Hello there! It’s been a long while since I gave any sort of personal update via the site itself. (instead of via my Patreon or Twitter, like I normally do) But I feel that my recent decrease in publishing stuff needs an explanation for readers who may wonder why I’m slowing down, and for developers wondering why I’m taking so long to review some games.

The Simplest Reason

I got busy with real life stuff. It’s odd, since I don’t really have a job and have troubles interacting with people in real life, which has led me to hesitate on such, but I was able to afford going to a local college to learn web design techniques. I’ve been at it for years now and have learned a lot more about HMTL, CSS, etc since then.

However, the problem for me was that despite all the stuff I learned being useful for this site and anything else I could make to showcase my skills, it was not so helpful in finding a physical workplace job, which my grandparents insist on me having. (it’s the 21st century, they don’t quite exist for web development, it’s mostly commission based) I feel like I learned mostly important stuff, (Drupal can go to hell though) but with little to use it besides this site, I haven’t really gotten much in the ways of work. I’m not in desperate need for it though, but I’d like to work instead of sticking to my bedroom for the entirety of the week like I tend to already. Needless to say, I’m off for the summer and am ready to work!

…Or I would be, if I wasn’t still a broken mess from…

The Loss

Late March 2019, I lost one of my best friends in the entire world. It cannot be easily stated how close this friend was to me, since while he was an online friend, he was one of my biggest writing buddies and someone I’d love to talk games and Pokemon with. His name was Chaz and he was one of a few close friends I had met over the years in my furry circle of friends.

Yes, I’m a furry, but that’s not a secret. I just don’t make a big deal out of it or stick it on me front and center since as a video game fanatic, I’m me. My furry side is a vessel made to confront the dark memories of my past and act as a shield of sorts for horrible events in my past that scarred me beyond belief. As mentioned in a few Eternal Memories episodes, it practically led me to a lot of amazing friends despite some awful, awful hardships finding my place in that fandom. (the video I linked goes over the worst place I dealt with, but the good news is that awful experience led to me getting motivation to start reviews using my writing skills!)

One of those friends was Chaz. We met while I was reading some stories and after talking for a while, we eventually became writing buddies, one of many from the fandom, but he was one of my closest. In the past few years though, being with college and working on this very site led me to not be nearly as active to talk to him as I would have liked, which I didn’t worry much at the time since he was my age and definitely far too young for anything to happen, right?

Well, fate wasn’t kind as on April 2nd I learned from a group of friends that he had passed. I don’t know the full reason, though I have a good feeling on what, but it’s not my business to make that public. Needless to say, having a close friend my very same age pass away without warning has shattered me without belief. I was bedridden for the first day, then went back to “normal” a few weeks later. Yes I see a therapist.

But I’m not normal. I may not be as sad, but I just can’t help but feel empty. My motivation is zapped and I was certain that school ending for the semester would bring me back to writing 3-5 reviews a week and having May be jammed-packed! But that hasn’t happened either. I’d like to say it’s because I’m working on youtube content instead, but that’s not really true either since I’ve been stuck in a rut, all thanks to one final obstacle, a letter.

You see, I’m able to send a sympathy letter to his family, and I was given permission to do so. But the letter has been in front of my TV for a month now, nothing written. I’m terrified of having to close the book. I’m terrified of having to accept he’s actually gone instead of just being MIA or busy, and the closure is really scary to me since he was my age when he passed. Me and a couple members of my family nearly died during the events of my own past, and I’ve personally been horrified of the idea of death ever since. Nearly dying at seven is one thing, but having a close friend die when they’re 21 is another. That’s why I’ve struggled to focus or close the book, which combined with my busy work for college last month made things really tough. I don’t know if I’ll ever send that letter, but at the very least, I still have plans to keep on as much as I can. I know it’s what he would want.

Project Plans + Review Activity

So with all that out of the way, I obviously still plan on continuing my work as much as I can, even if I can’t do it everdEy weekday like I used to. The Review Queue still gets updated, and I work on Switch stuff first since that’s faster for me to play and review. I have at least 6-10 games finished enough for the reviews to get written, so I just need to go and actually do them. However, a few games have slipped through the cracks and have taken a long time to get done, so I might as well give special shoutouts to prove where I’m at with them:

SHENMUE I-II: Got this on launch from Sega Europe and I still plan on reviewing them both before III comes out. However, while I’m enjoying Shenmue 1, I also have to beat it, and the completionist in me wants to 100% it before jumping into 2, like you would in the original versions. This is more of a backlog thing but I still need to give these games the reviews from a newcomer that they deserve.

Stick it to the Man: This is humiliating to say, but I’ve never been able to review the game since I legitimately forgot about it. I got it in late 2017 via the Switch port when that was new… But so did many other games. And thus, I forgot about this one until late 2018. I still haven’t gotten around to it and I NEED to do so for the sake of folks at Zoink/Thunderful, who are thankfully somehow OK with the delay as long as the review is done in the end. I’m thinking about livestreaming the game as well to make up for the wait, but I’m unsure on that since streams have been slow lately.

Danganronpa V3: Dear god, that feeling when you get super hooked into a franchise (Danganronpa is really good stuff!) and eagerly get the third game in the franchise to continue your love for it… Only to realize that it’s tied into an anime series and a spinoff you thought was OK at best. Yeah, that was the situation for me. I did play through a bit of this, but stopped out of fear for spoilers for the other things I didn’t get to. DR fans I’ve talked to have given me conflicting reports on what to do before jumping in, such as watching the anime and 100%ing DR2/Ultra Despair before playing this, or just jumping into this since I know the basic story from DR1/2-Ultra. I’m leaning towards the latter since it’s a year and a half since I got the game and I feel beyond guilty for not getting a review out. Still, I’m going to no matter what, so I’m aiming to get this off the list this summer.

THE MISSING: JJ Macfield and The Island of Memories: A puzzle platformer that got buried simply due to the backlog of other stuff I have to do. However, I’m gonna get this done as soon as I can.

Vita Stuff: I got both titles simply because I’m on Idea factory’s PR list. I didn’t plan on covering them, but I figured I would anyhow, though my Vita TV is kinda dusty and hardly used. Thus it’ll take a bit before I cover them. I may outright cancel the Mary Skelter one and just wait for the Switch compilation though.

NEPTUNIA VIIR: I got this a year ago, and did play through some of it! Just not enough to review. RPGS are length and my backlog of shorter games just had this pushed back.

So that’s it when it comes to reviews on this site! But really, there’s another thing that’s in the pipeline, my usual Eternal Memories series. I’ll work on those too, and while I’ll have to powergrind to get this out this week, I do plan on having my next episode cover the first internet forum I ever visited. Expect that soonish! That’s all for this update, but I hope it does establish my plans for content, and proof that I’m still aiming to get every review done.