Backlog 2022

All other video games not related to the main farming series - Pokemon, Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and other indie-developed games.
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Kikki
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Something is going on with publisher PQube (they've been accused by two dev teams they worked with of wrongly withholding funds and publishing rights, etc.) Thing is, the devs say this and that...and PQube outright DIRECTLY contradicts them. Like, the dev says PQube didn't give the publishing rights back when they asked for them, and PQube says that yes, in fact, they DID give back the rights. (The devs in question so far are Toge/Mojiken and Corecell.)

I have no way of knowing who is telling the truth, so all I can do is look askance at the whole situation. Potion Permit is being published by PQube, btw, and I have it pre-ordered for when it releases on September 22, but it is of no benefit to the dev to boycott sales of their games, as far as I know...that damages BOTH sides. So I have no idea if I'm supposed to do anything, particularly when I don't know which side is being honest. (Or the 'most' honest, since generally in life, both sides of any matter present the facts in a biased way. The truth is no doubt somewhere in between what each side is saying.)

My sciatic is still a MESS. Numb foot and spasms/clenching all the way from waist to foot. I'm doing everything, and I think maaaaaybe, when I use ice a lot AND wear my foot/ankle braces to keep the tendon passively stretched and make sure to change positions often, it is starting to get better? I'm not sure! I hope so. I'm actually in a pretty good mood today as the air is just fantastic out there. (We always have top quality air here, but in September it's sublime. I want to drink it!)

Anyway...I really want to play Strange Horticulture, but am holding off until my cooling pad gets here, hopefully today. Playing it overheats my laptop terribly, very quickly. I don't think this is the game's fault, though. My computer also feels like it's going to melt any time it does a Windows Update. :? It's a really fun game though, I'm looking forward to being able to play it for a longer session, possibly even today, since my pad may arrive this afternoon.

I was also thinking about Amnesia: Memories (because it is coming to Switch on September 20) and, by contrast, games like Rune Factory and three million other JRPGs. I love amnesia as a story element. In A:M the amnesia is IMPORTANT. The heroine is struggling every day to try to figure out who the heck the people around her are, and who she is. Her having amnesia MATTERS. I can't stand when amnesia is used as a cheap plot device to get around having to actually write a good story. :? Rune Factory likes to use it to remove the MCs memory so they can hit you with tutorials to remind you of everything you've forgotten, to start with, but then so that the story has to be explained and revealed as you go along, even though in fact, the MC knows something about it...but they have amnesia, so they can't remember!

I just...really reeeeeeeeally don't like that. My eyes just about roll out of my head any time I see a JRPG start off with an MC with amnesia, as it's very rarely used in any way but the cheapest...a lazy way to create plot twists.

Well, gotta go get my splints back on cuz my leg is tightening up!
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Reyvin
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May be a tiny bit late to the party but... I just finished Xenoblade 3 and oh « Harvest Goddess » my eyes are leaking. What an amazing game.
Spoiler:
It fascinates me how I can like all three Xenoblade games so much, for different reasons. Usually in series, I have one I like less but here... wow. I truly ended up appreciating all the characters in my party (plus most heroes). Which is why the ending crushed me so much - especially after that horrid boss loop, oh « Harvest Goddess », why. While I was a tad disappointed in the villains, when comparing to the stellar villains from XC2, the story weaved through all those main and side quests just made me feel a lot of things. I'm not okay with the ending, not at all, but I think it fits the narrative. I just wish... they could have stayed together. Gosh. That really hit me.
I need a day off now, before I can play another game. When I do, I'll continue Three Hopes, which I'd dropped like a hot potato when Xenoblade released. Looking forward to it cause I like it a lot. But XC3 was on another level of urgency for me, hehe.
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Kikki
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I was unsatisfied with the ending, but at the same time, it sort of seemed like the right one. I'm not sure how to classify it. And you're not late to the party, Reyvin...I think only myself and one other person so far has mentioned completing XC3. But then, maybe we three were the one ones playing?

I'm glad I can still go back in and play some side quests later. I think I probably will around...well, it depends on my schedule, but on probably in November. Then I'll still be freshly in the mood to play whatever is added by the DLC, even if it's just a new hero. I'm not interested in battle challenges, though. I still don't like XC3's combat, it's too mulch like 2's combat, and I MUCH preferred the combat in 1 and X. I hate having to time every single attack I make with the auto-attack movements, it's easy enough, but SO TEDIOUS. It was boring. I felt so much more engaged and important in the combat of 1 and X. But then, maybe it had to be like this, to be simple enough for auto-battle to work well.

So, SO curious about the DLC wave 4 part to be added at the end of 2023. I assume it'll be a whole new story, probably not involving Noah & Co at all, at least by the open hints Mr. Xenoblade was dropping.

~

My new cooling pad is awesome! It has 5 fans, is very quiet, and even on the lowest setting, makes my lap cool enough that I want a blanket, lol. Plus it has a sizeable lip to keep the laptop in place even if you have the incline set at maximum...and the incline is great. I'll keep my laptop on this all the time, now...it makes it more comfortable. (My new DreamEgg...a white noise and nature-sounds machine...is also really nice, as are my new socks and the packets of all-natural powdered citrus flavouring. No money wasted!)

Guess I can now play a proper session of Strange Horticulture :D
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Bluie
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Yeahhhh, I think I'm just gonna add Ooblets to the pile of 'play later when I feel like it' games that I've been accumulating. For anyone who's curious, the game runs fine. Farming, dance battles, general exploration - they're all fine. Loading times between areas are 3-8 seconds give or take but pretty much everything else is instantaneous. Gameplay aside, it's a very, VERY quirky game, especially the character dialog/writing. Idk, I've played a lot of creature capture and farming games this year already, and I'd rather be playing the upcoming Harvestella and Pokemon Violet than get burn out on this. It does have its charms though, so I'll most likely go back to it once we have a gaming lull.

Now to decide if I should start Ys IX or go all in on PSO2:NG.
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Kikki
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What's the balance of gameplay like, Bluie? In Ooblets. Putting aside my other issues, I'm pretty sure I don't want it, as I'm already so overfed on AC, which has a style I like more, and I don't want to touch it any more, either. (I also don't like quirkiness for its own sake, it gets annoying fast. The louder and more often you scream 'look how original I am!!', the less original you become.)

I would like to apply for a divorce from my body. It's got multiple personality disorder, lately, and it's keeping me from playing anything. I waited out the cramps and the coughing, sneezing and snorfling. I get used to my foot or hip hurting, get comfortable dealing with it... and then suddenly my head hurts. Then it's my ears feeling like they'll burst. My neck and jaw. My other hip. Now I keep getting nauseated.

Divorce, please. I'd like some kind of artificial construct to house my brain from now on. (I'm still working on this pathetic flesh heap every day, though. It's probably getting better and is just trying to confuse me as some form of rebellion against me making it clean up its act.) Get outta my way, stupid body, I have some things I want to do!

It's already 6AM, but I don't think I slept enough, so...back to bed for a bit. My DreamEgg is nice.
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Bluie
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Sorry your body is being a jerk, Kiki. Hope things go back to normal soon.

The main gameplay loop of Ooblets is;

Explore -> dance battle ooblets for their seeds -> grow seeds on farm for more Ooblets

and

Take on request -> do whatever task needs to be done -> earn money -> use money for new clothes, seeds, furniture, ect -> rinse/repeat

General balance is that you don't need to worry about being bombarded by Ooblet battles as they won't even want to bother unless you have the materials in your bag that interests them(and then you have to initiate the battle). The rest of the game is just wandering around and foraging for your home/shop. The game could really use something like a marriage/relationship system in there, because while all the NPCs look different, only a few of them have unique dialog (that's usually indicated by a white dot above their head). I talked to a biker dude and then a granny right after and they repeated dialog. And with that being said, basically all of the dialog is overly quirky making every character have the same 'tone'. I get that the game is supposed to just be relaxing, but it feels like it lacks a main goal to go for. Everything feels like it's optional, like just getting rewarded with more money is not enough. I would compare it mostly to Animal Crossing, but it lacks all of AC's polish and charm. It is a very cute game regardless and the cute factor alone will draw in some people, but I'm not currently in the mood to just weather cute.
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Kikki
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Thanks Bluie :) For the explanation and the wish.

I've decided my body is struggling to get out of the problem it's in and keeps flopping back, unable to get over the final edge, and that's why I get betterWORSEbetterWORSEbetter all the time. I just have to keep doing all the right stuff to boot it's rotten keister over the edge and hopefully I can be done with this weird health blip (which feels more like a health crunch, tbh, lol.) I'm just excessively wimpy to headaches since I have no coping methods for them, so I'm feeling sorry for myself at the moment. I'll go get an icepack and get over it. :)

Yeah, hmm...Ooblets sounds like what I thought it'd be, to be honest, and while I don't mind twee fashion all that much (in fact I think they misuse the word...those clothes aren't twee, they're just leaning into the feminine and are often a bit undersized.) I find it nauseating in an art style. I get my fill pronto. Some styles are flat out cute and/or adorable, but twee feels like an embarrassing affectation. Well, personal preference and all that stuff!

Anybody else playing Ooblets? Got a different opinion? I like to see lots of 'em, if they're available. :)

I have loads of purchases lined up but thanks to Velvet revealing that you're penalized rather than rewarded for scavenging and reusing villager corpse bits, I'm starting to want Graveyard Keeper. I need to hold off, though. So many games are flooding toward me down the pipeline, and I have 4 I'm working on already. I just find that when life is not going quite right, a new game seems like it might fix things, lol. I know it won't, but it's entrenched somewhere way in the back of my thoughts/feelings, where it's hard to shake my finger at its nonsense. I really could finish up Skytree in just a few hours, and Strange Horticulture is supposedly only about 10 hours even at 100% completion. I also suspect there's only about 10 more hours in Worth Life, so I could wrap these three games up in a week if I just buckled down.

EDIT: My cooling pad works great. Played Strange Horticulture for an hour and my laptop was only just warm, never hot. Usually my laptop feels like it'll burn me by about two minutes into a Windows Update.
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Shan O 123
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I might buy Ooblets. It looks cute and it has farming which I’m craving.

On that note, I’m surprised there’s no news on a new Story of seasons game. Not even a possible remake but that’s probably deserves a thread on it’s own.
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Ronin19
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I've finished up everything on Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and beaten the game. I cried. It's so beautiful and deserves my (so far) Game of the Year award for 2022. I'm now juggling Soul Hackers 2 and the new update for My Time at Sandrock. By the time the 5th rolls around, I'll be adding Re:Legend to that list again just to try out 1.0. I have doubts I'll like it, but I'm willing to try it again.
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I'm playing Xenoblade as well (and also digimon which is why I haven't made as much progress in Xenoblade, as I want to finish this first.) Just haven't had much to say because words are too hard for my brain to describe sometimes. I've got a long way off until I finish it though.


So far beat fifteen games this year, which I'm not sure how I've done but my goal was twelve (one game for every month, since I've always got a lot of games I'm like halfway through or a quarter or something) so I've definitely met that. Going to try for five more by the end of the year, but probably won't meet that. I'll still have made progress in my games either way and be enjoying the games I want to play so it doesn't really matter if I do or not. They'll just get finished later on if they don't get done this year.
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Kikki
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Uh...okay. I know there are 8 endings to Strange Horticulture. Trying to figure it out, by MY way of accounting, there are TWO good endings, and each splits into a better or worse option. I somehow managed to get one of only two endings where no one additional dies. As far as I can tell, I got the best ending, in terms of the happiness of the town and everyone still alive in it. (You can't finish the game without any of the people dying, it's part of the story...some HAVE to.) There's one other ending that...hm. I can't decide if it's better or not as good or about the same. So...I think two of the endings are good, one is acceptable, and the other five are kind of horrific, lol. I assume you have to replay the entire game to get all the endings since there are no saves to load, but I don't wanna.

Very interesting game! Creepy story, though, not fond of the creepy story. But I like the plant identification and the detective-like searching out of plants and clues and so on. Weird story (witches, cults, and evil, and lots of pretty flowers) but fun gameplay.

That's done, anyway. The game gives you one extra day to let you finish ID-ing any plants you didn't get a chance to label during the story (some don't come up...I think it depends on what story route you landed on.) I found all the plants during the story, then finished labelling them on the last day.

That's 16 games completed. If I do really well, I could end up hitting 20 games by the end of September, but things haven't been that smooth lately, so not sure that's gonna be possible.

EDIT: Hey, I totally failed to notice that Hokko Life was coming out on Switch on September 27th! I've loved how it looks since I first spotted it, ages ago. (Same day it leaves early access on Steam.) Dang, that's ANOTHER one! It looks so very cute, and is pretty much the same niche as Ooblets, but more to my taste. (But no creature catching, which I don't really like anyway.) It's all about building the town and decorating it, and that is SO up my alley. Honestly, to me it looks great, almost definitely gonna get it. The reviews are only 'mostly positive', but looking at them, the negative reviews are mostly very small-minded, particularly since they were left in the early access stage...people saying 'eh, another AC clone!' or 'I played for 8 minutes and it was too boring so I quit!' I think it looks faboo...even more customizable than Animal Crossing. (I saw someone staining a heart-back bench, and they were choosing the colour for each individual heart on it! I think that's when my own personal heart got stolen, lol. I want that level of customization, thanks!)

I also saw another cool looking restoration game coming to Switch on November 1, called uh...Horse something? Just a sec, going back to check (stupid memory, full-a holes!) Horse Tales, about rebuilding building a ruined ranch. You can also catch wild horses, and breed horses, too. (I sure hope that part isn't excessively realistic.) Gonna keep my eye on it!

I am clearly going to have all the farming and town-building I desire, this winter.
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Bluie
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I can't believe I'm saying this but, I cannot recommend FFXIV to anyone right now. The game still plays perfectly fine, the story is amazing, but dear lord has the community completely gone down the shitter lately. Nobody has any patience any more, playing solo with randos is like poking a hornet's nest. You may get sweet and nice people, but lately everyone is angry at everyone and no one can do anything right. I have specifically been avoiding dungeons for the past year or so in my dailies because nobody wants to work together or be considerate to one another. Not everyone is « Snuggly Bunny » married to this game and spends every waking moment in it. I forget boss mechanics all the time because there's well over 100 of them at this point and I don't have the brain capacity for each of their patterns. Then there's cases like my Father-in-law who just wants to play it casually for the crafting/gathering/collecting aspect but there's content locked behind difficult fights(which he has trouble with because his eyes are bad). I will gladly hold his hand through everything because I want him to enjoy himself despite the hard mechanics, but the rest of the community would treat him like a burden. It wasn't like this during Shadowbringers, what the hell happened?

FORTUNATELY, the game's story is now 75% soloable. We're just missing some endgame Heavensward dungeons and all of Stomblood's, but you can play completely by yourself with NPC companions, which is fantastic for both lore and people who just want to play the game with no muss and fuss of interacting with strangers. Yes, it's an MMO, but it's also a JRPG - it's bloody Final Fantasy! People need to chill the hell out and realize that being a « Harvest Goddess » at a video game doesn't mean you get to bully other players.

Can you tell my recent forays into FFXIV have been a bit exhausting? Lol. On the flipside, New Genesis has been really fun so far. It's very solo friendly, and it honestly feels like a mix of Xenoblade and modern Ys. Combat and exploration is floaty, which ends up being extremely satisfying when you finally climb that tall mountain or take out a gigantic monster. It very much feels like a single player JRPG with MMO elements. While it might be too early to recommend it (I'm only 7ish hours in), I'm having a blast.
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Kikki
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Wow, that's unfortunate. I always heard that FFXIV was the absolute nicest bunch of players, particularly toward newbies. If they're mean now, it's like the player base has lost its identity.

~

I'm going to call Cloud Gardens done. I had 52 levels unlocked and was wondering how much I had left to go, as I was getting impatient. Cloud Gardens is BORING. You get tiny areas, like a bus stop with some ruined road in front of it, and you have to plant seeds, and make the seeds grow by placing bits of urban decay (like toppled pylons, soda cans, rusty old shopping carts, etc) nearby for the plants to grow and spread across. You complete the level by reaching whatever that level deems to be 100% spread (though it isn't literally covering everything, so I'm not sure how it counts)

The plants are pretty but you have to vaccuum up the fruits and blooms to make more seeds, and that makes them drab again, so the rewarding moments of prettiness are very short-lived, and the urban decay remains ugly, imo. It's not especially challenging, and the controls are rather wonky as it's another case of being developed for PC and clearly intended for a MOUSE, making it awkward to use with control sticks. (Though Cloud Gardens is a forgivable level of awkwardness, unlike Strange Horticulture, imo, which MUST be played with a mouse if you don't want to end up pulling out all your hair in frustration.)

There are actually ONE HUNDRED levels. But whenever I play, I'm baaaaaaaaaaaarely having fun, and worse, I feel like I'm wasting my time. That's stupid! Hobbies meant to be fun shouldn't make your life feel less satisfying, or worsen your mood rather than improve it. So I'm gonna call it complete and cross it off my list, even though I've only completed half of the levels. (The rooftop levels are pretty fun, but the rest are dull, imo. I'm now at some greenhouse levels but they don't look so great either.) That makes 17 games in 2022 so far.

Skytree Village and Worth Life are still next up for completion. I don't have much hope of finishing Egglia within September but I am GONNA get the other two done before my next game comes out. I am.

EDIT: I have to call Skytree Village complete, too, because of a GLITCH. :x :x :x I dug out a slightly larger area in front of the goddess spring, and it was working great, I even tested it...but when I had to reload my save to try again (cuz I didn't win the contest my first try) the landscape was completely screwed up. The goddess spring is no longer accessible, even. The game raised one square, and removed a stack of twenty right in front of hte entrance, and put fencing all the way around, and I can no longer cast a line there at all. NO fish spawn at lower levels (I've been trying that for a while, but it seems in winter very few fish are available and they're all at high altitude. Or that's how it seems...I tried for many game hours to catch fish around the lower skytree but not a one ever spawned. No shadows at all! Maybe that's another glitch, I dunno.

I already had to wait TWENTY extra days thanks to a stupid event making my last fishing festival non-accessible (Sam was out of town.) And this will take quite a while to fix via landscaping, and may glitch again even then. I can't stand it. That was the ONLY thing I had left to do! I just had to win that fishing contest, and the storyline would have been over as soon as I walked over to the final tree after the contest.

So...I just have to call it complete as it is. IT REALLY GRATES. (I may still go back in and try to marry Edmond later, though...if my rage calms down, lol.)

EDIT 2: NVM! I fished BELOW the goddess spring where there were only low-point fish, got a thousand LESS points than the first time, but wanted to see what crazy scores the other people got...and I WON. My goddess spring is still glitched, but...I finished the story! Skytree is done for real. :D *whew*

EDIT 3: I'm on a roll, today. I finished another region of Worth Life, and it seems as though there are four in all, so just one more to restore and that'll take care of the home region. Probably, anyway. I hope that finishes the story, as I've no interest in pursuing the numerical-goal quests, like defeating 180 monsters with sure shot or...whatever the attack in question is called. I may be able to finish this tomorrow. Got stuff to do after that...I feel like I'm gonna get busier from now. Probably a good thing!
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Mikodesu
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@Bluie: :\ So sorry to hear about the FFXIV community getting so frustrating. Do you think the influx of new players has had anything to do with it? No idea what the WoW community is/was like, but I've never heard the good things about it that you always heard about FFXIV. Maybe good or bad it's just...too many people to mix well.

@Kikki: Congrats on finishing Skytree Village! :) It's a messy game, but hopefully you enjoyed your time enough to consider it worthwhile.


--
Still plugging along. I should be able to finish up Tinykin this week--it's definitely a sub 20 hour game, which for my current mood is the best kind of game. Not too short, doesn't outstay its welcome. It's a very good turn your brain off and go kind of game. There's a couple minor precision platforming segments here and there, but when you die you always respawn immediately, with no penalty. I like stakes in my games sometimes, but right now it's really nice to just not.

My only complaint so far... the main collectible is sort of like coins in a 3D Mario game, and the game isn't clear on how many exactly there ARE? You meet a minimum collected to get your reward and the total is bumped up, sometimes to the point that I don't believe there COULD be that much more. Super weird.


My time with Genshin is mostly getting the quests I need to get done done enough that I can finish up the big event before it goes away. It's never too difficult, just gotta keep picking at it. I'm kind of astounded how many new types of puzzles Sumeru has. A lot of it's just...variations on other types of puzzles, but a lot of it is new. A surprising amount.

I did finally get my little achievement banner for growing endless plants in the teapot. Gonna be tough to get me to use another one after that. It's both the prettiest, and the most time consuming thing I've gotten to date. I'll see it...once every time I play? And I'm totally okay with that. :lol:
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Kikki
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Mikodesu wrote: Sep 05, 2022 10:38 pm@Kikki: Congrats on finishing Skytree Village! :) It's a messy game, but hopefully you enjoyed your time enough to consider it worthwhile.
I actually like it a lot, but the landscaping part is FULL of glitches, especially, it seems, if you remove any STONE areas...the game refills them when you sleep, and some times takes out a different row in its place! But the story was fun to go through, and the characters are startlingly lovable. I hadn't noticed the first time I tried playing (and quit because it was too much a repeat of Lost Valley, which I had just finished.) But the characters have really nice traits and the events, though simple, are very cute.

Also, I want to give Natsume some feedback, somehow. Their graphics are still a little childish, but they have a lot they do right. But it'd be much better if the story didn't have to END before you can even get married. I need story to stay interested! If marriage is barred until after the story is over, I lose interest and will never end up going through marriage or kids or any of that content. They need to add more story or change the progression or something. It was like this in One World, too (though...maybe you can get married even before finishing? I dunno, but I wrapped up the story long before I could get to work on Blondie in Salmiakki (sadly, I don't remember his name, but he's the only one with genuinely long hair. Jamil's bob doesn't count.)

~

I've never played FFXIV, but hearing that the community has gone from very considerate and helpful to run-of-the-mill internet jerks reminded me of the 2010 Olympics, and how much I cringed over the way Canadians were behaving. It's like the country had decided wholesale that we were gonna be loud and proud, as much as possible (aka: rude and obnoxious.) We were gonna toot our own horns and look down on others and just generally be jerks at least as much as everyone else, or maybe more! Cuz that's what it means to be a winner! Ugh, I hated it. I'd much rather have the identity of mediocrity (okay at everything, but not great at anything) than lose our identity as people who are generally laid-back and thoughtful of others, polite and helpful and all of that. If Canada doesn't have that kind of a core personality, we really ARE mediocre...how good we are on snow and ice isn't what matters...it's this vast, beautiful, peaceful landscape and the relaxed, comfortable-with-life nature it gives us, that makes us special. Even my American friend who lives in a nice enough area only a 6-8 hour drive away from me was staggered by how NICE everyone was when she visited my home. Everyone's friendly and helpful. (This is less true in the city, where life is more hurried and crowded, but I live in the country.) So yeah. I don't like hearing about the FFXIV community turning into WoW (which I've played, and it's fine, but people don't care about anybody else, there.) I hope they get their identity back. Being sweet, especially to new players, was what made them special.

I still feel upset about the 2010 Olympics when I recall that time, lol...I ended up ranting, there! Oopsy. Well, I only ever did it once before, during the Olympics itself, and I guess that once just wasn't quite enough. Don't do it again, Canada. *glare*

~

Since I was on a roll last night, I just kept rolling! But it was as I suspected...Worth Life has another part. I did kinda think it would. I hope it's just this ONE part, though, not an entire new arc, cuz it'll overstay its welcome. The game has very high-quality details. The minigames are surprisingly smooth and unique...the fishing and the bird-scaring in particular, I'm thinking of, and the different ways you can use tools on everything, like getting a surprise fish without having to fish, by using your slingshot on the water. I don't know why they included communication as a skill, though. It seems to serve no purpose.

~

Health-wise, I've been in a good mood and have this general feeling of well-being almost instantly upon it becoming September. The nights immediately became quite cool. (At the moment it is 8C...46F.) I have no idea where my sciatic is on the road to being mostly-all-better, as it still hurts sometimes a lot and my foot is STILL numb (a sign that it's still pretty bad...the problems should retreat to the source as it gets better...back up the leg and into the middle of the right side of the butt.) I'm still doing my exercises, and will do them for the rest of my life to make sure this doesn't happen again. Gotta strengthen that piriformis so it can stand up to times of trouble and protect that stupid squishy sciatic nerve!

So, I don't want to venture a guess on the state of my body, I THINK it is improving, but I'm not sure. But September sure is a wonderful, drinkably-beautiful month. Even with all the skunks and that smell so frequently permeating the otherwise glorious night air. (Skunks start to travel at this time of year and end up waddling onto the road and getting smucked. Very sad...skunks are unbelievably cute. It's the way they walk! That rippling waddle just kills me.)
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