This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: Natalie Needs a NAS
• The Pokémon Tera Leak (Possibly Bigger Than The Nintendo Gigaleak)
• Tribe Nine is a Perplexing RPG (I Played the Tribe Nine Demo and… What the Fuck?)
• All in Abyss is DOPE! (I Cast My Judgment, and This is The Real Shit)
• I Also Checked Out Ys X Nordics! (The ANOFO Vibe Remains Dead and Over)
• Out of the Frying Pan; Into The Firefox (I Switched to Firefox and Plugins Ruined My Site)

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Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Natalie Needs a NAS

Considering how much of my time online involves me accumulating, saving,  examining,and gathering files from various sources, I don’t think it is wrong to classify me as a data hoarder. Partially because I view locally hosted files as infinitely easier to work with, but mostly because I do not trust many things I find online to stay online. Particularly when it comes to the work of artists or when it is something viewed as ‘illegal’, such as ROMs. At first, I viewed this as merely a form of security for an internet that grows less stable with each successive day. I mean, Chrome finally started cracking down on uBlock Origin this past week, which finally pushed me away from using Chrome as my default browser. The Internet Archive went down last week and still isn’t up. And search went to shit thanks to AI, for multiple reasons. (Bad search increases reliance on ‘answer engines’ like AI and AI pollutes search results with trash.)

My latest bit of paranoia is centered around my ever-increasing storage needs. Files are just getting bigger, and the answer I am gravitating toward is getting a NAS. Not because I do a lot of networking, but a NAS is an effective backup solution that is resistant to hard drive failure, which is something that will always be a thing. Even for SATA SSDs and NVMe SSDs. I am running out of space on my 4 TB external backup. I have already passed the 50% threshold on the 4 TB NVMe I got 1.5 years ago— at basically the cheapest price possible. And as of late, I have been paranoid about Steam.

This paranoia is attributable to a change in wording when buying games. The site now says that users are not buying games, but rather digital licenses to buy games. A thing that physical purists have been screeching about as a reminder that ‘YoU oWn NoThInG wHeN iT’s DiGiTaL’ while latching onto their physical copies of unpatched, unfinished games. 

Now, I believe that the laws classifying digital purchases as merely licenses are stupid on their face. They’re purchases, you buy them, and the company is under a perpetual obligation to provide the purchase. Just like how they are responsible for giving you a physical product and replacing it if it is defective. Sure, the obligation to provide a download in theory never stops, but I call that the cost of goods sold. Those are the production and shipping costs! Unfortunately, digital ownership laws were strong-armed by corporations who abused the ignorance and greed of politicians. So we’re kind of stuck with them.

However, the whole discussion on digital ownership is misdirected in my mind, as ownership is not as important as some people make it out to be. To the typical end user, the actual important part is their ability to possess and retain possession of the good. Of something that stores the game’s data. And retaining possession in the modern climate is… tricky. Let me present it this way: if one wants to watch a movie, there are several ways one can go about it. They could watch it on a streaming service, where it may or may not remain available. They could purchase it on physical media. They could purchase a digital copy of the series on a number of digital storefronts. Or rent it from a service for, like $10 less. They could just download it on the internet via old standbys like YTS or 1337x. Or they could ask their local library to buy the Blu-Ray.

All of these approaches allow the end user to achieve their goal— watching the movie. However, if they want to reliably rewatch the movie, that’s a problem. Streaming services are fickle and often remove content with little warning. Movies can get delisted from digital storefronts for all manner of reasons, assuming the storefront stays up at all. And while physical movies last for a considerable length of time, the threat of disc rot is always real. Yes, even for blu-rays. Discs are not some impenetrable structure of crystal, they’re just chunks of plastic with data stored on them. They can get scratched, damaged from heat, and just be snapped in half from a good wack. You might take meticulous care of your discs in a climate controlled room, but you are not everyone. And frankly, I’m glad that’s not the case. I’m real, and you’re not.

To retain possession of a film for the duration of one’s life, they could gamble on physical media or digital storefronts remaining active. However, there is a more secure way to retain the contents of this film, and of anything that can be converted into 1s and 0s. Digital files that are stored across several drives in order to avoid data loss from drive failure. Or in less ass-headed terms, a server. 

Servers have two problems. They are expensive to run, requiring both a constant stream of electricity and need to be replaced every X years. There is a reason why archivists prefer using media that can be stored in cold storage, because this gets real expensive real fast. Plus, you know, servers can be destroyed with a powerful enough force… or a bucket of water.

The primary argument for a server versus discs is speed and access, as discs will always be limited by how fast they can be spun and computers can only read so many discs at once. Meanwhile, even a SATA SSD is leagues faster than a disc, and you can hook up loads to a single computer. Discs can be rewritable, but they simply are not designed for the file maneuvering of a typical hard drive.

Okay, okay, but I am missing the point here. What do I actually want this hypothetical storage device for? What am I thinking about putting on it? 

…Basically copies of every game I have a ‘digital license’ for and care about enough to back it up. Just so that, no matter what, I will retain possession of it. Now, how much data would that be? …I dunno, but the short answer is an insane amount. Especially with so many games pushing over 50 GB due to texture sizes, high-quality audio, and multiple languages. 

If I were to do this, I would place myself in a constant battle with growing file sizes and the endless task of organizing so many different applications that have different rules. For example, not every game works ‘portably’ in a computer/Windows sense. Some reference data stored in the user’s documents folder or makes an AppData folder. And don’t get me started on how hard it would be to maintain patches and necessary mods for these games. Sure, you might think that the mods will always be up there at Nexus Mods or GameBanana or whatever. But will they really be there in a decade? Do you KNOW that?

…Cripes, I haven’t even brought up Steam DRM. This is something I see as a non-issue due to how unintrusive Steam’s DRM typically is, and how if Steam goes to shit one of these days, people will work out a universal, seamless, solution. At least for Steam’s DRM. Games with Denuvo, Ubisoft games, and the like are subjected to their own kerfuffles, but dedicated users can often work around it. And in the event that a Steam game with DRM also had a DRM-free release… then I can just come into possession of the DRM free version. The publisher already got my money, so IDGAF!

Do I want to open up this hornet’s nest? Absolutely not! But I have been growing increasingly isolated, increasingly paranoid of things outside of my control, and feel a regular need to take it back. I want to trust the world, but time and time again it tells me it cannot be trusted. The technocratic greed and incompetence on display. The routine disregard for the future of Earth as a planet. The fact that the political spectrum has shifted so far right that the true moderate is now a radical beyond ‘common’ rational thought. And all that dang genocide. I can’t do much about any of that beyond voting and donating, so I cling to what I can, and try to harvest what I can. Because ‘the internet is dying,’ ‘the planet is dying,’ and ‘humanity is doomed and should just agree to a mutual species-wide genocide.’ At least I think I heard people say the latter one. Though, that might just be the voices in my head.

Akumako: “I’m not a voice in your head! I’m real! I’m REAL! I’m really, really REAL!“

And that’s why I want a NAS. Because everything is constantly dying and I want to cling onto things before they die.

…So what type of NAS am I gonna get for my 30th birthday? I dunno. I want something slick and future proof. I remember watching a video on the CM3588 and found it quite fetching, but while I can get it for sub $200 and make a project out of it, it uses NVMe drives, which are quite expensive. Assuming a good price is in effect, a 4 TB NVMe drive costs about $200, a 4 TB SATA SSD costs about as much, and an 16 TB HDD costs less than $200. Price-wise, HDDs are the best, but they are also slow and bad for storing games. I have not played games off an HDD in almost 9 years, and I’m not going back. And do I really want to invest $600 into a doodad? …Not really dude. I’ve got a mortgage to pay! And a retirement account to fund that will probably just go to supporting BIPOC queers when I die. Because I’m not going to have any damn descendents.

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The Pokémon Tera Leak
(Possibly Bigger Than The Nintendo Gigaleak)

Son of a BITCH! Of all the leaks to happen while I was crunching away on tax returns! Someone hacked into Game Freak’s servers and extracted over a terabyte of data that they began releasing across the internet on Saturday, October 12, 2024. This hack, allegedly caused by a phishing email, is one of the largest hacks of any gaming company in history, and the sheer bounty of information is just insane. The hack included decades-old development data, planning documents, unreleased lore, early sprites, character pitch sheets, and a bevy of assets that were never made public. Some new details about upcoming projects were included, but the hackers also extracted personal data pertaining to Game Freak employees and contractors. 

Naturally, I do not condone the theft of personal information and company employees. Nobody needs to know their government ID numbers or addresses and that information should not be distributed. However, I view hacks/leaks like this as acts of historic importance and preservation. I believe it is wrong to withhold development information on something that millions of people are passionate about, and view this as a crude way to correct the opaque nature of major companies. Some might opine that ‘this belongs in a museum/art book’ but I view artistic work as belonging to ‘the people’ above all else.

Also, I want to clarify that it was a damn mess and a rush to keep track of all this information, as there was a damn tsunami of it gushing from gulags I lacked access to. My understanding is that most of these documents were distributed via Discord channels and then filtered out to places like 4chan and Twitter, with bigger files shared via whatever preferred file sharing service people used, via obscure links. Trying to follow all this is a gosh darn mess, and it is easy to miss key information, so I cannot cover everything. My main sources for these bullet points are CentroLeaks, 3clipse_tt, and the Pokeos Teraleak recap page. Certain materials can be downloaded via rentry.org/freakleak. If you want a more complete overview, you will need to dig through the dirt, but here are some of the biggest morsels of info.

• Switch 2’s internal codename is Ounces.
• Pokémon Gen 10 is in development for Switch 2 and has the codename of Gaia
• The codename of Pokémon Legends: Z-A is Ikkaku.
• Synapse is a multiplayer PVP game developed by Game Freak and is described as being similar to Splatoon.
• There was some Pokémon MMO project being experimented on circa 2011.
• Pokémon Black and White experimented with using 3D character models and a 3D world at some point in development.
• The source code for Pokémon HeartGold, SoulSilver, Black, White, Black 2, White 2, ORAS, Pokémon Bank, and probably more have been released onto the internet.
• ROMs and early documentation for unreleased games have been released, including a Super Famicom remake of Quinty (1989), a DS game about battling and fusing bugs, and various other incomplete DS projects.
• Various early builds of games spanning from Gen IV to Gen VI have been distributed, featuring early environments, incomplete features cut from the final game, and more.
• Development tools, such as map editors for Gen III and Gen IV games.
• Dozens of pre-release sprites for Pokémon and characters have been distributed in varying quality and formats.
• Unreleased lore about Arceus and the creation of the world of Pokémon, including a religious balance diagram that ties the legendaries together.
• Confirmation that Pokémon Legends: Z-A will feature Mega Zygarde (why?) and Mega Zeraora.
• Information on a potential new animated movie meant to revitalize interest from lapsed fans. It went through multiple versions, so it is a bit hard to say what it wants to be. But at one point it was a more mature story with themes of cyberbullying and suicide and features a Mew with city destroying levels of power disguised as a fat Pikachu.
• A sequel to Detective Pikachu (2019), dubbed The Great Detective Pikachu began development in 2021.
• The INCOMPLETE source code for Pokémon Legends: Z-A and the Generation 10 Pokémon title were both obtained by the hacker, but have not been released to the public.
• Short stories about various humans mating and having children with Pokémon including Typhlosion, Ursaring, Octillery, Rapidash, Lapras, and Slaking. Which are likely meant to be parallels to Japanese myths, but when presented out of context, they are just darkly humorous bestiality lore. Which I think is just inappropriate for the series as it takes the fun away! This ain’t Pokémon TSF Series! Having sex with Pokémon is only fun when it’s a CRIME! Not when it is a Biblical action that is ordained by the great Aus who allows abominations to breathe air!
• The decision to emphasize Gen I Pokémon in X and Y was due in part to the negative pre-release reception to Pokémon Black and White, where it was cool to hate on their designs. Actually, that was fake!
• Early builds of Pokémon X and Y were released, featuring different protagonist designs, world designs, lighting systems, early music tracks, and a battle system demo with a more dynamic camera.
• Southern Kalos was real at some point in the development of X and Y, but was evidently cut. Actually, a lot of things were cut, which makes sense. It is frankly amazing that they got X and Y out in just three years. Switching to 3D development ain’t easy! Same with balancing the workflow for a global launch
• X and Y were going to have a feature where the player could start their own gym and populate it with other gym leaders.
• X and Y were going to have a mechanic where unevolved Pokémon who surpassed their evolution levels would gain additional buff, such as boosts STAB damage (2x instead of 1.5x) and get overall stat boosts. Which would have been one of the most wild and insane changes possible, and they were cowards for not going through with it. The only way to FIX Pokémon is to break it MORE!
• AZ was originally going to be the leader of Team Flare and attempt to use the ultimate weapon to kill everyone except for him and his descendants. Which honestly would have been a better storyline rather than whatever guff Lysandre was going on about.
• X and Y in particular had a bunch of cut Pokémon designs with complete artwork, much of which looked really good and promising. Such as that sexy flamingo, an alternate design of Florges, grittier mega evolutions of the Kanto starters, and a two-stage peanut plant Pokémon.

Now, there was naturally some pushback from the community about this leak and people’s circulation of this information. Some have presented this as theft, as something that will hurt the projects in development, and turn many ideas featured in this leak into something that cannot be explored in future titles. However… I do not buy that for a minute. 

Yes, leaks do impact the development of future games and can cause deals to fall through as trust is broken between partners. It is bad when a project is leaked before proper development has started, but this will not considerably impact the development of PLZA or the Gen 10 game. PLZA will probably be delayed a quarter because everybody’s work environment is locked out as the security team tries to make things more secure, but that will probably wind up making the game better.

Any claims that leaked ideas cannot be used in future games are just incorrect. It does not matter if there is a bunch of fanart for unused Pokémon designs. Game Freak and Nintendo can still repurpose or iterate on the designs, as they are still their designs. There is not some copyright clause that companies forfeit the ownership of assets distributed prior to any leak. Nintendo can do whatever the fuck they want. Mind you, they might not want to do something similar to a leak because they don’t want to draw attention to it… but if that’s your point, say it! Do not present a choice as a can or cannot! Don’t make me go third grade substitute teacher on you, asking ‘I don’t know, can you go to the restroom?’

There’s also the human element of this leak that I’ve seen some people discuss. Voicing how this is taking work from people and presenting it out to the world without their consent. I think it is important to emphasize the fact that if you do work for a company, then it becomes company property. Many of the people who worked on the materials that leaked are likely no longer at Game Freak and have zero say in how these materials are handled. From a legal standpoint, the artist is irrelevant, as these are the assets of The Pokémon Company. And they would have never put them in an artbook. 

Then there’s the fact that some people are deeply upset with how some people latched onto the SEO friendly story about the lore where humans had sex with Pokémon. I read the bad machine translated versions of these stories— at least I think I found all of them— and they just read like basic myths. People are just latching onto this because of the absurdity and clickbait-ability. And in this SEO dominated hellscape, this is how people make money. ‘Didja hear that Typhlosions are canonically rapist halfbreed fucklos? Cuz da lore says dey iz!’ And if that reaction bothers you… clean up yo algorithms, ya poop!

In summary, this was a decadent treat for all Pokémon likers, and the morality of the situation is irrelevant. This is not about Game Freak or the creators, this is about us, this is about the community, and it should be a point of celebration. Because this information was never meant for our virgin eyes, and now we’ve got it! And that’s DOPE!

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Tribe Nine is a Perplexing RPG
(I Played the Tribe Nine Demo and… What the Fuck?)

This past week was home to Steam Next Fest, the quarterly-ish event where oodles of games get demos released on Steam in an effort to gain more eyes and acclaim as demos sell games. Well, at least good games with good demos. I checked out three games during this event, partially out of my innate curiosity, but also because I wanted to play some darn video games after a stressful tax season. And video game demos are, technically, video games!

Tribe Nine is a game announced way back in February 2020 by the newly formed Too Kyo Games and one that I was immediately interested in. A dystopian sci-fi baseball action game from former Danganronpa leads is a wild enough idea that I feel I should at least look at it. There was a private demo released a few months ago, but I couldn’t get in, so I played it and… I have some thoughts. The biggest being that… this has to have the worst opening I have ever seen for a live service.

Tribe Nine opens to a pastiche of an 8-bit RPG, but in a way that feels deeply disingenuous. The sprite design is more like something from a 2000s retro style indie game than anything anyone played in the 80s. The field of view is so narrow it looks like a Game Gear game more than a Famicom game. And the movement speed is all mucked up, as vertical movement is painfully slow, while horizontal movement is considerably faster. The protagonist goes out on ‘quests’ from a goddess statue, including buying herbs and checking pots, before the protagonist sees a mysterious 16-bit sprite walking along the sky. The protagonist then returns to the goddess statue, whose language dissolves into gibberish before the village becomes distorted and all the towns folks, all two of them, die.

The protagonist then goes to meet the 16-bit characters, who insist that he does not belong here and that this world is fake. The protagonist is confused at first, but after being told certain names and seeing them knock down a house to reveal a wooden standee, the entire world tilts around him. Revealing that the flat 2D world he called home… is actually just the painted rooftops of some skyscrapers. The protagonist then sheds his 8-bit form to reveal he is a 16-bit humanoid named Yo Kuronaka.

Yo is then attacked by a 16-bit miniboss who serves as the game’s first gameplay tutorial and after defeating them, Yo is joined by his two childhood friends. They give him a vague idea of what is going on, explain that he has amnesia and has been away for two years, and instruct him to flee the flying city they are in via some escape pods. After some more battles without any allies, Yo and friends then join up with a bunch of other characters and continue their escape. The game teaches the player some basic concepts, like beat enemies in front of locked chests to get goodies, and complete timing-based minigames to get more goodies. But this all comes to a head when they reach the first boss.

…I will talk about the first boss later, because what the fuck were they thinking.

After beating the boss and reaching the escape pods, the crew is intercepted by Zero. A masked teenager with big chuunibyou syndrome who can command laser satellites precise enough to kill single people and strong enough to blow up highly secure metal objects. Zero then kills Yo’s two childhood friends and, in his rage, seeking a way out of this, Yo challenges the playful Zero to a game of XB. Or Xtreme Baseball. 

The game then shifts from a party-arena-action-based JRPG into a stylistic baseball-based interrogation strategy game, which is about as awkward a shift as it sounds. Zero says something to the batter or pitcher and they need to say the right response to both send the ball in the right direction and strengthen their own resolve. A novel idea… that’s hindered by a less than stellar translation and the usual ‘guess what the writer was thinking’ problem endemic to adventure games. 

Yo and friends manage to put up a good fight, but they fail to defeat Zero… and wake up in another city on the surface of the world, specifically in a hotel repurposed as a self-contained village. Yo’s childhood friends are somehow alive, the gacha system is clumsily introduced with a robot who creates artificial constructs of real people, and the game reveals what it really is. Another gosh darn live service.

Getting to this point took me two and a half hours, which seems like an absurd amount of time, because it was. The game just overwhelms the player with information at the start, and in a pretty clumsy way. Characters are thrown at the player and protagonist with little context or opportunity to get to know them. Tension builds upon revelations, with no room to breathe. Mechanics are introduced via description screens, rather than proper playable tutorials. And new menu features are added slowly via these long animations and explanations.

It just left a bad taste in my mouth, and if I didn’t know this was a Too Kyo games project, I would have bounced off this before really understanding the combat. And… oh dear, the combat. 

I actually quite enjoy this genre of party-based real time action RPG, but Tribe Nine’s rendition of it just feels… wrong. Attacks from the player lack much impact, with the audiovisual feedback and high health even of basic enemies really making the player feel like a weakling. The game is heavily reliant on properly timed dodges, but the dodge is mapped to the same button as sprint, and dodging doesn’t always cancel your last input. While enemies both move fast and hit hard from the start. Like, ‘kill you in three hits’ hard.

When enemies hit this hard, the game is usually meant to be played in a slower, more conservative style… but I think Tribe Nine wants players to counter aggression with aggression. Two of the core mechanics are properly dodging enemy attacks and parrying attacks using a skill, or deflecting an enemy attack, but both of these abilities go on cooldown after use. Same with dodging, as characters can only dodge two or three times before depleting their stamina.

This is nothing new— Zenless Zone Zero used dodge and skill cooldowns and it worked just fine. But the entire game feels like it is designed around these overly idealized combat scenarios where the player assumes this aggressive reactive role. Run when the enemy does this, dodge when they do this, only attack during these intervals, parry this move by timing it at just the right moment, and beware the attacks that cannot be dodged or parried.

It does not feel rewarding or empowering and the enemies do not have complex strategies you need to master or understand. It’s just doing actions without making mistakes, because boy does the game not want players to make a mistake. Tribe Nine features a tension meter where if the player, or their AI companions, get hit a bunch, enemies become more aggressive, dealing more damage at a faster rate. On the flip side, the player’s party also gets stronger as they defeat enemies, afflict them (whatever that means), and use chain skills to weaken them. As the player raises their tension, their characters get buffed and new customizable perks are activated. The problem is that this mechanic is very poorly explained, and even after playing the game for five hours… I barely understand how it works. Or rather, how to use it effectively and ideally.

The tension system is not the only way the game feels punishing. Enemy damage figures are about twice as big as they ought to be. Basic enemies do not get staggered from most attacks when… they should. They just should. This is not up for debate. And before it properly explains its mechanics, the game throws the player into a tutorial boss that took me over 30 tries and over 40 minutes to clear. 

Prior to the battle with the first boss, Endrone, the game has yet to introduce key mechanics that change how the game is played. Namely the rechargeable cutscene-based chain attacks and the rechargeable cutscene-based ultimate skills. That is already a bad idea, and so is creating a boss who, depending on how your AI companions heal you and what attacks you wander into, you can die in one or two hits. Actually, no, let me do you one better. If you rush into this battle, there’s a good chance you will just die within the first three seconds. For the tutorial boss. 

The boss battle takes something like 3.5 minutes to clear properly, there is no way to buff your stats ahead of time, and you need to just memorize and strategize. Learn the attack patterns, what to do when X happens, figure out the right timing when they do attack Y, and exploit optional abilities, like slowdown, to deal extra damage. But NEVER try to get in a few extra attacks when they are loading up an attack that can shred off 60% of the protagonist’s HP. 

I’m tempted to bring up a Dark Souls comparison to the aggressiveness of this ‘wake up call’… but there are other more obvious Dark Souls comparisons I could make. Tribe Nine has a feature where you can see the bloodstained remains of players who perished to nearby enemies. It has bonfire equivalents for healing and traversal. And its maps even have blocked paths made to be unlocked and turned into shortcuts. I cannot help but look at this and ask… why? Why is this game trying to be such a difficult and intense action game when it is primarily a mobile gacha game?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I know mobile games can be competent and aggressive action games. I did all the endgame legend difficulty quests in Dragalia Lost… at least 20 times each. (I would link video evidence, but Archive.org is still down.) However, this is the tutorial for a game people are expected to re-roll in. Why would you ever make it even remotely hard to clear? Even if you want to make a gacha game that is sold on its challenge, at least let players get to a point where they can use the gacha first! At least let them get their footing with the mechanics before sending them to the fire like this! Because this simply was not fun, and just set a terrible first impression. And that impression… did not improve when playing for another two hours. 

While I did find the common mobs of enemies more tolerable than Endrone, the game feel of certain characters made many of them feel unfinished and others really emphasized the shortcomings of this game’s mechanics and responsiveness. Such as a vore-loving cutie whose entire kit is based around doing parries against enemies. I tried playing as her to hopefully learn the right sequence… but it led me to believe the problem was not with me, but with the game. 

And that is just the combat. I haven’t even talked about how distasteful the whole 8-bit intro world is. I know what the devs are trying to do. Pull a ‘this ain’t yo daddy’s RPG’ thing and show that this game is so different from your typical RPG. …But no, this is a typical-ass RPG. The childhood friends, the amnesia, the dark mastermind named Zero. So what first impression is it fishing for? Hell if I know.

Shifting to a completely different wavelength, let’s talk about the visuals. I think Tribe Nine fares very well, but it’s also kind of all over the damn place. The overworld is an HD-2D game with 16-bit character sprites, lavish effects, and an urban 3D world modeled after a dystopian, almost cyberpunk, cityscape. Combat is a flashy party-based character action lite affair with fully 3D character models and shoebox arenas that light up with visual effects and attack sparks. While the dialogue sequences grant the characters these wickedly expressive character models that are either overlaid onto the HD-2D overworld or a 2D background. …Except for the sections where the game just doesn’t want to show the characters’ 3D models.

The big confusion for me is the HD-2D art, as it simply does not fit with the rest of the game. It is a glaring artistic departure from what is otherwise a more traditional looking anime RPG, and its inclusion seems like one done out of budgetary concerns. Sure, HD-2D is not necessarily cheap, but sprites are way easier to make than models and the 3D environments have a good reason to appear blocky. But it’s still jarring to hop between the two after every battle.

To conclude this rambling tangent, I was hoping for the best with Tribe Nine… but the demo I played made me convinced that no matter how great its highs were, it just wasn’t worth the frustration. So that’s one game I won’t need to do a gacha first impression review of! Because I basically just did that. 

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All in Abyss is DOPE!
(I Cast My Judgment, and This is The Real Shit)

I briefly mentioned All in Abyss: Judge the Fake this past June, and I described it as “a character-driven poker adventure game about people trying to amass fortunes through the art of gambling!” So naturally I added it to the money list, and I played the demo featured as part of Steam Next Fest. I was cautious after the last game I demoed… but not only did All in Abyss meet my expectations, it blew them out of the water!

The game follows Asuha Senahara, a self-proclaimed gambling genius who ventures into the sin-rich city of… The City. A dystopian desert-based hellscape where gambling is a part of daily life and five undefeatable Witches rule over all. To prove her worth, Asuha challenges them to a series of high stakes Texas Hold ‘Em battles, where the winner takes all and the loser DIES! It’s an absurd idea, but in the way that I just adore. Also, the official store page describes her as “a pretty young lady on the cover, a middle-aged old man on the inside.” And you all know how I feel about that!

Rather than just be a series of battles though, it is a hybrid card battle game, adventure game, visual novel, and lite RPG. One where Asuha ventures around the city, gaining leads, getting items, and building herself up for boss battles against foes with magical powers. It’s narrow in its scope, positioning itself as being a 15 to 20 hour affair with five (or possibly six) key boss battles, with a scattering of smaller battles in the interim.

At first, I was iffy about the whole poker aspect… but then I spent 90 minutes grinding at poker, making big gambles, suffering big losses, and enjoying even bigger returns. Poker is a strange game in that it is strongly based on social cues, reactions, vibes, and how people behave. When you divorce that and turn it into an electronic game played against a computer, it loses that. However, All in Abyss is not a standard poker game. It is a poker RPG that has its own twists and multipliers that encourage a fiercely aggressive playstyle. It wants you to go all in, to make big bets, and to rely on luck and fortune, to only back down when the heat of the battle is low or you realize you are just screwed.

Part of how it achieves this is by making Asuha a gosh darn mind reader with access to magical powers. Most turns, she will give the player some insight into the opponent’s hand. If they have a pocket pair, a card higher than hers, the same suit or number as a card on the table, and so forth. It is both a blessing and a curse, as it can either spell disaster or embolden the player as they think everything is going their way… only to get sidelined.

This information is paired with Asuha’s ability to influence the rules of the game and her opponent using her luck points. They recharge after every ‘game’ and give her access to some insane tools. Forcing opponents to fold, forcing them to not fold, choosing the card in the final round, or determining the suit of the next card. It gives the player the power to turn the odds in their favor… but it is also easy to misuse. For example, the opponents seen within this demo tend to fold if they are not happy with the cards in play during round 3 (four cards on the table). So when I thought I was being so clever by forcing the final card to be the one to give me a flush, straight, or triple, there was a good chance the opponent would just fold. Every time it happened, it pissed me off, but in a good way. The kind that makes me more determined to WIN!

The gameplay, while simple, has this very real tension to it, as this is not some conservative poker where people only bring in a small amount. Oh no. The opponents love raising instead of checking and will raise the multiplier high, pushing against 30 or 60 times the initial wager. And the bigger the gamble, the more damage the winner of a game deals to their opponents’ chips— which are more like Yu-Gi-Oh! life points than anything in real poker.

It’s a high tension system that had me cackling as I allowed myself to get lost in the thrill of the gamble. Defeat was bitter, but it always felt like I was the one who screwed up, and the threat of defeat only made victory all the sweeter. It is a system that could outstay its welcome if repeated ad nauseam with only minor additions— kinda like Sushi Striker. 

However, before being a poker game, All in Abyss is chiefly an adventure game, and its story is pretty damn strong. The small cast is well characterized and entertaining. The English script is surprisingly good, featuring a lot of gusto and personality in its translation. And while the plot is pretty basic, there are enough high emotions for the reader to get wrapped up in the experience. Seriously, if Asuha’s already rock solid persona undergoes any form of development and the other witches are as compelling as the one in the demo, this game’s gonna be dope. 

Needless to say, I think All in Abyss is definitely worth paying attention to. However, I do have two key criticisms with the game, and I think they will prevent it from doing as well as it probably should. 

The first is that the game sometimes suffers from the age-old adventure game problem of needing to do things the way the developer plans them. You need to go to location X to progress the story, then Y, then Z, and then back to X, with the sequence of events not always being clear. I thought all I needed to defeat the Witch of Sweets was a bunch of fruity markers to ruin her sense of smell, but I actually needed to get some surströmming from the back alley. Except to get the surströmming, I needed to visit the location twice. …After the seller was quoting a price of a million credits. You don’t need to get anything new, you just need to approach him a second time.

My second criticism is the game’s lack of budget and corresponding visual flair. I know to temper my expectations, as All in Abyss is an indie game, but it is also a collaboration between the publisher of Needy Streamer Overdose (2022), and Acquire. You know, the developers of Octopath Traveler (2018) and Akiba’s Trip 2 (2013). They are an elusive mid-sized company whose budget is denoted by the publishers, but they generally have voice acting and enough of a budget for some cutscenes. Not here though! 

Characters do not have VA aside from battle barks, when a story like this, with such intense emotions and good dialogue really warrants a Japanese dub. Something to give these characters more oomph, more passion, and more personality. Voicework should not be seen as a necessity, but damn are there games where it could really make things better.

This lack of budget also shows with the game’s first execution scene, which is clearly aping off of the hyperbolic executions of Danganronpa. Instead, they only had the budget for a writer and translator and one CG. So you have this intense and dramatic narration of this scene, something that would work well for a novel, placed over a single CG. Scratch that. A single CG laced with JPG artifacts— and I don’t even know how that happens in 2024. When paired with the glacial pace of the text-based narration… it’s kinda lame.

The straight dope is that All in Abyss has all the markings of being one of my favorite games in recent memory. I just wish that this was given a bit more budget, because damn are they cooking up something special. Unfortunately, I fear this game is being spelt on. Sure, its announcement trailer got a lot of attention, but there is basically no buzz around it this past week. Which sucks, as this is a comprehensive demo of the game’s first full chapter. Hell, I think there was only one person who streamed the English version of the demo on Twitch.

So go download the demo and play it while you can, wishlist it, and buy it when it comes out. I know I will and I’ve basically sworn off on buying games at full price these days.

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I Also Checked Out Ys X Nordics!
(The ANOFO Vibe Remains Dead and Over)

Going three for three on this demo smorgasbord, I also played the demo for Ys X Nordics. For those who do not know, I was pretty big into the Ys series after dipping my toes into PC gaming. I thought the remakes of the first two games were good, but with a lot of old PC RPG jank, but the series achieved something truly special with the ANOFO trilogy. Which is my personal abbreviation for Ark of Napithstim, Oath in Felghana, and Origin. A series of games with the same underlying simple yet incredibly fulfilling action combat.

All you can do in these games is attack, jump, switch between rechargeable skills. But everything moves fast without being overwhelming, the audiovisual feedback to combat is nothing short of masterful, and the giant boss battles feel like intense battles of attrition. They are games I would happily play through anywhere anytime, and I could go on and on about the little things that make it work. How the time-based buffs and health items dropped by enemies and general speed of the character encourage the player to keep moving and never stop. How simple yet rewarding the skills are to use. How the rapid recharge of skills encourages you to use them constantly and play aggressively in the best way. And how the games gradually developed some grade-A dungeon design. Which is why it’s no surprise that Ys Origin is in my top 25 list. It’s in the bottom five, but that’s still impressive!

However, my thoughts on the series soured when I decided to check out 2009’s Ys Seven. A game that eschewed the single character action for a party-based affair and was just… not fun for me. Combat became significantly slower and more complex, requiring character switching to exploit weaknesses, and lacking the same gusto of the prior games. As I said in my review, “It’s not bad, I just don’t like it and think it’s worse [than what came before it].” 

This soured me on checking out the subsequent Ys titles that built upon Seven’s foundation. This included Ys IV: Memories of Celceta (2012), Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (2016), and Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (2019). However, after a year delay— Falcom, fix your shit, the global release will make you more money— Ys X: Nordics (2023) is coming to not Asia and it got a demo. I played it for three hours and… I have such mixed thoughts on it.

Ys X is so far from the games I liked that it is basically a different series altogether, and the opening is so restrictive, it’s hard to get a good read on what the game will be when it gets past the prologue. Invisible walls are everywhere, you cannot just go out and fight monsters for half an hour to learn the combat, and the story is front line and center. It is the type of linearity that people most commonly rail against, with stopgap cutscenes after every two minutes of gameplay. All of which is paired with a confident yet very familiar story about demonkin who can only be defeated by select chosen ones. Namely Adol and the latest Ys girl, Karja the viking princess. A duo who are bound by inexplicable magical handcuffs, turning this into a two character action game.

If I wanted to, I could rail against this demo for how it is structured… except I actually really enjoyed myself while playing it. The small starting town is the type of well realized contained place that I just love wandering around in games, trying to see it at every angle, and chatting to every NPC, even if what they say is unimportant. The English dub is quite solid, with Karja’s voice actress, Cherami Leigh, doing a phenomenal job of giving her character more personality. While the story is familiar, Falcom always has an earnest commitment to their stories that at least give the impression that they are important, that the NPCs in them matter to some degree. (Except for Ys Seven.) The soundtrack is on par with what I would expect from modern Falcom— not quite as iconic as their old stuff, but still maintaining a high quality throughout. 

As for combat… I only got to really play it for maybe 30 minutes, but it definitely has a good feel. Attacks and skills have a nice punchiness to them, skill point generation is pretty fast all things considered, and with every new mechanic introduced, the game got better. Fighting with two characters, each with a similar yet not identical character, makes combat feel fast and focused. The ability to switch them to manage HP and SP is a great feature. Being able to control them as they attack as one feels really good. And rather than emphasize dodging, the game emphasizes blocking at the right time. Doing so not only nullifies damage, but it gives the player revenge power, boosting the damage of their combo skills and allowing them to unleash hell on their opponents.

Or in other words, the game wants you to attack, block, and then attack even harder. It’s a form of parrying that I prefer over the more familiar implementation, giving the player a buff they can hold and use when they feel like it, rather than an automated response. And the game really wants you to use this mechanic, as if you don’t the first boss will just end you. But if you use this mechanic well, you will end them like they’re a damn chump!

Difficulty is also something to note, as enemies hit hard and require a careful yet aggressive approach to slay. They also don’t drop healing items, but the game instead has a novel approach to healing. You can stand in a field to heal— a Ys staple— wait for the non-active player character to gradually heal as time passes, or revive a fallen party member by holding X. Like this is a co-op cover shooter from the 360 generation! Combined with generously placed healing points, the game is generous enough to be approachable, but definitely has some teeth to it, and I like that. 

I also weirdly like the visuals of the game… despite being the most mixed, kitbashed, and generation breaking presentation I have ever seen. Ys X simultaneously feels like a PSP, PS2, PS Vita, PS3, and PS4 game all at the same damn time! What does that even mean? I don’t know! The invisible walls lining the town, the jittery way Adol and Karja jump onto tall ledges and try to get on top of them. The load times for relatively minor scenes. The boats have such bad wave effects it would look dated and trite on the PS2. The character models are highly detailed with some modern looking textures, but their lip flaps look bad and they’re generally not that expressive outside of cutscenes. Hell, even the save screen looks PSP as all hell.

However, the gameplay does not feel dated, it feels polished and refined, and some things are so crisp and slick the game feels modern. Or at least like it was developed for ‘modern’ consoles.It might be using basic flowers, some textures that are at least a decade out of style, and certain objects just do not cast shadows. However, it does not look cheap. It looks like a kitbash between things a developer made a decade ago, because asset reuse is how smart people make games they know will only sell… 200,000 copies, maybe. Also, this game feels modern because it does not trust you to follow the main path and keeps putting waypoints on the screen. I miss when that was something you could just toggle on and off…

Through all these thoughts, do I think Ys X Nordics has the merits to be a good game? Yes. It has a damn chase sequence through a burning village where you Crash Bandicoot through wooden debris and then skate on a wooden board while grappling hooking over gaps. You’d have to try to screw things up after that! However, the series is so far away from what I originally enjoyed that I do not see it ever being what I wanted it to be. Judging it by its own merits… Ys X seems pretty good, but you can never be too sure with RPGs like this. Especially after only the prologue chapter and three hours. The demo is longer than that— when did demos become several hours long? But I already spent too much time gaming this past week, so I gotta move on!

…After adding that I love it whenever a game lets you switch characters who say switch or something to that effect as they immediately take the other’s position. A man and a woman saying switch one after the other will never not give me big body swap vibes. …God, I wish I had the time to play this game and write a dedicated TSF body swap story for these two.

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Out of the Frying Pan; Into The Firefox
(I Switched to Firefox and Plugins Ruined My Site)

Oh cripes, Wednesday night was a mess. After getting done with tax season, I decided to finally heed the words of every wiseass on a forum and switch from Chrome to a better browser. And because of the dominance of Chromium, I decided to go with Firefox. This should have been a seamless process, but I ran into issues due to my extensions, as I have quite a few Chrome extensions that I use regularly. 

• Checker Plus for Gmail
• Dashlane
• Feedly Notifier
• Google Docs Offline
• Media Harvest: Twitter Media Downloader
• Powerful Pixiv Downloader
• ProWritingAid
• Simple Mass Downloader
• uBlock Origin

I don’t think that is too extreme for a 12-hour-a-day computer user like me, but not all of these extensions have versions on FireFox. The Feedly Notifier for Firefox is actually better in many respects, but Google Docs Offline is a Chromium only feature. Twitter Media Downloader has a good alternative with Twitter Media Assist, which does its job well. Powerful Pixiv Downloader is one of the best online downloaders around, up there with HDoujin Downloader, but the developer does not make it for Firefox, and Pixiv Toolkit is okay by comparison. 

I spent some time figuring this all out and then decided to resume work on this Rundown… when I noticed that Google Docs looked blurry. Scratch that. It looked like shit, was hard to read, and a general eyesore. So I decided that this would be a good time to just ditch Google Docs and switch to something else. I had heard good things about Scrivener and tried that… but it is straight up not what I want. Scrivener is made for novelists who rely on tools to give them structure and for researchers who want to keep track of their sources and citations. It is not for bloggers or reviewers. I hate how every file is its own directory. And the spellcheck is bullshit. Like, so full of itself that it does not recognize the term ‘blu-rays’ as a word, and insists that internet is always a proper noun. That’s not a red flag. That’s an ‘Imperialist Japan flag made using the vaginal blood of a recently raped 14-year-old Korean’ if I’ve ever seen one.

Now, an alternative would be Word… but I hate modern Word. Modern Word is the actual worst word processing program I have ever used, and for one simple reason. The animations. The animations are too smooth, too gradual, and make it feel as if Word has input latency issues. When I type a character into anything, I want the cursor to jump with no animation, and I want the character to appear instantly. That is how it should work! (I know I can disable animations… but that disables all animations on Windows. I’m not gonna do that!) Also, switching to anything other than Google Docs will be HARD for me, as Google Docs has the best spellcheck and grammar check of any writing program I have ever seen. It got materially worse a year and some change ago, but nothing comes close.

So I searched and fiddled with the cornucopious amount of options before me for about an hour before trying to refresh Firefox’s settings. There is still a major kerning issue with certain letters, particularly i, f, l, o, and t, but it’s good-e-nuff for now. Though, it does make me wish that there was a standalone Google Docs application I could use as a word processor…

While going through this kerfuffle, I was also trying to update my image viewer, ImageGlass, as it has been having issues as of late, mostly regarding speeds, So I bought the premium version… which was a Microsoft Store app. The software worked just fine, it had reworked options so I could make it FAR more responsive when viewing big image files. But it replaced every image file icon with an ImageGlass icon, which was ugly. Previously, the software had unique icons depending on file types, which I appreciated. A JPG should have an icon that says JPG. But it turned out that the premium version DOES NOT SUPPORT THIS BASIC FEATURE! And because it was a Microsoft Store app, I could not modify it. So I had to re-download the free version, update my old 2021 install, and redo all the settings again! I love it when the premium version of something is objectively inferior! Thanks Mika Saft!

Oh, but these were all small potatoes compared to the existential dread I felt when I checked out Natalie.TF on Wednesday night, where everything was fucked up! I was in such a rush to fix this issue that I did not take any screenshots, so let me just try to describe this. The main contents of every page and every post were expanded by a few hundred pixels, while the media retained their same dimensions and the background was an off-white gray. I tried to fix this with the GUI interface, but could not see any relevant options, so I decided to take the nuclear option… and update my theme, OceanWP, from 3.5.8 to 4.0.0. This fixed the issues present on the site… but it screwed up something else. The main page and all pages looked as they should, but the blog entries were completely screwed up. 

The way Natalie.TF works is that content only populates the center 1000 pixels of the screen. However, it reserves 30 pixels on the right and left side for non-existent sidebars with no contents. This is a screwy workaround, but it was the best way I could devise to center all contents and mimic the old WordPress Twenty Eleven theme I was using for about a decade. The end result is that the main contents of every post only occupy the center 940 pixels of a desktop screen. Arguably, I should update this area from 1000 pixels to something wider, but after doing a comparison between other writing-driven sites in 2022, I determined that this ratio was sufficient.

Anyway, the issue was that 500 pixels of this 1000 pixel area were empty, and only 440 pixels on the left side of the screen were available. This made every article functionally unreadable, and was paired with changes to the ‘meta’ of each post. The date published, category, inaccurate reading time counter, all of that had a massive font size, about 24, and I do not know why.

This gave me two problems to fix… and fixing the meta was pretty easy. I just had to eschew the GUI that I, as a basic user, should be able to rely on, and use some CSS code I found on a WordPress form to force the font size. Frustrating that I couldn’t use the interface, but if I was less stubborn, I could have fixed it in five minutes. But fixing the content being on the left side? There was no fixing that. I WAS able to temporarily fix it in a preview screen by adjusting the sidebar/content/sidebar allocation, but it broke whenever a new page was loaded.

After over an hour, I could not fix this issue… so I restored my latest Jetpack backup, a feature available to me via the WordPress legacy business plan that I pay $250/yr for. This introduced new problems, but through experimentation, I was able to find the actual culprit of my woes. Earlier in the day, one of my plug-ins automatically updated, Ocean Extra. And it broke my site. I don’t know how the fuck or why the hell this plugin changed the visual of my website without my consent, but it did, and as punishment, I deactivated it.

Having already rolled back to OceanWP 3.5.8, disabling Ocean Extra fixed these issues, and now Natalie.TF is back to normal. …Except the sticky header is no longer sticky. I guess it depended on the Ocean Extra plugin, despite having its own plugin. 

My lesson from this experience is NEVER UPDATE NATALIE.TF! This whole experience really makes me want to hire a web designer to modify and update a few little things that have been irking me about this site. How I cannot customize the top bar to include more items without widening the main content of the site. The weird line that appears beneath the title in blog posts but not the main page. How images do not appear when searching posts. How the YouTube embeds always seem to change their rules without my control, when I just want to keep them all at 800×450. How I need to center all headings and modify every separator line, in every post, every damn time, while manually adding image blocks in the editor. WordPress used to know that a link to an image meant embed that link as an image. But now it just sees it as a generic link and creates an error block I need to replace.

How much do I need to pay to make these problems go away? $1,000? $3,000? I would do this stuff myself, but I am not a programmer. I do not have the skills and foundational knowledge to do this stuff. And I should not need to know how to code to run a blog.

Why must I be plagued by such inefficiencies and cumbersomeness? Why can’t everything just fucking work? I am not asking for much. I am asking for text to be displayed correctly, for Windows icons to work properly, and for updates to NOT BREAK SHIT!

This is why I covet that which functions. Why I am elated when I come into possession of things that just work. Because even the simplest of things can blossom into a veritable nightmare if things do not go right. And when I trust in something to work, allow it to update itself, it is only a matter of time before it fucks me! This is why I will never be an advocate of remote computing. Why I will ALWAYS prefer local files I have full control over. And why I have come to detest software updates, because they so often make things worse. From changing the default font to something less readable to making the UI more cumbersome. Which is before getting into updates that make old files unreadable. Looking at you Draw.io! I love you, but you took away a feature. Making shit like this. 

All this shit just eats up my time, prevents me from doing my best work, and, at this point, teaches me nothing I don’t already know. To hell with updates, to hell with changing shit, and I HOPE that Firefox stays stable for me going forward. Because if I need to switch AGAIN, I am going to go bonkers. For real-real, on the real.

…Did I just end this segment with a reference to The Pharcyde’s Oh Shit, a categorically transphobic? Yes!

…Actually, as an editing note, I cannot continue to use Firefox for Google Docs work. When paired with ProWritingAid, it simply functions materially worse on a non-Chromium browser. So I guess I need a Google Docs only browser! …It shall be either Opera GX or Brave, since Edge is now my work browser, because it should work best with OneDrive. …Or fuck it, I can just gimp Chrome and treat it as a Google Docs browser. …Actually, that’s easier, so Imma just try that.

FML for real-real, on the real. 

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Progress Report 2024-10-20

Goldarn do I love it when I find something with the stank of TSF when browsing around for random rubbish. This screenshot is from an incredibly mid PSP RPG by the name of Mimana Iyar Chronicle. I never heard of it until I found this, and I choose to believe that this represented a subplot. Because all reality is fictitious at this point and you can make up whatever rules you want. Which is why the sky is a big grape!

2024-10-13: Edited and got the IWI showcase ready… and either had to delay everything or slot it into the 29th. I decided to slot it up, so if you are reading this, then I already released it. Haha! However, I still had some time to do something, so I decided to check out Class of ’09: The Flipside. It was pretty short, just a bit over 3 hours long, and overall more Class of ’09. But for a trilogy ending story… it didn’t really deliver. Now, how do you deliver something more wild than the endings of the first game? Honestly, not sure. You cannot go anywhere after firebombing a school. But Flip Side has its own mixed reception, and it will be an interesting title to review. As a brief spoiler, I thought the feet subplot was this perfect blend of uncomfortable, hilarious, and also masturbatable. No, I do not have a foot fetish— you would know by now if I did— but I know erotica and that… was erotica, for better or for worse.

2024-10-14: I did NOTHING today! Well, unless you count working for 12 hours as something, which no sane person would do! Actually, I decided to check out Tribe Nine and that game is… something else.

2024-10-15: Played more of Tribe Nine and wrote a 2,100 word segment on it. Then I filed a return at 1:20 in the morning, waited until 2:300 to confirm it was accepted, then went to sleep!

2024-10-16: Wrote 1,400 word preamble for this week’s Rundown. Today was a bit of a slow day as I decided to FINALLY switch over to FireFox, which meant I had to get rid of the greatest download utility I have ever seen for any art site, Powerful Pixiv Downloader. That thing is AMAZING! Right up there with HDoujin Downloader. I gave $20 to the creator, xuejianxianzun, but they do not have a FireFox version, so I guess I need to settle for Pixiv Toolkit, which does the job, but zips everything like Twitter Media Downloader (RIP) used to do. Also decided to update ImageGlass, my image viewer, because it was having some issues. The manual update install was kinda hacky, so I just bought the Microsoft Store version of it and fiddled around with the settings. I did not get it to be the perfect image viewer, but it is materially better than what it was before, which was WAY better than the Windows Photo app. But then I realized that text on FireFox looked worse in Google Docs. The spacing between characters made things harder to read and the screen appeared to be ever so slightly lighter— wait, this should be its own segment. FML!

2024-10-17: Wrote 3,700 words for the Firefox transition, Pokémon, and All in Abyss bits. Played a bit of the Ys X Nordics demo for another segment, and edited the Rundown up to this point. Somehow this damn thing got to over 9k words with basically no news.

2024-10-18: Wrote the 1,400 word Ys X bit and got this post ret-2-go. Then I started FINALLY editing PS1988. Yes, I gotta do the review for Class of ’09 The Flip Side, but fuck it, PS1988 comes FIRST! Edited 11,855 words for PS1988. That seems like a lot, but because of my ass-dragging, I’ve gotta do that, like, every day to get this done on schedule!

2024-10-19: Saw a recommendation for a Class of ’09 The Flip Side video in my recommended while cutting veggies. After confirming the drama wasn’t because Max Field was a secret pedo or some shit, I spent the afternoon drafting out a 3,500 word review. I gotta rework the intro and maybe rewrite the ending, but it’s something I can have ret-2-go by 10/23/24. Edited CH 04 of PS1988. For the record, I am forcing myself to listen to a text-to-speech rendition of every line as part of this process, relying chiefly on the sound to help me with the editing process. It takes a while, but it spots a lot of missteps, and forced me to engage with every word. Also, this is something I would need to substitute if I were to switch from Google Docs, and Read Aloud, while a shadow of its former self, is still good enough. Also, I DO NOT use TTS for Rundowns. I just eyeball and PWA this shit, maaaaan.

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Psycho Shatter 1988: Black Vice X Weiss Vice
Progress Report:

Current Word Count: 114,921

Words Edited: 24,381

Total Chapters: 16

Chapters Drafted: 16

Chapters Edited: 5

Header Images Made: 0

Days Until Deadline: 16

Fuuuuuck! Two weeks is cutting it way too close! Gotta go FAST or else I’ll DIE! …Actually, wait, I could just lie about the release date and finish up the header images late. Nobody will suspect a thing!