toxicitizen

I proudly present to you the latest episode in the "I'm running out of bookshelf space because I keep filling them up with stuff that aren't books!" saga. They're finally here! I pre-ordered them back in October and they kept getting delayed because of Covid/shipping issue in the US so it's kinda surreal to finally have them. They're also much bigger than I thought they would be. I can't even fit all of my Dune books on the shelf because of their size. They look so good, though! I'm gonna be super paranoid about breaking them, though. The Witcher ones are so blunt that I almost feel like I need to wear a safety helmet when I'm around them. These on the other hand feel like they're made from a more high quality/fragile material and have so many little bits that could break off.

Yeah, I know. I just really needed a break from it. I wasn't having fun with it anymore. Although getting distracted from it so heavily by Persona 4 was never the plan. I blame P4AU for that lol.

79.8 hours according to Steam. And I haven't played since April 6th... But yeah, probably like half of my playtime was spent just exploring and screwing around. I'm at the final boss (or at least, I assume it's the final boss) of the area you reach after beating fire giant. IIRC there's a whole section of the place that I haven't fully explored yet. It seemed very unwelcoming when I checked it out so I promptly grabbed my stuff and left.

Lol to be fair, like I said, I DID actually try. I just didn't expect it to pop-up so effortlessly considering that what I was doing wasn't that different from how I would normally play.

Damn, you've almost caught up to me. Maybe I should try to finish this already before doing P4G NG+.

Persona 4 Golden Sweet fucking Christ, this game is long. I picked my playthrough back up 40 hours in, right after Rise's dungeon, thinking I was roughly halfway through but here I am over 70 hours later having just finished it last night lol. Still a fantastic game, though. I remember not being 100% into replaying it when the PC port first came out but playing a lot of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax a couple weeks ago made me really eager to spend more time with these characters. Also, I did not remember the Hollow Forest being this fucking awful. It really feels like they didn't want to create a new tier of equipment and enemies solely for it, so they just took away your gear and items and have you fight low level enemies. That made me just avoid combat as much as possible, which they clearly anticipated because on like half the floors you get into fights when you open doors lol. Good thing it's not the final dungeon like I was thinking because it would've ended the game on a pretty low note. You'd think I would've had my fill after 70+ hours of playing this but I want PC ports of P3 and P5R more than ever. I want more, just... with a different cast. I really hope they'll announce the P5R port this year... In the meantime, new game + will have to do. I'll probably rush through it with a guide and skip cutscenes because as much as I enjoyed coming back to the game I really don't wanna spend another 100+ hours on it. Also, thank fucking God I once again got Hardcore Risette Fan without even trying because that would've probably made me put it off for a while. I mean, I did try and went out of my way to constantly trigger as many of Rise's lines as possible but I'm really baffled that I got it so easily not once but twice when everyone else seems to have so much trouble with it. I wasn't even using a spreadsheet to keep track of which lines I got like people recommend. I really wonder if I'm somehow doing something that everyone else isn't or just really fucking lucky with this one particular achievement. But yeah, really glad to have one less thing to worry about on NG+ because I feel like I'll already have enough to keep track of with maxing out all social links and filling out the compendium.

Is it true that Shadow the Hedgehog is in the post-credit scene?

Oh yeah, forgot to mention but the PC version has customizable difficulty settings and for most of the game I left it as default. So if I die I can restart at the entrance of the current floor but that started feeling tedious and like a waste of time so last night I turned on battle retry and holy fuck what a broken, garbage setting lol. I assumed I'd just restart the battle from the beginning but no. I didn't die again until the dungeon's boss and my entire party got revived + healed but the boss's health bar didn't refill. It's not retry so much as God mode; just a straight-up built-in cheat code. I was so disgusted that I actually just let myself die again and declined the retry so I could start at the floor entrance instead lol. It was the last floor so it didn't really change anything.

Lmao It popped up out of nowhere halfway through Heaven, which I think is kind of early? I wonder if it glitched out or something. At this point I genuinely can't tell if I'm doing something that everyone else isn't or just fucking lucky.

That's... the most Kojima thing ever. I love this man lol.

As a 10$ upgrade, it's a no-brainer. Although on PC it's a separate version with a different achievements list, so that means I have to start over from scratch. There might be a way to transfer my old save but I honestly welcome the excuse to do a full replay. It's just not going to happen anytime soon. Probably going to hold off until I get my GPU upgrade later this year, so I can have a smoother experience with it this time.

Lmao. I really need to play this game.

Did you do the Peralez quest line? Cause that's maybe my favorite out of the entire game. River Ward's quest (which branches off from the Peralez one IIRC) is also really fucking great, although it feels like it probably had some cut content because it's over very quickly compared to others. Oh and Kerry's quest is also really fun although it's more character-driven and focused on Johnny. Really, all the quests around the main companions are great.

Damn, dude, you missed out. I hope you're planning to rectify that because some of the best content in the game is in the side-quests. The meatier one, I mean, though the smaller gigs that you always get calls about while roaming around were like crack to me. I just couldn't get enough of those.

None that I've been but mostly just understand that this isn't like the other From games. If something sucks or is giving you a hard time, walk away. Go explore and do something else. I spent like 10+ hours exploring the first area before I even tried the first big story boss. You'll always find something, whether it's a little crypt with an item, a boss, or a mini-dungeon with both. Hell, sometimes you'll find an elevator going down out in the middle of nowhere and it'll take you places. Oh and the grace lines on the map are there to point you in the general direction of nearby important things and and it's easy to get confused early on but they don't change to reflect your progress or whether you cleared that particular spot already. It's literally just "this is where you should probably go eventually if you haven't yet".

Yeah, I actually got it without even trying in my first playthrough on Vita. I hope I'll get lucky again but I'm going out of my way to use her enemy scanning constantly and making sure to swap party members regularly just to be safe.

That's the last thing I did and yeah, by the end I was basically selling everything I owned, including my clothes, and still came up short. Ended up having to farm some enemy encounters for loot to sell. I'm still missing two achievements because I didn't save enough stats/skill points to max out one and craft legendary items, though. Gonna have to do a replay at some point. Didn't know they were gonna add NG+, though. That'll be handy for that. ---------- Also, yesterday I caved and got back into P4G. I remember bouncing off of it after 40h when it launched on Steam (I think I may have gotten distracted from it by another release) but I'm really enjoying getting back into it. P4AU really gave me an itch to spend time with these characters again. Hopefully I can finish it quickly and then rush through NG+ to finally get all the achievements. Never did bother getting the Platinum on Vita.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I had been playing Dark Souls Remastered before Elden Ring launched and like 50h into my Elden Ring playthrough I randomly fired it up again because I felt like taking another crack at the boss I had been stuck on (Black Dragon Kalameet). And I just could not believe how slow and sluggish it was. When you get knocked down it takes approximately 9 years before you get back up and you actually come to a complete stop when you drink from the estus flask! The first time it happened I screamed at the screen lol. That particular detail had never stood out to me before but now I don't think I can ever fully go back to Dark Souls 1. It's still a really good game but I think it's finally going to start feeling a bit dated for me. There's just too many QoL improvements in Elden Ring. Shield counters alone have completely changed the way I play.

I was feeling pretty burnt out on Elden Ring so I had to take a break. Game's just too big and/or I'm just getting too old for that much Souls I guess lmao. So yeah, I was gonna take a short break and the rerelease of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax came out with perfect timing so I decided to dig into it right away. And now I'm super tempted to both get back to P4G and finish my playthrough before doing P4AU's story mode but also now I have this fighting game itch so I wanna fire up SFV and I just reinstalled Dragon Ball FighterZ... All of this with Elden Ring and Yakuza 3 (that I started way back in October) both unfinished. What is wrong with me lol? It's like no matter what I play my brain goes

I think it's just different endings so you can get away with one if you backup your save.

Definitely don't need to be buying more games rn, especially not games that are still a bit pricey, but it's hit an all-time low (50% off) and I've been low-key looking for a decent deal for a few weeks because I'd like to play it in the near future, so to the top of the backlog it goes. edit: Oh wait I also got this a few days ago cause it dropped to like 12 bucks.

That JoJo fighting game is getting a rerelease and it's coming to PC this time!!! So @Mister Jack, on a scale of 1 to You Are Already Dead, how spoiled will I be if I play this without being fully caught up?

I'm still completely lost in Elden Ring but surely I'll be done by this time next month when this comes out... Surely... Also, I guess I never got around to posting it but it goes without saying that I bought this the second I could: I still need to get around to playing FFV, though...

I dare say this is starting to look like a somewhat respectable collection! For now I'm caught up on both the Junji Ito and Berserk releases so my wallet can rest for a few months. ...or I could just find something else to start collecting. JoJo and Vinland Saga both have some really nice hardcover editions... Really excited to reread Berserk, though. It's been so long, I don't really remember anything beyond the Golden Age. Or how far into it I actually got.