Another week has gone by, and my has this been a warm one. We’re finally getting some rain now, so it’s cooling a bit again, but it’s full summer boom. I’m writing my post in nvi this time rather than vim like I usually do, I’ve been watching some people doing back to some simple tools stuff, and I’ve been thinking I will try it out, so far it’s been rather fun at least, and there aren’t that much stuff I’m really missing, given I haven’t really done that much with it, most normal stuff I do when writing works, just that the cwi (change whole current word) and other word objects don’t work, but I can work around that.

Books

I finished off Alien Racer by J.S. Morin, and it was just a fun story, not deep, not groundbreaking, but just a fun story that was enjoyable to spend some time with, I’m starting to quite like the crew of the Mobius, and the books are quick and breezy to go through, really just enjoyable, and not much more to say about them.

Next one up was Cepheid Variable by Nicola Claire, this is an interesting series, it’s more of a straight space opera story told by someone that by all means are more of a romance author. And it’s really quite fun, lot’s of mysteries, lots of stuff happening while still not losing the focus of the main group of characters. This one did end on a cliffhanger though, which is a detractor, but well, can’t really have everything.

And ending the week with starting Lab Rat One by Andrea Höst, which for now seems to be just more of the same of the first book, it’s not bad, just a bit too YA, and it kind of feels like some of the characters aren’t as fleshed out as I want them to be, it does get a bit bogged down in stuff, and I’m not as sure about this one as the first one, hopefully it will have something that makes me a bit more exited for the story, I still haven’t read more than 100 pages of it, so it still has time to win me over.

Seems like I have a nice 3 series rotation going for now, which in a way is nice, because I don’t have to think about which book to read next, That will still go for 5 more books before I have to start looking at what I have lying around to read, I think I have at least a couple I’ve heard good things about after that as well, and we will see, as normal, there are so many books out there, that there isn’t really a worry that there will be something to read, it’s just finding the stuff that I will enjoy that always is kind of a worry for me, but I’ve gotten quite good at it, I don’t really totally miss that often, and for the most time manage to choose things that I will rate around 4-5 stars in my enjoyment of them.

Games

I really have been having a great time with Bravely Defualt II but I’m about 60 hours in now, and the issues with control with my switch is starting to really go on my nerves, my left stick that this game doesn’t let me rebind from what I see struggles with going down and to the right, in the open fields it not that much of an issue, since I can just use the other stick to whip the camera around, but the dungeons have a fixed camera, and some times it’s a struggle getting my character to move to a place for no reason at all, it also isn’t that helped from mobs being on the map, so that I get jumped on by enemies that I saw, but my hero just didn’t want to go in that direction. I’m still saying I really have enjoyed my time with the game though, and while it’s not a master piece, there are a lot of things to love about it, it has a lot of fun things to play around with and while the look is a bit of something you have to get used to, I enjoyed that too after a while, but for my own sanity, I started finding myself weirdly frustrated when I was done playing I needed time to play something else.

Well, I still really was in a mood for a game like it though, so I moved over to another team Asano game (these really are the output of new square enix that I’ve been enjoying the most) Octopath Traveler II. There was a bit of a period of having to get used to a different pace, no more borrowing turns here, but I think it doesn’t really hurt much from it. Once I got back into the flow, there just is a lot of stuff to love in this game, I started a new save, since it’s over a year since the last time that I played it, and I kind of wanted to have a bit more of a gentle start. I’ve been slowly gathering the team together, I now have 6 of the 8 travellers on my team, this time I started with Ochette as the team leader, and so far I have Oswald, Castti, Agnea, Partitio and Hikari, all stories I’ve enjoyed, Partitio’s maybe the least, because I find his characteristics a bit grinding, currently I’m doing Temenos’ Story, and will wrap around and do Throne before I go on. Probably I will do it the same way that I did the last time, taking each character’s chapters after another, and looping through as I can, exploring stuff that I find on the way. I find that the side quests really are done well in this game, they don’t really give you much of an explanation, and you have to use your different interactions that you have to figure out what to do, it’s quite fun, and the stories are all really fun.

There are so many things that really makes the game enjoyable, the music is awesome, the sprite work is so great, and I haven’t found myself wanting to speed through neither battles nor the environments that I go through, it’s just so nice to look at. The difference in the characters are well done, and they all feel really different, and I like that they all have very different stories told in a different way to go through. I’ve heard some people don’t like how disconnected they feel, but I feel like they have done a decent job of making stuff hang together, and I love how in the fight the group is encouraging eachother, thanking of heals and so on, it’s just really fun to see them work together. I’m trying to take my time more this playthrough than the first one, just enjoying the different places, doing side quests as I find them, interacting more with the people, and just enjoy my time, it’s just really enjoyable all in all.

I was looking quite a bit into some other games as well, Octopath 0 looks quite intriguing, but I think I will get through this whole game first, and in addition it still is a really expensive game, so while I’m interested, I think I will rather enjoy what I have, and maybe get it on a sale some time in the future. Mina the Hollower also got released, and it’s one that I’ve had my eyes on, the price really is fair as well, but I came to the conclusion that it’s not really the kind of game that I enjoy the most, and I heard it is quite difficult, and mostly it’s a mood thing, I really enjoy Octopath II now, so why muddy the waters with getting something new when I’m currently enjoying something that I already have. UFO 50 is also on a sale, but there I’m kind of on the same feeling, I already am enjoying the game I’m playing, so it doesn’t really make much sense to buy something new, and then maybe get distracted by it, I will see when I’m not really feeling up to Octopath II any more, and in the mean time just enjoy what I already have and am interested in.

Misc

I’m still kind of thinking of what I meant with this segment at the start, I think I will probably change it out to just be miscellaneous, because I always seem to struggle with finding anything to write here, It’s a weird thing, I listen a lot to podcasts, but I don’t really have much to say about them a lot of the time. It seems for some reason that the press start podcast just stopped releasing episodes when I subscribed, do I have podcast destroying powers? No I don’t think so, but I did enjoy the couple of episodes that I did listen to, will have to see if it gets back some time.

Had a nice long walk this weekend, on Saturday just enjoying the environment listening to some podcast episodes with people being excited about octopath II and just looking out over the vistas, mountains and sees around here, it’s just so calming, and such an enjoyable thing to do, and I did manage to make myself actually a bit tired in my legs after 21 or so km, which is always kind of a nice feeling. On saturday I had a shorter round while listening to the new episode of Video game Podtimism, and there was quite rainy on half of the walk, but with the warmth I was in a good mood, and it was pretty nice just walking enjoying myself and looking at people on bicycles stressing and being packed into rain clothes, while I smiled in my shorts and T-shirts.