Winter Snow 2016-2017

Thanks Spectrum/Time Warner for shutting off my services in the middle of the work day. fml. I scheduled the new account activation at my new house for this weekend and for the old account at the house I'm renting to terminate as of monday.. so what does Spectrum do? Shut my account down 1 day before the new account is activated and a full 4 days before it was scheduled to close. wtf. It took me 40 mins on the phone for them to reactivate my internet so I could finish working. wtf.

With the summer simuldub season coming to a close, it played out like I predicted more or less. I'll wait a bit longer before I post my review. Pretty lackluster overall. But for me, the Fall Lineup is pretty stacked. Fairy Tail, SAO Season 3, and Black Clover continues which has become a lot more promising after this last arc I just watched... by far its strongest and most compelling. I watched the first episode of Double Decker! Doug & Kirill which was entertaining, and SSSS.GRIDMAN seems to be a Pacific Rim clone. Overall a return to more action adventure series, and lighter on the fan service heavy series.

Finally got our house today. All the legal paperwork is done and keys in hand.

The last two chapters of One Punch Man have been the best action/fight scenes I've seen in a manga in years. Flashy Flash's fight was epic and focused on speed and technique. Huge props to the artist for how he drew a speed battle in manga form. Very impressive.

Although its also on the PS4, I purchased Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana for the Switch recently because it's just been collecting dust. It was probably the better option anyways because the graphics look like something out of the N64/PS2 era with modern draw rates. Not a knock against it, as its quite charming... but the game looks like it belongs on the Switch rather than PS4. Everything about this game is so 1998. I've never played any of the Ys games before, but this one caught my eye for the old school hack and slash. It's very Dark Cloud-ish minus the world building. Sprinkle some old Zelda in there as well. The combat is relatively simple with 1 button main attack, and 4 special attacks that consist of holding R1 and pressing A B Y X. These use a SP meter that replenishes on kills. There are also dodge and block counters that give you a special speed combo ability. You have a party of 3, and characters that join where you can swap them out and swap between the three in combat. Each character has a assigned damage type (Slash, Precise, Bash). Having all 3 types helps weaken the right enemies susceptible to these plus you get a rare drop bonus... rather than the 1.1x bonus for having two of the same. Anyways, the story is campy but interesting, the dialogue is 90's cringeworthy, and its a lazy sprinkle of actual voice acting and text reading. The world is  large but a bunch of sectioned off instances that quickly load without a loading screen as you cross them. There are fast travel points but not in every sector, so it requires some old school memorizing where to go at times. As you get special gear, you'll find places that were inaccessible previously open up. I'm 20 hours in and I don't feel like I'm even half way through. So at $60, I feel like I'm getting my money's worth for a decent nostalgia kick. I bet this will be a free PS Plus game next year so when it comes up I highly recommend it without even finish it. I'll report back when I beat it with a proper review.