tis the season for chilling (also nextyear musings)

and considering i rarely friggin update this blog with anything substantial, i've been doing a lot of that this month. and year. eh.

apologies for the lack of updates, and twice the apologies that posts like these seem to be more frequent than any of my other crap. i'm still working on getting the next MAKAIPUNK installation up, but i've been kinda stalling on it. kind of tricky taking snapshots while holding a book open. plus there's also the issue with not having much else to really discuss.

though, with recent things in my life brewing up (good things, don't worry), i might have more to bring when the new year comes than just nitpicking a manga about a video game about demons that also got an anime adaptation. ahem.

• Dinosaur Planet crap. been doing recordings of a Starfox Adventures LP that kiiiiiiiinda is related to this, but i've been wanting to do more talking about this cancelled gem of a game here since it's been a favorite topic of mine for quite some years. while i do run a shrineblog for DP on tumblr, i'll probably do some more wordier stuff here since blogspot's a better format for those types of things. history and introductory stuff and analysis and research and junk like that.
• more STEAMPUNK. with the steam holiday sale going on, no doubt people are stocking up on low-priced games for the winter. i'm pretty much content after blowing around $250 dollars on games last holiday sale, but i still wanna talk about steam gems people might not know of or don't appreciate as much. i'll likely be doing this with GOG games and other PC and DOS titles as well.
• PS2 recs. alongside other older consoles and handhelds and MAYBE arcade games. ordered a ps2 since i've been looking into it for a while, and it came in today. prob will be amassing a ps2 game library over the next year, so i'll prob review some of the lesser-known stuff or stuff i feel people should appreciate more. 'course i'll do other recs of games from other older consoles, and i'm looking into reviewing MAME arcade games as well.
• more MAKAIPUNK. am aware i've been dawdling on the Disgaea manga readthrough, but i'll be getting back to that shortly. been considering looking at other curious pieces of NIS merch such as some of the artbooks, light novels, drama cds, and other things of note that would bear mentioning (and i could probably get my hands on). hell, there's some chance i'll be reviewing some of the older NIS titles on PS2/PSP as well. we'll see how that fares, though.
• Warcraft stuff. alongside Legacy stuff (which finally released lately and my adventures in it have been pretty interesting so far), i'm thinking of doing some article stuff concerning older WoW musery as well as stuff concerning the way-older Warcraft RTS games. particularly the third one since the modding community for it is still pretty active to this day, and there's quite some interesting maps out there.
• fantasy and roleplay musings. speaking of musery, i'm generally a sucker for fantasy stuff and worldbuilding, and i'm surprised i don't blab about it more. also, tabletop rpg stuff. yeah, i should still look into actually doing that sort of deal.
• 80s/90s cartoon crap. the world needs to know how hilariously bad stuff like Captain N and Sonic Underground are. also, terrible movies. though i'm very likely not going to review Foodfight since i feel like everyone and their mom knows of it at this point. ah well.
• various other crap i forgot to mention. not like this blog goes by any specific theme outside of things i like, so probably more miscellaneous stuff will pop up in the coming year.

so yeah, even if updates will be scarce for the rest of the month (will be working on chapter 2 of the Disgaea manga though), hopefully i'll get to doing more stuff  in 2015. if real life doesn't continue tugging at my tail, hopefully.

sit tight, folks. be sure to tell your friends. and probably your enemies.

in other unrelated news, LUFTRAUSERS is on sale on steam for six dollars until next year. oh yeah, and there's a trailer for the coming January update for Starbound. get hyped.

STEAMPUNK - LUFTRAUSERS

sometimes a game i rec merits one of those long-winded sort of forewords like i did with my Conker rec; how it stands out to me, a few general opening thoughts on it and games like it, and why i like it amongst other wordy things.

however, i won't be doing that today. namely since this is more in-depth than a standard rec of mine, so most of the wordiness will come from further in. aaaand there's not much i can open on outside of "i friggin' LOVE bullet hell shmups" as far as this game's concerned. so with that out of the way, welcome to STEAMPUNK, a new segment dedicated to reviews of Steam games i particularly like despite being named after an aesthetic i'm not all that fond of.

yeah. anyhow, let's talk Luftrausers.

developed by Vlambeer, Luftrausers is a arcade-esque shoot-em-up (shmup) game featuring multi-directional movement (as opposed to just being top-scrolling or side-scrolling like in other shmups), and gameboy-like graphical aesthetic, and customizable fighter planes. by completing missions, you can unlock more weapons, plane bodies, and engines that change how your plane functions.

and in line with bullet hell games like DoDonPachi and Touhou, it is and will get very hard. though if that sort of thing is your cup of tea, keep reading.

MAKAIPUNK - Manga Senki Disgaea CHAPTER 1

oh god oh man oh god oh man this got done really late i'm so sorry

er, anyhow, when we last left off with our readthrough of the Disgaea manga, i gave a little primer on the Disgaea franchise, gave some information on the publication of the manga and some other details, and actually read through one/two pages of the manga before ending off there and spending a whole month on two completely different articles, and subsequently taking over half a month to do other things.

oh and we got introduced to angel trainee Flonne and our setting for this story i guess

i am definitely a bloke who keeps things on schedule and finishes things in a timely manner.

that being said, let's get rolling. heads up, you might need to click on some of the images to get a better look at them.

Gensou and Cyber in: The Haunted House (KKGS HALLOWEEN NOT-SO-SPECTACULAR)

nothing is certain except for death, taxes, and getting back into Neopets again even though you've sworn to stay off that site for the rest of your life.

i've heard of Neopets since 2003, but i can't say i've been on the site since that long. to clarify, i've never stuck with one single account; i've made multiple accounts over the years since i felt that the 4-pet limit was kind of... well, limiting (that, and the fact that i've transitioned between way too many aliases over the last ten years). despite my grievances with how the site's gotten nowadays, i have and still do like the pet designs, as well as the worlds, stories, and art direction. even the flash and html games are still pretty good.

but of course, the current neopets site is a shadow of its former self. the customization and NeoCash stuff are some of the things that people are mixed on, but what killed the site for me is the lack of updating older content and how awful the economy has gotten. and of course, yet again i've found myself suckered into this stupid website again. a fourth because of this playthrough, the other three-fourths because i've finally gotten a krawk after a decade thanks to a supreme bout of luck at Anchor Management when i made my new account. my ten-year-old self is swimming in tears right now.

anyhow, with Halloween coming up fast and since i'm still working on the Disgaea manga readthrough, let's do something simple and spooky. there's nothing that says "halloween" more than a shitty choose-your-own-adventure flash game from the early 2000s.

'course, i won't be going in alone. with the wonders of skype, i'll be braving this place with my bud Cyber.

Don't worry mate! We'll get through the specters and spooks. Not sure what to expect but whatever comes our way we'll be prepared. I've never played the haunted house so everything will be a surprise for us! What adventure awaits beyond the doors?

i've played this like... YEARS ago. dunno how my memory holds up, but we'll just happen through it as it goes.

also, heads up, any of my commentary will be in green, Cyber's will be in orange. [also, there is a fair bit of crude language in this playthrough; this game was not kind to us.]

let's do this.

>STORY START

gen recs - Conker's Bad Fur Day

been meaning to do an actual game recommendation for a while. it'd kind of be a stretch to say these are reviews; i find it hard to rate things on a 1-5 scale, so i just say things from my own experiences and say whether i like it or not. whether you want to check these things out is up to you.

quite a lot of video games have been described as an "experience"; to me, an "experience" is something you never really forget, whether in real life or video games. for video games, what people view as an experience really depends on who you ask; people fondly look upon platformers like Spyro and Banjo-Kazooie for their colorful worlds and cast, adventure/RPGs like Final Fantasy 7 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time for their epic scale and story, and games like Doom and Mortal Kombat for being those types of games that you played when your parents weren't around to scold you for playing violent stuff like that (or if you were particularly unlucky, you got scolded for playing them anyway).

well, it'd probably be a stretch to call Conker's Bad Fur Day as epic a story as FF7, but it's definitely got some colorful characters that also tend to use equally-as-colorful language. alongside some other things that parents would probably yell at their kids for seeing/hearing. and yet said kids still played it anyway because it had a cartoony squirrel as a playable character. also bathroom jokes. how they managed to get ahold of copies of the game is a mystery, though probably not one that's too lost to time if we have 12-year-olds playing Call of Duty and GTA and all that.

so while i work on the next segment of my Disgaea 1 manga readthrough, why don't we give this game a bit of a look-at? though keep in mind, this game is M-rated for a reason, and the warnings on both the ESRB rating and the box itself will remind you of that (front cover/back cover ; images courtesy of DKvine).

so yeah, unless cursing, cartoony bloody violence, sexual themes, and poop jokes are your bag, steer clear for the now.

blargh

i know i really should stop making posts like these, but i apologize for how slow the current article stuff i'm working on is going. Conker rec i'm still working on (set a deadline for it so hopefully i get more motivated to get it done), as is the Disgaea 1 manga readthrough and a little halloween bonus.

it's sort of half laziness, but mostly since i rarely ever get the motivation to do written stuff, even if it's about things i like. i'm more of a visual/hands-on person, so this kind of stuff takes time for me to get the motivation for.

i may open up a Patreon at some point as a bit of personal incentive to do more with this blog, but i'm not 100% sure on that yet. we'll see, though.

bless any of you bloglurkers who are patient enough to put up with the slow updates though. ;w;


oh uh, also put up a steam status section if you guys wanna check that out.

MAKAIPUNK - Manga Senki Disgaea INTRO

insert art (courtesy of minitokyo)

... the joke is the japanese title for the Disgaea series (Makai Senki Disgaea).

that aside, welcome to the first installment of MAKAIPUNK, a segment where i talk about stuff and media related to the Disgaea games and other games developed and published by Nippon Ichi Software (NIS). why does this segment have the same name as the url for my art tumblr? because i think MAKAIPUNK is a cool word. adding "punk" to any word just increases its coolness.

i beared mention of both NIS and Disgaea back when i did my readthrough of Tsubame the Ninja, but i didn't go too heavy on them since that wasn't the main focus of the review. plus outside of the publishing label's name ("Prinny Books"), it didn't really have much to do about Disgaea, which is why i didn't feature it under the MAKAIPUNK category. taking that into consideration, i guess now is better than any other time to explain what the heck Disgaea is.

an entire month of nothing.

yeaaaaaaah, my apologies on not getting anything actually up in a while. article-writing bug hasn't struck me for a while, and stuff like working on artstuff and other irl matters have gotten in the way. if i hadn't mentioned it in the past: i do have ideas on what stuff to write about, but it's still kinda stuffery i need to look into, especially for things like media reviews/articles and stuff in that vein.

i'm fully aware that i've been dawdling with things and it's kind of a struggle to motivate myself into doing those things, but i'm at least trying.

if you guys want to keep in touch with me, i'm on twitter, tumblr, and plurk.

also, i've recently gotten a new tumblr for solely artstuff and whatever creative stuff i do. and yes, i am fully aware that it has a similar url to my contact hub. that probably wasn't a smart plan on my end.

eh. anyhow, hope ya'll are doing well. can't guarantee anything this month, but it's early in the month, so i'll see what i can do. =v=

vlog - let's go to the convienence store~

trying to break the constant lull, i guess. have a cute Disgaea video.

original video is from niconico. another dude on youtube had the video up a few years back, but they closed their account. so of course i'm going to be the dingus who rehosts it.

lyrics are here, and some info on the meme the vid is based on are here. konbini is one of my favorite niconico memes, in all honesty; the vids based on it are p adorable.

hell yeah cowboy starpeople

so i didn't catch wind of this until now, but yesterday Chucklefish director Tiyuri posted his thoughts on the whole "early access" thing and a significant fraction of Starbound's community being "weh updates not coming out fast enough" and whatnot. touched on the situation myself some few days back, but i feel like Tiyuri summed up the whole situation and explained things better than i could.

they've also been working on assets for the novakid race, which can basically be summed up as cowboy starpeople. they even get a train starship. and revolvers. two posts concerning them can be found here and here.

artwork by JohnSu on DeviantART

so yeah, suffice to say i'm pretty hyped that they're working on one of their stretch goals now, and it's nice to hear what what Tiy himself had to say on the whole matter. best of luck goes to he and his team, and even if the next update may take a while, i'm still hyped for it to come.

so yeah, pretty much the last thing i'll say on the whole starbound matter. though i am planning on possibly doing a playthrough/review sort of thing once all the progression things and such are put in place and all. 'course i have a bunch of other stuff to do, so i should probably get on those first. welp.

gen's thoughts - why ya'll should stop giving Starbound flak

i feel like i keep saying i'll get post stuff done at some point, so i'm just going to drop that whole intro line. in the meantime, i need to talk about an issue that's becoming way too goddamn resonant in the Steam early access community.

for those who aren't familiar with Starbound, i'll sum things up quickly. it's a 2d minecraft-style game much similar to Terraria, but what Terraria established in terms of game mechanics, Starbound improves on. you can explore a wide variety of planets, visit dungeons and explore towns, and even decorate your own spaceship.

the game is currently available for purchase for early access on Steam. while it's fairly bare-bones in its current state, it's shaping up to be fairly ambitious. from what the devs have said about coming features, there'll be revamped progression, expansions for your ship, and quests to partake both sidequests from wandering folks and main quests for each race. kinda like a 2d Elder Scrolls in space, but you can build stuff.

however, there's been a lot of people complaining about Starbound's stable build not updating fast enough and the grindy progressing in the current stable build. many of them changed their positive reviews to negative, fearing that Starbound may go the way of Towns and Cube World, two games that have been infamous for having no updates in months with no word from the devs.

well, first off, the game being unfinished is an obvious risk of early access. many of Starbound's progression elements are in the process of being overhauled; what was presented in the current build is just a placeholder until the actual progression system is finished. a lot of ingame systems (such as the tile rendering system and monster generation, for instance) are also getting improvments and such so everything will run smoother. Chucklefish is a rather small studio, and while news on the changes are frequent on the devblog and the nightly build, it'll still be quite a while before things are in working order.

what people don't seem to understand is that at the very least the devs are keeping us posted on updates and systems in the game and how they're coming along, compared to something like Towns which hasn't updated or posted any development info since... september of 2013, apparently. yes, i'm upset at the lack of updates on Starbound as much as everyone else is, but at least Chucklefish is showing us that they are indeed actually working on it, even if it's taking a while.

when you buy early access to a game, that's what you're getting: early access. to the people whining about the current build's grindy progression, Starbound is still well in beta, and what is in beta doesn't necessarily exactly reflect what will be in the actual release. early access is how devs get funding for their projects, and it's also a way for them to get feedback for their games. however, there's a fine line between constructive criticism and callous whining, and complaining about how unfinished the game is and how updates aren't coming out fast enough isn't going to make things easier for the devs.

just my two cents on the whole matter. i'm still hyped for Starbound and heartily recommend it for anyone who liked Terraria, but i have a feeling situations like Cube World and Towns are why people are so leery of updates taking a while.

gen's daily life - too oh

so yeah, lack of much happening 'round here. been working on various other things, both irl and on the internet, so i haven't had much time for blogspot stuff. that, and i'm kind of a lazy butt, so that's another thing i gotta work on.

turning 20 on the 8th. kinda made me realize how much i've matured since my younger teen years. can't say i won't be missing parts of those years, but i'm pretty happy with where i am now. lot wiser, lot more mature, and a lot more vidya to play. not to mention my art skills and other creative-based doofery have improved quite a bit since then. hopefully that means i'll be more active here. no guaruntees tho.

as far as what i'm doing right now is concerned, i've been trying to work on artstuff and progressing with the games i have (got a backlog for a fraction of them now, will put the link on my contact info eventually). also doing a playthrough/analysis sorta thing of Star Fox Adventures with my pal Mobian, so i'll probably put the videos up on here once i get her okay. also getting the Disgaea 3 Return artbook and a copy of the Disgaea anime, and i'll probably be doing a review of the latter eventually.

other than that, not much else eventful happening. things have been pretty chill, though there's definitely some things i need to get a move on.

anyhow, see ya'll soon! best of luck with you all as well!

site updates are for dweebs

so since i'm a complete dweeb, i added a donation button to the sidebar. still working on a page for the redbubble and society6 stores, though i should probably make some designs before i get that up.

also should get to writing some more on this blog. probably either going to do a writeup on a hilariously-dubbed anime or a cancelled n64 game with a cult following. either way, we'll see.

gen's daily life - den of a fenn

apologies for the lack of updates. been kind of busy with some renovation stuff, alongside other things.

well, on the topic of the renovation stuff, family's been working on getting a getting a new room set up for me; sort of a mix of a personal bedroom and an entertainment station, as well as a work area for computer stuff and traditional drawing (hopefully i'll get to the latter thing sometime this year once i find the scanner.).

honestly nice to have a more personalized space for relaxation and goofery. been in the older bedspace for a little over two years, and it just kept getting more constrained as time went on; a tv i used for gaming got removed so i couldn't play anything on it, my desk setup was absolutely awful for drawing on paper, and my bed was kind of sandwiched between a cabinet set and the wall. i've only ever really used my old bedroom for sleeping and the computer.

now that i've got settled into the new room, i can do quite a bit more than i did in the old room. hopefully that means working on some things for the blog amongst other things.

might be a while, but i can assure you guys i'm not dead!

photos of the new room are under the cut for those curious.

gen's thoughts (and also recs) - a Legacy in the making

been a bit since i last posted something here. this was going to be a post on my thoughts about this server, but i figured it might as well double as a recommendation post since it's p rad as well.

ah, private servers. quite a bit of a polarizing topic amongst many, especially amongst World of Warcraft players. for some people, it's a way to experience past versions of Azeroth. for others, it's a way to experience the joys of questing, player-vs-player combat, and raiding without having to pay a subscription fee. and sometimes there's others who think private servers are gimmicky buggy distortions of blizzard's milestone MMO that don't deliver a legitimate experience like retail.

whatever your opinion, there's no denying that WoW private servers are interesting in concept as well as development. while a lot of servers mostly seem to lean towards PvP and raiding with custom content, some other servers seek to emulate older versions of WoW without any fancy bells or whistles. some other ambitious people heavily modify Azeroth's terrain and add new races and quests, creating an entirely new experience that sets it apart from the crowd.

and oh boy, is Legacy quite the experience in those parts and more.

as someone who's been a WoW player since the Burning Crusade era and a roleplayer from the days of when MSN Messenger was still a thing, roleplaying in World of Warcraft is still a learning experience for me. i'm savvy with most of the lore, but making and roleplaying a character in the game has been a bit awkward for me, especially with how things in retail are handled as far as ingame events go which makes roleplay events a bit tricky despite the inclusion of roleplay servers.

another factor is that zones in the world have a certain level range, so a lv10 player might have quite a way to go before venturing to the lv60-70 Outland area. certain areas of the world would be more populated than others, and from my observations, outside of ingame guilds there didn't seem to be a cohesive forum to keep up to date on events that would happen, though considering there's a site for retail's Wyrmrest Accord server, i guess it's my fault for not poking around long enough for it. game mechanics and progression also put a hamper on things as far as roleplay is concerned.

Legacy is one of the few WoW private servers exclusively dedicated to roleplaying in the Warcraft setting. in 2009, the project was initially conceived under the name of Epilogue by a dude named S, who was upset at "the almost non-existent role playing support from Blizzard". what started as a small community eventually boomed in popularity, but real-life commitments and other pressures would eventually spell the end of the server. luckily, popular demand soon revived the project, now under the name of Prologue. Legacy eventually came to be after the loss of Prologue's game and forum data, as well as a meeting with S.

while i could go on with the history of the server, i still don't know much considering i've only recently heard of this server, and i've only been a part of the Legacy community for around two weeks as of the time of this writing.

so from the perspective of a Warcraft fan, longtime RPer, gamedev lover, and Legacy newbie, what makes Legacy so great for its concept, and what sort of experience can someone expect?

gen's thoughts - Orcs Must Die! (but not absolutely NEED to pay)

... or "gen goes on a tirade about freetoplay games and microtransaction crap".

okay, before anyone goes nuts, i do understand why microtransactions and DLC exist. game companies need money to keep thriving, as money is used to pay people for their work on a game, as well as to fund other projects said game company may do in the future, or to add additional stuff to existing games. mind, i am mostly talking about the PC gaming market in this case, as DLC and IAPs (in-app-purchases) are common in this industry.

however, there are right and wrong ways to go about DLC and IAPs, but we're mainly focusing on IAPs and their involvement in the free-to-play (F2P) model of gaming. as well as a recent game currently in development, but will be rolling with the freetoplay model.

anyone not familiar with the Orcs Must Die series, let me sum up the basics. basically it's a shooter/towerdefense hybrid game where you have to stop hordes of orcs (and other fantasy critters) from reaching the rift located in the level. the usual way of stopping these blokes is by way of weapons and traps, as well as spells and guardians. the second game in the series added more traps and monsters and such to deal with, as well as online co-op. no clue if i'll so a detailed review in the future, but i highly recommend the series for anyone interested.

sometime around friday (though i'm pretty sure a build was playable at PAX as well), a new installment to the series was introduced: Orcs Must Die Unchained. from what i can tell of the game's announcement and some articles about said announcement, Unchained is a MOBA-type free-to-play game with the OMD flair and gameplay; five players go up against five players, and each team must send hordes of minions to invade the enemy's rift, as well as construct traps to defend their rift from the enemy's horde.

while the series has been a favorite of many gamers, reactions to Unchained have been... rather split. fans were outraged that the ever-dreaded F2P/MOBA bug was starting to affect the orc-killing craze, fearing that Robot Entertainment's greed and bandwagoning would be the downfall of the franchise. now, i'm not too worried about the MOBA elements, but then again i do enjoy DOTA2 and Dethroned, so i guess that's why i don't mind it too much. even if the MOBA-ness wasn't mentioned, the game still looks like it'd be a blast to play.

however, i am concerned with how Unchained is going to handle the F2P.

curiousities - Tsubame the Ninja

apologies for the delay on this. been a busy bloke this while, but at least i've been meaning to get something substantial on here.

okay, bit of background history first, since the company behind this is kind of a niche thing.

Nippon Ichi Software is a Japan-based game company known for developing and publishing strategy RPGs, most notably the Disgaea series. while they didn't revolutionize the strategy RPG scene and were rather unknown during the early and middle periods of the PS2 (arguably their most well-known era), NIS did put some interesting spins in their SRPG titles, both in gameplay and worldbuilding. i can't think of another game where i can be a lv9999 13-year-old demon overlord with an army of exploding penguins and spend more of my time in the randomized dungeon in my sword than progressing through the story.

erm, it makes more sense if i explain the context, but that's not the point right now.

despite being a Japan-based company, NIS does have a branch in the US, known as NIS America. as you'd guess, NIS America handles the localization and overseas publishing of NIS's titles, as well as non-NIS games like Dangan Ronpa and Hyperdimension Neptunia. the less i say about the latter series, the better.

some years ago, NIS America also handled the publishing of various anime in US like Toradora and Anohana, as well as... children's books?

soooo... seems i've got a bit of explaining to do.

hello, folks!

after roughly two weeks of work, i've gotten this place up and running!

i've been meaning to get a blogspot up and running since last year, but posts went rather slow since i felt the old blog was too confined to a purpose (it was mostly a game review blog). hopefully this one goes out better since it'll be a bit more freeform so i can blog about whatever i wish. i will do some game reviews though, alongside other things!

mostly trying to migrate to here from tumblr as well; there are some good blogs on tumblr, don't get me wrong, but the toxic environment and faulty customization kind of turn me off from it. plus it doesn't really seem like a fitting place for more lengthy commentary-like things.

so yeah, long story short, hopefully i can get to do some more fun stuff here and share a bit of my interests with people. hope you all enjoy! expect some stuff coming up in the very near future!