a raincheck and makaipunkery

sometimes i keep asking myself why i continue to keep this blog up, considering updates on here just seem to be more and more sporadic. not to mention said updates don't seem to be very substantial since i am not a writing sort of guy and i make a lot of promises about writing about stuff that i don't follow up on.

well, as far as the first bit is concerned, i keep this site up because i like talking about the things i love and sharing them and my thoughts on them with other people. even if i don't keep this place as updated as much as i'd like to, i like talking about stuff i find interesting. and if someone likes the stuff i write or write about, then that makes the time invested all the more worth it. c:

as for the second bit of what i said, uh... yeah, i'm pretty sure i've said stuff on it in the past on here but i think it's plainly obvious i'm more of a visual kind of guy when it comes to creative stuff. i'm passionate about talking about stuff, but i'm not good at elaborating on my thoughts about things. said stuff about this sorta thing before whenever i talk about why i'm delaying on reviews and stuff so much, so i'll just leave it at that. no use in repeating every word i say.

with that said, might as well talk about a bit of stuff i've been doing as of lately. game collecting, book imports, other hobby stuff... and of course, talking about them. i kinda feel like i owe you guys a bit of newish content after several periods of stagnancy.

a small sampling of some games i have, some new, some oldish.

and yeah, with the mention of MAKAIPUNK in the title, expect a good deal of the stuff i'll be talking about to be related to Nippon Ichi game stuff.

and first off, i think i should mention that i managed to adjust the resolution on my camera when taking pictures. expect larger, more detailed photos of things here and in the future!

so onto things i've been doing for a good chunk of the year so far. well, outside of struggling to work on articles and reviews i really should've finished by now, of course.

been making good progress on setting up my Disgaea journal i mentioned around the beginning of the year. took a lot of ribbon, a lot of gluegun use, and of course a lot of time and beads, but i got the cover and spine decorated. the title even glows in the dark!

as for the book's actual contents, i haven't gotten around to penning any lore or headcanon stuff or anything just yet. i'm working on getting that sort of content organized digitally on google docs before i go writing it down in pen. for now, i've got a dedication set up for the first page and i'm working on a little author page as well (complete with a photo drawn by my pal Cyber)

unfortunately, the dedication page got a bit damaged from the magical energies i pressed into... er. okay, i had a bit of a lack of foresight when i was gluing stuff on the page and didn't expect the glue to bleed onto the page, but i decided to work with it instead of scrapping the page. imperfections make for character, i guess???

still, despite all the hiccups, i'm pretty happy to get this project on its running legs finally. when i get some more content in the journal, i'll likely take some more pictures of it at some point to show you all!

i've also slowly been working on importing various print merchandise of Nippon Ichi games. of course, this isn't just limited to artbooks, but things like light novels and comic anthologies. so far, i've managed to obtain all the Makai Kingdom 4koma/comic collections out there. i can't read japanese myself, but the books have been p fun to flip through for the wonderful artwork. luckily though, one of my friends translated a couple of scans i sent them! thank you so much again, Kazura!

i do plan on scanning more of the books at some point and possibly getting others to translate them. part of the reason why i bought them was for the sake of preservation, since these things are typically out of print and not a lot of people seem to translate a good deal of NIS media.

also got ahold of some NIS lightnovels as well: two Makai Kingdom novels by Ryo Aso and Sow Kamishiro, and a Disgaea 3 novel by Ryo Aso. while i don't know all the details behind any of the books, they're generally novelizations of their respective games. with some creative liberty, of course. they also have a good deal of nice illustrations throughout; you might've seen some scans of the art in the Kamishiro-authored novels on some anime art sites and the like.

though i do plan on taking pictures of the inside art, it's the text itself i want to scan, again for translation/preservation purposes. now that i got my camera resolution bumped up a bit, hopefully that means i can "scan" these in bigger and better readable quality.

one of these days, i might do a feature on some of the books i have and show off more of the art and content in them!

naturally, i've still been working on expanding my collection of 6th-generation games. stuff like PS2, xbox, and gamecube stuff, though mostly the first two. while i don't have plans on reviewing anything from my collection anytime soon, i'm hoping to do a liveblog-ish Let's Play of sorts hopefully soon.

i've mentioned late last year i was considering doing a playthrough of Soul Nomad and catalogue my experiences and thoughts on the game as i play. my copy of the game has been sitting on my desk for a while; i haven't played it yet since i'd rather wait when i have more free time on my paws to play it and write about it and snap pictures while i play it. outside of the radio silence, i've been sidetracked with various things, but now that things seem to be getting a bit less busy. i'll likely get around to playing it soon.

there's not a whole lot i want to spoil about Soul Nomad, especially since i've only watched cutscenes a few times and never actually played the game myself yet. though, i will say that as far as its story goes, it's hands-down my favorite tale out of NIS's non-Disgaea games. while the story balances drama and comedy a la Disgaea, Soul Nomad's also got some really interesting worldbuilding going on with it, and it's setting is definitely different in "feel" compared to a lot of JRPG games. oh, and the cast is fun as heck, too.

that's about as much as i'll say for now. i'll probably go into further detail when i start playing it. you guys might like it. c:

or not. i don't know peoples' preferences.

in the middle of February, my mom let me use her old netbook since she doesn't use it anymore, and i've been at work on making it my own. specifically, setting up a library of a ton of retro game stuff on it. while i have a PSP for essentially a similar purpose (alongside playing PSP stuff, of course), emulation for some consoles (N64, SNES, and home computers namely) is still rather iffy. that side, it's still excellent for when i'm away from home and wanna play stuff, whether emulated or native to the PSP.

so yeah, i now have a netbook as sort of a mini-arcade of sorts. not as portable as the PSP is, but a bit more diverse with what i can do with it. decked it out with a sticker i got from an Undertale shirt (which is p rad and you should probably buy it), and toyed around with it a bit to bypass Windows 7 Starter limitations to truly make it my own.

while mostly it's just an entertainment thing on my end, it'll likely make reviewing older games easier. my main computer i use for working on KKGS and other things is more of a work computer, so it's nice to have something on the side to simplify more play-oriented activities.

not that it's gonna stop me from using my main computer to play Skyrim and the like but. eh. some things i just can't run on a netbook.

also got a soul sticker from the shirt. placed it right in my Disgaea journal.

i've also been doing a bit of other things aside from these. been hanging and roleplaying with my friends, working on getting back into the swing of drawing and doodling... hell, the 1.0 version of Starbound is coming fairly soon, so there's something i'm looking forward to. though, with all the stuff going on, coupled with my tendency for visual stuff as opposed to writing, i feel really bad for not keeping this place as updated as i should be. though again, i've stated this quite a bit on here in the past, and to just state it again would just be beating a horse deader at this point.

fortunately things seem to be less hectic, so hopefully that means i'll be working on some stuff for here. though, outside of the Soul Nomad playthrough, i can't really promise anything specific in case i don't actually end up going anywhere with it.

that being said, bless you all for being so patient with me. if you want to keep in check with me and my constant ramblings about games and things, i'm always available on my twitter.

luv you guys so much. <3