Today has been rather enjoyable. I made four videos — the four I hoped to make today — and spent a bit of time with Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis. My cat Patti is presently having a fight with a spider and almost winning, though the spider is doing a surprisingly good job of surviving some fairly solid beatdowns from Patti's paws. As I type this, it seems to have escaped into a box, and Patti doesn't quite know how to deal with this. I think she's just waiting for it to come out.
I'd mention the VG247 situation, but you don't really need me to tell you again how fundamentally broken modern games journalism is, do you? Particularly with a site like VG247, which has become the lowest of the low, tabloid-style clickbait bullshit over the course of the last few years. And to think I used to refer to that site as a reliable source of information when I did my daily "rounds" of gaming media.
Anyway. Tomorrow's plan is to record one Final Fantasy Marathon episode — two if I'm feeling energetic — and from there to put in some more Mana Khemia time. I'm well over halfway through the game now, I believe, which means I'm well ahead of schedule in terms of things to write about it; this is a good situation to be in, so I'm going to take full advantage of my time off this week to keep this "head start" going. And don't forget if you want to follow my playthrough, I've been uploading commentary-free recordings of my play sessions over on YouTube; scroll down to the front page of my channel to find the playlist if you're interested. Or, y'know, just click here.
I'm really enjoying Mana Khemia. It looked like it might be very similar to Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm when I started playing it, but over time it's really distinguished itself with plenty of unique mechanics and structural features. I continue to be pleasantly surprised and delighted by how continually creative and interesting the Atelier series is, even in its relatively early days. And I look forward to the day when I can say yes, I have the most comprehensive coverage of the series on the Internet. Hell, I probably have that now — for the PS2 era, at least!
Anyway. Time to hit the sack. Another fine day awaits tomorrow, and the drudgery of the day job seems far away right now, which is exactly what I was hoping for from this time off!
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