Evening all. Sorry I didn't write yesterday, but I completely zonked out after work last night — I don't think I was too well, as I fell asleep almost immediately and felt like absolute crap. I feel a bit better today, though, thankfully, so I made it to the gym for a light session, and now I've got the weekend to enjoy ahead of me.

I think I'm starting to notice a slight improvement in my performance at the gym already. 20 minutes on the bike didn't feel like a big deal at all this evening, though granted I was well-distracted by Amelia Watson playing The Convenience Store. This is encouraging, though; I just need to not get complacent, and be willing to push myself a little bit when things start to feel like they're "easy". Going on past experience, it's easy to get into self-inflicted plateaus by not wanting to get out of your comfort zone.

No real plans for the weekend. I do have something super-secret from the day job to play with that I'm not allowed to talk about, so some of the time will be spent fiddling with that, and I've got a review copy of Tormented Souls to squeeze in, too. This unfortunately isn't leaving me with a ton of time to play Atelier, but I think I've got some stuff I can write about this weekend at least!

Anyway. Just wanted to catch up before I sat down for an enjoyable evening of video gaming. Hope you all have a lovely weekend — make sure you spend at least some of it enjoying yourselves!

I'm absolutely knackered; think I may have pushed myself harder than I thought at the gym last night as I've spent all day being pretty tired and this evening's swimming session was a bit of a struggle. I'm off to bed immediately after this — though looking at the clock that's not actually a particularly unreasonable time to hit the sack.

Played a bit of GG Aleste on the Aleste Collection for Switch a while back — that's a real good shoot 'em up that I like a lot, plus I have a lot of time for any shmup kind enough to let me 1CC it on the first runthrough. It may be pretty easy, but it was a ton of fun — very much looking forward to exploring the others, and this collection will provide plenty of fodder for the Blissful Death column over on Rice Digital!

Still working through the Chilla's Art games, too. Big fan of those, now. I think I have a couple of the short-form ones left to go, then there's a few more "survival horror-y" ones to look at as well, including a couple that go with a PS1 aesthetic rather than the PS2 look all the ones I've played so far went with. On the whole, I think they're doing great work — and they sure are churning 'em out, too! I guess that's the advantage of working on small-scale games with a small team — you can get stuff done a lot more efficiently than big, bloated development houses!

My brain is gradually shutting down and my cat is telling me it's time to go to bed, so I think it's time to hit the hay. Hope you've all had a good evening!

A fairly "nothing day" today — one of those ones that just sort of passes by without being particularly eventful, and where there's not a ton of interesting things to talk about. Sometimes those are the best days, though; if every day is super-eventful it can be exhausting, so sometimes it's nice when things just happen without any real sort of resistance.

Went to the gym this evening and did 20 minutes on the bike and 10 minutes on the weird… hand bike thing that I don't know the name of. The 20 minutes in particular didn't feel like too much of an ordeal; the fact I was watching Elira Pendora's entertaining playthrough of Night Delivery helped matters, for sure. Having some good distraction material is a godsend for boring cardio; I must make sure I remember to take my headphones when I go along each time. (And the stupid USB to headphone jack thing, because of course my phone doesn't have a proper headphone jack because who would possibly want one of those any more apart from LITERALLY EVERYONE)

Enjoying working through the Chilla's Art games over at Rice. Lots of interesting things to talk about, and each game has its own enjoyable little twists to discover. Really glad I've picked up the whole pack.

Probably going to attempt to write something about the SNK Fighting Legends games now that they're playable with the new pad. I feel like it might be interesting to provide a complete scrub's viewpoint on how accessible these games are — because one of the biggest things that's put me off exploring fighting games in general is simply not knowing where to start or how.

For now, though, I need a poo and some sleep. So I'm going to get both. Hopefully one after the other rather than at the same time.

First up, my fight pad arrived today and I like it a lot. The clicky D-pad is very lovely — I'm still not all that good at the common fighting game movements but I feel like I got better today with just a little bit of practice.

The buttons, meanwhile, are absolutely glorious; obviously with this being a pad rather than a full-size stick they don't have the heft of full arcade-style buttons, but they're still better than standard joypad buttons. They're a little larger than the standard DualShock buttons and have a touch more travel to them, which means that they're satisfying and enjoyable to press. The layout is taking a little getting used to — there's the standard four face buttons, then an additional two that are an alternative means of pressing R1 and R2 — but again, that's something that will come with practice.

I'm not sure I was appreciably better at Art of Fighting when I tried it earlier — the second stage in Story mode against Jack was still a near-insurmountable obstacle, though I did actually manage to beat him once — but it was certainly a much more comfortable experience with an appropriate controller. I will continue to put the game through its paces and perhaps write about my experiences!

Secondly, in completely unrelated news, I went swimming today and managed 24 lengths in a little less than an hour (I didn't time it exactly, but somewhere around 45 minutes, I guess?). This is better than my previous of 20 in the same space of time, and can be partly attributed to my excellent new goggles that made me feel a lot more confident sticking my head in the water, but I felt a little more confident in general. I'm still painfully slow compared to literally everyone else in the pool, but I don't mind too much so long as I meet and occasionally exceed my own personal goals.

So that's good. I am absolutely knackered now though, so hopefully I will sleep well this evening; I emphatically did not sleep well last night, which was not a great start to the week, but oh well.

After lengthy consideration (all right, a little bit of Googling) I decided to invest in a fight pad for the PS4. I was tempted to get an adapter for my arcade stick, but looking into it there's the possibility that some of the things might not quite map properly if going that route, and I want to ensure compatibility.

So I've picked up a… what is it called (checks) Razer Raion, which is supposedly very nice. Zavvi had it for half its normal price (it's normally a hundred quid, which is a lot more than I'm willing to spend on a joypad) as well as providing options to pay it off over several months with no interest, so that was a bit of a no-brainer really. It should arrive in the next couple of days; I'm looking forward to trying it.

And I'm genuinely looking forward to giving these Neo Geo fighters a proper go. It's been a very long time since I played a fighting game with any degree of seriousness — the last was probably Dead or Alive 4 — so it's going to be interesting to explore these, particularly as I've never tried SNK fighters other than SNK Heroines (which I love) before. I am definitely 100% all about the pixel art in these games — and I'm pleased to see that despite these PS4 games actually being ports/emulations of PS2 titles, they're a lot less blurry than the otherwise excellent ADK Damashi collection, so that will really allow them to shine.

On that note, having a decent fight pad will actually allow me to play some of the games in ADK Damashi that I haven't really tried before, too.

Anyway, the Razer thingy looks nice because it has an 8-way D-pad, which I'm hoping will help with my general incompetence at performing fireball and Dragon Punch motions. It also has big chunky buttons, which is exactly what you want from a controller like this, and I believe it has programmable elements, too. As I say, looking forward to trying it.

I'm also looking forward to these fighters for another reason — as Guilty Gear Strive announces yet more DLC not long after it's launched, I'm really keen to play a fighting game that is complete right from the moment you actually pick it up and start playing. Art of Fighting has, I think, 8 fighters in it, only two of whom are playable in Story Mode. That is 1) much less overwhelming than the three billion characters modern fighters have and 2) never going to try and charge me more money for more characters while I'm playing.

The explosion of DLC for fighting games is really offputting these days. It makes me not want to jump into any new ones, because you know that purchasing the game isn't the end of your expenditure — not if you want the "complete" experience, anyway. I genuinely actually preferred it when Capcom did several versions of the same game — at least that way, people could specialise in a particular version of the game rather than this piecemeal nonsense we have these days.

But that's a rant about something that's not particularly relevant to me, because modern fighting games feel completely out of reach for my skill levels right now. I suspect at least some of these SNK titles may also be out of reach for me — but I'm willing to give them a go now I've got them, and I suspect trying them out may make for some interesting article fodder, too.

Work sent me a copy of a lovely SNK collection of fighting games to do an unboxing of the other day, so I decided to give one a go this evening. I picked Art of Fighting to try first.

I was immediately blown away by the gorgeous pixel art and animations… and almost immediately afterwards was struck by what an absolutely terrible controller the DualShock 4 is for fighting games.

I don't think I'd actually ever tried a fighting game on PS4 before, so this had never come up before, but it really is absolutely dreadful. Whether I was attempting to use the D-pad or the analogue stick, it was near-impossible to perform basic fighting game moves with any accuracy. If anything, the analogue stick was actually more accurate, which is a situation I've never encountered before!

I have an arcade stick but unfortunately it's for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Supposedly there are USB converter things you can get, but they're a little bit pricey so I'm not sure I can justify it right now… but I'll definitely consider it, because I do want to give these SNK games a fair shot.

The alternative, of course, is buying a fight pad or a new stick. Again, that's a bit pricy — though I guess there are other games that will work for like shoot em ups. But then I can say the same for the arcade stick, so… I don't know!

Anyway, this is late night ramblings with no real point. If any of you have a good recommendation for a PS4 fighting game device that isn't too expensive, do please sound off below!

I'm off to bed for now. Tata!

Made it to the end of the week — and didn't miss a day of either gymming or swimming along the way. Tired out now, though!

I got thinking while I was swimming today — swimming is a brilliant activity for getting lost in thought. One might think it's an inherently dangerous activity to mostly switch off your consciousness, but I've always found it a wonderful place to be alone with one's thoughts.

And it's an interesting contrast to being alone with your thoughts when you don't want to be alone with your thoughts — such as when you're trying to get to sleep. When I'm swimming and my mind wanders, it goes to pleasant and imaginative places; when I can't sleep, I'm ruminating on everything that has ever gone wrong and everything that might go wrong in the future.

Evidently the solution to this is to just stop sleeping and perpetually swim instead. That's it. That's the solution to mental health that we all need.

Okay, maybe not, but the time for reflection (no vaguely water-related pun intended) is definitely welcome, and I can see this being an eminently worthwhile part of my weekly routine as things continue. Assuming, of course, that I can keep up these commitments.

After this week, I'm feeling positive in that regard — but I guess the real test is next week, and the week after, and the week after, and… you know.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to have a nice rest and then on Sunday I'm going to record a bunch of videos. I'll also put up a new part of the Atelier MegaFeature on either Saturday or Sunday depending on how lazy I'm feeling tomorrow. Watch that space!

For now, it's time for bed. Have a great weekend!

The schedule appears to be working for now — I've successfully made it to the gym or the swimming pool on four out of five days this week, and I fully intend to make that a clean sweep on Friday. (I'm going to have the weekend off, 'cause I deserve it!)

I've actually been quite enjoying myself, which is an important part of getting this whole routine established. My only hesitation is that by the time I've been and gone and done a gym or a swim, there's not a ton of time left afterwards to do other things when I get back home.

I say that; I managed to play through an entire horror game this evening. A short one, yes, but a whole game nonetheless. So perhaps the problem is less pronounced than my brain wants to think it is. I suspect this is part of the "resistance" my subconscious has traditionally put up to getting going again with this sort of thing — and this is what I need to overcome.

Worst comes to the worst, if I feel like I'm really missing out on "gaming time", I can take the Switch to the gym and play something for 20 minutes while I'm on the exercise bike. And, once Steam Deck is a thing, I'll even be able to play stuff like Euro Truck Simulator and Final Fantasy XIV while working out. Truly, we are living in the future.

Anyway. Feeling reasonably positive right now. I have a lot of work to do to get my body back in vaguely working order, but this feels like a good first step. Let's see if I can maintain that — and perhaps supplement that with eating a bit better, which I know, I know, is even more important than the actual exercise side of things.

But at the moment, I'm looking at it like this: I'm doing the exercise to get my body working a bit better again. Once I feel a little bit more… "alive" (i.e. not hurting when attempting to perform basic bodily movements) I can expand my efforts further. And ultimately… well, we'll have to see, I guess.

As I say, it's a good start, which is all I was hoping for right now. One more swim tomorrow, then a well-earned break just in time to make some videos over the weekend!

I have probably given more thought than is healthy to what my elemental attributes would be if elemental attributes were actually a thing. And my opinion on my strengths and weaknesses tends to vary a little bit according to what I'm doing.

I can fairly confidently say that I'm not Earth element. I don't like getting dirty and I'm deeply uncomfortable any time I have to climb something rocky. That said, I do like mountains and caves, so perhaps there's something there.

My ever-present flatulence is probably cause for attributing the wind element to me, but I feel that's too easy a target. Wind element tends to be associated with… well, various things according to the particular interpretation. It can be anything from "gentle healing breeze" to "eviscerating blades of the cyclone", and I'm not sure any of those quite match me.

Fire element is, I suspect, the element everyone would like to be, because who doesn't enjoy flinging fireballs around? However, I don't like being too hot, so I feel that kind of precludes me from being fire element. Unless being fire element makes you immune to the heat. But then I'm not immune to the heat, so I still wouldn't be fire element. I can get quite angry about things, though, and that's a bit "fiery"?

Being water element is something that pops into my mind every time I go swimming (like I did this evening) and recall how much I enjoy simply existing in the water. I'm not a strong swimmer and I'm not good at complicated things like holding my breath, keeping my eyes open and not sucking water up my nose, but I do simply enjoy being in the water, whether it's swimming gently along at my doubtless excruciatingly slow pace, or just lying back, floating and relaxing.

I guess I could be ice? That's watery, and I enjoy winter sports video games. I am also more than capable of being (usually accidentally) cold and emotionally distant, which I feel is an essential part of an ice person's personality.

Or maybe I'm one of those weird elements you get in games where they want more than four elements? I don't think I'm light. I could be dark. Definitely not holy. Probably not evil. Don't think I'm poisonous. Lightning would be cool, but I feel that also implies speed, which I emphatically do not have.

I think I'll say I'm water and dark-type for now, with the possibility of evolving on class change. Gotta leave one's options open, after all.

Forgot to write again yesterday, didn't I. Doing well with this, huh?! In my defense… I forgot. Yeah, I don't really have an excuse, other than the fact that I was playing Tales of Arise all evening for a preview (which you can read here) and didn't get done until after 1am. I suppose that counts as an excuse.

I've joined a new gym that has a swimming pool. It's considerably more expensive for a "gym and swimming" membership than the other place I was at, and it's not 24 hours — but going by the last couple of days, I think I'm going to be better at sticking to some sort of "routine" with this place.

Not only is it much nicer in terms of facilities — some of the exercise machines are genuinely comfortable to sit on, which is a bizarre feeling — but, at present, the fact they're still using a booking system to manage COVID means that I have to make a commitment in advance and stick to it. So far — after two days — I've done that with no problem, so hopefully I can make that continue.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I need to develop that distinct change in my thinking where going to the gym or having a swim is something I actively want to do rather than an inconvenience to be squeezed in at some point that doesn't get in the way of other things. Booking in advance will help make that happen, for sure — though I know they're going to "re-evaluate" the systems in mid-August. I might continue "booking" things for myself and committing to them even if they ditch the requirement to pre-book things, as scheduling stuff for myself has always been a good means of keeping myself organised.

I really enjoyed my swim yesterday. I am as woefully slow as I ever was — I've never been a particularly strong swimmer — but I simply enjoy being in the water; it's a relaxing feeling, and it was especially pleasant on my aching muscles. Plus, again, while pre-bookings are necessary, it's never too crowded in there either, so I don't have to feel too stressed out about being the incredibly slow fat guy getting in everyone's way in the slow lane.

Going for another swim tomorrow, then a gym session the day after, all being well. Going to try and alternate like this in the week and hopefully get myself into a good routine. A good ten years or so ago I got into a similar routine — the gym and pool happened to be on my way home from work at the time — and it was beneficial to my general wellbeing. While I am, of course, not the same person I was ten years ago — I am much more decrepit — I have faith that I can at least attempt to better myself a bit, somewhat. Maybe.

Anyway. Now I've taken care of all of today's "commitments", it's time for some video games.