Now it's another regular post about what I've been doing
The beginning of the year has been pretty slow as far as work is concerned, which happens, I'm not too worried about it. I'm still doing QA so not as if I'm not doing anything, and last week I just wrapped up a SDH job for a medium-length documentary. For that one I had to choose the font and how the subs would look, so that was different and fun, and it's cool when you know someone who understands about typography to help. The QA process has been tiring, though, but it's fine to do all things considered.
I played some games too. I'm still on SMTV, but that game is so damn long I took a break to play some shorter games. It was the best decision, cause now that I got back to it I'm appreciating it a little more for what it is: still mostly okay, fun to play, when you run through the map Nahobino goes WHOOSH, and it's a game about going WHOOSH while you run through the map. It can get overwhelming for how huge those maps are and how much stuff there is to do on them — I guess that's a blessing and curse, cause on the other hand it means I'm never bored playing.
Then I played Maken X, the Dreamcast first person action game by Atlus. It's definitely a weird one. Ultimately I thought it was okay and had some bits that were pretty fun to play, but oh my God, some things about it were infuriating. I played it with constant save states because it just doesn't have checkpoints at any point of any level, and I don't think the stages are nearly short enough to justify that decision. Then, there's the camera. I really admire the ambition and experimentation of doing a first person action game with the Dreamcast controller, which only has one analogue stick, but unfortunately that means the camera is super awkward, so I was constantly getting lost and confused trying to locate myself and the enemies. In fact, any time you have more than two enemies on screen, it's hell. To that you add some occasional EVIL enemy positioning and it can get frustrating. I think that's par for the course with Atlus games of the time, except it feels worse when it's an action game instead of a turn-based RPG. At least we don't get the teleport dungeons here.
Maken X has a story and… look, I know it's made to be played more than once, but I just couldn't bother. I don't like playing it enough to do another full playthrough, and the story isn't engaging enough for me to go after another route; by that I mean, the cutscenes are mostly character saying things to you and you're not given much context, so you can kinda follow what's going on but it's really just a sequence of Characters Saying Stuff — either backstories that aren't that well explained or statements about what the bad guy's generic plan is — kind of a Law plot from the SMT games where no one will have free will, not presented in the most engaging way. Hard to be invested. I know some things have been cut from the English release which might have helped, but I can't tell unless I play the Japanese version one day. This also extends somewhat to the visuals of the game, I think, where you have a lot of awesome designs and concepts that just kinda feel mashed together without anything connecting them — the game is just throwing stuff at you and it doesn't quite come together in a satisfying manner. I still had an okay time with it! These are not necessarily things that break a game.
There is actually a manga adaptation by Dorohedoro's Q Hayashida which makes things work better. It still has some unexplained elements, and the ending in particular is rushed, but oh my God, her art is so gorgeous, that panneling is so good, I really don't mind any inconsistensies here. She draws a bunch of gore and all these surrealist elements throughout that add so much character to that world. Not a fantastic series per se, but it rocks, it has style and a lot of personality that makes it come together way better for me — if not necessarily as a story, visually, and that world feels more alive. I think I like it more than the game and Dorohedoro fans should seek it out as well, if only to see what Hayashida did as her first serialized work.
Then I played Sin and Punishment for the Nintendo 64 and had a blast. Hard as shit rail shooter, took me about 3 days to beat even though it's like 2 hours long. It's good to play just an arcade-style shooting game sometimes to remind you what's good about life. I thought at one point it was too hard for me, but just started another run and suddenly I was locked in and beat it without having to resort to save states or easy mode. That makes you feel alive. Super cool experience. There is a story too but well, it's not what the game's really about you know. Very funny script and dub, though.
And that was most of my week. Now I'm still trying to finish Go Nagai's adaptation of The Divine Comedy (it's really good!) and just recently started reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is somehow gayer than I was expecting for a novel of that nature even though I was already told it was super gay. Only really beginning that one, so we'll see how it goes. Saint Seiya has been fun as always and besides that I'm only watching the Chucky TV series, which is also fun, by season 2 it goes all in on camp again like Bride and Seed of Chucky did 20 years ago. I'll write again when I have something new to say.