Poem 129: Scared

Note: This poem was originally posted on my Patreon account on July 8th of 2020. If you’d like to see these poems when they are first put up then please consider pledging to my patreon page.

Amazing VGM: Prince Ferdinand Themes (Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure)

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Today, as in the day this is being posted, is a very special day where we commemorate the execution and martyrdom of Saint Valentine by taking each other on expensive dates and giving each other cards with candy if we are still kids… or by wallowing in our own misery if we are single. Don’t give up hope though, I’m sure you’ll find love someday as long as you don’t make anti-SJW videos on Youtube!

As for myself, as silly and ironic as it would be to post my Slave Witch April review on Valentines Day, I’d like to take this chance to talk about a game near and dear to my heart. I really want to get around to replaying Rhapsody and giving it a full review, but I figure today is the perfect chance to talk about its beautiful music, and you better be damn sure the soundtrack is amazing with a title like that. It did not disappoint.

Site Progress & Personal Update: February 2021 (Angry Venting Edition)

Well guys… it’s certainly another month alright. I actually don’t know anything interesting to say, so I guess I’ll just ramble about nothing for this site update piece. Chronic fatigue is still a bitch, and I still hate how it takes me 2 hours to shave my face each day, yet I feel exhausted until I go do that. But thankfully, my dad has told me that he will pay for my laser hair removal, and my sister has also contributed some money towards that. Apparently the process as a whole may take a while, but I am certainly looking forward to not waking up each morning feeling like I have tons of parasites on my face.

A lot of cis people really have no clue what the fuck gender dysphoria feels like, and giving a literal explanation never really helps, so I’ll just say something to paint a picture. Imagine that gross, depressed feeling that you have when you don’t take a shower for a few days… now imagine what that feels like if you never showered or bathed your entire life! That’s what gender dysphoria feels like without taking into account all the hate and discrimination that comes from cis people being assholes.

Celeste (PC/PS4/XONE/Switch/Stadia): A Steep, Treacherous, and Beautiful Climb (Detailed Review)

And here we have yet another overdue review that I have been planning to get for quite some time. Specifically, this review was requested by former patron Winter. While they have since canceled their pledge due to financial difficulties, they were the first patron of mine to meet the current requirements for a review request, which require someone to be a patron for more than six months and contribute at least $120 total. Yes, this is a steep requirement, but it also ensures that those who are supporting me are doing so because they either really care about me or my content. Also I have tendency to take a long time getting to requested reviews, but I do plan to honor these commitments even when a patron in question is also an abusive ex (no, that’s not Winter, but that is the case with another patron).

As for what my excuse for taking so long this time is, it’s that I had initially tried to play the Steam version of Celeste several months ago (which Winter also gifted me because they are a total sweetheart), but I had some issues with the controls that made the game virtually unplayable to me. Specifically, I had this problem where, when using a PS3 controller, the game would just stop reading my button inputs for a second every other minute. While 1 second doesn’t sound like much, Celeste IS a platformer that requires split second timing and accuracy.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (PS4/XONE/Switch/PC): A Highly N. Tertaining Trilogy (Detailed Review)

I can safely say that, prior to 2017, I assumed the Crash Bandicoot series was as good as dead. Despite not having been relevant since the PS1 era, it was able to stay barely afloat until 2010, with the last console based installment being Crash: Mind Over Mutant. Despite the fact that I haven’t talked about it much, I have played the crap out of the PS1 games (2 and 3 at least) when I was a child, but I hadn’t touched them in so long that the remakes were basically a new experience for me. Not to mention that I had never even played the original game.

Crash Bandicoot was one of the biggest names during the PS1 era, yet when it fell off, it didn’t even fall off in the same way as Sonic the Hedgehog where every installment still got a lot of hype and sold a lot even though the games were hit and miss. It’s more so along the lines of people just stopped paying attention to the series, so we wouldn’t even know if any of the post PS1 releases were any good. I mean, I did enjoy Crash Nitro Kart, and I heard Crash Twinsanity was pretty fun, but the other two post PS1 Crash games I played were Tag Team Racing and Crash of the Titans, both of which sucked. Crash of the Titans was especially moronic in that it turned a platformer series into a beat em up so boring that it makes Sonic Unleashed’s night time stages look like they ACTUALLY came from God of War.

Amazing VGM: Smiles & Tears (EarthBound)

Another years has come to a close, and It is time for me to end this year the same way as I usually do, with a highly emotional ending theme from one of my favorite games of all time. EarthBound holds a near and dear place in my heart, and I can’t help but become super emotional whenever I listen to its music or play it. Hell just speaking about it now makes me want to replay it.

And it is also quite appropriate since 2020 was a highly emotional year. It’s been kind of a meme about how much this year has sucked, but it did end on a positive note with Trump losing re-election. And yes, that doesn’t mean all of our problems are gone, but after four years of this asshole, it’s a relief to see him go the fuck away. And maybe things will start to get at least a little bit better.

Games&Girls (PC): An Embarrassing Train Wreck (Detailed Review)

CW: Mentions of Nazism, pedophilia, incest, antisemitism, and kidnapping

It seems as if the games I play are constantly trying to push the envelope for different ways to be absolutely fucking awful. I am at the point where if someone asked me the worst game I ever played, I’d ask what criteria they are basing them on. I could go with the game that was so disgusting and scarring that it made me suicidal, I could go with the no-budget “experimental” game that included real life gore in it, I could go with the RPG Maker game with no battles, levels, dialogue, or ending, or I could go with the game that required you to manually rename the game’s exe file to even play it.

Games&Girls is now among those games as “the visual novel that I almost didn’t review because I didn’t think I could review it without insulting the developer.” And even approaching this review is difficult because I’m not sure if I should do what I usually do and start describing the story, writing, presentation, or open with the fact that the 4th episode has you trying to seduce a fucking Nazi?

Site Progress & Personal Update: January 2021

Well, we survived 2020, and in 18 days we will have survived the Trump Presidency. Damn, I feel tired even mentioning that. 2020 has had its highs and lows… holy hell did it have its lows. Hell it even culminated in me needing to end a year long relationship that has taken an abusive turn in the past week, with her saying some incredibly hurtful things that struck at my deepest insecurities. It’s one thing when some random troll says these things, but when it’s someone you loved and trusted, it’s a whole other story.

Given that this ex of mine was also the former patron who requested the Fallout 4 review, I’ve decided to postpone that review indefinitely due to the fact that I will be unable to play the game at this time without thinking of her. I’d prefer to not cancel it outright since she did meet the requirements for it, and I want to honor my commitment, but I may as well cover the reviews for patrons who are still supporting me first.

Anyway, I can thankfully say this year ended on a positive note since I spent New Years with one of my other partners, Brittany Eakin, and it was so wonderful getting to be with her after all this isolation. Also as an aside, Brittany has a blog as well, and I’d definitely check it out if you are interested in philosophical writings on trans issues.

Quick Review: Echo Tokyo: An Intro (PC)

Echo Tokyo: An Intro is a visual novel that is meant to serve as the introduction to a larger series. Specifically, it is meant to be the origin story of two characters for an upcoming open world game known as Echo Tokyo, at the time of writing of course. While I can say that Echo Tokyo itself does seem like a fairly interesting game if it is done well, the mentality of Echo Tokyo: An Intro serving as on add on really shows. That is not to say that Echo Tokyo: An Intro is a bad game by any means, but at the same time, I’m only interested in Echo Tokyo as a whole because it is supposedly going to be different.

Quick Review: A Kiss for the Petals: Remembering How we Met (PC/IOS/Android)

A Kiss for the Petals: Remembering How we Met is the first game in the long running Sono Hanabira/A Kiss for the Petals series to receive an official English localization. Sono Hanabira is a series of yuri eroge that has had yearly releases from 2006 to 2016, and hasn’t had anything since then… probably because that tends to happen when you milk a series too quickly. A lot of them seem to be on the shorter side (or at least the ones I looked up on VNDB) so I guess I can at least see why they got them out so quickly. Also I’m not making any judgement on the quality of these games, it’s just… damn, over 20 installments in 10 years.

This particular installment, Remembering How we Met, is actually one of the more recent entries in the series, having come out in Japan on March 13th of 2015 and getting released in English in September of the same year. It’s also one of the few entries in the series that doesn’t have any erotic content, which is likely why it was the first to be localized. It should be noted that this game DID get a PC remake with added ero content in 2016, but that version hasn’t been localized.