Hello everyone. I know that it's been a couple of weeks since I've posted anything (two weeks feels like a fucking eternity when I don't put something out). I have a good reason for this, though: it is way too fucking hot! The weather has been anywhere from the mid-80s to over 100 degrees (26 to 37 degrees for you Celsius users), for about a solid month now. Here's the thing: I live in a home with no air conditioning, the most I have are some electric fans, so I have been feeling every last goddamn degree. Haven't had a good night's sleep in who knows how long, always waking up covered in sweat. Getting headaches, constantly dehydrated, pressure around my eyes, randomly taking five minute naps in my chair like a cartoon narcoleptic because I'm so tired. This headwave fucking sucks and I hate it. It's been rough. Kind of hard to work on stuff, or even have a coherent thought, when you're tired and sore. I have been contemplating getting some kind of small AC unit, but that shit is expensive and I ain't got no damn money.
All that aside, I thought I would make a post. Just talking about various things, because that is what Web Logs are for.
In my last post about game randomizers, I talked about doing a Four Job Fiesta run in Final Fantasy V. A couple of days ago, I finally finished it. By the end, I was cursing the game, vowing to never touch it again. My final set up was:
Bartz as Red Mage having to constantly break elemental rods in order to do any real damage, occasionally Dualcasting Raise+Cura if my other healer got knocked out.
Lenna as Monk and Krile as Ranger, with the two of them switching jobs just so they would both have Rapid Fire. Krile doing four hits per turn with a bow that had a high critical hit rate, while Lenna would just hit things with her fists eight times in a row did a lot of heavy lifting.
Faris as Chemist. Faris was mostly there to apply buffs to Lenna and Krile, and making X-Potions when things got hot.
My endgame experience was getting mad about Ex-Death constantly, constantly, using his instant kill White Hole attack on Faris, meaning that using level-raising buffs needed to stand a chance against Neo Ex-Death became a real hassle. I wouldn't have been as mad if he had used that attack on anyone else, but he didn't. Hell, there was a lengthy period of that battle where he wouldn't do any moves until I revived Faris, then immediately would use White Hole again. Fuck that guy; SNK bosses are less blatant about input reading. Neo Ex-Death was only annoying in the way that Neo Ex-Death is normally, in that you have to hope you don't get nailed with a part-wide random status effect while you're trying to destroy the part of Neo Ex-Death that does the powerful AoE attack that can kill you really quickly.
In any case, the game is done. I'll probably try doing it again next year, and wanting to die, but then being glad that I did it.
Quick interlude to bring up this limited edition Sprite I tried out earlier in the week. It's Sprite, but with a peach tea flavor to it. I'm not much of a soda guy, but this stuff was real goddamn good. No, I'm not suddenly sponsored, I just really fucking liked this drink, and I needed to mention it here before I forget that it exists when it stops being made.
So that version of FF5 that I played was the Game Boy Advance port. There were a few reasons I chose that one over the Pixel Remaster, but the main one was essentially a roundabout way to talk about the direction of this site. It's been pretty obvious for a while, but "retro" games are kind of my thing. I really do not like the state of modern games. Do not have the time for Extraction Shooter 4: We Plagiarized Art From Two Trans Women This Time. Do not have the time for more unoptimized, overpriced garbage from an overworked, underpaid team of developers who will be fired by the time the game finishes installing on your hard drive. Do not have the time to read endless, insipid discourse from people attempting to hop on the Gamergate bandwagon a decade too late, turning every new game into a cultural war slap fight between grifting morons with stupid names like "grummz" and "airbagged." I don't care. New games look bad! They all have generative AI in them! They pride themselves on having "woke" storytelling, despite being significantly less progressive than most 90s arcade games! The remaining profits that don't go to the CEOs will go to the US Military, the Israeli Defense Force, or the Saudi Royal Family!
What I'm getting at here is this: I will not be writing about any new major games on this site going forward. The only exceptions will be independent games (not "indie," worlds of difference). The cut off point will be nothing beyond the Nintendo Wii, and that's really only because Dolphin is a great emulator that runs pretty much everything. If I ever start writing about movies or anime again, those will follow the same rules, though I guess they already kind of were following those rules to begin with. The most you'll get of me giving praise to this current hellworld in which we live will be if I make an off-hand reference to how awesome the latest AEW show was, because the only thing that hasn't horribly regressed in this generation has been pro wrestling (fuck WWE). The fact is, things were not even remotely perfect in the old days; they arguably weren't even good. But those days are better than these ones. I think I'll eventually do a whole write-up about toxic nostalgia (which I hate), versus looking to the past so as to create a better future.
Also, I've been trying to come up with a good schedule. Not just with uploading articles to my Patreon (which I need to work on changing the tiers and rewards, as well), uploading posts here, or trying to work on a new video game since HURTING ZONE is nearly two years old at this point. I have recently begun streaming again, after a three year hiatus. However, I haven't been doing it consistently, and have done it on different days. I didn't do one this weekend because of the damn heat, and the last couple of weeks was due to my cousin coming over to hang out for a couple of weekends before moving out of state to become a doctor. And also because of the heat. My whole thing is that I want to be consistent. I don't like the way things are, so I have to be the change I wish to see in the world. Games are my wheelhouse, and I don't want to keep ceding ground to right-wing profiteers, or to dogshit racist and transphobic writers that think being bad at Dark Souls should qualify them for disability. Not just that, but I would like to start doing video-related things that aren't related to gaming, and doing something every week is a good way for me to 1) get comfortable doing public speaking and 2) get a good handle on technical things, particularly audio mixing. I have some ideas for the future, but you know, I have to actually start working on them.
Just need to wait for this fucking heat to die down, first.
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