August 22, 2025

Or... Sora no Kiseki Za Fāsuto

So, this is the remake of the famous (okay, Trails is a niche series, I know) start of the Trails series. I've been playing some of the original, and I'm 9 hours in, and the 4th party member has fully joined in.

I decided to get the demo, just because I thought it would be fun, even if I already played through the start of the original game, oh, and to decide if I should recommend the game to people

And, I have played for 3 whole hours, got through multiple boss fights now, and I think it's pretty good. If you haven't played any Trails game yet, and wanna play a new RPG, I recommend wishlisting this. The gameplay is fun, there's both an action and a turn-based mode, the characters are fun, and it'll lead to a quite well written story (wait until you get to the second game and then the Crossbell games, a lot of people love those for the story)

And if you played the original before, I think this is still a good game. It's the same story (from what I've seen), but now the gameplay and the look has changed. I believe the gameplay is now like the Calvard games, where the characters hit the monsters during the action mode to stun them, and then switch to a turn-based battle. It's no longer grid-based. The environments look beautiful, they really made them look detailed while still keeping the artstyle from the modern Trails games.

However, as for the caveats, there's the thing about the translation. The original game had a translation that gave Estelle a lot of personality, and had a unique message for every treasure chest that was opened. As for this new translation, I think it's alright, not bad, but, I think the way how the characters move and speak (because there's more voice acting now) in the new cutscenes makes up for it. Treasure chests no longer have the unique messages that pop up when you check them after you already opened them, because you can no longer check them after opening them. There's no results music anymore as well.

Here comes the bottom bread of the critique sandwich, the map is much better now, oh, and there are markers if people are lost (okay, I think some people don't like them, but, for me that depends on how open the game is, Trails is not too open, so I believe it works for me), and there are other quality of life improvements sprinkled around.

As I said before, I'm 3 hours in and the demo is still giving me content. It would be insane if the demo catched up to the part where I am on the original.

August 19, 2025

I'm excited for Kirby Air Riders. I haven't played the original, but, I'd love to play it.

Oh yeah, and Geoff said that Silksong is real. I almost thought it wouldn't happen. I was like "Huh, at this point I'll just pretend it'll never come out and not worry about it jossing my Hollow Knight fanart"

Hahah, back then when I watched the Game Awards, I was like "Oh, these games are so beautiful, I hope I can watch streamers play them and people talk about them if they turn out to be good!". Now that I have an actual graphics card, I might play some of the, you know, more graphically intense games. At least when the dust settles, people say which games are "GOTY candidates" and the games get discounts. Back then I considered playing Monster Hunter Wilds, but now I think I might play another MH game if I ever wanted to know what it is all about.

Also, I have added a new character to my lore. Her name is Liria and she's a Drizzile.

August 9, 2025

So there was a Partner Showcase (and an Indie World Direct afterwards), let me talk about the Partner Showcase first.

Reviewing the Partner Showcase direct

Monster Hunter Stories 3 might be neat. The art style of the previous ones threw me off (why did they have to give that felyne that face?), but this one looks better. I know there's Monster Hunter Wilds on other consoles and PCs, I almost considered getting that game, but, I'm waiting for it to get optimized. I might have to wait until the year 21XX for it to be optimized, but, yeah.

I'd like to play Katamari Damacy, but I feel like the framerate is chugging on Once Upon a katamari. I might play that one on PC instead (if it's launched there). But I'd also like to play the original Katamari Damacy.

I don't care about Just Dance, lol. They have All Star, but, yeah, I don't care hahah.

I know a lot of people love Dragon Ball Sparking Zero, but I don't tend to play fighting games, it does look cool, but, I'm not into the competitive aspect. But I'd like to continue watching Dragon Ball, I'm at the beginning of the Piccolo saga. I'd also like to play Dragon Ball Z Kakarot.

Hah, the Plants VS Zombies animation. That one is cute. I played the original, it was good.

I don't care about FC, lol!

I played the original Pac-Man World 1, but never finished. Huh, perhaps someday I could play the other games.

I also haven't played Final Fantasy Tactics, it might be cool to play that remaster.

Persona 3 Reload! Yesss!

The new Hyrule Warriors looks cool, but it doesn't feel like I should play it yet... because it has Zonai and all of that. I haven't finished BoTW yet. Should I play this before or after ToTK?

It's like Zonai are like a warning sign for me, it's like a way of saying "don't look at this until you have beaten BotW", I have been conditioned to see them that way (and I wish it wasn't that way)

I don't care about Madden, hahahah.

I'm sorry, I can't get into that fireplace game. In fact, it made me think... What's the point? Okay I get it if your friends are in other countries, but, to simulate a fireplace versus doing it in real life feels like the difference between watching a live concert on Youtube instead of watching it live, or watching a sports game on the TV instead of watching it live.

I don't play Apex Legends... (I don't play competitive) but, I'd like to play Titanfall 2.

Hela feels ok, but, it also feels like it's not my kind of game.

Ah yeah, the Star Wars Ubisoft game, I watched a streamer play that. He liked doing Ubisofty things, but, I think he sort of got bored with the missions in that game. Not playing this one at the moment. I could play Far Cry 3 or Assassin's Creed II if I wanted to scratch that Ubisoft itch.

The horror future game, it might be neat to those who like it, but I'm also not into it.

Glad to see Yakuza Kiwami 1 and 2 here too.

Wow, Square Enix! To be honest, I like how the Adventures of Elliot looks, and apparently it's an action rpg. It does remind me of Ys VI. I'm interested. I'm also interested in Octopath Traveler Zero.

As for the Indie World direct

So, that Indie World direct... Yeah, the games are fine, I'm interested in playing Mina the Hollower, and Ball x Pit. Thing is, many of these games are like games I've seen in Steam Nextfest, or have been mentioned before. Like, when there's an Indie World direct, one can look any of the games and almost all of them will be on Steam. I do have to acknowledge that the fact that they are on the Switch makes it so that you can play them on the go...

Yeah... on the goooo *runs around the street while carrying the games*

Oh yeah, I know there's the Steam Deck and the other handhelds, but, the Switch remains a cheaper alternative for these other devices, so it's still nice to have the games there.

July 31, 2025

Before this Nintendo Direct is shown directly to us, I'd like to share some thoughts

I think this might be 90% certain, but, I hope we get Switch 2 ports of PS4/XONE/PC games that were too demanding for the original Switch.

It was astonishing to see the Switch run the Witcher 3 and Doom! Even Nier Automata! You can play these whole games... on the go! It meant that it was possible to port most games to the Nintendo Switch and to make them portable.

But, alas, some compromises had to be made. I'm not like, a big big fan of FFXV, I feel it's good, not like the best thing in the world, but, it felt like a betrayal when Square decided to port the Pocket version of Final Fantasy XV instead of the real game. It was like spitting on the face of FFXV fans and telling them they can't have the whole experience.

And, another thing about Square: porting the KH games as cloud games, even if most of them were on consoles less powerful than the Switch.

But, yes, I'd like to see more PS4/XONE games land on the Switch 2. I know it's silly, but I'd like to see Forza Horizon 5 run on the Switch 2, and Spider-Man Remastered too.

I'd like to see news about Silksong as well.

July 22, 2025

Well, the man at the end of the presentation asked "What did you think?" so I'm gonna write about what I thought.

Pokemon World Championships? I think that's cool for those who play and watch the competitions. I like how they come up with cool merch for the thing, but, I don't watch those. It's cool for those who like it, but that's not my thing.

Pokemon Concierge looks cute, I haven't watched it, but, I'd love to watch it. I'm glad that they care about this show hahah, even if it's a side thing.

I'm also excited for the Sirfetch'd and Pichu show.

Pokepark Kanto is one of dream ideas. I'm not going to be able to be there, but, I still have fun when I watch vlogs about people going to parks and cafes themed after franchises. I like when people go to the Kirby cafe.

Don't care a lot about the Pokemon Go Gigantamax thing, neither about the Masters EX thing.

Cafe? It's neat, I think. It's a cute game, but don't play it. Maybe I could play it a bit, but, nnngh, I know it's one of those mobile games.

Yessss, they're adding Latios and Latias to Pokemon Unite, they care! But, I don't play that game and I'm not at all into playing games that are all about being competitive.

Don't care a lot about cards. I might like to have some cards featuring the pokemon that I like, but, hahah, I don't tend to look for the most expensive or rare ones

I don't play the main series hahah. I play other RPGs, but not the Pokemon RPGs hahah. So I don't care about the tera raid event.

Same for Pokemon Champions. I don't play the Pokemon RPGs nor competitive-focused games. It looks neat for those who like that, but it's not me.

But, as for Pokemon Legends Z-A, I do feel interested in it. I've seen that it plays differently. It also does look good in my opinion. I'm glad they have customization, I love customization in games. Hahah, the evil team looks clearly obvious. The human characters, they're... there, I guess. I don't know how they'll be at the end. The Mega Evolution thing, that's... another thing I think it's fun for those who like it. There's this thing I have, that I'm not into the design and lore of half ot the Mega-evolutions, that "the pokemon is stronger because it's now more scary looking". I'm more into the design concept that "a pokemon can be strong despite looking cute" that is done for mythicals and some other pokemon (like Mega Diancie). Overall, I'm looking forward to seeing this game be released, you know, for the content.

July 17, 2025

I almost always watch Youtube on a private window, since I don't want the videos I watch to influence what Youtube wants me to see, and I don't want my previous search history to pop up on any search bar. But apparently, Youtube still stores data, and will still recommend stuff even if I close and reopen an incognito session.

With that said, I have taken the decision to use ublock origin's element blocking feature to hide the recommended videos bar, it was constantly giving me negative videos, and doomscrolling is the least thing I want to do. Channel blocking plugins stopped working.

It's sort of hard to do it, it's like quitting smoking (even if I don't smoke), I know it's bad for my (mental) health, but I still want the good things (the positive, informative and fun videos)

I tend to put on videos as background entertainment while I draw, but I think I need to get back to putting music, or sometimes podcasts. I can't put movies there hahah, because I think I'd be doing a disservice to the movies by not paying attention, and I'd be procrastinating on my art too much if I paid attention to the movies.

July 15, 2025

Yesterday I acquired a new flash drive with 256(ish) GB, and both an USB type A and a type C port. I wanted to get it so it could be easier to transfer files from my PC to my phone and tablet and even other devices without having to send them through Discord (Yick! imagine, you send a pic and it comes back compressed) and Email (which fills my cloud storage with the file I'm sending if I put it there)

I got tired of all my flash drives being type A. I'm almost certain that in some decades, type A will become legacy technology just like composite video. There will still be machines with at least one port, but, things are slowly changing. OEMs that have been shipping laptops that had three type A ports and one type C ports are now shipping laptops with two type A ports and two type C ports, there's not gonna be enough ports for plugging all the type A things.

The other thing is that I want to be able to put this on my mobile devices, as I said before.

Some people also recommend using a converter. It is a good idea, but, I'm thinking of having this without a converter because of space and because I want there to be less "intermediaries". And I also wanted a new flash drive on top of the ones I already owned, hence I got it instead of a converter for the flash drives I already have.

And the last thing, and this is in regards to the 256-ish gigabytes of storage. Since flash storage technology has improved, I think it would be nice to take advantage of how now flash drives with this amount of storage cost less. This costed me like 20 dollars. 15 years ago that would have bought something with less storage and without an USB-C port. I can now move a bunch of movies into my tablet and watch them on the go.

July 14, 2025

It's been over a month since Chapters 3 and 4 of Deltarune released. So I believe I can talk about what happened.

There will be spoilers below, so, read at your own risk.

Ralsei stays alive!

We did find that Ralsei is a darkner, but, we didn't get to know what Ralsei is exactly. Man... I'd really like to know. Why do I have to wait even more time to hear the answer? I know Deltarune is a fictional story that keeps its secrets for the sake of the thrill, but there's a point where keeping information starts being unpleasant, or even lead to bad assumptions.

My belief that Ralsei has nothing to do with Kris gets stronger. Kris has interests like playing piano, video games, and eating pie, but, Ralsei doesn't have any, at least not at the beginning.

Ohh, I'm still afraid Ralsei might vanish or go away at the end of the game, well, if that happens... I'll eat my own hat and draw Rean Schwarzer giving Ralsei a Toblerone.

Another belief, I thought the animation of the fun gang confronting a winged being at the Switch 2 trailer was alluding to the end of the game. That was actually the titan at the end of Chapter 4.

The cheshire cat... well there were multiple cheshire cats going around, there's the chair that turned into a cat-like being, those cats at the shadow mantle fight, and the Mike cat.

The knight... was shown, but we still don't know who they are. A lot of people are saying Dess, and some also say they could be the Mayor, as I predicted before the release of the new chapters. Now I think the knight could be Dess. The mayor is up to something related to the knight but, feels like some sort of red herring to me.

Toriel and Undyne did in fact appear in the Chapter 3 Dark World.

Gaster still remains a mystery. That narrator that speaks in all caps says stuff like "My Deltarune", as if it were like some game that is being played out.

Super Smashing Fighters and Dragon Blazers aren't played in-game, but, we do get information about how the prophecy of Deltarune inspired that one book Gerson wrote, Lord of the Hammer, which later inspired the game Dragon Blazers.

The chapters were good. The music too. I felt like Chapter 3 dragged for too long hahah, like in the Tenna board games. But I did get into the sword route all by myself without looking at anything on the internet. It definitely felt YS-like to me. And I also felt thrilled because of me exploring the game on my own.

Chapter 4... yeah it's good, but, I think my opinion on the chapters will change depending on how the rest of the game plays out, since a lot of it depends on promising plot points to the player (Who is Ralsei?, What is the Mayor doing?, Who is the Knight?, How did the soul get there?, How will the prophecy play out?, What's inside the bunker?) and then waiting for the rest of the game to answer it. The chapter is good on its own, but a lot of it consists on plot promises, like promises on what will be shown, so it ends up depending on future content.

June 9, 2025

Denny Hamlin when he wins a race:

Yeah heheh! Wahoo! Yeah! Wee-hee! Hah-hahah! Yahoo! I'm the winner!

June 4, 2025

If Ralsei dies on Chapter 3 or 4... I'll eat my own hat and draw Van Arkride giving Ralsei a Toblerone, and Ralsei telling Van "Oh, Van, you're a life saver" (cue a panel of Van thinking he's one of these ring shaped gummies)

But, being honest. I think it's unlikely that Ralsei will betray Kris and Susie, or that Ralsei will, woosh, be turned to dust. Among the first ideas that Radiation had for Deltarune, there were the ending and the Fun Gang. I believe that the ending might be similar to that part of the legend that has the three heroes (these being Kris, Susie, and Ralsei) banish the Angel's Heaven. On the newest trailers, there's an animation that depicts the trio facing some kind of angel. This gives me the idea that the Fun Gang will stick for long during the game, up to the ending.

I think Ralsei might just be Ralsei based on that. I think the theory that Ralsei is a titan might be right. But, I do not believe that Ralsei is Kris' headband, that's because Ralsei and Kris are nothing alike, end of the story.

That theory that Ralsei is a dead version of Asriel... might be possible, but it falls down once I remember that Toriel mentions Asriel coming back at the start of the game. I also don't think Asriel is pretending to be Ralsei, because Asriel is busy with uni, and it's unlikely that he would have the free time to do everything that Ralsei does. There's another possibility that the hooded prince in the legend isn't Ralsei, but another prince instead, who happens to wear a hood.

I think it's very likely that Chapter 3 will have a secret boss, but, hell no if it's just Woody. I can't take that meme seriously... but maybe that Cheshire cat might appear

Let's see what else could be there... I think the other classmates will be party members, Toriel and Undyne appearing in the Chapter 3 Dark World too. The knight... could be the mayor. Gaster... wouldn't appear until near the end of the game, and could be evil. Gaster (or at least MysteryMan) is inspired by Uboa, so there might be a "true" form to Gaster that is different from MysteryMan.

There'll be Dragon Blazers, and Super Smashing Fighters, as games that people will be able to play in-game. That's what I'm feeling will happen, though.

And that's all I believe I have for predictions. At least that's what came up to my mind tonight.

Thank you so much for coming to today's "Almost daily" post.

I'll be off social media whenever the game comes out. I'll be having a busy day this Wednesday.

May 19, 2025

I started playing Trails in the Sky FC.

Trails is like... it feels like an authentic RPG, and a modern one, still serving soda the old fashioned way. It's not a parody, but, more of a refinement of what an RPG can do, mostly talking about long stories, worldbuilding, and turn-based combat. It's like a love letter and a continuation of what JRPGs have been doing in the 90s.

One thing to keep in mind is that all the games in the franchise (except for the Nayuta game) are a continuous story, so the fans recommend to start with the first game and then follow the order. The first game is good though. I heard the second one is even better.

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention. The Trails games are made by Falcom, which is the same company that made Brandish. Trails is probably the most famous Falcom franchise, probably tied with Ys.

April 2, 2025

Can the Switch 2 run Cyberpunk 2077? It cannnnn!

And to think I was joking about it. I do have the game on PC now though.