I started playing Horizon Forbidden West, while this game is still okay, it seems like it's taking some steps backwards:
it's becoming more AssAssIn's Creed like, with lots of stuff on the map
they should retire the focus / investigative / detective vision, because it's really hard to see now
the movement is still janky, Aloy feels slow even on a mount. While the climbing doesn't feel good
too many button inputs, sometimes they also feel inconsistent, and sometimes it feels like they are running out of buttons on the controller
way too many weapons / armors that I probably won't use. Why not discard the rarity type, and let user level up the weapons instead?
it also has the trap of games with HDR, aka it's too dark to see
foliage sometimes obscures the whole thing that you can't see what's happening
while side quests are unique, many of the characters are kinda boring and forgettable. Often I need to sit thru a long and boring / predictable conversation just to get a quest started.
Besides those complaints, I am still enjoying the game. It has an unique setting, and gameplay that prioritizes bow and arrows. However it feels like they are moving into AssAssIn's Creed bloat.
Americans (and others) who like to tout free speech, watch them turn 180 instantaneously if you ask them whether the first amendment is applicable to ISIS, or any other groups that they don't like.
There's a difference between being able to criticize government and people in power, to straight up inciting hate and racism.
Two of my favorite people, one graduated from Canada's top business schools with really good grades, the other, an award winning Asian American actress.
I've finished FF9 Remaster, the game has some problems, mainly the battle feels slow compared to its predecessor. And personally, Zidane is not as interesting / relatable, maybe until Disc 3. Vivi on the other hand, is one of the best characters in Final Fantasy.
Halfway thru AI The Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative, the game is an improvement over the first game, so far it seems like there's a sci-fi hook dangling in front of me, that keeps me going. Characters are still ridiculous, but never annoying. The Psync gameplay part is still nonsensical, but some of them are funny enough that I can look past it. Excited to see the reveal.
Many companies in Japan have keiretsu style cross shareholding,
vertical keiretsu: with manufacturing industry largely comprises of parent company holding shares of their suppliers, distributors, etc, and in return those suppliers / distributors / sub companies hold some amount of shares of the parent company. These sort of shield them from market fluctuations.
horizontal keiretsu: when the relationships between companies are more horizontally sliced, e.g. you often see Mitsubishi UFJ, Mitsubishi Electronics, Mitsubishi Materials, etc.
These cross shareholding systems create a resistance towards hostile takeover, which have both its up and down sides, but at least it has resisted the likes of corporate raiders, e.g. Carl Icahn, where they acquire companies for asset stripping. Corporate raiders don't create values for society, it's to fatten payouts.
Sorry for the long reply, it's just for other users to get a glimpse on why hostile takeover is extremely rare in Japan, and probably doubly so when it comes to foreign hostile takeover.
I just can't help to speculate that Kremlin has something really incriminating against these two. But again this is just pure speculation without any proofs.
I've never finished FF9 on PS1 (my optical drive died), then I got distracted playing FF9 remaster a few years earlier. Finally decided to stream the game with a guide
The battle is slow, even with fast forward, the animation seems to be slower than FF8 or FF7
The fast forward in this remaster is not implemented as good as FF8 remaster's.
It's only either 1x or 4x speed
If you started the fast forward and forgot to turn it off before a cutscene, then the cutscene will play at 4x without any way to reset the speed.
Despite all that, I am enjoying the game, characters are likable. I'm currently at Disc 2, after the Clerya section
Resident Evil Remake
Again, I'm following a guide to get unlimited rocket launcher. I really dislike that 3 hour time limit. Or maybe I just really dislike time limit in games.
I'm not into survival horror, but I enjoy the shooting / action part of Resident Evil
So far, not enjoying it, since I'm just kiting zombies, skipping cutscenes, etc. My aim is to get unlimited ammo, then finally play both Chris and Jill sections without the ammo, and in some ways, inventory constraints.
Zero Escape series, since I replayed it recently, and managed to skip some steps. It's a flowchart game, so developer's foresight is kinda needed.
Metal Gear and anything by Hideo Kojima, I just found out while researching for this reply, that in Death Stranding since you can create pee grenade to damage BT, you can even pee on them directly.
Squeenix also had a kind of disappointing year between 2022 to 2023, with Babylon's Fall failing, and Forspoken not doing great. The only big thing in the near future that's announced is FF7 Rebirth, so I could see why shareholders don't have much confidence in the company.
But I gotta admit, Square Enix of these past 2 years, have released tons of games that I want to play / enjoyed playing, albeit many of them are either remakes or smaller titles, e.g. Tactics Ogre Reborn, Chrono Cross Remastered, Octopath Traveler 2, Live a Live, Crisis Core, Paranormasight, FF Pixel Remaster, etc.
I hope this is just a stumble, and they will regain their footing, instead of them ended up getting acquired by large corporations.
I assume that in countries in Asia, Africa, or South America, people are wary of the term 'democracy' because:
democracy can still be full of corruption,
democracy when preached by the US, usually means 'put politicians that allow our corporations to exploit your natural resources'
democracy is synonymous with capitalism, politicians are bending over so that corporations can exploit citizens
I could see why disgruntled people, who see corrupt politicians or exploitative rich people go on scot free, wanted a government that could punish them. But of course anger leads to lack of clarity in making decision, thus they ended up preferring authoritarianism that will eventually backfire and target their own citizens.
I don't know how European / North American youngsters feel, but somehow I have a nagging feeling that ISIS has casted a widespread fear that bolstered people's support of right wing parties.
I've only played TWEWY Final Remix on Switch recently. I find the control frustrating. Docked, it's barely playable with joycon motion control, while undocked, it's tiring, and my finger keeps obstructing the screen. The game also keeps interrupting you, very often when you moved between screens, and sometimes just halfway running, someone will just stop what you're doing halfway for conversation that's not that essential.
Now, this sequel has improved the gameplay part a lot. It still has problem with interruptions. But at least with proper controller support, this game is way better than its predecessor.
Immortality
This is very slow, not sure if I will eventually enjoy a 10 hour FMV mainly consists of clips not in proper order. Also, I prefer Her Story's keyword search than this, because now I need to manually scrub the clips to the point of interests. So far I'm not enjoying the story as much, mainly because it's about acting for now.
I can't help but fantasize, what if the setting is sci-fi mystery, you scrub thru a number of CCTV, interviews, interrogations videos, about some weird alien / sci-fi murder. So far Immortality feels like a slog.
Just an update, finished NG++ of Armored Core 6.
NG+ is NG but with slight variation of the mission, since there was branching paths.
NG++ has way more unique content than NG+, and the end is satisfying. Final boss is tough, I needed a couple of attempts, and finally found my older loadout that works better against the boss.
I really enjoyed the game, especially since I am having Souls fatigue. Breaking down the game into missions ala Peacewalker makes the game more manageable, and maybe because it focuses so much on loadout, I find the game bit easier / less frustrating than say Elden Ring.
There's a special category for Goods Vehicles and Buses, which rose to SGD 85900, I'd assume those vehicles are registered under businesses they own, and probably are counted as business expenses that might be tax deductible