Mar. 11th, 2019 12:22 pm
controllers and dice
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
justboltsVideo game stuff:
I've been sporadically continuing my replays of various Kingdom Hearts games, just not in any real order.
Watched through Re: Coded for the first time -- watched, because the 1.5/2.5 game bundle doesn't include the full game, but rather all the cut scenes intersected with summaries of plot relevant game play parts. Re: Coded was... way better than I expected?? I figure I should know by now that the KH franchise goes all-in on every game, but I still wasn't expecting the mobile game to have either sweet Sora and Riku friendship or a satisfyingly brutal Roxas or a sincere reflection on dealing with emotional pain and loss.
Watched through 358/2 Days (again, no full game in the bundle, though I did play this one originally on the DS). I have the worst relationship with this game. I can't stand how Roxas was written in it and how much dead space there is in term of story development. BUT there are still a lot of great character scenes for the others, Axel and Siax especially, and I like Xion and the concepts around her, even if it was weirdly handled at times.
Started replaying Birth By Sleep. Got through the intro and Terra's encounters with Maleficent and then had to stop for a while. SORRY TERRA, it's just so hard to watch you suffer. Also, you're a slow bruiser and I'm used to my zippy little speed demons. I'll come back to you, I promise.
Started replaying Kingdom Hearts II (technically II.5 Final Mix). The Roxas prologue is still a good, creepy short game about a boy realizing that he, and his entire life, aren't real. My love for it and the potential implied by it (Sora's Nobody joined and worked for the evil Organization!) is a big part of my disappointment in 358/2 Days.
That aside, it's been over seven years since I last played this game and I'm learning that; 1) I'd forgotten the actual canon content of "The Land of Dragons", but remembered an AU fanfic set in that world with crystal clarity, 2) I love the absolute shit out of the Hollow Bastion/Radiant Gardens map. Twilight Town will always be my absolute favorite of all the KH Worlds, but there was something warm and comforting about running around Hollow Bastion again.
***
Tabletop gaming stuff:
Most of the people from my Sunday D&D game ended up dropping out, so it's pared down to just 4 of us (including the DM, who also plays a party character). While that sucked, it landed us with a better team dynamic than we had in a larger group.
We got a pair of goody-two-shoes clerics, an eccentric wizard, and my gregarious Bloodhunter -- everyone generally gets along, but there's enough secrets and conflicting ideologies for later drama. It means we won't be the silent murder squad of our previous, 7 person campaign, but it will give us more time for character and relationship building, so it's a good trade-off.
(I loved our murder squad, but there were few lasting emotional connections between them. My character, at least, walked off not caring if she ever saw the rest again, and that misses the point of an adventure party.)
My Saturday game re-started after a long hiatus and we had a great session of pretending to be the household of a wealthy elvish woman looking for business deals with the local Neverwinter nobility. My Kenku druid was a dog the entire time and our goblin spent the whole evening napping and chewing ribbons in a backpack. These are the kind of sessions I live for.
I finally got some planning and writing done for my FATE Core game, but I don't know when I'll get the chance to run it again. I'm still sad that I had three whole open weeks to run a session and I was too brain-dead to manage it. A missed opportunity. But, deep breath, I'm gonna keep planning and be ready to go when the chance arrives. I'm excited with where the story is going, especially now that one of the 'Big Bads' has been introduced and one of the player-character's big secrets is out.
***
General life stuff:
My betta fish was having health problems, but I got him tended to and he's doing better. I went a little wild upgrading the tank filtration system and adjusting feeding schedules to see if I can prevent it from happening again.
I've got relatives coming into town in May, initial plans to visit friends out East in June, and a trip in Vegas at some point between now and Summer. It'll be good to go on a trip again, since it feels like it's been a while (even though I drove out to Texas for a week just a few months ago). Maybe part of that is because it's been so long since I was on a plane.
It's weird to remember that I spent just about ten years doing yearly trips from California to Maryland for Otakon. I miss it. Not the travel or the cost, or the stress of doing a costume every year, but getting to see my friends and getting to wear the costumes I put so much care into, and taking photos, and seeing Baltimore Inner Harbor, and the hectic energy and spirit of the convention and being around other excited fans.
I've debated with myself about going back one more time to visit either Otakon (which has moved to DC) or Baltimore. I could absolutely find someone to hang out with or go with me for either location, and have a good time with them, but I also keep feeling like I'd need to go alone.
There's no way I could re-capture the original spirit of what made that yearly convention so special -- there are friendships that have ended and people and events that won't be there. (There will never again be an Otakon like the one the year "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" released.) So going by myself would be a private sort of 'goodbye' to all that once was. On the flip-side, would I really want to spend an entire trip walking familiar areas and feeling sad and nostalgic? I could bring or meet up with a friend or two and still have time to be maudlin on my lonesome.
I could also nix it entirely and spend that time and money going to other, new place entirely, for new memories.
Ah, who knows. I'll probably never decide either way.
I've been sporadically continuing my replays of various Kingdom Hearts games, just not in any real order.
Watched through Re: Coded for the first time -- watched, because the 1.5/2.5 game bundle doesn't include the full game, but rather all the cut scenes intersected with summaries of plot relevant game play parts. Re: Coded was... way better than I expected?? I figure I should know by now that the KH franchise goes all-in on every game, but I still wasn't expecting the mobile game to have either sweet Sora and Riku friendship or a satisfyingly brutal Roxas or a sincere reflection on dealing with emotional pain and loss.
Watched through 358/2 Days (again, no full game in the bundle, though I did play this one originally on the DS). I have the worst relationship with this game. I can't stand how Roxas was written in it and how much dead space there is in term of story development. BUT there are still a lot of great character scenes for the others, Axel and Siax especially, and I like Xion and the concepts around her, even if it was weirdly handled at times.
Started replaying Birth By Sleep. Got through the intro and Terra's encounters with Maleficent and then had to stop for a while. SORRY TERRA, it's just so hard to watch you suffer. Also, you're a slow bruiser and I'm used to my zippy little speed demons. I'll come back to you, I promise.
Started replaying Kingdom Hearts II (technically II.5 Final Mix). The Roxas prologue is still a good, creepy short game about a boy realizing that he, and his entire life, aren't real. My love for it and the potential implied by it (Sora's Nobody joined and worked for the evil Organization!) is a big part of my disappointment in 358/2 Days.
That aside, it's been over seven years since I last played this game and I'm learning that; 1) I'd forgotten the actual canon content of "The Land of Dragons", but remembered an AU fanfic set in that world with crystal clarity, 2) I love the absolute shit out of the Hollow Bastion/Radiant Gardens map. Twilight Town will always be my absolute favorite of all the KH Worlds, but there was something warm and comforting about running around Hollow Bastion again.
***
Tabletop gaming stuff:
Most of the people from my Sunday D&D game ended up dropping out, so it's pared down to just 4 of us (including the DM, who also plays a party character). While that sucked, it landed us with a better team dynamic than we had in a larger group.
We got a pair of goody-two-shoes clerics, an eccentric wizard, and my gregarious Bloodhunter -- everyone generally gets along, but there's enough secrets and conflicting ideologies for later drama. It means we won't be the silent murder squad of our previous, 7 person campaign, but it will give us more time for character and relationship building, so it's a good trade-off.
(I loved our murder squad, but there were few lasting emotional connections between them. My character, at least, walked off not caring if she ever saw the rest again, and that misses the point of an adventure party.)
My Saturday game re-started after a long hiatus and we had a great session of pretending to be the household of a wealthy elvish woman looking for business deals with the local Neverwinter nobility. My Kenku druid was a dog the entire time and our goblin spent the whole evening napping and chewing ribbons in a backpack. These are the kind of sessions I live for.
I finally got some planning and writing done for my FATE Core game, but I don't know when I'll get the chance to run it again. I'm still sad that I had three whole open weeks to run a session and I was too brain-dead to manage it. A missed opportunity. But, deep breath, I'm gonna keep planning and be ready to go when the chance arrives. I'm excited with where the story is going, especially now that one of the 'Big Bads' has been introduced and one of the player-character's big secrets is out.
***
General life stuff:
My betta fish was having health problems, but I got him tended to and he's doing better. I went a little wild upgrading the tank filtration system and adjusting feeding schedules to see if I can prevent it from happening again.
I've got relatives coming into town in May, initial plans to visit friends out East in June, and a trip in Vegas at some point between now and Summer. It'll be good to go on a trip again, since it feels like it's been a while (even though I drove out to Texas for a week just a few months ago). Maybe part of that is because it's been so long since I was on a plane.
It's weird to remember that I spent just about ten years doing yearly trips from California to Maryland for Otakon. I miss it. Not the travel or the cost, or the stress of doing a costume every year, but getting to see my friends and getting to wear the costumes I put so much care into, and taking photos, and seeing Baltimore Inner Harbor, and the hectic energy and spirit of the convention and being around other excited fans.
I've debated with myself about going back one more time to visit either Otakon (which has moved to DC) or Baltimore. I could absolutely find someone to hang out with or go with me for either location, and have a good time with them, but I also keep feeling like I'd need to go alone.
There's no way I could re-capture the original spirit of what made that yearly convention so special -- there are friendships that have ended and people and events that won't be there. (There will never again be an Otakon like the one the year "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" released.) So going by myself would be a private sort of 'goodbye' to all that once was. On the flip-side, would I really want to spend an entire trip walking familiar areas and feeling sad and nostalgic? I could bring or meet up with a friend or two and still have time to be maudlin on my lonesome.
I could also nix it entirely and spend that time and money going to other, new place entirely, for new memories.
Ah, who knows. I'll probably never decide either way.
