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.