Feburary 20th, 2023
Second month into the year! It's most definitely a year.
Some news came out recently about a new remake of We Love Katamari. It's something I liked that you guys probably never heard me talk about at all. There was news of a trademark a few months ago, where I thought it would show up in the Game Awards because of it, but it didn't. Then there was a Nintendo Direct and I didn't think it would show up there either...
Out of nowhere, an image of the Prince rolling in ALAP1 shows up on screen, complete with a proper 16:9 aspect ratio, modern artstyle, a horrible record time and Katamari on the Swing blasting... I had so many emotions. After years of begging for it, it's finally here.
All I expected was an HD We Love Katamari and nothing else. Everybody on the KOTW thread about the trademark assumed Royal Reverie was just a subtitle to seperate it from Reroll. No, it's NEW levels for We Love Katamari. We haven't seen too much of it, but it seems really fun to go through.
Also, my biggest favorite: Eternal mode is finally back! Katamari Damacy had eternal, but only for three levels in the entire game. We Love Katamari didn't have a single normal eternal mode. I wonder if the game will take the Katamari Forever approach and the eternal constellations will be their own seperate entries. I hope it's the latter so the cosmos can be much more lively.
Of course, I do have some minor issues with this port. They're all visual, so they really don't matter. I hate how the water looks, it's too detailed for a game like Katamari. Though, it might be circumvented by changing graphics settings or modding out the normals (if it uses that) in-game. It also seems like the cousins retain their look from Katamari Damacy, which were updated in the original We Love Katamari. It makes it seem like a drag-and-drop rushjob. Boo.
Will I do another We Love Katamari Perfect Stream? You bet I will. It'll probably come later than the release date since I wanna see how I can mod the game. I'm thinking of adding more BGM to the game from the entire series, just incase the BGM DLC doesn't include the ones I want. It'd also make the Perfect Stream a little more bearable to sit through. It's too early to tell if I can though.
New Round1 trip! Last time I went was around the time IIDX 30 was released. I tried a bit of IIDX and Dance aRound. I didn't do all that much.
CUE CUE RESCUE upscore from B to A. I can't pass the ANOTHER chart...
Here's a dump of some DANCE AROUND scores. During ギミチョコ!! (for Exercise), I got a group watching me and they applauded me. I was not deserving of that, I looked completely stupid struggling to keep up.
Sometime in December, GITADORA got a version upgrade! I actually don't know much of the changes since I don't follow GITADORA that closely... I haven't played GITADORA that much lately so I don't expect any skill improvement.
This month's Goodwill trip was pretty lame. The stores I went to didn't have much of anything. I saw one of those newer Sony boomboxes, but the speakers on them were really bad. It didn't help that the store was asking for $15 for a boombox, yet all of the ones on sale were beat up pretty badly. I only picked up a VHS tape storage box since I already filled up the one I had.
I did find a Sony DVP-FX820 with an original battery, but no charger. I tried searching for one in the store, but the plugs was much too big. For $3, I wasn't risking anything by buying it and checking to see if it worked. I'd see if there was an AC adapter lying around the house that had the plug I needed. If I didn't, then I would buy one. If the unit didn't work, then it's not a big deal.
I arrived home and went to check my boxes full of random power supplies and adapters. I pulled out a PSone adapter first and plugged it into the charging port. It actually fit and the charging light was lit! I pushed the power switch on and I heard the drive motor whirring... and the screen displayed an uninterrupted image.
It seemed to work flawlessly...for now.
Now is the real test, does it actually read discs? The unit came with some random CD, which gave me the feeling of someone tried to play something but failed and left it there. I pressed play on the machine and it read the tracks fine, no skipping or the sort. I got one of my CDs and played with no issues. That's great, but that doesn't mean everything is perfectly fine.
Just because it can read CDs doesn't mean it can read DVDs fine. DVDs require more power from a laser than a CD does, so it's neccessary to test all possible disc types. I got a dual-layer DVD and tried playing it. It worked completely fine and didn't skip at all.
I'm not sure what I'll do with this unit. Maybe I'll use it as a monitor for a video game console? It's pretty heavy and bulky. I don't have any DVDs that I could use with this thing, and the ones I have are all from the Japanese CDs I got which are nearly all region-locked.
Splatoon 3 has had another Splatfest this month, breaking what we thought was a bi-monthly Splatfest rule. All my friend groups really didn't like playing it. It was a mix of getting tired of Turf War, hating team composition, and the fact that we had to wait for Anarchy to reopen. I chose Milk Chocolate so I could play with a friend. I really didn't want to play.
White Chocolate won. While I'm not surprised that they won, I think the whole premise was hilarious. I knew they would do a clean sweep but I was laughing seeing it happen in real time.
I got my 13 shells. I didn't get to Ruler, but whatever. I wish there was a new twist to Splatfest.
The Nintendo Direct gave a few drops of what to expect. It's no season trailer, but it's something. An expansion pass with content dropping for owners throughout the game's lifespan.
The first wave is a main hub reskin. It changes the world to Inkopolis Plaza from Splatoon 1. It's pretty cool actually. The Squid Sisters are back for Splatfest singing their well-known song too. I like it, seeing the Plaza all new and bright. It's set to release sometime in the next season.
The second wave is the single-player expansion most people were expecting. It's not known what it's about, as all we know right now is that it stars an Octoling. Is it Agent 8? Is it someone completely different? There's a lot of questions from the trailer and not a lot of answers. What we do know is that Off the Hook finally makes their Splatoon 3 appearance in this wave. The release date isn't confirmed yet. I'm excited!
The pass is on sale for $25 USD. If you buy the pass, you get some bonus in-game items like 123k coins, double experience food tickets and drink tickets for every ability. If you want my opinion, these are some pretty bad bonuses. 123,000 coins is enough for 4 pulls in the game's gacha, level experience doesn't matter since it's no longer displayed in rankings, and drink tickets are a waste of time. Still, people buy the pass for the additional content, not the bonuses. They're bonuses after all.
As of writing, the SplatoonUS Twitter is in the middle of posting new kits and stages for next season, but I'll save my opinions for the next blog post. I don't want to have an opinion that's horrible just yet.
New package arrived from Japan. Again, it's the usual CDs! I opted for the cheapest shipping method: untraceable surface! It's just surface without being able to track the package. If the package was lost, that was it. I actually started thinking that it was lost in transit before it arrived the next day.
First up are these AKB48 singles: High Tension and Moto kare desu. Both CDs are theater editions, so there's no additional DVD.
High Tension was the 48th overall single of the group. It's a very loud song! The music video is fun to look at, especially when the bitrate dies when the confetti drops.
Moto kare desu was the 61st single of the group. It was the second single to come out after AKB48's hiatus from early-2020 to mid-2021. It's not as crazy as Nemohamo Rumor, but it's still really good!
The final 48G-related CD is Zetsumetsu Kurokami Shoujo by NMB48! I got it on Spotify back when I actually used it years ago. It's a catchy debut single and the first CD I got from a sister 48 group. This is the Type A edition, so there is an additional region-locked DVD. Unfortunately for them, VLC doesn't care about regions.
Next up is BEYOOOOONDS' debut single. I have the version with Nippon no DNA on the cover, which was the cheapest ones on the market. I caught the songs around the time they dropped and I was hooked. I love BEYOOOOONDS so much. The unfortunate thing about this copy is that it appears that it did get a crack on the case, but it can be replaced. As this copy was opened, there is no photocard in it.
Another single I got was Da-iCE's Fake Me Fake Me Out! It's a very cool song that I think I found on YouTube when I was just looking for music to listen to on a walk. I loved the instrumental, but the instrumental wasn't avaliable anywhere, not even Spotify!
The final single I got was Namie Amuros' How to be a Girl. It's an AMAZING single from the one and only Namie Amuro. She is great singer and her music is just the best. It's so good and the music video is so badass. Namie Amuro is on Spotify, but I'm not sure if her music is region-free.
This single is also my first CD Single! They were 8cm discs that could contain up to 20 minute of music. They were made due to cost reasons. These singles didn't come with a plastic case, instead being sold in just a long paper sleeve. Plastic cases were sold seperately.
I'm a little embarrased to say that I'm a fan, but I was a fan of Yo-Kai Watch at one point. The fourth game is never coming out here, I have accepted that. I say that because the last two albums I bought are of the Yo-Kai Watch anime. These two CDs are the only rental drops I bought. They both come with what rental drops are known for: stamped CDs, stickers everywhere, taped OBIs, and one of them lacked a case.
The first volume (blue & red cover) had it's OBI taped to the side and ripped apart on the front side. Outside of that blunder, the album is okay. The CD has the usual sticker and stamp, but I don't care to remove it. It's too much trouble to remove them. To do that, you'd have to remove the sticker and then remove the residue and clean it up.
The second volume (green cover) didn't have a case and was also stamped and with stickers. It's overall condition wasn't bad, the OBI wasn't obliterated and the booklet wasn't falling apart. It arrived without a case, so I bought some christian rock album from Goodwill and transferred everything to that case.
Anyways, the Yo-Kai Watch anime music is actually pretty good. They even got members from 48G to do vocals on a song. It's a shame the series is effectively dead now, but that just happens to fads. The series was losing steam in Japan by the time it arrived in America, so I guess it was just a ticking timebomb at that point.
These CDs were ripped to my PC and now reside in the closet. Could you imagine if CDs were region-locked?
Sorry for the long wait between the November 2022 update and the Feburary 2023 update. I've been going through college, personal stuff, and then Twitter decides to kill the API things which honestly got me thinking of giving up on the JCMB for good. Then they kept delaying the date and giving no information on the new API. I hate Twitter. Bleh, it's already a messy year, but I can try getting my chin up.