CorgiShinobi

Your biggest fans will also be your biggest critics. And rather than finding something constructive, it's possible you'll be flooded with regurgitated criticism that's either baseless or misinformed. Alternatively, they'll call you out on your failings, which stings because you know it sucks. But studios are essentially businesses in an industry that demands results and sacrifices. I've had friends leave the industry because of how grueling it can be and to have a bunch of angry voices online doesn't help them out. With social media and the ease of access to individuals in the industry and studios, it creates this toxic cesspool of a relationship. It's like a zookeeper caring for dangerous animals: You mess up or piss them off and you'll suffer. This isn't to completely defend a studio or any one developer. There are more than enough examples of poor behavior and straight up arrogance throughout the years. No one should be under the assumption that any one company is their personal friend or treated like family. They've got staff and mouths to feed, so by default they're going to prioritize themselves. Heck, we're talking about an industry here that lays off employees if a project from another team is either canceled or doesn't meet financial expectations.

I never watched it when it was current, so I finally got around to The Devil Is a Part-Timer. Again, I wish people would have explained this better to me because the impression I got was that a demon lord was banished to Earth and forced to work at McDonald's MgRonald's. Instead, Satan and his trusted right-hand Alciel willingly flee to Earth and have to make a life for themselves until they can gather enough magic and return to Ente Isla. They aren't the only residents of their world however and so begins a series of comedy and action with some almost too real slice-of-life moments. I mean, in just the first episode Satan is tempted to use his limited magic reserves to cook some french fries after the fryer breaks down. If he doesn't, then the location won't be #1 in sales!

So I've bought myself a PS4 Pro... Normally I wouldn't have bothered, especially because we should probably be getting a PS5 next year. But... I have a girlfriend now and she's a gamer too. We've played on one of her friend's Minecraft server, but maybe one other person gets on, so it's usually just us. I help her with her base, but I'm still essentially a stranger in a world built by absent adventurers. So I had the idea of upgrading myself to the Pro and giving my girlfriend my original PS4. Getting her into Monster Hunter World and come September there will be the Iceborne DLC. If anything, there are tons of $20 (or cheaper) classics on the PS4, so I think it's a solid system to have and purchase a few games over time. Last night I finished the system transfer, so for the most part it's all set up aside from restoring the original and getting that ready for her.

Yeah a Raspberry Pi would ultimately be the best, but the case and modding support for the "PSC" right now is worth the $20 if you ask me. So I got one the other day, though I had to venture to... Walmart... It's a hellish hell which even Hell would say, "Oh hell nah!" Screaming kids everywhere and about every 10.1 seconds you'll see someone's butt crack. I suspect it is the cultural custom for all loyal patrons of Wally World. The store has the PSC behind a glass case, so I needed an associate. The thing about Walmart is you can rarely find a spare associate who is either not doing freight or actually wants to help you. I can't quite blame them with their unique clientele, but in this situation you do need them. The Walmart app, when entering a store goes into "Store Assistant" mode. In store they wanted to charge $40, but online it's $20. Thing is, the online pricing gets masked by the store pricing, so you have to fiddle with it to pull up the Walmart.com pricing. Oh, and I guess Walmart no longer price matches. Because when I couldn't find the online price at first, I thought I might as well price match with Best Buy instead. The associate gives me this curt rejection and claims they haven't price matched in "a long time." Except when I looked online later the change in policy was effective May 14, 2019. Even when I got the online pricing back up, the associate didn't believe I was in the Walmart app. So I back out of the item description and show her the app displaying the store map and aisle numbers. But she still didn't believe me, so I backed out all the way to the Walmart app's homepage. So she believes me now and is willing to charge the $20 price instead. Except, right after she agrees, she scans it and asks for the $40 price. Like... WTF?! I guess it could have been a mistake, but we had just finished talking about adjusting the price and the next second she wants me to swipe the card. It has me wondering if my Walmart is now downright shady and bullheaded about their pricing. The company is no longer the "best value" in pricing and all the cuts they've made are probably digging into them now.

For $20, might as well bite for modding/emulating. To think this once cost $100 at launch. ?

There's more coverage online today for us in the West, but the articles are becoming half-assed attempts to gain more views. New York Times published an article insinuating that the arsonist attacked the studio with a sexist motive, completely glossing over his mental health and recent coverage. KyoAni does have more female employees, but by all accounts the guy was attacking everyone through his twisted logic that the entire studio wronged him. It pisses me off that these news outlets are probably thinking to themselves, "Gee, how do we get more people to view our article? I know, throw in some gender politics and Japanese stereotypes!" Not like they can't be assed to do more research and report on the most recent developments. I mean, that doesn't get the clicks! Just... damn it! I can't believe Reddit and Wikipedia are a more reliable source on this tragedy.

I rarely play in handheld mode now a days. Even still, I too have a powerbank and it has been handy in the past for all kinds of devices. If I was ever in the car as a passenger, I could use my car charger which also works on my phone.

I don't remember struggling with the combat in Hellblade. I can think of two parts and one of them was very intentional. First was the bridge leading to the final boss area. It restricts your movement and should you allow enough enemies to gather, it's hard to do crowd control. The second is the spoiler, but not to toot my own horn, I recognized the design behind it...

I played it on Wii U, so I got to experience turning a handheld device and looking at the TV. ?

The game is worth playing for the Connor and Hank story alone. It's the one universally agreed upon "great" thing about the game.

I'm okay with not having another model tempting me to upgrade. Nintendo has done handhelds both ways before, but I imagine they'll consider the Switch Lite the "handheld" console and the original Switch as fulfilling the home console market with the benefit of portability. I mean, truth be told I hardly ever use the Joy-Cons by themselves, but that's mostly because I've never had games that benefit from the control method. Well, outside of some Super Mario Odyssey cheese... Might be a great Christmas gift for my niece. I had my first Game Boy around her age and she has gotten into Pokemon thanks to the anime and the Detective Pikachu movie. However, the Switch Lite strongly favors being a personal device. It can't connect to a TV and by default has no kickstand. So to have a multiplayer experience, you're buying additional controllers to play on a 5.5" screen propped up with a third party stand. So the more "family entertainment" friendly of the two is the original Switch.

I'm in the same boat. When the game went back on sale for $12, I gave it a shot. It feels hollow. Like sure, it's suppose to be a "spiritual successor," but it doesn't do anything to innovative the formula. Maybe it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario as people were wanting essentially another Banjo-Kazooie. Ironically, it feels like a rip-off even with the original talent behind it. And the voices... there's just something annoying to them now. Doesn't help that you hear them any time you want to navigate the menus.

I wish someone gave me a proper explanation of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai sooner. If all you have to go on is the title, the banner/poster image, and a bunch of dudes talking about thighs, it's hardly an accurate description of the show. I did not expect the premise of the show to be about a strange "Puberty Syndrome" phenomenon that screws with reality. I don't like the quantum physics explanations and looking online it seems most don't like it either as they're rather half-hearted in their nature (or just inaccurate). The romance, drama, and humor of this show is spectacular. I marathoned the whole series today. I couldn't help it because the episodes ended on the craziest of cliffhangers. And now I learn there's a recent movie that explains a certain character that barely showed up, but plays such a big role to the plot of the series. Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl, but no word on any international airs/releases. Heck, the Blu-rays don't come out until November 19.

It is a far more appropriate film to have post-Endgame than how Ant-Man and the Wasp was post-Infinity War. It touches upon the impact and does serve as a nice cleanup of Phase 3. RE: RE: Spoiler

It's not so much a pet peeve, but I really can't justify watching a movie "review" that's longer than 15 minutes. Why watch a 40-120 minute video review of a movie? It always means it's a bunch of dudes who can't get to the point.

Spider-Man: Far From Home Pretty good all around. You can't talk about it too much since half the film follows a specific spoiler. I found MJ to be a better character in this film, but then again she was never really a focus in Homecoming. There's so much great humor in this film. Eventually we get some great Spidey action, but for most of the film we don't really get a lot of Spider-Man specific action. It's all on the group effort of Mysterio and Nick Fury's ragtag team along with Spider-Man. There's a good reason for it as Peter is going through the internal conflict of being both a high school kid and possibly becoming the next Tony Stark. There is a massive thorn in the movie's plot. Massive spoiler: But yeah, stay for the mid-credit and post-credit scenes. Really great stuff, mostly from the mid-credit scene. If you've seen Captain Marvel, you'll get the post-credit scene.

Man, I gotta finish VC4. I didn't even know there was a contest/game for the Summer Sale until I had already bought all the games I wanted. The mobile app does a piss poor job of showing what the heck is going on. I'm thinking of getting Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night now, but that's about it.

Devil May Cry 5 (finally)! When I first booted the game, the color was all wrong and I basically had to get through the first steps with a deep neon magenta hue. The game seemed to want to use HDR, but even though my TV should support it, I've never got the set up right. Thing is, I didn't see an option to disable HDR in-game. I played around with settings and it wasn't until I messed with the display area (windowed, etc) that the settings went back to a non-HDR configuration. Otherwise, fun game. I'm playing with the Switch Pro Controller and I used Steam to remap the buttons. However, I might go back to Xbox layout because it feels off to me. Slashing and jumping being the left and right button (respectively) is weird. It's my own personal preference, but I do keep finding myself using the Devil Breaker when I want to jump instead.

Saw Toy Story 4 with the family while I was on vacation. It's a great film and there's still a lot of emotion that Pixar can make you feel for these toys. There's great humor and also great sadness. Thing is, Toy Story 3 still feels like a true end to the series whereas Toy Story 4 is like an excellent optional story. The character Forky is a great addition to the plot, though after his initial introduction and dilemma he creates for Woody, he more so becomes a plot point rather than acting as his own character. Having Bo back and being such a strong character saves this film from being ho-hum. It gives us as a viewer a different perspective on lost toys; do they really need a home? The antagonist of the film is far more sympathetic than Lotso, but also far less threatening. The real driving force behind this film is the conflict Woody feels for his role as Bonnie's toy and his own happiness. I don't consider this really a spoiler, but it's a pivotal plot point so I'll still mark it: Still it's a fantastic film in its own right. The lessons for both children and adults is very mature and it's surreal to get these from a film about toys. But then again, Toy Story has always tackled powerful life moments where choice must be made, and sometimes paths take us where we least suspect it.

It would be cool if it was Ganondorf, but at the same time I'd be more thrilled if it was a unique villain that is somehow using the Malice. Heck, it could be just the Malice taking over the corpse of Ganondorf. Like, in a weird sense, Calamity Ganon is gone, but his infection of Hyrule has become sentient and has a will to consume Hyrule.

The Electric-type corgi is real and I love it! Yamper! There's also a Dark/Fairy-type that's the stuff of nightmares.