Weekly Thoughts #9 - Watching Hikaru no Go Anime; Playing Yakuza 3 Remastered; Playing Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

I'm gonna make this blog short and sweet. I had a pretty long work week and have another long week coming up, so I want to putz around as much as possible during my downtime. Here are some things I've been up to since my last blog:

Watching Hikaru no Go Anime
For those who don't know, Hikaru no Go is a series about a boy finding himself in the world of Go (a Japanese board game) after being haunted / possessed by a ghost. It sounds kinda hokey but it's actually pretty good. It's kinda like any other shounen anime series, except that fights / battles are done via suspenseful and intense Go matches instead of fists / weapons / mechs, etc.

I had read the manga series a long time ago and recently saw that the anime series was available on Crunchyroll. I might blog about this when I'm done. There are a couple thoughts / emotions that's always nagged me since I finished reading the manga.

I hope the Go world is still doing well these days. 


Playing Yakuza 3 Remastered
I was planning on taking a longer break after beating Yakuza Kiwami 2 (review blog should be coming soon!), 'cuz I wanted to work on more of my New Year's Resolutions, but recent situations had led me to seek out escape to Kamurocho once more... 

Only problem is that I escaped to Yakuza 3 Remastered... haha... hahaha...

I'll reserve my thoughts till after I beat the game but for anybody who is starting up Yakuza 3 Remastered soon after beating Yakuza Kiwami 2: just keep your expectations in check, okay? :)

Playing Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

This is an online battle royale-type game where you try to be the last one standing in a series of mini-games. I've played it a few times now with various friends, and it is random fun and frustration. 

I am absolutely TERRIBLE at these mini-games, but it's pretty fun to play in short bursts. I just know I won't progress fast 'cuz I suck, haha.

It's free for PS+ this month, so those with PS+ check it out! You can party up with your friends, too (max 4 people in a party). The perks with partying up is: 

-If you do a team mini-game, you will all be on the same team

-If you happen to be the only ones left for the final round, you could technically rig who would be the winner (has anybody tried this?).

One downside to partying up (if you consider it a downside) is if you get eliminated but your other team mates get through, you can either watch your team mates progress or leave the current game, but that's it. If you leave the current game and start a new one, you'd have to leave the party. For myself I don't consider this a downside since I don't mind watching my friends play.

So far my favourite games are the Egg Scramble and the door one (forgot the name) and my least favourite is the Slime Climb. I've yet to clear the Slime Climb...



That's it for this blog. Thank you for reading!! 

If you have any questions or comments about anything, feel free. You can also send me a message via the Contact Form. Just note that if I respond, I would do so through my alternate e-mail address.

Stay safe, take care, and until next time! :)

Weekly Thoughts #8 -- Cleaning My Room; Beating Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

Since I lost an hour today due to daylight savings time, I'm gonna try to keep this week's blog short and sweet. As I usually say in my Weekly Thoughts blog, this may not be very interesting for you!

Cleaning My Room
Cleaning my room is one of my New Year's Resolutions (with the aim of half of the floor being bare), and I already know that this will be one of my more difficult resolutions to accomplish.

I hate to say it, but my room is very, very, very messy. I think part of it is because I tend to have interests across multiple genres and in multiple formats and platforms. For example, I like playing video games for various consoles / handhelds; I like reading manga, novels, graphic novels; I like watching anime, movies, TV shows; I like character figures and other fan-made / official random things. As a result, I've amassed a very... varied collection... and unfortunately my room is not large enough for me to display everything. 

A couple solutions I've thought about involve either playing "Tetris" better in my room (stack more boxes and line them up better) or ... throwing out some of my stuff. I actually don't mind doing the latter as long as I know I'm fine with letting it go. I've mentioned this before in earlier blogs that I have a lot of stuff I haven't experienced yet, so most times I don't know if it's something I'm fine with throwing out (hence my resolution to spend at 750 hours going through my media collection).

If you are in a similar situation as me, how do you go about cleaning your room? :3 

Beating Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls
I just beat and platinumed this game last night on the PS4 (yes! I can finally get to playing Danganronpa V3!), and I gotta say... that was quite a ride. I generally like things a bit twisted (I don't know why -- I guess I'm just weird), but in all my years of playing video games (that I can recall), Ultra Despair Girls is probably THE MOST twisted game I've ever played. 

Being a spin-off of the Danganronpa series, a video game series with already a twisted premise, I had expected some level of shock and rawness when I started Ultra Despair Girls. I just never thought it'd be that extreme. It's not particularly a bad thing... but it was very surprising for me. 

In a nutshell, the premise for Ultra Despair Girls is this:

Kids have unleashed deadly mechanical robots to kill adults on an island city. You play a teenage girl who ends up fighting the robots and trying to beat the kid ringleaders. 

On the surface, it seems clear-cut that it's a "Good vs. Evil" scenario, but as you play through the game and learn more about each character and their situation, it's not so black and white anymore. This game can possibly make you question what would be the "right" thing -- maybe even to suggest there is no absolute "right" thing. And all the while, the extremities of the situation are shown in "all its glory" wherever you go...

All in all, I enjoyed Ultra Despair Girls and would recommend this game... but ONLY if you think you can handle all the twistiness -- and if you've played the first Danganronpa game and enjoyed it. If I feel I need to say more about this game, I might do a spoiler blog for it.

I won't start Danganronpa V3 right away, but I'll be excited whenever I get to it!


That's it for this blog. Thank you for reading!! If you have any questions or comments about anything, feel free. You can also send me a message via the Contact Form. Just note that if I respond, I would do so through my alternate e-mail address.

Stay safe, take care, and until next time! :)

BLOG -- Weekly Thoughts #7 -- 2019 Novel Coronavirus Outbreak; Working on My Resolutions

As I usually say in my Weekly Thoughts blog, this may not be very interesting for you!

2019 Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
I'm pretty sure that whatever I say has already been said. This is just a really, really sucky time. 

When the SARS outbreak happened in Toronto, I didn't really understand what was going on, I was so young at the time. I just noticed that Chinatown was emptier than usual whenever I walked through Chinatown. When I think back on that time, I'm just really glad I didn't get infected.

Nowadays, I'm more cautious and aware. Since the outbreak, I've tried limiting my outside activities to necessities like commuting to and from work, grocery shopping, etc. I also check the Wiki page almost everyday to see if there's been any new developments. I'm also doing my best to follow some things like washing my hands more often and not touching my face (I unconsciously touch my face a lot!).

After watching the movie Contagion and playing the video game Plague Inc. Evolved, I'm relieved to see safety protocols / actions from the both the movie and video game being carried out in real life. According to the Novel Coronavirus' wiki page, treatments and vaccines are currently being researched.

I have hope that this outbreak will pass in good time... and that some treatment or vaccine will be developed and finalized in good time. My heart goes out to everybody who's currently infected or knows somebody who is infected. 

Working on My Resolutions
Since I've been holing myself up in my room almost everyday after work and every weekend, I've been making pretty good progress with my resolutions. And by that I mean I've been playing a lot of video games and reading manga. I have TV shows and movies to watch as well, but haven't gotten around to those just yet.

I'm currently trying to finish off more of the games in my "Currently Playing" list before trying out too, too many new things. It's pretty difficult -- so many of my current games are lonnng and grindy. Or -- well, if I enjoy the game, it often turns out much longer than I had expected.

I may in the end have to drop some of those current games... but only if I feel that after trying to get back into the game. I've probably forgotten the controls to half of those games by now, hahaha... ^^''


That it for this blog. Thank you for reading!! If you have any questions or comments about anything, feel free.

Stay safe, take care, and until next time! :)

BLOG -- Weekly Thoughts #6 -- Re-Watching Attack on Titan; Being "Overwhelmed" by Phone Games; Mother's 30th Year Anniversary

As I usually say in my Weekly Thoughts blogs, this may not be very interesting for you!


Re-Watching Attack on Titan
So to get myself ready for watching Season 3 of Attack on Titan (I know, I am behind), I decided to re-watch the first two seasons. It was a very interesting experience! I paid more attention to certain character interactions and had a better understanding of the world (I'm doing my best not to spoil anything here). And of course, I wanted to see Levi and Mikasa in action, hahaha. The series is also still very good and emotionally gripping, at least to me.

After all the character / story reveals that happen throughout Attack on Titan, I'd highly recommend re-watching from the very beginning! :)


Being "Overwhelmed" by Phone Games
So I think I have a slight problem. I've been playing too many phone games! This became very apparent to me when I was tapping away on my phone for pretty much the whole day yesterday. And I was hanging out with friends! We even ate out at a restaurant and I was still playing my phone games throughout the whole thing... (I am actually playing a phone game right now while I am writing up this blog...)

I think I have too many main phone games on the go. I don't particularly want to give up on any of them, but they really are taking up too much of my time. I think for myself, I can only really focus on one or two phones games and then still have some free time to do other things. Right now, I am focusing on 3.5 games, and I just started a new one. This doesn't even count SINoALICE, a game I was really planning to focus on, but got delayed 2 days before release.

I'm going to have to review all my current phone games soon and decide what to do with them.

For anybody curious, below are my current phone games:
-Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
-Food Fantasy
-Fate / Grand Order
-Shin Megami Tensei: Liberation Dx2 <-- this is my 0.5. I often set it to auto, but I do the bi-weekly events, and sometimes I try progressing through the story
-Magia Record <-- this is the new game. My upcoming end-of-month blog should explain why I started this
-One Piece: Treasure Cruise <-- I only really just log in these days, and then do massive summons when I have enough gems

Also, for anybody curious, below are the phone games I have played (to the best of my recollection), BUT have stopped / dropped for the time being:
-Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector
-Notice Me Senpai
-Pokemon GO <-- this was mainly 'cuz of space issues on my phone at the time. I might re-start this in the future
-Fire Emblem Heroes <-- I stopped this for the same reason as above
-Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
-Shadowverse
-Mystic Messenger <-- I still have 2 story routes to go through. I do intend to play them. Just haven't had the chance to do so


Mother's (NES game) 30th Year Anniversary
Well, yesterday was the day Mother was released 30 years ago. I have yet to beat Mother... but I have always been interested in the Mother series.

When I was in high school, I decided on a whim to try out this SNES game called Earthbound (AKA Mother 2 in Japan). I thought the graphics were nice and cute, and I thought some of the enemies were funny. What really stood out to me, though, were the elements / concepts I had never seen before in another video game at that time. For example, I loved the gameplay mechanic of Ness (the main protagonist) needing to call home every now and then or he'll get homesick. As for the concepts, I can't get into them because they would be spoilers. But for me, those concepts left quite the lasting impression. I will likely blog about this in the future.

Since then, I've been "bound" to the Mother series. I don't necessarily have to experience everything Mother-related right away, but whenever I get to it, I will be very excited!

So... Happy late 30th anniversary, Mother! :)


And that's it. Thank you for reading!

Take care and until next time (which should be in about 3 days)! :)

BLOG -- Weekly Thoughts #5 -- Looking into Other Anime Conventions; Having "Evenings" on a Weekday

Well, I said in my last blog that my next few entries will be fairly short. I just... need more time to spend on other activities... like cleaning my room, and going through my backlog. I think I mentioned this long ago, but maybe someday I'll blog about my usual routine / time spent for blogging. It might give some perspective on why I need to alternate between long and short blogs (if that even matters, haha). 

Anywho... I haven't done a Weekly Thoughts blog for a while, but it usually covers a couple things I've done or thought throughout the week or so. This may not be interesting for you! u_____u;

Looking into Other Anime Conventions

So after Anime North, I thought my next convention would be my usual Fan Expo Canada. But then... on May 31st, I caught a tweet announcing TAM and Akai Ryusei as guests for AniRevo. When I read that, I got super, duper excited! Omg, they're coming to Canada again! I wanna see them... again! XDDD <3 <3 <3

If you've read my blog on International Fan Festival (IFFT), you'll know I became a pretty big fan after seeing them perform. Their music delights my ears and soul ^-^

At first, I was very unsure if I would attend. The biggest barrier for me was the cost. AniRevo is a convention that takes place in Vancouver, and I live in Toronto. The plane ticket alone would cost close to $1000 CAD and the hotel stays -- at least for hotels close to AniRevo -- would end up costing over $1000 CAD. Just the thought of spending around $2000 CAD on top of food / admission / CDs / Artist alley / transportation / misc costs for one weekend... I really wanted to cry, hahaha. I didn't want this chance to slip, but the cost was so high.

Thankfully I was able to make arrangements to crash at my good friend's place during the whole convention (she lives in Vancouver). Which means... I'll be attending AniRevo! I get to see TAM and Akai Ryusei again, yayyyyyyyyyyy! To my good friend, if you are reading this: thank youuuuu! I am in your debt! ^_____^ *bows*

I never really thought I'd be willing to travel so far... for any guest. Most times I just wait for the guest to show up at a convention close to where I live. I'm such a dork, hahaha.

Another convention I'm currently looking into is Otakuthon in Montreal. Aside from spending more money (which may end up costing the same as AniRevo after factoring in hotel stays), I have three barriers for Otakuthon:

1. Language: My French skills are almost non-existent. While that may not affect my time at Otakuthon, it may affect whatever I do outside of Otakuthon, like eating in a restaurant.
2. Location: Being in Montreal, I'd have to travel and stay in hotels. Staying in a hotel by myself can get pretty costly.
3. Timing: Otakuthon is taking place the weekend between AniRevo and Fan Expo. If I attended Otakuthon, I'd be attending three conventions for three weeks straight. I'd likely have no energy by the time Fan Expo rolls around, and I'd likely get very little sleep trying to blog about them all, hahahaha.

Having "Evenings" on a Weekday

Well, this week was fairly slow at work, which allowed me to do something I hadn't done for a long time: leave around 5 PM!

For the first time in a long time, I had a consistent evening for myself each day on a weekday. At the very beginning, I felt a bit torn -- I had no idea what to spend this free time on! There were so many things I wanted to do but I knew I couldn't do them all. After a couple days, though, I settled on a general "routine" that allowed me to be slightly productive, to do some catching up, and to just relax.

It was a nice week and I sure hope that these "evenings" on a weekday will be more consistent in the future. :)



That's it for this blog. Thanks for reading!

If you have any comments about anything, feel free.

Take care, have a good rest of the weekend, and until next time! :)

BLOG -- Weekly Thoughts #4 -- Joker as DLC in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate; Persona 3 Dancing in Moonlight

I was... heavily debating whether to blog this week or not, 'cuz things have been so busy for me lately. There are too many things to do and not enough time to do them! This entry may not be interesting for you. u___u;

Joker as DLC in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate

So... a couple days ago, I found out that Joker from Persona 5 would be a DLC character for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. The moment I saw this piece of news, I was floored like you couldn't believe! I was super shocked -- and also super excited. Even though Nintendo and Atlus have collaborated on a video game in the past, I never imagined this would ever happen. Because... the Super Smash Brothers games are family-friendly and Persona games are not... Persona games are edgy, twisted, sometimes light, but often dark and dealing with mature themes (some of the reasons why I love the Persona games). 

I really hope this helps in creating more awareness for the Persona games. Even though I think it's popular and well-known, it might actually still be a niche series, especially for the younger audience (if I'm wrong, please prove me wrong! I'll be happy if you do). 

Whenever Joker is released, I'm gonna do my best to main him! Now I just need to get myself a Switch... and the actual game... or I'll just crash a friend's place and main him that way, hahaha... :3

Persona 3 Dancing in Moonlight

Well, I got Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection for the PS4 this week. It's a collection which contains Persona 3 Dancing in Moonlight, a digital copy of Persona 4 Dancing All Night, and Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight. These are spin-off rhythm games featuring the characters and arranged / remixed music from their respective game. Since I usually like starting from the beginning, I started playing Persona 3 Dancing in Moonlight.

My initial impressions of the game are... well... just okay. I love that I can listen to the Japanese voicing with English subtitles. I love that I can interact with various characters, especially with Mitsuru. I love that the characters dance (even though I'm too busy pressing notes to really see them dancing), but... the song list itself just isn't cutting it for me all that much. I think out of all the songs I've played so far (over 20 songs I think), there are around 3-4 songs that I really, really enjoy.

Despite the song list, though, I'm gonna keep at it -- I want to try to get the Platinum trophy, or as close as I can to the Platinum trophy.

I also have to say: playing this really makes me want to re-play Persona 3!

That's it for this blog. Thanks for reading!

As usual, if you have any questions / comments, feel free.

Take care, have a good week, and until next time! :)

BLOG -- Weekly Thoughts #3 -- New Year's Resolutions Progress

Well, with about six more weeks left to the new year, I've been thinking a lot about my new year's resolutions. Similar to previous years, many of them are done, except for the same super time-consuming ones!

The resolutions I am most concerned about are:

-Spend at least 100 hours on learning Python
-Spend at least 100 hours on learning Japanese
-Find 500 hours and put that towards catching up on either the Atelier, Ys, or Shin Megami Tensei (SMT) series

It seems I am always struggling with these three. Last year I was able to complete the last one, but I was cutting it verrrrry close!

I am happy to say that this year so far I was able to complete one game from the Atelier series, one from Ys, and one from SMT, but I still have over 300 hours left to complete that resolution.

Then, adding the remaining hours I need to complete my Python resolution and Japanese resolution, I need close to 500 hours to complete those three resolutions! Are there 500 hours left in the year??? This would be after taking into account all the time I have to spend for work and other engagements like friend hangouts and such.

And even after this, there are still a couple more resolutions I have left to complete. u_____u

I think... I might be able to do them all... if I got no sleep, hahaha.

If you have any New Year's Resolutions, how are you doing with them?? :)

If none of this was interesting to you, here's a song I've been exposed to recently:

"Happier" from Marshmello ft. Bastille.

I wanna sing this for karaoke one day!

Thanks for reading! As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free.

Take care and until next time! :)

BLOG -- Weekly Thoughts #2 -- Social Media Stuffs; Next Weekend, and FFBE Banner

Another bunch of thoughts from me!

Social Media Stuffs

So just yesterday I did two things that were kinda major to me:

1. I created a Twitch account and subscribed to StephenGeorg (from StephenPlays / StephenVlogs), and 
2. I re-logged back into my Twitter account for the first time since last year December, and I followed several people (the peeps from StephenPlays and a couple others) and made a Tweet.

Why were these two things kinda major for me? Because I don't know anything about Twitch (I am still trying to understand how bits work, hahaha...) and I don't really use Twitter!

About Twitch, it's not a surprise that I would subscribe to StephenGeorg, given that I've been talking about his YouTube channel a lot in the past couple blogs (my sister and at least one of my friends must be so annoyed by now, hahaha -- if anybody else is reading this and is annoyed as well... my apologies, lol). In all honesty, I can't even really participate with his usual Twitch streams because I am at work, but... I really wanted to create a Twitch account to prepare for what's happening next weekend (will go into more detail later). 

Yesterday also marks the first time I ever supported somebody else financially on a monthly subscription. I know to some, this is nothing, but to me -- who gets pissed when her phone bills increase by even $5 -- it's a pretty big thing, hahaha. Eventually I hope to be able to support Stephen and his wife Mal on Patreon (as well as a couple other YouTubers).

And about Twitter... well, I mainly used Twitter in the past to enter contests. All of a sudden I feel like I want to be a bit more active. Maybe a tweet a day or something, hahaha. I won't share my Twitter page right now as I'm trying to move down my December tweet which was reallly embarrassing for me. Feel free to search it out if you like! :3

Next Weekend

So next weekend is Extra Life, a 24-hour gaming marathon charity event. I'm guessing anybody participating would attempt to stream their gaming for 24 hours and viewers can watch and donate during those 24 hours. I won't be participating (I know next-to-nothing about streaming and do not have any fanbase for it), but I am planning to watch StephenGeorg go through it! That's why I created a Twitch account yesterday. I wanna be able to watch and comment if I want to. I will also likely donate at some point in the stream -- I kinda wanna see him play Killer7, hahaha.

Now, I'm really too old to pull off an all-nighter... but I will try for this event! :)

I will likely be dead tired next Sunday when I make my weekly blog, hahaha.

Current FFBE Banner (Valkyrie Profile Banner)

So... the Valkyrie Profile banner is finally running in FFBE. Yayyyyy! The only sucky thing is that how the banner works was supposedly changed from how the banner worked in the JP version of FFBE. Supposedly in the JP version of FFBE, any rainbows pulled in the Valkyrie Profile banner would only be either Arngrim, Lenneth, or Freya VP. With the GL version of FFBE, any rainbows pulled in the Valkryie Profile banner could be any 5-star unit (excluding old limited time units).

This just blows. Aside from getting 2 Lenneths from the 25k Step-up Summon, I've only gotten 1 Freya VP and 1 Arngrim from the 250+ summoning tickets I've used. And through those 250+ summoning tickets, I pulled 5 other rainbows -- 5 other rainbows that could have been either Lenneth, Freya VP, and Arngrim if the banner worked the same way as in the JP version of FFBE.

I still have some summoning tickets left (I had been saving ever since the banner was released in JP FFBE -- that was a lot of resistance on my part to not use them all), but am debating on maybe just saving them for another banner. I have so many Lucians and Jelandas now... I don't really need more! @____@


So that's it for this blog. What are you gonna be doing next weekend? :)
Thanks for reading! As always, if you have any comments, feel free.

Take care and until next week! I wonder if I write differently when I'm half-awake... hahaha.

BLOG -- Weekly Thoughts #1 -- Telltale; StephenPlays and Hurricane Florence

So these were thoughts I had last week, but was still thinking about this week.

Telltale Games Studio Closure

This news was really surprising and saddening. I kinda thought they would always be around. I mean the first season of The Walking Dead game was so good -- and they were releasing more and more games based on popular titles (Batman, Borderlands, Game of Thrones, to name a few)... I thought things were going well for them.

About the mass layoff of Telltale Games' employees without severance and the class action lawsuit from former employees against them for not giving enough advance notice (if this happened to me I would probably try doing the same) -- wow. Just wow. Being laid off without severance is horrible and in my mind, terribly unjust. Being laid off without proper advance notice is really bad, too. If the employees really did get laid off without proper advance notice, then I hope they win this lawsuit.

All in all, this whole thing saddens me -- game-wise in that we won't get any more Telltale games, and work place-wise upon getting a bit of an idea of the work environment (if laying off employees without severance and without proper advance notice is saying something).

*Tips hat* You will be remembered.

StephenPlays/StephenVlog and Hurricane Florence

I think Hurricane Florence has already passed by now... but I still want to talk about this.

I mentioned briefly in my last end-of-month blog that I started following this Youtuber named StephenPlays (he mainly does Let's Play videos [sometimes with his wife Mal], but also sometimes does other gaming type videos with his friends -- it's great and funny, you should totally check it out! <3). 

Well, Stephen also has a vlog channel, which I barely paid any attention to until a couple weeks ago when I saw one of his videos titled "We Are Evacuating . 9.12.18". All of a sudden I thought, 'That's a recent date. *brief moment of silence* What?! You're evacuating?! Why??!'. I clicked on the video and found out that Stephen and Mal, their cats, and Stephen's mom and dad were evacuating because of Hurricane Florence.

In general I don't think too much about hurricanes nor any natural disasters and about how bad they can be. I think it's because I've been kinda "lucky" (if you would call it lucky) to not know anybody personally so far who had been affected by one. 

While watching Stephen's video, about him talking about their decision to evacuate and the mindset their decision puts them in, I think it really helped put some things into perspective or it helped to get a better understanding of what somebody could go through when faced with an oncoming hurricane. If I ever had to evacuate with the thought that there might not be a home to go back to, what would I take with me?

Over the next few days I checked Stephen's vlog channel for any new videos or updates since their evacuation. I even checked Stephen's Twitter page -- and I don't exactly use Twitter! Haha, I was very concerned for Stephen and Mal's well-being, as well as their friends. I was very glad and relieved when Stephen and Mal went back home days later and their home was still in-tact. 

Hugs to everybody who has been affected by Hurricane Florence in any way... and any other natural disaster. (>'w')>


That's it for this blog. Thank you for reading! :)
As always, if you have any questions or comments about anything, feel free.

Until tomorrow, when I post up my recap blog for September, haha :3