Keyrock

I think a lot of it has to do with translation. Some stuff just doesn't translate cleanly to English, or any other western language for that matter. That's how you wind up with 5 Kanji characters being translated as "The Last Breath of the Butterfly Sings the Moon's Sorrow In My Sister's Soul: Retaliation"

I'm thoroughly enjoying Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore. This game feels a lot like Persona, from the combat to character progression to the EXTREMELY anime flourishes during dialogue when a character gets emotional. Persona technically is a MegaTen spinoff, but I consider it its own franchise now, given how distinct it is from mainline MegaTen, way more than any other spinoff like Devil Survivor, for example. I'm still failing to grasp the Fire Emblem half of the crossover. The only thing I can think of is the session system which very vaguely resembles follow up attacks in FE. If you strike a weakness and other party members have appropriate skills they will automatically perform a free attack on the target. In FE if characters have developed a bond and they are both adjacent to a target, when one strikes the target the other will perform a free follow up attack, which isn't really the same but sort of... I'm grasping at steaws here. Bottom line, this is basically a Persona game, even to the point of mirages preying on people's insecurities and personality traits to warp them. This is fine given that Persona is awesome, but it seems dishonest advertising this as a MegaTen x Fire Emblem crossover when it's at most tangentially MegaTen related and not at all Fire Emblem.

That was a ballsy move on CDPR's side. It takes a ton of work to design and program all these areas and quests. Naturally, developers want you to see all their hard work, developing content that many gamers will never see has got to sting a bit. I mean, it's one thing when it's an Easter egg or two or some copy/paste collectibles, and another thing when it's an entire act of a game. I played through Witcher 2 four (maybe five, it's been a while) times, so I saw everything, but most people are probably not doing a second playthrough.

Witcher 3 also suffers from content overload. The sheer amount of side content is downright overwhelming and ruins the pacing of the main story. The side content is dressed up really well, so it's not a chore like in a lot of open world games (*cough* Ubisoft *cough*) but it nevertheless ruins the story progression when you spend a couple of in-game weeks galavanting around the countryside, meanwhile EXTRADIMENSIONAL SPECTRAL ELVES are threatening to conquer the world. If you have the willpower to tunnel vision on the main quest then the narrative pacing works, the problem is that the game is designed in such a way as to not just encourage, but also almost require you to do a bunch of side content.

I started up Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore. I definitely see the Mega-Ten part of the crossover, though this feels more Persona than mainline Mega-Ten, but I don't see any Fire Emblem in this game, at least not yet. Anyway, this game is SUPER ANIME. This will no doubt be a deal-breaker for some folks, but I kind of like how the characters turn into sexy idealized versions of themselves for combat and how the battles play out like performances on a stage. It's a weird thing where I don't really watch anime (I have in the past), it's not my jam, but I kind of like playing anime.

The Dubs shot 63% and 53% from 3. That's ABSURD.

My boy Ja with the clutch half-court 3 at the half buzzer to keep the game from getting completely out of hand. Given the ludicrous FG% the Dubs shot in the first half, a 7 point defecit is not bad for the Grizz. They may very well still lose, but at least they're in it. Edit: Never mind.

Jayson Tatum had a horrific shooting night and Boston still had multiple opportunities at the end to tie it. A lot of hard, physical plays that game, but nothing outright dirty. This should be a good series.

Hot taek: The Witcher 2 is CDPR's best game.

Me watching the NFT market collapse:

That's encouraging. I'm always weary of the tendency of new shows to be front-loaded. Critics usually only watch the first couple episodes, because they have a ton of stuff to review, then write up their review based on that. Then, halfway through the season, the show quality falls off a cliff if the idea well has run dry. Still, glad to hear it's off to a good start. Does it actually stay true to Roddenberry's vision of a humanity that got it's **** together, or do they resort to Kurtzman's signature violent melodrama?

The Suns are a perfect 52 - 0 (including playoffs) this season when leading after 3 quarters. I guess they're pretty good at closing out games.

I want the Grizz to beat the Dubs. I have nothing against Golden State, I just like watching Ja Morant play. He's the most fun to watch basketball player since prime Iverson IMHO.

If there's ever been any sort of racial connotation to "gobbledygook" I am not aware of it. As far as I know, it's a fun way to say "candy-coated nonsense" and nothing else. Edit: I didn't even think about splitting the word up. I'm going to chalk it up to coincidence.

Wait, what? Seriously? Why!?

The combimation of the wistful way he spoke and the moody manipulative music was perfect. On a surface level it gives you the impression that you are listening to something deep, important, and profound. In actuality, it's 100% gobbledygook. Tremendous. Side note: Gobbledygook is a great word. It's right up there with cromulent, shenanigans, dungarees, and brouhaha.

Cole Strange may wind up being undervalued by the media in hindsight, the weird thing is that they gave away Shaq Mason for almost nothing. They had a proven good guard, gave him away for a 5th round pick, then picked a guard in the 1st round that may or may not turn out to be good. If he winds up being a perennial All-Pro then well done, but what are the odds of that?

My biggest WTF moment of the draft was the Patriots taking Cole Strange in the first round when they very likely could have had him in the second or even third, to fill a hole they themselves created when they gave away Shaq Mason for pennies on the dollar. Realistically, Cole Strange's upside is essentially Shaq Mason and Shaq Mason isn't that old, he most likely still has several productive years left. It just doesn't make any sense.

You can already watch it, it came out 24 years ago. It's a Michael Bay movie, though, so check your brain at the door.

Brisco County - EP10 Showdown Brisco returns home where, in the abscence of his deceased father, a ruthless businessman and his posse is terrorizing the area. This is a Brisco and Bowler side quest episode. It's mostly action and drama with a lot less shenanigans than usual, plus some romance thrown in as Brisco reunites with an old flame. It's a solid but unremarkable episode that would have benefited from a more charismatic villain.

Despite it being 2 vs 7, a lot of people expected Brooklyn to beat Boston (those people are fools, but that's neither here nor there). The Nets were one of the odds on favorites to win the championship, again despite being a 7 seed. Milwaukee tanked at the end of the season just to get out of the 2 seed to avoid playing the Nets in round 1. My point is that it can be argued that the Celtics beating the Nets was an upset, though that argument hinges purely on the reputation of the Nets' players and if you watched the Celtics play down the stretch run then you know how ridiculous an argument it is.

Celtics vs Bucks is going to be great. This Celtics team may go down as one of the all-time great defensive teams if they can keep up what they did in round 1 and the last third of the regular season. Milwaukee's decision to duck Brooklyn now comes back to bite them as it means that game 7 will be in Boston. Over in the west, I just want the Suns to keep advancing so that CP3 can keep getting under people's skin. He's a rasslin' heel and I love it; like Patrick Beverley, except also really good at basketball. I want Chris to piss off as many people as possible while I feed off the schadenfreude. Does that make me a bad person?