Final Fantasy VII Remake arrived today. That's a surreal feeling — a game that several of my friends and I hoped would one day happen is finally reality. Perhaps not in exactly the form we imagined when we were teenagers, but if the excellent demo was anything to go by, I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it. Conveniently, there's a 4-day weekend coming up for Easter, so I may get some time in with it then.

I'm a little hesitant to jump in, because although I'm tremendously excited about it, I'm also enjoying Atelier Iris 3 a lot, and I don't want to fall off that wagon. I'm also in two minds as to whether or not I should record my FFVII Remake playthrough with the intention of publishing it alongside old-school FFVII in the Final Fantasy Marathon when I eventually get that far. Or perhaps I can just play it again when the time comes; the rate I'm going with that series, it'll be a long time before I get to FFVII anyway!

But anyway. I've been steering clear of spoilers, I haven't read anything about the game (aside from friend of MoeGamer Matt Sainsbury's comments promoting his glowing review on DigitallyDownloaded.net) and I nearly didn't even try the demo. I'm glad I did, though; it gave me confidence that I'm going to have a good time with the Remake.

Now to find 100GB from somewhere…

"Have a good meeting." That's what Skype for Business says every time my heart sinks and I join a conference call that I know is largely irrelevant to me, in which I inevitably won't say anything whatsoever, and which causes my very soul to leak out of my ears a tiny little dribble at a time.

I hate meetings, whether they're in person or online. I don't like dealing with people. I especially don't really like listening to other people drone on about things I don't give a shit about. And my Tuesdays at the day job involve literally an entire morning of conference calls like this.

We open with the "Good Morning Call", which is over an hour of a bored-sounding Frenchman slowly going through our (awful) project management tool and reading everything out. And after that, we have individual business segment meetings, in which a bored-sounding Frenchman slowly goes through our (awful) project management tool and reads out the parts that are relevant to the business segment managers we have on the call. Then we have the meeting to update the regional representatives for whom we do stuff, in which a bored-sounding Frenchman slowly goes through the "Weekly Call" notes from our (awful) project management tool and whoever's name appears at the top of the slide has to read out what it says.

It's utterly soul-destroying, pointless and a complete waste of time, but there's a silver lining while we're all working from home: today I slept through this entire parade of bullshit. I set my alarm for five minutes before the start time of each one, joined the call, made sure I wasn't needed to talk about anything in particular (I never am, except in the last one) and then just napped through each of them, accompanied by my cats and a nice warm duvet.  I then had a thoroughly productive afternoon, very much refreshed from the morning's activities. 

I could get used to this working from home lark.

My review of Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories for Switch went live today on Nintendo Life — you can check it out at  https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/nintendo-switch/disaster_report_4_summer_memories. As always, if you have a moment to give it a click and show there's a "market" for coverage of lesser-known games on more mainstream sites, please do so!

One interesting thing came up, looking at the comments. (I know, I know, don't) A couple of people mentioned Push Square's review of the game, which rated it 3/10, seemingly primarily on the grounds that there is the option to act like a reprehensible asshole at numerous points throughout the game.

Thing is; that's sort of the point of Disaster Report 4: it's a game about the human response to a crisis, and how some people approach a situation like that keen to help everyone, while others, regrettably, take the opportunity to let loose and act like the asshole they've always wanted to be. Or perhaps they just see an opportunity to see what it's like to be a complete shit; everyone else is already suffering, after all; it can't hurt, can it?

That's not a reason to mark the game down, though, in my eyes. I find this side of Disaster Report 4 fascinating. You most certainly come into contact with more than your fair share of assholes over the course of the game's main narrative, so it's fitting that you have the option to be one too. I didn't in my playthrough, because I find it legitimately difficult to play a game with moral choices as a "bad" person, and some of the options you get in Disaster Report 4 are really bad. But I appreciate the option being there.

In fact, I'm sorely tempted to do a playthrough on video where I simply attempt to be the biggest, most reprehensible asshole there ever was to walk the streets after a major earthquake. I'm genuinely curious to see what effect it has on the story — if any.

If there's any interest in that, let me know! It's not as if I'm short of time right now, and Warriors Wednesday is coming to a (perhaps temporary) close this week, so…

I'm grateful that I've never really had to deal with any major issues in the community surrounding the work that I do. I think this is — hopefully, anyway — due to the fact that my work itself sets certain expectations, and makes it clear that I have no patience for anyone who is going to be a dick about things. That doesn't mean people can't have fun, of course, but it means that people can't be a dick.

A friend of mine runs a reasonably active, moderately sized Discord server. A while back, there was a user there who frequently caused trouble, often getting into arguments and becoming disproportionately angry towards people who really didn't deserve any ire at all, let alone the amount of rage he was flinging at them. He left once, then asked to come back. He left again, then asked to come back. Then he left again, and my friend told him that this was it; if he asked to come back again, he would be refused.

Right now, he's in my friend's DMs trying to guilt-trip him into taking him back into the server. The guy in question has pretty severe autism and clear anger management issues, but is unwilling to do anything about them despite the fact that he recognises they are both a problem. Instead, he prefers to offload his problems onto others and blame them for him lashing out. It's a difficult situation for my friend, who doesn't want to come across as being mean or discriminatory towards someone suffering with genuine, rather strong mental health issues, but the conversation in the server since this guy has left has been much lighter, more pleasant and more open.

People who were hesitant to speak up now discuss things without fear of being shouted down without provocation. People (for the most part, anyway) respectfully discuss their opinions without putting others down. And while disagreements still happen, they're generally resolved pretty quickly rather than being constantly brought up as ongoing grudges.

I don't envy my friend for having to deal with this, particularly as I know he's much too nice to just block the dude and be done with him. But I'm also glad — and grateful — that people like you lovely lot have never given me any trouble; and in exchange, I hope I've never given you any grief either! Thanks for that!

Dang. We really do live in an amazing age of video games. I'm just looking back over the things I've written about on MoeGamer and Nintendo Life recently, and the sheer breadth of experiences it's possible to have these days continually astounds, astonishes and delights me. I love it.

Just recently, I've been playing the Psikyo shooters, Atelier Iris, Disaster Report 4, Dead or School, SeaBed, NinNinDays and numerous others. And they're all things I'm very happy I've spent my time with.

I want to revel in the wonderful experiences I'm able to have while the whole "pandemic lockdown" thing is in effect. I can flit off and explore myriad other worlds, some of which are dark and depressing and others of which are vibrant and full of life. I can experience stories ranging from the silly to the heart-wrenching via the utterly mundane; I can meet characters I love, loathe and love to loathe. I can step into the shoes of someone else; someone who can leave the house for reasons other than buying cheese; someone whose life has meaning, and who is able to make the world better for others, simply by existing in some cases.

Video games are fantastic. And right now is the perfect time to enjoy them. So I'm doing just that!

Finished Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories today, including its lengthy epilogue chapter (which I assume was DLC at one point). What a marvellous, wonderful, janky old mess of a game that is. I'll be penning a review of it for Nintendo Life in the next couple of days along with a more lengthy analysis on MoeGamer, but suffice to say if you can get over some of the worst graphics performance I've ever seen on a home console, there's an absolutely fascinating experience to be had here.

It's probably the fact that I've absolutely binged it over the last couple of days, but I feel like it's one of those games that sticks with you. I keep thinking about it when I'm not playing it, and its atmosphere is such that it makes you grateful to remain safe — especially at times like this, with the world undergoing a disaster of a completely different kind at the moment.

It's also an example of a kind of game I really like: one that truly allows you to feel like you're immersing yourself in another culture. There are quite a few games out there that make you feel like you're "living the Japanese life", but I've never played one like this, where you're a normal person in Japan under circumstances that are anything but "normal". That said, the game does drive home that Japan, as a nation, has developed the ability to respond to disasters in a timely, efficient manner — and that in some cases, people see a massive, deadly earthquake almost as more of an inconvenience than anything they should actually be terrified about!

Having beaten the game and been teased by the epilogue with a number of characters and side stories I didn't encounter or resolve in my main playthrough, I'm tempted to go through it again, but not just yet; I need to get back to Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm! Perhaps I'll consider a "New Game Plus" video series at some point in the future, using the knowledge I picked up on this first playthrough to see exactly what I can achieve in a second time around.

Or just to be a complete bastard instead of the nicey-nice goody-two-shoes I was in this run. Although I'm not sure I can actually bring myself to do that. I went in to the game with the full intention of seeing what would happen if I was "bad" but something about witnessing the initial disaster right at the beginning of the game just made me think "err… maybe I'll help people out a bit".

Anyway. Time for bed, for dreams of earthquakes, perhaps.

$5 Patrons, I've received this month's payments now, so a wallpaper will be heading your way in the next couple of days!

Andie and I were out in the garden today, doing some gardeny things. Specifically, we were shovelling up all the cat shit the cats have left in their "catio" and laying down some… underlay-type stuff to prevent the whole thing getting overgrown with grass (and hopefully prevent further "shit in wrong place" incidents).

I do not like gardening. I never have. I like being out in nature, but I don't like getting up close with nature, be it flora or fauna. I think most of this is to do with the fact that I don't really like getting dirty, or stung, or bitten, or scratched or anything like that. And gardening tends to be something where most or all of these things happen on a regular basis. On top of that, you also get sweaty. I really don't like getting sweaty.

I can't deny the appeal of accomplishing something and making things look good, however. It now looks pretty good outside — certainly better than the overgrown mess it was before. But now I just want to sit down and play some video games… so I'm going to do just that, with some Disaster Report 4.

I checked to see how far off course I've gotten with the day numbering on this, and it's actually a little closer than I thought: I started doing daily posts on December 4, 2018, which was 488 days ago. This post is currently labelled Day 483. So I can probably get things back in order if I do a couple of posts a day until we "catch up".

I know you all probably don't really care all that much, but I have Asperger's, remember so these things take on greater importance than they probably should do! Plus if you're doing some sort of numbered "challenge" like this (not that I have an end goal or anything) it's nice to at least make sure you're being accurate about things.

My calculations would seem to indicate that if I do two posts a day until Thursday, I'll be all square and "correct" again, so I'm going to make an effort to do that — likely one in the morning, one in the evening. If nothing else it'll be a nice personal challenge to myself to figure out multiple things to write about in a day! Besides… all the… other… writing I do each day…

Uh, anyway. It's twenty past midnight and I should probably go to bed. I've hammered out a bunch of videos this evening and Andie and I have the joy of cleaning up a bunch of cat shit tomorrow. So that will be fun. I will follow it with more Disaster Report 4, though, which feels like both the best and worst possible game to be playing with the world in the state it is.

Hope you're having as good a weekend as it's possible to have without leaving your house! As someone who makes a point of not leaving his house all that much… I can confirm it's possible to have a very good weekend without going anywhere. Get on that backlog!

I seem to have inadvertently missed a couple of days; hearty apologies for that! I've been keeping myself busy what with doing the day job from home and getting stuck right in to Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm in the evenings, so evidently I got distracted somewhere along the line.

I've also got a new assignment for Nintendo Life: Disaster Report 4, which has no embargo so I can talk about it! Woo.

I'll do a proper writeup on Disaster Report 4 on MoeGamer alongside my Nintendo Life review as usual, but two things have become very apparent during my first play session this evening: 1) this game runs like crap on Switch — and like, actual crap, not "boo, it's 30fps on Switch when it's 60fps on PS4 — and 2) it doesn't matter, because I sat and played this for 4 hours solid without realising, I was having such an interesting time with it.

I've never played a Disaster Report game before so I didn't really know what to expect at all. I don't know how representative this one is of the series as a whole, but it's a fascinating blend of sort of survival horror without the "horror" bit — at least, without the "scary monsters and gore" bit, anyway; there are still genuinely horrifying moments — with adventure game. I've never seen a game with quite so many different dialogue options at critical story junctures. Or a game with quite as many toilets, for that matter, since there's a bit of lightweight "needs management" going on as you play, though not to an obtrusive degree.

It's one of those games that leaves you wondering "what if…?" when you reach the conclusion to a particular section, so I'll be interested to replay it. I'm probably going to pick up a boxed copy of this at some point; whether it's on Switch (so I can continue from the save I'm using at the moment) or on PS4 (where it'll run better… hopefully, anyway) remains to be seen. As I say, after a while the dodgy frame rate simply ceased to matter to me because the general experience was so enjoyable.

Anyway. I'll be getting stuck into that some more over the weekend. I hear about 15-20 hours for a playthrough, so hopefully I can bash that out reasonably quickly and be able to get back to Atelier Iris 3, which I am loving. But more on that another time!

I feel I haven't mentioned lately how grateful I am for all of you who have made the choice to support me and my work here on Patreon.

I know for most people on the Internet, committing to even a dollar a month for the sake of someone else is a lot to ask, particularly in a world where the widespread belief is that most things — if not everything — should be free. And so I'm continually touched by the fact that there are a bunch of you kind enough to slip me varying amounts of your hard-earned each and every month.

MoeGamer and Atari A to Z aren't my job. I'd love it if they were, but they're not. However, that doesn't mean I don't take them seriously. When I "rebooted" MoeGamer back in March of 2016, I made a commitment to myself: to produce something that I would be proud to call my own, and which would be something a bit different from the million and one other "me too" (not that kind of Me Too) gaming sites out there.

And I'm not talking about the big commercial sites, either — though a lot of them have become practically indistinguishable from one another over the years. No; I'm talking about the small-scale operations run by people who wish they were working for IGN or Gamespot or whoever — the sites churning out news article after news article day after day in an attempt to attract those who, for one reason or another, fell out with the big names of the biz.

I've done the daily news cycle. It's fun and it's always changing, but it has little in the way of lasting value. Something I wrote one day and was particularly pleased with would be pushed off the front page by the next, likely never to be seen again. Reviews and features tend to have something of a longer tail — they're the things that tend to come up in Google search results when you're looking for something — but can still easily be lost.

That's why I decided to do what I do now with both MoeGamer and Atari A to Z: to write and produce videos that can be enjoyed any time. I make a deliberate attempt to "date" my articles as little as possible — where it's unavoidable for context's sake, the little phrase "at the time of writing/recording" is a godsend — in the hope that people will stop by maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe in five years from now, and find something that they find interesting.

I don't focus a lot of viewing figures, but I do keep an eye on them every so often. And it always pleases me to see the disparity between the number of specific visitors and the number of page views: it suggests to me that people stopping by for a visit are sticking around and looking at other things. That's super-cool, particularly as I do a lot of things in multiple parts.

At the time of writing (see) there are 1,463 posts on MoeGamer, 412 of which are videos, 226 of which are Atari A to Z videos.

Each and every one of them is something that I'm glad I've shared with the world, because they've allowed me to express my feelings about the things that are important to me — not something that always comes easily to one On The (non-ZX) Spectrum — as well as provide what is hopefully some helpful, interesting or at least entertaining information about a wide variety of games and visual novels, many of which don't get anywhere near the attention or love they deserve.

I'm super-grateful to all of you for supporting me in that. It's become something that's really important to me, and having people who believe in what I do or at the very least want to show some appreciation for my efforts is very welcome.

A sincere thank you, to all of you. And I hope you continue to enjoy what I do.

(Making this post public, as looking over it, these are thoughts I want to share more broadly. Thank you!)