WillyFourEyes/Waltzoid's Journal

I've had my eye on buying a dedicated gaming computer for a while now, but hadn't seriously thought of actually buying it due to the cost involved (the mid-range all-purpose computers I've bought over the years have ranged somewhere from $500-$800, with the only real upgrades I've added to them were extra RAM sticks when I needed to multitask because they're the easiest things for me to install. On Sunday, my dad drove me out to Micro Center where he got his latest computer (that would theoretically make it easier for him to watch the weekly church service), where I bought myself a PowerSpec G711. I've only had this for a week, so I haven't really had a chance to put it through its paces yet. I'm still trying to get used to the "glowing cooling fans and GPU" aesthetic these gaming PCs have, along with there being no optical disk drive...but I rarely used the one on my old computer anyway.

Aside from the obvious "play better games on my PC", the real reason I chose to upgrade my computer after about 5 1/2 years was for the space it offered. My old rig offered 2 TB for storing games/music/etc., but only 96 GB for programs (and do you believe how weird it is to say 96 GB is too little space?) The G711 only started with 1 TB standard, but I also bought a supplementary 4 TB drive which the clerks installed on-site at no extra cost. Now I won't have to worry as much about shuffling my programs or games around to make room for new ones like I have to do for my PS4 and Xbox One.

Now then, what else have I been doing?

Video Games - While I decide to go with something of a reset for my digital library, I've been playing River City Girls 2 on Nintendo Switch and just recruited Marian (the "damsel in distress" from the original Double Dragon who was a shopkeeper in the first River City Girls game). You have to fight her as a boss first, and it took me six tries to beat her because every time you knock off one of her life bars, she jumps up to hit a switch that floods the room with toxic waste, and you have to jump onto pillars while she tosses exploding oil drums at you. I lost a lot of health because I misjudged how far I needed to jump between pillars. She's also wicked fast and will often dodge out of your combos, which no other enemies up to this point have done yet. Regardless, I can't wait to try her out in real combat. The other new-ish playable character, Provie from River City Ransom: Underground, is still out there somewhere, and I hope to find her soon. ⭐

Manga - I've been on a SPY x FAMILY kick lately, and I just finished reading Volume 5 from my library. While this one wasn't quite as cute as Volume 4 (where Anya first met her new psychic family dog Bond), I did enjoy Chapter 29 and its "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" subplot, with Anya's (failed) attempt to explain to her class what Loid and Yor do for a living. ⭐⭐

Fan Fiction - I don't have much going on in the way of fan fiction (other than slowly working on the latest chapter of The Ghost of Ochs), but one of my friends tipped me off to a silly and cute little Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes one-shot called But I Don't Want to Be a Marketable Plushie, written by the same author who wrote the epic-length Three Houses fic An Eagle Among Lions (which I also like). When I first saw gameplay trailers for Three Hopes and learned that Monica was going to be playable, I was excited, for her dire situation was what inspired me to start writing Ghost. Playing the game and learning that Monica had a thing for Edelgard surprised me at first, but I quickly warmed up to the pairing, and I just wanted to read a story where the emperor and her loyal (and lovestruck) vassal just relax and goof off without the specter of war hanging over them.⭐⭐

There are only six days left until Fire Emblem Engage drops, so I'll soon have something to keep me occupied for a while after playing Three Hopes inside and out for months. I hope this new game resonates with me as much as Three Houses did.

( Spoilers for Golden Wildfire Part II )

Now that that's out of the way, I just need to complete a run of Azure Gleam, and I'll have finished all three story routes. There's still more to unlock after that (each route's "bad ending" cutscenes, for one thing), but I'll cross that bridge once I've found the materials to build it.

After playing Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes every day since its release, I managed to finish the Scarlet Blaze storyline on July 4. Fitting, since one of the route's main themes is "independence" - Edelgard bringing back the Southern Church and cutting ties with the Central Church, and flushing "those who slither in the dark" and their allies out of the Empire ASAP instead of waiting until the end of the war to deal with them so that she can conduct her campaign on her own terms instead of theirs.

Now, time for me to spoil the second half of the Scarlet Blaze route!
( This story is about to get spoiled like you when you visit your grandmother's house. )

Now to claw my way through Golden Wildfire (and Scarlet Blaze a second time, but on Hard difficulty this time!)

The "official" release of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is just hours away, but lots of people (including myself) have reported receiving their retail copies early. The excitement of jumping into the full game after playing the demo is tempting, but I'm going to exercise restraint and wait until tomorrow morning, along with blocking out any and all Fire Emblem-related social media for at least a week until I make significant progress in the story.

You want to know what I've noticed that doesn't really have anything to do with what's in the game itself? How FE seems to have this "one-two" thing going on with The Legend of Zelda in the Warriors spinoff space. First came Hyrule Warriors in 2015, and then two years later, Fire Emblem Warriors came out. Then in 2020, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity came out, with a much narrower focus on the world of the best-selling The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. And now here we are with Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, a game with an alternate take on the best-selling (in the franchise) Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Crazy, isn't it?

Ah, what a week to be a Fire Emblem fan. Not only is it confirmed that the Ashen Wolves will be joining the playable cast of Three Hopes (although we don't know what capacity this will be yet), but the long-awaited and long-teased demo launched along with it. You darn well better believe I downloaded it the moment I got home from work. It's a pretty big one, too - around 7 GB (sorry, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, but something better came up and I needed a sacrifice to the digital gods), and it lets you play through the first four chapters of each faction story and carry over all your progress to the full game two weeks from Friday. Coupled with the bonus save rewards one gets from playing through Three Houses and the 2017 Warriors game, I'm set to have a hefty head start on becoming a one-person wrecking crew.

( Moderate spoiler warning for the Three Hopes demo )

After two months of silence following the first Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes reveal at February's Nintendo Direct, a new trailer dropped literally this morning (search Nintendo's YouTube channel for "Mysterious Mercenary") with some gameplay footage and more information on what to expect from the game.

• Our purple-haired protagonist is named Shez, and according to Nintendo of Japan's Twitter account, they're seeking revenge on Byleth (who apparently never joined the Officers Academy in this continuity) for defeating them during one of their missions. They've also got a Sothis-like entity assisting(?) them, named Arvan*.
• At the very least, the three lords and their retainers (Edelgard and Hubert, Dimitri and Dedue, and Claude and Hilda) are returning as playable characters. I also noticed Mercedes and Lorenz in some non-combat scenes, so they're probably playable, too.
• The redhead from the earlier trailer is, in fact, Monica. And what's more...she apparently has a Crest in this continuity? Hmm...

My enthusiasm for this game just jumped an unspecified, but healthy-sized, percentage. I wonder if we'll get any more surprises in the next two weeks?

* Arvan isn't named in the English trailer, but there's a chance it might change a bit.