Author: TheAleosha

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PS4 Sony

Diablo 4

Changed my build to be more poison and traps oriented. That gives me a bit more satisfaction and smugness, as you can win before enemy even knows it: neat feature shows you if the enemy will eventually die from your poison or not.
After reaching level 35, “orange” drop rate improves a lot. Funny though that those legendaries still get quickly outpaces with the yellow-rare drops. The main difference between “rare” and “legendary” being either effect when player is hit or some bonus to cooldowns. Strange that rares have some unique names, but “oranges” are often just generic “bumpy helm of greater might”.
Strangely, they managed to screw up the fight with Andariel. Andariel, the treat of Diablo 2, the sight of her monstrous body! Now, you barely see her. Seriously, it’s a shotout fight. She shots at you from across the screen, then dies. I’m not even sure what she looks like.

Diablo-IV-20240306213114-mp4-000002-002
By level 43 or so I finally got a horse. A horse makes traveling easier, and feels a bit like Legend of Zelda with its “boost carrots”. Here you can also gallop it 3 times in a row. Anyway, since all monsters are basically the same, horse allows speeding up by them, which is great.

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PC Gaming

“BlazBlue – Fighting Game Retrospective”, Thorgi’s Arcade

Arc Systems lost rights to most of the original Guilty Gear characters during the Sammy/Sega merger
So they decided to create a new series, with a new set of characters. The authors of Guilty Gear and BlazBlue are not the same, although they’re good friends and both worked for Arc Systems.
Guilty Gear was becoming more and more complicated, so BlazBlue was also supposed to be simpler.
Toshimichi Mori wanted to make JRPGs, not fighting games. That explains the sprawling storyline of BlazBlue

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*.BAK

Fourpure Nightbus

Got it from the same Beer52 random crate I’m still struggling to finish. It’s a nice surprise, pretty sweet and tasty for a cheap 5% stout. Not sold on their site directly at the moment, so I couldn’t get it even if I wanted to, but all their other beers are ridiculously cheap:

Beer

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*.BAK

Old Pulteney 15 Year Old

5th in the Advent Calendar was Glenfiddich 18. Once I had a whole bottle of it. I don’t consider it a good whiskey. My opinion didn’t change after this taster.

To the Old Pulteney 15 Year Old now. It’s excellent. Surprisingly sweet, a bit sharp for my taste, but leaves with an excellent warmth. At 73GBP per bottle, it’s a bargain.

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PS4 Sony

Street Fighter 3

Now I’ve beaten all three versions of Street Fighter 3 with Yun. The easiest is probably 2nd Impact, as Gill is not even the last boss (Yun’s brother, Yang is), and he doesn’t have the nasty resurrect.

You can also see how the game becomes more “barebone”, as new characters are added. First background quality degrades with 2nd Impact, then with 3rd Strike there are no win screens anymore.

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*.JPG

Shigurui

The story of Shigurui is a story of rivalry between two young samurai: Gennosuke and Seigen.
Gennosuke is considered the best student of Kogan, until Seigen arrives to the dojo. Being the better student, Seigen is supposed to marry Mie, Kogan’s daughter, and inherit the dojo.
But he can’t keep himself from sleeping with Iku, Kogan’s mistress. Kogan learns about it, blinds Seigen and exiles both him and Iku.
Seigen hunts all Kogan’s students one by one, besides Gennosuke and Gonzaemon. He then manages to kill Kogan. This is all set up as if Kogan attacked first, so Gennosuke’s and Mei’s stipend is taked away as a punishment.
Gennosuke and Gonzaemon challenge Seigen to a honor duel. In the end, Seigen manages to kill Gonzaemon, and cut Gennosuke’s arm.
This is again considered shameful. Gennosuke and Mei are forbidden to kill themselves, and instead left to lead life in poverty.

This is a story where the most positive character, Gennosuke, on orders of Kogan, his master, almost participates in the rape of Kogan’s daughter, and Seigen is considered “brave”, because he refuses to participate.

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*.BAK

Gordon Xmas beer

Finally tried it (it’s March, I bought it before Christmas). And it’s exactly what I’d wish from Christmas beer. Chocolate or coffee notes, some spiciness, sweet, but not too heavy.
If I could get it next year, I would.

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Nintendo

“Was it Good? – Chrono Trigger”, Josh Strife Plays

I completed Chrono Trigger, but it was some 20 years ago. Maybe one day, I’ll complete it again.

One fascinating detail is that Chrono Trigger story is the rejected story for Final Fantasy 7. That’s why they have Lavos (evil entity from space that sucks planet energy) and Genova (evil entity from space that sucks planet energy).

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PS4 Sony

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection

I’ve been trying to “get” Street Fighter 3 3rd Strike many times, maybe since 2004 when it was first emulated. But it took me an hour in a real arcade to finally start to understand it.
The 30th Anniversary Collection is probably the best version for a couple of reasons. First, it has a training mode, something most of the original games lacked.
And I’m actually impressed by its “arcade” filter, which turned out to be pretty close to the real arcade.

The character I picked this time is Yun. Not because he’s considered one of the strongest characters by the experts: I’m too dumb to use his juggling abilities. But because his basic attacks are very strong.

This time I even managed to beat Gill. The boss has a nasty ability to ressurect himself with full health, if he has a full meter when downed. Even if you manage to survive his comeback, he usually wins with a timer. So, I won with a timer as well 😝

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*.BAK

Glengoyne 12 Year Old

4th taster from the Advent Calendar.

Some people describe it as easy, and I’d agree. It is not overpowering, just slightly malty, you don’t feel the 43%, but it numbs the mouth nicely. For 45GBP, you can’t wish for much more.

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*.JPG

Shigurui

One cannot escape Berserk legacy.
Here we have the “white”, feminine swordsman that aims to marry the daughter of the dojo master while sleeping with his mistress, the crazy yet dangerous dojo master, and the “black” swordsman, that even trains for a two handed sword to get stronger.
The “white” swordsman is so ambitious, that he even kills his mother, because she was a prostitute, and that would endanger his goal of becoming a samurai.
Shonen is often structured about techniques. Here, the characters are obsessed about 3 things:
– Grip. You’ll see a lot of characters holding a sword between two fingers, instead of in their palm, like normal person would
– Counter-grip. This is supposed to add more speed to the sword, like a bow string. The crazy dojo master secret technique is to hold the sword between the thumb and the index finger of his hand, while the blind psycho holds it with the two fingers of his leg
– Increasing the reach. For that, characters would hold their sword with two fingers by the tip of its handle, instead, just holding it like a normal person would. Well, at least they don’t throw their swords

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PC Gaming

Fuga: Melodies of Steel

Slightly melancholic JRPG about Nazi dogs kidnapping a French cats village, and six children from that village commandeering a tank and trying to save their families. Of course Valkyria Chronicles comes to mind here.
It plays as a linear set of battles, with some visual novel breaks in between, where you pick which characters to bond, similar to later Fire Emblem games. Bonded characters get special attacks when they are put together in the same turret.
The fights are turn-based with priority. You try to exploit enemy weaknesses to one of three types of ordnance to push them down in priority, ideally destroying some of them before they manage to attack you.
If your crew dies, you just have to repeat a few battles. It is explained as time-travel in the story, though.

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*.JPG

Shigurui

Body horror is something Miura, may his name be forever blessed, established 35 years ago. After all Gatz is introduced as one-armed-swordsman in the very first chapter of Berserk.
Still, Shigurui does take it up a notch or two, with a duel between one-handed-swordsman and a blind and limping swordsman, following up with a six-fingered swordsman.
As base as that sounds, there are a lot of very interesting historical details there. The samurai are concerned with how much “koku” (a measure of rice) they earn, or what how many servants they could afford if they marry daughter of the head of the dojo.
The entire story is a puzzle box in itself. A story within a story within a story. 22 swordsmen are gathered to participate in a tournament with real swords. And as the first battle commences, we are told about the history of those two swordsmen. And as we are told about the history, we are told about numerous legends surrounding those swordsmen.

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*.BAK

Glen Moray 2014 Oloroso Matured

3rd bottle from the advent calendar. This one is down my lane, so to speak: sweet and warm. Something I would definitely buy for myself:

https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/glen-moray/glen-moray-2014-oloroso-matured-warehouse-1-whisky/

78GBP for what is basically 10 years old whiskey is a bit steep, but is definitely a nice discovery.

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*.DOC *.MP3

Small Town in Germany, John le Carre

“Young Germans don’t blame their parents for starting the war. They blame them for losing it.”

Out of all John le Carre novels I’ve listened to until now, this is probably the best novel in terms of narrative yet. And it’s not really a spy novel, again! It’s a classical noir novel, with a “detective” in a trench coat, corrupt cops, unfaithful wives, and… Nazis.
The best part of the book, that made me laugh out loud, was the dinner that the head of Chancery, Bradfield, hosts. How the German and Dutch swear their “allegiance” to Britain, “my son studies there, my daughter studies there,” is so similar to how 50 years later, every Russian oligarch still sends their kids to study in Great Britain.
On a more serious and more nuanced tone, the book discusses what is the age of the Nazis’ crimes. Should they be forgiven in ’45? ’55? ’65? Never? Why is one arbitrary date better than the other?
And of course, common to le Carre is the theme of abandonment by your country, in this case, of a hunter for Nazis and a Jew asked to “forgive and forget.”

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*.AVI

Clarkson’s Farm S01

Finished first season of Clarkson’s Farm. I’m not sure how relatable it is for people outside of the UK, but for someone who’s been living there for quite a while, it’s spot-on. And has a lot of interesting details about what it involves to be a farmer.

For me, the most interesting part were the sheep. The relatioship of Jeremy genuinely caring for them, but then also liking the fact that boxes of mutton sell well and shepherds pie is tasty.

And as a bonus, there are those glimpses of British wildlife, like foxes, stupid deer and ridiculous owls.

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*.AVI

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

I’m simply amazed how much meaningful content they managed to squeeze into two hours of screen time. Time to wonder why Star Wars are not able to do the same. But we all know the answer, don’t we?
There is clear motivation for every character, there are brief but accurate explanations of the world setting, and each episode has it’s own well defined mood. Just the episode where heroes had to speak with dead barbarians could redeem another movie in my eyes.

 

 

Underdark action scenes are mind-blowing.

 

Standoff between two wizards is even better.

 

 

And there is a lot of respect to the source material, tons of references, instead of just making stuff up.

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*.BAK

Samsonite Ecodiver Travel S backpack

 

I’ve been using North Face backpacks for many years now. And grew slightly disillusioned by them with time. So after trying out a couple of Samsonite backpacks at the airport, I decided to give them a chance.
Ecodiver line is the water resisting one. That’s easy. Considering the fact that my North Face Surge got soaked quite a few times, I view it as a considerable benefit. The more complicated part is that inside the lineup, there’s Travel Backpack and Laptop Backpack. And smallest Travel Backpack (38L) is larger than the largest Laptop Backpack (26L). Since my surge is 32L and I don’t consider it to be too large for my needs, I went with Travel S model.
Things I like:

  • Two pairs of compression straps, top and bottom
  • Vertical organizers in the large compartment. This is useful for storing a water bottle, for example.
  • The external side compartment also has a zip pocket. On Surge, those were open, and stuff would fall out of it unless you secure them

Things I’m neutral about:

  • The glasses compartment is a mesh inside the large compartment. Don’t see why, could be made a small compartment accessible from the outside and still be waterproof

Things I don’t like that much:

  • Hip belt can be tucked away, but you can’t remove it. I never used hip belt, and don’t expect to, so I’d prefer it to be removable
  • I’d prefer two side pockets instead of one.
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*.BAK

St.Bernardus Christmas Ale

I was looking forward to try this beer, but it turned out into a slight disappointment. It’s not particularly bad, and didn’t leave me with a headache or anything like that, but it just didn’t taste anything special. Not too sweet, not too spicy. Just… alright, I guess.

 

https://triplebrewonline.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/370.jpg

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*.BAK

MtG memories

When I was a kid, our local game store had a poster of Magic the Gathering on its door. I’m not even sure if it sold any, or it was just there. But for some reason, two cards in particular scared me for some reason. Just found them:

Both from the Arabian Nights expansion.