Or Not this morning, and it really caught my eye. It sounds really interesting, and I've been meaning to get more into FPS games ... So, I may give it a shot, if it doesn't make my computer explode LOL. I also found this game called The Silver Case and a sequel called the 25th Ward, the art is beautiful for both games. The 25th Ward was on Miro Orange's top 100 list, so it's gotta be good ... I really want to play it. Anyways, onto new trailers: Sonic X Shadow Generations got a trailer showing some new and emo forms for Shadow ... I'm quite excited, I started hearing Skillet off in the distance once again. October is going to run my pocket dry ... A new trailer for Little Nightmares 3 came out too, and of course it looks amazing. It has a different-ish feeling from previous titles, but it's still so obviously Little Nightmares. It's quite apparent they're taking care in making this game, especially with the fact that they delayed it. That sounds snarky, but I mean it LOL. I'm very excited : - 9 . I do hope crossplay is a thing, since there's no couch co-op ... I really wish there was, I feel like they could do it in a LBP style. But, maybe you get separated at a part, who knows. I think I heard about there being no crossplay and it's just cross gen, which is really upsetting, but I suppose we will see. I also heard about Joker being a challenge boss in The Answer DLC that's going to be coming out for Persona 3 Reload ... Wait, Persona 3 Reload?

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 2: Oh gracious, not even one log without a Persona progress report. I started up Persona 3 Reload about a week ago, I'm in July right now, and everything about this game is ridiculously awesome. I did the same checklist format that I did for Royal, so let me read through it: I was scared to look up anything about the game in case of spoilers, which I have successfully dodged except for 1 seemingly quite major one, so I was always curious as to what the little vial Makoto wore was. From the exceedingly awesome intro, I figured out it was just a weird MP3 player, I thought that was funny. I was a bit shocked when the game started off with Takeba seemingly about to kill herself, but quickly moved on as Makoto doesn't gaf about anything to the point it shocked me further. He was very unbothered by the world suddenly turning green and bloody, it made me laugh and flashback to Harry Mason, who I find to be nonchalant in absurd situations. As I start the game, everything about Makoto starts to make sense as I find out that it is 2009, and that he is also an orphan. Of course he's emo with a little MP3 vial that he carries everywhere, he's an orphan and it is 2009. He's also voiced by Aleks Le, which is unrelated to my previous sentence, but I found to be gleeful 'cause I been a fan of his voice work since 2020. Mentioning that, Zeno Robinson voices Junpei. Which, was also a goodie suprise, 'cause I was a really big fan of the Owl House a few years back. So, a lot of familiar voices as I start the game ... Anyways, I really like Junpei, he reminds a bit of Kel from Omori. He says things that I think I will take into my vocabulary, "you saved my bacon!" and "tartar sauce..?" and "HRAAAAAAAAH BEEF BEEF BEEF" I quite liked. In the little list, I go on to wonder about Igor: does he remember Makoto when he's in Persona 5? I suppose when I beat all the Persona games I want to play, I'll try and figure out his weird lore if it's not something already explained.

I already like Elizabeth way more than the wardens, I don't know why but the wardens always annoyed me. I never hung out with them but a singular time and it felt a bit torturous, maybe just slightly funny. Later, Makoto awakens his persona and it's probably one of the coolest scenes in any video game ever. He looked so sadistic, so emo, so cool ... I don't think I can describe it and give it any justice, you just have to watch that scene for yourself. That's probably the singular time we'll ever see Makoto gaf, but I ain't complainin'. I wonder what the significance of shooting yourself to summon a persona is, though ... perhaps we just have to wait and see. Anyways, Mysterious Boy, later known as Pharos, appears and he truly lives up to his name. I was thinking he might have something to do with the Velvet Room, but I really don't have more guesses than that at the moment. Perhaps he's like, Makoto's ghostly past as a little boy who has a voice too deep for how old he looks, or something? Guess there's only one way to find out. Anyways, everything about this game is beautful: the UI, the cinematics (especially when fusing a persona), and especially the music ... hey, wait, the music? Oh, dear reader ... you noticed? Music monkey is here for your music listening needs, if you click on him he takes you across the web to a playlist I made that compiles some of my favorite video game tunes. Feel free to take a gander ... Persona 3 music is on there B - P. Ad over, now let me complain some: Persona 3 Reload has ray tracing on automatically and doesn't say it's ray traced reflections, so I was wondering why my game was running at, like, 2 fps when I visited the mall LOL. I don't have a NASA computer, I can't deal with ray tracing. The RE remakes won't even let me turn it on : , - ( . Also, everytime you alt tab the screen explodes. I just thought that was funny, maybe a bit annoying. So, pro tip from yours truly: if you're playing Persona 3 and it randomly starts running like butt at certain parts, turn off reflections in the menu.

Anyways, I've been trying to focus more on social links this game, since in Persona 5 I only ever hung out with the characters I liked ... which weren't that many in terms of the amount of confidants in the game. It's strange how different the social links work in this game, Junpei doesn't even get one and we can't get Yukari's until July with max charm, and then I'm pretty sure we can't even get Aigis's until near the end of the game. It just feels strange compared to Persona 5, where most of the main character's confidants were automatic or really easy to get pretty soon after first meeting them. Let me detail some stories of my social link adventures: Maya's social link is just one big fat Persona 2 reference, it tickled me a lot. The "Oh really? o_O" option made me laugh, I feel like Makoto would use o_O in every situation it could possibly be used in. I really like Yuko's character, she caused a great debate. Before I started the game, I wanted to romance Aigis since I heard she likes Makoto, but then I started considering Yuko and Yukari, too. And now I still don't know ... I can't be no cheater though, cause Undertale made me feel real bad for being mean to not real people. I really like the social link with the old couple, too. I think it's cute that they call Makoto "Makoto-chan." Makoto hanging out with Maiko was really cute as well, but the fact you can be so mean to Maiko and tell her that it's her fault that her parent's divorced made me bust out laughing so badly that my head hurt.

My favorite weeaboo appears, his name is Bebe. I don't get why so many of these social links are so depressing, Bebe's aunt just dies out of no where LOL ... No, not lol. I didn't lol. Gourmet king too, there's hints of a darker past, but right now he's just treating me to food and crapping his pants. I like him quite a bit. Also, at some point, you can hang out with Elizabeth and she does quite a silly dance that I chuckled at. That's all I wrote down for the social links I've gotten ... I got more than those characters, but I suppose I had nothing to say, cause I still don't. Anyways, back to main happenings: I think Tartarus is funner than Mementos, I'm not sure how to describe it. I think because it's the main focus and not something that I thought was optional at first, whereas in Persona 5 I felt like it was just yanking me away from getting to the real good parts, ya know? Later on, we visit Akihiko in the hospital, and a mysterious beanie wearing man is there, who I think is real cool. He appears again later, where we will mention him again ... For now, we're studying for exams. It was really funny, I thought Akihiko was about to crap his pants the whole time, but turns out he was just holding squats. During another study sesh, "Stupei" shares some gleeful stories, and sniffs ladies. Akihiko and Makoto have their head in the game, they want beef bowls. Another character who often puns is Ikutsuki, he is a cornball and I like him too. Anyways, some ghostful happenings occur and Junpei has a segment that I hope is reoccuring: Believe it or Don't ... Such ghostful occurrences cause us to stop using our brains and we go to an alley at night, Yukari runs her mouth to a goon and Junpei gets whooped, and then we get heroically saved by the one and only guy from other day. His name is Shinjiro, and he looks very cool and I am a bit jitterly excited for him to appear once more. Note: Junpei and Yukari have cool outfits during the summer on weekends.

From ghostly occurrences as well, we get a new Navi named Fuuka ... she is like a fusion of Futaba and Haru, and I love her dearly. Her persona awakening was really cool, but I think that's a given at this point. Every persona awakening is cool. We also get cool new outfits that we show off in a cool new montage, but I especially like Fuuka's because of her little headphones. We also also (2x) get epic new special attacks called Theurgy, Makoto and Fuuka's are kind of OP. Anyways, exploring Tartarus, I figured out that the Reaper exists in this game too ... I hope to challenge him sometime, definitely not now. I'm a bit of a weakling. Later, we gotta get rid of some shadows in a love hotel. Something saucy happens with Yukari and Junpei gets jealous of Makoto's awesome leader skills, which I feel bad about because I think Junpei is quite awesome too. Then, a girl in Lolita appears. I don't know her name yet, but I'm very excited. I saw her design earlier before I started playing, and she's part of the reason I wanted to play Persona 3 so badly, her design is just too awesome. Anyways, about what happened with Makoto and Yukari, I'm wondering if that was just the hotel being saucy or if Yukari and Makoto genuinely like each other. I know Aigis likes Makoto and Kotone in Portable, but I don't actually know if there's anything implying that Makoto or Kotone like her back outside of the romance route. Only one way to find out ... play henceforth! Giggles.

And that's where I'm at in the game at the moment ... I'm going to go eat lunch, adios.

August 19th, 2024

After an extended construction, I've completed what I was working on. It was a spell check, and I slightly rewrote some things ... School started anew, that's why it took me so dang long. I'm quite enjoying the school year so far, I've been learning Python. Just simple baby Python for simpletons, but Python nonetheless. One of my teachers told us about her favorite game that she had as a kid, it was Glover for the N64 and PS1. You play as a kindhearted little glove, It reminded me of Mario 64 and Spyro when I saw it ... something quite gleeful. Also, another N64 game I found that I think appears to be quite gleeful is: Mischief Makers. It has a big eye'd anime girl with green hair on the front, she seems quite mischevious. Anyways, some old news I learned about over the extended construction: FNF is getting an update this month ... or maybe it already has, and I missed it entirely. I think, from the video, it said something about a new playable character? I find that quite exciting ... The Xbox 360 store shut down late last month as well. I'm not a huge fan of Xbox compared to PC or Playstation, (besides their controllers, I really like Xbox controllers), but I still find it sad to see the dashboard get so gutted. I think old consoles deserve to live on, I'm glad the PS3 is still kicking, for now ...

I finally got Persona 3 Reload over the extended construction, but I haven't played it yet ... I told myself I needed to write this log before I did, else next log will be novels length. Because, I beat Persona 5 over extended construction as well ... I have an entire second half of the game's worth of thoughts to write down LOL : - Z. But, before that, I should detail a ghostly occurrence that happened. Randomly, a couple days ago, I turned my computer on to play some DBD with pals, and it just ... was so, so slow. Completely out of no where, and anything I did would not make it stop. I turned off a bunch of startup apps, I turned off background apps, I updated it, I restarted it, I checked for malware ... I even dug in msconfig. Literally, nothing would stop making the entire computer lag, and this went on for 2 days. I decided to start up Persona 5 to check what percent the CPU ran at to try and see if I could dig into that avenue, and the menu was lagging like crazy. I decided to start up the actual game to take a gander some more, and it just ... stopped. My computer continues to act fine, I'm communicating from it now. I still don't know what happened. No matter how much I like computers, I truly only vaguely know what's going on in their minds. Also, one more thing: a new UTDR newsletter came out, Deltarune is still so far away ... I am sad, but awaiting patiently.

PERSONA PROGRESS: Status: completed. My final run time was 154 hours, according to Steam (slowpoke, I know). But, don't fret ... this section will make another appearance very, very soon. Before then, let me travel back in time to the halfway point through Persona 5: The Hawaii trip was really fun to play through, Yusuke's sudden appearance made me giggle. I like how he just showed up out of no where, it's quite in character for such an odd girl ... I went on a walk at the beach with Makoto as well, I think Ryuji needs to watch his back. Trololololol ; - ) Anyways, I'm pulling these thoughts from a checklist I wrote while I was playing, I said around this time I caught up with Mementos, too. Honestly, I quite liked Mementos at first when I thought it was optional. But, when I figured out it wasn't and I had to progress my way down gradually if I wanted to save future me some trouble, it became a bit of a thorn in the cheeks. When Morgana started to feel useless once Futaba joined the team, I felt really bad for him. I'm glad that him and Haru teamed up, cause I found their dynamic quite silly, but it still felt quite sad why he decided to team up in the first place ... Ryuji is one of my favorites, but I feel like he was being way too mean to Morgana at this part LOL. I don't understand the hate for Morgana! I didn't even realize he got hate until I looked him up online, and I think you all are just blind or something.

Something else I think gets hated on too much is Okumura's palace. It reminded me a lot of the sackbot levels in LBP, I really liked the design of the environments and enemies. Morgana and Haru teaming back up with the Phantom Thieves made me gleeful, I love them both dearly. Haru's actual persona awakening was awesome, the masquerade aesthetic and Noir code name are really cool ... Both Morgana and Haru proved useful for the Okumura boss, though. That boss genuinely zapped life force from me, the morale got so low that I started dressing up Morgana in a safe room. I put him in an Aigis fit, and that's what he wore for the rest of my playthrough. I only was able to beat Okumura once I got personas that did curse damage to more than one target. Having a team of Joker, Morgana, Haru, and Makoto, abusing baton passes and the little magic damage items like crazy, having a dash of good luck, and knowing the weaknesses of the robot phases is all you can do for that fight, truly ... I don't think any boss gave me as much trouble as Okumura, before or after. A lot of them were dragged out, especially Wakaba's, but I'd get them done in a try or two. Okumura took me, like, 3 or 5 hours ... Countless retries. Anyways, every showtime attack in this game I love and think about often. I think at this point in the story, the newly obtained ones are Yusuke and Ann's and Morgana and Haru's. So many giggles, so many shouts of glee you hear from me!

Sumire, still Kasumi at this point, discovers a mysterious palace and awakens her persona in an epic magical girl transformation, and I need to save her or whatever. I've been suspicious of Maruki ever since he came into Leblanc with the psience book, and when I remembered that golden helmet picture I saw, but this moment just furthered my suspicion on him being some type of antagonist to Joker. This is something really weird with Persona: the foreshadowing in parts is so obvious, but once that reveal happens and you're like, "Oh, duh, I knew that," something more insane gets revealed and completely knocks you on your cheeks. Maruki being revealed as the palace ruler way later was something I expected, but I could've never guessed Yoshizawa's situation. Same thing with Akechi being the criminal. I guessed that much, but had no idea about Shido being his father. It's something really unique I noticed, I thought it was quite an interesting way that Persona deals with plottwists and reveals. Anyways, back to where we were in the story ... I thought it was kind of funny that Haru watched her dad die on the Persona's universe's equivalent for Nico Nico Douga. I don't know, that just tickled me a bit.

During the school festival, I was quite gleeful with how involved Akechi became. The way he tried to compose himself so hard when eating the spicy takoyaki made me bust out laughing. I'll talk about Akechi some more later, he's definitely become one of my favorites ... But anyways, that scene with Makoto and Akechi on the stage was so intense, stone cold ... It got me really excited for the story to unravel more. Later in the festival, Joker suddenly busting out with some pretty intense dance moves might've been the most tickled I've been playing this entire game. Also, I chose to hang out with Haru at the festival, and that entire hangout with her on the stage made me decide to go on the dating simulator quest of romance. Sorry Akechi, sorry Ryuji, sorry Makoto, sorry Sumire. I'll mention more of that later, but let's continue ... Sojiro had some suspicions about our status as Phantom Thieves, and Futaba snitched. Which, I suppose she didn't get from Sojiro, because I'm quite shocked at how chill this old man is. He didn't even fold at the million bounty, he is absurdly and shockingly nice. I like it. Nijima's palace is probably one of my favorites, I think. Having Akechi on the team, "The Whims of Fate" playing, the anticipation on how this will lead up to the cutscene at the beginning of the game, the entire aesthetic and design, it's just a real cool palace. I feel like the casino setting drove in the Phantom Thief trope a bit, especially when Joker was running away as a distraction at the end, and I thought it was quite fun that Akechi had a laser gun and lightsaber. On my checklist, I also mention Makoto and Haru's showtime, which I add on to the list of favorites. All of the showtimes are favorites, honestly, they're such a cool addition to the game.

At this point, I get rank 8 with Akechi. He throws his glove at Joker and tells him he hates him, and then compliments him in his hate message. I didn't believe it due to the amount of times he showed up at my home unprompted, and the fact we took a whole bath together per his request. But, I definitely didn't believe him after he asked me to hang out with him, like, 2 days later. His persona ranked up cause of it, too. What's his issue? ... A lot of things. More on that later, we are now hanging out with Maruki for the last time. The life of a four eyes made me laugh, and then I got scared immediately because he knew I was a Phantom Thief. I stopped and stared at the screen for a second like I was actually the one getting confronted, this truly is the life of a four eyes ... Anyways, back on to Nijima's palace. Her boss design is really sick, it looks like something straight out of Chainsaw Man. The fight wasn't too difficult, except I kept taking too long and getting one-shot nuked. Persona 5 is hypocritical! You can't have "take your time" on every loading screen, then one-shot me if I take my oh, so sweet time! LOL. I've beaten Nijima's boss fight, and now we're all caught up in present time. Akechi comes into the interrogation room and ... kills Joker?! I won't lie, I was genuinely going insane at this part. If you've been reading my logs for a bit, perhaps you remember how I played Omori. I thought I royally effed up at some part, and that I was actually meant to Matrix dodge or something stupid. I was getting intense Omori flashbacks all up until they revealed it was all apart of the plan. I don't think I've let out a fatter sigh of relief ever in my life. They knew about Akechi's suspiciousness the whole time, and not only did they fool Akechi, they fooled me!

In Shido's palace, Yusuke makes quite mousey puns, and Akechi's issues are finally revealed. Akechi's papa is Shido, and that is all that needs to be said. As I mentioned, this reveal sent me straight on my cheeks, I was so shocked about it. I was wondering earlier in the game where in the world this bald dude got some random 17 year old as his accompilce. That's his son! That entire sequence and boss fight with Akechi is heart wrenching, even Morgana called him out on not truly hating Joker. I like that we get to remind him we won't forget the promise he made with the glove. It was almost a reminder that Akechi isn't unwanted, at least by one person. At least ... from my pea brain perspective, I've never been very good at reading between the lines when it comes to stories, LOL. I found it a bit strange the Phantom Thieves were so quick to be civil with Akechi, knowing that he killed Haru's dad and Futaba's mom. I suppose, Akechi feels so interesting as a character because he seems like someone who would just be an antagonist, yet his morality is ultimately gray and he ends up being one of the protagonist's closest allies. Maruki is a bit like this too, but we'll talk about him once we get to his palace. Anyways, the calling card for Shido's palace was one of the coldest moments in the game ... I'll mention THE coldest later, but just know Shido calling card is up there. I beat Shido, which was still easier than Okumura, and I seriously thought Ryuji may have died. It's ok, he was just slightly off screen.

I ranked up Sumire really quickly at this point, I hadn't realized I needed her to be rank 5 to get the special ending cutscenes. I was worried that I was going to miss her window, but it was all good. Now, we're at the part of the game that makes you go through Mementos, which I did make sure to keep up with to save myself in this moment ... The depths are quite beautiful, in my opinion. I really enjoyed the floor puzzles, but the overall scenery during this palace was wondrous. At this point, when we get booted out of Mementos and into Shibuya, some Evangelion type stuff starts happening. And to my dismay, we start to disappear from reality altogether. I begin to think I royally effed up once more. Sure, maybe not as badly as when I thought I missed some QTE to do a backflip in the interrogation room, but effed up nonetheless. Igor trying to kill me immeditately afterwards didn't help ... Wait a minute, kill me?! Yes, dear reader, turns out the lovely Igor was actually just an impersonator this entire time. Hey, at least the wardens aren't annoying anymore (Lavenza fan 4 life!). Real Igor's voice is a bit mad scientist-y, I like it. We also find out the origins of Morgana: he is a happy homunculus! Anyways, the entire time I was playing Persona, I was joking that perhaps the ending will be quite classic JRPG, and we get to fight a God. But, I was kidding. I truly was kidding. He was easier to fight than Okumura, too ... God was easier to whoop than Haru's father. Whatever, let me detail the 2nd place coldest moment in this entire game: Arsene is back, Joker whips that gun out, "begone," and WHAM! Holy fart, I was screaming and running around and jumping up and down when this happened, it's one of the moments in my life that I wish I had a giant human-sized hamster wheel. But, hey, wait, you said it's 2nd place ...? What could be cooler than that? Well, you'll see. You'll all see.

Lavenza mentions something that basically is paraphrased as: Akechi and Joker were doomed from the start. I wish I had something smart to say about their relationship, but I feel like it's surprisingly complicated for my pea brain to comprehend fully. Joker still cares about him, obviously, through many points, even after Akechi tried killing him. It just feels like there's something poetic to say about that, but you ain't gettin' it from me. I'll talk about 2/2, don't worry, I leave no small potatoes behind. Back on track, Morgana disappears into a fine mist and I begin to cry a bit. I had to sit in my room to compose myself before I went downstairs to go eat some spaghetti, quite an eventful night. My brimming tears were in vain, as he comes back literally immediately afterwards ... and Akechi too, I guess. Oh, hey now, Akechi?! Yes, turns out we're in some false reality, but of who's doing?! ; - )? LOL. Akechi seems to be back and breathing because of Joker, but spoiler alert: the promise never ends up really being kept, at least in a clear "this is a 1v1" situation. You could probably consider half their interactions as a 1v1, though, I suppose. Anyways, reality is quite warped and it's not for the dead folks walking ... it is because Morgana is a human man. I wanted him really badly to go back to being a cat, because I realized really quickly why I recognized his voice. It is Bryce Papenbrook, who is also Nagito. Oh, shiver.

We're onto the last palace now. When I realized it was going to be Yoshizawa and Akechi helping us, I got so excited that I wished for a human hamster wheel again. Unfortunately, it didn't last that long, but I quite like the Royal trio, I wish there was more content of just them together. Anyways, there's so many moments in this game where it's like: oh no, it's the end ... then there's still 70 hours left. I thought Sae's palace was end game, yet I ended up playing for, like, 50 more hours LOL. It doesn't really feel like it's dragging, though. Persona 5 is probably the most well-paced game I have ever played in my life, I never felt it should've been over 30 hours beforehand, or that the story didn't make sense by keeping it going. But, back to the palace, it's revealed that Maruki is the ruler and that Kasumi is not Kasumi, and she's been fakin' the whole time ... All I could say during that entire reveal was "waaaat." I would've never guessed it. I'll be honest and say I, for some reason, thought Sumire was going to be revealed to be a fake-robot-android-girl who lives on the internet. Which, would have been way cooler, by the way. I thought that because her phone being broken felt suspicious to me, and I guess I just reached that conclusion. It's where my mind wanders to ... I'm rolling my eyes. Anyways, that whole reveal made me realize why Yoshizawa only had 5 levels to her confidant at first ... I find it clever. Something honorable to mention: I didn't know if Akechi was ever going to get a showtime. I didn't even know he was going to be on our team past Nijima's palace, so when the prompt showed up to do showtime with him, I nearly crapped my pants. Not boutta lie. I saw a video where someone did an exceedingly fire edit of all the showtimes, and everyone was in normal outfits other than Joker and Akechi. Akechi was in his Santa fit and Joker was going swimming. It tickled me a lot, I'm still thinking about it.

In the between time of sending Maruki his calling card, I maxed out my social stats and unlocked some third awakenings. Then we had a bit of a moment with Akechi on an infamous day, and I felt a bit bad for making him mad. I wouldn't like to be in Joker's position, because imagine it: you're like, 16 and also a wanted criminal, who is on probation, and has a bounty on their head. You make friends with a guy who you know is going to betray you. He does, but it's not like you want him to die or anything. But, he dies at the hands of the cognition his father, who he hates, created, and a promise is never fufiled. You wish he could come back, and he does, but then says he doesn't want to live in this reality. Issue is, this reality is the one he's alive in, and you agree that you can't live in this reality, too. So, you're Joker, and your friend, rival, whatever is infront of you basically telling you he wants to die and you can just do nothing about it. Because, if you accept Maruki's reality, you're just living as some cardboard, bland versions of your true selves. I just find it tragic, however way you interpret Joker and Akechi's relationship, it's sad either way. But, away from that, Maruki has a persona transformation, despite being a palace ruler. It's the golden helmet, it made an appearance, it's what I saw! I got whooped pretty bad in his boss fight, I took too long and got one-shot nuked right before he was about to die. So, I went back to a previous save and Myriad Truths'd the Reaper a couple times to level up LOL. I love cheese.

The coldest moment in the game occurs: checkmate. I cannot explain how awesome this moment is with words. You're in the middle of an intense cutscene, you're watching with glee, and then you get a sudden prompt to fire the last blow?! I cannot explain how hyped I was when that prompt appeared, man. Third time wishing for a human sized hamster wheel, I feel like that will quell me. Anyways, Maruki and Joker start fist fighting, it makes me think about the MGS1 boss fight where you have to fist fight with Liquid. After this, Joker goes to jail. Not for fist fighting with Maruki, but for other reasons. I find it quite unfair, he saved the world, like, 4 separate times and you put him in jail. How UNGRATEFUL. They break me out though, and now I'm on the loose. But, that doesn't matter, because I have a lovely White Day date with Haru. Then comes the day I say goodbye ... I felt a bit like crying when I got to tell Ryuji I was going to miss him. It felt strange to beat Persona 5, because I had it to play pretty much everyday for an entire month, so it felt very bittersweet. The post-credit cut scene of Akechi makes the gears in my brain run a bit, and the music cutting off right at Fin felt like a nice ribbon being put on the entire gift box. Overall, Persona 5 has been some of the most fun I've had playing a game, and is also officially the first one I reached 100 hours in. I'd say play it too, but you just read me spoiling all of it ... Actually, play it anyways. I got spoiled on a twist in Persona 4 while looking up things about Persona 5, but I'll probably still play it one of these days.

End of persona progress. But, while I was in the middle of writing this, a new Silent Hill 2 remake trailer dropped. It looks so good, I'm so excited for October ... OK, Adios!

July 29th, 2024

YO! School is on the horizon, hopefully I can still have the time to play a bunch of games, but I have some interesting tidbits to mumble about and many Persona things to chatter about, so henceforth before that day comes ... There's this account on Tumblr that has polls where you can answer if you've played a game or not, I think it's one of my favorite accounts on the internet ever, but they posted this poll about this game called Rom:one where most people had never even heard of it, me included. But, I thought the cover looked quite cool, so I went on a little scavenger hunt to figure stuff out about it, and I found it quite interesting ... It looks like just a little mini-game game from 2001, but I think the fact that it's hard to find stuff about it made it quite fun to discover things about ... here is an archive page for it: Archive : - U ... But, anyways, that account made me think about maybe putting a little survery on my site that visitors can answer ... perhaps I will have to figure that out. It'll probably be asking what your top 5 games are, something like that ... I always like seeing people's lists of that nature, because I can't figure my own out. I have a #1 favorite and then a billion #2 favorites I can't pick between.

The open beta for 3v3 mode in Guilty Gear has occurred ... I haven't dabbled in it myself, but I watched a video and, in my humble opinion, I think it looks rather joyous ... It's a tag-in type fighter mode , which only gripe I feel I have about it is the shared health. I've seen a lot of party poopers about this mode, but I don't really care, I think it looks like mindless chaotic fun with pals, like a party game mode ... which is all I was expecting in the first place, unsure if people thought it was gonna be some EVO-competition-category-worthy type thing but whateva. Half the fun is having no idea what's going on! ... Another new experimental mode in an online game I fiddle with is ... 2v8 in DBD ! 2 killers, 8 survivors ... it's quite frightening, silly fun. I hope they make it a permanent mode. ... On another note, I played that snowmobile mission in Modern Warfare 2 because my dad handed me the controller and asked me to play it for him while he went and did something .. it was lots of fun, a nice action packed blunder, made me consider getting into COD. I really need to play more FPS games, I like them but I never play them ... Have been thinking about getting Doom 2016 because of that new Doom coming out soon.

PERSONA PROGRESS: Oh goodness gracious me oh my ... I got some persona 5 themes on the PS3 and they're very cool, all the menu sound effects get changed to ones from the game ... It made me hyped. I got ones of Ryuji, Joker, and Akechi .. will likely get more later cause they're, like, 99 cents. : - B ... I'm exploring Mementos at the moment after beating Kaneshiro and Futaba's palaces ... because I figured that Mementos does indeed need to be thoroughly explored ... apparently at some point the game will force you to go through it if you haven't already, or so I have heard ... so I'm trying to make it easier for future me. A bit sad because I just been wanting to hang with homies ... but hey, you win some you lose some! I'm about ... halfway through the story, or maybe almost halfway ... and I feel really shocked at how well this game is paced. I still have a whole half of the game left, 70 something hours in, and I'm still excited for what's to come. I think that's why I put off playing a Persona game for so long, because of how daunting the length of the games are ... but once you play it yourself, it really doesn't feel like 100+ hours. I find it quite wondrous ... I'm not a fan of replaying things, unless I really really like the game or there's completely new content ... so I've never actually gotten a game to 100 hours before ... Persona 5 will be my first. : - P but let's backtrack to where I was when we left off:

I beat Kaneshiro's palace, which I don't have much to say about besides I liked having Makoto on the team. It feels strange now to think I didn't like her at first ... I am sorry Makoto ! I judged you poorly ! ... I really liked the new showtime attacks also, with Ryuji and Yusuke and Makoto and Ryuji. I think Makoto and Ryuji got some romance in the air but ... Sojiro did think Makoto and Ren were dating and she did ask Ren to be her fake boyfriend ... so, sorry Ryuji, Mr. Steal Yo Girl is in Toooooooown leeelllleeeeeeeeeeell. Speaking about romance in the air, I hung out with Akechi more. I think it is very fitting that Akechi is left handed, it just feels right, but anyways .. I still think he already knows who Ren is as a phantom thief and is still just pretending .. especially after that one scene where he found them all together and kind of slyly accussed them of phantom thievery. You are not fooling me, Bud. At one point, when I tried to hang with Akechi, he said I wasn't suave enough for him, so I had to take 48 baths before he liked me again. After I was clean, he took me to a cafe ... and, well, you know what they say about rivals. He also took me to an aquarium and a jazz cafe, and at the jazz cafe No More What Ifs started playing ... I love that song dearly. About the criminal in the Metaverse, there's no way it's not Akechi. I had my suspicions placed on either Kasumi or Akechi, but after Igor said the criminal was a man ... I pointed my finger accussingly at him. I already have master intuition skills, I guessed Futaba was Medjed, so I will be severely dissapointed and or surprised if that criminal ain't Akechi. I mean, everything points to him ... both from out of context mentionings I've heard across the web And the hints in game. I'm quite excited for such a reveal, if it turns out to be the case. Which, if it is the case, that means he killed Wakaba... and she's been dead since Futaba was a kid, and Akechi and Futaba aren't too far apart in age ... so did Akechi kill her when he was a kid ?! Why ?! How ?! I just start skipping in a circle and throwing flower petals everytime I think about the possible possibilities and their interesting outcomes, I am severely excited for what this game's mysteries may bring. Every bad mysterious thing that happens in this game I shrug and go must've been Akechi.

Speaking of Futaba ... I really like her addition to the cast, I think her and Ren are very brother-and-sister-like ... The "are you a remora?" option made me laugh a lot. Medjed being mentioned in game made me look the God up to put a face to the name, and half of what came up were little Japanese drawings and manga ... and I discovered that apparently Medjed, the Egyptian God, was popular in Japan as a meme at one point in time, I thought that was funny. Futaba's unknown number being "Alibaba" also made me chuckle, a lot of names in this game didn't age well. Alibaba, Metaverse, Phan-site ... LOL. These are actual words and names (besides Phan-site) but the way they're associated nowadeez makes me giggle when hearing them in-game. With Futaba, I always thought of her as some goofy side-kick character just based off the fanart I've seen of her, so to have her backstory be really sad shocked me a bit. I found her palace to be interesting too, since her desires weren't necessarily evil and we were the ones being targeted this time around. (I liked all the scenes of Morgana and Futaba as well, I think they are BFFs. Also, Futaba's code name being Oracle is awesome.) The final boss for her palace was awesome but very, very difficult LOL. I beat it first try, but oh lord did my resources get drained. Last tidbits about Futaba: I like her outfits, her use of keyboard emojis is joyous, and the fireworks scene is making me mourn summer break ... I like her relationship with Yusuke also, the scene where he messed her figures up and the scene at the beach where she tried to snatch the lobsters from him made me laugh greatly, oh ... romance once again! I find it funny that she calls him Inari. Yusuke is crazy for wearing a hoodie at the beach by the way, he looked like a dark sorcerer.

Last few mentions before I play more, I'm a bit suspicious of Maruki since I know you need to get him to a high rank for the true ending ... but I can't think of his importance as to why you would need his rank to be high for that. I saw a picture of him with a golden helmet type thingie on, so perhaps ... maybe he turns evil. But allow us to see, I suppose. Unrelated sentences and thoughts: I like the special hangout pictures, the one where Ren drops his ice and Morgana tried to catch it made me laugh. I also like that hangout with Yusuke at the church, what a pose of anguish! I'm getting better at the batting cages game, I've got a handful of homeruns. I maxed Ryuji's confidant out also LOL... I like his new persona. Lastly ... I've grown suspicious of Morgana after that dream he had. There's a girl I know that I mentioned playing Persona 5 to, and now everytime I see her she asks me if Morgana is evil yet ... and I am beginning to believe her.

That is all... Goodbye!

July 24th, 2024

Guten evening, I had a bit of a strange day today but ... I've made lots of progress in Persona 5 and wanted to write about it. Firstly, some other things to speak of: I went on a little research grind about Persona 3, because I found out there was a robot girl, (why'd no one tell me about the robot girl ?) and now I really want to play Persona 3 for Aigis and the emo protagonist (Makoto).. But holy moly man 70 buckaroonies ... and an extra 35 for the expansion.. I feel a bit sad seeing how expensive AAA games have gotten. It's OK though I suppose, Steam does always have sales going on. I also noticed that it seems like Persona 3 isn't as popular as Persona 5, I knew who Morgana and Joker were at least since 2017 or so but I couldn't really name anyone from Persona 3 until ... a week ago maybe. I mean, I knew the blue haired emo was FROM Persona 3, I just didn't know exactly what his name was ... It is Makoto, I learned. Two Makotos! I also played the first episode of the first Walking Dead game, and I have some mixed ideas. The gameplay was quite cool, and Lee is a wondrous character, but man.. is this game BUTT UGLY. I played the original version, but I'm pretty sure there's a remastered version too. (Which, from pictures I saw, looks way better.) But the game's look just did not appeal to me at all, it kinda toasted my buns ... I think mainly it was the proportions of some of the characters and the animations. The expression animations felt really strange, but the proportions of the little kid characters especially made them look like strange martians with them HUMONGOUS HEADS, BRO.

I was kind of tired while playing it also, so maybe that's why I was hating so badly on it. But I also hated every single character other than Lee. Clementine is sweet or whatever but her freaking, freakish big head weird little pencil limbs bro. Martians. It just made me mad. ... LOL. I'm not dogging on the game btw, I really didn't play enough to say, but what I did play seemed like something with genuinely cool story and gameplay ... and with the fact it's so highly regarded, I don't doubt it's a good game. I'm just hating to hate, :wink:. The scene where they really introduced combat and Lee smacked his head made me laugh really badly though, it was formatted like an old vine. I liked that scene a lot, it tickled me greatly. I might play more some of these days, but I really do hate the characters other than Lee, and once I look past Clementine's big head, her as well. ... I'm half joking also, I do think the game is ugly but at the end of the day I think that's the last thing to determine a good game or not. I'm skipping around and throwing flower petals so no TWD fans get mad at me, I swear I'll play more ... Probably. Heeeheeee .. Also I been missing DMC and MGS, need 2 get back on them grinds soon. Persona 5, stop distracting me! .. Oh ... oh dear goodness gracious ... the radio channel is changing ... static ... coming through the speakers!

PERSONA PROGRESS: We back on Air.. ? I've done a whole 'lot since I last wrote, I'm at the beginning of the 3rd palace at the moment, so lets do the classic tradition and backtrack. I have a long list of things I wrote down as I was playing, so allow me to sift through it: I mentioned not liking how they made us go through with the nude painting plan when investigating for Madarame's palace, cause it was obvious Ann didn't want to ... Not trying to be Oh Holy Righteous One, but it made me sad we didn't really get an option to even be like "Hey, maybe there's another way ... Sorry Ann ..." But at least Ryuji said to say if anything fishy happened, cause then they'd have her back. At least he said that ... I feel like there's a lot of instances where Ann is sexualized and it feels strange, not just because I feel like It's kind of a part of her character not to be, but also cause SHE'S A HIGHSCHOOLER ... That's a really weird part of Persona, cause also you can romance adult women while playing as a teenage boy, it is just weird I do not like that. The punk doctor lady, Takemi, I'm sad about cause she's really weird, wasted such a cool design on some weirdo lady, man ... and don't get me started on Operation Maidwatch ... LOL. I hollered in fear when "Becky" turned around. The "I'm a dad" answer choice did make me laugh though. It's a popular joke with Persona fans I think, but it does truly make not much sense that you can't romance dude characters Ren's age but can romance adult women. It is just ... very classic anime, I suppose. Morgana keeps asking me to go help that stupid teacher lady, but I don't really care about what happens to her. Sorry ... I feel like the only people that like the creepy (in bad way) ladies in this game are the weeaboo gooners, which arguably may be the target western audience LOL. About Operation Maidwatch, can I mention how difficult it is to be nice to Mishima? I wanted to so dearly because he just seemed like a little loser who was excited to have people be nice to him for once, but it has become increasingly harder to pick the polite options when talking to him. Apologies, I'll continue being nice, but just with a classic anime anger eye twitch or two or three or so. He would love moderating for a subreddit, is all I'm sayin'.

I'd beaten Madarame's palace, and it made me quite cheerful that Yusuke was able to see the full Sayuri piece n' get it back. I found it sweet how he put it up in Leblanc, I felt sad when he didn't keep being roommates with us though. Another thing about Yusuke I'd like to mention is that he has wonderful outfits, both Ryuji and Yusuke have undeniable style I wish to obtain. I was very shocked when the reveal that Madarame let Yusuke's mom die was ... revealed, it made me roll my eyes when he was whining on the news about how sorry he was. Whatever, man. PS: Ryuji burping in Ann's face was funny, I am thou, thou art I. On to the little clean up day segment: Haru made a sudden appearance! I'm gleeful for when she'll eventually truly show, she seems like a sweetheart. Happy to get Kasumi's confidant as well, she is very polite. Also PS part 2: I really like Mementos, it's a really cool addition for when you're inbetween palaces n get bored of the school life social aspects and just want to beat some people up. I think I may challenge the reaper one of these days ... I just thought to mention it because I find it to be good game design, n not a choice I see in many games I play. For those who are curious as to what the Akechi debate was, I was wondering if I was going to like Akechi or not. I felt deep in my bones that I was not, but unfortunately I truly do ... When he first really appeared I thought his nickname was "peasant boy" and not "pleasant boy." I'm excited to level his confidant up, cause I'm quite curious as to how a phantom thief n his ragtag group of also phantom thieves will interact with a prince detective! Oh goodie! What a juxtaposition! I don't really trust him however, I feel like he's trying to act all sweet but he isn't truly that polite ... You can't fool me, man.

I take back all the poor things I said about Makoto. I think we should not bully her, or call her useless, or anything like that ... I sorry Makoto, I judged you far too soon. I really like her Persona and her Metaverse outfit, the Fist of the North Star reference Ryuji said made me point at the screen and clap my hands together like a baby. I was really annoyed by Makoto at first, cause I felt like she needed to hop off my cheeks. But, after seeing the scene with the principal, I started to like her, and then further once I saw the epic motorcycle. Sometimes you need to break a couple getting kicked off of rooftops to make a couple cool motorcycle personas, you know? One thing I was kind of shocked by is that the main characters actually got a consequence from talking about their top secret business so loudly out in public. You know how in video games the main characters always talk about the secret things so loudly, like the scene in MGS with Snake and the "DARPA chief" in the cell? I always wondered why'd they never get caught, however this time they did, thank you Makoto. It felt glorious, a true "I told you so" moment. Last little mentions: I like Lala chan, she reminds me of Divine and Cosmo Lombino. The pawpaw at the bathhouse that Ryuji yelled at is my favorite, because he couldn't care less about anything ever in this world, and I really like Ann and Morgana's showtime attack. I LOVE MORGANA!

OK... that is all.. goodnight..

July 21st, 2024

It is humid outside, and I think I would like it not to be. But, I have some things to tell you deer readers, and your polished hooves. Mainly, lots about Persona 5. It's most of what I've been playing past few almost week, with lots of Outlast Trials and DBD with amigos sprinkled in. I've written little bullet points as I've been playing about things I wanted to mention, but allow me to write some few little things before I truly dive in: that mysterious horror Nintendo game, Emio, got a little teaser reveal and ... it is a detective game belonging to the Famicom Detective Club series! I have never heard of the series before, but now I'm interested, especially after hearing that Emio is a new installment after ... I think it was 30 years. Quite interesting prospects, especially with the M rating ... excited to see what that may hold. On another fiddle of a tune, I heard about this game called El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, which doesn't seem to have many players or knowers, so I wanted to mention it, because It looks quite cool. I've yet to play it, but I think it deserves more eyes, just by using my eyes ... only almost 300 reviews on steam! That's all! With a mention of the Outlast Trials, I've been playing it more and I have some things to speak of: I really like the old 50s style of the game, it reminds me of what Fallout is like in my brain. I've never played Fallout, but the style of the Outlast Trials is what I imagine (I need to play Fallout..!) The monster and trial designs are all really unique, I especially like Mother Gooseberry, she reminds me of Leatherface. Also, playing through each trial reminds me a lot of Halloween haunted houses. I don't think I've ever mentioned it, but Halloween is my favorite time of the year, because I dearly love haunted houses. So, playing a video game that basically feels like going through a haunted house truly tickled me.

I feel like once you play more of the Outlast Trials, at least for me, you get more ballsy once you get a hang of all the mechanics. But, I still feel frightened to leave a hiding spot ... I feel like that provides for a really good horror experience, ballsy but not too scared that your eyes feel like they may pop out ... which was how I was when playing the introduction by myself LOL. It feels very rewarding to be able to sneak past the monsters or remain undetected while outside of a hiding spot, which made me think about some things about stealth games: I feel like I have a bit of a love-hate opinion on stealth, because I've loved every stealth game I've played. It's very rewarding to get past a group of enemies undetected, or successfully shoot them all down, and then get to a new area to explore or continue the, oftentimes, really good story, but It's also a real pain in the cheeks. I feel like stealth games for me are also a bit in the same category as fromsoft games, in terms that they aren't necessarily traditionally "fun" but I really like and enjoy them, It made me think about how, with some games, having fun while playing them could be kinda abstract. It's more of a question of "is it rewarding" than "is it fun" ... that's the best way I can describe it LOL. I find it interesting, almost a different style of game that I think is just as worth playing as any hack n slash or JRPG (genres I find to be very fun.) With MGS, my favorite parts were the story, but I feel like if MGS was just a movie instead of a game, it'd lose so much of its charm n what truly makes MGS some of the best pile of games ever.

Oh... Oh... whats that..? a new segment..? In Comes...

PERSONA PROGRESS: I thought, since Persona 5 is so long, It'd make more sense to write about it as I go than when I beat it in 50 years. Once those 50 years pass, this segment may make a return, as one of these days I'll play 3 and 4 too. Right now, I'm in Madarame's palace, about midway through May, so lets back track ... 'cause last log I wrote before I even got to Ann unlocking her persona LOL. I really love Ann, everytime Kamoshida showed up I wanted death upon him. I never felt sorry for that dude, I was sad when we weren't able to kill him, but Ann is right about "some fates are worse than death." I really like her friendship with Ryuji and Ren, I always obsess over trios in games I play LOL. I think right now, my favorite characters are Joker, Ryuji, and Morgana. Morgana is a cutie pie, I love cats dearly ... They are little angels on earth! Something I noticed while playing is how dearly wonderful the OST is. Sometimes, I intentionally let myself get ambushed/in danger or just sit in a battle for a while after getting into a fight without ambush just to hear Last Surprise LOL. The lyrics version of Beneath the Mask is beautiful, I already liked the instrumental version but once the lyrics hopped in, I had to pause and just groove for a minute. It was 2 am when I first heard it too, I felt like it added to the song. Another favorite song is Tokyo Daylight, I feel like the part at 0:30 has a similar groove to the album: Brasilian Skies by Masayoshi Takanaka. Another favorite Persona 5 song that reminds me of another is No More What Ifs, reminds me of Smooth Operator by Sade. When fusing/executing Personas was introduced, I was kinda sad that I had to let Arsene go, he looks like something out of DMC. But it's ok, I have this little gnome looking persona now, who I think is funny.

The combat in Persona 5 is something so dearly fun, and it made me think: What is this reminding me of? Why am I having so much fun? And then it hit me that Persona 5 and Deltarune (favorite game in the world) actually have quite a few similarities, think about it! JRPGS about highschoolers going to a separate reality where they get cool clothes, some slightly secretive creature from said reality helps them along the way, really good OST, semi silent protagonist with "delinquent" best friend ... many things to point to. Kris and Ren, Susie and Ryuji, Ralsei and Morgana, Noelle and Ann, come on! It makes me wonder how Deltarune will end ... I'm sighing. Some last random thoughts I wrote down: I thought Ryuji's calling card was cool, no need for the haters. I like how Morgana turns into a car in Mementos, I think its funny. The concept of the Reaper reminds me of Mr. X , I say it is frightening ... Thieves den is quite cool and Jose looks like he has a little eggshell on his head, like a newborn chicken... I really like all of the UI's for the shops, but especially Jose's. Maruki appeared and I think I may need a high confidant to get the true ending, or so I've heard... Yusuke also appeared and he is quite a cool emo girl..! I don't like Makoto right now, I liked the roof... and that is all I wrote down.

All in cheese and crackers, I'm having lots of fun playing. I'm excited for the prospects of new characters to appear, especially Akechi, because I need to settle a debate that I have with myself. Playing Persona makes me want to try out Shin Megami Tensei, but we shall see. It's lunch time good sirs, cheers with sandwiches in hand! AFTER FOOD EDIT: SEASON 4 GUILTY GEAR GOT LEAKED. VENOM, DIZZY, HOLY FART. I was not expecting a guest character either, Unika looks so cool too ... If Venom is here then maybe Robo Ky truly isn't Copium after all ... I am very excited for 3v3 too, it looks like all 6 players will be on screen. Holy carp...

July 16th, 2024

Hola brotatos ... last log I mentioned playing as many games as I can before summer break ends, which is a toe nail lengths away, and I ain't fib, so lettuce speak of it. I been playing Dead by Daylight with pals as Leon, as I unfortunately once again fell to the grips of modern gaming and bought DLC. It's a real fun game to play with friends and family, but I think playin with randoms might be kind of frustrating or boring after awhile, especially cause I've heard of a lot of salt. I never understood people that sent messages like that in online games, but hey ... we got "so yeah... you're gay" and that's all goodie. (also 2v8 update soon?! EEEKK) Anyways, I advocate playing as resident evil and silent hill characters in Dead by Daylight, because it is fun. I am poisoned by this fact cause I started to consider playing fortnite just so I can play as Raiden and Snake, Goodness Me ... what a nice transition sentence into the next topic: I beat MGS3 and have now began to save up moneys for MGS4 and Peace Walker, exciting prospects! MGS3 is a wondrous game, I still prefer MGS2 but It was lotsa fun playing as big boss. I think he's a new favorite alongside Raiden. As I played, I wrote down some things I wanted to mention, so let that commence: I think my least favorite boss was The End, because I have a skill issue LOL. I was whining the whole time because I never found the thermal goggles, didn't think to use the directional mic, didn't know about the chance to kill him before the fight, and didn't know I could really just save and change the calendar to a week later and he'd be dead ... So, I just made the boss infinitely harder for myself because of my noob knowledge. It was a very unique boss and I appreciate it for that fact, but I'm still a hater just cause I'm salty about it. I wandered around for like 20 minutes trying to find him once because I lost his tracks. I'm salty... for being bad at the game... because everytime I WOULD find him I'd accidentally alert him like an eye dot! I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but I'm actually very horrible at stealth games. When I was playing the first tlou, I think I just shot everyone more than I actually snuck around ... OOPS ... It's not on purpose I swear!

Away from complaining about my bad gamerly skills, I think my favorite boss in MGS3 might be ... The Boss. It was generally very impactful, and the scenery of the fight is wondrous. I liked having to time the CQC to counter, it was rewarding when she fell and I got to shoot with the Mk22. When I fought The Fury, I found out trump almost got assassinated, so that was a bit funny. My historical contribution for anyone reading this in future: I was playing Metal Gear Solid 3, specifically The Fury fight, when I found out Donald J. Trump almost got assassinated. LOL! Anywayz, another favorite boss was The Sorrow, it felt very scary ... the flashes on screen everytime I failed to dodge his attack scared the dookie out o' me. I love Kojima's use of horror in all of his games, It's why I'm so excited for OD. OK, away from bosses, onto characters: I really thought Raikov would've been more of a character based off the amount of fanart I saw of him, he showed up once! I was sad! ... Young Ocelot is a bit ... camp, per se. Perhaps. I feel as if that is the correct word. He is very flashy, he is as an old man but much more so as a youngin'. He killed bees with revolvers, but not in the way you think ... EVA is another favorite, I find her really interesting, even after the attempted murder and BETRAYAL! That part near the end where you essentially had to escort her to the lake ... I hated it so much. I really hate escort missions, I don't know why so many 2000s games have them. She could run the whole time too, she literally ran in the cutscene at the lake ... scoff ... Also, the ending was very emotional. I have "Way to Fall" by Starsailor stuck in my head now. I had an inappropriate reaction though, I hurrah'd because I was excited to beat it. But, in retrospect, the ending is very saddening, very bittersweet.

I really liked how Para-Medic would reference and talk about era appropriate movies after each time you'd save. Once, she mentioned something like: "maybe one day you'd get to play as the characters in the movies" and it made me think about how cool it is to play so many different styles of games. In some, you're able to tell what type of story telling medium inspires the creator the most. 'Cause, I think, playing MGS, you can really tell Kojima is a fan of movies. It's just very cool to me, cause I feel like video games are really unique in the fact you can combo so many different mediums. A book-game, a movie-game, a game-game. It's another reason why I really like video games as a story telling device, some of the best stories I've been told were from video games. OK, away from MGS3, I been playing other things Too: I started up Persona 5 a few days ago and I'm loving it dearly, Ryuji and Morgana are my favorites so far. The OST "Beneath The Mask" makes me feel nostalgic. I think Coryxkenshin used it in his videos before and that's where I know it from. I'm still in April, so beginning of the game, but I'm very excited to keep playing ...! I've also been playing the Outlast Trials with my sister, and I'll say that beginning introduction where I had to play by myself made me scream so loud that I sounded like a hollerin' pig. At the end of the trial where you press the button to end it, when I had pressed the button, I heard something behind me in the game. I began to shout trying to get into the little pod, but I kept missing out of blinded fear ... I grew so desperate that I started screeching in pure terror. My sister was so calm when we played together, she don't UNDERSTAND! I play horror and fighting games like I'm getting hunted in real life, I think it makes it more fun ... or funny. Or maybe annoying, depending on who you are. I think that is all I wanted to mention ... GUTEN BYE!

July 11th, 2024

Hola good amigos! Today is the last day for summer steam sale, I hope to make some last minute purchases with my grubby hands. (responsibly, with disposable income) ... The end of summer break is on the horizon, so I been trying to play and beat as many games as I can. A few nights ago, I beat Metal Gear Solid 2 ... so here is some thoughts about it: I really loved playing as Raiden, he's definitely my favorite character I'd say. It would've been really funny if I ended up not liking him after 2 weeks of going "I can't wait to play MGS2 so I can play as Raiden!" ... which maybe is the first time any metal gear fan has ever said that. The game was quite difficult in the beginning, especially cause I missed the M9 at first, but it definitely eased up the further I got into the game. Also, customary OST mention: the stealth theme for both tanker and plant is so GOOD ! I had to pause the game and just sit there and think for a minute cause I wasn't expecting my ears to get burned with straight HOT FIRE! (in form of sound) ... Yell Dead Cell Is yet but something wondrous too, it was in little big planet for a reason. The antagonists in the game were also quite jolly, they were definitely odd folks. I liked them a lot, especially Vamp, his voice actor did a really good job portraying him. Speakin' O' voice actors, the entire time all I heard when Raiden spoke ... was Silver the Hedgehog. It was wonderful, I think they would be great friends.

But, I think the coolest parts of MGS2 is that last 1-2 hours of the game. I think I've mentioned on this log before how much I dearly love 4th wall breaks, and the ones in MGS2 were so awesome. The one where the random woman showed up in the corner of the screen scared me so bad I started hollerin', and all the AI Colonel calls were terrifying. I have the reading comprehension abilities of a 3 year old, so I can't say anything smart about that last AI Colonel speech, but that skull face Colonel and the white eyes Rose had were bone chilling. It makes me so excited for what Kojima will do with OD, cause It's already quite obvious he knows how to make some effective scary moments. Speakin' bout Rose, I feel like she is very odd ... and I'm not sure if it's on purpose, but the amount of times she randomly spoke about her and Raiden's relationship issues, or just relationship in general, while he was in the middle of a top secret mission made me laugh and feel a bit baffled. I dunno if it's just how she is, or if it had something to do with her spy stuff, or maybe she was an AI all along and not just towards the end ... but she is odd, I like her for that.

With beating MGS2, I started up MGS3 a few days ago and I'm really enjoying it so far. I'm about a quarter ways through and I quite like how unseriously-serious it is. Every MGS I've played is like that, but I feel like I have to mention it just based off Big Boss's personality, and the fact Ocelot meowed to call his squad in. It's really interesting to get to see Ocelot when he was younger, and how Big Boss is truly a bit of a goofy dude. I was imagining him as some scary intense man, and maybe he is later... but at the beginning, I feel like he is quite silly in a semi-serious way. EVA is another favorite, she kind of reminds me of Le'garde from Fear & Hunger for some reason LOL. Raikov hasn't shown up yet at the point I'm in, but with the fact he is reminiscent of Raiden, he'll probably be another favorite. So far, I definitely prefer MGS2, but MGS3 is really cool and I'm excited to play more. I'm gleeful for the remake too, but I'm kind of worried my computer will explode trying to run it LOL. I played some Dead By Daylight for the first time last night with some pals, and after playing for about 3 hours, my computer felt like I could cook an egg on it. I wonder how this good sir is still alive. I love it dearly, it runs things nicely and at the same time I can boil some taters for lunch. Thank you ... One last thing I've played recently: I started TLOU part 2 up again and I forgot how much fun it was. I missed it ... I completely forgot all the controls and kept trying to play it like MGS. Aw Lord ... PS: Snake Eater theme for MGS3, I groove to deeply.

Hmm... more little crumbs: I was a big fan of TF2 earlier this year, but I was a fake fan. I would read the comics and watch TF2 youtubers and draw all the mercs and knew all the lore but I never ACTUALLY played the game before because of the bot issues. But, with the servers being fixed for the time being, and the teaser of the fabled comic #7, I just may play TF2 sometime ... Another strange thing: that Emio Nintendo trailer is making me scratch my head curiously ... I wonder what they're cooking up in that pot. I'm quite excited, I love mysterious horror games. ANOTHER curious thing: I hadn't realized TAWOG referenced so many video games until I played the video games they referenced and watched the clips again and went: Nooowww wait a minute! TAWOG referenced MGS and TLOU ... I find that gleeful. LAST CRUMB: I've been thinking about this essay I wrote in middle school, It was the only time I've ever had fun writing an essay. It was about the history of video games and which was the first one created. Middle school me hadn't realized that kind of thing was hotly debated through my academic digging, so I concluded that the wrong game was the first one ... But, anyways, remembering that essay made me want to look into the history of video games more, and generally just play more old grandpa games. I once played a pacman cabinet at a movie theater, that was lots of fun. I once played a Mortal Kombat cabinet in a hallway with a lot of haunted dolls in glass cabinets, but that's not a grandpa game. I just remember puffing out breaths like a disgusting creature cause it was really hard to breathe in that hallway, all those little watchful eyes ... :shiver: ... At least playing Mortal Kombat on an actual cabinet was fun, no matter how possessed I became. The priest that did the exorcism on me was really expensive ... OK I fib, there was no priest.

Hmm... last thought before I go: I was imagining myself as an old fart, and it made me realize how a lot of my favorite games will be so freakishly old by then that It's the equivalent of someone collecting WW2 memorabilia now. I wonder how video games will be then ... If there is no apocalypse, o' course. Maybe they'll all be VR or something, cause I can't imagine games getting more realistic than how they look now. But, hey, everyone said that 10 years ago too, and look at us now. We shall see, maybe. OK... GOODBYE! PS: I forgot to mention that I accidentally found this strange touhou style spin off of Baroque ... suprising.

July 5th, 2024

Gooooood evening good sirs, I held a sparkler for the first time yesterday. It is thunderstorming outside and I have some things to mumble about. I beat MGS1 last night and, to say, I really truly loved playing. I do not like Meryl because she sharted on women who wear make up, made me annoyed by her ... trying too hard to get solid snake's solid snake ... whatevers. I really liked how interactive the game was past the ... normal ways games are interactive. It kinda blew my mind how they utilized controller vibration, especially during Psycho Mantis's fight and when Naomi healed your arm. It was really immersive, it genuinely did impress me a lot. The game holds up so well for something released in 1998, I couldn't get over how good the voice acting is neither. I forgot if I mentioned that before, but ja Know how goofy the voice acting is in older silent hills and resident evils..? I was expecting something like that, so I was quite buttered to hear such good performances, man ... it shocked me! The entirety of the Psycho Mantis boss was so insanely cool also, I really really do love 4th wall breaks like that. The twist near the end, with master not being who he says he is, I predicted just based off the fact he looked like Wesker. Anyone in a video game with slickback blonde hair and sunglasses is a villain, but it's kinda funny to me that no one recognized liquid. It's like superman, I laughed ... I'm excited to get to play MGS2 now, just 'cause I'm excited to see Raiden. I say Raiden is my favorite, but I don't actually know about his personality yet, so imagine I don't like him at all when I play MGS2. I think that would be very funny.

I have lots of random thingies and anecdotes after murmurs of MGS1, so allow me to scribble: a TEASER FOR THE GUILTY GEAR ANIME CAME OUT! SO EXCITING! SIN IS SO COOL! I AM VERY EXCITED! Truly, I am very happy that Sin seems to be a main, main character in this anime. He is my favorite alongside Robo Ky, and many others ... I am happy. Little Anecdote 2: I played a little baby Lego game with my brother, it was kinda fun even known you just dragged and dropped things. It was probably so fun cause my brother just kept laughing at everything. Anecdote 3: I have been discovering lots of things over the past week or so that I haven't written. I don't think I've ever mentioned that I'm a fan of Madoka Magica on here before, but I saw that they were coming out with a game and I went: Praise the Lord! But, it looks a bit like a hoyoverse game, which are games I do not like ... I like Madoka enough that I am excited for it anyways, so whatevers. Madoka Magica was actually one of the first animes I watched with it being an anime in mind, cause duh I watched things like Sgt. Frog and Sonic X and Sailor Moon as a kid but ... I didn't really think about it being an anime. I definitely was too young to be watching Madoka Magica, I'm pretty sure my parents thought it was just a normal magical girl anime LOL. But, I thought Kyubey was cute, and that is why I wanted to watch it, oh how things turn sour. OK, away from that, this is a video game log not an anime one, scoff. Actually, I can write whatever I want and no one can stop me. Anyways, I discovered this really cool project some folks (or folk ? unsure) made where you're able to play Yume Nikki together online with other people. I added it to my links page if you'd like to check it out, but I found it from some fanart I saw of the protag. I love their design a lot.

... A few nights ago, I was prowling about on tumblr as all good citizens do, and I found some gifs of these 3 critters from pop'n music. I went: "...huh, they look pretty cool." That led to a very long research and fanart dive of Yuli, Ash, and Smile from Pop'n music. I can't describe how COOL these dudes are, a halloween band with a visual kei vampire, cool drummer werewolf, and a ghost who is afraid of pigeons? Sign me up, my biscuit is buttered! Their band together is called Deuil, it is lots of fun, but that led me on a frenzy of researching some songs. Malice Mizer is my favorite band, so you can expect how I grooved to Yuli's tunes. It got me in a deep Deuil rabbit-hole. I really want to play Pop'n music myself, but I rage a bit that I gotta buy a whole other controller. Sigh... Maybe one day. Anyways, I do transition into the next topic: It is summer steam sale time! I got some games for some good deals, I am very excited and filled with yet so but nothing but glee! It's almost bothersome though, cause now I have so many games I want to play all at the same time, but I shall relax. My next game plan is to start up MGS2 and also beat TLOU part 2 so I can start up Persona 5. I heard Persona 5 is long as hay hay, so I plan on playin it alongside shorter 6-20 something hour long games. But, ja know, I always go against my game plans so we shall see. Bloodborne is something I keep eyeing, but it's another crazy long game I would play alongside other things. Oh sigh, It's July nowadeez, I decided to try and count last night and see how many games I've beaten this year so far and ... it came up to 13. I'm unsure if that is a good pace or not, but I am having fun so I do not care actually. I might've missed some games ... so really it is ~13 or so, give or take, shrug with a pinch of salt.

I've been real nostalgic recently since MGS made me miss lbp so much and ... uuh... I decided I'll replay Danganronpa ... hey now, hold those horses, I think you can tell by the way that I write, and that I am a fan of FNF, that I'm already a bit cringe or whatever. But, I liked Danganronpa a lot when I was a kid, and I've been kinda obsessed with robots recently, and Kiibo popped into my cranium, so... oh come on... I'm going to replay Danganronpa V3. Actually, technically, it'll be the first time I've played it. As a kid, I had just watched playthroughs, cause I think I thought I would've gotten in trouble if I asked my parents to buy Danganronpa for me. LOL, I just may have. I would've praised the lords, 'cause then I wouldn't be the kid doing the Junko pose in public or murmuring emoly to the anime opening while in the backseat of the car. Hm, actually, I don't care. I think it is fun to be weird and make weird stupid refrences to your favorite weird and stupid franchises. Be free, be free! I think 2020 was a strange year, just because of that Danganronpa resurgence, and for no other reason. I remember many odd things ... komaeda love mail. Oh, wondrous things ... Oh, horrible things ... my goodness gracious. So indeed so, it is me thinking of robots that caused this dear, dear trip down a sour memory lane. Kiibo, metal sonic, sackbots, (later) Raiden, Robo Ky, oh dear souls! I like robots they are cool!

Hm ... I think that's all I wanted to mumble about. Besides: I miss lbp a lot, Sleepyhead by Passion Pit makes me want to cry. And, I remembered a Fallout lunchbox I had as a little turd (kid), and it made me think about playing Fallout. I never have, I think the lunchbox might've originally been my dad's and we just stole it, but who knows. Goodbye...