Wednesday, April 8, 2020

March 2020 Entry

March 2020 Entry: 

How is everyone doing? Hope you have all been safe and healthy. We all know what's going during this time in the world. It is very serious and important. I am one of those that don't like to see and talk about it all the time so you won't find me talking about it a lot myself. There's a time and place, I just don't want it to be all the time. The one thing I will encourage is to help spread more positivity and support. And to those that this is effecting more than others, stay strong. Can't wait to high-five and hug people again. 

MISC========================= 

- Remember that bad ENT I mentioned a few months ago? I received a letter in the mail about a payment (03.04). I was surprised by this because I thought I had paid everything for previous visits. I called them and had it explained to me, but had to call someone else to make the payment. That first call...it reminded me of why I didn't like them. Just business. Didn't ask if I was doing any better or why I stopped going to them. At least the payment part went easily. And that should be it from them. 

- I ordered a pack of Violet Crumble Nuggets (03.04). They are delicious. I took my time with eating the entire bag and stretched it out to at best a week. Definitely wouldn't mind having more. 


- I got tagged on Twitter about 4 fictional female characters that mean a lot to me (03.05). For the post, I went with only video game characters. I did think of non-video game characters. The 3 I had in mind was Daria, Jessica Rabbit, and (someone I can't remember right now, ha). I had a fourth and its a wrestler, but I felt people would have commented on that since the person is real and I would have countered with the person they portray is fictional, but ended up not doing that. 


- Someone that was a really close friend in middle school contacted me over Facebook (03.11). It was cool reconnecting as a flood of memories came back. And we were both proud of each other in what we were currently doing. Hope to see you sometime, dude. 

- Normally I would have gone to Best Buy to pick this up, but I ordered it from Amazon instead. A few days later, my copy of Superman Red Son arrived (03.20). And in a rare case, I watched it the same day. Normally I try to get it within a week. Granted I didn't watch all the extras in one day, but I did finish it all. I enjoyed it. There were many surprises throughout for me since I only knew of the premise of it. 


- I am part of a Facebook group for Jubilee Media called Goodhumans. With what's going on, they made a post to see if anyone in the community wanted to connect with each other and I threw my hat into the mix. I received my email of who I was paired with (03.24). Since then, we've been texting when we could. Unfortunately, she's currently in Korea so the time difference factors in us missing each other here and there. But she's cool. We both like games and Kpop. It's nice to have a new friend. 

- Other than streaming, I was thinking about how else to fill out my days. A site I used to use for watching movies was no longer available so I was trying to find other ways to watch movies for free. Thankfully I saw someone post a link on Facebook about the best ways to watch free TV/movies and one of them was Prime Video through Amazon. I took a few days to find what was free to watch. Some that are free with ads and some are through signing up with another service. But I ended up finding a nice variety of different movies. I started watching them at the end of the month (03.31). You can read what I thought about each movie after I watch them in that Twitter thread. 
 

WRESTLING========================= 

- Elimination Chamber was fun (03.08). Had some highs and lows throughout. Little did we know this would be one of the last PPVs we'd see with a crowd. 


- With what's going in the world, wrestling is the only live sporting event happening. Companies are complying with rules set in place and have been running empty arena shows. It definitely is different, but they are doing their best with the limited sources they are allowed. I will say thank you to all the wrestlers and those behind the scenes that are doing this and helping us forget things for a few hours. 

WORK========================= 

- We had a school come in for a morning session (03.10). First time in a while that I woke up so early. Had to be there at 9AM and didn't get there until 10-15 minutes after due to morning traffic (forgot that's a thing). There were about 40 kids and they took up all our rooms. They were a smart group of kids too and, for the most part, well behaved. The teachers were also very helpful with making things smoother. Unfortunately, Agent Apollo couldn't make it so we had to ask Agent PQ last minute to join us, which she was able to. 

I really enjoyed after the sessions where we did a presentation for the kids to talk about how we put escape rooms together. The kids were very interested and had lots of questions. They sure did open up when I asked if they had suggestions for rooms they would want to build, ha. Overall, pretty good day. 

And I took a nap for 2 hours afterwards. It had been a while since I took a nap and an even longer time for a nap to not throw off the rest of my day.  

- I was asked to work Downtown for a shift (03.14). It was me and Agent Apollo holding things down. I had to quickly relearn The Scarlet Scam as I have not run that room in years since moving over to Memorial. There were quite a few changes I didn't know about, but thankfully Agent Striker sent me some videos the night before so I could see them. The other thing was the briefing. I didn't have it down for the two sessions I did for Scarlet (I was good for Dark Side). But it felt nice running Scarlet's after so long. Shout out to Team Oh (a bachelorette party) for being fun and complimentary. 

Later that same night, the staff received an email about halting operations. While we had already started to clean on a more frequent basis and offer teams gloves (for the past week), Agent Raynor felt it best to shut things down until April 30th. We even had sessions the next day, but we cancelled and refunded all sessions from that Sunday until the 30th of April. 

- We had a meeting scheduled the following Monday (03.16). Originally it was supposed to be Downtown, but with the shut down, it turned into a Zoom meeting. It was good to see everyone's faces together virtually. But Agent Raynor went more into depth about his decision to halt operations, plans for the time being, and then announcing that we were launching a Patreon. If you would like to contribute to it, click on the link (and thank you if you do).


GAMES========================= 

*To read Game Summaries for each game beaten on stream, join The Loading Screen Discord. https://discord.gg/kYt3tQ4 

- Starting this month, I'll be playing one game off the Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection a month. Mega Man Zero was an interesting game (03.02-03.03). It was tough for sure and I did make it tougher on myself by not using the Cyber Elves. It felt good to beat it though. 
 

- The first of 3 Demo Showcases for the month with Demo Showcase 33 (03.04). 
Neo Cab - Very interesting visual novel. It went on for about 90 minutes and the story and characters kept developing. 
New Super Lucky's Tale - A nicely constructed 3D platformer. A bit on the easy side, but I wouldn't mind playing it. 
Ori and the Blind Forest - As good visually and mechanically as everyone says it is. It has always been on my radar. 
Space War Arena - A different take on the tower defense format. 
Tic-Tac Letters by POWGI - Another fun word game by POWGI. Definitely dug this one, but it can easily be figured out through trial and error. 

So I cheated a little on picking a favorite with this one. Ori was already on my wish list so I didn't have any qualms about choosing it or not. Neo Cab was my favorite. I wanted to see where the story went and meet more interesting characters. 


- The NES game of the month was recommended by SNERDAPERDS and Solace (SolaceAndDread), Crystalis (03.05). This was a really good action adventure game. Pretty much like the original Legend of Zelda with RPG elements. It took 9 hours to beat and I enjoyed it. 
 

- I noticed I didn't have as many video game related shirts than I thought I did. So I went to TeeFury and ended up wanting this 80s shirt (03.07). As of typing this (04.07), I have yet to wear it. 


- Finally got around to playing AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES (03.09-03.19). Oh my gosh, this was a wonderful visual novel. Characters were well developed, there were branching paths that you need to go down in order to see the true ending, great voice acting, and so much more. As of playing it, it is my game of the year (sorry, Sayonara Wild Hearts). There's a lot to it and I go into detail with my game summary on Discord (the most I've written for a summary). 

And this was when the pandemic started growing bigger and we had halted operations at work. So this wasn't how I was originally planning to play this, but I played this every other day and I think that helped. There was a lot to take in with every 8 hour stream (50+ hours total) that having a day in between was a good break. 


- And shortly after getting one video game shirt, I saw another one on sale. Bowser is one of my favorite gaming characters so I had to have this King Koopa shirt (03.15). Wore it almost immediately after getting it. 


- Continuing to grow my amiibo collection with the Kirby Series amiibo (03.16). This would be first time having any Kirby merchandise. After making my list of which amiibo I have and don't and realizing there were only 4 in this series, I went to eBay and found some going at a fair price. Got Kirby and Waddle Dee from the same person and got a small discount on shipping, which evened out on getting Meta Knight (last) at a slightly higher price. And King Dedede was found around original price. So to win bids on all 4 within a few days was super cool. I might skip out on getting an amiibo in April because of getting 4 this month (we'll see). 


- I've only done this a few times, but I played Mario Kart 8 on another person's stream (03.18). This time was on TrashTori's stream. It had been a while and it was very fun to jump into Mario Kart again. Got my butt kicked, but it was so fun. And while I could have done the next thing at any point after getting a Kirby amiibo, I unlocked the final racing outfit in Mario Kart 8. 
 

- Our free game of the month was Angry Bunnies: Colossal Carrot Crusade (03.21). It's an Angry Birds clone. Instead of birds, you use bunnies. That's it. We "finished"it because we beat all the free levels. The rest are locked behind paid DLC. While I don't recommend it, I still enjoyed it. 


- Demo Showcase 34 was our second Demo Showcase of the month (03.22). 
Doodle God: Crime City - We played a Doodle God demo before and I liked this one better. Especially since you can see crime scenes coming together. 
Hyperforma - I had no idea what I was in for with this one, but it's pretty much a 3D block breaker. It does what it's supposed to and looks really good. 
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - They gave a good amount of events to try out in this demo. Some in 3D and some in 2D, which I was really excited for. 
New Star Manager - You play as the manager of a soccer team. You don't exactly play the matches except for certain points like shooting for a goal. And...yeah, did not appeal to me. 
Puzzle Box Maker - A mix of different game modes with a box aesthetic. 

My favorite was Hyperforma. It surprised me with the simple and familiar game play and with its visuals. Sadly, this was the first stream I can recall where no one (except me) said anything in chat. It was odd. Sure, Demo Showcases can be a mixed bag, but I thought people would show up for the Mario & Sonic demo at least. Oh well. 


- Continuing with the string of free games we got from QubicGames with Puzzle Book (03.23). Choose a picture to put together, choose how many pieces, and get to it. Very chill. I finished one every possible picture and changed the level of difficulty/pieces for stream. The next day, I had nothing planned, so I 100% completed the whole game. That consists completing each picture on each difficulty level. It took about an extra 10 hours to do on and off. Definitely needed to take breaks as my eyes were straining at points staring at the same picture for many minutes. Anyways, got my money's worth on this one. 



- Been looking forward to starting the Guacalmelee One-Two Punch Collection. Of course we start with the first game, Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition (03.25-03.26). I don't know why I've slept on this game. It has so many things I like such as wrestling. The combat is great, the humor is great, and the music is great. So many things are great about this game. I thought to possibly 100% the game, but part of it requires getting gold on the Devil challenges and some are tough to beat in general. So I had to settle with 94%. Can't wait to play the second game. 


- A surprise Nintendo Direct Mini happened (03.26). It was great to see as they had a lot of stuff to show off. Excited for quite a few things coming soon. 
 

- Shantae and the Seven Sirens now has a console release date (03.27). May 28th is the date. While there will be a physical release for the game (most likely via Limited Run Games), I'm going to get it digitally as well so I can play it sooner rather than later. I won't be playing it day one, but I do have it slated for June. 
 

- And the final Demo Showcase of the month, Demo Showcase 35 (03.28). 
AeternoBlade II - Great opening theme song. The game felt like previous AeternoBlade demos. The voice acting...not so good. 
DORAEMON STORY OF SEASONS - Very colorful and animated. Very much like a Stardew Valley game, which unfortunately is not my kind of game. 
The friends of Ringo Ishikawa - Fun beat 'em up with nice retro graphics and fantastic music. I did wish there was a little more direction with what to do. 
Galaxy Champions TV - Short and simple Smash TV style of game. Definitely not as bloody, but provided that pick up and play and challenge suited for this kind of game. 
Resident Evil 5 - Not bad. I was expecting worse since there is usually more negative surrounding this game. I'm at least more interested in trying Resident Evil 5 in the future. 

My choice for this showcase was Galaxy Champions TV. Out of all the demos, this was the shortest and it delivered in that short window of time. I was probably smiling the entire time I was playing it. I've always like Smash TV and haven't played anything similar to it in a long time. And in another first, I bought Galaxy Champions TV after the stream. It was on sale for 80% off (normally $7, go it for $1). 


- With an ARMS character being announced for the next Smash Ultimate DLC fighter, they also released a game trial for ARMS (03.29). It lasted for a little over a week and I was not sure if I wanted to try it on stream or not. It just depended on the schedule. Thankfully I was able to because I had the most fun with the game then I ever did (demo, Testpunch). The singleplayer was still tough, but once I started playing against others online with the chat, it was great. And I got to meet so many people from the ARMS community and they were very friendly (and really good). That's what a game trial should be for a game that's been out for a while; getting to try out the game and fans of the game coming to see new people enjoy it and enjoy it with them (that happened with the Splatoon 2 Special Demo as well). Good stuff. Can't wait to see which ARMS character will be in Smash Ultimate. 
 

- The final stream of the month was our SNES game of the month, Kirby Super Star (03.30). It was great to relive this title. It was one my younger cousins owned and we played it a lot. To add to this, I got to play some of it multiplayer with Barra_97. Thanks to him simply asking if multiplayer was doable, I now am going to think ahead for future SNES/NES games to see if others want to play with me. But ending the month with this Kirby game was fun. This also ends the 3 months in a row of playing one Kirby game on stream. While there are others that I could play, I'm not planning on it (for now). 



ETC========================= 

- ITZY - WANNABE (MV) 

My new favorite ITZY song. The song is good, the choreography is great, and their performances have been superb. 

- Dunk Lords Ending Credits Song 

- Red Velvet - Psycho @ReVe Festival FINALE 

I might have shared this video before, but it has been brought back to my attention. It's still so good. 

- That's a wrap on March 2020. Thanks for reading. Thank you for your support. More than every, take care. 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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