Fred the Barber

Reveal her true identity.

7/10. A little bit busy, but colorful and cute.

False. I go to work every weekday, and it's not infrequent that I go out with friends (reflecting on it... 2-3 times a week on average, which is a lot more than I realized), but I do prefer being at home, on my own. Next person likes tuna.

Played some Destiny tonight. The little event they launched this week, as a sort of appetizer for next week's big DLC release, is fairly entertaining. I really don't know what to think about this game. On the one hand, I totally agree with all the people who complain about it being ludicrously repetitive - you do, in fact, do the same things over and over and over again. On the other hand, playing it is genuinely fun, even when you're doing pretty much exactly the same thing you did last time you played the game.

The best part for me, in both the original and the re-release, was The Great Cave Offensive. That part of the game is freaking gold. I think when I played Super Star Ultra I got rather annoyed by some part of Meta Knight's Revenge levels and eventually just moved on to something else, so I didn't get to play a lot of the new content. Not sure if I ever played any of those, but I definitely never played Kirby 64, somehow. I think the series had too many bad moments (in particular, I remember renting Kirby's Dream Course from Blockbuster and disliking it quite a bit) so I missed out on a bunch of its high points. Pretty disappointing. In hindsight, I realize Kirby's Dream Course is a totally different thing, but I guess when I was a kid, I just saw Kirby on the shelves and wanted to play it, and then I started ignoring anything with Kirby on it because the last game I'd played tagged that way kind of sucked. I'll try to pick up one of those you recommend and give it a whirl.

For the Tri-Ace game, you mean Star Ocean 5? I've picked up that series religiously since SO2 was the best thing ever, but it's been a downhill slide. I'm certain I'll still give them the benefit of the doubt and pre-order it, whenever they do a North America release, but my expectations aren't high at this point. I'd never played anything from Gust until picking up Atelier Ayesha Plus a month or two ago, but it was pretty damn enjoyable (perhaps a more discerning person would say it's a little too sweet and fluffy, but I'm easily entertained), so I'm curious about this one as well. For me at least, the gameplay-related screenshots confuse more than they clarify... so I guess I'll just have to wait for more real information (and a North America release date...)

Common Route (first time through) spoilers: Heroine 1 Route spoilers: And, some overall thoughts about parts of the VN that I'm enjoying (keep in mind I've only finished the Common Route, and I'm partway through Heroine 1's route, so this isn't an especially thorough impression): - I like that Akihito has a sprite which makes not-infrequent appearances, and that he is drawn in CGs frequently. I really dislike the very common practice in VNs of having basically personality-free and faceless protagonists. Since I have no capacity for imagining myself in the world of a VN, I want to read about interesting things happening to believable characters, so I find it off-putting when the VN has a protagonist too heavily-tuned for self-insertion. - I'm also really enjoying the large cast of characters. It feels like there are simply more characters than I'm used to seeing in a VN, and that helps keep things interesting. - The voice acting does a lot for me. I don't think I have an especially high bar for quality voice acting, but simply the fact that it's there is worth a lot to me. I think the only voice I've disliked so far (not counting a lot of the very-side-character male voices, which I think are intentionally made to be more annoying in VNs...) is Kururi's, and her character sort of annoys me in general, so she's probably not getting a fair shake. I really enjoy hearing any other character who is important enough to have a sprite.

Very true. Next person likes hummus.

Oh, sure, I definitely played the shit out of Super Star Ultra way back when it came out. Of course it's great, though. It's a SNES game.

Good to know. I was wanting to give that yarn one a try, but the Wii was so underused I almost never even had it hooked up to the tv, and laziness always won out. I'm going to do my best to not judge you. SNES all the way.

I tried exactly that maybe a year or two ago, and Kirby Mass Attack was just... not very fun. Fortunately, I still get the magic every now and then from a particularly good game. The most recent one that pops to mind for nostalgia + novelty magic was Link Between Worlds.

I find this particularly funny because I was going to call out Sasami Sasasegawa-senpai-sama as my favorite VN antagonist.

Confession: I'm still periodically giggling about this.

Kawaii! But still only 7/10. Needs more horizontal trimming so we can see more detail.

False. Like somebody famous but not famous enough to get this quotation attributed to them once said: all things in moderation. ALL of them. ... Next person wishes they could be on Jeopardy!.

I didn't know either of those by name, and didn't remember Lost My Pieces when I found it, but I just listened to Ame iro Rondo, and... yeah. That's some powerful shit right there.

It's weird. It sounds like you liked the same things I liked about it, but got an order of magnitude less appreciation out of those same things. If I ever want to cry, I just turn this on and wait for 0:54: Feels are about as subjective as it gets, I suppose. Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it as much as I did.

I don't. I did.

False. I haven't watched that one yet. Should I? Next person is hungry.

I just finished reading the two Brandon Sanderson short stories that recently (I think?) came out as standalone stories on Kindle: - Perfect State was amazing and you should go read it now. It's great as a speculative fiction work that is not what it first appears to be, and I expect it's sort of an introductory story to yet another world he's building. Really interesting stuff, and made me really, really want a sequel. - Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell was a little darker, but also very good. As is typical of his stuff, both are quick, compelling reads.

Wow. I kind of want to play it just so I can read the teacher's route, and maybe feel a little less bad for her. I empathize entirely too much with her situation.

I cry for two reasons: - grief - immense relief By far the most often is that it's just a good story making me cry; for "real life" reasons, I recall crying 3 times in the last ten years.

but rather my

I think Realta Nua is different from original Fate/Stay Night. What both hsmsful and Tiagofvarela are describing is the way Fate/Stay Night works. I expect in Realta Nua you just pick a route, and then your choices either lead you to a bad end or alter your affection with characters (which influences which good ending you get). That said, the original game forces you to do Fate, which unlocks Unlimited Bladeworks, which unlocks Heavens Feel. The story is almost certainly best experienced in that order.

On that last note - I have a burn scar obtained while over-zealously stirring a failed attempt to make caramel a little over a year ago. Caramel gets freaking hot. Pulling out arm hair along with the crystallized sugar, before I realized I could just dissolve all of it with water, didn't exactly feel pleasant either...