Yeah, I've once again been quiet. Things feel like a mess that I've been demoralized and things feeling awkward around me. I can't say anything much, though.

I'll be seeing that I get myself more active on here again. In the meantime, I'm still feeling more focused with my PS1 and OG Xbox.

A couple of things that happened.

1. I got an XStation ODE installed into a PS1. All my PS1's lasers were showing their age so this was something I've been wanting to do. Now I can still use a PS1 to play PS1 Tales of Phantasia. There's still Tales of Eternia, which I think it's time to just go full completionist on now and that's how I'm going to do it. (Though I did spend some time using it to bust a move. Busting a move doesn't involve cutesy dinosaurs popping multi-color bubbles, though who knows if you get what I'm hinting at with that remark)

2. Another system I've been so eager to get something going in a disc-less form was the OG Xbox. My old OG Xbox have been acting weird. But now, I acquired a modded OG Xbox and can now play that disc-less. (Though Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 on OG Xbox seems to act weird. This even happened trying to play that on my 360 too. Even with buying another disc of the game or getting it through...other methods, it's the same case. It's just that one game.) I haven't been able to get all my saves off of my old OG Xbox. It's mostly my vanilla Ninja Gaiden saves I wanted but due to how convoluted it comes off for me to get said saves, I decided I'm just going to replay it just to re-unlock the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy. At least I was able to rebuild a save for Dead or Alive 3 & Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate.

I can talk about my own opinions about tales of as someone who absolutely fell in love with phantasia when I played it back as a kid, but is not a fan of the series, but idk if that holds that much value.

What I learnt with time is that the tales of fanbase is terrible and they are a hive mind, it's like you can only have one absolute opinion of every tales of game and everything else you may say about them is wrong. Like how tales of symphonia is SUPER GREAT when it's really mediocre; it doesn't do anything particularly bad (well there are a couple of really bad dungeons), but it doesn't shine at anything either. Or like you say, people saying that Legendia was bad when it was just different. Go Shiina's music is fantastic, the gameplay is fun but I guess people were just expecting more 3D stuff instead of going back to 2D and no having motoi sakuraba is bad or whatever. It's a very charming game. I also really, really appreciate Tales of Symphonia 2, I really liked both protagonists, the little ToP references, and how it reflects how the world has changed.

My problem with tales of has always been how stale the games are, and I always blamed Hideo Baba for that. Since he was in charge, every tales of looked really boring, they're very samey, not trying to change at all. For hardcore fans that must be a blessing, for me that didn't really enjoy TotA, it made me lose interest. Then I played Zestiria. I both love and hate Zestiria. The world is fantastic, the characters are great, the setting was really, really good, but the dungeons and story were awful. The dungeons are super large and they're empty, there are no puzzles, the battle system was not fun either with how gimmicky it was. And well, how badly the story treats Alisha and the second part of the story is just... bad. At least for me. Berseria had a good personal story with good characters, but the battle system was absolutely broken with how easy it is. Honestly, I was just glad I could know more about Zestiria's world without having to deal with what I hated most about Zestiria, so I liked it better, and it did feel more fresh than previous tales of.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to Arise because Baba is not involved, but we really don't know much about it. It's def not god eater, it looks more like a traditional arpg which honestly may be good or bad. We'll see. It didn't feel that different to me to other 3D tales of games, though.

Guess because I'm playing the PS2 remake of Tales of Destiny, I guess I just need to get something off my chest.

I'm feeling apathetic towards Tales of Arise. When I saw the gameplay footage, it really looks like two things. First is that they seem like they really want to ditch Linear Motion Battle, the series' trademark battle system. Second is that it was looking less Tales-y and more like, say, God Eater. It's feeling so off for me.

Maybe I'm just been around this series for so long and feeling out of touch with the fandom. I didn't even enjoy Berseria even though everyone wants to go on about its greatness and even use it to crap on Zestiria even more. I just think Berseria was average (painfully average for me). On that same note, I'm also constantly feeling lonely because I know I'm the only one that actually thinks Zestiria is a good game while everyone else craps on it. It even leads into me going after myself because I'm just proving I'm some idiot that can't see the same problems everyone goes on about and that I'm so damn oblivious to them. I mean, I actually had to get it through my head Legendia was not a good game and that one was crapped on hard back in 2006. Yet, these days, it feels more like that one is more praised than bashed. This was after I realized Legendia was not a good game. In fact, I had to realize that Vesperia's story isn't well written either. I mean, I was a bonehead to think Vesperia's third act was good.

For all I know, maybe I really am getting more jaded. Playing Tales of Destiny PS2 is the only thing right now keeping my enthusiasm for Tales going forward.

So yeah, I acquired four SFC Ganbare Goemon games. To think, I actually played three of them as a kid (one of them is me playing the Japanese version of Legend of the Mystical Ninja). I'd probably be telling kid me there's going to be a 10+ years wait to play them again (3 with a walkthrough) and even a 20+ years wait to even play them in English via a fan translation (especially 3).