December 28th, 2024

Hello buttholes, my birthday was yesterday and it was so very awesome. I ate carrot cake [my favorite], got a bunch of cool and nice things, and I started watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which I find myself quite liking ... I don't think that's a surprise, I like Guilty Gear and Persona and anything with ridicuously buff dudes beating people and or things up in really epic, yet kind of ridiculous, fight sequences. I finished Part 1 yesterday and started Part 2, I'm quite the fan! It reminded me of Fist of The North Star at many points. I got some game magazines yesterday also, which I'll detail in my collections page sometime soon, there were a lot of really awesome surprises when I took them home and flipped through them. I got some CDs resurfaced at a store also, which all were quite beautiful and played nicely afterwards, except for disc 1 of that Omori CD, and it still skips ... I suppose the scratches are too deep, and it's beyond saving. I guess it's okay, it is just one track, but I was a bit bummed about it. I'm really curious as to how it even got like that. I'm usually very careful with my CDs, I swear! But, hey, it adds character to the collection, or something. LOLs. I also got a Kirby blindbox yesterday. I was hoping for Meta knight, but I got Bandana Waddle Dee, which is glorious as well. I feel like I don't mention Kirby enough, I really like Kirby. I got some games yesterday too: Bloodborne, Metaphor ReFantazio, Ace Attorney Trilogy, and Persona 3 FES. But, hey, wait, how'd you get Bloodborne, I hear someone out there say something? A couple days ago, the PS5 that's normally in the living room started shutting off randomly while playing games, so my dad gave it to me, and I took it apart to see what may be wrong with it. I thought it was probably the fan being clogged, since shutting off randomly in the middle of playing games for awhile sounds like overheating, and I ... I think I was right about that ... it was plumes of dust, my eyes hurt. But, hey, it was fun taking it apart and cleaning it, and now I have a PS5 in my room. I'm very excited about it : - 9 I think I'm going to buy TLOU Part 2 on my account whenever I have the money and just replay to the point I was at before, it's been so long ...

Do you know who else's birthday is December 27th? Goldie from Animal Crossing. I don't ever mention Animal Crossing, save for the villager at the bottom of my page, because ... for some reason I feel a bit embarrassed about liking it. I don't really know why, but I'm making it a goal to not care about stuff like that anymore, so I'll commemorate Goldie's birthday 1 day late. She's my favorite villager, because we have the same birthday, and because she is quite cute. I haven't played Animal Crossing in 4 or 5 years, I miss it sometimes. But, I want to get an older title to play, perhaps Wild World? New Leaf was my favorite to play on for a long while, it was the one I really grew up playing. When birthdays pass and you're reaching a certain age, it's quite common to feel a bit nostalgic. I realized that the old Minecraft and Sonic videos I made with my sister when we were kids turned 10 years old recently, and the FNAF ones will turn 10 very soon. It's very absurd to think that there were people born when FNAF 3 was coming out who are full on sentient and in school now. It's disturbing, almost. Despite playing Minecraft quite often on a PS3 for 99% of my time in elementary school, I never remember beating the Ender Dragon or even getting to the End Poem screen. So, a couple days ago, I sat down and listened to a video where someone read it. I feel like if you read the log I wrote after beating Persona 3 Reload, you know how I felt LOLs. Sandbox games always have really beautiful poems tucked away somewhere in them, even if it's not exactly written. I sound pretentious saying stuff like this probably, but I think it's easy to forget the beauty in a lot of games, because they're really simple or meme'd on a lot. Yesterday, I was in that game store [the one I mention on occassion] with my mom, and she was pointing at various NES and SNES games and telling me some memories she has about playing them as a kid with her mom. I don't really know how to describe what I'm thinking, but I just find it really wonderful that games can be a catalyst of sorts in bringing you closer to the people you play them with.

I don't celebrate Christmas, but I got a gift anyways. Coryxkenshin played Mouthwashing! I was really happy, it was a game I wanted to see him play quite badly, so I cheered when I saw the notification. I been playing more Silent Hill 2 Remake, last I left off was Reverse Lakeview Hotel, so pretty much near the end. Reverse Lakeview Hotel is my absolute favorite part of the original game because of just how haunting it is, so it was a treat to get to hear the ominous drone once more. But, I will say, I do think the original segment was better, since the actual reverse part didn't start until you left 312. I feel like the sudden and abrupt change when you opened the door made things more impactful, because it set up expectations that the hallway was going to remain as it was before since 312 was normal, only for it not to be. But, I will say, the remake's take on it is still quite horrific, and it's making me want to replay the original quite badly LOLs. Anyways, I found this game called Narrenschiff, which doesn't seem to be released on Steam, but is on Itch. I thought it looked really cool, I want to play it sometime ... While I was writing this log, my sister sent me a playthrough of a game called "Abyss Boat" which she described to me as a highly rare Japanese PC Resident Evil clone. I always like to write about obscure games I find, because whoever reads these may take a look into them, tell their friend about it, and one day the game will no longer be obscure. The music of Abyss Boat seems to be quite atmospheric, I would like to look into it more.

I haven't been playing much Eternal Punishment to write a progress segment, so I'll leave it here. Adios Amigos, it's almost the new year.

December 21st, 2024

Hello good amigos. Today has been pretty funny, I finished reading Dandadan yesterday, my birthday is around the corner, and I'm finally on winter break. I say I'm having a good time ... I have a lot of notes this time that I've pent up, so let's stab the cyst and let anecdotes flow. I noticed a couple days ago that the same lady draws the manga adaptations for both Baroque and Persona 1. Shinshu Ueda and slightly obscure first person 90s dungeon crawlers, I swear! I've yet to read both all the way through, but I hope to soon. Sonic 3 and TF2 comic 7 came out yesterday, also. Even more things to catch up on ... It's been so long since I read the TF2 comic, I done forgot where it even left off at. Some strange technology related things happened as well: I dropped my Xbox controller a few more times and the d pad is normal once again, so all is fine on that western front. Whenever something doesn't work anymore cause you dropped it, just drop it a couple more times. Works like a charm! Anyways, a couple nights or so ago, I turn my ps vita on to play some Persona, and it said updating database. When it finished, all my modded stuff and games were completely gone from the homepage. I just stared in complete defeat and confusion. I tried the ol' turn it off and back on again trick in desperation, and it actually worked. When I turned it back on, everything was back, but completely disorganized. I have no idea what that was about, but after looking around, it seems to actually be rather strangely common. I thought it was horrifyingly funny ... you don't know fear until you think the save data of a game you were near the ending for got deleted. Steam year in review came along, and to the surprise of no one, all my most played games were Persona titles. The genres I played most were JRPG, horror, and action, and the "Not all Jokers had a rough 2024" under Persona 5's chart really tickled me pink. Speaking of Steam, OFF is coming to Steam! That's truly exciting, OFF is a game I was really obsessed with as a kid but never actually played for myself. I'm quite ecstatic to see OFF get a little spotlight once more, I feel like people start to remember it again every 4 years.

I finished Innocent Sin today, which I'll detail in a second, but I have finally concluded that Persona 2 and 3 are my favorite Persona games. Chidori and Eikichi both would listen to Malice Mizer, and that's the only reason why 2 and 3 are the best in the series. With the beating of Innocent Sin comes a dilemma with Eternal Punishment. Since the PSP remaster for Eternal Punishment never came out in the US, and since I'm too lazy to mess with the fan English patch, I decided to play both the PS1 and PSP versions of Eternal Punishment. Half cause I'm lazy, and half cause I would like to play a PS1 era Persona game. I'll play the PS1 version first, since that's in English, and then I'll play the PSP version afterwards, if all goes smooth. But when have I ever followed a plan I made?

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 5: Most of what I wrote down was actually scrambled thoughts and fears that I scribbled mid when-thing-was-happening-in-the-story. Which, is normally how I roll, but I can't comprehend these walls I wrote. I will try. At that point where you need to find Eikichi in the womens' restroom, for some reason I had such terrible trouble trying to find him. Eikichi was a good handful of levels behind everyone else for awhile because of this, he was constantly the first one to die at many points. It's always the most wonderful characters who are so very bad in combat. We find out the reason why none of them could remember each other: they had worn masks as children, something something, repressed memories. This is at least ... from what I gathered. I was a bit lost at some points, I'm lost all the time. We find out Jun is Joker for sure, which it surprised me that the reveal was so early. Then, I go on for 3 paragraphs in fear that Maya has died and we've been hangin' with a ghost this whole time, but she's A-OK and we fight her shadow. This fight was kind of tedious because of the horrible personas I had, but I mention how I like it. As opposed to Persona 1, if you have bad personas before getting into a fight, not all hope is lost. You need to think and manage more carefully, and it'll take longer, but you aren't completely guarenteed a whooping. Though, I do feel like this game was way too easy at some points. Cough, there's an elephant standing around I haven't mentioned yet. This game has Hitler in it ... I think it's kind of shocking sometimes to see uncensored depictions of Nazis or Hitler outside of the context of historical media. Well, actually, I guess they did censor it with the sunglasses. It's just so absurd, I really can't think of any other word to describe Hitler with sunglasses being in Persona other than absurd. It was nice beating up the Nazis, though, I will say. There's more to mention about this later on, but for now let's continue with this very, very weird game.

We find out Jun kept the watch as Tatsuya has kept the lighter, and an intense beef stews between Lisa and Jun over Tatsuya. The occasional showing of this rivalry made me laugh everytime. I make a little mention about the style of the game: the FMV that plays when you stay on the main menu for too long and the way character sprites show emotion are two things I made little points about in this dear digital stack of notes. I was quite happy to see Eikichi and Miyabi make up, and I have a whole paragraph loling about Maya failing to drive the boat. I also mention that I took a liking to saying, "get 'em boys..." as I started every encounter, which is true. I'd mumble that every quarter of a time. But, ok, about the ending: I think I was too distracted by the fact that Hitler ended up being an all-knowing evil chaos god who impersonated Jun's dad and had been watching over them all this whole time (I think) to have any other reaction other than: "What?" ... I think this plottwist takes the cake for one of the weirdest out of any game I've played. One thing I'll say, though, is the final bosses felt way, way too easy. I really think the difficulty should've been ramped up a bit on normal. Though, I suppose it was nice not getting stuck on any boss or dungeon. I hit Philemon, and we now have forgotten everything ... I also feel like the ending was a strange "too much, too fast" type thing, like all of this new information is recieved all at once before immediately forgetting it all and starting over. but Eternal Punishment still lies in wait, there is still more to this than what lies within sin. For now, Persona 3 still takes the cake for having the best story for me, but I wonder if Eternal Punishment will skew this. Anyways, I wouldn't say I'm disappointed with this ending, just that it was not at all what I was expecting, so I feel a bit absurd and lost. I will say, Persona 2 is still one of my favorites based off the characters alone. Wonderful bunch, those are.

Ahhhh slumber is calling me. Goodnight and adios.

December 14th, 2024

I thought yesterday would be quite normal, and I was going to write a log, but Coryxkenshin came back after an entire year with a whole manga he wrote. It shocked the words out of me ... I've watched this guy for nearly 10 years, it's insane sometimes to see how far his content has come. The Game Awards was this past Thursday. Some new things were shown: a new Naughty Dog game, the Witcher 4, a soccer/football game made by the SIFU folks, Elden Ring Nightreign, an untitled game by the people behind Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, Virtua fighter, Ninja Gaiden, Project Century, a Berserker Khazan trailer, Double Dragon [Arcsys!], an Okami sequel, lots of nominations and awards for some cool games, and no Persona 6 or Resident Evil 9. People lie on the internet?! That ain't everything, but the things I noted down while watching. I'm really happy Silent Hill 2 remake got nominated in multiple categories, but I feel like it should've at least won the sound design related awards, how robbed I feel. I was also kind of shocked to see Persona 3 Reload wasn't nominated for anything at all, or even mentioned. I guess cause Metaphor was there, Atlus didn't want to steal its spotlight. My prediction was correct, Astro Bot did indeed win GOTY. Which, I will say, Astro Bot is cute and most of my hate against him is pure grudge and prejudice, so I'm not mad about it. After this show, I feel the need to watch Arcane, play Metaphor, play Okami, and maybe put my hate aside to play Astro Bot. I'm a bit afraid to watch Arcane, because everytime I watch or read something based off a game, I always end up getting into the game it's based on. Which, I don't think I can afford being into LoL when I'm already a fan of Persona, LOLs! But, one thing I wanted to mention was that Catly game. I find it really shameful that Geoff says how much he cares about the layoffs happening in the game industry, going as far as having an entire segment dedicated to it and awarding Amir Satvat for his work, only to have a game that's likely low-effort AI puke be shown in his awards ceremony. I thought the game looked cute at first, but digging even a little deeper, things start kind of falling apart. It's just disappointing, but I suppose I'm not surprised. There's no passion or human touch to something made purely or majority from AI, I will never understand why any company executive think it's a smart idea to make a game or show so obviously from AI. It's shooting yourself in the foot, anyone who is a fan of video games knows how important the people behind it are, and no one who is a fan of video games is going to want to play something so obviously not made by people. The only people who I've seen like careless, sloppy, soulless AI media are billionaire CEOs and crypto bros.

There's no fun in playing a game that wasn't made from passion or love for the medium, there's no fun in playing a game that wasn't made by so many kinds of artists. I will never, ever understand people who want or hope for AI to replace artists, never. AI being used as a tool or gimmick I've seen be done, like AI Minecraft or Death by AI, and it feel more like a strange showcase on strange things computers can do, but to have an entire piece of art be completely not in the hands of people, also stealing work from real people, just feels so wrong to me. Not to mention, often these companies do not disclose that it's made from AI, it's dishonest. Phew, puffs out a big breath, away from that beast and onto greener fields: There's so many DS games I want to play, I realized. I might just thug out the horrible touch controls on a phone and get Delta because of how expensive physical copies are. I'm pretty sure you can connect a controller to your phone and play on Delta that way. But, my Xbox controller has a mushy up on the d-pad after one too many droppings, I'll have to fix it or get a new one. But yeah, Pokemon Black and White, Solatorobo, and The World Ends with You. I also have been really wanting to play Ace Attorney and Apollo Justice, I think I'll really like them. They're on Steam, I just haven't gotten them. Half because I dont have 100 something dollars laying around for all the trilogies, and also half because I wasn't sure where to start in the series. I looked around and found a couple of lists, so I think I have a greater idea now. I think I'll particularly like Apollo Justice, that Klavier guy is a rocker! I been thinking about Zelda more recently after watching Mononoke, since I feel like the medicine vendor looks like he could be from Zelda, and I so badly want to play Twilight Princess still. I love elves and fantasy with a bit of a darker aesthetic, and wolves are awesome, so I would love it so dearly. A couple days ago I watched this video about this game called "Date Everything" where you, per title, quite literally date everything. I thought it was a funny game concept, and I was horrified once again by Bryce Papenbrook being in another game I found interesting. Once you were a Danganronpa fan as a preteen, it's like every subsequent media you get into throughout your life will have Bryce Papenbrook at least 45% of the time, and you won't be able to escape that Nagito-esc tone. But, yes, Date Everything hasn't released yet, but I thought perhaps I may play it once it does. I quite like when the visual novel genre gets satirized, for some reason it's very funny to me.

An interview Gene Park did with Johanna Kasurinen on Mouthwashing came out recently. I haven't read the entire interview, but this one snippet of it I really liked: "... so crude and direct: 'I hope this hurts.' Who is saying this? It's another detail up for debate. Kasurinen calls it the 'instigating concept' of this cutting tale. 'At the risk of sounding pretentious, the medium is the message,' she said. 'I hope certain people in the gaming industry play this game. I hope they see themselves. And I hope it hurts. I hope it hurts, hurts, hurts.'" It just stuck with me, I really like it when a message or dialogue in a game applies to not only the character that it's addressed to, but the player as well. It's just an example of how impactful of a message a lot of games can send, and how these stories can affect the real people who play them, and the real world they exist within.

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 5: I've played a good half of a chunk or so of Persona 2, so I think now is the time to write a little log. I was really excited to start the game up, I was jittering and laughing, my dream of several months had finally come to fruition. My first impressions were that there were immediately connections with Persona 1. Coming off from modern Persona games where the callbacks are more fan service or easter eggs, it's really insanely cool to see so many characters from Persona 1 play actual substantial roles. Yukino is a party member, Elly helps us out, we fight Hanya, Saeko is at Sevens' now, Tadashi and Tamaki are at the detective agency, it's just all so cool. I think I mentioned this before, but everything that a lot of Persona fans wish was in a modern Persona game is, in some way, in the Persona 2 duology. Adult characters and protagonists, a gay romance option, older characters making appearances again, that stuff. But, I feel like not a lot of people know about it because of how shuffled aside Persona 1 and 2 are. I didn't even know about it at first, I wrote a log talking about how I wished older characters came back to mentor the new Persona users, only to find out that literally does happen in Innocent Sin, LOLs. Some other first impressions is that the art style of the game reminds me of Pokemon Black and White and I like it a lot, the menus in the alleys for some reason remind me of Nintendogs, the character designs are insanely cool, I really like that I can save pretty much anywhere, negotiations are pretty difficult but insanely hilarious and fun, the voice acting is a treat, and the battle system and encounter rates are a lot better in this than Persona 1. I really, really like the characters in this game. Eikichi is ridiculous and absurd and a ROCKER! Tatsuya is insanely cool and has a wonderful love for motorcycles. At first, I was mistaken that Ginko was a weeaboo. But, I quickly found out she is in fact a chinaboo, and her father is actually a weeaboo. It made me laugh really badly. Eikichi's random white girl hate made me guffaw as well. Eikichi's dad is also a bit absurd ... being able to actually meet the parents of the characters is really cool, and kind of goes against that jrpg trope where the 10-16 year old either lives by themself, or goes on a journey to save the world by themself with no appearance of their parents throughout the game at all. Maya also is quite jolly, the scene with her room and the scene where Eikichi gave her a gun made me laugh a lot ... I quite like her. I also quite like Kozy. Where I'm at in the game, she hasn't shown up in awhile, but I hope she shows again later and Eikichi apologizes to her. He seems to really care about her from what I gathered.

At one point, we had to go to a clocktower, and I felt a deep pain in my heart. Everytime I hear that word, I get terrible flashbacks to the original Resident Evil 3. That Nemesis clocktower fight ... I remember I started dreaming about killing Nemesis when I'd go to sleep at night, I'll never forget that boss. That scene where Tatsuya smiled and blushed [woah.] at Maya made me shout really loudly in surprise ... I didn't expect that from Tatsuya! Or any Persona protagonist! I was shocked! But, with the story, I'm unsure what is meant by Joker being shocked that we don't remember whatever he was talking about. I know Joker has a connection with Jun, but what in the world is going on?! I heard that the main group are childhood friends, but none of them seem to remember or know each other. Those dreams Ginko and Eikichi keep mentioning too, it's just so strange. The watch and the lighter were swapped between Jun and Tatsuya as kids, and Jun mentioned a dream ... and if I remember right, I think Joker said something about something being stolen from him and Tatsuya had something to do with it? I'm pretty sure either Joker is Jun or they are otherwise somehow related, but what happened to even cause that? Why can't they remember each other? It's just so very odd. I'm extremely excited to see how the story plays out, because I really have no idea. Jun hasn't shown up yet at the point where I am, so I think things get progressively more clearer when he does.

Ok, that is all, I must depart. Adios amigos!

December 8th, 2024

It is now December, the year is coming to a close ... and my birthday is soon. I watched Mononoke [not the Ghibli film], played with legos, and got beat up by school over the past week or two. By school, not at school. I mention Mononoke because, after finishing the 2007 series, I watched a bit of the new movie that came out recently, and Lotus Juice was in one of the songs. I feel like he's everywhere ... I need to finish that movie. Anyways, what's this website supposed to be about? Video games, yes. I saw my little brother playing a Puyo Puyo game a week or so ago, and I quite liked the character designs and art style. It caused me to research Puyo Puyo history and things, and I downloaded a bunch of the games on my PS Vita. I quite like Lemres, and I found out Madoka Magica collaborated with Puyo Puyo at one point. After a month of rest, I started playing Silent Hill 2 remake again with my sister, and it really can't be good for my heart. The sections in the Labyrinth made me squabble in fear. At one point, in the section with the water and the ladders, I started hearing pounding footsteps. I didn't see anything, so with slight fear and panic, I just assumed it was frightening ambience. I ran around a bit, still not seeing anything, and then I turn around to be faced with Pyramid Head, who was turning the corner towards me. I clenched my cheeks so hard that the fresh turds that had just been laid got sucked back up and came out the other end. I don't think I've screamed louder. Nay, that's a lie, I definitely have, but you get the gist here. Anyways, I'm now on Eddie's boss fight, which I found to be pretty hard out of the times I tried before giving up for the night. My sister fell asleep at that point.

One thing I was displeased to find out is that disc 1 of my Omori OST CD is scratched and won't play track 50 ... I was so desperate I started smearing toothpaste all over it for, like, an hour. It didn't work, but the CD still smells minty at least. It was fun playing with toothpaste, also. But, not all hope is lost, I think I will take it to a store to resurface it. Hopefully that works, because I am not paying those big bucks for a new one. I don't even know how it got scratched, but all 3 discs have the same type of circular scratch around the outer edge. Which, looks like it could be from the player, but I use the same PS2 and portable CD player for all my discs, and it's only those 3. I'm thinking, I must've been playing with the disc in the case when I was younger, and the plastic of it scratched it somehow. Or maybe I did it when I'm older, and I am just a dimwit. That is plausible too. But, whenever it occurred, I didn't notice until recently, and it's truly horrible. Hopefully I'm able to fix it ... But, oh, you're wondering about Persona progress?

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 4: I beat both SEBEC and Snow Queen Quest since the last I wrote! I started Persona 2 immediately after, cause I've been slobbering to play that game since September or October or so, but those first thoughts will be for the next log. For now, let me detail my last adventures with Persona 1: I ended up having to leave the dungeon to grind for the Pandora fight. But, really, all you need for that fight is max rank ultimate personas for Naoya and Maki, and a whole boat load of consumables. After you get those things, it's quite the easy fight, maybe a bit tedious. But, the boss theme makes it all worth it, I really do love the PSP OST for Persona 1 so much. Nanjo, Mark, and Brown were really only there for support and to take damage, but they're appreciated nonetheless. After, Maki gave Naoya a little kiss [imagine I said "little kiss" in a peculiar voice], and Philemon shows his wonderful mug before dying ... or something like that. The end credits play, which I think Voice is a wonderful choice for an end credits theme, and I found a lot of joy in reading the descriptions of each of their futures. I thought it was nice that Brown kept up with what Mark was doing. After I beat SEBEC, I immediately dove into Snow Queen Quest, and it was quite the joy to figure out all the personalities of the characters that weren't in the SEBEC route. Except for Brown, I recruited Brown twice ... he's funny! I thought Ayase's insults for Hanya were quite humorous, I feel like I don't hear chromedome or cueball enough.

Snow Queen Quest made me cheat, though. I never touched the save states until I got to Thanatos tower. I was fine with Hypnos and Nemesis, but Thanatos seriously hurt my heart and stomach. I cheesed my way through the last three bosses, also. I'm serious, I would just leave everyone dead and give Naoya Lilim and slowly chip away with attacking, 8 damage points at a time. When I did this against Thanatos and realized it was actually working, I started laughing so badly in disbelief because it was truly a last resort. I was so underleveled with terrible personas, but I really did not want to go through Thanatos tower again. So, I sat there for 30 minutes or an hour, just watching and occassionally healing Naoya. After I beat Thanatos with this method, I felt quite lazily powerful, and continued doing the same thing to the last 2 bosses. I'm sorry, it was just really funny, and I was terribly desperate to play Persona 2. At one point, I ate a piece of cheese while doing this, just to commemorate. Save states really saved me, though. I don't know how anyone sane could get through that Ice Castle maze without 20 thousand save states and careful studying of a map I found off some person's website. But, in the end, despite how miserable this paragraph may sound, I had a lot of fun playing through Persona 1 and I truly wish more Persona fans would give it some mind. Stop scaring people off with the random ecounters, they're really not that bad. I still think random encounters are extremely annoying, but I think Persona 1 warmed and toasted me up to them just a bit, I'm not afraid anymore!

OK amigos, that is all, adios. Until next time ...

November 26th, 2024

I'm under the weather whence more. I used to get sick once a month, but now it's once every two months! I started taking vitamins. Over the weeks, I saw cowboys riding horses down the street, I watched Dandadan, and I finished Death Note after 4 years. Cowboys and aliens for this introduction anecdote ... But, onto video games: a cover by The 8-Bit Big Band of Last Surprise from the Persona 5 soundtrack was nominated for a grammy, which is always exciting ... It's nice to see a song released nearly 10 years ago still get acknowledgment through both performances by fans, and awards given. Speaking of awards, TGA is soon, and GOTY nominees were revealed recently. I think this year will be really close, but I'm placing my bets on Astro Bot winning, despite my prejudice ... He has the most worldwide appeal, it's the game even yo mama would play, yaknow? Ah, ignore the glint of a tear going down my face as I remember that LBP, too, was a game even yo mama would play. I've seen a lot of arguing about these nominations, especially with Silent Hill and Persona fans. Elden Ring is awesome but ... with thought, it is quite strange they nominated a DLC for Game of The Year. Oh goodie, it is great to see such a turn in the attitude towards the Silent Hill 2 Remake. If you told Silent Hill fans last year that there would be a good amount of people upset that the remake didn't get nominated for GOTY, then they'd think you were fibbing straight through your pearly yellows. One game I've never heard of that got nominated, though, is Balatro. It doesn't really look all that interesting to me, but if it got nominated, I must be missing out.

I've heard a lot of rumors about Persona and Resident Evil news being revealed at The Game Awards. I really hope they're true, I will flip marbles and lose tables if anything about Resident Evil 9, Persona 6, or anything about a Persona or Resident Evil remake was shown. Atlus would be balling if they chose to show anything about Persona. A GOTY nomination with Metaphor, and hype surrounding a new Persona game?! I'd crap myself! But, let us wait, 2 weeks is upon soon. Recently, I also found out about Toro to Kyuujitsu, which seems like a game where you just walk around Japan with Toro, who occasionally sneezes. There's also a rumor about a terrifying ghost haunting the game. Which, makes sense, as the night segments do feel a bit frightening. The game is quite cheap online, I've been thinking about buying it to play on my PS2, even if I can't read. While being a little nostalgic, I went through some of the old pet sim games I had on the DS when I was younger, and I took a gander at Petz Catz 2. It actually has a really good soundtrack, I didn't remember the wonderful tunes. But, now everytime I hear about any Petz game, I just think of Noelle Holiday, and I miss Deltarune. I've been thinking about Pokemon Black and White on this fine evening, also ... I actually used to own a copy of either Black or White when I was pretty young, maybe anywhere from 6 to 8, but I got rid of it because, apparently, I had thought it was boring. Such a decision is making me clench a fist, because I honestly really want to play BW on my old DS. But, Pokemon games seem to have become more expensive over the years. I own Crystal, Red, and LeafGreen on cartridge because they used to be, like, max 30-50 dollars from my memory. Makes me a little bit sad ... I always like to play older games on actual hardware, or emulate them on hardware similar to the original, so whenever a game I want to play is so expensive to buy, I feel like kicking a rock. Maybe a boulder this go around, since I had that game in my hands at one point, all those years ago ... But, I suppose there is no getting around it, I'll have to either cough up the green or figure a DS emulator.

Speaking of emulation, I lied a bit, because I do fancy a PS1 game or two on the PS Vita TeeHee. I just like the PS Vita too much for my "I like playing on original hardware" rule to stand too harshly. Anyways, I found out LSD Dream Emulator was avaliable to play through Adrenaline, which got me twirling about quite excitedly. My dad used to download emulators and ROMs on little cheap smart TV boxes when my sister and I were younger, and on that we had played about an hour or so of LSD Dream Emulator. Ever since then, I wanted to explore around that world a bit more, and now, I can dig into it whence again. I've been also meaning to play the Lain PS1 and Bootleg game, which I believe are actually available to play through a web browser. I know the PS1 game is, at least. I've been wanting to look into SNES emulation on the PS Vita also, I'd really like to play Earthbound. I played a bit of it once a couple years ago on the Switch, but I got stuck in a cave and then that stupid Nintendo subscription ran out &_& ... Jeez, so many things to play, it's a little overwhelming! But, away from that, I have continued my Persona journey into the depths of the cavernous caverns:

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 4: I'm on the final Pandora boss of the SEBEC route, but I have to grind to terrible degrees. So, therefore, I will be on the final boss for a good while. I really dislike how Persona fusions and obtaining spell cards works in this game, especially with the way experience is distributed. If only one of your party members is underleveled, it brings the entire average of the party down, and therefore makes it impossible to get spell cards in whatever dungeon you're in until you level that party member up. But, the way experience is distributed is through how active/how much damage that member gives in battle. But, if they're underleveled, then they die quite quickly/don't do much damage, and if they die in the beginning of the battle and stay dead, they'll only get crumbs of experience comparable to yo daddy's belly button lint. Look, I love this game, and I really love Mark and Brown, but how in the world did they both end up still being level 30 something with the rest of my party pushing 50-60?! I'll tell you, they both were dead for the majority of the Kandori boss fight, that is how. Mark loves PaRappa and Brown is a poop dweeb, but they gotta get the boot, man. The demons don't like me because of you two. They say I'm wimpy and feeble. Anyways, I lol'd when they revealed that Mai and Aki were figments of Maki, because who would have guessed the two little kids named Mai and Aki were figments of a girl named Maki? I got whooped hard in Alaya Cavern at first, because I wasn't prepared to be put into a dungeon with only Maki, and Nanjo had all the good personas ... I had to go back to an old save file, it was that bad. But, in here, we find Naoya's shadow, and he straight up was playing Groove on Fight. I clapped and giggled and slobbered like a baby with one tooth when I read that. The last thing I was expecting in my Persona game was a Groove on Fight reference. But, with knowledge that Naoya apparently likes Groove on Fight, I will officially come out and say Naoya is the coolest Persona protagonist. Anyways, I forget if I've ever mentioned this, but the opening cutscene and the transition portal scenes are some of the coolest things ever. They're oozing with this style that's nostalgic for a year I can't place. It's like "I had a shirt or a notebook in 2013 that was reminscent of this" type feeling, or something. Oozing is a gross word. But, last thought before I adios: Pandora looks a lot like one of the phases of the God of Fear & Hunger in Fear & Hunger 1, very eldritch ... I wonder if Miro was inspired by it, I'll have to take a gander into that.

And, now comes the time in which I may depart. I would say to grind, but truthfully I am just going to lay in bed. I am ill. Guten bye dear readers!

November 13th, 2024

Good morning, I'm dancing right now! I have felt a bit gloomy the past week or so, but the sun has finally come out again after an extended period of some pretty dreary clouds, and now I'm listening to a cool playlist I found on Youtube with Mikage Sakura (Ukagaka) as a cover, so I'm dancing! I played fetch with my cat also, who is named dog, but it's not pronounced the same way. That has me in high spirits too. He's trying to step on my keyboard as I write this. Anyways, onto video game stories: I found this game where this monochrome anime girl talks about things, and you can kill her if you draw white all over everything. I think the game was literally just called White, and the guy who made it used to have a website on Geocities. But, I liked the art style, so I wanted to mention it. I will always be a fan of weird games that are barely games, they always have mysterious people behind them. While scrolling on the points shop in Steam to find some new things to decorate my profile with, I found some mini-profile backgrounds for Yuppie Psycho, and I thought: "What?! They made a game from that movie?!" There is no movie. For some reason, for probably as long as the game has been out, I thought Yuppie Psycho was a classic film bro movie akin to A Clockwork Orange or Fight Club. I think what must've happened is I saw fanart for Yuppie Psycho and got Brian mixed up with Herbert from Reanimator, and then I mashed that together with Psycho, the movie, and American Psycho, the movie. But, to find out Yuppie Psycho is actually a semi-anime style video game genuinely made me feel like I stepped into another timeline, cause if you would've asked me what Yuppie Psycho was a week ago I would've said: "The movie, right?" with full and absolute confidence. I have no idea, but now I would like to play Yuppie Psycho. Another thing I found out is that a Death Note social deduction online game released recently. It honestly looks kind of fun, and I really like the models for L and Light. It's been so long since I last watched Death Note, 4 years I think by now. I stopped watching after Mello and Near appeared. But, the game has sparked a Death Note shaped flame in my heart, so maybe I should get to watching it again.

With playing Persona 1, which I'll detail the details about in a minute, I've taken a gander around the stuff fans have made for it. Persona 1 isn't necessarily obscure in the sense that no one knows about it, because everyone who knows anything about JRPGs knows Persona 5, and to have a Persona 5 you need a Persona 1, but something more like how the first Silent Hill game is. I think both Silent Hill and Persona are not as popular as they seem as franchises, but both have extremely popular titles within them. So the older, jankier entries end up not getting as much love because of either being locked to older consoles, or just not being appealing to people who only like to play more modern games. Persona 1 is not at all like Persona 5, so a lot of people who gained an entry into Persona through Persona 5 will not end up playing Persona 1, unless they are a nut like me. So, that leads to this kind of obscureness surrounding Persona 1, which is something I both like and dislike. There's something about the fandoms for old, obscure-ish or underappreciated 90s games that I really like. Everyone who is a fan is very dedicated to it, so out of the little stuff that is there, it's always something really cool. Like translations for things that used to be only in Japanese, scans for almost forgotten excerpts about the game in old magazines, scans of fanart from the 90s, and so much more. There's an English translation for the 1997 Persona 1 Club Book by Dalaamclouds on Tumblr, and PaRappa is mentioned on Mark's page X - D ! I really want a copy of it, so many of the excerpts I saw through her Tumblr were very absurd and I wanted to hold such weird things in my hands. They're not too expensive, but all the ones I've seen looked like someone used it to wipe their butthole ... In these almost 30 years, no one kept it prim and proper?

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 4: I think I'm nearing the end of the SEBEC Route? I just beat the Haunted Mansion dungeon. While I'm still having fun, I'm vibrating out of my seat to play Persona 2, so I'm trudging along right now. Let's go back, as always: Before starting Persona 1, I always saw jokes people would make about bumping into the walls and walking backwards. So, for the first hour of gameplay, everytime I did either of those things, I'd chuckle. I'm playing the PSP version through Adrenaline on my PS Vita, so with it comes the updated cutscenes and OST. While the original PS1 cutscenes and OST did give the game a gloomier, stranger atmosphere, I like the PSP OST and cutscenes too much to say the PS1's were better. Even after almost 20 hours of gameplay, I'm still not tired of A Lone Prayer. I honestly think people really exaggerate how painful it is to play this game, you're scaring people off! You all nearly scared me off! I think so many people miss out on some pretty good old games by writing them off for annoying random encounters, no matter how much I hate them, or tank controls, which I love dearly. There needs to be more Persona 1 fans, please! I need help sometimes and my only 2 sources can't be a 1 hour long video I have to sift through consisting of mostly A Lone Prayer and the guy playing not knowing where he's going either, and a nearly 20 year old forum post! I would really like to see a remake though, just because I know it'd change so much to fit into the rules established by modern Persona games. The way the entire conflict in the game plays out would have to be overhauled to fit in Social Links, it'd be extremely interesting to see how it would change. It'd be cool to see if they'd keep the 5 party members system, or switch it to 4 members like newer Persona games. If they swapped it to 4, how would Ayase, Brown, Elly, Reiji, and Yukino get character development? Would they show up more often as unplayable characters, or would they change it to where you can swap members out? And then with Igor, would he still take the backseat and Philemon be the main all-knowing guide, or would Igor replace him? Will they share that role? It's just really cool to think about. Knowing Atlus though, they'd make Snow Queen Quest a paid DLC lol. One thing I do hate though, both in general and in Persona 1, is the choice for whether you get a good or bad ending is in the middle of the game. I feel like those kinds of choices should always be towards the end, so not all is lost ... If I didn't have a guide for what to answer with, I wouldn't have picked the right ones at all. I also hate that stupid bird in the Kama Palace. I see Marin Karin in my nightmares.

All these characters are surface level'd dimwits, but I say that with love. Naoya, Mark, and Brown are probably my favorites. There's a manga tie-in with Persona 1 that I took a quick glance at, I want to read it after I'm finished with the game to avoid spoilers, but I got quite curious. The first couple pages are about Naoya piercing his own ear when he was 12, is that not cool?! I think Naoya might have the coolest design out of all the Persona protagonists, maybe except for Maya. Mark apparently quite likes PaRappa, so it's obligatory that I like him, but he also takes on a bit of the goofy dude role like Junpei, Yosuke, and Ryuji, which are also some of my favorites. He kind of shares that role with Brown also, who I have much to mention about. I recruited Brown at the beginning of the game because I missed Reiji's flags and thought Brown was cool, but I'm thankful for it as I got some very funny dialogue. I'll read about the story recruiting Reiji adds to the game later, but for now let's detail: At one point, we find Reiji and a girl getting attacked. Brown says something like: "Don't worry miss, you're okay now that I'm here! ... Now go get him Naorin!" That moment solidifed Brown as one of my favorites. He also said, "My only rival is Nakai from the Judas Brothers!" which tickled me so much that I took a picture of it. One last thing about Brown that made me laugh so badly that there were tears in my eyes is that he is only called Brown because he doo doo'd himself once in school as a kid. I'm not lying. And that's the deepest character lore you're getting out of Persona 1, the end.

PS: I don't have Tiktok or Twitter cause I hate them, but my sister does, and she keeps sending me videos from Piglet's Big Game. I think it's funny that there's genuinely some top-notch, Silent Hill and Resident Evil 1 level atmosphere going on in a Winnie-the-Pooh tie-in.

November 4th, 2024

Happy (shaking head) November. The time has changed and it's getting darker earlier, so I'm falling asleep at like 9 pm, like a grandpa. Recently, I've been thinking about Persona 3 again. I said in a log awhile ago, after I finished Reload, that I found Ryoji's relationship with Makoto comparible to Aigis's, in the sense that both were tragic by not being truly with Makoto for long, as his death was so soon after. But, thinking about it, Ryoji and Makoto would technically be with each other forever since Makoto died, right? I miss Persona 3 a lot, it's definitely my favorite out of the Persona games I've played. I want to play The Answer for myself sometime, but I can't justify spending 35 dollars (plus tax) for it right now ... it's just way too expensive for what The Answer offers. I want to play FES and Portable soon, I own Portable on my Vita and can get FES on my PS3 soon enough, so those aren't far away distant dreams as I wait for a sale on The Answer, whenever that is. I'll play Kotone's route when I get around to Portable, I think most people only play Portable for her, but I have another romance dilemma like when I played Reload. So many of the characters in Persona 3 are so likable, it's difficult : , - | . I am stuck between Shinjiro, Aigis, and Ryoji, but I'm leaning towards Shinjiro since that seems like the popular option amongst Kotone fans. Since the last time I wrote, a new trailer for Little Nightmares 3 was uploaded, and I'm really excited for when this game releases. It's still very much Little Nightmares, but everything seems so new at the same time.

Before Halloween, Aleks Le uploaded a video where he voiced the dead pixel scene from Mouthwashing with Suzie Yeung, and it felt like such a cool crossover that it made me want to backflip or something. On Halloween, Dizzy released, so I played around with her some and was pretty gobsmacked by her range and freeze abilities. I need to mess around with her some more, Sin is still my main but I want to see what combos I might be able to come up with. Also on Halloween, I got a bunch of games that were on sale, and one of them was Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. I messed around with Yosuke and Adachi, and it was incredibly fun and ridiculous LOL. I liked how one of Adachi's Persona's normals is an entire Dizzy-style gamma ray. I think it was also Halloween when I learned that Deltarune Chapter 3 and 4 have finally gotten a release date for 2025, and I nearly crapped my pants in excitement. Finally! I'm excited for the story to continue, does anyone remember Spamton Sweepstakes a few years back? All the little crumbs from that made the cogs in my brain go crazy. I can't wait for these chapters to finally release and have the internet explode with theories and fanart, I'm so excited T__T ... Recently, my sister and I have gotten back to playing Silent Hill 2 remake. The prison is so horrifying to get through, the mannequins crawling on the walls and ceilings like weird little mutant spider monkeys kept scaring the doo doo out of me. The noises they'd make when they'd skitter, and just the overall sound design in general, kept me on edge the entire time. What got me the worst, though, is the woman screaming in the bathroom. It made my whole butthole invert, it forreal scared the air out of me. All the revamps for the bosses are so awesome, too. The design, both narritively and gameplay-wise, for the bosses I've beaten so far have really took on a new identity while still respecting and resembling the original. I mentioned not liking the boss fights in the original Silent Hill 2 in an earlier log, so I'm really happy with how Bloober redesigned the bosses the way that they have. There's things that I think were executed better in the original though, like the prison scene. I like the framing in the remake, especially when the door shuts on Maria, but I feel as if the line delivery in the remake makes the scene take on a different tone that I don't think is as appropriate. When I saw the scene in the trailer, I quite liked the monotone delivery, as it seemed sort of doll-like. But, in retrospect and full context, I do think the original scene was better. Overall, this is really a phenomenal remake that I'm having a lot of fun playing. But, what's that other game also about a foggy, small town?

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 3: I beat it yesterday, finally, after that grueling late January time. Such grueling time was quickly wiped away by the skiing trip though, where Yosuke looked like a babushka and told ghost stories about Fuuka. On the skiing trip, we find out about Marie and the Hollow Forest, which I mention thinking looked really pretty, but the dungeon and the way Marie was acting was so annoying that I had a moment where I hated her. I didn't care about her before, but for that, like, hour of gameplay or two, I hated her. I hated her so much. Kusumi no Okami has a cool design though, so I was pacified. Izanami no Okami also had a cool design, and I got to myriad truths'd her, so I was further pacified. The fog lifts from the TV world, which was "rly beautoful *teary eyes*," is what I wrote in my notes. An epilogue plays out where we get to see the teams' new appearances, which was very fun. Kanji looks crazy and Marie is a weather lady. I think with the fact of how long later Persona games are, when the ending finally comes and it's time to say goodbye, it feels a bit real, as if you really are leaving town or something. That's a feeling especially true with Persona 5, though, it felt so weird to play it almost everyday for a month and then just have it be finished. But, yes, that is all to mention, Persona 1 here I cooome!

October 28th, 2024

Oh, hola, happy early Halloween. With it comes a new website look! Music monkey is now music Kuchipatchi. I tried to make something more simple, more reminiscent of older personal websites ... I wanted to incorporate brighter greens and oranges too since that's another favorite color scheme of mine. I am pleased! Anyways, I have a handful of cool things to mention that's happened over the past week or so, so put your reading glasses on, I guess: I was browsing around Youtube one morning and I found a video about a game called Uno DX, which is an anime Uno game. I can't find that video anymore, but I wanted to mention it because how absurd I thought it was, I wanted more people to be aware of it. A little bit ago, I asked my cousin what Final Fantasy games he's played, since I was thinking about starting Final Fantasy after I finish the rest of the Persona series, and he mentioned FFXV. He showed me Noctis, who looks awesome, and talked about how good the game is, so I felt quite tempted to play ... I saw a lot of people fart on it online, but I don't really care, I want to play it anyways. I own FFVII, FFVIII, and FFX, so I'll likely play those first, but Noctis remains nestled in the back of my brain for now. I've been meaning to play 7 and 8 for months, my dad played them when he was younger and everytime I mention them he always says how good the story for 8 is. A crumb thought: Blu scout's pants have been fixed after 17 years, and it feels a bit disturbing. Anyways, with Halloween quickly approaching, Dizzy's arrival to Strive remains imminent, and a trailer released recently to show some thangs off. I'm excited to get to mess around with a new character ... I haven't played Guilty Gear, except for the occasional a couple minutes, in forever. I hope Dizzy's release ignites the Guilty Gear shaped flame in my heart once more!

A few nights ago, I remembered Emily is Away. It made me nostalgic, I remember every Youtube Let's Player in, like, 2015 would play it ... I can't believe 2015 was so long ago. Speakin' bout games Let's Players play, I heard about Mouthwashing through the absurd amounts of fanart and videos that are crawling around the web at the moment. I played it a couple nights ago by myself in the dark, finished it around midnight when the house was all quiet, and the only word I could really use to describe it was disgusting. My favorite scene was when Jimmy cut Curly's leg off at the table, with everyone slumped over dead, because of just how horrifying it felt. I played with a controller, and to cut through Curly's leg, you almost have to physically saw back and forth using the stick. I found it to be really immersive, I was grimacing that entire scene. Daisuke is my favorite character (since he reminds me of Yosuke : - P), and his death scene had my jaw hangin' open so long that a fly flew out, or something. I knew he was going to die, but the way he went out so violently, yet almost kind of bittersweetly, was really horrific. It was something I wasn't expecting at all. This game is definitely reminiscent of Silent Hill and Evangelion, so I absolutely don't have a big enough brain to be able to articulate anything that hasn't already been said, except that Jimmy is quite literally probably one of the most evil characters in any game I have ever played. But, yes, please play Mouthwashing, it's only 2-3 hours but I wish dearly it was longer. I haven't played Silent Hill 2 remake in about a week because of terrible scheduling, I'm at the beginning of the prison last I left off, but I wrote some things down: A patch got added to fix the performance issues on PC I was talking about. I haven't tested it out as aforementioned, but I really am impressed to see how responsive Bloober is when it comes to complaints by fans or issues with the game. I also found out that the pizza line was not removed, it's just an easter egg now! I am pleased! Both the original and the remake are phenomenal horror games, I implore everyone to play both, but I will say I think the pyramid head chase scene was better in the original ...

My PS Vita arrived today, and it actually came modded ...?! Very pleasant surprise, I got so many games that it feels a bit overwhelming, but I'm excited to get to play all these titles I've been meaning to for a while. But oh, hey, is the channel changing?!

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 3: I'm in late January at the moment, and I haven't played in a little bit because, I will be honest, this part feels very dull. We already figured out the culprit, which was what we were trying to do the entire game, and then defeated God, so to have such an extended period of Social Link time feels a bit dragged. I feel like Marie isn't enough of a good motivator to keep going when we already achieved the main goal of the game. Marie is an alright character, she is cool, but I feel like we don't interact with her enough to care about her that much. Once I reached rank 10 with her Social Link, I would've probably forgot about her if it wasn't for her occassional poems in the Velvet Room. Golden is an amazing game, so I'm not doo dooin' on it, but this part does feel boring to get through. But, let's go back: I was surprised with how easy Adachi's boss fight was and then immediately humbled by Ameno-sagiri. The only way to knock him out like a light is to keep your party buffed and Ameno-sagiri debuffed, and try to stretch your resources. After, Yosuke is revealed to have roaches, and Yu has a really dastardly sick arc. I feel like it was more than a cold if he passed out and had visions of a weird mysterious missing girl. Lastly, we teach Teddie how to glomp and get walked in on. Made me lol very loudly, and that is all I wrote down in my notes ... I have to beat Persona 4 before I start Persona 1, so continuing will remain. But, for now, I'm going to bed ... Adios!

October 20th, 2024

October is flyin' by ... Halloween is soon and I feel as if the month just began. Everytime it gets colder out, I feel kind of nostalgic for some reason. Relating to both of those things, it's been announced earlier this month that Little Big Planet 3 and all the DLC will be delisted off digital storefronts by the end of October. Sackboy deserves better, man, Sony is trying to phase him out with Astro bot. I will not stand for this, you almost got me with that Aigis costume, but I will not fold! I have a huge Sackboy poster on my wall that I've had since I was a little kid, I think my mom got it at Gamestop back in, like, 2012 or so, and everytime I look at it I feel a bit sad now. So many levels, so many memories, so much fun, left to gather dust in the past now. I really hope that, one day, Sackboy will be able to make a graceful comeback, because there's definitely an audience for it. Away from horrible news, I've been thinking about some series and games I might want to get into. Since I like Persona, I probably should play its papa's series. I was eyeing Nocturne, the third game, since the main character's design is really sick, and it reminds me of Devil May Cry for some reason. SMT has quite a few spinoffs from what I've gathered, and another I saw that looks interesting is Digital Devil Saga ... I should become the 0.5% of Persona fans that know anything about Shin Megami Tensei and its other spinoffs. Ain't it that SMT fans are sour with Persona fans cause of that x - D ? Some other games I've been thinking of are Fromsoft and Soulslikes, I miss Elden Ring everytime I hear someone mention it. I've been meaning to play Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 recently, I should get a PS4 for my room sometime ...

I really, really want to play Persona 1 & 2. I've grown fonder over the past couple weeks, and the random encounters only frighten me now. I will thug it out for Naoya and the Persona 1 PSP OST, and Eikichi and Tatsuya. Speaking of the OST, I got the PSP OST for Persona 1 on CD, and, with it, some Audio Technica headphones in the same style as Makoto's. The model I got is ATH-EQ300M, which isn't the same as Makoto's, because I'm not rich, but it's such a unique style that I think it gets the point across. I feel quite cool wearing them, I like it. I also bought a PS Vita, which half is for playing Persona games and half because I think the menu music graced this earth from heaven. I've been plotting about all the games I'll get for it, I've been thinking about modding it, too. Everything about waiting for it to arrive is making me bite my nails in anticipation. I visited a local game store earlier to see if they had any before I tried looking online, and they didn't, but I couldn't help but think that store is pretty freakin' cool. They were playing Beneath the Mask and Labyrinth Zone when I walked in, and I always like looking at the old game magazines they have. I saw one from 2013 that had a whole segment explaining what Minecraft was, it's really interesting to read things from when before an older game released or got popular. It's just a nice little nerdy place, everyone who works there is always friendly too. I don't know, I just wanted to mention it because, everytime I visit, it makes me really excited seeing all these old games and consoles line the walls, even if I don't end up finding what I was looking for. I just think it's important to have cool little stores and places of things and people that share your interests like that.

About Persona 1 & 2, I've been looking into them in anticipation of playing them, and something that blew my mind to find out is that Eikichi and Joel Miller from The Last of Us have the same voice actor, which made me both flabbergasted and really miss TLOU. I still need to get back to playing Part 2 ... I recognized Jun's voice immediately, and couldn't help but think Nagito follows me everywhere ever since I was 12. Looking into it, I saw some people say that it's more rewarding to play Persona 1 before the 2 duology, so Tatsuya appearance will be postponed ... But, remember how I mentioned that I think it'd be cool for Persona users from previous titles to come back as adults? I'm pretty sure that happens between 1 and 2, Yukino is in both! It was just beneath my nose this entire time! I also saw a lot of people say Persona 2 has the best story, which only makes me bite my fingers further. Right now, Persona 3 takes that cake for me, so I'm interested to see if my opinion will change after playing Persona 2. PS: I saw that Joker Persona 2 has a little tail thing, I thought it was cute, aww. Recently, along with Persona 4, I've been playing Silent Hill 2 Remake with my sister, I'm at the beginning of the hospital right now. The game is amazing, it completely nails the atmosphere through the design and music, and overhauls the gameplay to feel more comfortable, yet still with an appropriate amount of Silent Hill jank. The singular issue I have is how poorly it runs on computers, it stutters a lot even on low settings. Maybe my computer is just booty cheeks, but I've ran games like the RE remakes and Outlast Trials completely fine at smooth framerates recently, and saw a few people have the same stuttering issue, so I have no idea. It's not unplayable, just not really the best since I paid 70 buckaroonies for it. It just feels like games are getting more and more expensive but releasing in lower and lower quality states. Also, they removed the pizza line, I was devastated ... Naw, seriously, this remake lived up to everything I imagined it to. Suck on it loserz, I was right!

I haven't played much Persona 4 recently to warrant a new progress report, so that shall be skipped for now ... Though, tune in next time, for I near the end. PEACE OUT : - P

October 7th, 2024

Happy October to all of those who read these, a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. I was affected with various ailments, but I'm pretty much fine by now. I'd be concerned if I wasn't, it's been like 3 weeks. Whoooops! But, I have a very giant stack of digital notes to sift through about the video game related thoughts that occurred over those 3 weeks, so let us sift. In 1 days time, Silent Hill 2 remake comes out for the common folk. So far, every review I've seen has been insanely positive. What have I been saying! No one wanted to believe! I did, I did! I'm so excited to get to play this game, man, I been thinkin' bout it for forever and I'm stoked that the time has finally come ... Some other trailers for upcoming games and things came out over the time I haven't written as well, a new trailer and some more gameplay for the Snake Eater remake released. It looks to be incredibly faithful to the original, so I'm quite interested to see how that turns out. A trailer for the upcoming DMC anime came out, too, and it made me miss DMC quite a bit. For after my Persona adventures, which are nearing their closure unfortunately, I'm a bit stuck on which game to start next. Disco Elysium, MGS4, Danganronpa V3, and DMC4 are the contenders so far, but we shall see. A trailer for Sonic x Shadow Generations released too, and Mephiles is here?! I was very hyped to see him, I burst out into cheers, not tears. Another teaser released, this time for Guilty Gear, and it showed off Dizzy, the first character for Season 4. I'm really excited to get to play as her later this month, her teaser was very majestic ... very Snow White. I'm curious as to what her moveset looks like, and definitely her theme, I haven't seen or heard anything about either of those yet. I'm imagining something soft, yet hardcore for her theme ... It was also a treat to hear her call Sol "dad," it pulled a similar reaction out of me as the Mephiles appearance.

Some rumors reached my ears over the weeks, too. I heard that RE9 news may appear at this past State of Play, however ... with hindsight, it wasn't true ... I hope we get some news soon, I'm really wondering who the protagonist is gonna be. A similar rumor I heard is that Persona 6 will be revealed at the Game Awards later this year, which I'm crossing my fingers for. It is around the time for a new mainline release ... But, we did just get Reload and The Answer, so I suppose I won't be betting on it. Speaking of Persona, I've become ill over these weeks with really enjoying Persona 2's characters and Persona 1's OST, I've been daydreaming about PS Vitas because of this. I will never take back my statement about random encounters, but dadgummit! Those games are becoming more and more enticing the more Persona games I beat, as the Persona well is beginning to run dry! School Days and A Lone Prayer were blasting in my skull all of yesterday, P2's OST with Unbreakable Tie and Philemon Theme, too ... I know I'll likely get sick of School Days and A Lone Prayer whenever I get to playing Persona 1, since everyone who has played Persona 1 is terribly sick of those songs, but I don't care. I gotta bust a move as of now. Persona 2 has so many interesting lookin' characters too, pretty much the entire cast I wanna learn more about. Tatsuya's got a motorcycle, so he's automatically cool. I feel like I'm going to suffer playing Persona 1 since I heard its far more painful to play than Persona 2, but I suppose I want to give it a shot still. I gotta be the 1% of Persona fans that have played the first two games, LOL. They seem to be pretty short honestly, in comparison to the later titles. So, the suffering won't be for long ; - P

I'm nearing the ending of Persona 4, which I will detail in a moment, but since I've figured who the culprit is, which is the main spoiler I was avoiding, I thought I might as well take a little gander at the online community for Persona 4. I think Persona 4 fans are some of the most absurd bunch of nuts for any Persona game out of the entire series. Persona 1 and 2 fans are nerds, Persona 3 fans are gay, Persona 5 fans are weeaboos, and Persona 4 fans have caused a great rip in the continuity of something, and I don't know what. It's like Adachi has become his own separate thing, anyone here fans of Swordstab? Thanks. There's Adachi cologne, which I'm too embarassed to spend money on. But, I was very curious as to what it smelled like, because I was imagining a really horrible stench. All I got when looking it up was those little fiddle fart fancy descriptions that perfume fans do that describe some concept instead of just telling me it smells like an old person's febreze'd butthole, or something. I don't understand why that is. I have no concept of what a yuzu smells like, can you just tell me some type of household item that this smells similar to? Jeez! Speaking about Persona fans online, I like the joke that Joker is Bayonetta's son, because now I can't unsee it. Oh, with all this Persona talk, I suppose it's time the channel changes.

PERSONA PROGRESS PART 3: I've played majority of the game since the last update. I've gotten so far that a foggy day out will now have a 50/50 chance on whether I reference Silent Hill or Inaba. I last left off in early December, I'm in Adachi's dungeon at the moment ... but let's go way back to the beginning of the game, because that's where my notes start. We begin Yukiko's dungeon, and I mentioned that Yukiko's inner thoughts about Chie get a little romantical. Kinda homo moments happen a lot in this game, though I'm sure it'll come up later. Anyways, Chie faces herself and, after a boss, awakens to her persona, and Chie and Yosuke being best bros is proven further. I think it's sweet how much they seem to care about each other despite the roundhouse to the nuts, bros 4 life n' all. Speaking about the boss fights, I like that Yosuke puts his headphones on and dances. It's fun to see everyone's battle stances, because it does really reflect them as characters. I mention that I'm shocked at how much is happening while still being in April, which made me think the game was going to be quite long, but I'm at about 62 hours now and I don't think there's too much of the game left. I'm shocked ... Persona really did just get longer and longer, huh. I think it will be my shortest runtime for a Persona game so far, actually. Around this time, I start hangin' with Marie, which her social link is apparently important for the true ending, and I'm still unsure as to why. But I like Marie anyways, so life goes on! A social link that kept making me goof off for too long is Yosuke's. I'd end up cutting too close to when the fog comes for a couple of dungeons, because I wasn't very good with the time managment yet and just kept goofing off with Yosuke until I got to rank 10, LOL. This happened with Ryuji in Persona 5 also, and if Junpei had a social link it probably would've happened with him, too ... I also mention that Persona 4 is a lot harder than P5R and P3R, which my rotten modern Persona fan brain expressed in astonishment. Also, I said that Dojima is a bad father and that I feel bad for Nanako, but after finishing both their social links, I take it back.

Another subtly gay moment happens as Yosuke mentions that Yu seems to be great with his hands, and then Yosuke makes it awkward as Nanako tells him that her mom is no longer with us. I laughed at this scene, I will not fib. Suddenly, Naoto appears, I cheer at such an appearance, and Kanji's dungeon is set to occur ... Somehow, I beat Shadow Kanji with my entire party dead. I thought I was done for, I will not lie, but what does Parappa always say? I believed. Anyways, around this point, I start Adachi's social link, which ends up having one of the coldest scenes in the game so far, but that is for later: I think him getting bugged by the old lady is very funny. Also around this point, Yosuke talks about his ridiculous motorcycle plan to pick up hot babes, which obviously didn't go to aforementioned plan, and I laughed painfully, because my throat was sore while playing this part. That was one of the ailments, a cold. I go home at one point and Adachi is there making terrible eel jokes, I think he should be put down. Speaking of Adachi, at this point of my note stack, I'm in Rise's dungeon, and I wrote a few theories due to the fact Adachi was with us when Rise'd gone missing. I pretty much assumed by this point that my initial suspicion of Adachi was correct, so to see him with us when she disappeared caused me to suspect that there's two culprits ... Which, I suppose was slightly correct, but these theory tidbits have a lot of mentions of Dojima and Naoto, which make me laugh a bit in hindsight. But, I do still have some months of the game left, who knows what could happen ... Anyways, by now, Rise is our new Navi, and I jump for joy. My opinion on Teddie has changed a bit as of current times, but I will detail that in them future times. Later, Adachi's infiltrated my home again and brought Dojima home drunk, which happens swapped later on, and I had wrote again that Adachi should be euthanized.

King Moron dies, which I didn't really care about that much, but I did care about how Teddie was "out of his cage," which I didn't remember what I meant by until I thought for a moment longer. I was upset that Teddie breached containment, and I mention that I hated Teddie and his "stupid Frankie Grande hair." Teddie becomes a real boy pretty soon afterwards, and there's an entire paragraph in these notes insulting him. I will keep such paragraph to myself, except for "Ouran High School Host Club" and "disgusting ugly homunculus," because I don't really take those back. Anyways, I have a sudden bout of character analysis in these notes, and I wonder about Kanji and how his sexuality is written. I have no idea if I'm being illiterate or not, but I interpreted Kanji as being bisexual, and a part of him accepting his shadow self was realizing that. But, for every subsequent scene, Kanji denies that he even had any sort of inkling towards dudes, which confused me a bit. He liked Naoto even before he found out she was a girl, something that's acknowledged, but then it's still a whole thing about Kanji exploding everytime Yosuke makes any suggestion towards Kanji liking men. Which, perhaps it's more of Kanji's personality when being made fun of, which Yosuke is doing, than something else. I dunno, I've never been very good at reading into things, so perhaps I'm missing some crucial detail, but it does come across like Kanji was written as bisexual. Same with Yosuke, though I suppose that's more grasping at hints and unused content than something canonically obvious, at least from my perspective. With Naoto, it's canon within her story that she is a girl, and the only reason she presented herself as male was so she wouldn't be talked down to in a male-dominated field, but a lot of her dialogue and experiences does feel reminiscent of being trans, so I see why some people might interpret or headcanon her that way. However Naoto's gender is interpreted can make for an interesting character, though, in my opinion. I think Naoto being transgender would've been a pretty cool aspect of her character, especially in terms of when the game came out. Though, I don't think if Persona 4 ever gets remade that I'd want any of these characters to be written differently. Like with Yosuke, it would feel incredibly out of character for his romance route to be put back in the game in my opinion, at least for the time where his social link can get to that rank, which was around June or July for me.

Ok, away from character analysis when I have the media literacy of an 8 month old, Adachi and Nanako have a silly moment at the table. SHOE! WRONG! At this point, Mitsuo's dungeon begins, which I assumed pretty quickly he was a copycat killer and only murdered King Moron, but more and more 2nd culprit theories wrapped my brain ... I quite like Mitsuo's dungeon, video game inceptions always tickle me. While going through this dungeon, I brought Teddie on my team just to see how he was, and I hate to admit that Teddie is a very good support member. Later, Naoto appears in school, and I'm tickled by Yosuke calling her "little guy." A school trip becomes imminent, and I begin to flip when we pull up to Tatsumi Port Island?! Gekkoukan?! Moonlight Bridge is mentioned?! Chihiro appears?! Mitsuru is mentioned?! The music?! Holy guacamole, I was very excited to be back ... I am a very big fan of crossovers. Later, in classic teen fashion, the Investigation Team form a band to save Junes, and I again flipped. Of course Yu was the only one to land swaggerly after stage diving. Awhile after a marvelous performance, Nanako unexpectedly shows up on the Midnight Channel, and I felt extremely shocked. I never expected Nanako to be the next victim, and such an appearance made my mind run rampant with theories. I kept wondering how Adachi fit into this whole thing, was he threatening the delivery man, working with him, working against him?! Turns out the delivery man, Namatame, ended up being not that bad of a guy, just a bit of a nut. But, go back a moment, Nanako is saved and is now in the hospital, yet the fog still won't go away. An ominous drone ... uh, drones in the background, and it feels quite reminiscent of another foggy town. But, later, in the hospital, Nanako DIES?! This moment genuinely made me holler out in shock, I never expected something like that would ever happen. But, what made me become more fond of Teddie, in which I unfortunately have become, is that he seems to save Nanako, and she awakes once again ... I didn't notice he wasn't with us if I'm gonna be honest, though. Later, Adachi rats himself out infront of Dojima, scatters away, and I'm cheering in glee at this point, they said it! They said it! I was mainly curious as to why he started killing people, which later gets revealed as: he just wanted to have some fun, I guess. It made me curious as to why Akechi and Adachi get compared so much. Sure, Akechi is psychotic, but at least he has more of an emo reason for killing people. Unless Adachi has another reason ... that is to be revealed later. Anyways, Teddie comes back and I felt a bit insane for being happy about it. He sucks a lot and I really would love to kick him over, but ... maybe in a bit more of a loving way now, he's very reliable in combat. I also like that he calls Adachi "Adachy-baby." Teddie is a horrid and wretched creature, but I think of him a bit more fondly now.

It later gets revealed that the real world and the tv worlds are going to merge, Mementos style ... But, before then, I chose to go meet Adachi alone, and was met with the coldest, most coolest scene I think in the entire game so far. Disappearing and reappearing, the gun to the head, almost shooting Yu, sitting so casually in the chair ... it was just so COOL! I really can't stop imagining what that scene could look like in a Persona 4 remake, it really makes me prance about in excitement for all the future prospects. But, yes, I begin Adachi's dungeon, and that is where I left off. It is quite late, nearly midnight. But hey, it ain't raining, so be grateful ... ADIOS!