Thursday, April 30, 2020

April 2020 Entry

April 2020 Entry 

April has come and gone. Looking back at it, it went by fast. But it felt slow with how things are nowadays. 

MISC========================= 

- We had a couple of power outages occur (04.12). The first one last a few minutes and everything was back up. A second outage an hour later lasted about an hour itself. I spent that time just lying down and catching up on wrestling podcasts. Had the outage lasted longer, I would have started to worry.  

- I was surprised to see that I was invited to beta test Twitch Watch Parties (04.14). But I tried it out anyways for about half an hour. I had just watched Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie so I tried using that. Unfortunately, no one jumped into the stream as I would have liked to hear their thoughts on it. I posted detailed thoughts on Discord, but this definitely is not for me. It's definitely for a streamer that has a large community and does movie nights.  

- During NightmareVortex's stream where he finished Final Fantasy VII Remake, we got into a silly conversation about chocolate as the credits rolled. I asked if there was an Argentinian chocolate he recommended and he said Alfajores Terrabusi. Found them and ordered them on Amazon and ate one right away (04.16). They are good. The remind me of Korean choco pies, which are delicious too. As of typing this (04.29), I have two more left that I will eat either for a special occasion or to fix a sudden chocolate craving. 


- While I watching Train to Busan, something happened that made the visual for the TV screen go bad. The thing is, I noticed about a week ago that the screen was slightly dimmer than it normally was. But this distorted all the colors and even added some lines going vertically across the screen. I did call Samsung customer support to see if there was anything that could be done. We tried a few things and none of them worked. Customer support suggested going to a repair shop as the TV was no longer under warranty (bought it 12 years ago). I talked to my dad in case he knew someone that could repair it, but he mentioned he had a friend that worked at Walmart that could get us a discount on a new one. So I got ready and left the house for the first time since quarantine. 

I was surprised to see so many people out honestly. Made observations of how people were acting, if they had any PPE or not, etc. The only TVs Walmart had were 65" which was way too big. We then went to the nearest Best Buy. Forgot that they were only doing curbside pickup so we couldn't go in to see the TVs. But I pulled into the parking lot and searched their site. I couldn't complete the order for some reason and asked the worker that helped us earlier and apparently others were having problems completing orders. So we left and went to Frys. Same as Walmart with the large size TVs only. We went to one more Walmart on the way home to the same result as the first. I tried to order the TV from Best Buy again from home this time and fortunately it went through. An hour later, we picked it up and brought it home. Took a while to set it up as I also needed to move things around the TV area (threw away some amiibo boxes that I had been meaning to throw out). 

While it sucked to have to buy a new TV, this upgrade to a new one after 12 years was a good investment. It's a few inches larger (went from 36" to 40") and I can use streaming services like YouTube, Prime Video, and VUDU (there are others, but those are the ones I utilize). The only streaming service that I can't use is the WWE Network, but I technically can by using the browser. And there is a USB port that I can use if I want to watch videos or run a photo slide show (Running Man, etc). So all in all, a good investment. 

- New shirt (04.22). Untitled Goose Game combined with Batman The Animated Series. 



- Started watching movies on Prime Video at the end of last month and finished it at the end of April (04.30). It was a nice change of pace to add more movies to my have-seen list. They weren't all great, but they can't all be winners. My stand outs were Fighting with my Family, Project A-ko, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Train to Busan, I AM: SMTOWN, Hitch, and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. You can check the Twitter thread in which I give my thoughts on each movie I saw. I enjoyed this so much that I made a round 2 of movies to watch in May (04.29). 
  


WRESTLING========================= 

- Wrestlemania 36 was very interesting this year with what's going on in the world (04.04-04.05). In general, it has taken a while to adjust to crowdless matches and WWE knocked it out with Wrestlemania. Not only was it split into 2 days, which made it easier to sit and watch, but the matches were all great and creative (especially the Boneyard Match and Firefly Fun House Match). The person that usually gathers us together for wrestling events got us to watch together via Google Hangouts. It was similar to what I had been doing with the OverSlam crew on a regular basis. I was pretty much copying and pasting what I was saying in one group to another, ha. 



- The WWE 24 on Edge was really good (04.05). All of them are, but with Edge being one of my favorites, I enjoyed it so much more. 


- The news of all the WWE releases was sad (04.15). I was streaming when it happened so every break, I saw the list of names updated and was surprised every time. Hopefully everyone that released will land on their feet sooner rather than later. 

- And then the following day, Howard Finkel passed away (04.16). His voice was incredibly memorable for me and so many other wrestling fans. Stories of him were always positive. He will be missed. 
WORK========================= 

- We received an email about the future of the company (04.20). I'm not surprised, but it does hit a little more now how things are with the world. The same day I mentioned to Agent Ocean on stream that I realized a few days prior that it had been a month since I last worked. The company is not gone, but things are more uncertain. To the Agents out there, I'll say what I've said to others in the past, do what is best for you. I will sink with the ship because a stubborn part of me doesn't want to give up yet. However, it's tough to keep things up and going. 

The other thing that hits hard is the lack of support we received from Patreon. I thought we'd see an outpouring of support from past customers. I've seen it pre-quarantine and even more so because of quarantine where friends and strangers post about supporting local businesses. And I don't see it for us and...I can only sigh about it because I don't know why we aren't getting support. It's frustrating. 

But as of the 24th, no more paychecks are coming in. 

GAMES========================= 

- Shout out to a dear friend who is starting to stream, txsevildictator. Give him a follow. 


For Game Summaries, join The Loading Screen Discord. Those are posted exclusively there. And if the proceeding link doesn't work, ask me and I'll send you another. https://discord.gg/kYt3tQ4 

- Continued the Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection with Mega Man Zero 2 (04.01-04.02). I liked this one more than the first. Felt more polished, some of the things I didn't like in the first game were gone, and the story continued. Good sequel. 




- Demo Showcase 36 was our first of 3 Demo Showcases this month (04.03). 
Aeterno Blade II - Very similar to the first Aeterno Blade with a few extra things. Best part of this was the opening theme song. 
DORAEMON STORY OF SEASONS - Pretty much Stardew Valley with Doraemon. Looks great, but not my cup of tea. 
The friend of Ringo Ishikawa - I knew of this ahead of time from SNERDAPERDS (maybe more than a year when he first mentioned it to me). It's neat. I liked what I was doing, but I did wish for more direction in what to do. 
Galaxy Champions TV - It's Smash TV, but not as bloody. Nonstop dual-stick action. 
Resident Evil 5 - Very interesting. It felt familiar and had me interested in what was going on. 

My favorite for this Demo Showcase was Galaxy Champions TV. And for the first time ever, I bought the game after stream. The sale that it had was ending soon and it was a fair price. So look forward to seeing Galaxy Champions TV on a future stream. 

- With Wrestlemania being the weekend prior, I specifically scheduled to play Pro Wrestling the Monday after (04.06). Through a small exchange of DMs beforehand and remembering that I can play some NES games online with others, SNERDAPERDS and I agreed to play together for a few matches. It was fun doing that. The game itself increased in difficulty to the point that I needed to go for count out wins. But it felt neat playing a game that I haven't played since I was a child. 




- I had downloaded Batman - The Telltale Series on sale back in October/November for 75% off and finally played it in April (04.07-04.08). I was not disappointed with this. While there were some technical mishaps, that didn't take away from the representation of classic Batman villains and the fantastic story they told. Using the shadows DLC to give it the noir look is so good. This is one I definitely recommend playing or watching. When the sequel goes on sale, I'll make sure to get it. 



- Our free game of the month was Asphalt 9: Legends (04.10). Hands down the best free game available on the Switch in my opinion. I thought it would be more of a simulation, but it was far from it. Stunts, jumps, and wrecks are all part of it. Seeing real cars be driven in this fashion was a treat. Highly recommend it. Remember, it's free. 


- Demo Showcase 37 was our second showcase of the month (04.11). 
Demolition Crew - Fairly simple platformer with retro graphics. Go from the bottom to reach the top. The preview video showed more difficult levels than the demo offered. 
Desktop Dodgeball - Another game from the Desktop series and this might be my favorite. Just throw the ball and whack the other team with it. Felt good hitting them. 
Jet Kave Adventure - A very well done 2.5D platformer. Controls really well and gave some Donkey Kong Country vibes. 
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX - A dungeon crawler with Pokemon. It wasn't bad. I enjoyed seeing the different Pokemon pop up throughout. Just wasn't something I saw myself getting into. 
Resident Evil 6 - A very different feel from past Resident Evil games. As mentioned earlier, 5 felt familiar. I never felt comfortable with the controls of 6. 

My favorite that I added to my wish list was Jet Kave Adventure. Once I realized it was like Donkey Kong Country, it clicked more for me and I was more interested. Can't complain about good controls and good game play. Hopefully I'll play the full game down the line. 


- Had a Viewer's Choice Vote in February and Discord chose Lethal League Blaze for me to play (04.13). While the story was short, I did get to play with others from the Lethal League Blaze community. And they are really good, ha. They were kind to so I got some new followers. Thanks to them, I finally reached 400 viewers, yay. But if anyone else has Lethal League Blaze on Switch, I'd be down to play against you. 



- Continuing our series of one free QubicGames title a month, we played Wreckin' Ball Adventure (04.15). While I didn't know how long it would be, I wasn't expecting an 8 hour stream, ha. Part of me wanted to give up towards the end, but I was able to push through and beat it. It's an...interesting one for sure. 




- Since we had more time at home, I added a few more games to stream on the schedule. One of those was a game I downloaded for $1, Pikuniku (04.17). I had seen some of the game before. I remember it being colorful and silly. And that's what the game is. A colorful, silly, and casual platformer. It would be interesting to play again with co-op since there are specific co-op levels. 




- Finished off the other half of the Guacamelee! One-Two Punch Collection with Guacamelee! 2 (04.19-04.21). It was great being this world again. It was more of the same, but expanded with larger levels, more power ups, and extra characters all over the Mexiverse. The only tough part was the second stream where multiple frames and bitrates were being dropped all throughout. In a way, it was good to not end it just in 2 streams, which was doable.  I'm glad the physical copy came with the DLC codes packed in because getting all gold for everything in The Proving Grounds was very satisfying. Almost 100% completed it, but the rest were achievements with some requiring a second playthrough. But I definitely enjoyed both Guacamelee! games and hope they one day make a third game to make it a trilogy. 




- Demo Showcase 38 ends the series of showcases for April (04.23). 
Automachef - Place different parts of a system to have machines make burgers and other food. I...was not good at this, ha. I would forget to add a machine and the food couldn't be finished. 
Burger Time Party! - Pretty much the original Burger Time with updated graphics. Not bad. 
Desktop Rugby - Another Desktop game. I don't think I've played a rugby game ever. This one was too easy as I was super close to scoring 100 points multiple times. 
Jewel Rotation - A match 4 game except each cycle of jewels is on a rotation on different layers. It took a while for me to figure it out, but I got it. Fairly simple. 
Puzzle Quest: The Legend Returns - A match 3 game with a medieval/renaissance theme with monsters for a story. 

I added Puzzle Quest to my wish list. I've played similar demos of these match 3 games with different themes. But I didn't realize I played this one for almost 2 hours. It sucked me in. 


- Another game added to the schedule was ARCADE FUZZ (04.24). Got this one on sale for $1 (free with gold coins) a couple months ago. And it comes from our friends at QUByte Interactive. This contained 2 games, TTV3 and WARPZONE DRIFTER. According to HowLongToBeat, both can be beaten in about half an hour...if you can do it. Both are easy in controls, but getting through 100 screens in TTV3 or 21 (?) screens in WARPZONE DRIFTER is not easy. And I couldn't do it. I still enjoyed it though. 


- And the last game added to April's schedule was DOOM (1993) (04.26). Again, got it on sale for $1 a couple months ago. Surprise 9 hour stream...ha. It was fun and challenging. And even though I only tried it back in the day, it felt familiar. Would I get DOOM II? I did consider it while it was also on sale for $1, but I did want to see if I even enjoyed the first one just like I did with the Batman Telltale game. DOOM II...I'll consider it, but am not looking to definitely get it like the Batman Telltale sequel. 




- And the final game played on stream was our SNES game of the month, Super Punch-Out!! (04.28). I like all the Punch-Out games, but this was my favorite. It's also the easiest. I used to know how to KO/TKO everyone in seconds, but those strategies have gone away from my brain. Originally I was planning for this to be 2 streams long as I thought there was second playthrough of all the boxers. I was wrong and did it all in a one-off. Still enjoyed it. I thought to add another game to the schedule, but opted to just take the extra day off. 




- While playing Super Punch-Out!!, I received a notification saying that the Ninjala Exclusive Ninja Club open beta was ready to play. I immediately thought that was a bad sign as the first session of the open beta would have occurred at that time. After stream, I caught up on what had been going down with it and emergency maintenance happened due to the issues had for the first session. I still waited to try the beta for the second session at night. I gave some detailed highlights on my experience on Discord, but basically I didn't get to actually play it either before more emergency maintenance was done. I didn't bother with the third session since it would have been 6AM the next day. Hopefully things will improve before the full game is released. 

- I received a DM on Twitter from QUByte Interactive. I had an assumption of what it might be for and I was correct. They offered me a game key for FLATLAND Vol. 1 (04.30). It was their newest game that's available for $5. They were hoping I had been doing well and just gave me the game. No strings attached. That's very awesome of them. I mentioned it in Discord, but I'm glad that I have this nice relationship with that company simply from trying out their demo for 99Vidas late 2018. Now I keep my eyes on the games they make and this will be the 3rd game they've given me for free. Thank you. QUByte Inteactive. 


ETC========================= 

- Dan Avidan & Super Guitar Bros - Kiss From A Rose (MV) 


- I watched all the cut scenes for Final Fantasy VII Remake (04.14). While there were a few streamers I wanted to see play through it as I knew they were big fans of the original, everyone goes at their own pace. Some were taking their time, some were going to fast, and some were doing the same thing. Bottom line is that it would have been difficult to see the game with everyone playing it their own way. If I did watch someone stream, it was because they were behind on the cut scenes I had already seen. But once I finished watching all the story scenes, I definitely went to more streams that were playing Remake to see their reactions. Use the proceeding link to watch what I did. 


I really enjoyed what I watched. They did a great job of giving the main and sub characters more personality and reasons for doing what they're doing as well as making you care about all the NPCs as they were living their lives as your story was unfolding. Certain scenes made me laugh, feel nostalgic, or made me cry. I didn't mind the changes to the story as it can lead to interesting possibilities. Can't wait to see how it all pans out.

I've had a few people ask me if I wanted to play it on stream with some of them even offering me to borrow their system and game. Honestly, I don't know if I would play it on stream if I ever did play it. It's not because I'm trying to "stay on brand" with streams, but it would have been something I would have wanted to enjoy on my own more than likely. I have yet to do that with any games I've streamed, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a game I wanted to enjoy on my own and not stream it. 

And I now have a crush on the voice actress for Aerith, Briana White. It all started with this tweet. 


 
Since then, I have now been part of her streams as she playing through Final Fantasy VII Remake herself. Not only is she a sweetheart, but she has a kind community. Plus getting to hear some behind the scenes stories from her recording lines is a treat. And of course her reactions to scenes is wonderful. She definitely sheds tears on streams, ha. *finger guns*  

- In general, I am losing a sense of motivation. I understand staying home is the best course of action for all, but I miss human interaction. While streaming has helped (and thank you anyone that has given me their time during quarantine to hang out), I miss interacting with people face to face. I want to see someone and hug them or give them a high-five. That's it really. 

And honestly, being single during this time doesn't make things any easier. While there are more people making dating app profiles, the story is still the same of people will only swipe right on who they want. I wish I had a girlfriend/wife and/or kids to care for and do things with at this time. 

If you read the section about work, I will ask that if you want to support me specifically during these times, do so via the streams. If you can't donate in any way, just come chill with me. 

It's not that bad as this has been worse for others, but things have been hitting me little by little. I just needed to say something about it. I will be strong in front of others, but I won't reject anyone that wants to give me a hug. 

- That's a wrap on April 2020. Thanks for reading. Thank you for your support. Take care. 




"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 
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