Twice per year, the Games Done Quick team host a week long marathon to try and speed run as many games as possible. These range the whole gambit of any%, 100%, glitchless, glitch showcase, race, blindfolded, 2 player 1 controller, reverse boss rush, mystery game race, team relay race, game randomiser race and more. All to try and raise as much money as possible for Doctor's Without Borders They are continuing up their 2018 speedrunning with a speedrun of Banjo Tooie any% run, followed up by Spyro the Dragon Any% run, and will be continuing throughout the week with a wide variety of events. Give them a watch and donate some money, will you not?

https://gamesdonequick.com/

Edit: Fixed who they are donating to.

Sorta reaching out to anyone who knows about him.

 VitriolInk deactivated his FA account, plus his Tumblr isn't the brightest thing either.

Anyone know if he's good?

Update: he made a post saying he's leaving: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/27719915/

So fun story, we had internet there. But they had a filter that blocked FA. So couldn't check the results until I got back today.

Thanks for the wishes, the weekend was alright, we climbed a mountain on my birthday (That or a very big steep hill, it was fairly tall either way) and then had a party. Gifts we are doing this evening (Because they couldn't take them all with us) so I'll be looking forward to seeing what I got.

Answer to the giveaway

So the clues in the description where all youtube video links. You add the tail to a hyperlink and it'll take you to the following songs. (Listen to them if you haven't already)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz8c17upEwM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9O2Rjn1azc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAWmSzN7Uf8

Now the link between Bastion, Transistor and Pyre? They are all made by Supergiant Games, so I wanted you to Name for me one of the well known examples of a SUPERGIANT Star, most of the winners named Rigel :P

Gotta Post Fast

I'd like to say I got numerous responses and all of you posted on 12:00, no one was early this time. FA doesn't list seconds so I don't know how many seconds were between it, but it was like, 60 at tops.

Our winning order is:

1st -  Kitsuna
2nd -  Half-Awake-Jake
3rd -  swinging
4th -  flutterguy10
5th -  fenken

Some of you have already sent me your ordered list, I do need to wait on some earlier in the queue first though before I can give out the prizes. So if you haven't, label the order of which games you want, and I'll try to get the keys to you as promptly as possible.

Also, if you have won, I need a response by Wednesday, otherwise I will skip you and give the next person on the list their most wanted game that is still available. And  Kitsuna hope you enjoy the copy of Okami HD, it is unforgettably amazing.

Off to see Relatives, will I have internet at the place we are staying? Who knows, Hopefully I do so I can complete the giveaway tomorrow. Otherwise the announcement of winner will be done on Monday.

As a refresher, I have posted various birthday themed images I've commissioned and hidden in the description will be clue, combine the clues over the week with the final conundrum on the latest image and you can claim one of the prizes from my pile.

That pile this time include:

Hiveswap: Act 1
Crawl
Aviary Attorney
Superhot
Tooth and Tail

PLUS as a bonus this time around, the first person to get the correct answer will also win a bonus copy of Okami HD, my favourite game of all time.

Send your answer in when this hits zero and no earlier. https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/birthday?iso=20180505T000001&p0=2422&msg=Neko%27s+Birthday+Steam+Key+Giveaway&font=hand

After the top 5 have been delcared, I will ask the winners to order the list of games from most want to least wanted. Then I will give out their most wanted game from those available, winner getting first pick, so even if you come 5th, there's still a chance you can get your most anticipated game.

You may want to include the list in your answer. Good luck for all contending.

Another year onwards, more steam games to giveaway for my birthday.

Similar to the Christmas Draw, I will be posting various birthday themed images I've commissioned and hidden in the description will be clue, combine the clues over the week with the final conundrum on friday and you can claim one of the prizes from my pile.

That pile this time include:

Hiveswap: Act 1
Crawl
Aviary Attorney
Superhot
Tooth and Tail

PLUS as a bonus this time around, the first person to get the correct answer will also win a bonus copy of Okami HD, my favourite game of all time.

Keep your eyes on the images posted this weeks, there will be clues hidden in the comment and come Friday I will post the final conundrum which you have to answer using the clues you've gathered, with the answer submission the moment it hits Saturday over here

The time you need is right here: https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/birthday?iso=20180505T000001&p0=2422&msg=Neko%27s+Birthday+Steam+Key+Giveaway&font=hand

Now as for responding to the winner, I will say that I am actually away for my birthday with relatives for the weekend, so the winner result might have to wait until the monday. If I can get internet connection with my phone there, I will post the response on Saturday.

Good luck for all contending. The challenge is quite hard this time around.

Hey all, been some time since I've posted on here so I will give an update on what's going on.

- My birthday is coming up once again on the 5th next month, there will be a line-up of images I've commissioned over this month that'll be posting around the date. So be ready, the cakes are coming back. (Also if you have any gift art that would be super-duper appreciated, but I'm not expecting anything to show up in particular)

- With that, I will confirm there will be another giveaway of Steam games, I will probably be running this from May 1st to May 4th, as I will not actually be here on my birthday itself, it's bank holiday weekend here in the UK and we are seeing relatives that weekend. I will post further news on this event closer to the date, but it will be as cryptic as normal. So you will need your thinking hats for it.

- After my Birthday though, I'm just hoping May goes well for once, as for the last 2 years now I've had life-devastating things happen in May. First a loss of job that took 7 months to find a new job, and last year... well, I still don't like talking about what happened. I don't want anything bad to happen this May, please. Just let me have a nice month for once.

- My laptop has been having charging difficulties all month, first thought it was the adapter (Nope), then thought it was the battery (nope), now it might be the connector, It's getting sent off this wednesday so hopefully it can be fixed, but honestly I'm thinking it's near time to upgrade it soon.

- Lastly, Monster Hunter World is pretty darn good isn't it? I got in about 3 weeks ago and... wait, 90 hours playtime? ooh my, that's, that's a lot of hours. And there's a new limited time siege? I'm going to have more time sunk into this aren't I?

Twice per year, the Games Done Quick team host a week long marathon to try and speed run as many games as possible. These range the whole gambit of any%, 100%, glitchless, glitch showcase, race, blindfolded, 2 player 1 controller, reverse boss rush, mystery game race, team relay race, game randomiser race and more. All to try and raise as much money as possible for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. They are starting up their 2018 speedrunning with a speedrun of Crash Bandicoot Warped any%, shortly following it up with a New Game+ run of Ratchet and Clank, and will be continuing throughout the week with a wide variety of events. Give them a watch and donate some money, will you not?

https://gamesdonequick.com/

Okay, time to call it a rap on the christmas giveaway. First off, thanks to all who took the time for this. Over the week I gave out gradual parts of a line from a christmas song, one word per art post per day. The order of those could be indentified by the Twelve Days of Christmas,

For example of this, the clue...


You find yourself stuck in a tree, not sure how you got there, there's a rough scent of pears about, a Partridge appears before you, it tells you the following word...

Everyone

Refers to the Partridge in a Pear Tree, the first day of christmas, so Everyone comes first. While...

A Couple of Doves approach you, but they approach you slowly, it was like if a Turtle was trying to catch, when they pass you they say the following word...

Hail

Refers to the Two Turtle Doves, the second day of christmas, so Hail comes second, and so on.

Of course, if you know The Nightmare Before Christmas, you could have guessed the lyric password was "Everyone Hail to the Pumpkin King now!" from the song "This is Halloween". Congratulations if you solved it.

Now, on to the results, here's a screencap of my notes an hour after midnight over here.

https://i.imgur.com/q2AgEMV.png

Now I have a bit of a conundrum here to solve with a few of you,  flutterguy10 posted first, but you posted before midnight, sorry, needed to be after I'm afraid. Keep your eye on that timer

 thebackup was the first to post after midnight, but in a haste to post their note, only wrote "Everyone Hail To The Pumpkin King", forgetting the now. Sorry, needed to be the full line.

So our first place winner posting after midnight and the full phrase is  TwoTone at 00:08! Congratulations! Shortly after was  Swinging also at 00:08 according to FA (That could be anywhere between a second and 59 seconds apart, I'm not entirely sure),  OneWithLogic came third, also at 00:08 (pretty impressive there is seconds between them). Our first 00:09 came with  ZeroKelvin.

 Vinal211 was also in at 00:09, but I'm afraid you got the order wrong with "Everyone now hail to the pumpkin king", now was the seven swans a swimming at the end of the phrase. So  Foxintheanthill takes 5th.

So in order we have the following...

First:  TwoTone
Second:  Swinging
Third:  OneWithLogic
Fourth:  ZeroKelvin
Fifth:  Foxintheanthill

Now, I would say that  flutterguy10,  thebackup and  Vinal211 all got the solution Close Enough, with just a minor mistake be that timing, missing word or incorrect order. So, I'm going to give all 3 of you joint 6th place. I'll get a few extra key copies for them since it is christmas after all.

Ok, so to all our winners I will now send you a note confirming your placement and I will ask you to write a list of which games you want in priority, This should hopefully get you want you want in a speedy fashion. To explain, I will ask OneWithLogic for their top 3 games from the bundle since they came in third, lets say TwoTone takes their number 1 pick, but Swinging takes a different game not on their top 3 list, I will give OneWithLogic their second pick as no one has taken that game. Hope that's simple enough to understand.

Oh, and last thing to the winners, don't keep the others waiting before I can hand out keys, if you don't respond with which game you want in 48 hours, I will move you to 7th place and you will get whatever remains from the prize bundle for holding up the game giving.

Well, that's it. It's 2018. Once Again, thanks for taking part in the christmas giveaway!

Ooh boy, two absolutely horrible dreadful years in a row. Please let 2018 be better, please.

As a reminder, I am still doing my christmas giveaway. I have a big bundle of Steam Games this year, it includes some of my personal favourite games such as Dust: An Elysian Tail, Skullgirls, Freedom Planet, Armello, Chroma Squad, Drawful 2 and Star Wars Battlefront II! Yes, Star Wars Battlefront II, that 2005 classic with no loot boxes in it at all, not one.

Over the week I've been posting various christmas pictures, and in the descriptions has been part of a christmas phrase, if you know it, great! If not though, think of your christmas songs, I'm pretty sure the lead ups before the word relate to a song in particular that might help with how to order those words.

And when this timer hits 0: https://www.timeanddate.com/countdo.....newyear?p0=136

Post me your answer via a note. First post with the right answer when it's New Years Day as that timer ends will get first pick from the prize pool. Then second gets second pick, third, fourth, fifth etc. If you already have the games, you can give the gift to any friend of your choice as a present to them (you can even do that if you don't own the game as well if you are extra generous).

With that said, good luck with the giveaway and I will see all you in 2018!

Well it's Christmas Eve, 2017 is nearly over now... and geez, this year. This year.

I thought 2016 was bad, but this year... It ended up being worse. I don't think I need to explain why, anyone who has been following me knows what happened to our family back in May this year. It still hurts 7 months on from now. We've all been sad because of it, but my mother's taken it the worst has fallen into a horrible depression cycle we are still trying our best to get her out of it. I hope this christmas will go down well but... well. When someone you love and should be there is not there, it's impossible to ignore it and it will upset all of us.

If you have time to spare a thought to our family over the holidays, it would be greatly appreciated.

---

I'm doing another steam gift giveaway again this year, didn't have the opportunity last year due to being out a job but this year I have one (It's basically been the only positive in this dire year). I have a big bundle of Steam Games this year, it includes some of my personal favourite games such as Dust: An Elysian Tail, Skullgirls, Freedom Planet, Armello, Chroma Squad, Drawful 2 and Star Wars Battlefront II! Yes, Star Wars Battlefront II, that 2005 classic with no loot boxes in it at all, not one.

Now when I've done these giveaways in the past, there has always been the time-zone issue for many people, not being on at the right time when the giveaway is up and being upset in the process. So this year, you've got one fixed time, New Years Day. First post when it's New Years Day will get first pick of the prize pool. Then second, third, fourth, fifth etc. If you already have the games, you can give the gift to any friend of your choice as a present to them (you can even do that if you don't own the game as well if you are extra generous).

Your countdown is here: https://www.timeanddate.com/countdo.....newyear?p0=136

And of course, you can't just make a post to win the prize, that would be too easy, there will be a puzzle to solve as well. I'll be posting 7 Christmas art works to this account, 1 each day between Christmas Day and New Years Eve. in the description for each there will be part of a Christmas Phrase, simply combine all 7 parts and post it when once 2018 has started to claim your prize. Now the order of the phrase might not be immediately obvious, it's not going to be in day order, it will be scrambled. But if you know your christmas songs, I'm sure you can figure out how the phrase goes.

So, enjoy art across the week, good luck with the competition and I hope you all have a very merry christmas.

Twice per year, the Games Done Quick team host a week long marathon to try and speed run as many games as possible. These range the whole gambit of any%, 100%, glitchless, glitch showcase, race, blindfolded, 2 player 1 controller, reverse boss rush, mystery game race, team relay race and more. All to try and raise as much money as possible for Doctors Without Borders. They are starting up their 2017 speedrunning with an Ending A run of Nier Automata done by a 1 Handed Person (Halfcoordinated is really good at Platinum Games, do not miss this run), shortly following it up with an Legendary run of Halo Combat Evolved, and will be continuing throughout the week with a wide variety of events. Give them a watch and donate some money, will you not?

https://gamesdonequick.com/

https://youtu.be/kIv_ConaZ1c?t=5s

Yeah this is looking to be a blast. My only complaint is that their is some really spotty CGI structures in that trailer. Seriously, that better not be the final cut.

The Characters though being in 2D Look really good though, even all the new designs look really good as well (Captain Celaeno might be my favourite of the new designs in this). Plus it's a 2D Film in actual cinemas, I don't expect it to make that much, but by word I'll watch it to support any 2D Releases the cinemas get.

(Now I probably should look into commissioning something with Captain Celaeno and Arro together...)

First off, I thank everyone who took part in last weeks steam giveaway, hope you had fun enjoying the art and congrats to everyone who solved those Cryptos. I am likely to do another distribution around the Christmas Period, what Cryptos to use next though, is still to be thought out.

---

Second, I may be a fair bit quieter over the next few days. We had a big family incident recently. I'm not going to open it up to the public. But I would like some support over PM about it during this period. Just note what I'll be talking about won't be pretty,

Thanks.

As with the year before, I'm going to have a fun competition whilst posting up the various birthday art pieces I have.

I'm going to (Hopefully) post one art piece a day, I am still waiting on a few to come in I must admit. But hopefully they will be here by weeks end.

Each day this week, there will be a challenge, complete the challenge first, I will gift you a steam prize. Here is the list of what's on offer.

Monday: Octodad: Dadliest Catch
Tuesday: Steamworld Heist
Wednesday: Ultimate Chicken Horse
Thursday: The Stanley Parable
Friday: Undertale

I'll aim to post the art sometime between 6pm and 12am GMT, I won't say the exact time, that'll change each day so the prize can't be "sniped". Hopefully I won't be late... but powercuts may affect things otherwise (Apparantly they are doing "upgrade work").

Keep your eyes peeled later today for your chance at Octodad: Dadliest Catch.

Heya all, thanks for all the birthday wishes. I wish to have responded back sooner. But something happenned to prevent them.

Power Cuts.

For the last few days, our place has been hit with intermittent Power Cuts for some reason. It's not awful midday when we are out... but in the evening with no power at all? That ain't good.

Hopefully the number of them decrease soon, I'll post details for the post-birthday steam giveaway starting tomorrow. For now though, there will be a birthday moorph stream starting soon, should be 5 minutes or so, tune in would you?

https://picarto.tv/RFSwitched

This day has a lot of names, Children's Day in Japan, Cinco De Mayo, Revenge of the Fifth if you need more Star Wars days . But for me, It's my birthday. Yay!

This years been going a lot smoother than my last year has I gotta say, this time last year, I was about 2 weeks away from suddenly getting the message I was made redundant, this time though? I'm 2 weeks past passing my probationary at my new job. And with a much younger work force around my age, a much more friendly work environment AND no signs of company downsizing happening soon? Should be good.

As for the day itself. I'm not going to be around for much of it, work is the main reason, and then in the evening, going to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (I've seen it already, but now I get to watch it with family.) Presents I'll likely have done on saturday, bro's got two gifts for me this year. He's keeping one a secret from me, BUT the other he said was going to be a coupon to get a plush pony of any of mine. I was thinking either Gilly or Eri would be good choices. But I would like to hear your thoughts on it? Who should I get a plush as next? I may do a poll for this over the weekend to help make the decision. You can have a look at my, latest but not fully latest album here: http://imgur.com/a/TiTMH there's some updated refs to put in there once I've finished colouring a bunch Tato worked on earlier this week for me.

In regards to Streams, I have an hourly planned with  Moorph on Saturday (Although it may be Sunday for me at that point). And like last year, when I post the stream of various birthday arts, I'll be doing another steam code giveaway again. More details on that over the weekend.

Well, I'm off to sleep now, then work and then the fun starts. Here's to another year! Hopefully a lot better than that last one! 2016 still hurts to think about.

Just before Easter ends, I have a couple of Easter Sketches from  Moorph that I'd like to share with you, I'm posting them here because, if you've seen my gallery number it's nearly at 100, and I want... something bigger to be that number 100 I suppose, maybe tie it into the my birthday on Cinco de Mayo (5/5). Ignore how I have probably more commissioned art than that in my favourites. I'm lazy in uploading everything. I mainly aim to upload the stuff that you don't see get posted on here.

There's some new ponies in here as well to look at and enjoy as well. Some still need some newer design changes. But you will be seeing some of these in full commissions very soon.

http://sta.sh/21dnjrb6k40j

I haven't done a general status journal in awhile. I feel it's time to write one down.

Birthday is coming up again on the 5th of May, those from last year remember I did a little mini-event giving out some games if you could solve some cryptos. I plan to do something similar again this year in May. So be prepared for that. I'm deciding on which games to put on offer, and contacting a couple of people for some birthday arts as well.

I've been creating some new character designs with  Moorph recently. Although I need to come up with actual names... and colour schemes for them. And probably soon, I have 17 ponies in the album... and 15 in the concept stage. Some of them are pretty much finalised (this guy http://i.imgur.com/V5ADdkt.png for example just needs a cutie mark and he's good to go). Others may need redesigns or simplifications. I just need the time to think of what to do with them.

That would go with pairings as well, you may have noticed I tend to like to pair up characters in the images together, mainly because they complement or contrast eachother in ways. For example, Terri and Tsukai tend to be the young duo and have a brother/sister style feel between eachother. Sola and Gilly are scientist and assistant, with Sola experimenting and Gilly making sure she doesn't go mad in the process by being a goofball. Eri and Aria are a natural Brain and Brawn combination. I need to think of pairings for the new guys. I actually want to do Teams of 4 in the the future for some more interesting pairings as well.

I'm hoping to do some more dual commission streams in the future as the ones I have done in the past have been fun. If you are interested in pairing up for a streams for some wild ideas, fire some ideas my way and we can negotiate.

---

Now I want to talk about Zelda, as that's the primary game I was playing for March... and... I... think... I... Don't like it that much?

I think I have a simple reason as to why that is. You remember the Triforce Shard hunt from Wind Waker? You need to explore the world for 8 Triforce shards to advance and there isn't too much else outside of that? That's breath of the Wild in a nutshell.

Okay, that's not a totally fair reason. I like the theory that this game is the Resident Evil 4 for the series. It's basically hard to call it a Zelda game since the dynamic has been shifted up. I just found out that I am in the crowd that prefers the original style of the games over this new one (Well, Link to the Past/Ocarina/Majora's/Twilight Princess style). Do note their will be spoilers from what I say here on.

If there is praises to say, the engine is probably the best part of the game. There's fun little dynamics with how things interact in the world with physics. There was a really good video by videogamedunkey showing off the fun physics things you can do like Stasis a block, get an enemy to hit it with their weapon, and then lure the enemy into the path of that block and hit them with their own weaponry. There's some cute touches as well like how a lot of thinks react to the heat/cold system, you can hold flame/ice swords to increase/lower your body temperature for the area.

But man... if you were to tell me that the director of this one also directed Skyward Sword, I would not have been surprised because this game actively wants you to waste your time with a lot of padding. This world is large, but I don't say that as a compliment because it feels very samey. You have your regional difference areas, but no matter where you going, there's going to be a lot of Bobokins, Lizalfos and Moblins there. Enemy variety isn't really that amazing in this game, expect to see the same encampment of enemies over and over again that you have to take out for a treasure chest for like... an Amber... or 5x Bomb Arrows... or a Weapon (We'll get to this). It doesn't help that Link feels like the Slowest Character in the world in traversing this world. A lot of open world games I play tend to have something to make traversal really quick, I'm talking Batman Arkham City and Just Cause with their Grappling Hooks to go about and quickly zoom around the place. Zelda does have a gliding feature... but you gotta climb up first. And climbing isn't that quick. My advice for anyone to pick up this game is to bee-line for the Climbing Gear first as your base climbing speed is horribly slow. You can expend a lot of stamina to do a leap, but for some reason you climb JUST a bit higher if you climb without leaping, and that little difference can make the difference between reaching the cliff and falling back down. So you want to none-leap... but that is awfully slow, and it's not really that much quicker when you get the full climbing set either. And land travel is really slow as well because someone decided to bring back one of Skyward Swords worst features in the Stamina Gauge. You want to run but then your meter empties so you have to slow down till it fills up again so you can start running again... rinse repeat, rinse repeat, rinse repeat too many times. They basically want you to glide over the place... which I described the problem with that earlier, or get a horse. But even getting the Horse is awkward because you have to either go to a stable or be within a reasonable distance of your horses whistle for it to get to. And with how hilly the game is and how much the Horse does not like climbing the rocky hills, I need Chocobo's in this game, or at least a Mountain Goat.

I wish shrines were more interesting, but I got tired of them fairly early on, they all have the same visual aesthetic and music, and sometimes it's the exact same combat trial against the same enemy you've already beaten, except maybe it has a different weapon on hand this time. There are some good shrines in there, but there's a bunch of really bad ones, short ones or too easy ones there in the mix (Along with those with the motion controls, ugh, playing this on the Wii U, they ain't fun). There is also isn't enough rewards for doing them, each shrine you complete gives you only a quarter of a health or stamina upgrade. And it's a really minor upgrade at that, why would I want one more heart when enemies still deal like 5 hearts anyway, I'm better off spending time finding the resources to upgrade my armour so they only deal like 1.5 damage instead.

This game also runs out of cool stuff to reward exploration very early on, you explore, and unless you enjoy finding the landscape (Which is like, alright, but you can feel the graphical limitation of the console in the game hard), you have shrines, which I described above, materials and armour, which is one of the better things in the game to gather, weapons... which I'll get to. And Korok seeds, which are essentially this in a nutshell. https://youtu.be/rtKFy6O9Mtk?t=1m52s I know you can trade them in for inventory upgrades, I wish you could trade them for something cooler like more sword techniques or something. The Korok puzzle types run out super quick as well.

I can go on, there's other stuff like the lacking Music (I'm tired of the same piano tone that's like "Feel the whimsy" when you are walking about), it's awful inventory system (Radial Wheels, please! Don't make me scroll through stuff one at a time), the underwhelming dungeons (Why are they so short?) how shockingly fast you can break the game economy (I can make 50 rupees by cooking 5 apples?) and the shockingly awful amount of stuff locked behind Amiibos (Including Wolf Link by the way, and it wasn't just a skin, no way to get a dog or wolf companion otherwise in the game. That's horrible.) But I save my last complaint for now on... say it with me, the Weapon Durability. Weapons are made of cardboard in this world and the weapons breaking so quickly discourage you from using them. You always want to save your best weapons for the important encounters like Lynels or something, and you just find yourself avoiding encounters because it costs more resources to fight them than resources you get out the encounter. It also weakens the rewards, you go find what lies atop Mt. Lanayru and finish that trial, what do you get? A Frostspear that will shatter in 10 minutes. You defeat a divine spirit, enjoy this champion weapon until it break, you can repair them, but they cost a lot in the process. They say it's to try and make you experiment with weapons, but I say you don't need the weapons to break to do that, just make the weapons fun. If the weapon looks fun to use like it can spit out fire or lightning. That'll be enough reason for me to use it. If you worried someone would just break into Hyrule Castle, grab a super strong weapon and break the game with it... well, shouldn't they be rewarded for breaking into Hyrule Castle without dying and getting it? Just put it in a harder place to find. It just adds to tedium having to see your weapon break and swap to, what is likely to be a weaker weapon and just prolong the fight...

Look, I can go on, but I feel I will need to play more of the game to say more, I don't think it's the worst Zelda, Skyward Sword still holds that title, at least the combat in this game works when you want to do it unlike in Skyward where you hope the delay from the swing and the game response isn't long enough for the enemy to re-adjust their sword position. But I just get burnt out on this game, and it might just be I prefer more linear experiences to open world ones (I fear the man that has used ones kick a hundred times more than the one that knows a hundred kicks and all that) or maybe a lof of what I like in Zelda (Music, Dungeons, Characters, Story) got pushed aside from it. It's not a bad game, but it's a disappointing one for me. I'll come back when if they can patch in some quality of life stuff (Better inventory, menus and quicker cooking and selling please) and if the hard mode difficulty mixes things up a lot (Can't get away with just hero mode if you are charging money for it.)

---

On the flip side though, Persona 5... oh my this is a lot more of my jam. Unlike the 2 weeks I played of Zelda, I've only played 5 hours of Persona 5 so far but I am loving this a lot more. This game oozes with style with some really good feeling attacks and animations, you stealth up behind a shadow guard, rip off their mask to show the shadow and the music kicks in. Just great.

I'm liking the story set up as well. The game is set up in-media-res where you are explaining what happened in an interrogation and playing it through. Life is going against you a lot really, you try to stop what looks like abuse but you injure some political guy and now he's threatening to sue you and you get whacked with a criminal record and have to move to the big city. Despite being the big city though, certainly does everything it can to make you feel cramped, you live in this small alley in a storage room cupboard, have to travel in super compact subways and I won't spoil it but the Velvet Room this time is certainly making you feel trapped as well. Basically this game will do a lot to make you hate the system, and lets you get to the catharsis of rebelling against the system very quickly. The game is quite dark and there is going to be some people you will hate a lot (the first boss is very notable in this regard in how vile that person is) and you will enjoy planning on how to defeat them. The systems as always go in great sync as well like any Presona Game where you want to build your social connections to give you more power to fight in the shadow world. Even recruiting new persona's a lot more fun with holding up enemies and negotiating with them so they join your side (Give some pokemon vibes).

Your allies are very likable as well, Ryuki and Ann awakenings are really grand powerful moments (as well as yours) and Morgana reminds me of Midna a lot with his condescending tone, he does however seem to be a fair bit friendly then midna was at that start I'll say.

And I got all this postives to say just from the tutorial section. Game hasn't even taken the training wheels of yet and let me go fully loose with how I plan tot spend the time to beat the upcoming palace but I can't wait to jump back in and try, something which Zelda never really did for me. I'll be sure to say more about Persona when I've played it more, gonna go a lot into it for Easter.

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Oh yes, about to finish my probation on my new job, this new job has been very great, nice working colleagues to work with, great location, a lot of social stuff as well, much nicer than my previous one. Easter is up next, and the art pile of bunnys chicks and chocolate eggs is acrewing quickly, London MCM is end of May, hoping to go as a Mimikyu for this one, just need to prepare the outfit. Oh, and birthday in less than a month to. So much to do, my 2017 is going a lot better than 2016 was. I don't know if that's the case for everyone else, but I hope it so.

Right rambles over, may I ramble again sometime in the future.

I will be teaming up with  ArmorKuwagata for tomorrow's stream (at 8pm GMT, translate it to your appropriate time zone).

I may be doing more collabs in the future, so don't worry if you missed out this time.

You can watch the stream here: https://picarto.tv/RFSwitched

So you may have spotted me doing some streams with  Moorph recently. I'm looking to split the next hour in 2 with someone.

Now when I say split, I don't mean "You get 30 minutes and I get 30 minutes" I say we have my characters interacting with your characters in silly scenarios we've discussed in advance.

If you are interested in joining up, 4 things.

1. Stream is $25 for the hour, I'll pay $12.50, you can pay the other $12.50
2. Send me a list, reference and/or image of your characters (Ponies be preferred)
3. Throw me a list of silly ideas you want to do for it, for reference in the past, i've done stuff like "Conveyor Belt Sequences" "Photo shoot showcases" "Playthings in a dollhouse (Full of silly inflatible, embarassing outfits)" et more.
4. Lastly, give me a list of times you are available to show up to the stream this upcoming tuesday (the 21st). I am based on GMT Time and looking between 8 and 12 pm (Currently aiming for 11-12 GMT).

I've had a few people respond already, I'll be making a final decisions who to go with on monday. So you don't have long. Get in touch with a PM if you want in. The sillier your ideas are, the more likely I'll work with ya okay?

I've been meaning to make this post some time for awhile, and I feel after todays Breath of the Wild news, nows the time to make it.

To cover that briefly, my opinions on that are... meh really. I can see people being disappointed by it as they see Nintendo as this "Last Bastion" against corporate tactics like Season Passes and Overpriced DLC, and after such a long wait between Zelda games they were expecting this one to have it all in one go. I can see why people are disappointed they have to spend more to get more (Espicially with how much the Switch already costs out of the gate).

As for beyond that though... we don't have enough information to judge much. They laid a roadmap out of what you get which is nice. I feel many people might just want the dungeon and the story expansions though, however, one of the lame moves is you have to go all in with the Season Pass to get it, can't get the final set alone, you also have to get the Cave of Trails/Ordeals/Whatever (This should be in the base game as a cave of trials/ordeals normally has been since Wind Waker, but maybe there already is one and this is a bonus one, who knows, be more specific please), The Hard Mode (So is this a Hero Mode or something more akin to Master Quest? Is the Hero Mode already in the game? Be more specific please), along with that lame shirt thing (Which at best is like a novelty item for novelty runs, hopefully, I think more people would be annoyed if that's a gamebreaking piece of armour or something to trivialise the game, I think it just looks tacky, be more specific please).

Just don't buy it until the content is out and we know how big it is. How big it all is is in limbo so it could be good, or it could be bad, I dunno. Nintendo are half and half with DLC. You have pretty well priced stuff like the Mario Kart 8 tracks, then you have overpriced stuff like the Fire Emblem Awakening Maps. Key point is don't buy this now. Buy it when it comes out. You pre-order that pack and you are feeding the machine to make sure more season passes come out. Just wait for it (I know waiting hurts as well by the way, espicially since we've waited for this game since, I dunno, since you beat A Link Between Worlds or Skyward Sword?) lets just hoe it matches the industry expectations, at $20, I'm expecting something like Bloodborne's The Old Hunters sized content for it.

My bigger concerns are actually with the switch itself. Those of you living under a rock, this thing is expected to be out in about 2 weeks from now. That is... surprising, considering there is still a pretty big laundry list of things you want to know about the switch. Don't you think we should, know about these things?

- There is still no clear images UI Interface for the console. What is it like, what does it contain, is it customisable? Will there be purchasable themes/badge arcades like the 3DS?

- The online features have been questioned and answers haven't been provided. What this Smartphone App that ties their online systems even does. When it will be available?

- What is the situation for Virtual Console this generation? Can you transfer old VC games from the Wii U/3DS? Is there an Upgrade Fee again? Is it at launch or will it be after launch like with the 3DS and Wii U?

- Furthermore with the E-Shop, how does that work, can we transfer any remaining funds we have from the Wii U onto the Switch for example?

- What about those MyNintendo Accounts? How do they work with the console, can I get some MyNintendo by playing Zelda for example? Can I use those points to maybe get that season pass for a cheaper price?

- Oh and there's Amiibos as well, why are they more expensive now? Why are you even having Amiibo exclusive content if you are also asking for a Season Pass? Which past amiibos work with the new Zelda. Does the Smash Link (Aka the one held up by a stick of butter) work? Why are there 5 amiibos that we still don't know what they do? Why is there a giant Amiibo menu option when all the currently revealed ones work in game? Be more specific please.

You may have noticed the arc words "Be More Specific please" earlier on, and that's really what I want, just to be clear on things. I was hoping we would get this info sometime this week or the next, but we just had that Zelda drop, which could have been in the direct. but we have just about 2 weeks to go and we still don't have the specs for this console, nor are we fully sure about this online system. Plus it's got some pretty high launch prices as well. It sorta feels like we are getting an Early Access console that they are trying to rush out in March just so they can make the numbers for the 2016 financial year not look bad (Because even with the low expectations of the Wii U, I believe they didn't even reach half of those expected sales and that's not going to look good, espicially since stockholders probably want them to go all in on Mobile after the blow-up of Pokemon Go.) and as Zelda fan, they have been pushing a lot of Zelda in the recent years as well with remakes and spinoffs pretty much non-stop for some time now (All ranging from the good to the meh to the bad. The Amiibo are probably the most bothersome thing, but at least we didn't get as screwed as badly as the Animal Crossing people did... I think, I still have my concerns over the 5 remaining amiibo and all that).

It's... why do you make getting this information so hard? Please Nintendo, just announce an event to reveal all we need to know. Don't try to pull the rug underneath us.

Anyway, happy valentines day, Hot Fuzz came out on this day 10 years ago. If you haven't seen that film. Watch it. It's amazing. Best Cop film and best comedy film I've ever seen. I've lost track of how many times I've seen it since.

So tonight is the presentation about the Nintendo Switch... at like 4am over here in the UK. Making it really easy for us, huh? I'm going to make 5 predictions for this and see how right I am next morning.

Tricky predictions as well. Can't do stuff that's almost already confirmed like "Oh, there will be a Mario or a Zelda game there". Have to go for an obscurer, less certain IP, speaking of which...

- 1. We shall see an F-Zero of some kind at the reveal. Mario Kart 8 is getting ported, and that'll suffice for many people, but some people may want a brand new game to showcase the Wii, and I feel a new F-Zero might do well to itch that Racing itch, and the fact we had numerous F-Zero cameos appearances over the Wii U (Nintendoland and Mario Kart 8, both DLC Packs), I say this has a good shot. That or Captain Falcon in Mario Kart 8, one or the other.
- 2. Showcase of Gamecube Virtual Console, or vitrual console equivalent, with Luigi's Mansion being a first wave game. It's about time for a Gamecube VC games, I know they sorta played with this in the Wii U lifespan with remakes of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, but not all the gamecube games are going to make returns the Zelda games are, but there is still demand for them. Luigi's Mansion was among the launch wave of Nintendo Gamecube games, so it makes sense for it to lead the pack here again.
- 3. Release date gets pushed back to May, but we get a specific may date. This could be so Zelda can be a Launch title for the console. As for an exact date in May... May 12th Maybe?
- 4. $250 price for the console. I wouldn't say this is the ideal price for the console, but it's the one I see happening considering it's hybrid nature. Plus this is also what base PS4 and Xbox One are at present. Any higher and people will be annoyed.
- 5. Pre-orders will probably be gone very quickly. I don't want to say it'll be understocked. But nintendo's habit as recent with the Amiibo and the NES Classic leads me to assume they will attempt to do this again.

That's my guesses, lets see how right I am come tomorrow. I'm spending the rest of this night watching some AGDQ Kirby, Zelda and Thousand Year Door.

Twice per year, the Games Done Quick team host a week long marathon to try and speed run as many games as possible. These range the whole gambit of any%, 100%, glitchless, glitch showcase, race, blindfolded, 2 player 1 controller, reverse boss rush, mystery game race, team relay race and more. All to try and raise as much money as possible for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. They are starting up their 2017 speedrunning with a speedrun of Ape Escape 2 Single Player mode, shortly following it up with an All Dungeons run of Ocarina of Time 3DS, and will be continuing throughout the week with a wide variety of events. Give them a watch and donate some money, will you not?

https://gamesdonequick.com/

Well, 2016 is drawing it's final few hours. Certainly not an amazing year by any degree for many, me included. Still, we survived, so lets hope 2016 is better.

Thanks for those that took part in the mini-christmas event to remember the names of the characters, espicially to  BoredomWithFriends and  Kitsuna for being the first and winning them respectively.

If I do a similar event in the future, here's a full album for future reference. http://imgur.com/a/Z8Uy6

Speaking of names, I've been working with  robbieFTT on some concepts for new characters, if you want to see them, you can look at them. Some may be used, some may be dropped, some may be redesigned. I'll need to come up with some new names first though. If you want to help out, I'm open to name suggestions.

http://imgur.com/a/bo6TM

Well, I'm off to London now to watch the fireworks show. Wish I could write more but I don't have the time to spare. So see you all in 2017!

Alright, it's been long enough that initial game biases of Sun and Moon are gone and I've dived around in the postgame a little as well. Time for my opinion on Sun and Moon

This is a split of positives, negatives and neutral opinions on the game, they are marked as so:

+ Positive
- Negative
= Neutral

There will be spoilers, but I'll try not to spoil everything.

+ Starting off with the Alola region itself. It stands out on it's own and has a great world feel, the overworlds feel a lot more vibrant and alive as you explore them, this might be due to the artstyle shift away from the chibi-style of Gen 6, but the region is a lot more memorable this time around.

- As with many pokemon games though, it does start off slow. Pokemon Sun and Moon however feels like a Regigigas with it's Slow Start ability because it takes forever to get going. It's a real long time before you even get to your first pokemon.

- And furthermore, these games really need a "Skip Cutscene" feature as the cutscenes seem to be getting longer and longer, I know you have an interesting plot (Which we'll get to later) but there are some cutscenes that feel a little like... padding in a way. Espicially the Tutorial ones (Which you have to do even if you've played a pokemon game before.) If you want these long cutscenes to continue... add a skip cutscene function in the future please?

+ Now the characters of this game are certainly some of the most interesting the series has ever had. You will remember a lot of them and get many favourites. In contrast to Gen 6, a lot of characters actually do stuff and evolve as the game progresses. Kukui has aspirations to set up a Pokemon World League, Hapu is on a quest to prove herself to the Tapu's to become a Kahuna, Gladion is mostly a jerkish rival, but when the call to action arrives he is on call to help and he mellows out knowing there are more important thing to do (It's a nice touch most of his pokemon are ones that evolve by friendship as well here), And Lillie... well, that's spoilers saying how she turns out, but her arc is one of the series best.

= Now on the new pokemon, this is a neutral because I feel there isn't enough of them, same with X/Y with it's small numbers, and design wise, I don't think it's as good as X and Y was. There are the good ones, Lurantis and Lycanroc have become big favs of mine and you have a really strong starter set and tapu set. But it feels like there's a lot of meh ones as well, a lot of single stagers, some with potential, others not so much. And I'm not huge on the whole Ultra Beasts. It's a mixed bag of it.

- I do have to downvote the Alolan Pokemon though, the concept is a really great one, regional variants make sense. And there's a lot they have fun with like Marowak, Ninetales and Exeggutor... and then there are those where it feels they made the bare minimal effort like Raticate and Persian, along with some baffling design choices on others like Golem and Grimer (Muk has something going for it, but it's not amazing.) I feel they should be more, and...

- ...Why are they all Kanto pokemon? Why are the majority of route pokemon Kanto Pokemon? Why is there so much Kanto in my Alola? For a 20th anniversary game, I wish they celebrated the whole franchise instead of "The one that came out 20 years ago". There's more Kanto Pokemon in this game than there are actual new pokemon! It's maddening. I wouldn't mind if the other generations got equal amount of reference but it feels kanto got 3 times as much as everything else. Save the Kanto love for when you remake Kanto again, if you want to do nostalgia throwbacks, do it equally for all gens, there are 800 pokemon now, stop focusing on only 150 of them.

+ Moving back into positive territory, this game has a really good soundtrack, route themes are little on the small end (It's more islands sharing themes instead of each individual route having one) but the town themes are great (both day and night versions), the battle themes are really good and the cutscene music is great as well, the opening theme (With the WAAAA-OOOOH) gets a special mention here as being one of the most memorable the series.

+ The Trials and the Totem Pokemon, ooh boy was this a breath of fresh air. The totems are very memorable boss fights since unlike regular fights, the AI does have an advantage over you with 2 on 1 matchups, and they will exploit this with tactics (Well, except the first one, that was a tutorial one) Special mention to the Salazzle, Lurantis and Mimikyu ones giving me a lot of hassle, espicially with the Lurantis calling up a Sunny Day so it can fire off Solar Blades none-stop at ya.

+ The difficulty in the game in general is certainly a lot better as well after the stupidly easy Gen 6. It uses the EXP. Share, but also employs the Gen 5 Exp. Scaling system, so you don't have to worry about being super overpowered by the end of the game, you'll roughly be around their levels, maybe even a bit lower like I was (This was with playing with Exp. Share off though, needed to make precautions, but from what I've heard around, the Exp. Share is a lot better this time).

= I'm going to give a Neutral to the SOS battle system, it's a fun idea that Pokemon can call other pokemon for assistance and that you will have to be prepared to deal with that. What you think may be an easy fight suddenly becoming a lot harder since they call open pokemon after pokemon to make you re-evaluate your tactics and maybe consider running is, in my mind, awesome. You JUST need to make one teeny tiny change, and that is to make sure I can catch a pokemon if there are 2 on the field! If you aren't running Paralysis, the idea of weakening a pokemon to catch it, only for it to keep calling allies to help it for a long time and being unable to capture that pokemon is super annoying. Let us capture the pokemon if there are 2 out, we could do it in the Gamecube games, what's the problem here?

+ Going back to the characters, the Kahuna's and the Trial captains are very memorable, I like how after doing their trial, you can go back to see them and they have a sidequest associated with them (Well, most of them do), having them show up as the Elite 4 as well gets you very familiar with them, so you don't have this sudden "who's that" when facing them for the first time. And Nanu is amazing, I swear he's Adachi from Persona if he wasn't... well, if you've played persona, you know.

+ Team Skull, this is hands down the best villains team in the series. They have unique outfits, unique style, Plumeria and Guzma are strikingly memorable leaders of the joint... and also, they aren't really bent on world domination (Gasp!) when you get to Po Town and find out more about them, it's really well done and makes sense for them, which leads onto...

+ Team Aether and Lusamine, Certainly another different approach from World Domination, they are actually a good team that want to help in pokemon conservation, they just have the little problem that their leader went a little too far on that front. Lusamine makes for a very memorable boss fight and even her underlings, actually having some funding get to have some pretty competent pokemon on their team to fight with.

= A problem with this game is that it's hyper linear. Why is this a neutral? A lot of games are hyper linear. Seriously, since everyone apparantly got confused with Sinnoh, they've been making them that way for awhile now. At best, there's a bonus route to explore when you beat the island, but this is something that would be nice to change in the future.

= Customization is... half and half? There's more colour options for clothes now, but it feels like it came at a cost of actual cloth designs, gen 6 had much more varied stuff. The different throw styles are appreciated though.

= Pokefinder is... just there, it's optional, it's mildly amusing, it's used well in one trial, but it doesn't leave any major impressions. Framerate during it is terrible though.

+ Poke Pelago is a nice way to do stuff when you need to do other stuff. It's nice to just drop in a group of pokemon over night and have them all EV Trained in attack or speed or whatever you need, as well as hatch some eggs in the process. Plus it streamlines the berry growing aspect a lot, you can even got some wild pokemon out of it, it's really good.

= Pokeplaza meanwhile is... a bit more of a mess to be fair? It's the Join Avenue system from Gen 5, but it feels a lot more slower to use and level up. There's only so much one wants to answer a type quiz to level this up. The features are nice, but it feels clunky...

- ...and having the online battling and trading modes here was a mistake. The OSS system in Gen 6 was really good was to communicate with others, many don't even know where they are in this version. This was a mistake and they should bring the OSS back, have it a function of the rotom dex.

+ Oh yeah, Rotom Dex, this is how Fi should have been done. Funny comments, does not halt progress. This is how it's done.

+ The best change is the Poke-ride system, no longer are we bound the HMs, you just call the pokemon you need and go go go. It feels like this a late change in the game, since a lot of routes have 2 paths, one using a poke-ride and a route with tall grass, which makes me think the poke-ride was a late addition, but a much appreciated one.

= Postgame is okay, nothing really insane to do, just your standard infinite battle mode, a plotline with the ultra beasts and where to find them and some fun cameo matches and post-game matches. Be sure to repeat the Elite 4 again by the way, the "champion" aspect of it is really good.

That's basically it for the whole list I think, if there's anything else missing I'll add it in an edit. There's additional past gen features missing like Dexnav, Soaring and VS. Fighter that should return but I can be here all day covering them and it's a thing pokemon has always had a problem with in retention of features. As for this game though? Really solid and great, I'd put it up there with Gen 5 and Gen 4 as my favourite ones. As this gen continues, maybe it can move to first? If you like pokemon, I'd give it a look, it has some pacing issues story wise, espicially with a slow start, but play it through to the end and it's a real grand one.

===

Anyway, it's Christmas Eve, and I feel like doing a giveaway since it's christmas, I'm going to think about it more tomorrow, but it will probably involve posting some unposted art and having you respond in a certain way to it for a Steam Game of some kind. More details will be come when it's not late on my end. Just keep your eyes peeled for it.