The Division’s straightforward formula has been activated

I’ve been playing Tom Clancy’s The Division–from here forward more succinctly written just as The Division, because, really now, I don’t think Tom Clancy the author man had anything to do with it–for about two weeks now, plugging away at keeping virus-laden Manhattan, New York as safe as one possibly can during these tough times. I’ve also given a lot of bottles of water to those in need for clean, sometimes trendy, attire, and I’ve also done my fair share of shooting “bad” dudes in the fleshy bits while hanging back to heal my teammates and distract enemies. It’s a cover-based shooter, for better or worse, and good fun with a group of friends.

The story has promise, banking on at least my fear about both chemical warfare and the mass hysteria that unearths during the annual Black Friday shopping event, which, with every new year, begins to expand and trickle into the Thursday prior. Maybe even starting on Wednesday night for some greedy stores. Anyways, a smallpox pandemic called “Green Poison” is spread on banknotes and then circulated around, forcing Manhattan to be quarantined by the government. The U.S. government jumps into action, activating sleeper agents in the population who operate for the Strategic Homeland Division to assist emergency responders, now called the Joint Task Force (JTF), in restoring order. You play as one of these agents, doing things like retrieving important personnel and combating criminal groups, like the Rikers, which are escapees from Rikers Island.

To be honest, and I don’t know if this is because I’ve played the majority of story missions cooperatively with a group of chatty souls, where it is often hard to pay attention to cutscenes and ambient dialogue, but the story seems like all premise and nothing truly substantial. I’ve rescued people, but they aren’t interesting or important to much else that happens afterwards, and every scenario is built around getting the Division agents into a room full of low barriers and red, explosive barrels to have a chaotic shootout. That’s fine and all, considering the shooting gameplay is solid and enjoyable, but a lot of the action doesn’t feel very purposeful. Especially when you walk away from a story mission with only a new weapon blueprint and some XP.

I completed the last main story mission a few nights ago, and the reason I know it was the last main story mission is because a screen pops up afterwards, telling you about going into the Dark Zone and promising more content in the future. I don’t really even know what happened. I hid towards the back while my higher level teammates shot down a helicopter. I thought we were looking for a cure or a means to get there, but I don’t know why we did this, and why the plot ended here. Seems like it stopped too short, and the rest of any story bits can be picked up via the hundreds of collectibles scattered across the map. I’d like to tell you that I won’t go and get them all, but this is me…I love setting a waypoint and heading to it to grab a thing.

If anything, The Division has a fashion problem. Which is unfortunate, because it’s the aspect of the game I’m drawn to the most. Yup, you read that right. I’d rather play dress up than shoot up. I love dressing up my avatars in games like The Sims or Animal Crossing: New Leaf or Fallout 4. It helps bring out both my personality and theirs, and getting a new piece of clothing to try on is exciting. Not in real life, but digitally…yes. I can’t really explain it. Alas, the clothing drops in The Division are drab and dull and barely contain any character. I’ve mostly leaned toward outfits that feature sharp oranges or blues to at least stand out a bit in this colorless world. Thankfully, your clothing inventory is separate from gear and has no limit, but it can still be overwhelming to sift through in search of a new hat or pair of hiking boots.

I hit the level cap of 30 last night, which now unlocks daily missions–basically the same story missions you’ve already done, but at a higher difficulty with the promise of good loot–as well as high-end gear. Which means a gun that does more damage, a backpack that provides more health, and so on. You know, numbers going up. I haven’t experienced much of the Dark Zone yet, with intentions of entering it after checking off most of the story-central stuff. Unfortunately, I still have like three hundred different collectibles to get, not an exaggeration, as well as two more wings to upgrade back at my main base of operation. I suspect I’ll keep playing, certainly to get all these items, but also because I bought the game’s season pass, and there’s more content down the road. Hopefully it’s more than just a bunch of generic-sounding missions that force you to aim a gun at someone who is also aiming a gun at you.

Overall, I’d say that The Division is a pretty good game, with some severe weaknesses when it comes to its story and mission variety. It is at its most enjoyable when playing with friends, telling stories, making jokes, and occasionally paying attention to the dangers that actually lay ahead. Running to and fro across the map by myself reveals just how lonely of a time one can have in Ubisoft’s diseased New York City, and getting into firefights along the way results in either being amazingly easy or the most difficult struggles of your career as a secret agent. I prefer a crew and playing a part in said crew, which, for me, is to toss out a turret to distract enemies while running around and ensuring everyone is healed up. I’ll also occasionally fire a bullet at someone. It’s camaraderie that keeps The Division together, keeps me navigating through less-than-impressive menu UI. Without that, the sickness will win.

2016 Game Review Haiku, #26 – Frog Fractions

Fractional scoring
Leads to unconventional
Journey to Bug Mars

–

Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.

The instructional quest of three tutorials for four Achievements

It all began with doing half of Terraria‘s tutorial, which put me at a perfect Gamerscore of 55,555, which, to number-obsessive nerds like myself, is an amusing triumph. Loyal readers of Grinding Down should already know that I have a penchant for going after perfect scores, like 10,000, 20,000, and so on, but when I saw that I was sitting humbly at 55,550 after playing some Tom Clancy’s The Division…I just knew I needed to make it something special. I assumed it wouldn’t be tough to do, and, for once, I assumed correctly.

And so I scanned my list of games, searching for a 5-point Achievement that could slide me into the sweet spot. I found a couple, but none of them screamed easy to me, and I couldn’t risk going after something like this only to pop an Achievement for 10 or 15 points and completely blow the plan. Thus, I settled on Terraria, which I got for free back in April 2015, downloaded, and then didn’t touch. There’s also a copy on my laptop that I never got into; I’ve always viewed it as a more complex 2D Minecraft, and the thought of maneuvering its UI via a controller is beyond off-putting. Still, there’s an Achievement for 5 points for starting the tutorial, as well as one for 5 points upon completing it, which lead to me loading the event up, beginning it, and then shutting my console down. Y’know, like a boss.

Anyways, since I’ve now already leapfrogged past this 55,555 mark and am on my way to the coveted 60,000 check-box, here’s photographic proof from a few days ago for preservation’s sake:

Aw yeah to the heck yeah. Also, maybe I need to update my user pic so that it fills in that whole gray circle. Maybe.

Anyways, sticking with the tutorial theme of this post, I also then played the tutorial levels for Gears of War 2 and Supreme Commander 2, both of which have been added to the free games list for Gaming with Gold. I like that, for these two games, as well as Terraria, the tutorial sections are optional or skippable. Most games work them into the opening level, which can sometimes feel forced and too hand-holdy. The Gears of War 2 tutorial has you teaching a rookie how to be a super soldier like yourself, which at least makes sense from a narrative perspective since you already know how to actively reload from the previous game, whereas Supreme Commander 2 explains every step of how to play an RTS game on a console, in two lengthy parts. It brought back all those reasons why I don’t love this genre, unfortunately.

Hands down, my favorite tutorial level to date is the one from Deus Ex. Here’s a convenient visual walkthrough of it. Anyways, again, it’s separate from the main campaign, but does a good job of teaching you a number of important mechanics without overwhelming you. Plus, there’s room to be goofy and explore, and there’s even a secret area you can access if you search hard enough. I feel like I’ve played the tutorial more times than the actual game at this point.

In the end, here are all of my digitally sweet and easy e-peen rewards:

Terraria Student (5G): Begin the tutorial!

Terraria Expert (5G): You have completed the tutorial!

Green as Grass (10G): Train the rook (any difficulty)

Start Here (10G): Complete both parts of the tutorial

I wonder what weird side mission I’ll undergo to nail 60,000 Gamerscore on the dot, which, at this rate, is either by summer or end of 2016. Hmm. Either way, I’m sure it’ll be weirdly fun to write about. Until then, I guess.

Natural ability and magnetism only get you so far in Teslagrad

I’m not officially committing to anything here, as committing to tasks in the past has not worked out phenomenally, but 2016 is hopefully going to be the year that I actually make a dent in my PlayStation Plus backlog instead of simply day-dreaming about doing so. That said, my digital collections on the PC and Xbox 360/One also continue to expand daily, proving to be strong competition for my attention. Regardless of that, I’d like to think we’re off to a decent start so far, with Rain and The Unfinished Swan already getting played and put away for good. I suspect I’ll be going after the smaller indie titles first than, say, that copy of Batman: Arkham City that scares me to even start.

Y’know, like these little critters:

• Quantum Conundrum
• Closure
• Lone Survivor: The Director’s Cut
• Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark
• Stealth Inc 2: Clone of Thrones
• Puppeteer
• Vessel
• Unmechanical: Extended
• Chariot
• …and even more that I’m forgetting to list!

Also, looking at that list of names all together really hits home that many of these smaller titles blend together in my brain. I don’t know the difference between Vessel and Closure at this point. So we’re not starting with either of them.

Well, this is probably only amusingly strange to me, but check this out. At the beginning of 2016, as mentioned before, I played a game called Rain, which is about these little children being chased by monsters through some nameless Eastern European town as it rains like crazy. Flash-forward a month or so, and I’m giving Teslagrad a chance, which is a game from the funnily enough named studio Rain Games. It also opens in a similar fashion, with a young boy running from the king’s angry-looking guards in the Kingdom of Elektropia as the weather takes a turn for wetter pastures. Eventually, the boy ends up inside a maze-like tower, where he’ll discover special powers, as well as the rich history behind the kingdom’s many conflicts.

Let’s see. Teslagrad is a colorful, 2D puzzle-platformer. Magnetism and electromagnetic powers are the key to solving many of the game’s puzzles and finding new paths to take through the mystical tower. So far, the game features minimal combat segments, though I did fight a massively mechanical owl with a cage for a body in a boss-like fashion. Instead, it’s mostly about electric-based puzzle sections and precise platforming and teleporting. Yes, teleporting…though you can only dash forward a small distance and not through every substance in front of you. The tower can be explored in a non-linear way  though I wish there was more direction or sign-posting to confirm you are making progress and not simply wandering or revisiting areas in uncertainty.

Here’s what I’m totally into when it comes to Teslagrad. The art style betrays you, because the colorful characters and environments quickly become menacing and frustrating, all without changing their look. Honestly, I went into this game fairly blind and assumed it was an adventure game of sorts, not one that relied heavily on quick reflexes and using your noggin to move platforms to and fro. This is a good thing, as it is fun, once in a while, to be deceived. Solving a tough puzzle is satisfying, but figuring things out occasionally requires simply trial and error tactics. Ultimately, it requires timing and patience. Every now and then you’ll stumble into a cinematic cutscene, which is presented within a mini theater using cute cutouts and minimal animation.

Now for the stuff that is both driving me mad and further away from the game, to the point that I suspect I might walk away from this if things don’t improve in my next session. It’s a little too open, with next to no hints pointing you in the right direction, other than up the tower. The map is mostly useless, represented as simply large colored squares and rectangles that do not tell you much about the space or if there are any collectibles left in there to grab.

I actually think I’m nearing the end of Teslagrad, having just taken down the third boss of five total. Oleg took many, many tries, probably somewhere in the thirties. Alas, there is nothing too puzzle-tricky about the boss fights. There’s a pattern to each that’s easy to see, but it must be carried out hair-width precision three times. The repetition does not result in excitement, but rather frustration, as one tiny mistake will cost you the entire encounter. I don’t plan on getting all the scroll collectibles, despite each one being tied to a Trophy unlock, so perhaps I’ll just grit and bear it and head down as straight a path as possible to the last two bosses. If I’m successful, you’ll know it by the birth of a new haiku.

Stains and the Giant does not reveal how the dog got its name

The whole time I was playing Stains and the Giant, which, I’ll grant you, was no more than maybe fifteen minutes total, I couldn’t stop thinking about how Stains the dog got its name. When push comes to shove, there’s only so many possible scenarios for a puppy to deserve such a calling, especially when it is young and innocent and unable to do cool, heroic-like feats that could potentially get him dubbed something cool like Jumps or Digs. Nope. The dog’s name is Stains, and it is left up to your imagination as to why.

Instead, what one should be focusing on in Stains and the Giant from Esklavos is fixing the magical portal, which will help teleport Stains…um, to somewhere else. I don’t know how the dog arrived here or where Stains is off to next, but it is not too vital to getting things done. To fix this portal, the dog will need to travel from one island to another (there’s four in total) using his airship, gathering items, solving puzzles for a fisherman, a bird, and a giant, and memorizing a bunch of clue codes–or do as I did, and take a picture on your cell phone of things you might need to reference later when the time is right. Saves on the backtracking and mind-scrunching.

The point and click mechanics are of the usual sort, and you can combine a few items in your inventory to create new ones. The puzzles are more geared towards patterns and memorization. For example, on the first island, you might spot a sign of strange symbols. On the next island, you’ll find those symbols again and must click on them in the same order as previously observed. Stuff like that. In terms of audio, the few short songs are jauntily enough, almost something you’d hear at a carnival, but they don’t last very long, leaving you with just ambient noises, like birds chirping and the sound of the ocean. That’s fine, but when you are stuck on a single screen for some time, a longer song is more desirable. Strangely, there are no sound effects for items interacting with another, not even a sound to let you know that using a pick-axe on a cloud is beyond ineffective.

I really dig the cartoonish, colorful look in Stains and the Giant. Both items you can interact with and the background art live on equal ground, which makes it sometimes difficult to know what you can or can’t click on, but it also helps to keep everything meshing together realistically, even when we’re discussing fantasy elements like magic skulls and a talking bird. There’s little to no animation, which resulted in me getting stuck in one spot where I hadn’t realized I had solved a puzzle and a crystal had appeared on the screen since there was no action indicating something like that was happening. Also, Stains is really cute looking and reminds me fondly of Frasier‘s Eddie.

Also, as far as I can tell, Stains has a few more adventures in his future, with Stains and the Yeti and Stains and the Guru already up and ready to go. I’ll have to give these a try at some point, though I’ll continue to hold out hope for Stains and the Person that Named Him That.

2016 Game Review Haiku, #21 – Stains and the Giant

Island to island
To find scepter, fix portal
Stains is sad dog name

–

Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.

Covert Front will test your endurance with its traps and trickery

You might have noticed an influx of haikus as of late about Covert Front, an episodic point-and-click adventure series from Mateusz Skutnik and Karol Konwerski that began back in July 2007, and that’s because I’ve been playing a lot of Covert Front. See, that first puzzle was easy, almost to the point of idiotic. It’s possibly done on purpose, to ease you into things and make you believe that you can do this. That you are a super sleuth of steel. However, eventually things ramp up both in difficulty and red herrings, and you will concede to not knowing what to do next. I won’t hide the fact that I looked up a lot of answers online, but only to help put me a few steps ahead. Y’know, until I got stuck again.

Covert Front takes place in 1904, but an alternate history 1904. The sort where where a technological revolution in the previous century resulted in a premature World War I. During this conflict, a bunch of specialists from varying fields held a secretive conference in Berlin called “Knowledge for Victory,” and, shockingly, almost a hundred of these specialists vanished afterwards. You play as a spy agent code-named Kara who is investigating the disappearance of General Karl von Toten, and this adventure will see you traveling from shady location to shadier location, unearthing clues and tracking your target down.

As a point-and-click adventure series, you’ll do a lot of pointing and clicking. That’s obvious. You won’t do too much combining of items from your inventory, and using items on in-game environment items requires precision. If you want to unscrew those screws, you need to use the item directly on them, not just in the general vicinity. A lot of the puzzles require thinking and memorization, like entering passwords or knowing exactly what labeled drawer to search in the library. One might be able to brute force these puzzles, but not all of them, which is where a lot of roadblocks lay, especially for the far more obtuse sections, like that dream-esque sequence involving Toten’s magic typewriter.

There’s definitely a lot of pixel hunting too at work here, not just for items, but for additional scenes, as sometimes clicking in just the right spot will reveal a whole new area to explore. Yeah, I’m looking at you, pipe along the side of the house by the airplane. I do wish these weren’t as difficult to discover as it feels a little too unfair, something I also ran into in Skutnik’s Where is 2016? game. Also, red herrings galore. You’ll walk into a scene and immediately see a handful of common day items that are typically picked up in other adventure games and used to open doors and such, but they aren’t interactive here, no matter how many times you click or concoct some reason X item in your inventory should work with it. By the fourth episode, I got used to this and simply ignored a lot of stuff, but it was difficult to do so in the beginning.

One of the nicer aspects of playing a game series that took several years to complete back to back is that I can really see how it improved, both technically and visually, from episode to episode, of which there are four. Covert Front‘s graphics don’t really change all that much, but do become more detailed and stylish, and the cutscenes ramp up the camera angles and action. On occasion, Kara’s model looks strangely odd, with lengthy arms and a neck that stretches a little too far to the sky, and this changes from game to game. Voice acting gets added to give Kara more depth, but never to the point that I actually knew her or felt anything for her. She’s just a vehicle to get things done, and yes, she gets things done, but I’d have been okay with her failing too.

Still, I came away from the Covert Front series enjoying the ride, but feeling pretty dumb. Maybe the brain-teasers in it are just not for me and my simpler solving skills…or maybe the games themselves are unnecessarily difficult. I did find Episode 4 “The Spark of Life” to be the easiest of the bunch, with me resorting to looking nothing up online, so maybe Skutnik took some similar criticism to heart by then and tweaked the puzzles accordingly. There are a couple of series from him that I want to try out, like Submachine and Mr. Mothball, but not just yet. My mind needs a nap.

Samorost has always been and always will be pleasantly weird

The surprising news the other day was that Samorost 3 is on its way, launching on PC and Mac on March 24, 2016. That’s awesome. I mean, to be honest, I haven’t really thought about the Samorost series in a good long while. I played Samorost 2 way back in the day (circa 2010, when I was moving out of my studio apartment), and only just realized with the latest news that I never touched the first in the series, though I did bang my head against a wall for hours in Machinarium, less in Botanicula. Suffice to say, I like Amanita Design’s games, as weird as they are, and I want to eventually play them all.

That’s why I headed over to the developer’s website, where you can play the first Samorost for free in your browser. It’s fairly short, depending on how good of a clicker and puzzle solver you are, and it’s more about interacting with the environment than controlling the space gnome directly. The story for the premiere entry in the series is that an asteroid is on a direct course to crash into the gnome’s home planet, and he will do whatever it takes to not let that happen. And so you’ll travel to this asteroid, which is full of life and machinery and isn’t just some hunk of rock hurling its way towards death and destruction, and try to change its path. You do it by clicking, deducing.

Almost instantly, you’ll find yourself in a strange, surreal world with Samorost, where common combines with odd, solving somewhat leisurely puzzles that occasionally require a bit of extra thinking and clicking. Paying attention to everything happening on screen is vital to making progress, even if it is as minor as bugs making noises or the way a signpost is facing. Sometimes it is difficult to take everything in when you are presented with this gorgeous, stunning mix of reality and artwork. At times, it can be jarring, like the screenshot above, but for the most part it becomes the norm, and you begin to believe in this strange planet and wonder how these critters and beings survive and whether or not they also know they are on a bad path to their own demise. Well, I did.

Thankfully, the day was saved, as well as the space gnome’s home. I just skimmed my review of Samorost 2 to remind me what happened next, and it involved a dog getting kidnapped by aliens. I wonder what the plot to Samorost 3 will be; truthfully, it doesn’t matter, because this is the sort of point-and-click adventure game where what’s on the screen and getting to the next one to see more wild imagination come to life is the reward. I’m sure something will drive the space gnome forward, but it’s not essential for me to care about. It’s the journey that matters, and the locations so far are absolutely stunning in their strangeness, their ability to be unnatural and yet familiar, a place one could live in if that was their role in life.

Between this and Night in the Woods, 2016 is shaping up to be stellar for adventure games. I also need to get around to Oxenfree and Firewatch at some point as well. Too many amazing titles to try, not enough time. Such is life, when you are not a space gnome.

Adding to the Backlog – Greater than nine, but less than eleven PS2 games

The world’s weird, and I say that because it was one year ago in February 2015 that I went out to my friendly neighborhood GameStop and grabbed a whole bunch of PS2 games for next to zero dollars. Well, I did it again the other day, feeling compelled to take one more gander before future purchases like these can only be done online, without the thrill of discovery. See, I moved from a house to an apartment since then, and there seems to be only one GameStop in my area still stocking shelves of case-less, manual-less PS2 games, and variety, in terms of selection, are growing slimmer by the day. I feel like I grabbed the last of whatever one might consider good games, leaving behind dozens and dozens of copies of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, SingStar ABBA, and Madden NFL ’08, which I assume will eventually just get trashed.

Anyways, since there’s ten total, I’m just going to list ’em below, along with their prices. Keep in mind that these were already marked down for me being a Pro Member, as well as from the store running a 75% off promotion on all things old school. Oh boy. Here we go then, in alpha order:

• Bombastic ($0.45)
• Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz ($0.67)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ($0.67)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ($0.67)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ($1.13)
• Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law ($0.67)
• Jak X: Combat Racing ($1.13)
• Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny ($0.67)
• The Golden Compass ($0.45)
• The Sims 2: Pets ($2.25)

All right. That’s a whopping $8.76 in total. Not too shabby, all in all. I’ll touch briefly on some of these and why, in my zany mind, I determined they were worth snagging on this last hurrah out into the wild. We’ll save a longer analysis and fleshed-out thoughts for down the road, when I actually get to play these. When that will be, I naturally can’t say, considering I haven’t even really dipped into the ones I got a year back, though I did attempt to play My Street and have a post-in-progress in my drafts folder on it…I should really do something about that soon.

Both Bombastic and Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz are games I’ve never heard of before. The former seems to involve exploding dice, and the latter is a, surprise surprise, multiplayer trivia show about pop culture.

Much like my fascination with all things Lord of the Rings, I’m just as curious about the videogame adaptations of the Harry Potter series. Specifically, the non-LEGO versions. I’ve only played a few before–one was a terrible DS title, and the other is a spin-off about Quidditch–but never any of the ones really dealing with the early going-ons of Harry and his school days. In short, I want to explore Hogwarts and go to classes and do a quest to figure out the new password for Gryffindor’s common room.

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law…er, I have no idea what this is, having never watched a lot of the cartoon show. Why couldn’t I have found a videogame take on Home Movies instead?

Look, Jak X: Combat Racing. I really only got you to complete the collection, not because I want to play you. The driving around the desert and car combat from Jak 3 were my least favorite parts, so here’s a whole game devoted to that stuff. Insert some snarky comment from Daxter here.

I played an Onimusha game once, back in college, but I don’t think I could confidentially tell you which one or anything about it other than it was my roommate’s. They seem like decent character action titles, and I was surprised at how good the game actually looks for its day.

I’m a big fan of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, but less so of the film adaptation of the first book The Golden Compass. The theatrical version was too friendly and safe, scared to put children in danger. Heck, they even changed the ending, which would have greatly affected the plot in the next two films…if they ever got made. Pretty sure its reception was not great despite all the cute and cuddly dæmon voiced by mega stars, and they made a videogame tie-in, so I can only imagine how bad that turned out. Wait, I don’t have to imagine anymore…I own a copy. Woo?

Funny enough, I played The Sims 2: Pets at my girlfriend’s the other week, doing my best to recreate my kitty cats and a happy, stable home for all of us. I didn’t put a lot of work into either the cats or home, as I was just messing around and not planning on saving my progress. For example, instead of a bathroom, I simply had a toilet in the living room and surrounded it by plants. Anyways, for this price, I had to snag a copy for myself, which maybe I’ll mess around with once I am fully finished with The Sims FreePlay. You know, sometime in 2025. Sad zing.

Right. Well, here’s a whole bunch of more games to add to my backlog. May they wait patiently until it is their turn in the spotlight.

2016 Game Review Haiku, #16 – Covert Front, Episode 1 “All Quiet on the Covert Front”

A World War I spy
Seeks revolutionary
Secret, search slowly

–

Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.