Rundown (11/09/2025) Natalie Goes International!
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Natalie.TF Goes International!
- A Quarterly Nintendo Sales Segment (Somehow, The Nintendo Switch Kept Selling)
- NetEase Says NO to North American Game Companies (It Was A Bad Idea Anyway!)
- Pokémon Legends: Z-A Mega Dimension DLC Was Properly Revealed (It Looks… Alright?)
- Grand Theft Auto VI Delayed to November 19, 2026 (Because of Attempted Unionization)
- Student Transfer Version 9 is Coming Out This December! (Oh Joy!)
- Cassie Gushes About Honkai: Star Rail’s Latest Update (Presented in the Language of the Fox)
Rundown (3/30/2025) Game Fighter Animard is Dope!
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Game Fighter Animard is Dope!
- Geoff Keighley Launches The Game Business (Because Why Not At This Point?)
- Game Informer is BACK, BAY-BEE! (Fuck You, GME! We Got That Crypto Money!)
- The FINAL Switch 1 Nintendo Direct (Nina Tendo Works in Mysterious Ways…)
- Re-Release The Whole Saga of SaGa! (SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered Shadow Dropped)
- Monument Valley Trilogy is Coming to Switch (They Are Now REAL Games!)
- Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army Announced (And it Is a Damn Remake!)
- Patapon 1+2 Replay Announced (Patapon Is BACK… On A Nintendo Console?)
- AI: The Somnium Files 3 – No Sleep For Kaname Date Announced (A Sequel To One Of My Favorite Games Ever!)
- Gradius Origins Announced (All Praise to the REAL Shooting Games, Ya Schmucks!)
- Another Story of Seasons Remake Announced! (Except This One Actually Looks Good)
- Everybody’s Golf is Back, BAY-BEE! (So is Hot Shots Golf, By Technicality!)
- Rhythm Heaven Groove Announced! (Not Even Cancer Can Kill This!)
- Tomodachi Life 3: Livin’ Da Dream Announced (For GTS Fans, It Is but a Dream)
- Ubisoft Opens Joint Subsidiary With Tencent (It Contains All Their Biggest IPs)
- Reflecting on Zenless Zone Zero With 6/10 Beats (My Backup Preamble if Animard Didn’t Go Live)
Rundown (2/09/2025) A Verde’s Doohickey 2.0 Act 3 Update
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: A Verde’s Doohickey 2.0 Act 3 Update
- Natalie Needs to Ditch Google Docs (But She Dunno How!)
- What’s An Earnest Evans and Anett Returns? (The Obligatory Retro Game Fixation To Cleanse the Soul)
- Nintendo Switch Hits 150 Million Units Sold (It Might Just Beat The PS2 At This Rate!)
- Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny Remaster Announced (Better Late Than Never, I Guess)
Rundown (1/19/2025) Why Are Games So Expensive to Make?
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Why Are Games So Expensive to Make?
- Nintendo Switch 2 Announced (It’s Been SEVEN YEARS!)
- Video Game Generation Numbers Are Fine, Ya Old Farts (Another Tangent Before Bedtime)
- Nintendo Switch 2 Vs. The PC Handheld Market (Nat-Nat Bullies Silly-Billy PC Fans)
- Natalie Hates Age-Based Timestamps (A Machine Needs to Vent, and So Do I!)
- STOP KILLING GAMES Update! (UK Citizens, Sign This Petition!)
- Sony Cancels Another Two Live Services (This Venture Was a Boneheaded Waste…)
- Bad Person And Writer is a Cool Person and Wackadoo Writer (I Swear These Mini Showcases Won’t Be A Regular Thing)
Natalie Rambles About 2024
SIIIIDDDYYYEEEEEEOOOOTTTTT!
OR BELID RJI Q UTKS FU ‘TUAMS, VTADJID EKK YTUBODI, EMS KIECID OR E VTABNKIS BIDD!
(more…)Rundown (11/03/2024) Natalie Rambles About Psycho Shatter 1988
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Psycho Shatter 1988 Is A Wack-Ass Mess, But I Love It
- Steins;Gate RE:BOOT is a Re;Make (The Terminology of Re-Whatevers Remains Inconsistent)
- Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete Overview Released (I Will Pay $500 For Dragalia Lost Complete, Nintendo…)
- Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Announced (The Switch Consolidation Continues)
- Nintendo Music Streaming Service Announced (Why The Frick Do Zoomies Use Streaming Services?)
- Sony Closes Down Concord Developer Firewalk Studios (Hopefully The Final Concord Segment)
- The REAL Reason Nintendo is Suing Palworld (A Lawyer Explains Nintendo v. Palworld!)
- Natalie Rambles About How Sports Games Were Ruined (What’s an Accolade?)
Rundown (10/27/2024) Rushing to Completion!
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Rushing to Completion!
- Let’s Talk About Acquire Corporation! (Because They Made Mario & Luigi 6!)
- I Might Have Been Wrong About Unity (Unity Management Has Completely Changed Over The Past Year)
- Nintendo Switch Online: Playtest Program Has Slipped Through The Cracks (Nintendo’s Nintendo-some Nintendo-ing)
- More Musings About Re-Whatevers (Because I Didn’t Want to Go to Bed at 1 AM)
Rundown (10/06/2024) Natalie Vs The Medical-Industrial Complex
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Natalie Vs The Medical-Industrial Complex
- CaptainCaption Posted Another Life Update! (It’s A Cascade of Bullshit!)
- Natalie is Anti Hardware Innovation (On The Wrong Side of History Yet Again…)
- RIP RyujiNX (Nintendo Shuts Down Ryujinx, the Other Switch Emulator)
- Palworld Mobile Announced! (That’s All!)
- Epic Royalty Discount! (Release Games on Epic Games Store, Save 30% on Unreal Fees!)
- Keep It Peashy, Nippon! (Japan’s PC Game Market Grew 260% In 4 Years!)
Rundown (9/01/2024) Nina Tendo Brain Problems
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Nina Tendo Brain Problems
- Nina Tendo’s Double Direct Digest! (Nintendo Direct and Indie World Rundown)
- Tetris Really IS Forever (Digital Eclipse Announces Tetris Forever)
- Yo, Falcom’s TitS is No Longer Ugly As Hell! (Trails in the Sky 1st Remake Announced)
- We Are In The CapGod Era of Re-Releases! (Capcom Announces Capcom Fighting Collection 2)
- DominuS Without the Dual Screen (Castlevania DominuS Collection Announced)
- Corporatized Coziness Continues (EA Announces Remaster of MySims and MySims Kingdoms)
- Hitting the Switch LIKE A DRAGON! (Like a Dragon – Yakuza: Kiawami (2016) Announced for Switch)
- Tokimeki FUCKING Memorial is Back! (Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You Emotional Announced)
- Nintendo Direct: Dribs and Drabs (JRPGs I Didn’t Have Much to Say About)
- Live Services, Quality, Disdain, Bad Ideas, and Death (The Struggles of Foamstars, Concord, and Blue Protocol)
- Argonaut & Croc are BACK! (Croc: Legend of the Gobbos HD Remaster Announced)
- Visions of Dissolution and Despair (NetEase and Tencent Are Reconsidering Japanese Game Investments)
- Hideaki Itsuno Leaves Capcom After 30 Years (Devil May Cry Shepard and Dragon’s Dogma Director Leaves Capcom)
- Nintendo Re-Whatever Rationale List (Moved to the End to Avoid Pace Breaking)
Rundown (5/12/2024) Sprite Smarter, Sprite Sharder
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Sprite Smarter, Sprite Sharder
- TSF Showcase 2024-19 Change Ring by Kawaii Tsun’aho
- TSF Showcase 2024-19.1 Change Ring the Manga by Kawaii Tsun’aho and MPZ
- Student Transfer V8 is Coming Soon! (The Murder Route is Finally Getting Replaced!)
- re:Dreamer is Back, Bay-Bee! (re:Dreamer Version 0.18.0 Releases After 7 Month Delay)
- Microsoft Murders Arkane Austin and Tango GameWorks (Technically They Also Killed Alpha Dog and Consolidated Roundhouse…)
- Another AI Generated Image Musing (No, I’m Not Going to Become An AI Pundit)
- Yes, Nintendo Switch 2 is Happening, But You Gotta Wait! (The Switch-2.0-Roadmap)
- Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Announced (Better Than Nothing, Worse Than You’d Expect)
Rundown (3/10/2024) Wack-Ass Work Shifts
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Wack-Ass Work Shifts
- TSF Showcase 2024-10 Kizoku to Dorei no Irekawari ~Subete o Te ni Ireta Otoko~ [The Aristocrat and His Slave Switched Bodies ~The Man Who Got It All~] by Iwashita (Iwashita Shoten)
- Yuzu Surrenders to Nintendo, Pays $2.4 Million in Damages (Screw Nintendo, But Screw Yuzu More)
- The Only Answer Is Not to Play (Persona 3 Reload Is Getting The Answer as $35 DLC)
- Akira Toriyama Has Passed Away (Rest in Peace, You Absolute Legend)
Rundown (3/03/2024) Life Might Be a Waste of Time but It’s Nice!
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Life Might Be a Waste of Time but It’s Nice!
- TSF Showcase 2024-09 Transjitter Ibitsu na Karada by Jirou Saku
- A Reminder That Apple Arcade Exists (Apple Arcade Is Undergoing Some Troubles)
- Pokémon Presents… Confusion! (Pokémon Legends Z-A Announced)
- Sony Lays Off 900 People (Also The Twisted Metal Live Service is Dead)
- EA Also Laid Off 670 People A Day Later (Also, Respawn Got Screwed Again)
- Saber Interactive is Free From The Embrace! (Saber Interactive Leaves Embracer Group)
- Bobby ‘n’ Da Tiki Boyz is Goin’ Indie (Toys for Bob Is Parting Ways from Microsoft Activision Blizzard King)
- NetEase is Opening Up An All-American Bullet Farm (NetEase Established LA-Based Studio, BulletFarm)
- I Get Why You’re Doing This Nintendo, But Fuck Off (Nintendo Is Suing the Developers of the Yuzu Switch Emulator)
Rundown (2/18/2024) Xbox Is Not Dead, Y’All Lied To Me!
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Xbox Is Not Dead, Y’All Lied To Me!
- TSF Showcase 2024-07 Bocchi de Shinda Ore ga Bishoujo Nurse ni Natta Hanashi [The Story of How I Died Alone and Became a Sexy Nurse] by Oden Ohgan (TuriSasu)
- ***SCRAPPED***
Nintendo Direct 2024 – 1 of 3(Don’t Be Glad The Switch Happened, Be Glad It’s Over) - Nintendo Switch Successor Delayed to Q1 2025 (Bad News Broke Friday Afternoon)
- Gacha RPG vs. JRPG (A Tangent For Cassie)
Rundown (1/14/2024) Natalie’s Sexual Binary
Rundown (8/27/2023) Trust The Rippers, Not The Crackers
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Trust The Rippers, Not The Crackers
- TSF Showcase #2023-24.1 BlazBlue Remix Heart Gaiden by Arc System Works
- TSF Showcase #2023-25 Doutei Ikki [Brotherhood of Virgins] by DOM
- The Behavior of a Juggernaut (Behavior Acquires Rotterdam-Based Developer Codeglue)
- Sony Gobbles Up An Audio Company (Sony Interactive Entertainment Acquires Audeze)
- PlayStation Portal Is a Bad PlayStation Vita (PlayStation Project Q Re-Announced As PlayStation Portal)
- New Auditory Era of Mario (Mario Voice Actor, Charles Martinet, Steps Down From Role)
- Nintendo is Bringing DRM to Consoles (Nintendo Partners With Denuvo to Fight Switch Emulation)
- Denuvo Is Trying to Prevent Mods on Unreal Engine Games (Denuvo Announces Unreal Engine Protection Software)
- Sacrifice Profits For Market Share For The Glory of Tencent (Epic Games Launches New Revenue Share Model for Timed Exclusives)
- The Plan to Eradicate Platform Identity (Natalie Rambles About Platform Identity and Media Formats)
Rundown (8/06/2023) Nothing Like the First Time
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Nothing Like The First Time
- TSF Showcase #2023-22 Boku wa, Onnanoko (I am, a Girl) by Takako Shimura
- Never Go Back to No Quality of Life (Natalie Meanders About Pokémon Hacks & Fan Games)
- Nintendo Switch 2.0 Confirmed for H2 2024 (Natalie Complains About Nintendo Fans – July 2023 Ver.)
- Virtuos is Probably Remaking Oblivion (The Worst of the 3D TES Trilogy Is Gettin’ Gussied Up!)
Rundown (7/02/2023) Thanks Cap, You Made Me Write a Novel of Lore!
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Verde’s Doohickey 2.0 – World Information Has Been Drafted
- The Most Powerful people Are The Most Common Slaves (Natalie Rambles About Oppressed Magic Users As An Allegory)
- Nintendorks and the Quest To Make History (Natalie Complains About Nintendo Fans – July 2023 Ver.)
- Create or Play (Playing Games Does Not Make You Creative)
- Read Dead Remastered – No Redemption is Possible (Korean Ratings Board Leaks Possible Red Dead Redemption Remaster)
Rundown (6/04/2023) Natalie Needs to Sell Her Old Game Collection
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: How Do You Sell Old Video Games?
- Oh My God, NetEase! Stop Establishing New Studios! (NetEase Establishes Their Fifth Tokyo-based Studio)
- And the Love-de-Lic Fragmentation Continued… (Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash Developer Vanpool Shut Down)
- Arkane Austin’s Bloody Fall (Redfall Development Deets Just Dropped)
- Nintendo Is Releasing A Shitty Game Nobody Liked Because Fuck It (Everybody 1-2 Switch Announced)
- White Album is Coming Out in English, Bay-Bee! (Another Classic Visual Novel Is Getting Localized)
Rundown (4/02/2023) Darcy’s Transformation Nightmare
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: TSF Showcase #2023-13 Darcy’s Breeder’s Guide to Alola Nuzlocke by Jamsnjellies
- Stores Die, Offline Games Don’t (Natalie Rambles About The 3DS and Wii U eShop For the Nth Time)
- All I Want Is 1280×1280 Images of Every Pokémon (Natalie Spent Too Much Time Searching For High Resolution Pokémon Art)
- E3 Is DEAD — NOW AND FOREVER!!! (After Everybody Bailed, the ESA Canceled E3 2023)
- Princess Disconnect!: Re:Die (Princess Connect! Re:Dive’s English Version Ending Service on April 30th)
Rundown (2/12/2023) Natalie Reviews Rintarou Panic! (And Other Assorted Treats)
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: TSF Showcase #2023-03 Rintarou Panic! is DOPE!
- TSF Showcase #2023-04 About Sex: Understanding the Body Swap and The Transformation Fetishes by Sr. Estranho
- Libraries and Media as a Public Good (Natalie Rambles About Digital Public Libraries)
- Out With The AAA; In With The Old (Natalie Rambles About The State of AAA & Retro Gaming)
- Are First-Party Nintendo Games AAA Titles? (A Bridge Between Two Segments)
- Nintendo Direct 2023 – 1 of 2 (Rundown of the February 8, 2023 Nintendo Direct)
- Pikmin 4 is Real-er! (Pikmin 4 Gameplay Reveal)
- From Latin With Love 2 – 23 Years Later (Samba de Amigo is BACK!!!)
- Two Dope Looking Remasters Announced After Being Leaked! (Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie Announced)
- Yggdrasil Odyssey – OG Remaster! (Etrian Odyssey I, II, and III are Getting Remastered)
- Nintendo Switch Online Still Sucks, But It Has More Stuff Now (GameBoy, GameBoy Color, and GameBoy Advance Titles Added to NSO)
- Metroid Prime is BACK! (Metroid Prime Remastered FINALLY Releases for Switch)
- As Requested By 500 People, Here’s A Baten Kaitos Remaster! (Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster Announced)
- LEVEL-5 IS BACK BAY-BEE!!! (Developer Level-5 Announces 3 New Titles)
- Fantasy Life III, but with Only One I (Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Announced)
- We Ain’t Deca Sports, We Deca COPS! (DecaPolice Announced)
- Layton’s Back, BAY-BEE!!! (Professor Layton and The New World of Steam Announced)
- Paranormal Sights and Big Confusion (Square Enix Announces Horror Adventure Game Coming Out Next Month)
- Boku no Natsuyasumi VII, BAY-BEE!!! Natsu-Mon! 20th Century Summer Vacation Announced
- Atelier Remake Saga Begins! (Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg Announced)
- Nintendo Direct 2023 – 1 of 2 – Das Ende (Other Announcements From the February 8, 2023 Nintendo Direct)
- Ayesha Erotica And The Quest For Moral Purity (Natalie Rambles About Shunning And Moral Perfectionism)
Rundown (11/20-11/26) Student Transfer Version 7.0 is Out!!!
This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Student Transfer V7 is Good; Review Coming Before December 7th
- These Wolves Ain’t Rebels No More! (NetEase Invests in Polish Studio Rebel Wolves)
- The ‘Kdicarus’ Will Rise Again (Masahiro Sakurai Teases Kid Icarus: Uprising Port)
- There Is No Such Thing as a ‘Hybrid Home Console Handheld’ (Natalie Complains About the Switch’s Classification for the nth Time)
- More Like T.E.X.T. Troopers (E.X. Troopers Has Been Fan Translated)
- AI-licia Erotica (Alicia’s The Great Shift TG Captions is Back!)
- Video Deliberations (Should Natalie Start Recording Gameplay and Making Videos?)
- End & Updates: Goodbye Dragalia Lost…
Rundown (6/05-6/11) Segmented Summer Showcases (S3) 2022: Finding Frustrations
Wherein I discuss my quest for dope Dutch beatz, the worrisome MENA acquisitions, the posthumous return of Gattz and the Griff, the return of a leaked remaster, Nintendo’s next disaster, rudimentary game compilations, a ‘bad’ game getting re-re-mastered, and the diet E3 alternative that’s sweeping the nation of Earth!
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Rundown (4/17-4/23) Crisis is Ended – Now Work Like a Beeeeee!
Wherein I discuss the growing Gearbox Empire, the Definitive(?) Classic Sonic Collection, some crazy and jammin’ GaaS, Nintendo being frustratingly eccentric, and one of my favorite concepts.
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Rundown (2/06-2/12) Bluetooth Frustrations
Wherein I discuss Platinum’s painful pivot, another acquisition, a definitive failure’s grand success, and the oodles of delights from Nina Tendo’s happy time press release showcase!
(more…)Rundown (1/30-2/05) Pokémon Legends: Arceus is Quite Good
Wherein I discuss the latest Pokémon game, another accursed acquisition, the successor to a 2014 indie darling, Nintendo’s excellent unit sales, and a subtle spark from the dank quagmire where Stadia was buried.
(more…)Rundown (10/10-10/16) Tax Season Has Ended — The Galaxy Is At Peace
Wherein I discuss my Q4 plans, the frustrations of the Sub-Platinum, a surreal revival, how Nintendo is abusing their legacy for profit, and some crypto stuff.
(more…)Rundown (9/19-9/25) Natalie Is Incompetent — Never Trust Her
Wherein I discuss how I cannot complete a simple child-level task, a potential revival of a niche game series nobody actually cares about, a faux celebration by barons of incalculable greed, the Kotick-Epstein Connection, and a Semi-Dope Nintendo Direct.
(more…)Rundown (7/04-7/10) Welcome Summer Hiatus!
Wherein I discuss an upcoming drought, an upsetting upgrade, and arbitrary human constructs that I am unable to change nor shift.
(more…)Rundown (3/21-3/27) No Pleasure for the Children
Wherein I discuss an NSFW paradigm, Sony’s grand exodus, a half-step upgrade, another migration to the great North, and the next episode of the Cookstar Saga.
(more…)Rundown (8/23-8/29) Work Life Imbalance 2: Sorrow is a Virtue
Wherein I discuss a brand new Switch-up, a most unexpected remake, the fall from Zero unto nothingness, and yet another incomprehensive compilation.
(more…)Rundown (1/26-2/01) The Questionable Box
Wherein I discuss the troubles plaguing Natalie’s precious Box, Okabe’s adaptation adventures, a new home for my 1,000 babies, the success of the Switch-makers, and another icy blunder.
(more…)Pokémon Shield Review
It’s a brand new world… and it’s a touch rough.
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Rundown (7/14-7/20) Natalie and the Computer-Generated Flowcharts
It has recently come to my attention that TFGamesSite member nexoq developed a computer-generated flowchart maker known as Graphify that can take .rpy files for Student Transfer Scenarios and create a functional flowchart using them. This is a far cry from needing to dig through the .rpy file oneself and playing the game to test for any and all possible path permutations, and it’s something that I will be using in the future to double check my work. But I’m still going to make my usual hand-made Draw.io flowcharts since they look a lot nicer, are more space efficient, and have a more unified format. I mean, just compare the header image to this flowchart I made for the same Student Transfer Scenario. But this is still quite amazing. Thank you nexoq!
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Rundown (7/07-7/13) The Lattice Method
Back in grade school when I was learning long multiplication, my teacher introduced my class to a method to simplify complex multi-digit multiplication problems into single digit problems known as the Lattice Method. It involves taking the equation, making a grid or rather a lattice, and then splitting the equation into several single digit multiplication problems, the answers of which are added up at the end to determine the overall answer to the equation. It was always my preferred method of multiplication, but once I started attending high school, none of my teachers understood what this method was or why I was doing it, and since then I have never heard anybody reference this method, at all. Which is weird because while it is a bit time consuming and requires a sizable amount of space to write out, it is a very easy and reliable way to calculate an equation. Anyways, that’s all I have to share this week. Time for video games!
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Rundown (6/11) E3 2019: Hyper Bursting!
Woo! E3 is mostly over, and the hype has undoubtedly causes every audience member to burst with powerhouse excitement, and things may have gotten more than a little messy in the process. Anyways, the main conferences are done, the actual E3 event, where people try to get work done in a loud, crowded, and smelly convention center, is underway, and the only press conferences of the day was Nintendo’s. So let’s cut all pretense and jump right into the gooey center of the E3 Claire eclair.
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Rundown (4/14-4/20) Natalie Versus Transit
Sometimes when travelling back between the standbys of home, school, and work, I pontificate about how few placed I typically visit in a given year, and how that number is realistically less than 30 unique locations. I suppose this is a sign that I should “get out” more, but I truly have little desire in going to places for the mere sake of leaving, especially when the process of getting from one place to another is such a dull affair for people without the ability to work, read, or mess around on their phone while in transit. Seriously, I went to two new places yesterday but my 6 hours out involved about 4 hours of setting up computers and another 2 of sitting in a hot car in silence. It, combined with how often paratransit is late in picking me up really does make me worry about the future and the transportation related woes it will contain.
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Rundown (3/31-4/06) Natalie Got Her Gacha Fix!
Ever since I stopped playing Fire Emblem Heroes a year ago, I’ve been craving a game with some sort of gacha mechanics, as I love the sensations that come with getting rare and powerful characters accompanied with light flavor text and unique artwork. It is a desire that I have been looking to satiate in a somewhat healthy manner, and wouldn’t you know it, the Student Transfer dev team provided just that with their latest April Fools goof. A standard no-frills card collector gacha title where the player can earn 160 unique cards with flavor text that were enough to drive me to achieve a 100% completion rate, and then proceed to happily read through the descriptions, taking delight in the information, background, and general absurdity they provided.
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Rundown (3/24-3/30) Japan Vs West: A Statistical Battle!
A topic that I regularly see brought up in the circles I follow is the idea of western game design versus Japanese design, what distinguishes them, and how Japanese game design is better. While it would be easy for me to say that I tend to prefer Japanese games, I’m the sort of person who likes to have data for things, and as such, I decided to go through every game I played from 2016 to now, and compile whether or not I have a preference towards Japanese games. What I found is that things are split fairly evenly between both fronts, as in that time I played 156 games, 53% of which were Japanese, and 47% of which were western.
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Rundown (2/17-2/23) Tax Time Makes You Go Crazy!
So this past week I began another engagement with a CPA, wherein I aid him in various tax related activities while juggling my office job, grad school, personal time, and time spent making content for this quaint little site. It is a side job that pays well, and is rather pertinent to my interests as an accounting major, but it also represents yet another activity that impedes my ability to go through games or work on my own projects. It’s not ideal, and this week is a particularly hectic, since I am going into my part-time job today, on a Sunday, when the office is closed, because somebody thought it would be a nice treat if I went home early on Monday. I swear, I was mentally referencing last week’s header image for the past 5 days, stewing over how much I wish I had done everything sooner rather than later. Garf!
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Rundown (2/10-2/16) Flowchart Nightmares Ahead 2: You Can (Not) Prepare
Last Friday the Student Transfer development team announced that Version 4 will be coming before the end of February, boasting that this version will contain roughly twice the content as Version 3. A surprising bit of news that I find to be simultaneously exciting and intimidating to me, as I have taken on the duty of creating the flowcharts for sprawling choose-your-own adventure style visual novels about TG, body swapping, and more. I very much want to enjoy the game and take my time with it, but Version 3 took me a good week to get through, so I am a bit concerned about getting a flowchart ready in a timely manner, especially with work and grad school keeping me so busy. As such, I decided to do my homework in advance and download what I can off of the public Student Transfer GitHub in order to get cracking on a rough flowchart for V4 at the risk of spoiling myself. Only to discover that with the way this game is developed, I would basically need to consolidate the builds available myself and… yeah, that sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.
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Rundown (1/27-2/02) The Saga Must Go On!
So, just a few days ago I released The Saga of Vincent Dawn, and while I am ultimately happy with the finished project, I am aware that some of the writing seen throughout the story is not up to my previous writing standards. The act of going through and summarizing a hundreds of pages of poorly written text is an arduous process, especially when it is very personal to you, and when it came time to edit it all once more, my patience grew slim, as I just wanted to be done with the project and get started on the next one. Though considering how I am still working on the outline, I really have no idea when it will be done. But it will get done, ‘cos I’ve got a story to tell and I’m gonna tell it no matter what, even if nobody actually reads it.
(more…)The End of 2018!
Well, it’s that time once again! The seasons have passed, the Earth has concluded another rotation around the sun, and a whole bunch of nonsense happened! It’s the end of 2018!
The World Ends With You: Final Remix Review
“You know Neku, It’s A Wonderful World, and The World Ends With You. Just make sure you end it definitively. For this is the Final Remix!”
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