themblan's blog

 The "Nintendo Switch Zelda Breath of the Wild Starter Kit with Travel Case, Screen Protector, Joy Con Guards and Earbuds" by PDP is fundamentally the same case that comes with the Breath of the Wild Special and Master Editions, but with the advantage of being an appealing combination of blue and white. It comes with a screen-protector, Joy-Con Guards, thumbstick-covers, earbuds, and a cleaning-cloth, but I did not use any of these accessories. Still, it's nice to have if you need or want any of these things. Here's what the case looks like from the front and back. My favorite combination of colors is blue on white, so I really loved the way this case looked. Here are the physical dimensions of the case itself: Here is where you will put your Nintendo Switch. It securely closes with a velcro-latch. Here is the compartment for your physical games: Here is where you can put some accessories. I have a USB-C cable in here that connects t...

It has happened throughout time. There is a successful and popular console, but its followup does not do nearly as well. The NES was very successful, but the SNES could not meet its success. The DS was very successful, but the 3DS's sales were nowhere close to it. Of course, there are exceptions. Following PS1's massive success, the PS2 did even better, becoming the best-selling dedicated video-game device of all time. It is the exception however, and not the rule. Why does this happen? The theory I will posit today is that generations are too short and need to be longer. The casual consumer does not want to buy the same thing over and over again. It's no longer the fresh, new, hot thing anymore. Even if everything is improved and there is backward-compatibility, it's not enough to get customers to buy the successor. Although the 3DS improved on the DS in a number of ways, it was just seen as a successor to the DS, and so people were reluctant to purchase one. It to...

The term "racism" and "racist" gets thrown around as an umbrella-term for anything negative regarding racial issues. This should not be. racism a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the other The second half of that definition is the key. Racism is the belief that a race is superior or inferior to another. Then there is prejudice 1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason. 2. any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable. 3. unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group. That second definition is important. P...

I came upon this video on YouTube one day about LeBron, and it got me thinking about whether LeBron is as good as people think he is. This blog-post will retread some of the video's points if they resonated with me, but I will also present my own opinions as well. By looking at him, LeBron James is the best basketball-player in the world. He has athleticism. He is very heavy and bulky, but at the same time, very fast and can jump high. When he jumps, his head consistently reaches the rim. LeBron James is also skilled in multiple areas. He can dribble the basketball, run plays and hand out assists, and play point-forward. He can shoot threes now at a good percentage. He even developed a post-up game. LeBron James is often credited with having a high basketball-IQ and it's true, but does he have the heart of a champion? Is he a good leader? Is he a good teammate? He gets assists, but does he actually make his teammates better? How many players' careers have ended by...

I listen to Teal Swan and she has said that appreciation is one of the highest vibrations to be in. That may be true, but is it the best? If you're just thankful all the time, you have no desire to ameliorate your life. Let's say for example that you are literally living on feces. If you're in a state of appreciation and nothing else, you will not want a better life. You don't know any better. You do not know that you do not have to live on feces. It's not good for you. In all fairness, Teal Swan also talks about how less-than-ideal situations give birth to desire, which then lead to amelioration. The question then becomes, "When does desire stop and appreciation begin?" When should we be satisfied and stop wanting more? Is it possible to stop wanting more? In the case of the Nintendo-fan, I see appreciative people all the time. They are so happy for the ports of Wii U games because they never had Wii Us. Well, what about me? I had all these ga...

Ever since the Wii U "died," I've been lost. I loved the Wii U, from concept to execution. It was Nintendo's first HD console, and it was what I wanted the Wii to be in the first place. I supported it wholeheartedly. I had an income for the first time in my life, and I used it to buy a lot of games and amiibo for it. I wanted Wii U to do well. With Nintendo Switch, I cannot say the same. I never liked the idea of a hybrid-console because it would be underpowered as a console and too big to be a portable, and I was right. I get games for it almost begrudgingly. I have to justify and convince myself to buy a game.   "I'll get it, sure."   "It's portable." That's something I really care about, right?   "A new 3D Mario? Sure. I'll get it one day." That's the weird thing. If Super Mario Odyssey was on Wii U, I would have been totally on board with it from day-one. I reaonably assume, in fact, that it was in d...

People should not be judged by any standard but their own full potentials. For example, you don't have to be attractive. People judge others and themselves by how attractive they are, and this should not be so. Androgyny is the future: no genders. Appreciation and understanding is the goal - not seeing the lack in everything. This applies to Nintendo Switch. Sure, NS is a weak system, but its pros far outweigh its cons. Pessimistic people think that appreciation and understanding are examples of damage-controlling or being defensive, but it really isn't. We just love games like Splatoon so much that we don't feel the need for Overwatch. I know from having played Horizon, that Zelda is a much better game. The examples can go on and on. Ignorance is bliss, but is that really a bad thing? If someone is ignorant and blissful, isn't that better than knowing much and being miserable? If you're constantly comparing things, like Digital Foundry does, you can never b...

Charice Pempengco is a great singer who last year, transitioned to being a transgender-man, and adopted a new name: Jake Zyrus. I remember as a child I lived in a tall apartment-building, and the family next door had two biological females that were older than me by about five years. One was a tomboy, and her name was Ellen, and another was clearly a classic, heterosexual girl. I remember I used to call Ellen using the pronoun "he" a lot, after which my sister would quickly try to correct me and say "she." Thinking back now, I was probably the correct one. Ellen was probably a male at heart. She liked videogames, and had great chemistry with the other boys in the apartment-building, including me. She kept her hair short, and I was just very comfortable with her. Charice was a legendary, biologically-female singer who could sing anything you threw at her. Now that she decided to take testosterone, she has lost her vocal range, and many people on YouTube are very ...

More like Nintendo Lame-o, am I right? Please forgive that joke. In all seriousness, this is a very cool thing that Nintendo has come up with, and it's all possible with the technology inside the Joy-Con controllers. I am mostly interested in the remote-controlled thingies that will move around via the HD Rumble. I was surprised by the spiritual successor to Project Giant Robot, but upon further thought, I think that game will be boring. It will be a standard videogame where you destroy buildings and other robots, and it will be a yawnfest. I am interested in the Variety Kit and put in a pre-order at Amazon. I hope that more kits and stuff are developed. I don't want these two kits to be all that ever come out.

I purchased Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition on January 8th, and almost immediately upon playing it, I regretted my purchase. Aloy, the protagonist, is ugly. She's ugly as a child, and she's ugly as a teen, adult, or however old she is. I appreciate that she is a female protagonist, but I have no feelings towards her whatsoever. With Tomb Raider, I felt an instant connection to Lara Croft because she was strong, and yet vulnerable. Aloy, even as a child, does not evoke my pity. Even when she is bullied, she doesn't cry, and instead acts like a barbarian in a child's body with very little emotion. Horizon is designed like many other AAA games these days. There is a hand-holding tutorial although they do try to disguise it. It is very linear, and there is very little interactivity with the environment early on. Perhaps I've been spoiled by Breath of the Wild, but I prefer the latter's approach to game-design. The game gives you a lot of credit and all...

I subscribe to a lot of female fitness-junkies on YouTube. Why? Because I like their thumbnails and occasionally watch their videos. One common thread among them is their obsession with making their butts bigger. Why do they want to make their asses bigger? Some of them compete in contests, and I guess having a bigger butt gets you more points, but is that the real reason? Heterosexual females are always saying that they don't care about what heterosexual males think. Heterosexual males are always saying that they prefer the natural look of heterosexual females without makeup, excessive exercise, or surgery, and heterosexual females defensively retort that they don't care what heterosexual males think. First of all, this isn't true. The retort is a defensive-mechanism and a power-play to keep heterosexual males under the illusion that they, heterosexual females, have all the power in the world of relationships in a larger world where they feel less powerful than men. ...

You are not fat. A lot of children grow up with this belief that they are fat, because they may have a larger bodyfat-percentage than other kids. Just because your bodyfat-percentage is a little higher than someone else, it doesn't mean that you should think you are the opposite and are completely obese. A lot of kids grow up with this belief, even though through teenagehood, they are not fat. However, once they reach adulthood, they just keep getting fatter. It all starts with the mind. It all starts with thoughts and beliefs. If you believe that you are fat already, you will get fatter every year. Teens with an acceptable bodyfat-percentage become obese by the time they're adults because they have already mentally given up. Because they didn't look like the actresses or athletes they idolized, they were resolved to their untrue belief they they were fat. Children are very harsh on themselves, partly because adults and society are hard on them. L...

Neo Geo's The Last Blade 2 is a game that came late in the platform's life and had some exposure in the West; it even came out on Dreamcast. The Last Blade, however, is a game that got less exposure than its sequel. I probably tried it for a minute or two on an emulator years ago, but I didn't fully realize what a brilliant game it was until I purchased a copy for myself on Nintendo Switch. Like other late games in the Neo Geo's library like Garou: Mark of the Wolves, The Last Blade is beautiful. It's colorful and smoothly animated, while simultaneously being responsive to one's inputs. In fact, it looks better than Garou. While Garou featured ugly, drab-colored, modern stages, The Last Blade does not have to conform to these standards and instead indulges itself in historical Japan, with all its idealistic beauty. The controls and gameplay are as deep as the game is beautiful. There is a dedicated counter-button, kind of like Marth's counter in Smash Br...

When you are part of a larger group, it is easy to get lost in the group's desires. Being a Nintendo-fanchild, I sometimes lose myself and adopt other people's beliefs. Do I really care about Mother 3? Nope. Do I really want GTA on NS? Nope. Don't lose yourself in the crowd. Stay true to yourself. It is a comforting feeling to be part of a larger group. You feel safe. But it's dangerous and not good for you in the long run. Be bold and free. Be true to yourself.

0:19 - The World Ends with You -Final Remix- I was surprised that this was true. It was originally part of the kappa-rumor from reddit. I beat it before, when it was on DS and I really do not like this game. It has one annoying, repetitive music-track, and the sprites and animation are very flat and the whole look is not appealing. 1:25 - Pokkén Tournament DX DLC I was very surprised with this one. Two new characters and four new support-characters? Unfortunately, the new two new characters aren't very cool. That is the main problem I have with Pokkén Tournament - most of the characters aren't cool, or even cute. Mewtwo, the most badass Pokemon on the planet, looks very weird in this game. The cute Pokemon like Emolga are relegated to support-characters in this game. I would have loved if they picked better Pokemon, or modeled them better. 2:21 - Kirby Star Allies I didn't pay much attention to this one. Still not a fan of Kirby-games. 3:25 - Kirby Battle ...

It's ironic that I say this because I wrote about finally getting 120 Stars in Super Mario 64 after over 20 years, but I must say that I don't agree with this whole "gotta clear my backlog of games" mentality. It perpetuates the disposability of games - that once you "beat" one, they're done with. Games are art, and this mentality also perpetuates the perception that games aren't art, and are instead, products to be consumed.   This is not how I enjoy my games. If I just play games to beat them, I can't appreciate them very much. Going from one game to the next, just to beat them, is not a very satisfying way to play. You have to savor them. The best way to enjoy games is to treat them as precious, as if the one you are playing is the only one you can play. You will try to, for example, get multiple endings in Chrono Trigger because you want to, and not because you have a completionist's checklist.

Lately, I've been watching a lot of animal-rescue videos on YouTube. They are entertaining, heartwarming, cute, funny, sad, and even infuriating, but after watching a few, it dawned on me that it's ironic that we're rescuing animals from ourselves. We, humans, are causing the conditions that animals need rescuing from. I think part of the reason why this is, is because we are subconsciously creating these situations. We have the desire to feel useful and loving towards others, as well as a desire to feel love and gratitude from those we rescue, and thus we are creating this harsh reality where animals need rescuing. Instead of putting a bandage on a wound, we should be trying to prevent the wound in the first place. In other words, the society we have created needs to change. We need to create a society that doesn't require rescuing in the first place. We need a create a society that doesn't need police, a military, or animal-rescue taskforces. Of course, this i...

I originally was gifted a Nintendo 64 in the summer of 1997 for getting "straight A's." Technically, I got an A- or two, but my parents were nice enough to grant me my desire anyway. Along with the system, I was gifted the obvious game for the system: Super Mario 64. That summer was filled with great memories. I got Mario Kart 64 later, and then Star Fox 64 after that. I did tend to focus on one game at a time right after I got it, but in the case of Super Mario 64, I plugged away at the game for the entire summer, trying to get 120 Stars. I got close. I ended up with 118 Stars, after which I quit. The "Wing Mario Over The Rainbow" Star in particular gave me massive frustration and most directly led to my quitting. After summer was over, I did not play the Nintendo 64 as much, and back then, I was still guilt-ridden with the fact that everything cost money, and when I got bored of the Nintendo 64 and its games, I gave the system and games back to my dad for ...

I purchased Doom (2016) on PC after I was disappointed in the version for Nintendo Switch. I could tolerate the graphics on the NS-version, but the controls were the things I could not tolerate for very long. I believe that first-person shooters should be played with a keyboard and mouse, just like 2D platformers should be played with a controller. It's just how I prefer to play games. When I first laid my eyes on the graphics for Doom on PC, I was very pleased. Running at the native resolution of my monitor's 1080p, it was very sharp and ran very fast. Afterwards, when I went back to the NS-version, I couldn't believe my eyes. What I once thought was tolerable was now intolerable. I am by no means an expert with a keyboard and mouse, but it is far more intuitive and enjoyable to control FPSes with them than with a controller. An average keyboard-and-mouse user will have a far more enjoyable experience than an average console-gamer with a controller. I remember Ash Paul...

When we usually think of game-collectors, we usually think of people who collect physical games. They have shelves full of games and film their YouTube-videos in front of them. With the paradigm shifting toward digital games, however, a new breed of collector is slowly looming on the horizon: the digital-game collector.   The most prevalent of these is the Steam-user with hundreds of games. He or she will buy lots of games and never play them, because they are cheap. Steam-sales are still very popular and eagerly-anticipated. I used to think I was done with Steam-sales, but after you stop buying games for a while, you feel the magnetic pull toward Steam-sales once again in a year or two. As opposed to Steam-games, I was more of a digital-game collector with regards to Nintendo-platforms. I bought a 2TB hard-drive for my Wii U and slowly I amassed a massive library of games. I also decided to go digital on my 3DS. I bought microSD-cards and it was nice having games playabl...

At last month's The Game Awards, Bayonetta was revealed to be coming to Nintendo Switch, but they screwed up in two ways: Announcing the ports of the first two games before installment number 3. Boasting about it being exclusive to NS When they kicked off the trailers with one touting the ports of the first two games, it wasn't really exciting. They should have kicked them off with the trailer for the elusive third game, and then reveal that the first two would be ported afterwards. Instead, we got the first trailer for the two games, and then a live-action pause. Reggie and Geoff had some words and then we could guess what was coming, and even if we didn't, it was no longer surprising. On a multiplatform show like TGA, one shouldn't boast about exclusives. Don't even use the word "exclusive" in a trailer. Just have the platform(s) on the bottom or in a corner. We will figure it out and deal with it. Only people who are obsessed about the...

I was watching old episodes of American Idol the other day, and I was disgusted by how the show treated people - like cattle, herded from room to room, as they searched for people who could sing. Whether you get picked to go to Hollywood or not, you don't feel good. If you don't get picked, you feel worthless, but if you do, all you get is a feeling of relief. It's not really happiness or joy you feel. You would get joy from singing whether you got picked or not. Auditioning for American Idol comes from a desire to be recognized by others for your singing, as well as the desire to make money from it. American Idol is just a drop in the bucket in this sewage-filled cesspool we call capitalism. It's the same situation for any other job-opening. Just like prostitutes, we have to advertise ourselves on resumes so that people will give us money. Is this the type of world we want to live in - a world where we feel like cattle and pieces of meat to be judged? Let us esch...