I don’t know if this has been a weird week, I’ve kind of felt a bit unsettled, but can’t really put my finger onto what. Maybe I’m just in an anxious time again, I don’t enjoy that really, it’s those times when I get into brain loops and worry, then worry about worrying and so on, but it will let go some time, I just hope it’s sooner rather than later, because it feels weird to me.

Books

I finished off Moon of Oddysseus by J.S. Morin, and I really enjoyed this story, so far it’s the best one in the series to me, it had an interesting story, and with the characters who have been great the whole series it just made for a really good read really. I also read the short story Pinball Wizard which came with the collection that I got, and really enjoyed that one as well. It was just fun and interesting, and really enjoyable.

As the second one this week was Chromatic aberration by Nicola Claire, and while it was an entertaining story to read, I can’t help but think that it’s a series that is getting a bit long in the tooth, while still enjoyable to read, it kind of feels like it needs some new spice to keep going. There is only one more in the sub-series though, so I will read that one, and then it seems like the next one is having new characters, which I think will help it being more enjoyable again.

And I started Ava Stargazer by Alissa Lace, I enjoyed the first one enough, but not that much that I wanted to read the next one right afterwards, it’s kind of interesting that I’m not really exited to read it, but when I get into the story it’s quite fun, I’ll see how it will turn out as the story folds out a bit more, but so far it’s been enjoyable at least.

Games

I’m still plugging away at Octopath Traveler II I’m really enjoying the game still, but think it’s time for a little break, I am 85+ hours in now, and haven’t really played much else, and I feel that my focus is fading a bit on it, I’ve finished off Partitio’s story, and I didn’t really enjoy it that much, it’s why I wanted to finish it off first. I think I will slowly work on it a bit, but less religiously than before, or we’ll have to see, maybe I will catch the spark again this week and I will be sucked in again, we will have to see.

I also did a bit more of Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the chosen on my miyoo mini, it’s a really fun game, and the simplicity in everything helps a bit in making it nice to relax with, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any challenges or anything, and I’m still very much just in the beginning, so it will probably get more involved, but it’s just fun spending a bit of time in the world and playing a bit on the side.

One thing that I really have been thinking of this week is that I really miss the smaller handheld, I really do like my switch lite, but it’s a huge thing, and it’s not something that I would actually bring with me much, I just feel a bit too worried about the sticks sticking out, and they are already not that great from normal wear. So I’ve been thinking more about the older machines lately. With the whole RAM-Crisis that the LLM companies caused as well it seems like there will be a while until we will get anything new that is really interesting, and there are still so many old games that I would want to play anyway. I picked up my 3DS and have been fiddling around with it a bit, it’s been kind of fun tinkering, and it still feels kind of magical booting up a ftp server on a console and then transferring files and things over.

So I downloaded Shin Megami Tensei IV, I have already wanted to play some of these before, and this one is the one that is the easiest for me to get started with, at least from their reputation these are really hard games, but at least there seems to be difficulty settings, so that I can put it down a bit. The whole story and setting quite intrigues me and at least for the hour or so that I played it I really had some fun gathering demons, and starting out with fusing. It’s a really fun game to tinker around with and one of the earlier monster capture rpg series out there, if not the first real one.

I also got the remake of Dragon Quest: 7 which is one that I have never tried, and heard good things about, I do want to wait with this one until I’ve grown tired of 4, or played through it, so it’s more something for the future.

I also got Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse but it does have some issues starting up, from what I could figure out it’s probably that it’s one of the ones that needs a crypto seed to run, and I have at least prepared one so that I can import that and stop it from getting a complete break down every time I try to start it, it’s not something that I need to hurry about anyway since I have a ton of stuff that I want to try out before doing it. But it reminded me a bit of all the tinkering with a Custom Firmware device that is kind of fun, at least when the issues aren’t too difficult to find a solution for. If this really is the solution though is something I will have to see when I get around to try it out.

Misc

I had some weird times over the weekend. I had an episode where leaving the house I heard some weird beeping noise, and didn’t think too much of it, before I was out walking and kind of thought to remember it sounded a bit like a fire alarm, but too weak, so my mind spun that around, a bit later when I was about an hour from home, I saw some black smoke bellowing up, in a huge ploume, and I started worrying a lot, that is too close to here to be back home isn’t it, then later I met an ambulance a police car and the fire brigade, and it really started to turn around in my head. Of course when I got back though, everything was as normal and there was nothing wrong there. So of course as always my mind was worring about something that was just nothing.

As normal I really savoured this week’s episode of Videogame Podtimism this is still my favourite podcast, it’s just something about the hosts that make me smile, and they have this mix of new games and retro stuff that really does it for me. I do really enjoy into the aether a lot too, but they have tastes that are divergent enough from mine that at times they have episodes which are really not so easy for me to relate to, I’m still listening and enjoying it though, but it makes them just slightly beat out by the other one.

I feel like times when I’m a bit more anxious than before podcasts about video games really helps me calm down and feel happier, and it’s lasting too, I think something about how it’s interesting to me, but still kind of background chatter it lets me focus on something that isn’t making me think that much, so that the subconcious can sort itself out in the background.