Name Change Vent

 Holy fuck. Hopefully whoever sees this never has to go through anything like this.

This year, I changed my name. Legally, the process was fairly simple. However, using that name for anything has been a 3-month long battle. Right now, I'm in a 45-67 minute line for the USPS to get back to me so I can tell them for the millionth time that they fucked me over entirely. But hey, let's rewind so you can get the full picture. Because there is no fucking help for this scenario. When it happens, you are absolutely alone. So I just want other people to know three things:
1) this happens and I have it easy in relativity
2) any trans person you've met that has legally changed their name has probably gone through something equally stupid and degrading
3) if you have ever thought about changing your name, trans or otherwise, this is going to be a good read

I'm not trying to scare people who are thinking about changing their name, here. Still, I was unaware of just how stupid this would be so just don't go into the process thinking it will be a cakewalk. It surely should be and maybe it is for many. It has been my experience that I have pretty much only heard horror stories about this sort of thing.

I'm not going to give away too many details because I don't like disclosing even a general location. I live in the USA and that's all the information you need for this story anyway. To start the process off, you need to figure out what your local county clerk wants for this process to go smoothly. Part of that is money. Not like the wad of cash the DMV forces you to hand over either. We're talking triple digits and it's like that in most states.

DISCLAIMER:
Do NOT take the rest of this as the absolute truth or think that it is universal. Different states have different procedural steps and necessary credentials. This is how it worked for *me* and it paints a generally accurate picture but that doesn't mean it will be the same in whatever state (or hell, certainly country) that you're trying to do this in. Alright, that's out of the way now.

So how I thought it worked based on what the state says online was you send them a filled out name change form, a valid copy of a legal ID (driver's license works), and then they send you more information on what the fee is and what your next steps are. NOPE! They sent me a you-fucked-up form weeks later saying "hey dumbass, you didn't even give us our check, you cunt. You also need a notary. Geez." And I want to just make it clear here: fucking nowhere on the official government site did it mention how much the fee was. Nowhere. So I printed out the form again, filled out the one minuscule box I didn't think I needed to do, got all that notarized, and drove back downtown to put that envelope in the same goddamn box. Yeah, the USPS has fucked me over more than the average person can probably imagine so if I can hand deliver something important and achieve the same hypothetical result, I'm driving. This time it went through. To my surprise, it only took like a week for them to get back to me with that chunky envelope. What's in the chunky envelope? A form saying "you did it, this is your name now, and you have ten days from this filed date to get that to the DMV". There are also four signed copies of an official form saying that this is my name now and it can be changed in whatever system. This sounds pretty straightforward but if it were, I wouldn't be making this furious blog.

Ten days from the filed date does not exempt how long it takes for the USPS to get that letter to you. In my case, this left me with seven days and it was before the weekend. You know, that two-day period where I can't do anything driver's license-related. Now normally, you take one of those copies the clerk gives you and tell the DMV people to update your driver's license with your new name. NOT WHERE I LIVE! You *need* a social security card that reflects your new name. Well gee, I gotta grab one of them anyway, yeah?

For reasons never fully confirmed by the USPS (they will not fucking respond to me), I have had mail from the SSA come up in informed delivery but not show up in my mailbox at all. I have filed cases for them and digitally notified them separately that I never received their mail to which the USPS might as well have said "sucks to suck, bitch". This would already be frustrating but in order to get a name change on your official social security card, you need to send in some other official ID. It can't be a copy. So I sent my birth certificate. I still don't know where that is either and there were originally two envelopes that came up in informed delivery. I'm sure the second one was just a letter wishing me a happy Halloween and not an irreplaceable document.

"Well, calm the fuck down. Yeah, that's frustrating but it's just a name. You'll get it eventually" you may be thinking as you read up to this point. Well without a social security card I can't get my new driver's license and without either of those things, I'm pretty well fucked on identifying myself with my new name without seeming "fraudulent". I love the irony and I can't wait for someone to try to tell me I'm being fraudulent for using my deadname that, believe me, I do not want anymore. This includes banking information. This means I can't update it with my current employer so I'm still deadnamed at least once a week. To clarify, I can give them a release form but then they are sending the health benefits and money information from one name to an account with a different one. I know this company is too fucking stupid to not fuck that up once so I'm not even trying it. They already occasionally fuck up our normal pay. That same release form (the SS-3288) can't be used to make a new bank account. There is another reason I don't want to get into for why I need a new bank account and can't just update the name on that account. Since I don't have the social security card, I also can't update my name with my place of residence. As such, I can't officially file with my new name to the USPS. I think that's why the mail carrier refuses to put my social security envelopes in my mailbox. Or so I thought. A few weeks later, they put in some other fucker's mail in there. It's not anyone that even lives in the building. I have no idea who that guy is. But it showed up in informed delivery, then showed up in my physical fucking mailbox. So mail for Stranger McWhothefuck; the address matches so shove it on in there. Really important looking mail for Ayden Iona; mistake, don't put it in the mailbox.

"Why are you freaking out about this now? It's been months, idiot", you may be thinking now. Because every case I file with the USPS either gets completely ignored or completely ignored and then they send me a survey asking how they did. This means that they are systematically ignoring me and how the fuck do you get the USPS's attention without suing them? I guess you don't. Or you keep spamming them for three months and hope they finally give you what you want. That's where I am at now. It seems I have exhausted every other avenue and in between official complaints, I think about how if I were a rich prick, I could probably tell Daddy "I want to change my name to just Cheesecake" and I probably wouldn't have to pay jack shit. I'd have a new name by the weekend. 

"Then talk to the local Social Security office". Mm. Good idea. So I tried that and the lady that answered thought I was blaming them for the USPS losing it so she was kind of passive-aggressive and hostile with me at first. I'm sure many idiots have done that same thing but I wasn't so like, maybe calm down. I told her "well, I'm just checking to see what you think was in those envelopes based on my story. I know it's not on your end that they are lost, I just want to make sure I should be freaking out or if that mail could be anything other than my social security card and birth certificate." She said she couldn't imagine it being anything else, which was genuinely helpful. Now I know my outrage was justified. That call was almost two months ago now. Actually, it might have been more than that, I'm not looking at my call log.

I swear this tale is almost over. Well, ya know, "to be continued" more than "over" but you know what I mean.

After that phone call, I bug USPS, actually begging them to give me my stuff or at least telling me where it is. Nothing. Absolutely no response. Not even the stupid survey.

"Okay, that is bad. But it's so bad that you should just call the SSA now. Stupid." Hm. Well, that's what I did a few hours ago. So let's recap as we approach that subtopic:

"Hey USPS, you said you had two social security envelopes for me but I never got them. Where are they?"
"How did we do?"

"Hey local social security office, is that envelope my stuff?"
"We didn't lose your stuff but that's almost definitely your stuff. Bug the USPS."

"Hey USPS, I'm screwed without that stuff, can you please give it to me?"
"You have mail from Spectrum!"

"Hey SSA, it's been months and nobody is helping me. I'm assuming they send back mail so where is that?"
"Sir, I'm in California. That's between you and the local office."
"The local office said USPS has it."
"Look man, that's not my job, the USPS has to have it or they sent it back to the local office. I can reissue one, that's it."

"Hey USPS--"
"Your wait time will be between 45 minutes and 1 hour and 7 minutes."

So yeah. Cue "Roundabout" by Yes because its title is fitting and that's where I'm at for now. I just needed to type this out because I'm sick of bumming out my friends all the time with this and I don't have therapy enough for this shit. I'm so fucking angry and I don't have a big enough power on my side to help me. I can do the rest of the legwork but I need my social security card. And honestly, where in the f u c k is my birth certificate? After so many weeks of the USPS just not responding to me, did they lose my stuff? Did the delivery fucker just steal my identity? Why is this such a hassle?

I have finally talked to a human with a new service request. Hopefully, this one works in my favor or at least lets me know what to do next.

Anyway, I'll post another blog to update how this story ends when it ends. Or if it gets crazy stupid even beyond this and I'm still fighting this battle in 2021 (which honestly seems likely at this point), I'll give an interesting update on this. Until then ["Roundabout" bass and acoustic guitar]

Randomrings Stream to Randomrings Let's Plays

Yeesh, this blog has really become just stuff about stuff I'm making or not making hasn't it? Ouchie. Well, here's another.

My original plan was to record while I stream so I can make a funny little video out of a 2-6 hour live stream. I have found this to be tedious and personally maybe too self-involved.

My new mentality is to convert a stream into a Randomrings Let's Play video if other people's voices are present. Like. Not in text form. I have had friends drop in the chat for hours and they do make the stream entertaining. I just think it creates a weird dynamic for RLP. Part of what I like about editing let's plays is this organic feeling stripped into bite-sized segments so there aren't too many lulls. Something about having to zoom in on text all the time kind of gets rid of that sentiment completely. I could just read the chat text in post and do silly voices but that's going to get old for me and for the audience after a while. I also don't want to start doing that with people I don't know that wind up in my stream chat. I'm going to end up doing something stupid or making someone feel self-conscious. It's not worth it.

Plus, as much as I don't watch stream archives very often myself, I still have stream archives. The moments that work aren't completely gone.

There is still the Resident Evil Zero stream that I have edited down from 3.5-4 hours of gameplay to like 30 minutes. The only reason I haven't released it is because I want to make it even shorter. That and, admittedly, I have not even started on the thumbnail art. This video has two of my friends in chat but not with voice. It just feels awkward regardless of the fact that I zoomed in on their text when they talk.

Also, I stream every week and when it comes to let's plays, I know what destructive roads my brain will go down. It will get to a point where I try to edit everything into a let's play. This will make my streams feel more like means to an end and less special for the audience. This also will drive me fucking nuts considering how much other stuff I am juggling in my fleeting spare time.

On a slightly related note, I have stopped playing Final Fantasy XIV as often. I fell into a real slump there for a bit recently.

So from now on, I'm only editing Randomrings streams into RLP videos when there are multiple voices to be had. There may be an exception or two down the road but this is my mentality going forward.

See you on the ol' YouTube or live on Twitch.

Why Did I Change My Name?

 This is a weird process that most people never go through. A lot of people don't want to be an online spokesperson for this for whatever reason(s) and I don't blame them. I like informing people about this sort of thing and people have been asking me about it here and there. I also don't want to go to bed right now so I might as well talk about this. Yes, this is usually about the mind frame in which most of Randomrings Blog is curated.

Can You Change Your Name?

Here in America, yeah. One of the reasons a lot of people don't want to talk about this crap is because it isn't one-size-fits-all. Even within a subsect of people where 100% of them want to change their name, it probably isn't one-size-fits-all because the legal procedure varies from state-to-state. I won't disclose where I am but here's what you had to do where I filed for mine (skipping a few details to keep my location vague):

- Find official name change form for your state online
- Fill out all of the necessary information (may include where you were born down to the fucking c o u n t y so just be ready for that)
- Print that out
- Put the filled out name change form, a check covering the name change fee for your current state/county, and some valid form of ID containing your date of birth (for me, a scanned copy of my drivers license was good enough) in an envelope addressed to your county
- Wait for them to send you a follow-up in the mail

If you did it the way they wanted you to with the right amount of money for the fee, they should send you a few copies of an official order stating that your name is changed legally. If not, they'll send you a different form telling you what you did wrong. And by "wrong" I mean the stuff you didn't know because even the government-officiated websites for this shit don't tell you jack about how to do this. I only screwed up once because I thought the form was first and then they would send back official instructions on what to do next. Apparently, they just wanted the form, ID, and money in one fell swoop so they can deal with me for the least amount of time possible.

They give you a few extra copies of the official order because you have to give it to your bank, your employer (if applicable), your insurance company, your car insurance company, and you need it to change your driver's license.

Sounds easy, right? The government will most likely fuck you over one way or another just for thinking that. Now, during the pandemic, you can't do social security stuff in person unless the SSA deems your situation "critical". So although I have indisputably and legally been Ayden for 3-4 weeks, I have almost no official record/proof of that. I'm not even going to get into that spiel here because thinking about it actually makes me angry.

Here's the other kicker: on the form, you have to give a reason for changing your name. Like, if I was going to do something fraudulent, I'm not going to fill that blank with "vote six times". The reason I gave had nothing to do with my gender, though in reality it kind of did. Imagine being like a trans woman or something and having to deal with this shit under a government that recently passed a bill that gives medical practitioners the right to treat you like hot garbage. Never mind, don't imagine that because it's really fucking sad and some of you reading this may have experienced this.

But yeah, technically, money and time are the only things keeping you from changing your name legally. And of course, this should go without saying, if you change your name to anything without filing it for the government, people should still respect that. They can fuck themselves if they don't. I myself am very fortunate and have friends who are more dedicated to my new name being shoved into conversation than I am.

Why I Changed My Name?

I have three reasons for this that sum it up the most, I think.

Reason 1: Gender. I was kind of fed up with identifying as a cishet man when that never felt wholly accurate. After further exploration, some women's clothing, and the purchase of an IPL hair removal device, I get why now. My, for all intents and purposes, "deadname" was three consecutive masculine names. I have never been a huge fan of the gender binary anyway, so I kind of just picked shit that I thought sounded the coolest without falling too far into one end of the polarized bullshit of Western gender norms. Ayden and my middle name, Levi, are both pretty gender-interchangeable or gender-neutral. Iona seems to be used as a woman's name 9 times out of 10 but I could not find a last name that resonated with my weirdo mind as much as that one. It's also the only one out of the three names that is primarily Scottish, which looks like it fits for anyone who ever sees me in real life. I would look like some kind of loony cunt if I picked "Yoshimura". A great name to be sure but a red-flag name for a pasty, freckly white fucker born and raised in the states. As someone who feels more in-between than outwardly masculine, I felt gender-neutral names made sense. I still feel that way after the fact.

Reason 2: Heritage. This is the main reason I stated on my legal name-change form. I was thinking about changing my name long before I came out as enbybyboi. The first name of my deadname was the one I had the least problem with. It was supposedly adopted from some guitarist from some band. Sometimes, my dad doesn't even remember where he pulled it from. My middle and last names were directly inherited from my bloodline. My family has been full of transphobia and homophobia for years. There are a lot of things about my family that I am not proud of and have not wanted to associate with for a long time. I haven't talked to many family members in years. A vast majority of them gave up on reaching out to me and the feeling is mutual. To have a future where nothing on my desk or in my closet or on my computer reminds me of the hateful environment I was raised in is an unreal thought that is becoming more real every day. Changing my name in that self-affirming mindset feels really good.

Reason 3: Video Games. I don't think I've used my real name as an input for a video game character in about 14 years. Every time I am prompted, it's something goofy, something I would name a character I was writing, or some permutation of "Randomrings". Do you wish you had a cool name like that in real life? What an escapist fantasy! Oh, wait! No, it's not! You can just do that in real life! So I did! "Ayden Iona" seemed more fitting than my Persona 5 name, "Ringer Snorkly".

Why Did You Pick That Name?

The above says a lot of it. I just kind of addressed myself as certain names in my mind, imagined myself being called different names by others, and sometimes I looked in the mirror and would call myself various names at different, spaced-out times throughout the day.

Ayden is a Gaelic name. It means something like "fire" or something like that. I'm sure there's some deeper symbolic meaning that fits me but I honestly didn't think about it that hard. I just mostly wanted Gaelic, gender-neutral, and something without a lot of biting syllables like "er", "or", or "ar".

Levi has Hebrew origin but has been used in several other cultures for hundreds of years. I feel like this one is generally more associated with masculinity but it is technically gender-interchangeable. And really, gender is kind of learned, societal bullshit so "Ralph" can be a girl's name because a girl named Ralph said so. Levi means "attached" or "joined". I liked the juxtaposition between this and the "fire" of Ayden. I come off as edgy/angry/scary to a lot of people but the people who come closest to me know I'm a sucker and want to help my friends more than most things anyone could do in life. I also like to think I'm a pretty empathetic bubby.

Iona is just a pretty name. It's a Scottish river. I have a note on my phone saying it also means "blessed". I'm not sure how accurate that is but I'm sure it was a contributing factor. This goes best with "Levi" because when I picked "Levi", I thought of my friends and my connection to them. As I said a bit ago, this name is generally perceived as feminine. A lot. This isn't a "Kim" or "Taylor" kind of deal. This is a "sooooo, you named your daughter Brutus, huh?" kind of thing. But since it's my last name, no one fucking cares and it's genuinely wonderful! I got my pretty gorl name and nobody asked any shitty questions!

Honorable mentions for various parts of my name were Asher, Reid, Zephyr, different spellings of Ayden, and Blair. These weren't all the options I sifted through, just the ones I went back to and contemplated the most. If not for my irrational loathing of the American "R" sound, I probably would have picked "Asher". That was the number 2.

Also, the acronym for my name is "Ali" because I'm an ally to many! Isn't that cheesy?!? I get four names, bitch!

Hope this shed some light on the mystery of changing one's name. I can answer more questions about my own name but in a general sense, I don't have all of the answers because it varies so much from person-to-person and region-to-region. Time for me to stop blabbering on with this blog and go the fuck to bed. Thanks for reading this. Sleepy-bye time for me. Sleepy-bye time for you. Maybe not. But surely for me.

Another Update (It's Been a Bit)

 God, it's been a while since I've released a scripted video. I just looked back on old Randomrings Blog entries and stumbled across an update one from last summer. This was right before I moved into a terrible apartment complex. I now live in a much more tolerable apartment complex. I can now make toast without setting off the smoke detector too. That's probably not the kind of update you wanted.

I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll start with "the goods". The stuff you actually give a damn about.

Randomrings Channel

Yeah, I don't fucking know. I have an unfinished Gumflap script centered on Final Fantasy XIV that talks about MMOs in general. I added characters and a bunch of dialogue that beefed it up too much. This made me lose motivation to gut the script so I haven't touched it in months. I have a new idea for a scripted video that will look like my Pokemon Battle Revolution Gumflap episode but won't feature me. I mean, it will but not in character. It would be more of a mini, faux-animatic thing? It covers a more serious issue than "I love/hate this video game". I don't want to say too much about it in case I actually do it. But right now I'm trying to think of entertaining ways to express the idea and it hasn't clicked yet.

I have debated just making short opinion blurb videos about games, TV, or movies. Wouldn't be the first time. I have a handful of scripts for these. Still don't know if I'll go through with them. We wouldn't want another cookie-cutter, cynical review channel on the internet, now would we?

I have been posting Twitch updates here. That's about it. Hopefully that will change in 2021 but well, read below.

Randomrings Let's Plays

This new channel ended up being more of a daunting beast than I anticipated. I just care too much about making stupid let's plays. But now that's up. I have more Pokemon Omega Ruby Nuzlocke in the chamber. At some point, the audio capture for the game just gave up. That's why we have been stuck on Part 12 of the series for a while now. Among other things.

Randomrings on Twitch

I have been trying my hand at streaming and it has been fun so far. I plan on streaming whatever I want really but am most excited to stream games that people don't really talk about very often. So far, I have streamed Downwell, Resident Evil Zero, and some Mario games. But I want to get into weirdo stuff in the future. Stuff like Ristar, Pulseman, Threads of Fate, Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom. Just stuff no one really talks about or at least not anymore. For now, it's October, so I'm streaming Halloweeny (heeheehee) games. In November, I might stream something like Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom or Dragon's Dogma. I could also revisit Super Mario 3D All-Stars Super Mario Sunshine but probably won't any time soon.

I don't have much of a goal with Twitch. I don't think I even necessarily want to go Partner. I would be plenty content with Affiliate status. I guess I just want a big enough following for people to come in often enough to have a good time.

If you want to join in on the fun, as of October 2020, I have been streaming on Thursday nights at 7:00pm EST. Check @RandomringsChan on Twitter for updates to that or just check twitch.tv/randomrings

Randomrings Blog

Still exists.

Lexi Karma

I have an itch for making music but between the stuff listed above and making money to do all that, I just can't buckle down long enough to make satisfying progress. Part of my problem however is that I keep working ahead to other Lexi Karma ideas before I finish the one that I said would probably come out 3 years ago. So I guess I'm working on that and hopefully my distractions will pay off in the form of shorter development cycles for the other ones.

Personal Life

Going to therapy after a year/life of gaslighting, abuse, and manipulation from family and people I have become close to in platonic, romantic, or sexual fashion. I was planning on taking a big plunge and getting out there more, seconded by my therapist. Then COVID-19 appeared. I don't trust people and now I really don't trust people because even people with good intentions could kill me because of idiots. Anyway. Therapy has been going decently okay though. Probably helping me more than I realized. Sorry that this whole post is almost completely void of humor. It's almost 2am as I type this.

I changed my name. Any old work you see is with a name I don't want to associate with anymore. Now, for those who don't already know, I'm Ayden.

I came out as an enby man or masculine non-binary. This means a lot of different things for a lot of different people. What it means for me is that I have always considered myself to be a "girly man" even as a teenager. I just kept a lot of cis man stuff on the up and up because it was socially expected. Now I shave almost all of my body hair and a few of my tops and jackets were originally designed for women. And I really like them. My pronouns are still he/him, which is why I didn't make a big announcement or anything. At first, I only came out to three or four people. There are still people I haven't come out to because I don't really think it would change anything in our relationship one way or another. They already know me and how I appear. They don't need a label.
[edit: I no longer identify as an "enby man", just "enby". I don't like masculine labels. I now use they/them, he/him, and she/her pronouns to identify myself. Many of my friends refer to me as "they" but "he" is also fine.]

I started at home "laser hair removal" which is not wholly accurate to what it is but that's basically what it is. I'm about a month or month in a half in now. I don't see too much noticeable change but am now much more accustomed to the pain of it. I can't wait to rarely have to shave. To the point where I am still considering HRT. I'm still not sure if growing little boobs and risking dick atrophy is worth having better pores. But you have no idea how much I want girl skin and girl hair follicles. The kind that don't grow in with full force every single fucking day. Having some hips wouldn't hurt me either.

Lost some friends and was kind of betrayed by a few more. I look back on these moments and think "how do I still keep faith in any section of humanity?" I still have no answer.

Web comic

Still writing, I swear.

That's the update. I need to go to fucking bed. I've been up for about 18 hours now. Stay tuned for any of that stuff that might come out. A lot of it probably sounded kind of pessimistic but facing my gender and changing my name have made me feel more in tune with myself than I have ever felt and it feels so fucking good. I'm doing fine over here and can't wait for us to all bask in the glow of my weird brain bile!

What is Randomrings Blog?

 Hey, you. When I started this blog, I made a post about who I am and what this blog is. Since then, a lot has changed and some of that information was no longer completely accurate.

Randomrings Blog is an offshoot of my main YouTube channel called Randomrings Channel. I mostly talk about video games but have been known to take on topics about mental health and television. Randomrings Blog is just where I spit out quick thoughts that I don't have to edit into a video I might regret making later. I also talk about current events and other things I find interesting to talk about in hopes that you do too.

So other things about myself:

My name is Ayden!
My preferred pronouns are they/them, he/him, and she/her.
I have another channel called "Randomrings Let's Plays" where I do let's plays. They are not a stream of consciousness kind of thing like most people are used to. They are more heavily cut up and edited. I only leave in bits that I think might be funny or otherwise entertaining.
I'm a musician. You can hear my original music under the moniker Lexi Karma. It's prog-rock with some synths, bits of alt-rock, and whatever else I feel like mixing into that.
I like cartoons more than most forms of media.
I have a BFA in creative writing. I focused on screenwriting.

Every year on this blog (hopefully I'm able to keep up with this yearly), I talk about games that are coming out that pique my interest and I talk about music that I found striking.

Here are links to my stuff but they can also be found on any given blog post or the blog page itself.

Randomrings Channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/randomringschannel

Randomrings Let's Plays
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8CO_DixeW8mySoQ2ybdd0w

Lexi Karma
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0FqW6eB9bWbGIivSr3Fzu4?si=y_0DWMRQTh2frLn_jCLRcQ

Lexi Karma is also on YouTube, I suppose
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXHGC7X6xMMjJWZVBHByJdA

Shoving Music Down Your Throat (2019 edition)

I did this last year and I liked it. I hope other people got something out of it too... because I'm on that bullshit again.
To clarify, since I didn't last year, this is mostly not music that came out in 2019. This is about albums that I listened to front-to-back in 2019. One of them came out in 2019 but a lot of them are actually arguably pretty fucking old. I am trying to confine the list to stuff that is on Spotify so those of you that use Spotify can also listen to it. I will put a playlist here with a song from each album that I discuss.

spotify:playlist:4PXiCYZRUVUUtd3c0o8wb5

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4PXiCYZRUVUUtd3c0o8wb5?si=9g5wS6yLRneSNfkVT8KNoQ

Chaos Chaos by Chaos Chaos [2019]

genre: indie, synthpop

Don't worry, the rest of them won't be this goddamn long.

Remember that episode of Rick and Morty Season 2 where Rick is sad at the end? Remember that song that plays that made you want to cry? That was by Chaos Chaos (that song is called "Do You Feel It?"). They made a full-length album in 2019 and I really like it. The first time I listened to it, I grinned ear-to-ear for most of the album. It has been a ridiculously long time since that has happened. Something about Chaos Chaos's new album though really struck a nerve consistently. Now having listened to it a few times, I don't love it as much. I wouldn't consider it one of my favorite albums of all time or anything. Easily top 30 for the decade though, probably top 20.

Chaos Chaos is a group of two ladies that make poppy music with a rock edge. They do a lot of vocal harmonies and they are really good at taking simplistic, repetitive beats and changing up just enough to make them interesting. "Committed to the Crime" is the EP with "Do You Feel It?" on it and I think that this EP is a poor representation of what to expect from Chaos Chaos as a whole. "S" is superior in my opinion. More importantly and accurately, it represents what I like about the band. They are great with composition, sound design, and vocal quality when it comes to presenting a mood more than just a tone. "S" creates that variety and carries a unique enough sound to not feel like a stereotypical indie two-person pop group. There is something more serene and eerie about Chaos Chaos though that makes me not want to call them pop, kind of like how St. Vincent and Lana Del Rey fall into a certain category but are way too unique to fall victim to that category. This makes Chaos Chaos difficult to recommend to people. Fortunately, Rick and Morty forced one song onto people so now they at least know who I'm talking about. *dons feathered cap* Yet alas, I still feel like they really don't.

*takes off feathered cap... for now*

What I like about "Chaos Chaos" as an album is that it feels more personable. Like "S", it is very emotionally versatile, which I personally appreciate a lot. The album is never too sad, too silly, too cynical, or too angry. It really feels like a fluid experience despite not being a concept album (or at least I haven't been informed that it is). "S" felt a lot more otherworldly for "pop". That's why I like it and why it is probably still my favorite by them overall. "Chaos Chaos" (by Chaos Chaos) is a bit more accessible and feels more like a rock album with synths instead of guitar focus. Most of the album hits hard for these reasons. There are a few songs that I don't mind having on in the background while I'm driving or typing but they don't really stand out as well as the other songs. I know you can say that about almost any album but I really feel like there are a few songs on the album that take away from the album as a whole. In my opinion, an album with four songs I really like and eight songs that bore me is not an awesome album. Even a half-in-half ratio I would not consider it great. Like "2112" by Rush: "2112" is one of my favorite songs by the band, "Tears" is cool, "A Passage to Bangkok" is fun, "Something For Nothing" is kind of okay, "Lessons" sounds like some AC/DC bullshit. Would I recommend "2112" to someone by that merit? Absolutely, but I would do so with the disclaimer that it's not all gold. Some of it is copper and "Lessons" is that weird deteriorated shit that grows on copper. I guess that's sort of how I feel about "Chaos Chaos" but without the extreme lows. I could say there is a "Lessons" equivalent but it still is not nearly as grating or inexcusably lame as "Lessons". Probably "Berlin" off the top of my head. The worst parts of Chaos Chaos's new album are still fine. The ratio is more of an 80/20 than "2112"'s 60/40 if that makes sense. I'm getting close to numbered score territory so I should move on to another album. Yeeeuck.

This album feels sentimental on almost every feel I can think of so if you want to listen to it, here you go:
spotify:album:6hm7Kun6RH4I8KExbTisqG

https://open.spotify.com/album/6hm7Kun6RH4I8KExbTisqG?si=wCsXhFAWSjyta_Mcy9OMeQ

Shaking the Habitual by The Knife [2013]

genre: experimental electronic

When people say "I like some weirder stuff", they usually don't mean this. Even when people say they like "noisy stuff", they usually mean Daughters or something else that is usually just math-rock with a lot of dissonance. Shaking the Habitual is not the weirdest thing that Karin Dreijer has ever done but it's an arguable top 3 (if you don't count Fever Ray concerts). There are definitely beats and occasional melodies here but as far as a general audience is concerned, the rest will melt your brain. However, the versatility of Karin Dreijer's voice and their unapologetic creativity gives this album goosebumps. Also, it's just a creepy sounding album. I'm not talking that Avenged Sevenfold bullshit where the guitarists find out what a harmonic minor scale is and throw in some minor seconds to throw 13-year olds through a loop. Shaking the Habitual sounds like it was created by a specter. This is what demons call Top 40. Does that make sense? And it's not to say it's all noise. A lot of it is pretty catchy. But there's a reason that there's only one relatively popular song in The Knife's fanbase and general notoriety from this album. No, it's not because the album sucks, it's because the rest of the album is just too fucking weird. And for many of you, that will mean it totally sucks. I still love it. I love it a little less now that it's fever dream shock value has diminished but I like that it's a psychedelic trip that can be enjoyed track-for-track and back-to-back. I feel like that's kind of rare.

Have fun living an auditory nightmare while wide awake:
spotify:album:6GWQ6fq8krujlglglMPyPu

https://open.spotify.com/album/6GWQ6fq8krujlglglMPyPu?si=iChWQ7l6SrGN3xrlewwEgg

Plunge by Fever Ray [2017]

genre: electropop

Into Dreijer's less weird (but still pretty damn weird) work, we have Fever Ray. I was remiss and disappointed in myself for never getting around to Plunge when it was new. I feel like an actual jackass for not listening to it sooner. It has so many fun songs on it. The most infamous album by Fever Ray is the self-titled, debut album, Fever Ray. That one was melancholy brooding in music form but not in a lame emo way. It's on that level of weird but more dancey. That's the best way I know how to describe it in a paragraph. I have been a fan of The Knife for about 5 years now and still say Plunge is one of Karin Dreijer's best albums overall.

Join me on the bright side of this hellscape:

spotify:album:3UHMhYzYnfTBEuDxb1JmxC

https://open.spotify.com/album/3UHMhYzYnfTBEuDxb1JmxC?si=iQQOUur9S92Qc4dRfyrK5g

Comedown Machine by The Strokes [2013]

genre: indie rock

Honestly, Comedown Machine is just a sequel album to Angles. There is a more laidback tone toward the end of the album where there are more soft songs than there were on Angles. They have equal tonal variety but overall it teeters on the edge of a formulaic cliff. This is why a lot of people don't talk about Comedown Machine and why a lot of fans frankly don't like it as much. Personally, I don't see "sequel to Angles" as a net negative. Angles was a great fucking album. This one's not as great but it doesn't have to be in order to be another great album.

Enjoy Angles Jr.:
spotify:album:4WnkQO4xD9ljQooB3VIxCV

https://open.spotify.com/album/4WnkQO4xD9ljQooB3VIxCV?si=g3uCyPkjQcShReZfbfp2uw

Fragile by Yes [1971]

genre: prog rock

For years, I didn't like Yes because everyone I knew that did like them was a 40+-year-old guitarist. I gave this album a chance because it's seen as one of the big ones. I don't think (and correct me if I'm wrong) that fans consider Fragile to be Yes's Master of Puppets. More accurately, I think they see it as one of the best diving board albums for newcomers to Yes. Again, I could be completely wrong. Overall, I would say this is a great album to dive into for the prog-rock genre as a whole. I still love Rush way more than Yes but I don't think any solitary Rush album would do the genre justice as much as Fragile would into being an accessible prog album that's not too heavy and not too weird while still demonstrating what to expect from the genre. On its own, it's pretty damn good anyway. The vocals are much more impressive than what one would expect from an early 70s rock album and the overall composition is ahead of its time, even considering the genre. Like I said before, it isn't trying to out heavy or out-speed anything. It's also not just "Roundabout: The Album" so don't expect it to be. It all sounds like it fits together purposefully. The album is a cohesive piece of art. I would be more disappointed if it was "Roundabout: The Album". I like having a prog-rock album in my known arsenal that I can recommend to such a wide array of people.

Show the other dad-rock albums that you mean dad-business:
spotify:album:4X6gq5bgpGXcHINlFWzriM

https://open.spotify.com/album/4X6gq5bgpGXcHINlFWzriM?si=LzbwqbAMSOqOxdwDQ8rkeQ

Invisible Touch by Genesis [1986]

genre: new wave

You know Phil Collins and if you don't he's the guy that kept singing over Disney's Tarzan while you were trying to watch funny monkeys swing around. Genesis was the band he did before he became a household name on his own. Invisible Touch is the album with "Land of Confusion" on it and I did not expect it to have so many weird synth choices and a fucking 10-minute prog-rock track that is not just a bunch of Pink Floyd-y guitar wank bullshit. In fact, despite what one would expect from an 80s rock staple album, there is a pretty surprising balance of guitar and synth-based arrangement here. By no means is it the best album I've ever heard, not even close but it's one I have and still will recommend to others without feeling embarrassed. A little boomery, maybe but not embarrassed.

He sings about monkeys on this album:
spotify:album:632b0oXuFpstA4DO2cUKdG

https://open.spotify.com/album/632b0oXuFpstA4DO2cUKdG?si=uFC-hU-BS4yyUJe8EFtwag

Loopified by Dirty Loops [2014]

genre: jazz fusion, pop-rock

Dirty Loops is one of the five-million YouTube bands that do covers of really popular songs that kids born between 1985 and 2010 will recognize, for better or worse. The difference between Dirty Loops and the other 4,999,999 bands is that Dirty Loops has three instrumentalists that are better at playing their respective instruments than I will ever be at music as a whole. Their keyboardist who does the lead vocals is also fucking ridiculous to watch and listen to. After years of a few originals slung about with mostly covers of Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and Adele shit, they made a full-length album and it's a good time. That good time is called Loopified. Now recently (2020), they have been putting out more original work and it's good stuff. I hope this means a new full-length is coming soon but I digress. Even if you absolutely despise the song they're covering, the cover is usually much more impressive and listenable. I didn't know "Roller Coaster" was a Justin Bieber song until I researched this album more. This was also after hearing the whole album a few times. This is a small testament to how creative and imaginative their covers are. I recommend them on their own. However, their original work is nothing to stick my big-ass nose up at either. One of my personal favorites by them is their (amazing) cover of the (kind of lame) hit "Circus" by (contractually incarcerated, Google "Free Brittney") Britney Spears. However, "Crash and Burn Delight" hits me just as hard, if not harder because it isn't a silly Britney Spears cover. They clearly know how to make their own pop song too but are just too busy being amazing at jazz fusion to pull a Maroon 5. It took Maroon 5 three albums to become terrible though so I shouldn't count my polyrhythmic chickens before they hatch.

Enough of me gushing about Dirty Loops. Go listen to Loopified for yourself:
spotify:album:4XAAYiLpnRgXBBbBW53C8D

https://open.spotify.com/album/4XAAYiLpnRgXBBbBW53C8D?si=P79W5H__RRSg3lyyc-fwSQ

OGIGACA 2020 Kind Of

"Only Games I Give a Crap About" or OGIGACA is a thing I have done for the past few years on this blog. I have an OGIGACA 2020 draft saved here but I am not going to release it. Wasting time on it is usually something I enjoy. I also love sharing the games that I think are interesting with other people. While searching for games to talk about for OGIGACA, I end up finding games that I had not heard of otherwise. Showing those games to others is a cool thing I think about too. This year, I was going to talk about the following:

Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers
One-Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Final Fantasy VII Remake
The Last of Us Part II
Cyberpunk 2077
Digimon Survive
Yakuza: Like a Dragon

In the initial post of each OGIGACA, I give my excitement for each game on a scale of 1 (cautiously optimistic) to 5 (I am most likely going to buy the game and talk about it unless something really stupid happens in development or I'm too broke to buy too many new games). Most of the games on this list had a 1, so what was even the point of doing the whole thing? Also, I forgot that I just left it in draft mode to be perfectly honest. So by now, there is already a playable demo of Mystery Dungeon DX. The FFVII remake is out. On top of that, the One-Punch Man game is already out and I am actively playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

However, New Horizons was one on the list with a 1/5 excitement rating. The only two that didn't have a 1/5 were Persona 5 Scramble and the FFVII Remake. So at the end of the year, I might post an "OGIGACA 2020 Revisited" like I did with OGIGACA 2018 and OGIGACA 2019. This time, instead of going off of a contrived list of games I didn't play, I will just talk about the games that came out in 2020 that I did play in either December of 2020 or early 2021 before Spring.

Even if the list only ends up being The Master Chief Collection edition of Halo 1 and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I am still going to post about them damn it! If there is other interesting stuff I found, I will talk about why I didn't play them if there is a specific enough reason.

That's pretty much it but if you want to know my current impressions of the games I did list in typical OGIGACA fashion, I will rant about them a little below:

Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers
I love Persona 5. It is a lengthy-as-hell JRPG that I was really wary of grabbing at all. I have now essentially played through it twice and I have only had it for about 11 months. It takes roughly 150 hours to complete the main campaign if you don't skip the dialogue but the way the game is organized makes the lengthy run time entertaining throughout. But anyway, I already ranted about that game in a previous post.

Persona 5 Scramble is the Dynasty Warriors treatment of Persona 5. Once I found out it is just a Dynasty Warriors game set in the Perona 5 universe, I became less and less excited. Dynasty Warriors is not a bad franchise or anything but once you have played one, you have kind of played them all. When they make their way into different franchises like Gundam, Fire Emblem, and Zelda, things get a little more interesting but it is still a fairly braindead hack 'n slash for the most part. Post-game content and multiplayer are what make these games engaging, or so it seems. I don't really want to sink that much time into a Dynasty Warriors game even if it is a sequel to one of my new favorite games. Persona 5 Scramble doesn't seem to do much differently from other modern Dynasty Warriors titles or even other franchise tie-ins with Dynasty Warriors. On top of that, the game is set mere months after the end scene of Persona 5 and they made some pretty... noticeable tiddy physics. These characters are definitely not 18. If that doesn't bother you, Atlus has released a gracious amount of footage of the game on YouTube and maybe that's worth checking out. For me, the Dynasty Warriors lowers my excitement and expectations and the pointless sexualization of teenagers makes me uncomfortable. Two big no-nos already for me.

One-Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows
Without Googling it, I'm honestly not even sure if this game came out yet. I think it did. This is another Shonen Jump anime cash grab fighting game. The only reasons I am talking about it are that I really like the first season of the One-Punch Man anime and there is a gimmick that sets this game apart. For those unfamiliar, One-Punch Man is about Saitama, who lives in a world of superheroes and otherworldly villains for them to fight. Saitama is nearly indestructible and can basically decimate any opponent with just one punch. Instead of being this sexy Superman-esque poster child for the community of heroes and for the general public, no one really knows or cares who Saitama is. Most of his acts of heroism go unnoticed or are pegged onto someone else. A lot of his heroics are also on accident. So how do you make a fighting game with a bunch of powerful superheroes and supervillains wherein the protagonist is nearly immortal?

The game utilizes a tag team system similar to that of Marvel vs Capcom 2. Both players each have a team of characters and either or both of the players can choose Saitama. If Saitama is chosen, a timer starts to count with a little screen of Saitama trying to make his way to the fight. The player who chose Saitama is stuck with the other character(s) they chose. If they manage to survive the opponent's attacks long enough, the timer will run out and they can play as Saitama, who basically takes no damage and, as the series name implies, can KO opponents with one punch.

This is a fun idea. Not one I plan on spending $60 on but a fun idea nonetheless. The rest of the game seems to fall into the line of more Shonen Jump tie-in fighting games with nothing really special to note, which is why I'm not getting it anytime soon. Back when I was a kid, this was not such a big deal because these games would most likely end up being $20 full-price the next year and in a dollar bin within the year afterward. Now it's 2020 and these games get truckloads of DLC so the game can be jacked up closer to $100 after all is said and done. The game already has DLC characters. If you couldn't tell, I'm not really on board for this. If you're a die-hard fan of the One-Punch Man franchise, you're probably going to pick this one up anyway. For me, I'm just going to sit back disappointed unless it gets super-discounted some time this year.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX is a remake of the GBA cult(?) classic, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team. Instead of making fans and newcomers pay for the same game twice like a certain other creature collecting game that came out last year, someone made the decision to just make this remake into one game. I played the demo of it and it looks pretty good. I am not a fan of the originals, I never played them. I was too busy playing way too much Pokemon Ruby and forgetting about society.

Rescue Team has lovely new graphics that I am sure someone is still going to bitch about like they did with Link's Awakening. The gameplay has you going through a dungeon as a Pokemon with a party of other Pokemon. The button layouts seemed pretty sensible and most of the game mechanics were taught pretty well or easy enough to figure out before the tutorial blocks tell you. I don't know how much of the game has a foundational improvement over the original. Having no frame of reference, I can only softly recommend the game from afar. If I had a copy of myself that I could take shifts playing video games and enjoying some semblance of actual life, I would pick up this game in a heartbeat. Maybe one day, I will play it but I wouldn't expect to hear about my opinions on the full game at the end of the year. Maybe one day, I will get an exact copy of myself and not do anything terribly inhumane to him but I wouldn't expect that at the end of the year either. Even if I had that done, I probably wouldn't tell you because I would be guilty of doing at least a handful of inhumane things to him.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons
I am actually actively playing this one! I am assuming most people reading this don't need an introduction to what Animal Crossing or its new installment Animal Crossing: New Horizons is. Not only are you all a bunch of nerds but New Horizons happened to come out in the midst of a crippling pandemic that rendered a bunch of people rightfully cowering indoors. If any of this sounds like I'm knocking the fans of this game, I assure you, I'm not and even if I was, let me be the millionth person to say "what perfect timing to release a life sim in one of the biggest life sim series of all time". Point being: this is probably going to continue to be one of the most talked-about games of the year and unlike most modern games like that, this one isn't shit!

New Horizons has continued to surprise me with how much it does differently from previous installments (I have played the Gamecube one, a fuckload of Wild World, and several fuckloads of New Leaf). Better is debatable. From what I have played so far there are some things I find kind of stupid, a lot of things I find sort of tedious even by Animal Crossing standards, and one thing I find to be an obnoxious bunny-ass bitch who probably had to move nest in lieu of an angry mob. I have considered joining said angry mob. On paper, the only thing New Horizons does is start you off on a deserted island with Tom Nook, his nephews, and a couple of randomly-selected animals that want to tell you about all of the absurd ways they exercise. Trailing off from that basic idea leads you into the logic circle of crafting. Resources are necessary to do most things in this game. The progress of the game would be a flu-ridden snail's pace without the crafting mechanics. The game is still slow, as all of the Animal Crossing games are but the game shows you non-cheating ways to speed up that progress. If you get lucky (the measurement of fortune, not Lucky, the dog villager), you can go to randomly assorted islands that will give you even more stuff that your home island will consider exotic and give you a buttload of money though. There are more exciting things than the crafting system but I feel like, beyond that, the rest of the game can be simply explained as "the new Animal Crossing". There's nothing wrong with that. New Horizons just streamlines a lot of things and gives a much wider and immediate sense of growth than previous titles and for that, I can see a lot of people calling this the best one. Do I say that? Eh. I might talk about that more after 2020 ends or I know no more games I care about are going to come out. New Horizons isn't for everyone just as Animal Crossing is not for everyone. It's still a molasses-slow game teaching kids about supply and demand and teaching adults that a life where they have a fulfilling income and guaranteed home is an escapist fantasy. If that escapist fantasy sounds mildly interesting, maybe look up some footage or something before dismissing it or taking the plunge. I find the game pretty relaxing but for some people, "relaxing" games are simply "boring". That's me most of the time. I still really like New Horizons though so read into that how you will.

Final Fantasy VII Remake
I was actually debating playing this a week or two after it came out but my current job kind of did some virus-related fuckery even though I wasn't sick. Long story short, I don't want to swing a bunch of money around on games right now. In any case, the Final Fantasy VII Remake is a huge, show-off remake of what is considered one of the best Final Fantasy games ever. For me, it looks exactly like what I expected when I heard a lot of people who worked on Kingdom Hearts were making a big-budget remake of FFVII. If that's all you need to hear, stop reading this and go buy the damn thing. It's already out.

Personally, I still don't know how I feel about it being episodic. It seems like they crossed the idea of "let's make FFVII feel as big and revolutionary as it did in 1997" with the idea of "let's make an episodic game that isn't like Life is Strange". The final result seems to have a lot of bloated shit that just serves to get in the player's way in a shoddy attempt to make the game more "cinematic". That's the best way I know how to describe it. As a former Uncharted fan, I can say with some authority that this never makes the game more fun and doesn't even really make it any more enjoyable. Anyway, as I said before, check it out if you want. I feel like this is another one of those games that recommending it or not is pointless. You already know if you are going to get it or not and if you don't, asking an actual FFVII fan who has played both games is going to give you a much better perspective of what to expect. Or just looking up footage of it like I did or watching a let's play of it like I also did.

The Last of Us Part II
The more I hear about this game, the more I don't give a shit. I heard it got delayed again recently. If it doesn't come out in 2020, I'm not talking about it again in 2021. To clarify, I'm not one of those babies that boycotts a game because it got delayed. I'm pretty patient for the most part. I just don't have much interest in The Last of Us as a game because it is much more movie than game. Also, it's worth noting that I have seen a decent amount of behind-the-scenes features about the development of Uncharted 1-3 and The Last of Us. Most of the time they just think of something that would seem cool and then the chop it into an actual story later. It doesn't invoke much of a thought-out, character study to say the very least. For Uncharted, this worked. Uncharted is an action movie where you are the James Bond. It doesn't need more than it has in regards to narrative. The Last of Us tries to present itself as this intense drama that gets slowed down by a survival stealth game. If you like it or if you're excited, great. I just drifted away from this kind of game. I'm glad it got delayed because it has made me realize how much I don't actually want the game.

Cyberpunk 2077
I personally have not given much of a shit about this game since its announcement and no, Keanu Reeves being in the game has not swayed my opinion. If anything, mo-capping a celebrity to give your game a sturdier mainstream edge makes me less interested, even if it is Keanu Reeves.
Cyberpunk 2077 is supposed to be this open-world, dystopian sandbox deal with RPG elements, shooting mechanics, and a gripping narrative. So far I don't see gripping narrative, I just see nudity for shock value and snarky banter between characters I don't care about. Everything else seems like something I have seen before. People keep telling me that I'm an idiot for not being excited about this game and that the game is based on some tabletop game with online interactive elements. The website and what I have seen about the game so far does not seem to infer anything like that. The only other thing keeping me interested in this game is that they swear your choices will affect the world around you. I've played Mass Effect, thanks. However, unlike Mass Effect, the world in this game is really fucking big. I haven't played Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. People are also pumped because its from the development team that made The Witcher III. I have not played too much of that game myself but everything I've seen of it makes it look pretty competent. I personally don't think it's as mind-blowing and captivating as everyone else seems to be but I guess the theme of this paragraph is that I hate things that people enjoy. That's not what I'm trying to get across, I just feel like I'm digging my opinion's grave here.

Bottom line: this is a vast game that the developers put out a lot of footage on. As much as the game looks pretty damn boring to me, I will give them praise for being so transparent about the development of a triple-A title. In any case, info on Cyberpunk 2077 should not be hard to find if you want to go ahead and order the Super-Epic-Gang-Punk-DLC-My-Son-Died-Please-Cry Edition.

Digimon Survive
A new Digimon game is coming soon and as usual, I'm the only one talking about it. There's not much to say here. At its core, it's Disgaea with Digimon. This is not inherently a good or bad thing. It seems to have a side-dish of plot served up kind of like how it was in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth; the only Digimon game I'm not embarrassed about recommending to people. There's footage up and it seems to function decently. If you think this is an unnecessary statement and is kind of expected of a game from such a long-established franchise, look up uncut footage of Data Squad for the PS2.

I don't even know if I would say I'm "excited" about this one as much as just curious if this being a Digimon game separates it from being a worse Disgaea. We'll see.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon
I have not played a Yakuza game but they look pretty good. Like a Dragon pissed off a lot of fans by being significantly different in gameplay to previous titles. It seems to have some kind of 4-party-member, turn-based RPG shit going on while still being a Yakuza game on the surface. Such a drastic change intrigued me because that was a pretty ballsy move and one that seemed to have some kind of creative purpose behind it.


And done.

There you have it. I'll come back at the end of the year to talk about these. If I missed something you think I might like, feel free to let me know. I know games are always releasing left and right so I want to keep track of the ones that particularly impress me as much as possible.

Byleth in Smash/ Smash roster rant

Two things I want to talk about here and they're both related.

Byleth in Smash

Okay.

To start, I haven't played Three Houses. Honestly, its pacing looks obnoxious to me but the game as a whole looks cool. I think there is a lot more going on under the surface to appreciate despite being an RPG that seems to spend way more time on the "RP" than the "G". As such, my favorite thing about Byleth is that the man-Byleth was voiced by a date rapist and they patched him out of the fucking game. Beyond that, Byleth looks like another blank slate, boring-ass, anime-inspired Fire Emblem protagonist. The thing I find so boring about this is that what little Fire Emblem I played has shown me that Fire Emblem actually does have characters with plenty of reasons to care about them. I don't remember much but I remember really liking Lyn. Before Assist Trophies were a thing, I thought she would be a cool playable character. I'm okay with her as an assist trophy. From what I understand of Marth and at least Roy, they're cool. The thing I liked about playing Lyn's game (Fire Emblem for GBA, I think was all it was called in the States) is that there were a lot of different classes and each seemed to fit the character in terms of plot as well. Their personalities fit without being completely predictable or cliche.

I'm not saying Ike, Robin, Corrin, or Byleth are cliche or anything. I honestly don't know but it really seems like each one is just an ad for a previously existing Fire Emblem product. Ike is a good example of this because Path of Radiance (the Gamecube one with Ike) was a big deal and they could hype up new customers for Radiant Dawn (the Wii one with Ike). Robin was the playable character in Awakening, which was a big deal for the 3DS and for the series as a whole because the series wasn't doing so hot financially before Awakening pulled a full 180. In case no one remembers, Corrin is the epitomic example of this because Corrin's game wasn't even out yet. Their existence in the Smash for Wii U/3DS was an advertisement.

Here's the thing: I get that everyone is sick of a bunch of anime-style characters with similar aesthetic designs being shoved into these games. I think the main problem is that, with the exception of Robin, they keep picking the protagonists. The reason this is a bad idea and the reason why Robin is an exception is because some sword buddy is a good middle-ground class for learning the basics of an RTS like Fire Emblem. For a game like Smash where you can play as a wide variety of different kinds of characters out of the box, this is just boring. I love Roy and I like playing as Marth too. Always have. But even that choice in Melee was questionable, even to an adolescent version of me. So Robin is the exception to all this because at least Robin brought something new to the table.

HOWEVER
The Fire Emblem characters have become even more diverse since Brawl. Yes, Corrin is kind of another anime swordfighter on the surface, especially to someone who never played Fates (me). But what other character in the game plays like Corrin? None. There are similarities but I kind of like that the counter and other moves kind of subtly reminds the player that this is a Fire Emblem character; that they exist in that same universe. Byleth, in my opinion, fits in the same vein. If this were a Fox/Falco/Wolf scenario, I would 100% understand everyone's frustration. Byleth looks like an alternate costume for Marth or Lucina (which by the way, people didn't complain this much about fucking Lucina and I find that heinous) but they play like a unique character in the sense that they come with a lot of unique mechanics that set them apart.

I am not saying no one should complain. I am not saying everyone should complain. I just feel like Byleth is a pretty solid addition and I think this soapbox comes off a lot soapier from someone who has no emotional attachment to Three Houses.

Which leads to:

My Weird Hot Take on the Smash Roster:

I love Smash Ultimate. If I was in charge of a new Smash game's roster though, a lot of people would be pissed.

So Smash Ultimate is massive, right? Instead of forcing a gigantic amount of people to do all of this balancing work and a bunch of other added details to a list of 90+ characters, maybe add a massive amount of stuff to do with crazy attention to detail with a smaller list of like... 25-40 characters???

In Smash 64 and Melee, there were not many characters representing each brand. Smash 64 and Melee also seemed to have their own aesthetics and world, making it feel like these characters and related properties traveled to that world. I love that about Smash 64 and Melee. Brawl did the opposite by having a fuckload of IPs get merged into one world. With the Subspace Emissary, this felt purposeful. Now listen carefully: I really like Smash for 3DS and I love Smash for Wii U and Ultimate. Now continue listening: those games have no fucking world. Even with World of Light, they have no fucking world. There is barely any aesthetic to the games other than in the UI. Even then, the UI of 3DS, Wii U, and Ultimate don't look that much different.

So I would make a game where Mario, Link, Pikachu, and a bunch of other fuckers come into the world of Smash 7 (yes, I'm still counting Smash 3DS as an actual Smash game even though it was basically a $40 ad for Smash Wii U). 7mash would have pretty much one character from each major IP, perhaps three characters at the very most. Even though, I would probably remove some from various icon symbols like ROB, Pichu, as much as I love Falco probably Falco.

This would get rid of complaints like "oh my god, another fucking Fire Emblem character?" But, it would add more room for useful inclusions of all of those Fire Emblem characters in a more useful role than just being spirits or stickers. Maybe that could even be done in a way that feels fun and not as broken as the spirit system. There could be more development time and budget put into different modes and complexities within. They could bring back Smash Run. Since they apparently aren't ever going to do that otherwise. This way, also, the Fire Emblem clan can keep saayyyyyy Marth and Robin. In relativity, Marth would feel like a unique anomaly of a character, like he did in Melee, as opposed to how Marth felt in every game after Brawl. This ALSO leaves more room for MORE alternate costumes, i.e. Marth and Lucina in the same character profile, just as alternate suits. I would even want to do that with Mario and Luigi honestly but that will never happen because of Nintendo tradition.


So that's today's Smash rant. I openly welcome Byleth. I already paid for them anyway. See you guys when I become a huge hypocrite when they announce like Mega Mewtwo X or Deoxys or something.

Pokemon Sword and Shield Expansions

My dinner is done heating up in 3.5 minutes so I'm going to throw this up real fast.

I feel like $29.99 for expansions of two games that should NOT be two games is a fucking crime. It isn't but maybe it should be. Like, wow. What blows my mind is that so many people are praising the hell out of this and I feel like it's a robbery.

I haven't played Sword or Shield. I probably never will. I had my fun with Gen 1-6 and I'm pretty burnt out. Maybe there is something in Gen 8 that makes this not horrible but I'm not seeing it.

I will say though... those Galarian legendary birds look fucking good.

But seriously, it's 2020. Do you know how many actual GAMES you can get for $29.99 and probably still have money left over for a just as substantial game? Hell, getting a physical copy of a better Pokemon game will only cost about ten bucks more depending on which one it is. PokeFuck!

Okay. Dinner's ready. Sorry that this is the first blog post I made this year. What a year already.

OGIGACA 2019 Revisited

These are the only games I gave a crap about from 2019. In January, I listed off a bunch of games that caught my eye and now I'm going to update my thoughts on them.

ANIMAL CROSSING (Switch)
Original excitement: 1/5
Verdict: Didn't come out

BABYLON'S FALL (PC, PS4)
Original excitement: 2/5
Verdict: Didn't come out

JUMP FORCE (PC, PS4)
Original excitement: 2/5
Verdict: Didn't play it

This game looks like a giant heap of disappointment to the demographics of people who actually give a shit about this sort of thing, thus I can't imagine getting any enjoyment out of it myself. Playing it for myself just didn't seem worth it. The thing I liked about the old Jump Stars games on DS... conceptually... I never played them... was that it was a huge orgy of characters from a lot of different franchises. Jump Force seems more like Dragon Ball x Naruto x Bleach x One Piece x My Hero(I think???) and I don't watch any of these fucking shows. I'm not going to say it looks terrible but even as a fighting game, it looks passable at best. Interest lost.

SEA OF SOLITUDE (PS4)
Original excitement: 2/5
Verdict: Didn't play it

Oh, I guess this came out... Whoops...

TEAM SONIC RACING (PC, PS4, Switch)
Original excitement: 2/5
Verdict: Pretty cool but fundamentally broken in single-player
Score: 6/10

The main thing that enticed me with Team Sonic Racing was its team mechanics, in which case it mostly delivers. In natural Sonic fashion, sometimes it trips over itself and does something annoying. The main campaign mode follows a mind-numbing story about a treacherous racing tournament. I'm not even going to go into it because it's a kart-racing game plot and one part about it actually makes me a bit angry. Along with this story that I am not going to talk about, you have a bunch of racing challenges and side-challenges and side-missions. It actually does a lot to change up the formula of just racing. However, the same team gimmick that sets the game aside from other cart racers sticks it right back in the big blue grave with all of the other wasted ideas in the Sonic franchise. Many of the chapters require you to win Grand Prix sort of things with your team. Your team is AI-controlled. They can totally fucking suck while you end up in 1st place and you can still lose the tournament based on the game's point system. So Team Sonic Racing is another Sonic game with really cool ideas and shitty execution. Also, I have the Switch version. It looks like it runs better on everything but the Switch version. So if you are going to get it, don't get it on Switch.

DAEMON X MACHINA (Switch)
Original excitement: 3/5
Verdict: Didn't play it

I guess this also came out. Whoops.

MEDIEVIL (PS4)
Original excitement: 3/5
Verdict: Didn't play it

I didn't have a lot of time and money to splurge on games this year. Maybe one day I will revisit both versions of Medievil. Until then, I'll make this pointless list of games I didn't play. For what it's worth, this still looks like a pretty tasteful remake that delivered pretty fucking well.

BAYONETTA 3 (Switch)
Original excitement: 4/5
Verdict: Didn't come out

Nobody is talking about Bayonetta 3 anymore. We're still at just a logo with this thing, right?

CONTROL (PC, PS4)
Original excitement: 4/5
Verdict: Didn't play it

It looks okay though.

DIGIMON SURVIVE (PC, PS4, Switch)
Original excitement: 4/5
Verdict: Didn't come out

FINAL FANTASY VII, IX, and XII: THE ZODIAC AGE (Switch)
Original excitement: 4/5
Verdict: Didn't play them

I don't have the time and if I did, I still haven't beat VIII. Maybe one day. Fuck me, I'll probably end up playing the FFVII remake before the original.

THE LAST OF US PART 2 (PS4)
Original excitement: 4/5
Verdict: Didn't come out

And the more I think about this one, the more I really don't fucking care. Neil Druckmann seems pretty set on making his games as far away from actual games as possible. It's a direction that may work for some but it isn't a direction wherein I hitchhike for a $60 ride.

POKEMON SWORD AND POKEMON SHIELD (Switch)
Original excitement: 4/5
Verdict: Didn't play it

Sword and Shield is such a fucking mess. It really isn't all bad from what I have heard, seen, and researched myself. People are making a huge stink about it on the internet which for once is not completely baseless. Is it a steaming pile of shit? Doesn't seem that way. Does it look like the worst mainline Pokemon RPG? To me, it doesn't because I really don't like X/Y. Am I ever going to buy this? Probably not. As I said in the original OGIGACA 2019 post this year, I have just done this Pokemon campaign bullshit a million times. If I'm going to do it again, I'm either going to play one of the ones I already own, preferably in Nuzlocke form, or I'll buy an older Pokemon RPG that I know is good. The stipulations that hold Sword and Shield back will just be pure tedium to me. I won't take that enjoyment away from newcomers to the series or truly diehard fans but I can't get into it for myself.

LITTLE TOWN HERO (Switch)
Original excitement: 4/5
Verdict: Didn't play it

Okay, seriously: when the FUCK did this game come out?!? Now I know it was in October but I legitimately thought it was still in development until just now. What a twist!

INDIVISIBLE (PC, PS4)
Original excitement: 5/5
Verdict: Innovative and full of personality
Score: 7/10

Good shit. Interesting shit. If you like RPGs, you'll probably like this game. I mean, if you like turn-based and/or action RPGs. If you like modern adventure-RPGs like Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age and you think older Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and the Mana games are stupid, maybe skip Indivisible? Either way, the game is impressive. Something about it has not gripped me as much as I thought it would but I can't really lay a finger on it as of right now. I also feel like there are too many party characters to the point where it makes most of them feel one-dimensional and kind of pointless. Other than that, nothing about it really pisses me off very much at all.

KINGDOM HEARTS III (PS4)
Original excitement: 5/5
Verdict: Might be best in the series but it's still Kingdom Hearts
Score: 6.5/10

Alright, finally, here it fucking is! The big kahuna! I'm waiting for it to be mandella'd back into production but in our current state of reality, it is a game that you can purchase and play! Kingdom Hearts III was disappointing in certain ways but most of them are incredibly insignificant to the game as a video game in and of itself. That probably does not make a whole lot of sense without me listing off a bunch of minute details that don't really matter or only have to do with the plot. By the way, I won't spoil the plot. I'm just going to say that there were certain parts I found fairly surprising, some surprises that were not very surprising at all, some character arcs that I felt did not need to be touched on so much, and some character arcs I was impressed by how well-executed they were. That said, I really do not like the ending and how the game concludes the series as a whole and I will just leave it at that.

The game itself is what I consider to be, without a doubt, in my top three games in the series. The jury is still out on my favorite but I'm leaning towards KH3 being my favorite for reasons unironic. One of the things I did not like about the other games is that once you get a more powerful keyblade, there is absolutely no reason to use older keyblades. Kingdom Hearts III blew that problem out of the water by allowing all of the keyblades to be upgraded. It is a cool idea that makes my keyblade feel like more of a conscious, stylistic choice rather than a postcard from a Disney world. At level 99 with all keyblades maxed, it is still fun to use different keyblades because all of them actually feel different and have different ability perks attached. As far as stats go, there is really no reason to use any other keyblade after you make the Ultima Weapon but I still like using other weapons after roughly 90 hours of playing the game. The completionist elements of the game passively encourage doing so too.

The majority of the character dialogue is less awkward than in previous installments, mostly due to the huge increase in animation, both in quality and in quantity. This is a huge improvement for the entire franchise. Don't get me wrong, the dialogue is still awkward and most of the Disney world subplots are still really stupid but for the most part, it has been improved over previous games. There are no more textbox segments. All of the dialogue is either portrayed during gameplay or fully accompanied by unique animation in cutscenes.

If you end up liking the game despite the awkward elements present in all Kingdom Hearts games and the repetitive nature of its combat system, there is a lot of replay value and a decent portion of it feels unique to this game. None of the replay value feels particularly forced in for the sake of having replay value or at least not in comparison to any other game in the series. This is one of the only games in the franchise where I occasionally felt the need to use magic and was generally more strategic with when and where I used defensive maneuvers and Flowmotion. Nothing really felt any more babying than any previous Kingdom Hearts game. For the most part, I felt that the game did a pretty decent job of explaining every maneuver once you obtain it and leaving you alone. The combat is constantly spiced up with variety, throwing constant options at you a la Birth By Sleep. Once you get beefier, even boss fights become significantly less challenging. Luckily, gummi ship fights are there if you really want to try to get everything in the game but after you hit level 99 or even level 80 with enough abilities equipped and item boosts used, there is really not a whole lot of engaging challenge on Normal Mode.

Speaking of hand-holding, I was not a huge fan of the Attraction summon thingies. The only ones I really liked controlling were the blaster mini-game one and the staged one you use to fight the Rock Titan in Olympus. The rest of them feel like having an extra summon to randomly help you out in a game that is already not that difficult for more than 30 hours of the game. I felt this also defeated the purpose of the link attacks. The risk/reward system of the link attacks poses the question of whether you waste your time and all of your MP on healing yourself with Cure, blasting through enemies with magic combos, or summoning an ally. If random enemies just give you another summon for hitting them one time, it sort of undermines the actual summons.

Kingdom Hearts III is what I would consider one of the best Kingdom Hearts games in the series but it is still a Kingdom Hearts game so many of the flaws that make the original games cringey or tedious are still there in some fashion or another. However, I honestly cannot think of too many things that were necessarily done worse in comparison to the other games. The synthesis menu is pretty obnoxious because you have to go to a whole separate menu outside of the Moogle's shop just to see what you have or have not made already. Some of the environments look a little bland in comparison to games like KH2 but even that point is pretty subjective. To clarify; the environments trade out having a few memorable details to subliminally separate different areas with having a lot of little details that make the game itself look prettier but arguably less creative. Most people probably value the baroque and clean HD stuff in III over something like II. I'm not saying III looks bad, clearly it's beautiful, but I prefer maps that I can identify easier in my head with very distinguishable landmarks than an environment with a lot of stuff going on and the defining landmarks are "that one tree" or "the slightly curvier building". Kingdom Hearts III coincidentally does an alright job of explaining some of the important plot points from previous games that are prevalent to the story in this game so I would even recommend this to people unfamiliar with the rest of the series. Plotwise, there are many things that I would have changed and things that I was fairly disappointed in or underwhelmed by but I guess you can say that about the entire damn series. As far as an actual video game goes, I regret nothing and feel that the game was ultimately worth the wait. However and I can't stress this enough, if you already hate the series, Kingdom Hearts III is probably not going to do anything for you that will drastically change your mind, it will just be a bit more tolerable and have a lot more Frozen in it.

SHOVEL KNIGHT: KING OF CARDS (Wii U)
Original excitement: 5/5
Verdict: Feels more like a new game with reused assets than DLC and I love it
Score: 8.5/10

King of Cards, despite its name, surprised me as a very competent and unique platforming experience. Not in an annoying way like Plague of Shadows where it just limits the fuck out of your mobility to make you feel like a giant doofus. That's probably just me. King of Cards feels more like a Kirby game where your main move is one of the fighting ability kicks and you don't get powers through copy abilities. You get them through items just like in Shovel of Hope. The story is straightforward but still fun to follow. It has a personality familiar to the other campaigns while still standing out on its own and complimenting its main character. Honestly, I did not expect King Knight to be this fun of a character to dive into but they really pulled it off. Right now, I'm about two-thirds into the main campaign (I've been pretty fucking busy, it isn't that long). The game is longer than any of the previous campaigns without a lot of padding. It stretches out the worlds into a bigger map with shorter levels. The checkpoint souls-like system is still a factor but it is way less utilized. This is not a complaint, really. Shovel, Plague, and Specter had their clever and challenging uses for this system and it was not really necessary for King to use this to be a good inclusion. King Knight's movements are fairly simple but getting used to them is really satisfying, much like Shovel of Hope.

The main thing you are probably curious about if you haven't played it for yourself is the "Cards" part of the title. The game is simple and fun. The preset matches are typically fair and challenging with a well-done difficulty curve, accompanied by a handful of gimmicky puzzle matches for you to solve (probably great for replay value as well). Other than extra money and badges to use towards upgrades and whatnot, the card game does not weigh too heavily on the rest of the game anyway. I don't hate the card game, I actually really like it, but this point potentially poses the question: "why not just bring down the cost on a lot of the shit you can buy and then eliminate the card game altogether then?" Well, they could have but it blends in with King Knight's goals and I actually like that you can still make actual progression while you are too tired to do anything else at 3am but still want to play Shovel Knight. You could argue the whole thing is a waste of time but you technically, supposedly don't need the card game to beat King of Cards anyway. The main bosses that advance the plot are just normal bosses anyway.

King of Cards feels significantly easier than Shovel of Hope and Plague of Shadows. This shouldn't be too surprising since both are kind of notoriously difficult. However, this mostly feels even easier than Specter of Torment, which in comparison to Shovel and Plague, was really fucking easy. It isn't all a walk in the park but it still feels a lot more like Kirby in the sense that its controls are really simple and completing the game is not very hard unless you are five years old. I do like how there are bonus paths in most of the stages though that kind of counteract this for people who have spent way too many hours of their lives playing platformers. Even those are not that terribly difficult. I rarely use the items at all in this game as opposed to using the Phase Locket all the fucking time in Shovel and whatever equivalent to that item was in Specter pretty often. There is an equivalent in King and although it is the only item I basically ever use, I still rarely use it.

If you are already a fan of Shovel Knight, telling you to get King of Cards is pointless. To those who have not bought Treasure Trove, there is no time like the present.

For those who have played it, I would say in terms of difficulty:
Plague of Shadows (most difficult)
Shovel of Hope
Specter of Torment
King of Cards (easiest)

And also my favorites:

Specter of Torment (favorite)
Shovel of Hope
King of Cards
Plague of Shadows (least favorite but fine)

SHOVEL KNIGHT SHOWDOWN (Wii U)
Original excitement: 5/5
Verdict: Fun enough

I don't feel comfortable giving this its own score as the game really sells it as more of a separate mode than its own game. It's fun but I guess I was expecting a little more than what ended up being there. I think it is still trying to live in that retro NES era spirit but it has a fucking parry move on the shoulder button. None of the characters have particularly complex movesets, which I wouldn't care about if all the characters had five or more commands instead of three. Technically they have more than three but it still just feels very basic. The game is more Viewtiful Joe Red Hot Rumble than it is a Smash clone and I guess it will be up to your discretion whether or not that's a good or bad thing. That said, it isn't.... not fun? I can see myself playing this with friends but not for more than an hour. Even with all of the characters unlocked, only the most diehard Shovel Knight fans are going to get that much enjoyment out of this. I have just been going through story mode on Easy because I suck and I want to unlock all of the characters. It is no more or less monotonous than any other game like this. This isn't to say that Showdown is a snooze fest or anything. The target mode specifically is surprisingly heart-thumping, particularly when you are playing it with a character you aren't used to yet. Each character adds their own bit of challenge to the game just because their limited movesets make them all unique. I just feel like with one or two added base moves to each character, the game could have functioned more as a free-for-all brawler but the game seems to want you to play the gem collection mode the most. Also, you can't pick up gems when you're invincible. I haven't decided if this is bullshit or not yet but I can confirm that it makes my arm hairs shoot out like porcupine quills and into the walls. It's pointless to put a typical conclusion to this blurb on Shovel Knight Showdown because it's just free DLC. If someone gets Treasure Trove, which they should, they're just going to have this now. There's no stopping the Showdown.

End note: I know a lot of people have wanted Shield Knight to have her own story and I'm sure you have all heard that each character has their own little storyline in Showdown. Although they did do more with the story in Showdown than I expected, none of it actually fucking matters to the canon of the base game. Shield Knight's story is just kind of a logic loop that isn't complete nonsense but is unnecessary anyway. I just wanted to rip that bandaid off. That Shield Knight adventure everyone wanted pretty much isn't there. But hey, Shovel Knight Dig is coming in the not-too-far-away future and who knows what to expect from all that.


Here is some other stuff that came out in 2019 that I played but was not on the original list:

A HAT IN TIME - NYAKUZA METRO DLC (PC)
Verdict: Great as usual

I'm not going to waste a lot more of your time on this one because I always gush about A Hat in Time and how great it is. This is a whole new chapter with a new villain, world, collectibles, and a bunch of missions that add on to the rest of the game including previous DLC. They also added a ridiculous multiplayer mode that supports up to 50 players in the same lobby. A Hat in Time is great without all this so go play it and if you like it, I highly recommend Nyakuza Metro and its previous DLC pack, Seal the Deal.

Halo Reach - Master Chief Collection (PC)
Verdict: Boring

I bought the Master Chief Collection to play with friends. From the looks of things, this aspect still delivers but I have not had the chance to actually play it with friends yet. As someone who does not play a lot of shooters, I am too scared to play this online without friends. Which leads to character customization and the campaign. There is not much to say about the profile and character customization because most of it is locked behind in-game challenges but you know what, I can't shit on this because they aren't locked behind loot boxes. The campaign is a typical FPS campaign for the most part. There were some enemy designs that have already caught me off guard. On normal mode, I have still died a handful of times in the early stages. And by early I mean EARLY. I quit out halfway through Stage 3 out of pure boredom. I also don't like that in Reach, sprinting is an ability. There is plenty of controller real estate for this to not be an issue but for whatever reason, it is. I don't remember this being a thing in Halo 1 and 2 which are the games in the series I remember the most and am most excited to revisit when they come to the collection in 2020. Despite how utterly disappointed I am with my purchase, Halo is mostly known as a game to play with friends, so to a degree, I can kind of fuck myself on this one. The things I am complaining about, I realize, could be so much worse. It's $40USD for 6 games modernized into a fresh take on each respective experience. As much as I shit on Microsoft and 90% of the Xbox property, this is a hell of a deal and one that I guess I recommend despite being fairly underwhelmed personally.


There's that. I might not do an OGIGACA for 2020 seeing how this one was kind of a flop. I still enjoy doing these but as you can see here, I didn't have a lot of time to play most of the games that interested me this year and I shredded a lot of income on PC upgrades. We'll see. Thanks.