Sometimes Video Games And Japan Stuff

I’m not going to mix words with this month’s update; it’s going to be 95% primarily focused on video games and not much else. The reason being is because as a whole, March was filled with a lot of world news (recently in fact) that most people can’t stop talking about. And because I try my best to insulate this site from all of that, it’s near impossible to find the “good” stuff that I usually can share around the internet without running into a wall of commentary on subjects I have zero interest in. So what little I can talk about this month, I’ll do my best to make it as thorough and entertaining as possible. I promise next month’s update will be more diverse; hopefully as long as the world can just calm down for 2 seconds.

While doing my best to come up with stuff to talk about this month, I came across a YouTube channel called TokyoLens which has a lot of fascinating videos on various Japanese topics. Without diving into only pop culture related things, it was refreshing to see content that revolved around oddities and weird stuff that had to do with day to day life. Leave it Japan to make mundane things seem rather uplifting. So I’m going to be recommending a few videos from the channel your way with what I found interesting.

I’ve spoken upon the death of traditional arcades for quite some time now, and I’m not a “doomer” by any sense of the imagination. I’ve long accepted that time marches onward, the world keeps turning, and things change for better and worse. Still I am a sentimental fool for the days long gone, and the slow decline of arcades is a topic I revisit once in a while to see the progress of it all as it unfolds. Japan has always been the last bastion of traditional arcades, and even then the country has been slowly closing down its iconic game centers on a yearly basis. The following video will highlight some of the most dramatic closures of recent times, and even though the video itself is not even a year old - I’ve heard on the grapevine that even more places have closed since the start of this year (2022). Either way if you’re too young to know what an arcade is or too old to care anymore and have moved on with your life, I invite you to take a look at a “thing” that was once at the center of gaming culture.

I recently got into (and finished) my participation in the Nikke Closed Beta test I mentioned in my last mini post. The audio portion of the blog has the significant details of my adventures in it, but for brevity let’s just say I’m now even more hyped for this game after having my hands on it for a week. For everyone who just wants my impressions on it, the vided posted below by YouTuber SeanB mimics my sentiments about the game exactly. So in other words, he’s already done the work for me so I don’t have to. For the few folks that asked questions in my AMA post about the game, I’ll be answering them in detail on the audio portion of the blog. I have A LOT to say about this game, but not much to write about it since it would take an incredible amount of effort to get into writing all the little nuances of thought. So in other words, take a listen to the audio portion if you really care about Nikke at all.

Although Nikke is going to probably eat up all my time once it releases, there are still other games on the horizon that seem to hold promise. One of those games recently went into closed beta called Alice Fiction and there is a webiste you can visit for more information here. Video from some folks playing the CBT are below as well.

That’s it for this very (admittingly) strange update for April! Since it’s Easter month, I need to make sure to include some type of bunny or rabbit. So here’s Carrot from One Piece!

Artist is Tsampikos

Mellow Out March (NSFW)

Another year older and another year in the books. March is my birthday month and things up until now have been pretty sleepy outside of unfortunate world events. So during this downtime, perhaps it’s a good moment to take a look at some more slow burning topics before spring hits us full force. As always the audio portion of the blog is going to be much more detailed with nuance, while the written portion is brief with links to all the stuff I’m talking about.

I think we could all use some lighter news to start off March, considering the heavier things that have been going on. So I’m going to try and stick to lighter end topics and video games to smooth things over. Let’s start off with some pretty hardcore nerd stuff - right from the nerd capital itself in Japan! The following video is just a nice walk around tour of a store in Osaka called Den Den Town. I can’t imagine visiting a place like this without emptying out my bank account.

Going back in time a bit, one of my first videos on my YouTube channel was talking about a game called Planet Master. The developer at the time was simply called MIST, but now goes by MIST MSG. I’ve been in contact with MIST MSG over the years very briefly, but have always kept tabs on what has been happening with them since I really enjoy the games they make in terms of originality. Although nothing (of major note) has been released by them lately, I still wanted to shout them out for being great artists on the side! So for my monthly dose of lewd anime stuff, here’s some nice eye candy artwork courtesy of MIST MSG.

Artist MIST MSG

Although I retired long ago from the MMO scene, I still enjoy a relaxing slow paced jRPG from time to time. It’s really hard to find folks who are passionate about this genre without being overly invested into the franchises they’re sometimes based on. So I was glad to come across a YouTube channel that does a pretty good job talking about jRPGs in a pretty concise and informative way. In any case I hope you take a look at their backlog of videos if you’re also a fan of these type of games and perhaps you might find something up your alley.

Let’s get something out of the way that’s been in the news for a while. I don’t like talking about drama stuff in general (especially politics), nor do I like engaging in it for entertainment purposes. But there comes a time when something has to be addressed, especially since it has impacted so much news surrounding anything regarding pop culture and video games. It’s NFTs, and it’s slowly being considered by most the new taboo “N” word to say or mention. I’m not going to give you my take on NFTs, but what I am going to do is to give you a video to watch and to make your own conclusions once you’ve finished. It’s a LONG video, but as I said - it’s a slow burning month outside of world news. Learn yourself something and hopefully take away something useful from it. I know I did and everyone else that watched it.

Last stuff on the agenda is rather useless on the grand scale of things, but it has to do with my YouTube community tab. Some of you who visit that place often may have noticed that recently as of late, a lot of my posts will show up momentarily for a few hours before disappearing. I want to set the record straight that I absolutely do not delete anything posted there unless I say so in the post. To this date, I only ever have deleted one post that I forewarned would be gone after a while. Other than that, nothing has been voluntarily deleted by me. To this end, I’m constantly learning what I can and can not get away with on YouTube on a daily basis. And it seems to me that the things that I type in the post weigh heavily on what gets deleted RATHER THAN what image is posted. So in other words, if a post survives 24 hours, there’s a good chance it’s there to stay. In a nutshell, the number one thing I have noticed getting posts deleted is the fact that I mention something in recent news (a trending topic) or I link a site that YouTube deems to be “adult” orientated. This also includes social media sites where the author has tagged their profile as “adult” or “18+”, that would lead to the post being deleted. So from this point forward, I’m going to name the artists I post and give credit where its due, but unfortunately, I may have to start stopping linking to them. It’s a shame, but it’s the only way I can proceed forward without my stuff being thrown away. In any case, if you see a Goblin Shortstack girl in my community posts - that’s code for “my previous post got deleted, here’s a cute goblin girl”!

Good Fortune To You

It’s De Ja Vu time for celebrations, since February 1st is the start of the lunar year of the Tiger. It doesn’t matter if you observe the holiday or not, just enjoy the festivities and (hopefully) the food if you have access to it. In any case it seems like it’s been a hot minute since I all last talked to you folks so let’s bring in the year with some random stuff I want to talk about.

Also, for all of 2021 on my website I use to post a related video or picture and then talk about the subject. I think this method may be weird for some folks, so I’m going back to the more conventional way of talking about something and then linking an image or video related to it.

As always, the written portion of the blog is extremely brief. I add a lot of commentary and nuance in the audio portion, so take a listen if you have the time!

Artist is Obui

I wanted to talk about this subject back in my 2021 retrospective, but couldn’t find the space to squeeze it in. More than likely over the recent holiday season, all of you might have gotten a few speakers, headsets, earphones, earbuds, or microphones as presents. I know a lot of folks were asking for these things since most of the populace during 2020 had to stay indoors, and ever since then there’s been a growing demand for it. Although I find myself an easy to please person when it comes to audio hardware (at least the listening side of things), I’m sure most of you out there might have heard at one time or another random jargon when people talk about it. Bloom Audio has a concise written guide on all the lingo you need to educate yourself with. So the next time some obnoxious hipster recommends some crap earphones - you can lay the smack down on their pumpkin spice Capuchino drinking ass!

One of my favorite things to have running in the background at all times are podcasts. This is true when I’m doing chores, working on mundane work-related tasks, or when I’m grinding in games. So it’s no surprise that I enjoy listening to stuff that isn’t too distracting (like real world events or politics) but at the same time engaging enough to actually care about the subject. And what better subject material than the weird and spooky stuff? Better yet, some of it is actually based off historical events! Then my dear visitor I have a podcast you might be interested in, called Supernatural with Ashley Flowers. Every episode dives into the weird and mysterious world of paranormal events and unsolved crimes with an unusual twist. I highly suggest you give it a try to bring some perspective in your day-to-day life.

Also on Spotify

Whenever the opportunity arises, I make my intensions clear that I have an absolute fondness for monster girls (NSFW). So, it was shocking to me to find out when my favorite database of all things related to such was going to shut down permanently back in late 2021. Thankfully through the hard work of like-minded individuals, the new wiki is up and running for all to enjoy for years to come! If you’re new to this prestigious club, feel free to click here to see what random waifu you can claim as your first.

Artist is Barbariank

One little thing known about the Nintendo Switch is that it actually has a few lewd games on it. Since I just talked about monster girls, it’s fitting to transition into talking about an upcoming Nintendo Switch release that is a reboot of an ecchi game on the Vita back in 2016. This game is called Seven Pirates H and is a westernized (and to my knowledge still uncensored) version of the 2016 game. You can watch a review for the vita version below for all the details. Keep in mind the Nintendo Switch H version might have more stuff added to it, so just take note of that in case you’re curious on picking it up.

There hasn’t been much news on the mobile gaming front for January into February. This is typical for this time of year since newer releases generally wait for a spring or summer release. If you ever heard of “End of Q1” schedule for example, it typically means you might find a game out on the market by the end of April even if it seems to indicate a late March arrival. To that end, I wanted to bring up a talking point briefly in regard to a well-known saying circling around the gacha gaming community. This saying often states that “there are no bad games if you don’t pay anything”. Naturally you can infer that I am in complete disagreement with this statement, as it tends to be a typical lazy platitude like saying that doesn’t address nuance of products placed in the market and how they got there. In a nutshell, there are a lot of games that flood the market to capitalize on a trend or fad. Worse yet, some of these games do so by stealing assets from established IP of other games or media. This has a domino effect of leading unsuspecting gamers to think that the game they’re playing is the origin source of such material and thus any favorable attitude towards the game becomes defensive rather than indignant. In any case, Gamer’s Nexus did a recent video on a similar tangent in regard to consumer attitudes toward products and I would recommend a watch to help illustrate my own point. It may not be directly gacha gaming related, but it does help explain the attitude of some folks.