Mister Jack

A dataminer has FINALLY figured out what determines if villagers move out or not.

Start with 0. It's the best in the series and also the first chronological chapter. Even if you decide not to continue after you finish it, it's still a great game all on its own.

Yakuza 3 So the first to get out of the way is to point out that this is NOT a Kiwami style remake. This is pretty much the original game as it was released except with updated textures and a new localization. As such, well, there's just no way around it. The gameplay is outdated. Really outdated. Only one martial arts style that feels pretty limited, unskippable cutscenes that you can't even pause unless you hit the PS button, an inferior hostess club side quest, a lack of interesting games to play at Club Sega, and on top of all that there isn't even a run button this time around. You get a second city to play around in with Okinawa in addition to Kamurocho, but the truth is that Okinawa just isn't all that interesting. There's a lot working against this game in 2020. Thankfully, this is a game that's salvaged by its story. The crime drama that's at play here, while not as compelling as 0, Kiwami, or Kiwami 2 in my personal opinion, is still interesting enough that I wanted to keep going to the end. Even a lesser Yakuza plot is still going to be about ten times better than the plot of most games out there. However, I do take issue with the pacing. While the yakuza drama is good once it gets going, it takes its sweet time getting there. Kiryu spends roughly a third of the game just dicking about at an orphanage in Okinawa with very little actual yakuza stuff involved. You're mostly taking care of these orphans and helping them with their problems, and while I do see the appeal in showing Kiryu's softer side and the importance of fleshing out his family I still feel like a little too much time was spent on these kids. Fortunately, the backwater yakuza family in Okinawa happens to be pretty likable and I think they were pretty good additions to the franchise. I'm not gonna lie, I doubt I'll go back to this one anytime soon. I didn't hate it but out of all the Yakuza games I've played so far this one is easily the weakest entry. Maybe that's unfair to say when the other games I've played were made with modern design sensibilities in mind, but it is what it is. Still, I bought the remastered trilogy as a bundle so I figured I might as well play through all of them. Even if you plan on buying them digitally, I still don't know that I would recommend skipping this one because then you'll be missing a huge chunk of the overall plot. If you want to play the complete Kiryu saga then I would say just go ahead and get this one and blaze through the main story missions quickly before moving on to Yakuza 4.

Final Fantasy VII Remake This was pretty great...for the most part. First and foremost, it's kind of surreal that I actually played a Final Fantasy VII remake in the first place. It's like catching a unicorn. Anyway, the new combat system is one of the best in the franchise and I mostly enjoyed the expanded story content they did. Characters like Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie who were pretty minor before have been greatly expanded upon among others and for the most part it works. There are also some new characters who can be kind of hit or miss, but I didn't hate any of them. I think the new stuff is mostly fine except for two things. The first issue is that there's a little too much padding. The side quests are almost all a "go here and kill this" or "go collect these" affair, which isn't very thrilling but you still want to do them for the rewards and extra exp. As for the second issue... Still a pretty great and challenging game and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. Maybe I'll go back later to replay optional stuff I didn't get around to, but for now I'm moving on to Yakuza 3.

Got this on sale. Now I can finally see the rest of Kiryu's story. Until, you know, I gotta play Yakuza 6.

SCOOB! Okay so this one is kind of odd. It's not a very good movie, but at the same time it's kind of enjoyably bad? While I can't prove it, I feel pretty sure that WB is trying to kickstart some kind of Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe because this movie has quite a few cameos from characters who aren't originally part of Scooby-Doo. It's pandering for sure, but it's the kind of pandering that directly targets me so I couldn't help but feel happy when another character I recognized came onto the screen. Unfortunately they also recast Mystery Inc, except for Scooby himself, and I do not like the new voices at all. Daphne is passable I guess but the rest just don't sound good. I'm really tired of Hollywood hiring mediocre voice actors because they want a big name attached to the project. Frankly, the names they did attach aren't even that big. There's also this really forced conflict about how Shaggy and Scooby leave in the beginning because a cringy celebrity cameo that's quite literally 10 years out of date tells them that they don't contribute anything to the team. Then Fred, Daphne, and Velma are made out like the bad guys for driving them away even though they never said a single line that implied they felt that way. The plot is also really weird and ridiculous, even for a cartoon. Think Scooby-Doo live action movie plot weird and it's not far off the mark, although this was still better than that movie. There's also some real eye-rolling "heartwarming" dialogue about the power of friendship. Barf. So what did I like? Well some of the jokes actually did make me laugh. They don't all land, far from it, but enough of them landed for me to consider myself entertained. Dick Dastardly was also a pretty fun villain, every bit as conniving and mustache twirling as you'd expect him to be. My favorite character actually ended up being Dynomutt, who is surprisingly way better than his original version. The original Dynomutt was a doofy, bumbling screwup like every animal sidekick in the 60s and 70s, but this Dynomutt is actually highly competent and put-upon while Blue Falcon is a bumbling superhero who never listens to Dynomutt's good advice. That's a much more amusing dynamic to me. So while I wouldn't go as far as to urge anybody to check this out, I will say that I think it could provide some dumb fun if you decide to watch it with no expectations.

Well I can check the Persona 5 Royal platinum off of the list now. This one was actually easier to get than the vanilla version's platinum. You don't even have to beat the twins or complete the persona compendium, although you do have to beat the Reaper. It gives me the impression that they made the trophies specifically for people who already did everything in the last version and wouldn't feel like doing it a second time.

It looks okay but that's kind of the problem. It just looks okay, like every other open world game ever made. It would probably be fun enough if I play it, but do I want to spend $60 on something that looks like I've already played it a hundred times? I don't know. I might just get Nioh 2 instead.

I am still pretty tired of games that try some fourth wall meta bullcrap like whoa maybe you're a bad person for playing such an awful game! It was okay when Spec Ops did it because it was a relatively new idea at the time but now it just annoys me. If you're going to shame me for playing your game then you better have given it away for free because otherwise you people are gigantic hypocrites. Yeah, maybe I'm playing something violent and messed up but you're the ones who spent years making it and are now profiting off of it so what's that say about you?

The clock rolled over while I was waiting in line to sell at a lucrative island. I didn't realize turnips always spoiled on Sunday no matter what. I bought them from a time traveler and assumed they'd be good for seven days on my non-time traveling Switch but that is not the case at all. Thankfully I have since managed to bounce back by using the last of my bells to go back in on turnips AFTER Sunday and sell them for a 3 million bell profit on another island, but boy did that get hairy for a while. If that last Hail Mary maneuver hadn't panned out I would have been completely fucked. I felt like the Wolf of Wall Street, checking turnip exchanges online and making a mad dash for the best islands before they filled up. Seriously, those queues can go from 0 to 50 in just the few seconds it takes to click on the button to join. Turnips be crazy.

I don't even have to look it up to know Trump hasn't found shit.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I JUST LOST OVER A MILLION BELLS IN THE TURNIP MARKET NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Sooner than I expected! I already got the season pass with the deluxe edition so bring it on!

So how are they gonna explain away this one?

God I am so tired of picture based captchas, especially the "click verify once all pictures of X are cleared" kinds. I tried to sign into my PSN account on my laptop and had to load and then dismiss a picture of a fire hydrant six times. Enough!

I really wish they'd have her stick around all day on Sunday. Or at least until 5 PM or something. Or hell, move her time frame so she shows up at a time later than 5 in the freaking morning.

I also need to remember to buy turnips during the small window of time when Daisy Mae shows up.

I really need to play the stalk market but I am just so afraid of wiping out my savings...

Persona 5 Royal Man, what a game. If you haven't played Persona 5 yet then don't even bother with the vanilla version because this is now the only way to play. I finished with the true ending at just over 107 hours, which is roughly 20 hours more than it took me to beat the first playthrough of the original release. Not only is there an extra semester on the calendar after the original final boss with a new palace, a new FINAL final boss, and multiple new endings, but the whole game has gotten a lot of balance tweaks and quality of life improvements. Guns refill their ammo after every battle now, which is a big game changer since you no longer have to ration a handful of bullets for an entire day. The game is also more generous now with providing ways to restore or save SP, letting you use skills more. Palaces that used to take me two or three days to get through are now possible in just one day thanks to this. Of course, you need the extra free time because now there are two new confidants, another confidant that has been expanded upon, and new side activities. Perhaps the biggest change to combat is the increased viability of status effects and tech hits. Before, these were just a small little damage bonus whenever they happened to pop up, but now they've been buffed so much that they're a vital strategy in battle. In fact, if you put in the effort to level up the newly introduced tech ranking the tech hits can be even stronger than exploiting weaknesses. It adds a whole new layer to combat and it's great. It also helps that the palaces have been remixed to be less repetitive and you now have a grappling hook to help you get around faster. The new story bits are introduced during the story of the original game and eventually culminate near the end if certain conditions are met. The new party member, Kasumi, is extremely charming and has a really compelling story arc that kept me glued to the controller. The new villain is also pretty interesting. Their motives, methods, and ultimate goal are surprisingly complex and I imagine there are probably some heated discussions in the Persona community surrounding it all. It does feel more like an epilogue, even if the stakes are higher than before, but it's a good epilogue. But fuck all that. MORGANA DOESN'T MAKE YOU GO TO BED ALL THE TIME ANYMORE! Thank god! He still doesn't let you leave the cafe if you spent the afternoon in the metaverse, but at least you can still do things like read books or raise your social stats. You can still do something so it doesn't always feel like your time is being wasted. Persona 5 was my GOTY back in 2017 and if 2020 wasn't such a strong year for games already I'd be tempted to make it my GOTY all over again. It's one of the best JRPGs I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

Why...exactly...would doctors and nurses inject someone with a death virus on purpose? What exactly is the logic behind this conspiracy theory?

Don't suppose there's a US version of that link?

Are you longing for a specific villager but you can't seem to get them on your own and amiibo cards are ridiculously expensive online? Try amiibo coins, which are fanmade coins that work just as well as amiibo cards, only without the collectible card part of it. A lot of people still charge out the ass for popular character coins, but this lovely lady is creating coins on request at a flat rate no matter the character. I went ahead and ordered a couple. I expect them to work just fine because she has a ton of good feedback but when they eventually arrive I'll do a follow-up in case anyone is unsure.

I've wanted this game since the 90s. Of course I was going to buy it.

20 dollars is pretty steep for me, a guy who usually watches movies alone these days, but if they bumped that rental up to 72 hours I could maybe swallow that price. This is all pretty experimental right now and there's plenty of time to adjust the model.