I'm in the mood for some arcade-style games this evening, I think. The PlayStation Classic has been getting some good use for this, since there are some great arcade ports for PS1 — particularly puzzle games.

Most of you reading this probably know about my fondness for Puchi Carat and other Taito titles. There are a few others I'm fond of — Ballistic is one I rather like, primarily because its Japanese version, Puzz Loop, was in our university student union coffee shop — home of the best curly fries in the world — a good 20+ years ago. A friend and I used to enjoy playing on the machine while we waited for the aforementioned fries and triple-shot espressos that would get us through a morning of Dr William Drabkin's lectures on Baroque-era harmonic progressions and "horn chords".

Magical Drop III is another favourite, though one I discovered much more recently. The PS1 version of this is excellent and very true to the arcade original, plus it comes with a bunch of neat bonus stuff as well.

Puzznic is one I've not spent a lot of time with but I've always found it interesting. I might actually spend some time with that one this evening, now that I'm thinking about it.

I always used to get Puzznic and Plotting mixed up. I think they're actually both Taito games, and they both came out on the Atari ST. Puzznic got a PS1 port, though, while Plotting didn't. (I think it might be in one of the Taito Legends collections on PS2, though — I'll have to check.) Plotting was a weird one — I never quite got my head around it as a kid, but I always thought the art and animation was cute. Perhaps one to return to on Atari ST A to Z at some point.

Anyway, on that note, I think it's time to go play one or more of these games for a nice peaceful evening! It's been a long and tiring but satisfying week, and I'm very much looking forward to a pretty chilled out weekend. I hope you also have a good weekend!

I tried some KFC-flavoured crisps today. They did not taste like KFC, but they were pretty nice — sort of a spicy chicken flavour, as you might expect. I've seen a few people going nuts for these on social media, so I bought a multipack from the local Tesco earlier. They're all right; nothing amazing, but I certainly don't regret buying them or anything.

My copy of Sengoku Rance arrived from MangaGamer today. I'm impressed! Not only does it have a lovely old-school "hinged" big box (I don't know if "hinged" is the right word, but the lid is attached to the bottom and it opens like a book) but it also has a 78-page full colour manual in slightly-bigger-than-A5 size. It's quite the thing of beauty, and I'm delighted to have it on my shelf. I would have been happy with another DVD case like Rance 5D and VI came in, but they really went the extra mile for this one. Here's hoping Rance Quest Magnum gets the same treatment.

And finally in not-particularly-interesting things that happened today, volume 5 of Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro finally arrived. I believe that brings me up to date with the series; volume 6 looks like it's out in March and features Nagatoro with cat ears on the front cover, so I will most certainly be picking that up.

Aside from getting a bunch of cool stuff done over on Rice Digital today (check out my History of Lewd piece on Casual Romance Club and my look at the Steam Game Festival highlights!) it's been a relatively uneventful day. Contemplating going to sit in bed to play some PlayStation games, but I also need to play some Atelier Escha & Logy. Oh, the decisions!

Anyway. Hope you've had a pleasant day. Take care of yourselves, as always!

Busy day today! I got a lot done and did some Good Things at work which seem to have gone down well, so that's all very exciting. There are more interesting things in the pipeline too that I'm looking forward to talking about — sorry to keep teasing on this but I don't know 100% when they're going to happen so I just occasionally have to let a bit of the ol' excitement out without spoiling anything.

I'm sure the "honeymoon period" will pass at some point but right now I'm having a blast. I'm getting paid a good wage to do what I love, and being given the freedom and trust to approach it the way I feel I should be approaching it. This is not a situation I should probably be surprised about experiencing when pushing 40 years of age, but it's something of a first for me, I have to confess. I hope I keep feeling that way.

Andie attempted to repair our broken TV yesterday and mostly succeeded… mostly. She successfully swapped out the faulty LED strip and got the screen lighting up properly again, but something we knocked while taking the thing apart has caused a few pixels of lines at the extreme left of the display. They're barely noticeable — particularly if you're not looking for them, or if you're doing something in 4:3, such as, say, playing PS1 games — but it's a bit of a shame we weren't able to get the thing back in 100% working order.

It was — is — a nice TV, so we've replaced my 40" TV that was probably pushing 15 years old at this point (and still doing just fine) with the 55" almost-working-perfectly TV in the bedroom. That means we now have a 55" TV in both the living room and bedroom. Extravagant? Perhaps, but if we've got 'em we might as well use them. Now we just need to figure out where to put the 40" model. I have joked about mounting it vertically in the toilet so one could play Tate-mode arcade games while having a poo, but that really would be extravagant now, wouldn't it?

I find it quite interesting that my Q&A videos always do relatively well on YouTube — I mean, in terms of viewing figures we're still talking double figures rather than anything grander, but you all know I'm perfectly content with that. But those double-figure figures are noticeably higher than a lot of the other things I do, and I find that intriguing.

What exactly could be causing that? Do people naturally gravitate towards Q&A videos? Is it the fact they're the only videos with my actual face in? As someone who has never had a ton of self-confidence in their own appearance, I honestly find it quite difficult to believe it's that, but I've also seen the advice that you should put "yourself" in your thumbnails, so perhaps there is something to it — particularly given how many other YouTube creators out there do it.

Trouble is, I have a format for my thumbnails right now and I rather like the consistency of them. I've made some minor tweaks to the short;Play and Podcast format ones, but I've always rather liked the simple and to-the-point nature of the various A to Z video thumbnails. "This is a video about Atari," they say, "and specifically this game". Would my gurning fizzog overlaid atop that nice simple layout really make more people come and watch those videos?

I do wonder sometimes, but I also don't want to experiment and disrupt what I've come to think of as the "sanctity" (for want of a better word) of the series that I'm most proud of and how I present them.

Ultimately, as I say, I don't mind too much. I look at YouTube like this: if I was giving a talk on old Atari games in the local village hall and twenty people turned up to listen, I'd be ecstatic. I'm not in this to be "famous"; I do it 'cause I enjoy it.

But that doesn't stop me wondering how doing things a little differently might affect things! 🙂

I'm feeling a bit under the weather this evening — something has disagreed with my stomach a bit so I'm in a bit of pain. So I'll just share this with you for now, even though it went up on YouTube earlier — it's this month's Q&A video!

Thank you to everyone who sent some questions in, you provided some fun things to talk about! Let's do it again next month!

Read through vol. 4 of the Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro manga on the toilet earlier, and I really like how this series is developing — particularly in the more subtle ways.

The development of the relationship between "Senpai" and Nagatoro is really quite touching to see happen — but also the way Senpai perceives the world changes, too. In the first volume, he comments that he "doesn't remember" the faces of people that he hates, and indeed throughout the first volume no characters other than him or Nagatoro have fully-defined faces; everyone else has the sort of "hentai protagonist" look with no eyes or hair over where their eyes would be.

Things gradually change as time goes on, though. Nagatoro's friends — and rivals — enter the picture as the narrative progresses. In the very first frames of the first volume, these characters, too, are represented as faceless people who Senpai presumably "hates"… but by the middle of the third volume we're seeing them almost as clearly as we do Nagatoro. They tease Senpai much like Nagatoro does, but over time it seems there's some genuine affection there — even if their flirtatiousness is likely just for fun rather than serious. What's interesting is how Nagatoro inevitably reacts to it; her feelings are plain to see.

Doubtless this is going to be one of those series where the "will they, won't they" will be dragged out for all eternity, but so far the gradual development of the various relationships has been a delight to see. I've got a copy of vol. 5 on the way so I'll be interested to see where things go — and I fully intend to follow this one as far as it goes!

Spent a bunch of time playing Mighty Gunvolt Burst this evening after my Limited Run copy showed up the other day.

I think it's important to make time to revisit stuff you enjoyed in the past sometimes; it's often tempting to feel like you should be always moving "forwards" in the things you enjoy, never looking back at the stuff you've beaten in the past. I really enjoyed coming back to Mighty Gunvolt Burst this evening, even though it's something I've already written about recently.

I've found this to be particularly true when I feel like I've developed a much better understanding of… something in the intervening years. I know my knowledge and respect for certain aspects of gaming is very different to how it was even ten years ago, so revisiting stuff from back then is sometimes interesting… and it only gets better when I go back and explore things from my childhood with the eyes of an adult. There are a lot of things that really hold up to a second viewing — and a lot of things to appreciate.

The same is true for any form of media, I'm sure. If I wasn't already filling my day with lots of things to do it'd be interesting to spend some time revisiting favourite TV shows and movies from years ago too, but I never really seem to find the time to do that! Did they sneak a few hours out of the day when we weren't looking at some point in the last 20 years…?

Anyway. Time for bed (and Final Fantasy V) I think. Things to record tomorrow and I am going to attempt to get out of bed before noon to get them done! I'm not promising that will actually happen, but good intentions are a first step.

S-Rank Patrons! Last chance to get your questions in for the January Q&A! Click here for details.

Another week is over, and it kind of feels like it's flown by! I've got lots done, achieved some things I'm pleased with and have some things I'm genuinely excited about in the cooker. So far I think it's safe to say that 2021 is off to a much more pleasant start than I ever expected, so I have to express some gratitude for that — both to people who have stuck by me during more difficult times (which I'm sure there will be more of in the future) and those who have, directly or indirectly, helped me get where I am now.

This evening has only been slightly blighted by a mild case of the shits that appears to have passed now, so I can't complain too much. Hopefully it wasn't anything to do with the Nandos we treated ourselves to this evening. I blame my new work colleagues; no-one would shut up about bloody Nandos on the end-of-week social chat, so I came away wanting a Nandos.

Nothing much planned for this weekend. Going to get a few videos recorded so I don't have to worry about any the following weekend (which Chris and I have pencilled in for a new podcast recording session) but other than that? Not a lot. I suspect Atelier and Final Fantasy will be involved at the very least.

Anyway. I hope all of you reading this have had a pleasant week, or at the very least a tolerable one — that's all we can really ask for right now, I feel. I know there's no real end in sight to the weirdness the world has been stuck in, but we'll all get through this, I'm sure. There's always video games to distract yourself with in the meantime!

S-Rank Patrons, don't forget to get your questions in for the January Q&A! Click here for details.

A friend (who is among the readers of this 'ere blog!) noted earlier that he was concerned that he had lost his sense of humour… but realised that he was simply allergic to shitposts. I kind of feel the same way.

While sometimes it can be amusing to just post something silly, there are so many people on the Internet these days who make it a defining part of their identity that it loses their impact. And the real problem is that there are a lot of people out there who think they are hilarious comedians, when in fact they're just recycling tired old jokes for the umpteenth time.

You just have to look at any Twitter trend when it comes up. Browse through the latest tweets and you'll find hundreds, possibly thousands, of people making the same "jokes". This is particularly true when it comes to a universally hated person — someone like Piers Morgan or Donald Trump — but it also happens around events, too. You see the same GIFs, the same tired old "this you?" responses, the same old clown pictures. It's tiresome.

Some might argue that this side of the Internet has developed as a new twist on the way we communicate, and perhaps it has. But I can't help but feel like it loses a lot of the nuance and expressiveness of language if everyone is posting the same Shrek "this is going in my cringe compilation" image macro.

Perhaps I'm just too old for this shit. Or perhaps it really isn't funny. I don't know. But if you've ever found yourself feeling like you might be allergic to shitposts… rest assured that you most certainly aren't alone!

S-Rank Patrons, don't forget to get your questions in for the January Q&A! Click here for details.

I decided to have a quiet day on MoeGamer today as I had a very busy day at the day job, and worked a little later than normal to get something out of the way that I'd been meaning to do for a couple of days. It was already getting a bit late by the time I finished, so I just wanted to sit and relax. Hope you don't mind! You got a video at least!

Two super-fun pieces up on Rice today, though — firstly, a bit about the upcoming Root Film, which is a game I'm very excited for, and secondly, a big interview with the ever-lovely Matt Papa from Inti Creates on the subject of Gal*Gun's tenth anniversary. If you have a sec to go enjoy those and perhaps share them that would be very much appreciated! Good viewing figures help me look good — and confirm to my new employers that hiring me was indeed the correct decision.

I dove back in to Final Fantasy XIV this evening, since I have a good idea for an ongoing column about it. Ongoing columns are good! Regular content so I don't have to rack my brains every week for inspiration. I'll write more about this in the first installment of the new column (which I'm planning for Friday or Monday, haven't decided yet) but I've been giving the game's "New Game Plus" mode a try; this is a really nice idea, which allows you to replay the entire main scenario quest at your current level, letting you re-experience the story as it was first time around, but without any need for grinding, gearing up and all that sort of thing.

You can even run the dungeons single-player unsynced if you want to, and I won't lie, it's exceedingly satisfying to use the Samurai job's super-powerful hit to flatten bosses in a single blow. You don't get any meaningful rewards for running New Game Plus — not that the quest rewards for the main scenario would likely be any use to you by the time you'd be making use of New Game Plus — so it's purely a means of revisiting the story. After several years away, it's exactly what I both needed and wanted; I wasn't relishing the idea of starting a brand new character.

Anyway, I'm going to be limiting my Final Fantasy XIV time to probably twice a week so I still have time to do other stuff. I'll definitely play on Wednesday evenings, as that's when the wife and our guildmates do stuff together online, and perhaps one day of each weekend, too. We'll see. I have little to no intention of taking the game "seriously" again, but I do want to see the Shadowbringers story and enjoy some of the new stuff. So I'm looking forward to that.

Now, though, it's time for bed — as tempting as it is to see quite how far through A Realm Reborn's main quest I can get in a single evening! For reference, after an evening's play, I'd cleared up to the point where you run Sastasha, Tam-Tara and Copperbell, so that's the equivalent of playing up to about level 18 or so. Without the need to grind, I should be able to plough through the various storylines and enjoy them at a good pace, which will be nice.

But yeah. Bed now. Perhaps with a touch of Final Fantasy V before sleep…