Fred the Barber

Weren't we just discussing it happening to Getsuya a couple weeks ago? Confession: Having been gone for a week, I just finished wading through the last weeks' confessions. I think it took over an hour, and all I have to say is:

Ugggh. I preordered it before I could stop myself. 1 box of shit, incoming.

While I loved Nodame Cantabile, I am much more neutral towards Honey and Clover. One contributor to that feeling was the art style - it just didn't click for me. The larger part was that I had difficulty understanding the motivations and emotions of the characters, and also couldn't foresee the arc of the plot in general. Between those two things, it was kind of like I was just along for the ride with no clue what was going to happen next. I can actually see that being a big draw for the show, to most people, but as a matter of personal taste, I guess I like to at least have a really solid handle on either the plot or the characters (or even both) - some predictability is a plus to me. I'm currently rewatching Madoka. I was visiting my old roommate, who probably hasn't watched an anime since he moved out, and during downtime I got him started watching Madoka on Netflix, so now I have to finish it up myself. I'm appreciating a lot of things I didn't understand the first time through; it's a lot more painful (in a good way) the second time through, and was clearly made with an expectation of being watched a second time through. What a great show.

I threw my support in for Symphonic Rain immediately, since that's pretty much at the top of my list of VNs I want to read, but it looks like YMK is going to be too powerful. Oh well - that looks acceptable too. YMK has the advantage of being officially translated and easy to buy, which I do really appreciate.

that there were no orcas in it, but lots of penguins, who started happily playing with her. The last time I wrote a poem, ...

I already had Shingles as well, in college in my case. The crazy thing is that I didn't even feel like I was that stressed at the time. Nowadays, I take things a lot easier than I used to. I try to walk the fine line where I get committed enough to things so that I don't get bored or do shoddy work, but not committed to such an extent that I feel stressed about them - this is an especially difficult but important balance to keep with work...

FFX's English voice acting is the actual worst thing ever: However, at the time, the game was so stunning in other ways that I honestly didn't even notice.

Wellll... ratings are always personal, but that one feels like an especially personal 10/10. I'm certain it's "meh" to a lot of people, so maybe don't set your expectations too high. But, for me, it was amazing. I wrapped it up this morning. A minor grievance: I'm most definitely looking forward to season 2.

I haven't really watched more than an episode at a time, and that only once a week or so, for about the last month. Today I had a lot of time on my hands and was uncertain what to do with it, though, so I ended up starting up Love Live!. I was 100% sold after about 10 seconds of the opening animation. I binge-watched the first nine episodes, and I plan to finish the last four of season 1 tomorrow morning before I leave for vacation. This easily surpasses Gargantia as the best thing I've watched since Wagnaria!, and I'm thinking I like it even more than that rather high bar. 10/10, and definitely going to rewatch it at some point just so I can see and marvel at more of what's going on in the big choreographed sequences. The opening video still entrances me every time...

Tru. Em and Halo. Next person likes ethnic food, for some reasonable definition of the concept.

more time. One day, I'm going to...

On the topic of PS1 games: Over in the game music thread, Clephas just brought up the Suikoden series, which is definitely worth looking at. I can only vouch for the original Suikoden, which was quite good, but Suikoden 2 is legendary. I'm still playing Theatrhythm and a bit of Destiny, but now that I've been reminded of its existence, I'm actually probably going to start playing Suikoden 2 as my next portable game on the Vita...

Hah! I haven't thought about Soulblazer in a long time, but that's a really solid game. The only other game I played by that studio was Illusion of Gaia, which was interesting but not quite my cup of tea, though I remember it being fairly popular.

Oooh, this is a nice reminder that I never played Suikoden 2. I played 1 and 3, but I always heard that 2 was far and away the best. It was impossible to get for less than a ridiculous sum of money (I recall it being ~$150 on E-Bay) for the longest time, but now it's available for $10 for my Vita? Done. Praise be to downloadable retro gaming. I wasn't planning on bringing my Vita with me on my upcoming trip, but now it's totally along for the ride. To stay on-topic, you know what I never get tired of? Airship themes: Bravely Default: Final Fantasy VI: Chrono Trigger:

Well, "dead" is a pretty tricky concept to nail down, and it's unclear exactly what makes or breaks the connection to an avatar. For instance, if someone is asleep, is it possible for them to "load in"? Perhaps not. Not trying to make some deep point here or argue about details, but rather, I'm just saying there are enough unexplained elements that I can let this explanation slide. Anyway, I wrapped up Heroine 4's route today, and will pick up with Heroine 5 next week. I might reread the whole common route first... we'll see how I feel after a week away from the game. I don't really have much to say about Heroine 4 - it was mostly sweet, though that second H scene was... weird. One thing that made me happy about both Heroine 3 and Heroine 4 routes was the heavy use of the best BGM song I've heard in the game so far. I'd previously thought it was being really underutilized, since I'd only heard it once or twice, but after those two routes I realized they were just saving it for the right moments, since it came up all the time:

Finished Heroine 3's route: On to Heroine 4!... maybe. I only have ~1.5 days left to play before I'm out for a week, so maybe I should just put off starting with Heroine 4 until I get back.

a loli. This thread is full of...

I'm pretty sure that "eat all the not-as-good things on the plate first" is actually a standard strategy. Confession: I'm going out with a friend to have tea. She called it "high tea", but I'm pretty sure it's just going to be regular tea.

Clarification: I meant the root for the sub-sub-forum, not for the whole forums. I just noticed the "Back to The Coliseum of Chatter" button at the bottom of the last post, though, so... I guess there is actually a better answer than what I've been doing. Anyway, Hanako banner, really? Some people are still holding onto Gravity Green even though we now have Dark Theme Master Race? Confession: I'm off work for the next two weeks, of which one week will be spent out of town. While ostensibly I'll be visiting a friend for that time, since he's not going to be off work the whole time, I have, naturally, loaded a VN onto the laptop I'm bringing with me. Next week is Majikoi week! I have to burn the midnight oil and wrap up Comyu before then, though...

Curtain Call. It's crazy how addicting it is. I felt this nice sense of accomplishment the first time a character hit level 99, and I went to fiddle with their abilities, and found the Reset button. More CP? Yes please. Now I have to see just how deep this rabbit hole goes... It's somewhat surprising how distinct all the characters are, in terms of utility. I just reset most of my best characters (the second reset, for most of them), and I swapped them out for my second string / people that I'm trying out. The result is surprisingly lousy - they take out maybe 1/3 or 1/4 as many enemies as my old party, so they hardly get any experience. I actually think I'd make progress more quickly after just a couple rounds if I dropped out level ~80 Squall and replaced him with level 1 Terra on her second reset. Squall is terrible. Right now my favorite characters are Terra and Cloud, though I don't mind Lightning #2 either. - Terra with Trance + a big list of spells - Cloud with Omnislash + Sacrifice 3 + Added Cut - Lightning #2 with One Man Army + Added Cut They just rip through enemies, especially bosses. I'm mostly using Tifa #2 with Final Heaven + Brawler 2 + Brawler 3 is my fourth, but I'm looking for someone better. I like having Locke around for general utility skills - Level 2 Libra, Treasure Hunter, and Steal are all very nice to have. I imagine his Luck being super high is helping in some background way (drop rate for items / rarity or such), but his other stats are so low that it's hard to justify keeping him around...

Confession: 20% of the time when I'm trying to navigate back out of a thread to the forum root, I hover over the "Other Apps" and accidentally click one of them instead, and then get irrationally angry. No, I really didn't want to see the Members page. Nor the Awards page.

someone used a worn-out cliche, I'd have a lot of nickels. But why is my... Edit: apparently I forgot how to play the game at first...

I think I spent ~8 hours today playing Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. Somebody help me.

do this, chums. You don't know the power of... Edit: ninjaed!