This Week’s Topics:

• A rain themed TSF manga
• The prelude for the biggest entertainment launch of all time
• The 21st Annual Spike Video Game Awards Rundown
• A call to download everything you love
• A pronoun predicament

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Rundown Preamble Ramble:
The Game Awards Happened!

…Y’all remember E For All? It was originally imagined as a sort of low key sister event to E3 and was open to the public. It was held in October 2007, and did pretty well, with over 18,000 attendees. The big takeaway from the show was the fact that thousands of people got to play Super Smash Bros. Brawl— as Sonic no less— for the first time ever. 

I assumed it was a one-in-done event and deemed it a failure or not worth the effort. But there was apparently a second event in 2008— which I somehow never heard about despite being deep into gaming news at the time. But per a Nintendo World Report article from back then… that’s because there was nothing to get excited about there, as only a few companies even bothered showing up.

I could be wrong, as I am relying on a bag of hamburger meat I have rolling around in my skull, but I remember E For All being pushed as a way to turn E3 into a quarterly event. An idea that made sense to 12-year-old proto-Natalie, but… just does not work. It assumes that ESA run events are the only place major news should be revealed, and the role the ESA was trying to assume was largely fulfilled by PAX. And PAX definitely did a better job than the ESA ever could.

Why am I bringing this up? Because the hamburger meat told me to, and I must obey the meat.

But also because I tend to view The Game Awards as an E3 supplemental event that captures the same purpose. It is effectively a third party media briefing or press conference held 6 months after E3, and almost always home to a good chunk of announcements.

Of course, my use of the term E3 there is a bit more figurative. E3 is as dead as yo momma’s dinner, its general function has been fulfilled by Segmented Summer Showcases that mostly cluster around early June. 

I do not, and never have, viewed the awards as having any true merit or meaning, as I still remember watching this show back in 2010, when it was called the Spike Video Game Awards. And in the past 13 years… they have become far less White dude centric, but if you look up the 2012 show… the spirit and flavor are very similar. 

Side note, but someone needs to come up with a one-word or compound word term that succinctly encompasses ‘shit for cishet White dudes circa 1992 to 2014.’ Before ‘shit for cishet White dudes’ and ‘diet Nazi shit’ became the same thing. All thanks to this dollar general waifu:

Akumako: “Natalie is a dumb fuck who made a character based on Vivian James, and called her Vivi Gaimz. Because Kamen Rider is cool.”

Also, for the record, I did not bother watching The Game Awards, nor did I keep up with the happenings over on 𝕏Death: The Genocider Requiem. I had better things to do. Like writing my novel. And playing a game that I low-key doubt sold over 1,000 copies. And reporting on a controversy surrounding a genre defining hentai game!

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TSF Showcase 2023-41
Ame Nochi Hare [Clear Up After Rain] by Bikke

Now this is a name I haven’t heard in a long time. 2009 to 2012 was something of the peak period for me when it came to scrounging the internet for TSF, or rather TG, media. Reading Fictionmania stories, searching out good caption sites, doing my daily search through DeviantArt for good stuff, and checking on whatever resources I could find.

It was an obsession, but in my pursuit for amassing an ethereal collection, I came across several promising ‘gender bender’ manga. Ones that I interpreted as the only mainstream, long-form, ongoing, English translated, manga that featured TSF as a central element. Ame Nochi Hare, Nyotai-ka, and Sekainohate de Aimashou. I mean, sure, there was stuff on TG Comics— a site I really should revisit now that my brain has stopped developing— but this felt more special.

The problem with these series, aside from Sekainohate de Aimashou, is the problem that plagues many fan translated comics. The translation group starts something, disappears into the ether, and the comic is left abandoned, to be picked up by another group, who may very well drop it after putting out just a few chapters. …Also Nyotai-ka got picked up by Project Hentai as a physical-only release. As such, it is a small miracle this comic ever received a full translation, and it took me over a decade before I read its conclusion. 

So, is Ame Nochi Hare good, and did it live up to the fond memories of it I have accumulated in the back of my brain? …No. 

I read through all eight volumes in a day— which took me over 8 hours— and I think the story kind of botches its potential and under-delivers in many ways. So consider this to be less of a showcase of something great and a dive into the untapped potential of Ame Nochi Hare! Or maybe it’s a review. I don’t know anymore!

Ame Nochi Hare follows a group of five boys attending a gender segregated boarding school who, following a violent storm, are transformed into girls. Well, temporarily. The series sees the cast of five alternate between their male and female forms in accordance with the weather. After it has rained for approximately an hour, they will transform into girls, and will remain in that form for 12 hours after the rain clears up. (Hence the title.) It’s a slightly complicated transformation system, far more complex and less fluid than hot/cold water or electricity/sex or day cycle, but one that I respect.

It is a transformation system that subjects humans to the whims of nature, robs the protagonists of power fantasy of having a controllable transformation, and sprinkles in a layer of randomness.. Similarly, the duration of the transformations is a good way to keep the characters locked between different forms for significant lengths of time, which, in turn, drives many of the conflicts throughout the story. Also, I liked this mechanic so much that I adjusted it for a novella I wrote a decade ago.

For the first few chapters, the story is primarily concerned with set up. Introducing the main cast of Hazuki Yamanoi, Junta Goromaru, Madoka Sakonji, Yuusuke Maki, and Touma Kisaragi along with their group dynamics. Meeting the chairman of the school, Haruto, who helps them pull strings to attend school as both men and women. Introducing a significant supporting cast of fellow school people. And showing the protagonists as they are thrust into the world of girlhood. Buying underwear, wearing female uniforms, traveling through the cluttered woods to attend school at the female campus, and pursuing female friendships. 

Ame Nochi Hare starts with some strong footing, establishing itself as a story about a group of adolescents learning more about the world, themselves, and those they care about by becoming women. It allows them to form different connections not only with those around them, but each other. The act of becoming women gives them the freedom to act like women, to be seen as women, and form relationships that would be impossible if they were merely men. Thereby granting thema fuller understanding of those around them and, quite possibly, themselves.

When the story is pursuing this idea, exploring how characters juggle relationships with their dual identities, their hearts switching between that of a man and that of a woman, it can be genuinely beautiful. Seeing the group talk about the fragility, limitations, beauty, and, to an extent, freedom of their forms captures something I seldom see when perusing TSF manga. And the low stakes, soft-acceptance of this fact of life, of this magical transformation, gives the story a unique feel. The protagonists may not want their lives to be so complicated, but they don’t mope about it and just treat this as a part of life. Something to enjoy for what it is, rather than a curse they must undo.

There are plenty of tender moments of this manga that shine radiantly, capturing a feeling, a vibe, that reminds me of everything this comic could be… but instead, it’s just weirdly bloated and messy.

Ame Nochi Hare is ultimately a shoujo drama, a genre I admittedly have precious little familiarity with. And throughout my day-long binge of it, I could not help but wonder if there was something about it I was simply not getting about this genre and how stories work within it. …Because I just found the bulk of everything here to feel like a load of fluff and filler.

Rather than focusing on the five protagonists, their relationships, and their arcs, the story instead casts a wide net and aims to craft a cast of dozens, connected via a detailed relationship chart. Family members, friends, siblings, other students who they know via clubs, et cetera. All of whom are occasionally made the focus of the story in an attempt to give them additional depth, but it mostly serves to detract from the story of the protagonists, which confuses me.

When viewing a story, I typically try to break it down into an outline, identifying the purpose of scenes, story beats, and aligning them onto a story chart. This is all mental, but as someone who likes to write from an outline, it’s how I internalize things. With Ame Nochi Hare, I feel as if there was no outline or clear idea what its story would be beyond the concepts and relationships. It’s most just a story about… teenagers living their life, and what they get up to outside of classes. 

Chapters have things that happen, and could be construed as progress toward one relationship or another. But so many of them cut back and forth so frequently and feature so many characters that it feels like the writer lacks much vision for this story or where they want it to go. Which is not helped by how often the whole TSF element is… just ignored. The story’s primary job, in my mind, is to make the most of its transformation premise, and it just doesn’t. Only some characters seek out relationships in their female forms, and I struggle to recall anything substantive some of them did under these new forms. Hazuki has his own love quadrangle with Asumi and Takuma. But for Yuusuke, he uses his girl form to get closer to his girlfriend from Kansai… I guess?

The story continues to waft and waver around for quite a while, but it eventually makes it clear that it is about in its final chapters. Ame Nochi Hare is the story about boys who become girls in order to learn a woman’s heart, confess their love, and become romantically mature men. The whole transformation element is ultimately a tool for them to understand women better, so they can enter into heterosexual relationships with them, or at least try.

Yeah, if that last sentence didn’t give this away, despite having such a queer premise and featuring a cast of pretty boys becoming pretty girls, this comic’s not interested in being queer. It has several queer characters, but they are not allowed to be with the people they love. They are turned down, rejected, and left to live the rest of their lives searching for love, or left musing about whether their hearts will change in the future. (If they will stop being queer and become straight.) Also, none of the boys stay as girls, or accept the heart of a woman. So, no trans stuff here either.

I could see this really not sitting well with people, or even being ‘queerbaiting’ to some extent, but I just view it as coming from a creator with a closed imagination. Something born from ignorance or traditionalism, rather than a point of malice. 

The story is also largely devoid of anything sexual. Despite the cast being a bunch of 15-year-old boys, they are too chaste or intimidated by their bodies to try anything lewd. Sexual features are not really discussed beyond breasts and a bra shopping excursion and a few bra related comments. While topics like pregnancy and menstruation are complete non-factors. I guess the writer was more concerned with romance and love than anything of this nature, and in all fairness, that is probably the most successful element of this story. 

Three of the five protagonists are given meaningful romantic relationships. One gets rejected because he barely knew his romantic counterpart. And the other guy is gay, and French, so he doesn’t get to kiss anyone.

I also should comment on the artwork, as I think it is what first drew me into this comic. The cover art for this series is phenomenal. The watercoloring pairs perfectly with the series’ identity. The texture of the canvas and shading of the brushstroke is masterful. And even when it is just having the characters stand about and pose for the camera, it manages to capture a vast amount of their character just from the way they stand and the expression on their faces.

The standard pages are similarly soulful and pretty. It features a more typical shoujo style with boys so pretty, you can barely notice when they’re girls. Dynamic panel work that keeps the story visually interesting throughout. Detailed environments, cute and expressive characters, and a general softness that keeps the comic pleasant to look at. It does slightly suffer from having so many characters who can only be differentiated by their hair shade and hairstyle, but that’s what happens when you try to make everyone so dang pretty. I have some words for Bikke as a storyteller, but when they have the time to shine, they can draw something beautiful. 

I really wanted to come out talking about how Ame Nochi Hare was a gem after devoting so much time to it… but it just isn’t. At its core, it is a saccharine TSF story about a group of teens being given the opportunity to play around with gender to gain a fuller view of those around them, themselves, and the world at large. But it simply lacks the focus and conviction in its premise to pursue that ideal, and just winds up feeling like a romantic slice of life story with an underutilized gimmick and a bloated scope. The filler far outweighs the parts of the story that I found compelling, and considering how much I had to push myself to finish this story, I would not recommend it for entertainment purposes.

It has some great ideas, poor execution, and leaves me wishing for a non-suggestive and sweet TSF romance story involving a large cast of young people by someone who gets the appeal of the genre. Which… probably exists. I gotta keep on digging!

I’d say we’ll tackle another one of the ‘big three’ next week… but Cassie already put in a request for Jinzou Shoujo, and that one’s only two volumes long!

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A Prophecy Fulfilled, A Decade Later
(Grand Theft Auto VI Announced)

Prior to 2013, Grand Theft Auto was consistently highlighted as one of the most popular and influential series in the world of gaming, but its popularity was primarily as a series. New game releases were still events, but they were regular events, and people could look forward to experiencing more than one during their adolescence. If someone was 13 when San Andreas came out in 2004, they were only 17 when GTA IV came out in 2008.

People assumed that would remain the norm after Grand Theft Auto V released in 2013, and quickly became a record breaking title, earning an enormous amount of acclaim. But over the past decade, GTA V has become… just GTA V. For over a decade, the game has been updated and supported via a robust online feature that debuted after launch and was not considered when the single-player game was heralded. And by featuring such a robust online component, the game remained relevant, continued to secure a spot on sales charts for a full decade, and sold a staggering 190 million copies. And I expect that figure to hit 200 million within the next year.

In 2014, Take-Two CEO, Strauss Zelnick, said that the online mode of GTA V was the “gift that keeps on giving” and… he was not wrong.

Now, these numbers are all impressive, but I feel the need to emphasize, if only for my own benefit, the importance of a game like GTA V. Because it is a game that has been a part of people’s lives for a decade. 14–year-old middle schoolers who played the game back in 2013 are now college graduated 24-year-olds with careers and long-term partners (in theory). It was video games for a not insignificant amount of people, and fosters communities in and of itself.

Akumako: “Gee, wait until I tell her about LoL, Dota, WoW, or Counter-Strike…”

Shush, you!

Akumako: “Not until you give me puff-puffs!”

…What I am getting at here is the importance of Grand Theft Auto VI. It is a grand event that has been anticipated for a decade. I watched the trailer after it debuted early (thanks leakers) and… it was a fairly run of the mill video game trailer to be honest. A lot of quick cuts showed off a lot of footage. It was hard to determine what was pre-rendered CG and what was in-game, because graphics have gotten too good. While how the game plays and what you do is left to be revealed in subsequent trailers.

Now, that is not meant to be a diss toward the game. From a visual level, it is a gorgeous depiction of a vibrant idealized reality, and is one of the few titles that truly looks like it couldn’t be done on PS4 or Xbox One. I like how the trailer focused on the female protagonist, Lucia, over the male protagonist, Jason, presenting her as the lead protagonist, with Jason as her partner. I appreciate how much of this game at least acquiesced toward a jovial and youthful style with how it depicts its world, focusing a lot on young people being sexy and stupid. ZTheir two highest stats! I know, ‘cos I’m 29! Also, while I’m not the biggest fan of the heterosexual criminal power couple concept, the mere inclusion of a Hispanic woman is a huge step forward for a series as male-dominated as GTA.

However, the story of Jason and Lucia is not the main story of Grand Theft Auto VI, as the online component will be the real game for a lot of people, just like GTA V was.

For as big as GTA V is as a title, I have not heard anybody reference the single-player story in years. I’m sure it still has quite a lot to love about it, but the online mode has eclipsed it by such an order of magnitude, that it feels more like an extra. This is something that can always happen when a game aims to package both a campaign and multiplayer, as some people will prefer one or the other, and that determines the lifeblood of the game. For example, Red Dead Redemption 2’s online mode was nowhere near as successful as GTA V’s, and RDR2 is mostly remembered for its campaign. There are exceptions— The first four Halo games had a good campaign and good multiplayer— but I think that will not be the case here.

Could I be wrong? Yeah. Am I probably wrong? YES! But I had to string together some thoughts and concerns, and these are the ones Missus Patty got for me.

Akumako: “Natalie’s brain is made of hamburger by the way. Learn the lore!”

Grand Theft Auto VI will be released in 2025 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. No PC release was announced, as Rockstar likely wants to put out a spruced up fancy PC version with the initial updates all fixed, and dev commands available. Also, it wants to snag a few cool million by marketing to double dippers who want to play GTA on their Steam Deck Duo.

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The Game Awards Had Too Many New Game Announcements…
(The Big The Game Awards Rundown)

…Damn it, The Game Awards actually had a lot of new games to talk about, so this is gonna take me a while. Not necessarily because I am interested in playing them, but because I find them to be conceptually intriguing. So, um… get ready for 5,000 words of rambling.

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Brothers: A Tale of Development Shenanigans
(Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake Announced)

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons was a wonderfully inventive and gripping adventure game with a unique dual analog movement control style, and if played with another person, it made for a deeply connecting experience. It was a pretty widely celebrated title back in 2013, and I even gave it a positive review way back when I was 19 and barely knew how to review a game. Back when I stupidly cared about price points and replay value and couldn’t spin a frijole worth half a diddle-die-darn. Ugh.

But for how well received the game was, it was more of a side project for developer Starbreeze. A studio best known for the Payday series and undergoing some especially messy troubles circa 2018. …Which is so long ago that I don’t remember any of the details. But the bottom line is that they sold a bunch of their rights to stay afloat while working on Overkill’s The Walking Dead, which was delisted a few months after launch.

With that in mind, it makes sense why they don’t own the IPs for certain titles, like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, whose rights were sold to 505 Games back in 2015 for $500,000. Since then, 505 Games has been porting the title around, but has decided that the time is right to remake the title with the help of developer Avantgarden.

One, this remake is completely unnecessary. This was a small title that still held up visually due to its cartoonish art design, colorful visuals, and a wide perspective. Two, I actually think this remake looks worse from an art design level, as it is moving away from the softer more abstract cartoon look of the original for something more realistic. In doing so, the game loses a certain bit of visual splendor and wonder, and the lighting… is very Unreal Engine 5.

So, why is this remake happening? Well… Avantgarden is a small Italian developer who has only shipped two games, the last one came out in 2017. In March 2020, the studio head of this 20 person team, Massimo Guarini, left the company, and they became a full subsidiary of 505 Games. As such, I can only imagine a game was in development, got canceled, and the team at Avantgarden (with the help of some outsourcing, I’m sure) got to work on a remake of a 505 Games IP. Which included… Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons!

Now, this is pure conjecture, but sometimes the simplest reason is the right one. 

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake will be released for PS5, Xbox Series, and PC on February 28, 2024

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Aw SHIT! The Genshin-Likes Are Here!
(Natalie Learned What Arknights: Endfield Is)

Something that I find deeply concerning about phones becoming so increasingly powerful is that they are now able to play what are effectively modern console video games. This has been undeniable to me ever since Genshin Impact made a huge splash in 2020, and ever since then I worried that more games would copy its general approach. That of a deeply promising and ambitious title that would normally only be possible on a console, but is just a live service. MiHoYo has built much of their business around this model, and many developers who have seen success in making phone-based live services will follow and make console-friendly live services. Instead of the Cygames route, and making sexy AAA open world single-player games.

Case in point, 2019’s Arknights was a pretty conservative title from a budget and hardware perspective. Slick, simple UI, high quality 2D art, chibi character sprites, and basic 3D environments. But 2024’s upcoming Arknights: Endfield features full AAA production values and looks like a bloody character action game instead of a tower defense. 

It’s pretty amazing to me how the AAA mobile live service trend has taken off, but I suppose that this is a trend that was rising well before Genshin’s release. And I believe it will sadly become the norm as more developers aim to release online-driven games on every platform possible. I’d say something sarcastic about how ‘gaming had a good run and it is time to admonish ourselves before our Based God Erinlingo Hucklebee.’ But there are LOADS of promising offline games that I still need to talk about in this Rundown.

Arknight: Endfield is currently slated for PS5, PC, iOS, and Android.

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From Ragnarök , We Venture to Valhalla
(God of War 5: Ragnarök – Valhalla DLC Announced)

I remember hearing a few months ago that Santa Monica Studio was working on some form of DLC for their latest release, God of War 5: Ragnarök. It made sense, as this was supposedly the end of the Norse era of the series, and if Santa Monica did work on another God of War, it would likely be a considerably different title. That would require lots of pre-production time, and in order to keep developers busy, it makes sense for them to work on DLC or an expansion.

What they ultimately came up with was God of War 5: Ragnarök – Valhalla. A piece of free DLC that adds in a roguelite epilogue section, allowing people to enjoy the combat of this incarnation of God of War, complete with new enemies and other extra bonuses. It’s a nifty little bonus Sony could have easily charged $15 for, but they’re making it free, and it will be released on PS4 and PS5 on December 12. 

Good stuff Sony, but I will never forgive you for killing Japan Studio…

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Don’t Fly Me to that Moon! It’ll CRUNCH Me!
(Moon Studio Announces No Rest for the Wicked)

So, this is an odd one. Moon Studio is a… studio who made a name for themselves by crafting gorgeous 2.5D platformers with the two Ori titles. I liked the first game despite it making my autism go into a tizzy, and I never took more than a glance at the second one. However, the studio was also subject to some pretty severe charges of crunch and being a bad place to work. As such, I think it is hard to really get excited or interested in anything they do until the culture is changed. Meaning the founders would need to sell the studio, bail, and hope the new managers are better.

Anyway, I bring them up because Moon announced their third game, No Rest for the Wicked. An overhead action RPG that… if someone tried to combine Unicorn Overlord and Diablo in a blender and let it sit in the sun during an Arizona August afternoon, they’d get this.

I can plainly see some incredible artistry throughout this announcement trailer. The coloring pops vibrantly in certain scenes. The texture work makes models look stunning up close. And the game’s visual ambition immediately grasped my attention. However, certain designs and visual elements of this game look like the most generic-ass western fantasy malarky you could imagine.

It is a truly strange direction for the studio, and while I want to think this is just their attempt to make something different… I find that hard to believe. Maybe the founders were being poopheads again and limiting creative control. Maybe Private Division put in some mandates to make the game less magical. Or maybe they just got sick of whimsy after a decade of developing Ori and wanted fantasy with limited cool.

Regardless, No Rest for the Wicked is slated to come out for PS5, Xbox Series, and PC at some undetermined time range.

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SEGA IS BACK, BAY-BEE!!!
(Sega Gives Natalie a Heart Attack by Announcing Five Reboots at Once)

Way back in April 2022, I talked about a Bloomberg article claiming that Sega was working to bring back various classic IPs, namely Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio. I was concerned, as the Bloomberg article also mentioned Sega wanting to get a global hit comparable to Fortnite. I was dismissive, saying that “neither of these can be or should be major IPs and should instead be positioned as niche AA releases with the goals of modest profit with the potential for franchise growth.”

However, Sega decided to not only announce these two titles at the same time, but announce revivals of FIVE dormant series, complete with early gameplay footage. Now, some of it might have been only created for the sake of a trailer and only represent the idea of a game that entered pre-production a few months ago. There is a good chance at least one of these games of the Sega Revival Five will make like Dead Phoenix and get deaded.

But also… HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

They showed a New Jet Set Radio with a redesigned Beat and DJ Professor K and a new parkour system and the 109 building! Just in a few seconds, it seems like the developers, whoever they are, get what people want from a new Jet Set Radio, and this is incredibly promising.

They showed a 3D Streets of Rage game with co-op, and while Streets of Rage 4 was beloved and looked fantastic, this isn’t anything to diss either, as it vaguely resembles the ill-fated Dreamcast title. Also, 3D beat ’em ups like this are a stupidly rare breed!

Shinobi… actually received several reboots. 2002’s hard-as-balls action game, Shinobi. A 2003 sequel dubbed Nightshade, or Kunoichi if you’re cool. And a 2011 2.5D action platformer for the 3DS called Shinobi. Which was so poorly marketed that I thought it was a demake of the 2002 PS2 game. Sega just did not want to show what the game looked like for the longest time. And now it’s coming back with a… frankly beautifully animated 2D platformer. It looks so fluid that… actually, is this Lizardcube again? Because it sure looks like it could be, and Lizardcube has previously worked on two Sega games…

Golden Axe is getting a third-person action game, complete with beast riding and designs that reflect the original three characters. …Though, the environments look super generic, when the environments of the arcade originals were actually quite vivid in some cases. But whatever, it’s clearly very early in development, and the model art style already looks pretty solid.

Crazy Taxi is back…except now you can play as the cops, which is an instant red flag there. Crazy Taxi is all about saying fuck the police, the corporations, and giving people what they need as an independent contractor who runs over IRS agents. THEY CAN’T TAX ME IF THEY’RE DEAD! 

…But at least it looks colorful enough, and has some intense power drifts.

No platforms or release windows were given for any of these games.

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SPARKING! 4 Neo Zero
(Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 4 Re-Revealed as Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero)

Yo, I really should boot up Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 just to gawk at that game sometime, because what Spike did there was insane. That game featured an insanely robust roster, oodles of little attention to detail, and was kind of the best Dragon Ball Z that people could ask for back then. I mean, unless you wanted a dedicated fighting game and not a sorta jank fun fest. But that’s what Super Dragon Ball Z was for. That was made by the Street Fighter EX friends!

As such, when Bandai Namco announced a new Budokai Tenkaichi at a Dragon Ball FighterZ tournament back in March 2023, there was plenty of reason to get excited! …Though, the sheer economics of modern games makes it difficult to make a title that matches the scale of the prior Budokai Tenkaichi games. Well, at least as a packaged title. Any successor would inevitably ship with fewer characters, and likely a reduced story mode, as the developers need to build new things from scratch, and Bandai Namco likes to keep the budgets of their games nice and slim.

As such, the title, officially named Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero for international synergy, is bound to focus on a smaller roster, have oodles of DLC, and probably under-deliver on its story mode. Because Dragon Ball: Deadname (Goku doesn’t like being called Kakarot, and Vegeta would totally be transphobic, don’t lie) already delivered on a modern story campaign. However, they did reveal some of the most basic picks right out of the gate. Goku, Vegeta, Frieza, NuBroly, Piccolo, Krillin, Tien, Yamcha, Future Trunks, Android 18, Cell, Mark “Hercule” Satan, Majin Buu, some dog man, Android 17, Character Design Is My Passion aka Jiren. I’m sure it will get a Xenoverse 2 sized roster eventually… but for now, I guess I should talk about the game itself.

It looks like a modern gen Dragon Ball Z game, unencumbered by the limitations of PS4 tech, looking very crisp and dynamic. Character models look about on par with FighterZ. Environments are detailed. A lot of fast yet cool animations were featured. But the gameplay… might not be great, as these folks made Jump Force, and Jump Force was good for memes, period. Also, I would laugh if the game launches with a smaller roster than the first Budokai Tenkaichi, because then the game will live up to its title and look like Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. …And the first one had 64 bloody characters.

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16 Years Later, Similar Vision
(Visions of Mana Announced)

…Oh wait, this makes total sense. Yeah, the Mana series was undergoing its own remake wave with 2016’s Adventures of Mana for mobile and Vita. Which was probably worse than the 2003 remake, Sword of Mana. Nobody knows because only 857 people played both and 52% of them are dead now. The 2018 Secret of Mana remake that looked like it was originally developed for 3DS, and is just worse than the original on a sensory level. But with Trials of Mana, they got it right by… just making a AA RPG and making the game again from the ground up. I played part of the demo for it, it was great! And Legend of Mana got a pretty darn good remaster with spruced up backgrounds.

So, what was next in line for the series? A remake of the three Mana games Square Enix shoved out in a year 371 days to kill the series? Dawn of Mana, Children of Mana, or Heroes of Mana? …Or whatever the hell Friends of Mana was?

NOPE!

Instead, we are getting the first new Mana game in over 15 years! What about the mobile games? Those are holograms and don’t count! Those games didn’t have no stinkin’ vision, but you know what does? Visions of Mana! It looks like Trials of Mana 2, and that’s dope. That’s sick. That makes your dog ill!

In all seriousness, Visions of Mana looks to be a vibrant and colorful action RPG, afforded a more significant budget than its predecessor. It is clearly picking up from where the original three games were with its art direction, with the protagonist looking like the Secret of Mana protagonist, but 5 years older, and many designs evoking previous titles. Which is perfect, as the series already transitioned these designs into 3D well with Trials of Mana, and the game looks to have a higher budget. Or, at the very least, it is not targeting the Switch anymore, so it can look better.

Visions of Mana will be released in 2024 for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series, and PC.

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Odd Overdose Overdrive
(Kojima Productions and Xbox Game Studios Announce OD)

During… whatever Xbox’s early June media showcase of 2022 was called, Microsoft announced that they were working with Kojima Productions on a new title. This was unsurprising, as Microsoft clearly wanted a name like Kojima to work with them directly after Death Stranding was pushed as a major PS4 title. No concrete details were revealed, but now we have a title, OD, and a vague reveal trailer.

And by vague, I mean it contained some close-ups of actor’s faces, saying an odd phrase while an eerie soundscape persisted in the background. I guess it might be a horror title of some variety but, in typical Kojima fashion, it is being presented as a “new style of game.”

Not sure what that means, but KojiPro tends to deliver games worth discussing at the very least, so it is worth keeping an eye on.

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The Dino Lore of Natalie & Cassie Ramble About The Jurassic Park Hexalogy Continues!
(Jurassic Park: Survival Announced)

Oh heck yeah, I was wondering why someone hasn’t tried that. Well, aside from how the Jurassic World game from a few years back got canned, and probably gave the rights holders cold feet. Developed by Embracer subsidiary Saber Interactive, Jurassic Park: Survival is set to be a first-person action adventure game set in the iconic setting of Jurassic Park. Specifically, the island from the 1993 movie in the aftermath of the 1993 movie.

The trailer itself mostly consisted of showing iconic setpieces— and the British lady protagonist— via CG pre-rendered trailers. Aside from that, the trailer shows four snippets of in-engine footage, which merely provide a vague idea about what the player does in the game. Is it meant to be a linear thrill ride? Is it more akin to Alien Isolation, but with dinosaurs? Does it stay true to its title, Survival, and feature typical survival game elements? No clue, but it is nice to see a ground-level Jurassic Park game, as the setting is prime for video game adventuring, and not just park building. Though, I know Natalie.TF’s resident dino expert, Cassandra Wright, enjoys the Jurassic World Evolution games quite a lot. 

…While looking that name up, I learned that the name Jurassic Park: Survival was used for a PS2/Xbox/GameCube game that was canceled in 2001. Which itself is an odd relic that… honestly, looks more like a PSP game than a PS2 game to me, and was supposedly taking cues from Resident Evil. Which made sense, as Resident Evil was huge, and Dino Crisis proved it could work with dinosaurs by… being Resident Evil with dinosaurs. …I should make Cassie play Dino Crisis on stream. Or better yet, Dino Crisis 3. That’d be hilarious!

It’s pretty weird that this title is just being reused, but I guess there was also a title called Jurassic World Survivor in development, so maybe the rights holders are just really uncreative with names.

No release date for the new Jurassic Park: Survival was given, but it is slated to come out for PS5, Xbox Series, and PC. Hopefully it avoids the curse and doesn’t get canceled! Because with everything going on with Embracer… I’ll be surprised if the game ships in a satisfactory state.

Also, Cassie and I talked about every Jurassic Park movie in a Ramble a month and a half ago. Twas fun!

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Life is Strange is a Strange Entity…
(Don’t Nod’s Life is Strange Successor, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, Announced)

…I think there is a really good article to be written about how Life is Strange 2 came to be and how its poor reception led Square Enix to end their relationship with Don’t Nod. I covered 2015’s Life is Strange six years ago, and found it to be a lovely little story with some mechanical quibbles. It took the episodic choice-driven narrative game Telltale popularized with The Walking Dead, and did its own thing with it, crafting an awkward adolescent story that touched many people over the past 8 years. Particularly queer ladies. 

However, the handling of the series was… peculiar. Publisher Square Enix recognized how much people resonated with these characters, and had a fairly obscure developer, Deck Nine, work on a prequel title, 2017’s Life is Strange: Before the Storm. As they did so, original developer Don’t Nod was busy working on a successor that aimed to be… completely unlike the original Life is Strange. It was a title that inverted about as many aspects of the original as possible, and fans of the original did not take for it. The title was not bad, just not what fans wanted, and its prolonged release period made it harder for people to stay engaged in it.

As such, it was not surprising to see Square Enix shaft Don’t Nod, ignore Life is Strange 2, and push forward with Deck Nine with 2021’s Life is Strange: True Colors. Which did not make as many waves as the first one, but I would argue that being due to how queer independent games had gotten in the intervening 6 years. We don’t need to rely on AAA for punk lesbians any more!

Then in 2022, when it came time to remaster and re-release Life is Strange on more platforms, namely the Switch, Square Enix chose to only remaster 2015’s Life is Strange and 2017’s Before the Storm. Which makes sense as a business decision, but really feels like they wanted to erase Life is Strange 2 from the series. And… I get it. It does not really fit with its whole queer female-led adventure game image.

Gosh, I love doling out history like this… Anyway, I bring this up because Don’t Nod— who is 42% owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent— announced… basically a new Life is Strange game. So, uh, keep that in mind before supporting this one…

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage follows four rocker lesbians who like fuckin’ ’bout in the woods, getting drunk, and smoking cigarettes. But as they blaze through the bangin’ summer of 1995, they encounter some sort of supernatural evil that causes their group to fracture. 27 years later, they reunite to address whatever dark secret they laid to rest in the woods so long ago.

…So I guess you could say it is Life is Strange X Andy Muschietti’s Stephen King’s It. Which makes perfect sense, as Andy Muschietti’s Stephen King’s It was a popular film and a pretty solid base for any narrative of this manner. It is a story about youthful whimsy, growing up, and reconnecting with others even after several decades passed. It’s something anybody in their mid/late 20s or older can relate to on some level, and only gets more relatable with age. And I’ve been a sucker for time skips like this… for so long I can’t remember. 

No footage was shown, only a pre-rendered cutscene, but this premise alone is pretty strong. Don’t Nod has some skilled storytellers under their roof (or at least had), and this game aims to directly target their original niche with a queer nostalgic story. Though, I doubt it will fully capture the American sensibilities of the era because, you know, Don’t Nod is French.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage will be released for PS5, Xbox Series, and PC in late 2024.

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My Love For You is Like a Truck… BERSERKER!!!
(The First Berserker: Khazan Announced)

Nexon is a company I— sensibly— associate with a particular breed of Korean live services, because that’s been their jam for about twenty years now. However, as the game industry continues to expand on what is, extensively, their turf, they have been trying to diversify their releases. 

Stuff like DNF Duel, a fighting game based on Dungeon & Fighter, which Nexon has been trying to spin-off into a media empire for a while, as its original 2005 incarnation looks awfully crusty at this point. And Dave the Diver, a well received sprite-based game that certain publications called ‘indie’ as indie has come to be shorthand for the style of game rather than it… being independent.

Akumako: “Words are old shit, vibes is where it’s at, yo! Get down with them verbs and nouns! Fuck ’em like Parappa would!”

I bring this up because they had two game reveals here. The first being The First Berserker: Khazan. A mature-rated Soulslike set within the Dungeon & Fighter universe, but features a… rather odd art style. At a glance, it looks to be a more realistic and detail-oriented aesthetic, a la the Souls series, but the character models all feature anime character shading and textures.

I find this general move interesting, as this genre of AAA Soulslike is becoming somewhat common. At the very least, it is a niche filled with titles like Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Lords of the Fallen (2023), Crimson Desert, and Black Myth: Wukong. After Elden Ring sold a stupid amount of copies, it’s easy to see how games of this genre get greenlit. The fact they are (predominantly) single-player games means the market is less prone to saturation compared to online live services. And as for why so many of these titles are coming from Asian countries… Soulslikes are just big in Asia as far as I can tell. Or at least East Asia. (Asia is home to the majority of humans, so it’s a kind of nonsense descriptor, like the Western Hemisphere, but westerners default to it ‘cos they’re taught wrong.)

Personally, I think this general realistic fantasy aesthetic and difficulty focus is a bit played out at this point. But Soulslike is a label that has grown big enough to have its own dedicated community, and none of the major releases appear to have been bombs… yet.

The First Berserker: Khazan will be released for PS5, Xbox Series, and PC. No release window was provided.

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The Gulags of Gun Games
(An Obligatory Acknowledgement of A Nexon and Two Tencent Games)

That was Nexon’s big AAA single-player game, but they also had The First Descendant. A game whose trailer made me think… Freedom Wars X Death Stranding but with an East Asian ‘realistic’ sci-fi art direction. Whatever that means. I think the trailer offered some unique imagery, featured these abstract giant mechanical beings, and delivered some impressive CG scenes. Grappling hooks are a highly underutilized feature in games, as are jetpacks, so I’m always glad to see them. However, any interest I could have in this died when it was revealed to be a free-to-play looter shooter. A genre that was en vogue for a while… but I don’t think it ever really stuck in the way publishers wanted it to.

Instead, most seem to be fixating on the ‘extraction shooter’ genre, which I still don’t fully understand, and don’t really care to. To me, there are already more than too many multiplayer games about shooting other players and picking up crap. Games can be anything, and I just view this as a super narrow way to perceive them. …But it’s what sells according to executives, and… they’re sometimes right.

Which is all preamble for me saying that Tencent and Sharkmob, developers of the battle royale Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt, are working on an extraction shooter with people in exosuits, called Exoborne. Its description reminds me of Anthem, and that is as much of a turnoff as a dead bird.

Tencent also had a CG trailer for a sci-fi Tokyo game… being developed by their Lightspeed LA studio— I know they have Japanese studios, so why are they having a bunch of gaijins make a damn Neo Tokyo game? It’s called Last Sentinel and does not look to capture the… anything that makes the idea of a demolished Tokyo such a compelling concept for certain Japanese creators. I normally would not even mention it, but they wasted tens of millions of people’s time with this shite.

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Marvel Continues to License AAA Game Projects
(Arkane Lyon is Developing Marvel’s Blade)

Arkane Lyon, the original French branch of Arkane that wasn’t bled dry by ZeniMax management to make some multiplayer trite, announced their next project near the tail-end of The Game Awards. I was expecting Dishonored 3, based on the leaked FTC documents I discussed back in September. But instead, they are making a title based on the IP that ‘saved’ superhero movies back in the late 1990s, Blade!

Creatively titled Marvel’s Blade, the title will be a “mature, single-player, third-person game” and was revealed by a fully CG trailer, which did not show much. Just titular protagonist Mr. Blade at a Black Caribbean barbershop, acting like a cool dude. Per the announcement, development is still very early, so I imagine this is like MachineGames’ Indiana Jones project. They announced it to curb future rumors and help recruit staff. 

No platforms were mentioned, and no release window was given. But this is probably going to be a 2026 game in the best case scenario. Beard hair requires months to get right…

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It’s a Wild World Out There, so Rise Up, Young Monster Hunter!
(Monster Hunter Wilds Announced)

Next, we have the much awaited successor to Monster Hunter Worlds. A game that not only made Monster Hunter a name of marketable renown in the western markets, but helped the series rise in popularity across Asian markets. Arguably, Monster Hunter Rise was the successor, but it targeted the Switch, featured some different mechanics, and could be seen as a more lateral move than a direct successor, even after the up-res re-release.

Revealed via early in-engine footage, the game is known as Monster Hunter Wilds and… it does not look significantly better than World to me. In fact, it might look a bit worse. Partially due to a change in environment, going from the lush jungle of World in favor of a more arid land reminiscent of Africa. Partially due to how the monsters shown here… just look like animals. You have these little dino critters migrating as a herd, and these non-distinct hairy critters who are not rendered in detail. I understand that the density here alone, combined with the weather effects, are something the PS4 might struggle with. But for a series so defined by its detailed main monsters, I don’t think this was the best way to showcase the title.

Monster Hunter is a pretty tricky series to showcase— you pretty much need to feature an abridged hunt to lure people in, but while this reveal trailer was a bit weak in my book… it’s Monster Hunter. Capcom has been on a roll with this series for a long time. And I’m sure that this is just the price one pays for showing what looks to be legit gameplay footage over a year before the game is done. Yes, over a year, as Monster Hunter Wilds is targeting a 2025 release on PS5, Xbox Series, and PC.

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From Sci-Fi To Fantasy… Shouldn’t It Be The Other Way Around?
(Hello Games Announces Light No Fire)

No Man’s Sky was one of the biggest stories of the eighth console generation, and one of the finest examples of how much a development team can turn around a game through successive post-launch updates. …And it was one of the worst examples of how the broader gaming community can be led into a flurry of fury over a title developed by such a small studio. It’s a story worth turning into a documentary… particularly by someone who is not a plagiarist. (Looking at you, Internet Historian. Someone’s gonna eat your gingerbread house soon.)

However, No Man’s Sky has been in development for… a bloody decade at this point. And while the developers could probably just keep working on the game, forever, they would want to do something different eventually. So they made The Last Campfire in 2020, which I completely missed, despite being a spiritual successor to the excellent WiiWare title, LostWinds.

Based on that title alone, I would assume the team at Hello Games would continue to work on smaller projects while updating No Man’s Sky… but I guess I should have read more developer interviews. Like this Polygon piece from 2020, where the topic of the next No Man’s Sky is addressed like it’s a matter-of-fact.

Hello Games’ next game, Light No Fire, sure is the next No Man’s Sky. The title is a vast open world multiplayer fantasy game with oodles of scenic scenery to explore, and a lot of cool mounts to use to ride throughout the world. From boring old dragons to dope giant birds!

Admittedly, none of it has quite the same ‘wow factor’ of seeing someone take off from a planet’s surface, travel through space, and land on a different planet. The sense of scale is lost. But it is still a gob-smackingly impressive title for a studio with only, what, twenty-something people? How exactly it differs from modern No Man’s Sky, beyond the obvious changes from its new theme, are a bit lost on me, but after the turnaround with that title… I’m sure it’s going to be great.

No release window was given, and the game was only announced for PC. But you never know if Sony or Microsoft will moneyhat it for a timed exclusivity or not!

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Also, Ubisoft’s perpetually cursed pirate game, Skull & Bones, was given another new release date, with February 16, 2024. But I don’t believe that the game will ever come out at this point. And I won’t believe it even if I do somehow touch a copy of the game. …And then I would throw it out the window, because screw Ubisoft. They abuse their workers and lie about everything getting better!

…Is that it? I think so. NEXT TOPIC!

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A Reminder That Digital Ownership is a Sham
(Sony Steals Hundreds of Shows From Its Customers)

Well, this should not surprise me, as laws are made to protect the elite and executives, and any sense of rights one believes they have is due to a mix of wishful optimism and government propaganda.

…Holy shit am I getting cynical toward the very concept of legality.

This story centers around Warner Bros. removing a vast catalog of shows from the PlayStation Store. Specifically, 1,300 seasons of shows from their Discovery division. Not only will people no longer be able to buy these shows, but those who did buy them will lose access to them, with no form of compensation, and no recourse, period.

I almost forgot that consoles even let people buy digital TV and movies… but they do, as consoles want to be used as media centers, and the costs of selling a digital movie are next to nothing. Which is why there are so many darn services that sell digital movies.

Now, have I used any of these services for this purpose? Absolutely not, and for good reason. Because these films are something that the user owns, but does not possess, as they are either DRM-infested files, or keys that allow the user to stream them from a server. You can watch these things, and you legally own the right to watch them… but you cannot put them on a hard drive or disc or other digital collection.

I’ve talked about this before, but I think it is a fact worth repeating. Ownership is a bullshit concept that only exists in a legal sense, and was largely invented to consolidate power among those with the resources to own a lot. While possession… is just the act of having something and being in control of it. Normally, ownership meant possession, as if you own something, then why should you not be able to control it or modify it to your liking? But in the push to the digital age, ownership stopped meaning possession, as people started only buying ‘licenses’ to ‘digital services.’

Some view this as a sad state of affairs, but I view it as an easy way to justify downloading everything from a big corporation. Because, most often, they are selling an inferior version to something that can be found on torrent sites and a family of file sharing sites.

Some view this act as a bad thing, as they were taught ‘stealing is wrong’ but I’m someone who believes that you cannot steal a non-confidential file. That digital piracy is not piracy. And that people should invest in storage solutions and backup the things they love. It’s why I have my massive game collection. Why I refuse to use platforms like Spotify to listen to music. And why I keep thinking about investing more and more in storage. I could very well justify a 16 TB external hard drive (this one was going for $210 when I wrote this), but with this home homeownership thing, I only have a few hundred bucks of disposable income a month.

Akumako: “OBJECTION!!! How can you say all this while being a regular-old homeowner? Isn’t that a hypocr—”

No, shut up. Land and real property ownership is one of the only forms of ownership that makes sense. It deals with something tangible and finite. Digital ownership, in its current form, is a sham that could only exist in a capitalist system, and should not exist. I own and possess this home (unless I fail to pay my mortgage or assessments). And when I can do both for a digital good, I try to do both. But for things like eBooks, digital movies, and all that other crap… there is often no way to own and possess them.

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A Pronoun Problem
(A Verde’s Doohickey 2.0 Update and Preview)

So, I’ve recently run into a pronoun issue with Verde’s Doohickey 2.0, and how I should refer to certain characters. The second act of this novel is partially centered around the cast gaining the ability to transform their sex. Meaning most characters have a default/normal/original form, and what I dub a TransSex form.

Rather than just being a physical transformation, when one assumes a TransSex form, reality itself changes. People outside of a small group assume that this person was always their current sex, and will refer to them by some male/female equivalent of their original name. Maxxie becomes Max, Shiaka becomes Shinji, Haruki… stays Haruki because it’s a gender neutral name, etc.

Now, I am adamant about referring to characters based on their TransSex names when they are in their TransSex forms. I normally just refer to a character by their usual name regardless of what body they are in, and only change their name if they undergo some sort of change in identity. But with the TransSex forms, that simply does not feel right. TransSex forms have a different physical identity than their original counterparts. And the characters frequently refer to each other by their TransSex names when they are in their TransSex forms. Not always at first, but eventually, almost always.

Also, it would get super confusing in a text-based story with a cast of so many characters. I already use the Mind(Body) naming convention to make it easier to tell who is who, but doing something like Maxxie(Max)… makes me feel like a dillhole.

But what about pronouns? Should I change the pronouns used to refer to these characters when they are in their TransSex forms? Normally, this is not an issue for me, as I just use the pronouns reflective of a character’s gender identity, and use gender neutral they/them pronouns when that is more ambiguous. 

However, gender identity can be a soup-like substance in certain circumstances. In this novel, most characters are constantly playing around with their gender expression by taking on the forms of the ‘opposite’ sex, and abiding by different gender roles. But unlike with a body swap, they are not acting like a different person or adopting another persona when in their TransSex form. Their physical sex and gender expression changed… but they are the same person. And the world sees them as the same person, just with the male and female flipped around.

What really gets me about this is that I have one character who I plan on making gender fluid, as it makes sense considering who they are as a person. They change their physical form according to whatever gender they feel like at that given time, and as they change their form, reflective of their gender identity, their pronouns should change. 

However, this character merely reflects more… it feels weird to say classical, so I’ll just call it a late 2000s idea of what gender fluidity is. And in writing VD2.0, I need to ask more questions about what makes someone gender fluid in the fantastical setting I have created. In having female characters who are eager to try out being men, either via a body swap or a physical transformation, then what does that make them? Gender queer? If I have an AFAB character who continuously switches bodies with men for a long period of time, and presents themself as a man on a semi-regular basis for several months, does that make them gender fluid? 

When during this, when does a character become transgender? Being transgender does not strictly mean a vehement rejection of the gender one was assigned at birth. I mean, that is the case with Jade, Terra, and Verde, because they’re binary trans women who I envisioned back in 2015, when I was dumber about this stuff. (Also, what would you expect from a binary trans woman?) However, I am currently planning on having certain AFAB characters undergo a soft permanent switch from female to male, after deciding that they prefer being men. That doesn’t mean they never want to have a female body again. They just don’t want their main body to be female. They want their default state of being to be male. But are comfortable with being female sometimes. So… are they trans with no hesitation? Does the default state of being need to change before the pronouns are changed?

I kept thinking and thinking about this… before eventually deciding to just write chapter 6-16 with ‘untransformed’ pronouns and then run it through a converter to switch around the pronouns. …Except I could not find a ‘pronoun inverter’ converter, so I just had to do it systematically… before realizing I had to do a lot of these changes manually.

VD2.0 CH 6-16 – ROUGH DRAFT Preview – Untransformed Pronouns

VD2.0 CH 6-16 – ROUGH DRAFT Preview – Transformed Pronouns

If you are so inclined, get a preview of this, tell me what sounds natural, and I’ll… need to think about this, because I DO NOT want to invert the pronouns in future chapters. 

Thank GOD the next chapter is going to… be the debut of THE NAZZ (pronounced like jazz)! YES! I gotta get working on that shit PRONTO! …After I finish up this darn game review.

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Progress Report 2023-12-10

The background image from the Rundown header is from Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk. 2 for PS3. Thanks to Spriters Resource for their high quality rips. I love Spriters Resource, and have for… over half my life, I think.

2023-12-03: I watched more Star Wars with Cathy the Cassie, and wrote a 1,400 word review on Episode VII. I did not like it. Also wrote 5,000 words for VD2.0.

2023-12-04: I finished CH 6-16 for VD2.0. I had to throw out some of last night’s stuff, because it did not work. Wrote 3,000 words today and the draft is 16,930. Yes, I’m sorry, but also not. There’s like two sex scenes and masturbation scenes in this thing. Wrote 2,000 words for this Rundown.

2023-12-05: I spent all day reading through the 8 volumes of Ame Nochi Hare to prepare the TSF Showcase. That was a mistake, and I did not enjoy myself while reading this comic. I also got distracted by some drama in the Press-Switch Discord… and I’m going to need to talk to Trigger about that, maybe do a post dedicated to it. Because if you search Press-Switch, you will find Natalie.TF. It is something I need to talk about, but I want to wait a few days to see how this story progresses, and I want to talk to Trigger one-on-one about it. Because holy shit did he botch that discussion.

2023-12-06: Wrote 1,700 words for Ame Nochi Hare, and prepared some stuff regarding the Trigger article. Also, I spent WAY too long editing pronouns for the above section. Spent the evening getting back into Robotic Battle Maiden, and started chapter 5. The game is ultimately pretty good, but I still think it is a VN that is hindered by the amount of mechanics grafted onto it.

2023-12-07: Got about halfway through chapter 5 of Robotic Battle Maiden, wrote 2,300 words for this Rundown, and worked more on the Press-Switch statement. Also, I dropped off my game collection at Retro Dimension, but they were too busy to review my collection at the moment. So I’ll need to get the cash on Saturday.

2023-12-08: I worked on finalizing this Rundown, wrote an extra 3,000 words based on the TGA reveals, edited the 10,000 words, and created a header image, because I FORGOT about that! Also, sent out a version of the statement for review to certain people involved in the Press-Switch controversy and scheduled the post. HOPEFULLY nothing explodes!

2023-12-09: Saturdays are normally not great for me. They’re when I do chores and I also normally work during the afternoons. My work schedule is dictated by when my boss wants to work, and he rarely ever works a full day unless it’s crunch season. It makes no sense, but geriatrics are all about doing shit slow, short, and on the reg, yo. I got distracted by some 2023 TSF Showcase clean up stuff, had to buy some stuff from DL Site to avoid being a scumbag, updated a bunch of links for that big post, and organized my directory of manga to read. Also, worked on the TSF Showcases (plural) for next week, writing about 2,900. Y’all are in for some good shit!

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Verde’s Doohickey 2.0: Sensational Summer Romp
Acts 1, 2, and 3 Progress Report:

Current Word Count: 172,611

Estimated Word Count: 420,000

Total Chapters: 48

Chapters Outlined: 42

Chapters Drafted: 20

Chapters Edited: 0

Header Images Made: 0

Days Until Deadline: 171