Getting Older And Not Wiser

March is birthday month for both me and Clover, and we get to celebrate it by washing our hands vigorously and wearing face masks while trying to blow out candles on a birthday cake? Joking aside, it’s been a good year so far (regardless of world events) and we’re happy to bring in yet another year of age.

Starting off with the real life stuff - it’s a good time to remind folks out there to appreciate what you already have and not what you want. I say that since I’ve been really digging a TV series as of late called Real Detective that is one of the best produced non fiction crime dramas I’ve seen for quite a while. I always try to look at the brighter side of things when it comes to life, and if I need to remind myself I’m not “one of those folks” going through what is portrayed on the show. Since a lot of folks are going to be indoors for a while, I highly recommend you take a look at the series if you need something to pass the time.

Moving onto game stuff I’m a little late to the party for the following 2 entries, but they are unique experiences none the less. The first one is Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout which is an older game from last year that I never got to experience for a couple of reasons. None the less I was happy to find out the PC port of the game (which is the superior one in my opinion) supports modding and of course high resolution textures and effects. An in-game screenshot of my own applied mods below hopefully will peak your interest in checking it out.

The next game recently came out on mobile but was actually out sometime ago on the PS4. It’s called Earth’s Dawn and was on sale on Fanatical (fantastic website for PC game deals) for $1. For that price, I naturally had to try it out and it wasn’t as bad as the reviews said it was back on the PS4. That being said, I wouldn’t pay more than $5 for it and that’s actually the every day price on the Nintendo Switch version. I hope the game’s developers in the future make a new game based on the foundations of Earth’s Dawn as there’s a lot of good ideas at the root of it. Below is an excellent review from AGR.

Moving onto anime stuff that Clover watches, this month we have a pretty funny and wacky anime called Murenase! Seton Gakuen. I won’t spoil the anime too much since you need to watch it to enjoy it, but let’s just say if you like animals, high school and poop jokes - it’ll be right up your alley.

That’s it for this month’s update. The next rare time Clover streams, wish her a happy birthday! Be generous with those Twitch bits and subs too - cause we need money to buy soap and napkins.

Down The Rabbit Hole You Go

It amazes me how I can find myself lacking content to share with you all from a month to month basis. January was a metaphorical “cow skull in the desert” month in which it was hard to dig up anything of interest, while February has been nothing short of content overload. So I’ll keep this update brief yet packed full of stuff you should go check out since you probably have nothing better to do if you’re visiting this site anyway! Off to the rabbit hole you go, and while you’re out there do me a favor and bring back something.

Let’s start off with the mainstream stuff. I love things weird and spooky; and I also like it when those things can combine with pop culture icons such as William Shatner. I mentioned a long time ago on my blog that folks should watch a series called “Weird or What”. It was a show that looked into paranormal stuff around the world while having a slight comedic overtone thanks to the narration of our beloved Captain Kirk. It appears he’s back almost a decade later with a very similar show in the form of “The UnXplained”. I binge watched the entire 1st season on Amazon and was delighted to find out that it has a 2nd season in development that is soon to be released this year. So if you’re like minded as me and want to dive into the wacky world of the unknown, I highly suggest you check it out. Trailer for the series is linked below.

Once you’ve gorged yourself on all that weird stuff, let’s put some regular food back in your belly from YouTube. Similar to another food channel that I recommend on The List, I’m always fascinated by eating culture the world over. More importantly however, I don’t really enjoy overly narrated aspects of how people make or get food - I rather just simply see it from a POV of an everyday person. I am extra fascinated when it happens to involve overly complex food vending machines, and thus DancingBacons is the channel I’m sending you over to. Get ready to learn about stuff you never remotely thought about. I will update The List accordingly as always.

Although anime is more of Clover’s domain than my own, I still appreciate the extremely esoteric nature and community that revolves around it. When you get very creative and talented people who are willing to make content far more interesting than my own, I have to give credit where its due. Thus I’m shooting you over to Fither - the Okumura Food’s subsidiary upstart who will inevitably take over YouTube at one point or time. You might remember A LONG TIME AGO that I wrote an article on Persona 5 confidants. If you in any way shape or form enjoyed that type of content, you’ll definitely like a lot of Fither’s material on his YouTube channel since it’s well made as well as hilarious. Linking to appropriate content below.

This should be more than enough content for the month of February for all of you to check out. For the few souls that came here from YouTube - I will potentially be doing another Last Origin video down the road. I just want to hold out until the game reaches its first official anniversary and see if more interesting content will be added to the game instead of just another month long event. I have a lot of stuff to cover which includes a team building guide and other errata not mentioned elsewhere. In any case, I’ll see you guys in the next update!

Double Happy New Year

Let’s kick off 2020 with the first blog bringing in both Gregorian and Lunar new year at the same time!

Artist: Kuroi

In my last post of 2019, I said I was finally going to update the Tree and Clover sections of the site since they had been forgotten about. In there you’ll find some new stuff from both of us and what we’ve been interested in as of late. Clover’s specifically is Netflix heavy and mine is more general across the board. I suggest you check it out if you have the time and I will try my best to keep it regularly updated in 2020.

Whenever I have time to spare, I try and visit local theme parks since they were a part of my childhood growing up. Although I’m not a hardcore fan, I do try and keep up with what’s going on and whether or not they are worth traveling back to after a few years. To that extent, I was quite shocked how many people fall under the same interests, and some of them bring a camera with them! So if you don’t get motion sickness staring a monitor, you might find this YouTube channel of interest called CoasterForce which uploads POV (point of view) videos of various coasters they go on. Makes nice animated wallpaper too if you got the know how to convert videos to animated backgrounds! I’ll link a sample like always below.

I mentioned all of the games I’m looking forward to in last month’s update; but I do understand that a lot of folks are hyped up about the Final Fantasy 7 remake. The problem is - I no longer own a PS4 since I sold it off early back in 2019. So until the game gets an official port over to PC - I probably will be in the back seat seeing how it plays out. That being said, I am very keen on the rumor mill surrounding the Nintendo Switch and possibly it getting a new version being released in 2020. The only confirmed thing I am looking forward to is Trials of Mana - a legitimate re-imagining of a great Snes game that never hit the US shores called Seiken Densetsu 3. The original game is widely available on the net for free - so if you want to give it a go you can do so right now. I just can’t directly link the game for TOS reasons, but a quick Google search will get you what you need fast.

That’s it for now folks. Hope you had and have a nice start to 2020. I’ll see you all next month.

Back From The Brink To End Out The Year

I’m one of those individuals who don’t get sick for a long time. So when I finally come around to catching a bug, it’s a really bad one! So my apologies for the lack of updates to the site; hopefully the worst is behind me and I can get back to bringing you more interesting stuff to look at.

I’m not going to sugar coat words; 2019 for me was a dry year for video games. Outside of a few niche interests that I’m currently exploring at the moment - it really hasn’t been anything jaw dropping. A few games I’m looking forward to are still a long way away in development. These titles include Biomutant, Cyberpunk 2077 and Shin Megami Tensei V. By the way SMTV has not been cancelled contrary to click bait Youtube folks going ham on the rumor. I’m going to link official trailers for all 3 games below just to remind folks why I’m looking forward to these games and hope they get a 2020 release.

The last mention of gaming in 2019 for me is a shout out to a YouTube channel whom I’ve been following for quite some time. Primarily focused on mobile games and Waifus, FG3000 is a good example of someone who puts out a lot of content relevant to his audience. Although he doesn’t dabble into international games (which I’m keen to), he does cover all English / Global releases on a consistent basis and is an excellent source of news on games coming out on mobile if you share the same interests.

There aren’t going to be any major change-ups for 2020 here on the site nor on the YouTube channel. It is completely my fault however for neglecting (and downright forgetting) about the monthly “what we’re up to” sections of the site in which I plan to correct starting next year. It has been obvious that Clover over on Twitch has significantly slowed down in streaming; but that is because she is increasingly moving up her in actual career and that’s causing a lot more responsibilities to be dumped onto her. Also the lack of “pretty anime games” has been a big detriment for her to stream! We’ll both be looking towards 2020 to see if anything new catches our interest in that regard.

I wish I had a lot more interesting things to post to end out the year; but frankly speaking it’s been a rough December. January 25th is lunar new year so hopefully by the end of next month I’ll have something for you folks to chew on! Take care of yourselves until then, and Happy 2020.

Update 12/31/2019

One last thing before the year ends. I’ve cleaned up The List section of our site to remove invalid or outdated links. If you happen to come across something no longer there - please let me know! Thanks and happy new year!