Hey everyone! It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? First off, super sincere apologies for the mess of posting frequency in this time; I know I mentioned stuff would get busier for me around June/July, but I underestimated how much busier it’d make me plus the effects it’d again have on my mental health.
Thankfully this update isn’t a bunch of me going “woe is me life sucks”, as I try to be better than that, and I have some pretty exciting announcements to share, albeit with some caveats.
The Queue Nightmare that (never?) Ends
Yep, last time I proudly boasted Broken Sword HD was next, it felt imminent, I though I played enough of the game that my notes would suffice to cover the remaster, and then… Things fell apart. Not in any bad way, mind you! Just in an “Oh shit, i need to keep playing this, but i have other things to juggle and balance” way. A way where if I used my notes this second and wrote a review I’d feel like it’s incomplete and couldn’t do it right, so alas, into the long haul this one goes too. Don’t worry; I’m absolutely gonna knock this out before October and not let it be a Clock Tower Rewind situation, and should be able to give a review of the Evercade cart alongside it as a bonus, so you get my (shorter) thoughts on BSII as well. In short terms, my notes are insufficient. So I’m not estimating an ETA on that one.
As of now, the games in my “I have notes, they are done and I should be able to write reviews” lineup are Rugrats Retro Rewind Collection, Formation Z, Bubsy 4D and Alien Cat 2. Those are pretty much good to go and just need more of my infamously picky polish I drag out way too long on. It’s weird considering how I have gotten good feedback on my writing overall and still nothing outright bad/poor in terms of feedback, but I still have that constant urge of “no, I need to do better and better each time”. Some games I just have a much harder time with than others.
When it comes to the more longer in the tooth parts of the queue; Sigma Star Saga DX should be the easiest of that bunch to knock out. I hoped it’d get better since the story was getting better, but that gameplay loop is repetitive as hell and I’ll age into an old man by the time I finish it fully at my pacing with my current interest in the gameplay. Clock Tower Rewind should be in a similar vein since I like that original game a good amount, but something about this reissue just feels wrong enough for me to not play it as much as the original SNES/PS versions. It’s not unplayable by any means, but it’s one of those situations where you just feel something is sloppy about it and it drains your interest in the game. I think it’s OK for me to review as is knowing that, rather than forcing myself to beat it twice to see the enhancement patch and the original game back to back in a clunky wrapper.
Milano’s Odd Job Collection is another game I wanna get knocked out in July; the core game is simple and I fully admit to the delay here being stupidly self imposed on myself. “Surely they wouldn’t just announce a Switch 2 Edition and quietly can it and not respond to inquiries on it?” I guess they would, and it’s probably not coming if it’s been half a year with no movement. Either way, this would go nicely with another game I wanna reach out to cover next month in a similar vein.
The Steam trilogy, as I’ll call it, are pretty much games I need to spend more time. Angelique Era I’ll have to spend a lot, lot, lot more time with in particular, and the PR agency gave me a lot of grace with that one, and I promise you it’ll be worth it in the end, covering this as a mega fan of retro PC RPGS. Marvel Cosmic Invasion just got some free DLC, so that should be pretty helpful to include in my review of that too, but Bubble Bobble is the one closest to a “all notes taken” aspect and thus, reviewable. No ETA, but I wanna clear this system out too.
I’m not mentioning my legacy queue to not jinx my plans for it any further; for now, catchup on main to prevent it from becoming another legacy queue. Majogami is another game that just got a big update and I’d like to focus on, but not jinx myself on either. Maybe this will help it click with me more and thus make taking notes easier?
But yeah, that’s pretty much the gist of it. IRL obligations this month slowed down my output to a crawl and me getting a bit too carried away with a system I had issues with and bought to cover on the site really stressed me out more than it should. I’m hoping to use some much needed vacation time soon to catch up a little bit. Speaking of IRL obligations…
My Fight for Life in Rural America
I should not surprise anyone by mentioning as a rural American, shit has gotten way tougher due to the idiot leading our country. I’m in a state with a more local problem at hand (due to insanely long one party rule), involving out of control nitrate levels in the water that are spiking cancer rates here to concerning levels. Obviously, I don’t want to get a terminal cancer diagnosis and die, but to fix that I’ve thus been getting more and more involved with local politics, moreso than I normally do. Met more IRL friends, met a lot of people who’ve been doing this for years and years, and even met online peers from other states who’ve been in the fight for their local elections for decades.
Needless to say, in an era of stupid hot takes, post-primary election social media wars, and a lot of popular people on social media sites thinking the world is just like them and decreeing stuff that defies reality on the ground, it has been immensely stressful to be on social media in any way, so despite my overall health improving to the point I don’t scroll as much, I still have to make good use of my blocking tools to calm down and avoid getting anxious about everywhere in the US all at once. It’s easy to go and be an idiot on social media from your couch in a safe blue district and say “if this ticket doesn’t say the perfect words from their mouth, I’m not voting!” without realizing in purple/red states like mine
A: Primaries are the way to push for change to get who you want in those aspects
B: Just throwing up hands and staying home is a surefire way to let marginalized groups in your state get steamrolled because you feel your privilege is good enough to protect you. Younger people in my state thought that too. They were wrong, and they’re equally at risk of getting the nitrate water cancer as even the top politicians in our state who are responsible for this. Thanks to both ineptitude from campaign staff who felt they had a national race in the bag despite their awful messaging, and a bunch of snooty privileged folk who felt safe staying home and respond to red staters like myself with “lol just move”, us in America are stuck with insanity for at least 3 more years, and thanks to the changeover, there’s no good EPA to regulate states like mine with pollution problems. So maybe if you did that, don’t do that and realize your bubble isn’t invincible, and your choices harmed way more people than it helped. Get a grip, get in gear, and if you can get involved in local elections to get that change you want to do done, as much as you can, at least.
So yeah. I went to my state’s Democratic Convention a few weeks ago (In an Atari shirt, so I was still repping gaming in some fashion!). A very very long road to drive there which was a pain while avoiding interstates, but I felt it was vital in order to do my part and civic duty to flip my state blue despite insanely low odds. I’m aware not all the races will go our way, but I’m sincerely hoping a miracle will occur, and we’ll at least get the progressive Sec of Ag candidate we have running here elected to be a guardrail from this severe health risk in my state. Needless to say, prepping for that in zoom meetings every week ate up time I could have used for the site, but I think “increase the odds of electing people who won’t have you die from nitrate poisoned water” is a better use of my time than this site, and I say this despite loving my SFG work to death, hence why I feel it’s existential to vote in the US midterms up and down the ballot if you live in the US. Irregardless of state, even if you’re in a hyper red area like Wyoming, there’s surely a city council race you could work to try and tilt in your favor by door knocking or donating to smaller candidates.
Fun fact: if you donate to smaller candidates in a state, that helps the top of ticket more than if you just throw money at say, James Talarico over and over again. He’s fine, he has more than enough financial backing, maybe help someone further down the ballot? Better use of money, in my book. Anyhow that’s my political block over, but if you wonder why I might come off increasingly unhinged the closer to the election we get, this is why. If my state loses, I’m at legitimate risk of getting cancer much much earlier than my peers. It’s not a game you can always sit home and shitpost on the internet. Some of the most brave, inspiring, vocal activists I know barely have any followers on social media, but do far more IRL work than most shitposters that just sit home and whine and do nothing but vote every four years If you’re in America, get your ass off the couch and see what you can do to help. Not just every two years, every year, every election. Get involved in mutual aid at least, if you feel uncomfortable knocking doors or going to meetings in your town. You might meet friends along the way!
Misc reviews for fun… And writeups that weren’t.
I still have a batch of misc reviews I wanna do for fun; Jalecolle took a backseat, but R-Type DX Music Encore should be easy enough to do when I have free time. I also wanna get to covering some of the bigger scale games on Switch 2 that I didn’t request for review, but played pretty relentlessly. The two Final Fantasy VII Remake games so far might be fun to cover, but I also wanna finish and cover the Trails in the Sky remake before SC hits… And eventually review that, whether much later down the line, or near launch if a miracle happens and I clear my queue more. It would make a nice companion to when I reviewed that original version ages ago. For now though, the queue is a higher priority.
Article wise, I really wanted some sort of Switch 2 adjacent article to be up by now due to the one year anniversary and all, but I regretfully had to delay them all due to that whole “prep for your state convention to fight for your life this November” aspect. Even still as I wait for the candidate I wanna back most to open an office closer to me, I’m unsure which order I’ll do what Switch 2 adjacent article in, but I think the Game Key Card piece I had drafting would be especially good right now; I may have the rare, valid reason to write the words Grand Theft Auto VI on this very website. And no, don’t worry, it’s not just gonna be terminally online screaming that they suck or whatnot. If anything…. Well, you’ll just have to wait and see, but it’s not gonna be a blind defense either.
The infamously long in writing Switch 2 BC article on the other hand… I might just have to lock it in as is. In other words, only really focus on in-depth thoughts for the first year of the system’s life, and not go on much about anything that came out after now, in case there’s some further, major improvements to BC coming our way in the future. Handheld Boost Mode blew up my pacing for that article more than I wanted to admit, so I’m just gonna stick to year 1 related things, and maybe sneak in some nods to games that finally got fixed long after the fact (like Raiden IV), but if I mention a game is funky and you go “hey, that isn’t anymore”, well, blame old notes. Either way, don’t expect that this summer.
Another article I do want to get done, on the other hand, is a nice little prelude to some Evercade carts I wanted to review. It gets people to get off my back for good, after wanting me to write about the subject (though that was years ago), and I can even lightly link it into the importance of local politics! I promise it’ll be super interesting and will not elaborate further. You’ll find out when it drops and I won’t even hint at when it will, so it’ll come as a surprise./
Unfortunately, the opinion article I’m currently working on is less fun than that one, and is instead one that’s a post mortem on the Superstation One’s memory card problems. I cannot even begin to repeat how many times I’ve been given shit for my issues with the slots, and I’m sick and tired of it so I went to a local game store to just outright prove my case and fix a ridiculous mishap that happened. I never thought I’d have another experience that amounted to “stubborn CEO refuses to admit QC faults and a lot of other buyers will blame you than the guy who can fix it”, but alas, here I am. No ETA, just when it’s done, and I feel it important enough I’ll link it in the S1 review despite it not editing my score in any way (due to my site’s “no score editing” policy.)
Conclusion
Really, that’s all I’ve gone through the past quarter. No real urgent need to write one monthly, but I figured one to end the quarter up would fit pretty well, especially when most of the relevant aspects (like my state convention trip) only really happened this month. I don’t like we’re in this fight we’ll probably have to be in the rest of our lives, (because whether you wanna admit it or not, if you look at American history, Democracy is always a constant struggle and there’ll never, ever be a “perfect politician” that can seal away the other side forever, but we can sure make some laws that’ll do a good job at keeping it away) but that’s how it is sadly.
A lot of America has some deconstructing to do, and I’ve gone on a journey myself to try and do that the past year, and I can’t help but admit there’s too many stubborn people with privilege out there who won’t do that. It will get worse before it gets better, but I have faith it ultimately will get better as long as people never give up; recent results in other states give me that hope, and hopefully other states will follow in a similar optimistic path.
Until next time, see you!