You guys, You guys!

So, this showed up today.  I'll do impressions and such tomorrow night, but tonight has been and will continue to be celebrating the release of Drakengard 3.  I chalk it up to fate and the universe owing me more than a little bit for me receiving my Collector's Edition a day early.

Take care of yourselves and goodnight!

okay seriously?  Zero's VA is so good

This is Hilarious and Adorable

I would do a big post tonight but searching for news has proved poor, my gaming habits have not changed and it is storming, so I do not have a whole lot of time on the computer since the power could go out at any point.  (In fact it did, I'm posting this from a draft.)  So I was recently shown this and I really enjoyed it and felt like sharing.

Something bigger tomorrow for sure!

okay, I don't even play Smash Bros. anymore, but I still got the joke and it made me fucking laugh

Allergies Make Me Tired

Because Nature wanted to give me one last shot in the arm as a rather loud and annoying "Fuck you", after the very nice cool-down, the heat has started to come back and allergens are flying rampant in the air again.  This has reduced me to being even more tired than you would expect from waking up at 7 AM for work every morning when I am a Night Owl who sometimes called 7 AM "bedtime".  As in, going to bed for the first time during a span of hours.  I'm sure you knew what I meant, but you know how I do sometimes enjoy superfluously explaining things.  Especially when I'm tired and prone to rambling because I cannot otherwise form coherent thoughts.

I was writing a post about the Sega Sammy acquiring Index thing, but I just lost track of it, started sneezing and just got really tired, so I'm putting that on the burner to be finished tonight.  I hate doing that, but when I have to get to bed and I'm just not feeling it, nor could I be expected to, it just ain't happening.  This'll clear up soon enough, I assure you, but until then it's just kind of a process that has to be stuck out.  Unfortunately.  All sorts of fun, I assure you.

So yeah, that's about it for tonight.  Sorry for the lack of post, all.

dear Mother Nature, go screw, love, everyone

Long Day, Am Exhausted

So please, as is tradition, enjoy some K-Pop.

It's been a rough week, but hopefully things should start getting better from here, aside from it being Summer and all.  I am eagerly looking forward to June 9th when I finally get a 3DS XL to play around with, and Animal Crossing:  New Leaf to do the playing around.  I -was- actually going to write something along those lines tonight, but that'll be for tomorrow when I can focus.  Because I can't really do that now, what with being sore and achey and hot and tired.  Simultaneously.  So, yeah, g'night, folks.

Oh Boy, That NeXtBox Presser

I had a long day today and while I worked on a breakdown post, I just didn't have it in my tank to finish it tonight.  Instead, I will share this, which I got from Chance.  Mostly because it is amazing, but also because it's fucking true, holy shit.  Really, that whole showing and the information that's come out from it and since then has been fairly dire, and the only interest I'm deriving from it, personally, is dumbfounded laughter here and there as I come to terms with the rumors that are now reality, for the most part.  But that is a post for tomorrow (barring thunderstorms), and today is a post for this video.

Also for me saying that that's it for tonight because good lord, I am tired, it's hot and my allergies are making my mind work like...uh....something to do with molasses.  Thus, this is good night, folks.

Tired and Cranky

If there's a few things you've gleaned about me from my blogposts, especially the more personal ones (which are rare, admittedly), one of them is probably that I have struggled lately to be positive about things and generally try and keep an upbeat attitude.  I've done a pretty good job of it with a few hiccups here and there, but it's nothing that I really try and let get me down.  The last couple days have been more of the same about that, but my erratic and silly work schedule has really taken a toll on me that I haven't really registered until tonight when I realized I have been just a cranky person the last few days.  Like, crankier than the occasional piece of snark here or there - more along the lines of full-on, 'fuck this, fuck you, fuck everything' which has been a rare thing for...well, a couple years, honestly.  Which is good that it's rare, but that does then make it a bit unsettling when it does come around.

I think when it really hit was tonight when I was plugging away at the Dragon Fantasy review I've had open since....Sunday.  It's really not coming together the way I want it to and at one point I said to myself, "Am I literally going to explain how an NES-era RPG works?  Is that literally something I'm going to do?"  For a moment, I was so annoyed with that, with the whole concept of it and that I had to consider it, that I just grumbled, saved it and closed it once more as I have three times by now.  Usually, I would try to work through it or something, but instead I did the equivalent of upending the table I was writing on and stomped away.  Admittedly, it's less violent on a computer and in this format, but still, it's bothersome at the very least.

Part of the issue is Spring, as it always is.  I complain ceaselessly about it, but I just cannot handle ridiculous heat, and in my opinion, an indoor temperature of 82 degrees -with- a fan on at 11:30 at night is fucking ridiculous.  I say every year that I'm going to look into some sort of solution, but I never do and simply end up bitching for six months on end while also being miserable for various reasons.  Hopefully this will be the year where I'm motivated enough to -actually- do something about it, since I guess there are now Space Coolers that don't have to be hung halfway out a window to work.  Or maybe that's not a new thing and I am just a dumb.  I just know that a Space Heater is....'necessary' for out here for when it gets colder (obviously, I'm not a fan) so a similar option for when it's hot out here at least should have been a possibility, though the previously mentioned window thing was an issue.  If it's not now, then this might be a bearable Spring and Summer.

Another part of my grumbling is that there are rumors moving about the internet that the just released Deadly Premonition:  Director's Cut runs a little dodgy.  Being that it was a game I was actually looking forward to getting without expecting much, it's hard to say that I'm going into it expecting something bad now, but it's not outside the realm of thought.  It's not that you'd expect Deadly Premonition of all games to be a technical marvel or even 'smooth' (it was $20 on the original 360 release, and only got bumped up for $40 on PS3 because Blu-Rays are a bit more expensive, plus the content added), but rather that you'd expect the port of a two year old game that took something like a year to do would work.  Like, decently.  But with reports of stuttering framerates and strange audio echos or tinniness, not to mention the 'graphic overhaul' doing little for the better, if not for the worse, it's hard to not get discouraged.  Being the internet, it's hard to tell what's exaggerated and what isn't, so the only true test will be playing it myself, which I am understandably wary about doing.

Basically, I'm just being cranky and grumbly and tired because of things and it's really gotten in the way of writing things that I would prefer writing.  So instead, I did this.  Since I very obviously -do- want to write, even if I'm perhaps not in the best place to do so.  Hopefully, it'll pass - after all, I have a day off tomorrow if all goes well, so perhaps a day of simply recharging, getting some Soul Sacrifice in or playing through the end of Thomas Was Alone will assuage my undercurrent of 'bleh'.  Or maybe I'll veg out and catch up on my youtube videos since there's about three dozen of them that I haven't watched yet and are just begging for a marathon session.  Several, in fact, given that the bulk of them are 30-minute videos or better.  Which just makes me glad that the Vita has a Youtube App, because I'd just say 'fuck it' otherwise.  Regardless, tomorrow looks like a day that has potential, so here's hoping.

Yessssssss, Yessssssssssssss

I'm just doing a quick post tonight since I -was- going to do Dragon Fantasy impressions tonight, but the store isn't going to update and, to pass the time, I've been playing Disgaea 3.  Again.  Even though it is bad for my free time, productivity and sanity.

After an inhumanly terrible slog through Hall of Ordeals 3 (seriously, the map took me 76 turns of absolute fucking tedium involving throwing blocks up a tower and then throwing people so that I could, in turn, have them throw more blocks.  It was immeasurably stupid.), I unlocked Hall of Ordeals 4.  Now, the Hall of Ordeals levels have, at least for Disgaea 2 and, apparently 3, been prime grinding spots and Disgaea 3 puts a damn exclamation point on that shit.  You probably have no idea so allow me to elucidate the facts here as only someone who is obsessed with numbers can.

So, as you can sort of tell from the above screenshot, the map has nine enemies arranged in a 3x3 grid.  This grid just so happens to be on a 3x3 grid of Geotiles that just so happen to give +100% EXP.  And you'll notice that Dinah just so happens to be badass enough to clear that shit in a single attack.  (Specifically a Level 4 Big Bang attack)  The Base level of the enemies here is 400, so this is definitely advanced training grounds but once you get to the stage where you can make use of it....oh man.  It is the best spot you could ask for.

Dinah is currently Level 2400 and she was assuredly around 200 and change levels lower than that when I took the above screenshot.  Because not only does this map give fantastic XP, but it gives it fast.  As I am wont to do, I had it timed from the time I start the map to the time I start it again and, because I have animations turned off, it took ~20 seconds.  Given that I have about 4 or 5 Stronger Enemy Bills passed to raise the level from 400 to 810 currently (and I have 20 ranks of enemy levels to work with), this is something that you can grow -with- your character and it's just....it's amazing.  Three entire clears in a single minute.  I'm averaging around 20 levels a go (which means I need to up the enemy ranks), but even if that were -all- you could hope for, that's 60 levels a minute which means 3600 levels an hour.  Obviously the numbers dip the higher your character gets which means you have to compensate by making them stronger which causes a peak and then another slow descent, but I'm sure you see what this is like.

It's like I'm experiencing another of the true insanities of Disgaea as a series for the first time.

I love it.

seriously this is amazing, she is level 2500 already from the few breaks that I took while writing this

Super Tired

For reasons that may or may not include the coming of Spring, the fact that I only got about three hours of sleep last night, or the fact that I got up early and went off to a convention-type thing today for three and a half hours, I am absolutely worn out.  Really, I'm just as surprised and confused as you are.  Which should be not very, considering.

There's absolutely nothing news-worthy today, and I just don't have the energy to write up something about God of War: Ascension that properly exudes the amount of seething that I need to do over how bitterly disappointed I am.  Spoiler Alert:  It might be my Final Fantasy XIII-2 of this year.  That is how annoyed I am with it.

There's that, then.  I'm just going to pack it in early tonight.  Goodnight, folks.

P.S. Dear Mogs,

Learn to draw so you can have a proper sleepy Moogle for these types of posts.

Love,

Mogs

Tonight is Writing Night

Which probably means I should be writing here, right?  Sorry, but I'm being a bit selfish tonight.  I've been working on a short story lately and I really want to get it written.

To that end, I've spent the bulk of the night reading and doing a bit of writing.  For the rest of the night, I hope to skew that figure towards the latter rather than the former.  In lieu of actually giving something here in written form, I do what I always do:  I give you K-Pop.

G.NA is one of the few K-Pop artists I was introduced to through Music Unlimited, which is funny when I mention that the K-Pop selection is limited on the service.  Which, to be fair, it is - G.NA, NS Yoon-G, T-ara (no longer on the service), Girls Generation (one album, basically), BoA, 4Minute and Gangnam Style.  That is....literally pretty much it.  Then again, the service -did- just introduce a Video Game Music Channel (with an absurdly small and strange selection.  Hilariously, there are Halo soundtracks but not, say, Uncharted soundtracks, or inFamous soundtracks....you know, Sony properties) so maybe it -will- actually grow.  Maybe.  Probably.  Probably not.  Right.

Anyway, 'Supa Solo' is a pretty neat track and I've been listening to it fairly often the last couple nights.  Hence why I am sharing it.

That said, time to get back to the grindstone, as they say.

Personal Post - Christmas Fuzzies

This is not my house.  It is fantastic, though.

It has finally hit - the aforementioned Christmas fuzzies that have warmed my heart and just made me feel a little bit more at ease which has been very appreciated.  Again, without too much detail since I don't need to bore you with personal issues, it hasn't been too great and in truth it still isn't, but at least I'm managing to deal.  Thankfully, I have a little help with that, and I think that's really what helped get me into the Christmas mood.  Maybe she'll read this sometime and get that she's really been a help and hopefully that won't embarrass her too much.  Or maybe it will.  That's adorable too.  Regardless, it just really sank in tonight and I can' help but have this overwhelming sense of...calm and content wash over me which is good, of course, but it's also kind of a problem when I am trying to summon up venom to properly explain a game in a review. As I intended to do tonight.

Really, the Christmas fuzzies, nice as they are, aren't very helpful for writing much of anything which is the dilemma I found myself faced with tonight.  With any luck, I'll find some time today to do something -interesting- and that way, I'll have...you know, something to write about tonight.  Since there's apparently not going to be anything that's approaching news-worthy, because why would there be, that'd just be too easy.  Since I haven't done enough in Persona 4:  The Golden to update on that (except get to a boss and whittle him down to being literally dead in one hit and then getting sucker-punched to death) nor have I thrown something new into the PS3 (because, again, fuck trying to Platinum FFXIII-2, goddamn slot machines).  There's just -nothing- going on except me feeling all warm and happy and fuzzy inside because of things.

So, that's what I wrote about.  There....is not a lot to say about it, I found.  Oh well!

So, I'm Sick Again

This is me.  I am Yosuke.  Minus the need for a stomach pump.

I have yet another sinus thingy going on, and whether it's a sinus infection or just general wonkiness -with- my sinuses is yet to be established.  Like, drastic temperature/climate changes throwing me off.  It doesn't really make that much of a difference (and honestly, I'm leaning towards the latter since I do not have common infection things) because it is ruining me all the same and that's a shame.  When I'm coughing hard enough to make my back hurt and sniffling five times every twenty seconds, it's pretty much all the same thing no matter the root cause and it sucks pretty direly.    That I don't have a fever and the stuff that I am hacking up in mass quantities is clear is of little solace since I have everything else and it is terrible and I am actively miserable.

Speaking of miserable, I beat Final Fantasy XIII-2 and when I can form entire sentences of vitriol I will review it.  Spoiler:  it is terrible.  I don't want to say a lot about it here because I'll feel like I'm reiterating during the review proper, but that's a thing that's going to happen, so be on the look-out for that sometime this week hopefully.  With any luck, as the weather normalizes over the next couple days, I'll even out and feel less like death warmed over.  Until then, though, I probably won't be able to write a whole lot because even doing just this is kind of a...not a chore, but it is not pleasant since I just sort of feel wooden in my head and I worry that is translating into these words and sentences.  Also I keep losing my train of thought and it keeps getting replaced by new things which is not very good for 'flow', as it were and I like flow.  I like flowing things together.  It is a neat thing.

I'm going to try to at least type -something- on these nights where I feel terrible since it has been happening a lot lately and it's bugging me.  I used to think that a post of mine wasn't a good one unless it was at least four paragraphs, and I realize that it is silly to gauge things by that so I'll stop doing that.  Just going to type until I am done typing.  And I think I am done typing tonight since that's all I really wanted to say, and my brain is already attempting to form things for the mentioned XIII-2 review and it is just not going to happen tonight, nor should it.  But some night. Some night soon.  In the meantime, I finally get to play something else since I am not going to try and platinum it, even out of spite, because there is a goddamn trophy tied to slot machines and the winning at them and that shit just ain't happening.  That -never- happens.  I don't understand why game companies keep doing that.  It just makes people hate you.

Heads-Up Quick Post

Since it seems like the Twitter gadget is good and broken, likely because Twitter is upgrading, I'm using an old Blogger layout or some other nonsense, I really don't think I can rely on it to deliver updates for me when I might not be on to make a post.  I mean, maybe I just have to take it off and put it back on or something simple like that, but I'm not going to pretend that it's even close to working currently, and that's really goddamn infuriating.  Since I don't want to do that whole "Hey, follow me on Twitter for all sorts of updates!" because honestly it's about 70% me talking about random things (most of it K-Pop) and 30% actually talking about anything of relevance to Kupowered at all.  I mean, if you -want- to follow, then hey, that's totally cool, but don't say I didn't forewarn you because I totally did.  Just right there.  That was me warning you.  Also telling you that I warned you is kind of warning you.

Speaking of warning you, as no doubt some of you might have noticed, and this is the main reason why I'm doing this post - Hurricane Sandy, the Frankenstorm or whatever nonsensical title it's been given is heading up the East Coast and then projected to move inland to be a giant sandy bitch.  That's a broad area, I realize, and that area contains the area where I live, meaning I may just be affected by it, whatever it ends up being.  It could do anywhere between raining a little bit and, like....rampant destruction, so I'm just going to cover my bases appropriately.  What that means is, if I'm completely unheard of for a day or so, then that means that the power has gone out or something and it'll likely be....well, a day or so before I can get back into things.  I'm not exactly predicting ultimate issues or anything, but losing power for a couple nights is certainly an option because it happens all the goddamn time apparently.

Don't worry though!  I have my gaming bases covered at least, in that I'll have a fully charged Vita and DS should the need arise and between those, I've got enough to keep me busy for a while, provided I can maintain a charging program.  Which, well, I -can- through the magic of generators if needbe.  For reasons that are far, far beyond me, I actually did start Corpse Party and it is....well, it is very, very frightening.  I am a sucker when it comes to atmospheric horror, as most noted by my attempts to play Dead Space, and Corpse Party likes to touch all of those buttons over and over again.  Of course, being a complete, total and absolute idiot as I am, I have been playing the game with headphones as is recommended.  This is, of course, going to go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes anyone has ever made, but I'll just have to rol with it I guess.  Gotta get the 'full experience' and all.

With any luck, this is all going to pass.  Pass without complications, that is, since regardless, it's going to pass.  That's kind of what nature does.  I mean, it'd be weird if the storm just started to hover in a single spot for absolutely no reason.  But in any case, I like giving warnings whenever something like this is looming mysteriously over the horizon, and since I can't just give a quick tweet and -know- that it's easily accessible on this site, I figured I could go a little in-depth into the thoughts about it and what I might be doing in the meanwhile.  So you can possibly know what to look forward to when I come back if I actually have to -come back- at all instead of just...you know.  Doing this.  Like normal.  Because if I get to do this like normal, then nothing's gone wrong!  And that would be a good thing.