Backlog 2025

[Bluie]

I have been away for some days. My husband like to go to our local (4 hours away...) Renaissance Faire once a year and we decided to do the Celtic Christmas one this time instead of the one a month or so earlier. The main reason is we wanted to enjoy it in the cold, because it takes forever for things to cool off here in this side of Texas. First day was 70 degrees still, but it went down to forties on day too. We need to recover our funds from all the food and stuff we bought, so I'll be keeping purchases to a minimum for now lol. Played some Umamusume during the car ride home and had a very good Nice Nature run. I can see why she has so many fans, she's very cute. I'm stuck in B+ hell though, but as a casual player, I don't think it really matters. Still saving for Nishino Flower, but it is going to be REALLY hard to ignore Haru Urara's New Years alt coming up. She's so darn cute that I can't stand it! STAY STRONG, BLUIE, DO NOT WAVER!

I've got some artwork to do today, so probably no gaming, but I am feeling Ghost of Yotei pulling me back in AND we have Genshin+FFXIV updates coming up. Also, to follow up on my Zann troubles; I ended up claiming and drawing him. The whole sever had a meeting on it and we agreed that all the characters deserved to be drawn, products of their time or not, with a few tasteful modifications to be within today's societal standards. In short; I removed his skull, fixed his hair up, and tweaked his outfit so it was no longer a direct reference to specifc patterns. I'd say he turned out pretty good!

https://bsky.app/profile/chocobobubbles ... ini2y7cs2w

[Kikki]

Interesting (?) fact about Zann: his skin was lightened to attempt to make him NOT racist. It was apparently all Natsume had the ability to do, since they couldn't change all his dialogue or completely redesign him. They could just lighten his skin to make him not-black, so that the offending characteristics weren't pointed at them.

His original design was really cute-looking, though, and I like that he loves things like grass, weeds, fodder, etc. (IRL, weeds tend to be the most broadly medicinally valuable foods, stuff like nettle, dandelions, etc.)

Yours is cute as well Were those thick lines always your style? I remember you saying you really like pin art. I'm not sure how to clarify, but like...brooch pins with the thick lines that are filled with enamel, that kind of thing? (I love thousandskies' enamel pins.)

~

I have no new gaming news, except that I perfected a horse. I mean...I took Royal (my white horse that was Zelda's horse in BotW, though now Zelda's horse in TotK is a big ugly glowing GOLD one) to Malanya and got him/her upgraded to five stars in everything (started out five stars in stamina, I think it was.) I haven't made note if that's a big difference in any way, though. Might make it easier to win any horse race thing in the side quests/side events. I should take Royal out onto a long street and go for a gallop. I'd say that the spurs seem to come back faster...they return before they can even wear out, so that I can continually be going at the absolute top speed, where the wind is whistling by visibly.

TotK is still more fun than BotW, overall, but it's just so awful, that they crapped all over BotW to make TotK. Also, the 'Purah Pad' functions are better in TotK (ultrahand or whatever it is definitely trumps magnesis, but I desperately miss the bombs...I guess constant bombs would have made TotK too easy AND made Goron guy useless in the field) but the CHAMPION functions were much better in BotW. Revali's assist is better than Tulin's. Mipha's is better than Sidon's. (WAY better.) Etc. Well, I guess the current champions are just brand new little baby Sages. (A baby sage, lol. Sage, as a position for a human, means deeply wise and experienced! Not the herb. There can't be no baby sages! But this crop really does feel like babies in that way.)

TotK proved so painfully how little Nintendo cares about anything but gameplay. "WE MAKE FUN GAMES." That's it. They don't care one speck about 'lore', or timelines. They erased most of BotW (except the stuff they could cannibalise) to give importance to only new creations.

If they made another sequel, they'd erase the Zonai to make room for whatever replaced them. They wouldn't bother to spend an extra day, brainstorming clever ways to make it ALL a part of Hyrule's history. They'd just obliterate it by sheer force, leaving traces without caring to make them make sense.

I still have NO idea why they made so many characters forget Link, though. I mean, even Hudson didn't recognize him at first. Just what does that add? It doesn't aid gameplay. Even people who didn't play BotW know that TotK is a sequel to it, you're not keeping a secret, Nintendo...

For some reason, can't decide what to play next, even though I have so many treasures. It should be Skyward Sword or Ys X: Nordics, but I'm having too many neck/shoulder/arm problems, and those games are really bad for exacerbating them. Maybe it should be Graveyard Keeper? Or finally finish Pikmin 4? Or...oh yeah. Grand Bazaar. (SoS). I left that game hanging at Bazaar Level 4. Hmph. Guess that's probably the one it should be, lol, though they're all good contenders.

[Bluie]

Yours is cute as well Were those thick lines always your style? I remember you saying you really like pin art. I'm not sure how to clarify, but like...brooch pins with the thick lines that are filled with enamel, that kind of thing?

Thanks, Kiki! Thick lines do seem to be my style for most of my artwork. I used to do big bold lines with marker and then convert it via Adobe Illustrator into digital lines, but ever since Adobe became subscription based, I ditched it and just started doing the same on freemium programs instead, but from a pencil sketch. IDK why, but I find very thick lines pleasing to look at, and yes, enamel pins are a big inspiration to my artwork (Also, the artist Simone Legno and his 'Toki Doki' brand) I do lots of duplicating layers or going over them again to make them thicker until I'm satisfied. It's simple, it's 'easy' (as in, I have the hang of it), and I enjoy it. Usually my pieces (if they're just one individual subject) take me around 3 hours from sketch to finished product, but Zann took me 11 because I was trying to hard to do him justice lol. The people of Bluesky don't seem to hate it, so I guess I did good! Sometimes I do lineless like this Eggman I did earlier this year ( https://bsky.app/profile/chocobobubbles ... a7g5xlzs2j ), but it takes a lot more time and effort despite having no outlines.

[greensara]

Cleared the credits for Legends ZA, yay! The kids think it's the best thing since sliced bread, but I just thought it was ok. Not bad, but not my favorite. 6/10 I preferred how they did Legends Arceus, but that's me. My husband watched me play some of it but noped out of actually playing it since it is not turn based.

I have the hankering to try to finish Xenoblade X or maybe finish the ARR story in FFXIV. Maybe it's a cold weather thing? I upgraded to basically a "new" computer so I had to reinstall FFXIV. I forgot it took forever and a half to download. My character was still there, but my settings were changed, back to defaults I think? Had to try to remember how I had the crossbars set up for each job (of the ones I cared about anyway) and had to reequip each job and save the sets again. It's been a while, so I may grind a bit to get used to the controls before trying to continue the story. I am trying to remember what I was doing before, but I think I was getting close to the end of the ARR story with the level 50 story quest.

Managed to pick up some fun Christmas gifts with all the sales, like a

Spoiler:

TMNT Pizza Cookbook, a physical copy of Hello Kitty Adventure Island, and a Switch 2 Mario Kart Bundle! (Finally saved up enough!)

Shhh! I hope it's going to be a Christmas like the one when my Dad bought us an NES!

[Bluie]

I upgraded to basically a "new" computer so I had to reinstall FFXIV. I forgot it took forever and a half to download. My character was still there, but my settings were changed, back to defaults I think? Had to try to remember how I had the crossbars set up for each job (of the ones I cared about anyway) and had to reequip each job and save the sets again. It's been a while, so I may grind a bit to get used to the controls before trying to continue the story. I am trying to remember what I was doing before, but I think I was getting close to the end of the ARR story with the level 50 story quest.

For future reference with FFXIV's settings and preferred layouts that you create, you have to save that data separately into a sever when you're switching platforms and such. It's done in the character selection screen via a gear icon IIRC. You'll select a slot and name it, that way you have it forever and can DL it onto your character when you're starting again on a new system. I had to do it when I was going from PS4 to PS5. I have no idea why it's like this, but it probably has to do with the game being over 10 years old and spaghetti code.

As for getting to the end of ARR, there is a LOT of story still after you hit level 50. You basically have a whole expansion's worth of set up for Heavensward (the first actual expansion). I actually personally recommend playing post ARR quests and HW while it's chilly outside because ARR's story veers more into Coerthas (the snow area) later on and HW takes place in a city that's in an eternal winter. Regardless, hope you have fun and let me know if you need and FFXIV advice or help!

[Kikki]

Hope your family has tons of fun, greensara

~

It's bothering me.

In BotW, Link was considered too young to be served alcohol. Well...okay. I mean, he's 117 years old, but he's basically been in stasis for 100 of those years, so he's REALLY 17.

But um. He's STILL too young in TotK? They won't serve him alcohol in the Gerudo bar in TotK, either! And there is NO WAY that it has been less than 5 years since BotW. I mean, Mattison wasn't even conceived in BotW. They just got married. Even if Rhondson INSTANTLY got pregnant, it has been at LEAST 9 months plus Mattison's age since BotW ended. And I thought she was about 10, but maybe 6 or 7 is better? I mean, if that's the age you might start being more 'aware of things/the world', as Hudson says.

But she's at least 5, okay? So let's just round it up when adding 9 months to that and say it's been at least 6 years. So Link is at LEAST 23.

Why is this game still trying to pass him off as too young to drink? Are they trying to pretend he's still a teenager, because Japan only likes to have teenage protagonists?

It's bothering me...

[Bluie]

Snip

They do this exact same thing in Genshin with the twin protags. Regardless of whichever you're playing, Aether and Lumine are immortal (age-wise) travelers from beyond the stars who make it their hobby to visit planets and stay awhile before moving onto the next one. It's implied that they're literally ageless, stuck in their forms as they're actually celestial beings with no laws. They've canonically been on Teyvat (where they're stuck atm, long story...) for FIVE HUNDRED YEARS with no changes to their physical appearance.

But every freaking time there's booze involved, you're treated like a toddler and given juice or cider instead. You can insist, but no one believes you, to the point of Aether/Lumine just giving up and accepting the alternative. Hell, even when you buy the recipes of the boozy drinks, they're altered so that there's no alcohol in the version you can make for yourself.

And one could argue 'well, they look like kids, therefore' but even the literal gods of the world, who KNOW that the twins are not of the world and obviously far older than they let on, STILL insist on having them not consume alcohol. This is the same game where one of the most famous bartenders is a literal CHILD (who doesn't drink herself, she hates the stuff and is trying to dismantle the industry by trying to make bad tasting drinks), but heaven forbid the player character even touch the stuff.

It's maddening. Just let them have a drink. After all they've done and been through, they deserve the right to a drink.

[Kikki]

It's probably a game-rating issue. If there's a scene where they let the player character drink, especially anyone who appears underage, it might affect the rating.

...

But I don't care, it bugs me.

The bit that bugs me is that they don't acknowledge the passage of time except when it's convenient for them. (Such as with Mattison.) They don't let Link have any involvement in his own history. They don't let him HAVE history. They keep erasing it. We're only allowed to think about what's happening to Link in the NOW. The very moment we are playing. Don't think about what he spent the last five years doing (so many characters don't even remember him, and he's not been missing very long!) Don't think of him having aged in that time, or grown more experienced. Don't think about the Sheikah. We renamed the Sheikah Slate and the arrows and everything else. Don't think about anything but this being a new game, even though it's a sequel. Don't think about the game that it is a sequel TO.

[Milo]

[quote=Bluie]The problem with Zann is that he's a racial stereotype, though I don't know how necessarily bad of a stereotype he is,[/quote]
I never got what Zann's deal is. He says that he's here to sell stuff in exchange for scrap metal, but I never actually managed to get a shop menu from him no matter when I talked to him, and giving him scrap metal manually just triggers normal gift dialogue. He only shows up after finishing the main plot, by which time I'd exhausted most of what the game has to offer and didn't feel like continuing to play very long, so if he only sets up his shop after a few seasons have passed I wouldn't have noticed. None of the guides I've been able to find have much to say about him either (they also pay little attention to postgame stuff).

He did feel vaguely stereotypical, but more in the sense of a generic "primitive tribal culture" stereotype rather than being assignable to a [i]specific[/i] real-life tribal culture.

If there's anything I found offensive about him, then it's how his obsession with scrap metal feels reminiscent of how European traders scammed various natives by convincing them to trade valuable stuff in exchange for novelties like colored beads that appeared exotic to a culture that had never seen them before, but were actually plentiful and worthless back in Europe.

Even if you like the stuff, it just doesn't make sense to treat something as abundant (in this game) as scrap metal as being valuable. Like... dirt is very useful, especially for a farmer. But even so, most farmers wouldn't like it very much if you gave them a clump of dirt as a gift.

[quote=Kikki]In BotW, Link was considered too young to be served alcohol. Well...okay. I mean, he's 117 years old, but he's basically been in stasis for 100 of those years, so he's REALLY 17.[/quote]
The idea of refusing to serve video game heroes alcohol because they're underage is kinda silly to begin with.

Because... like, nobody questions that my teenage protagonist is allowed to risk his life fighting an army of demons, or has any worries relying on him to save the world, but the notion that he can be trusted to drink responsibly is just too silly to contemplate?

It feels kinda anachronistic for your typical medieval fantasy setting to even [i]have[/i] a strict drinking age. Yes, fantasy settings usually tend to have somewhat modern morals rather than accurately recreating the more distasteful parts of medieval history, but even then there tend to be concessions made for the sake of fun (like society being a lot more tolerant of bands of armed adventurers who don't answer to any authorities). Out of all modern social mores, why is [i]this[/i] the one that writers feel 100% [i]has[/i] to be enforced to the letter?

I've even played one game where NPCs were totally fine with letting my ten-year-old protagonists [i]carry[/i] alcoholic drinks as part of a fetch quest, so long as they promise not to try sampling any themselves.

It's not that I [i]want[/i] to drink alcohol. But if you're not going to allow the player to drink alcohol, why even [i]have[/i] a bar that serves it in the game? Having the bartender go out of his way to emphasize that you're not allowed to have any because you're underage only draws attention to how questionable it is for an underage person to be out adventuring in the first place. If you're going to trust me to make decisions that will determine the fate of the world and affect millions of people, then maybe also trust me to decide for myself what I'm going to drink.

(Of course, Rune Factory 2 kinda erred in the other direction, with your [i]elementary school teacher[/i] teaching your seven-year-old character how to brew alcoholic drinks, which also had me going "what?".)

[Kikki]

Well, like I said, Milo...it's probably a ratings issue. The dev teams don't make the rules on what makes ratings go higher, they only get to decide what rating they want to shoot for and try to abide by whatever rules they have to, to get that rating. Ratings board decisions are notoriously silly. Ace Attorney games are rated M. Ever played an Ace Attorney game? I'd have no problem letting a child play it. They're goofy and completely non-violent (even though each case begins with a murder that you have to figure out how to prosecute/defend.) Phoenix is an incredibly wholesome protagonist.

AND my problem with what I brought up has nothing to do with alcohol, since I don't care about whether they censor that kind of thing in games or not. It's simply not an issue I give a hoot about. Silly that the character can save the world but not drink? Sure, it's silly, especially if so simply stated. I just don't care about it, is all. I don't actually know why anyone cares about it, tbh, yet we've had entire threads based on it on Fogu, so I guess they do.

What is a little less silly is that you have no need to tell your child/teen/whatever to not run off to the end of the world to fight a demon king. The opportunity to do so is probably never going to present itself. You DO need to tell them not to drink before their mind and body can handle the decision (and the alcohol itself) reasonably, because that is an issue that is actually going to come up.

But as I mentioned to Bluie in my last reply, I was talking about it because I hate that they erase Link's history. I was only using it as a quantifiable example of how Nintendo deliberately ignores the passage of time and/or everything we already knew from BotW, in TotK. Because it is a way to prove that Link is at least 23 years old in TotK, yet they pretend he's still too young to drink, and we're supposed to just accept it even though we know full well that he no longer is, because we played BotW and we know how much time has passed since then.

It boils down to: Nintendo made a sequel to BotW wherein they do not want you to think about BotW AT ALL. They want you to pretend it never existed. THAT is what I was saying bothered me. Nothing to do with the alcohol.

[Bluie]

The problem with Zann is that he's a racial stereotype, though I don't know how necessarily bad of a stereotype he is,

I never got what Zann's deal is. He says that he's here to sell stuff in exchange for scrap metal, but I never actually managed to get a shop menu from him no matter when I talked to him, and giving him scrap metal manually just triggers normal gift dialogue. He only shows up after finishing the main plot, by which time I'd exhausted most of what the game has to offer and didn't feel like continuing to play very long, so if he only sets up his shop after a few seasons have passed I wouldn't have noticed. None of the guides I've been able to find have much to say about him either (they also pay little attention to postgame stuff).

How Zann worked was you had to give him scrap metal a certain number of days in a row (5 iirc) with no breaks in between, and then he'll start his 'shop'. Basically, you give him a gem from mining, and he'll turn it into jewelry you can give to villagers (or ship, again, iirc). I think he was there to basically add an extra thing to do in post game. Maybe he had a bigger role but it was scrapped.

This video shows it in action:

[greensara]

Thanks for the tips Bluie, I didn't know the settings did that so it was surprising. I do seem to vibe with the cold weather setting right now so that's a fun idea.

Thanks Kikki, I hope it's super fun.

I just have to make it through finals week and I will get to play more when I'm not working. Then the kids will get out for Christmas break and more fun begins with multiplayer games!

[Kikki]

I've been playing tons in the mornings because I've had all evening shifts. I like when my shifts are all the same, it's great to be able to get into a rhythm. That'll end any time, of course. Consistency and reliability of schedule are one of the great things about NON-retail jobs, gotta say.

Anyway, been playing Ys X: Nordics. I restarted because after more than a year away from it, I didn't remember any of the earlier parts. It's a fantastic game. I wanna say I don't remember why I quit, but the truth is, I only have to play for half an hour before I realize why. THE BUTTON-MASHING.

Ys is fantastic for the fast-paced (but smooth) combat and gameplay. But it also requires a ton of holding down triggers for long periods of time, and fast button mashing. The holding is more the problem...tons of tension down the left hand and arm, for me, all the way up to the neck. However, I've found a few near contortionist-level stretches that work on my arm, all the way up and down into my ribcage. And I stretch each finger backward one at a time, as far as they'll go. It helps a lot, though I have to do it fairly often to keep things from aching from the tension.

Anyway. The Karja trophy won't pop for me. It is SUPPOSED to pop after 5 hours of playing as her, but I've been playing her for about 30 hours, and no go. It popped up for Adol easily! I want to switch back to him because he's the snappier fighter (though Karja can really send them flying, she's the heavy hitter) but I have to keep going as long as her trophy doesn't pop up. GRR.

LOTS of fun. The exploration is great, and lots to complete.

I realized I do NOT need more games...as much as I still want a few of the items on my list...but I DO really need a new controller. It's getting hard to do without my pro-controller, which went kaput about a month ago. So with that unexpected 'extra' $500, I went ahead and ordered one. December is a month when I get as much work as I can handle, too, so no better time than now.

Before this I was playing Fantasy Life i. I didn't MEAN to, but it somehow just happened. Fell back to trying to complete all the little things that weren't done, like Hero in about half the lives, and getting every recipe, and the final two things needed for level 10 on the island. (Max friendship with everyone and uh...oh yeah, year 1000 in the Grove thing.) Made some progress. Then decided I needed to go back to Ys. I'm quite addicted to it, so should be able to finish it without a problem as long as I keep stretching lots.

Then probably back to tootling around with Fantasy Life i, even though that doesn't get anything crossed off my backlog. Well, like I said, I love my backlog, now. I don't WANT to get rid of it. It's so pretty and sparkly and full of yummy things.

Gonna try baked potatoes in the crockpot. I consider that pretty weird, but I can't resist finding out what the consistency will be like. Will be topped with cottage cheese and avocado pico de gallo. Very odd recipe, but sometimes you've just gotta try.

Heading to work now. Gotta warm up the car then sneak in a quick stretch first!

[Kikki]

LOL

I just noticed that the way some of the characters pronounce 'Bifrost' in Ys X is 'beef roast', lol. Most say bee-frost, but some 'beef roast'. Now, I get it. And if you disassociate the words 'beef roast' from it, bee frohst is probably the better pronunciation.

Still. Beef roast. The magical, mystical, divine Norse realm of...beef roast. Lol.

I am officially done Ys X: Nordics. I feel sad about it...and the endings and farewells always amplify your own feelings of parting with the game...but my arms and shoulders and neck are crying with relief to be done, lol. The stretches and heating pad certainly help, but not enough to make me think I can clean up the last two or three trophies I still need, one of which would require me to complete the game on Nightmare. Easy mode was manic enough!

Even so, I still want to root around online to see if there's any news about Ys XI.

All other games are easier on the body. I'll probably tootle about a bit with FLi and TotK before getting seriously into another game. These big story games, if I love them...they take a while to detach from, before I can think of getting into something else. Perhaps blasphemously, but I think of it like people who can't bear to get a new pet too soon after one has died. They can take comfort in their other existing pets, but they can't bring in anything to 'take the place' of the one that departed. At least not until the feelings have died down.

Weird way to feel about a game, though.

My S2 pro-controller has arrived and I haven't even opened it. Really should try it out!

NEXT DAY EDIT: The controller is nice, but not as much nicer as people want to say, it seems. Now, the control sticks are quite a bit nicer. Maybe just because they're newer, I'm not sure. But I noticed how much easier it was to do the 'spin' action smoothly in FLi crafting with the new Switch 2 pro-controller. And the buttons and triggers do have a slight 'clicky' feel that I believe most people really like, though I don't care if my buttons are 'clicky' or not. The remapping function would have been nice to have for Ys X, to move the L1 trigger so I didn't have to be squeezing it all the time in that position.

Other than that, I have a mini rant. Sorta. BotW and TotK videos have been popping up for me on YouTube lately, and I saw some very funny and cute fan animations, and that led to more videos popping up, and so on. ANYWAY, it has come to my attention that the entire fandom seems to want to portray this Link as a 'choatic gremlin' (to quote one specific video). A senselessly wild character who acts like an absolute maniac.

Guys. Players. That isn't Link. That is YOU.

Just because BotW and TotK gave players unprecedented freedom to play their own way, it doesn't change Link's personality. We see plenty of bits of his personality in the game, via journals and memories and so on. Link is deliberately very quiet (nearly silent). He's under a great deal of pressure to live up to his reputation and his duties, and he is constantly censoring himself because of that. He's really the opposite of a chaotic gremlin. Just because YOU, the player, can decide to weld 10 koroks together and shoot them into the stratosphere, doesn't mean that LINK would ever do that. He wouldn't.

YOU would. YOU. YOU. YOU. YOU are a chaotic gremlin, you bugger(s). Link's a quiet, responsible little dude, who gives a greater sense of repression than any Link before him, thanks to all the in-game (canon!) info about him.

[Bluie]

Okay, I'm back lol. Been a whirlwind in my life recently. Got a new car, got the keys to our house, work is busy, the Christmas thou-must-go-to-every-party-and-get-together plague is here, and more. Like, why did no one tell me buying a car is a WHOLE DAY affair? And it was exhausting. Worth it in the end, I have a truck now (which I needed because our new house is where there's no paved roads).

Despite all that, I did get a little gaming done. Finished the Genshin update. The story, music, and everything continues to be really good in Nod Krai. Some people really don't like Columbina's direction, but I'm fine with it. I never saw her as this biblically correct angel in human clothing as a bunch of the fandom hyped her up to be (all speculation), so I was open to whatever. I like that she's this aloof fallen goddess learning how to love and cherish things. So many people are like 'OH GOOD, ANOTHER GIRL FOR THE HAREM' -referring to the MC (mainly the male one) sarcastically, because most of the friends we (the MC) make are female, but my « Harvest Goddess », just shut up. If you want a dynamic MC with deep relationships with the entire cast; do not play a Chinese gacha game. You're just setting yourself up for disappointment if you're expecting the FTP game to NOT cater to the audience it's made for. Personally, I got a ton of new content for my favorite character (Wanderer) after over a year of drought, so I'm pretty satisfied.

FFXIV had its update yesterday and I polished it off, though it took the whole day. The Raid series finished off and the fights were really fun. All four of the new songs were fantastic, though, to be completely honest, Dawntrail's raid series has the best varied OST from the game in a long time and every single song is a banger. Each fighter having their own genre to fit the theming of their arena felt fresh and I think all of them will be in my playlists for years to come. Shame the hubs and I didn't get FanFest tickets this time around, because hearing The Primals perform some of these live would be fan-freaking-tastic. I'm actually looking forward to doing these fights weekly just to hear the music (I feel like I said the same thing last tier LOL...). The new MSQ was fine. Wuk Lamat is FINALLY gone. I was neutral on this character all throughout the expansion while the majority really, really doesn't like her (mainly because the expansion is about HER and not YOU, because you take on a mentor role). But her English VA is one of the most obnoxious people I've ever encountered. Did they deserve harassment? No, OFC not, but one really needs to learn with to shut tf up and stop feeding the trolls with more idiocy. I had to block them on Bluesky because they're just so « Snuggly Bunny » annoying. Glad to never hear them again. As a FFIX superfan, this patch had A LOT of references, too many to list, but it was fun seeing and finding all of them. Also, the Trial fight was SO much fun! The commentary from the NPC that joined you had me laughing the whole time. For such a small role the VA really gave his all.

And this morning, I did a round of Umamusume. I didn't have Symboli Rudolf yet and as I've been working my way through the Cinderella Gray anime, I kinda started to want her a bit. Well, they just released an alt that's got her in a very pretty outfit, so I decided to try. At long as I have 32k Carrots(the minimum you need to pull a unit 100%) to pull for Nishino Flower in April, I can rationalize spending the extras here and there. Plus, the game keeps giving out free 10 pulls, so I can build back up to April if need be. ...And she came home on my 40th pull, yippie! I did a run with her this morning and got a really high B+. I thought her career would be harder, but either I just got lucky, or I'm finally getting the hang of things! Now if only I could get a Rice Shower run...

P.S. - Kiki, we still doing the annual game thing this year? Do you need me to help?