Backlog 2025

[Kikki]

That's a great line from Gabriel, then. I always shake my head at all these kids shouting 'now make baby!' in every manga comments section, the minute a couple starts dating or gets married. Kids are often the death of romance, or at least the severe reduction of it. (Do they HAVE to be? No, of course not. But they will certainly take much your focus off each other, because children take a looooot of attention and care.) So I prefer the idea of just being a couple, of the attention being on the romantic pair, rather than on parenting.

Well, I have never even had the tiniest inclination to have children irl, so...I guess it's just not really in me. Not a thing that tickles my fancy. I do HAVE kids in these games, as I want to see the content, but I've yet to find any of them lovable or particularly worth having had in terms of the content they bring.

ANYWAY.

I can't play GrB for long, it drains me. I did finish another bazaar session but then I quit because I was getting burnt out yet again. One in-game week seems to do that...burns me out on the game for a RL week, lol.

It's been a bit of a rough week, physically. Tons of demand. Been moving a lot of large furniture and doing fridge declutter and cleaning at home, and at work, a lot of garbage/recycling and loading cases of soda and water bottles. Quite heavy, and a LOT of bending over and over. My sciatic is singing an ugly tune. Even my biceps are a little sore, lol. My days off have been filled with work at home and multiple appointments.

Today, no appointments. No furniture, no major cleaning. I did tidy in the kitchen before 8AM but at least that was only half an hour and not anything heavy. I'll wash some pots, still, but I think that's about all else I am doing. Er...other than making lunch. Autumn Sweet Potato soup, I think. It's lightly curried and very satisfying.

I want to just play something I WANT to play. Just to have fun, not to get anything finished. No gaming chores, thanks. Just some fun. So...maybe some TotK, or Daybreak II, or play just the beginning of Zero, again. (I'd like to re-meet Randy. Elie and Tio, too. Not so much annoying baby green girl who is annoying, I won't play long enough to see her.) Or maybe some XCX post-game, now that I've finished the new Definitive content.

Really wonder what's next for Xenoblade. Anything to do with Klaus is over (I wish people would stop clamoring for a Xenoblade 4. They are not continuing that story! It is OVER. They said so very plainly. Anything more on Xenoblade will be a fully new story, no recycling of characters. I really wonder how they're gonna go about that, since I know Xenoblade as a whole is not over.)

Okay my arm is getting too stiff to continue.

[PSI_Nightshade]

I've been busy. It doesn't give me much time to finish games but I'm working on it. What's mostly draining some of my free time that ain't productive to my backlog is FFXIV adding more grindy stuff which burns my time and my NG+ playthrough of P3 Reload because at this point, I might as well get that platinum since I'm so close (I was two Social Links away from maxing them all on the first playthrough).

That being said, I managed to beat a game! Project X Zone 2 was the game I was playing during transit time between home and the office and I finally reached the end. The game is beefy. The further you are, the longer the stages take to be cleared. I greatly enjoyed it. There is some Challenge stages but as some sort of weird decision, you can only tackle those in New Game+ which sucks because you have to reacquire your units and level them up again. Their only gain is all the CP obtained during the first playthrough is recovered and spread among all of them so you can power up their moves right away. Still, that's too much work for me to bother with Challenge Stages so I'm moving on.

To replace as my transit game, I'm returning to a early 3DS game. Pilotwing Resorts. I owned the game since it came out but it's one of my few casualties in my life. In this case, I accidentally dropped my 3DS case in a bus because it was on my lap while playing the 3DS, didn't notice and walked out of the bus and when it came to put the 3DS away, I noticed my loss. Pilotwing Resorts was in that case but I don't think I lost anything else along with it? Either way, I bought a loose copy back eventually (still had the game case so I got stubborn about getting a new copy loose) but never took the time to get back where I was and finish it. The time is now.

Other than that, I started playing Cuisineer once a month. Very charming and I'm having fun with it.

[Bluie]

Finished the current story in the most recent Genshin update, had a very successful Tokai Teio run in Uma Musume, and I FINALLY collected all the Roadside Pikmin in Pikmin Bloom. Been too busy with drawing and writing to zero in on a game since beating Grand Bazaar. I have two art pieces I kinda need to finish asap (part of collabs - they have deadlines) but if I get them done in good time, it'll be Silksong time.

[Kikki]

Finished a Nightmare run of Trails from Zero. So much trouble! And I STILL don't have every chest. Gotta tell you, the idea of having NO MAP for any dungeon is just...awful. Staggeringly awful decision, it's just exhausting, on top of all the extremely limited-window quests and collectibles, and the achievement that requires you be level 40 or LESS when finishing the final boss fight. Going for 100% completion in Zero is just painful. Meh, I have most of the achievements...enough to unlock all features relevant to NG+, anyway, like carrying over...Back Alley Doctor Glenn novels, or whatever the series is called.

I love the game. T he story is great and so are the characters. But yeah, going for completion in this is just torture.

I hope they did away with anything like this in the Sky remake. Which I'll probably get soon. After I check my bank balance. (Not that things are so tight that a game would make the balance teeter notably, but...I still prefer to see what I've been spending recently, to make sure it's reasonable to spend something more.)

Oh yeah, tried playing the start of Daybreak, but man, it looks really bad on Switch. Please put out a Switch 2 version, NISA. It's fine if it's just a graphic upgrade, doesn't need anything else. Just...take away the blurry jagged edges in the graphics. Please.

Shoulda got the game on PS4. I got it on sale on Switch, though, is the thing. A pretty good sale. I probably wouldn't have grabbed it when I did, otherwise.

I can't remember the first game, so I find myself unable to get into Daybreak II. I guess I have to replay the first one. I know I liked it, so that shouldn't be such a difficult thing, but...being that I don't remember it, I don't have any motivation.

New medication. Expecting significant side effects, because this type of med always has 'em...it's not a matter of IF you'll get side effects, it's just a matter of which ones will make enough nuisance of themselves to be problematic. I'm hoping having had something in this category before will mitigate the effects, but that's probably naive. (And stupid. If the side effects are weaker, that means the main effect will probably be weaker, too, which wouldn't be good.)

Zero progress on Grand Bazaar, but I don't care. I just want to play what appeals to me. It's a fun hobby, after all, not a job, nor even a productive hobby like, uh...I dunno, anything where you make something or do significant learning. Cooking, crafting, gardening, music, etc.

It's a good two steps above just vegging out in front of a screen (TV, laptop, etc, for movies, shows, videos or scrolling social media or doomscrolling...it's probably THREE or even four steps above random social media crawling and doomscrolling, since those are absolute garbage pastimes that do more harm than good.) But I'm not gonna pretend that gaming ranks particularly high on the list of valuable things I could be spending my time on. Reading would be better. Writing better than that. Any art or crafting or side-hustling or home-improving. Yeah.

Gaming's just fun. So I wanna play what I wanna play and forget the rest. :p

[Daikon boy]

Back after a long time.
I've got a lot of new games to play since I was gone including a lot of remasters/remakes most of which I've never played the original games of. Mostly purchased on sale.

-Dragon quest iii hd-2d

-Rune factory guardian's of azuma (which I was really enjoying and will be picking up again soon)

-Suikoden 1 + 2 remaster (almost finished with the first game. Will take a break after I pick it up and finish it before I play the second. I got sidetracked by reverie and now the sky Remake as well.)

-Neo fantasian (barely played yet.)

-Trails in the sky Remake

-ordered the lunar remaster and raidou remasters.

-Also got atelier iris which feels like it'll be a really good game to play alongside rune factory when I'm busy. So far, you make a lot of progress in just a short amount of time. Seems like it'll lend itself well to shorter play sessions.


I beat tales of graces earlier this year, as well as cold steel iv and Ys the oath in Felghana.

[Kikki]

Wuuuu huu huuuuuu

I finished Trails in the Sky FC (remake) and though I played the original already, ages ago...I knew the ending would be painful. (Of course, all Trails endings are like this, to varying degrees, if they lead into a second part. Falcom loves their torturous cliffhangers.) I knew it'd make me want to play SC immediately. Aaaaand...it did. But wow, what a jab. It was too fun playing to put down and wait for SC, but boy, that ending would be easier to take if you had SC waiting for you, ready to dive into.

I expect the announcement of SC very soon, actually. And I don't think it'll be super long. Perhaps not even a full year...I'm not sure. I can't remember how far apart Zero and Azure came out, but I'd expect something similar between FC and SC. I'm expecting early to mid spring of next year for a release.

And this really showcases how much stronger the stories and relationships are when they don't expand them too much. By that I mean the ABSURD cast size of the Cold Steel games. I love those games dearly and Rean is still my favourite MC, but no relationship he has with any of his enormous harem is as moving as the Joshua/Estelle story. Romances are so much stronger when they write them specifically like this, instead of sprinkling light moments of romance with almost everyone. Even the Crossbell games...the main cast is still small, grown to 4 instead of just 2, and Lloyd has his own mini harem and the romance that exists between he and Elie is very weak in comparison to Estelle and Joshua, but the bonds between party members feels stronger than Cold Steel because they're not spreading the attention out over so very many people.i

I think Alisa is the weakest of all romantic options for Rean, as, like Elie, she is the blandest, most vanilla option of them all, and yet, if they had WRITTEN a romance between them, leaving out all the the-player-gets-to-choose stuff, it would have been a much more moving part of the story. They still made it clear that Alisa was the 'real' choice even while letting the player do what they want otherwise, but they don't fully commit to Alisa either so it really always feels like Rean doesn't actually have anyone. Romantically. (Cuz otherwise, he's got everyone.)

I'm writing this on our new deck. It's little, just 10x10 feet, but it's solid lumber with iron railings all around, so it's got an open view of our pretty residential street (heavily planted with maples, so in vibrant colour, right now!) while still feeling like you have just a touch of privacy. It's a gorgeous day, too. We've been wanting a new front step for the whole time we've lived here (uh...I think we're right on the 9 year mark in a few days, come to think of it!) since our horrible front steps were falling apart, and now we have the deck we wanted. It's even nicer than I thought, and I already owned patio furniture and it's just so comfy out here in this weather.

Dunno what I'll do now that I've finished FC. I don't have another game in mind. Maybe back to the Tears replay I was on. Or writing. That'd be best.

NEXT DAY EDIT: Oh yeah. I forgot. This is the first time the game has had voice acting, and...they actually pronounce Liberl as LIBERAL. I always pronounced it as lih-BURL. Like a name, rather than the word. So, it's the country of LIBERAL? It makes me snort every time I hear it. Under the great bloated prudish old-fashioned stuck-in-its-ways country of Conservatv, I guess? Oh, I mean Erebonia. Oh and a certain someone's last name...astray? Really? Redacted Astray? Lol. Who is responsible for that, the Japanese, or the localization? They pronounce it as AZ-tray, but look at it...it's astray. Could also name them Redacted Afield or Redacted Awry. Suits who they became, but it's the natural birth name, and that's just weird. So the whole family was astray?

EDIT 2: Wuuu huu...I'm scared, lol. Some things I heard quite a while ago about the nature of Zemuria as a whole seem to be proved true in the upcoming newest game, already fully out in Japan for a while now and due out here in...January, I think. Mid January? Anyway, yeah. That's going to be a difficult game to play, I think. This series is hard on the heart.

[Bluie]

For the past two days I watched a play though of Silent Hill F. There's no way I would have managed to play this personally (I'm a wuss + I didn't want to buy another game in this economy when I already have two heavy hitters out this month). Honestly, I wouldn't say it was the best of ryukishi07's works, but it was still good. He's really an expert of 'slow burn' psychological horror that gives you lots of answers out the gate but that you won't fully understand until completion. I hope with this game now done he gets back to Ciconia When They Cry, because it still only has one episode after 6 years. I honestly want to read it, but having no solid release date for the next part is keeping me away from it.

Tomorrow Ghost of Yotei comes out. I absolutely loved Ghost of Tsushima (and my husband did too!) and I've been avoiding all the press on it so I can go in blind. I'll also be setting it on the easiest mode because I am a tired bean and don't want to be frustrated rn (which is why I haven't been playing Silksong much). I'm really looking forward to this and I hope my PS5 handles it well, as in, it's clean enough. I gave it a full blow out last year when Dawntrail came out because it was overheating during cutscenes. Haven't had any issues since, but still, game is gonna be super beautiful, therefore, powerful.

Today, I have an art piece to finish, but I also have tomorrow off so it'll be Yotei all day, babeeeyyy!!!

[Daikon boy]

@Kikki

That's the fun thing! That's not how you pronounce Liberl. (It's not something that would have ever made sense anyways, even without voices, but!) We have a whole slew of games that say exactly how it's supposed to be pronounced and it's not. That.

[Kikki]

@Kikki

That's the fun thing! That's not how you pronounce Liberl. (It's not something that would have ever made sense anyways, even without voices, but!) We have a whole slew of games that say exactly how it's supposed to be pronounced and it's not. That.

Er...WHAT is not how you pronounce Liberl? And what's the fun thing?

I'm never going to call the country LIB-urr-al, though, no matter what. It's lih-BURL, for me. I guess everybody else can also pronounce it however they like. (But it's weird for one country to have a spoof name like 'liberal' when none of the others do.)

~

I'm now trying to get into Daybreak II, but it's tough. The recap was good, but I don't otherwise remember the first game (I should replay it, but I'm really not in the mood) so my feelings for the characters are too weak to draw me in. I remember that Van was likeable, and I really liked Agnes, as well. Don't think I cared about anyone else. (?)

Writing, otherwise. It's the better thing to do anyway!

[Daikon boy]

Calling it liberal, like the remake does. You're right that it isn't correct.

The 'Fun thing' is just me being sarcastic. They chose to pronounce it incorrectly when there are other games saying that's not the way its pronounced, and it doesn't make any sense even without that context.

[Kikki]

I suppose Liberl is liberal compared to Erebonia, lol. But it still sounds terribly goofy every time I hear it.

Super, super fun game, though. Eager for the second chapter, even though I've already played the original. (I don't care if they bring out 3rd, though. That's not really connected...it's just a big ol' lore bomb in the form of separate stories about what went on in the world, before, after, and during. To this day, through all these games, I still don't really care about the lore, or about Ouroboros. I'm into Trails for the characters, and I only really care about their stories.)

~

I managed to get through the Prologue of Daybreak II, and more of the characters are in the story, now, which has been more fully introduced, so I'm a little more invested. I have more work than usual for the next five days, so I'm not making any guesses on what I'll get done while at home, in gaming or writing. Both are going okay at the moment. Eh, take it as it comes!

[Bluie]

Ghost of Yotei is beautiful. I do love riding through the Japanese country side and taking in its beauty ...when I don't have bloodthirsty ronin nipping at my heels. Seriously though, the game is great. Buncha babies online whining about the protagonist being too overpowered for a ~woman~ and that the story is full of ~feminism~, but holy shiiiit, who caresssss. How do these mouth breathers have so much time to « Baaaa *glomp* » an moan about their tastes not being specifically catered too and making it a personal problem that everyone needs to know? They are the minority though. I live in a red state, I work with people who are gamers that are 90% Rightwingers and they all « Snuggly Bunny » love it. And it's not like have a female ronin as a playable character isn't historically accurate either. There is a colossal shitton of female warriors in Japanese history and this whole 'woke' movement against the game was stupid from the get go.

Anyways, game is fun. Combat is improved and exploration too (especially on horse, I've found) from the previous game. I much prefer wandering around and discovering stuff to following the storyline, but I have moved from the starting area to the northern - which is covered in red Japanese maples that nearly made me swoon for Fall (I've been away from Canada for so long now...). Been working a TON, so haven't had too much time to play, but I have three days off coming up (Sun/Mon/Tue), so you bet I'll be getting some playtime in! I Kiiinda want to finish it before Legends ZA, but I'm not going to be rushing it either. I've decided to put my fanfic writing on hold until March of next year (I'm very, very tired, and it's affecting my writing, so it'd be good to just... not force it until things calm down) but I have found the joy of drawing again, so I'll probably still be working on art as time allow too. I don't think I have any solid release dates next year anyways? That I know of? So there's really no rush regardless.

I have to start buying less games anyways, which I have been this year (I skipped a ton), because we're moving into our own actual house soon, so yeah, bills.

[Kikki]

Gotta hurry cuz I'm heading to work (ugh, bad day yesterday that creates new problems and anxiety going forward, hopefully I can take control of it somehow) but...

I've been playing a bit of TotK on Switch 2...I sure wish they had cleared up some of the awful foggy mist stuff they litter all over the landscape to save on processing power on the original switch and let the views be CLEAR on Switch 2!...but anyway. I play a little bit before I go to work most times to distract myself, keep me from getting wound up.

And it's official. I MUST buy a new pro controller. Mine is super fritzing. Link is continually strolling left without permission, sometimes off the edge of sky islands or other precarious places. I also can't use the direction pad to go right in the inventory, unless I use the control stick to SHOW the direction pad that right is an option, first, and then it remembers that it can move that way again.

Weird.

Anyway, I guess this means I'll be getting the S2 pro controller after all. I didn't want to, as it's way too expensive, but this controller is good and broken, barely useable at all, and I don't at all like the way it feels to slot the joycons into the dohickey that turns them into a controller, the way it quirks the wrists is unforgiveable.

That's it for today.

[Kikki]

I work with people who are gamers that are 90% Rightwingers and they all « Snuggly Bunny » love it.

Er, so...who is complaining about it? Incels? I guess a female protag in a game that's seen as really masculine (unlike something more, er...weeby? Like a Tales or Xenoblade game. I don't really know what adjective to apply, here.) and more skill-oriented is trespassing on their final bastion of only-men-are-real-gamers...ness. Places were female characters are only allowed to exist as « Chicken Hugging » objects. (I still think calling Bayonetta a feminist icon is absolutely insulting. She's there to stick her « Mr.Gourmet's hat » at the camera and wink about it. She's female to titillate the players, not to be a role model for women.)

~

I have huge expenses this month. Officially starting real therapy next week. SCARY. Though cool, as I think I may be able to wake up for the first time in my life, after I get into this. I also have a filling next week. Le sigh. I have been accepted for 100% coverage via the CDCP, but I don't know if it's active yet, so I am probably paying out-of-pocket for this one. Scheduling a second one for January, probably. (They've been watching them for 8 years, so I guess I can't be too upset that they've finally become actual workable cavities.)

Anyway, no spare money for games, is what I'm saying. I do have a lot of great games, but I'm not in the mood for most of them. Mostly farting about with TotK, having fun in the Depths right now, for some reason. I need to rack up a good stock of zonaite (preferrably the large ones, that's a better deal when trying to expand your batteries.) I'll have to make do with whatever they call this thing when you slot the joycons into the controller-esque holder. It's a stupid shape...square!...but at least the back handles slant out sliiiiightly, so yeah. It'd be irresponsible to incur any other expenses right now and an S2 controller is $110 CAD (pre-tax, of course, so that's actually, uh...$138.60.)

I don't even know what's coming out. I've lost track entirely. Right now the only thing on my radar is the remaster of Tales of Xillia, which I'll be leaving for a while, though I definitely want it. I also really want No Sleep for Kaname Date. I don't know if anything else is coming out this year, that I'm interested in. Mildly interested in the new Pokemon, but I'm not liking it being set in the city at ALL, so...dunno. Arceus looks too ugly, so I've never gotten it, though the gameplay looks good. Not really interested in a mainline Pokemon.

[Bluie]

I work with people who are gamers that are 90% Rightwingers and they all « Snuggly Bunny » love it.

Er, so...who is complaining about it? Incels? I guess a female protag in a game that's seen as really masculine (unlike something more, er...weeby? Like a Tales or Xenoblade game. I don't really know what adjective to apply, here.) and more skill-oriented is trespassing on their final bastion of only-men-are-real-gamers...ness. Places were female characters are only allowed to exist as « Chicken Hugging » objects. (I still think calling Bayonetta a feminist icon is absolutely insulting. She's there to stick her « Mr.Gourmet's hat » at the camera and wink about it. She's female to titillate the players, not to be a role model for women.)

I genuinely don't know who/what the subgroup of 'gamer bros' is actually called, but they live in echo chambers, hate women, and make having tantrums over first world problems a sport. Maybe they are the incels, IDK, but I've see a lot of them popping up lately, especially whenever a game isn't catered to them specifically. Women had to wait decades until we stopped getting 'girl' versions of video games or just in general being delegated to our own 'pink aisle' when it came to gaming. Things are different now, 'girl' options aren't just options any more, and we live in an era where a female protagonist can exist without being sexualized - and that bothers people, for whatever reason. They act like they've had something taken away from them, when in reality; they just don't want to try new things or adapt to something outside their comfort zone. And honestly? They can « Snuggly Bunny » off. If I have to watch one of my favorite video game series spiral into becoming more and more sexualized so they'll consider trying it, then they can seethe over Ghost of Yotei not being wank material.