iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Went to the jibika for what turned out to be nothing but perhaps as some kind of Olympian punishment the guy seems to have prescribed me Every Drug and now I have six separate things to take 2-3 times daily. I'm just on the tail end of an infection there can't be that many things wrong with me

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

The translation does not make a meal of this (right call imo) but I enjoy that the Japanese script has her casually throwing out all the classic literaturisms, as it should

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Preliminary feelings on Onimusha - when this game is level-based it rules - when this game is open-world (i.e. most of your time in the larger Kyoto map) it is a Ubisoft game (derogatory) - whoever designed Shikibu understands glasses moe to a frankly terrifying degree

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

What is a railroad track, really, but a means of accelerating a lot of particles

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I should not have been given this power I am incapable of using it well or wisely

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I gave in and got Onimusha Reasons I have taken hits in this game: - misread the attack type - 5% - flubbed the input - 15% - ISSEN THE WORLD - 80%

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

on a related note I've been plinking away at Sunbreak again and I just found out Gunlance's Blast Dash can go straight into Wyrmstake

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I think I'm like actually measurably better at the older Monster Hunters because the clunkier controls put me in the deliberate mindset you need to bring to the combat whereas in the newer games with slicker movement you can always be doing something and therefore I Will Try

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I think the games I'm most excited for right now are Prison of Husks, Iron Bramble and UTTER INVERSE, of which I guess the common thread is "Women in Nice Clothes and Bad Situations"

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

for three days I've been struggling against the impulse to buy Onimusha for full price and I don't know if I have a fourth in me

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

this was weirdly good actually. devastating

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Nauseating ad copy aside I did need to know what was going on here

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Honestly nothing makes me feel like a longtime Japan resident like 700 yen combini bentos, I remember when those things were 450

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

And not having a dodge button (aside from jump) adds another layer of precision/positioning that's stretching underused muscles, and that's fun too okay I think I'd better hit the brakes on this line of thought before I accidentally convince myself to start playing bullet hells

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I've learned I have the most fun when I don't need to think about my tools at all but need to think about the enemy's mechanics a lot, so the basic-mechanics-high-execution combat appeals to me. It's the same reason I gravitate to the basic sword and shield in Fromsoft games, I like the simplicity

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Think I've enjoyed Ys Origin a lot more this time round. I've cranked it up to Hard (Nightmare scares me still) and I think that's really helped me appreciate the combat design. I like Jenocres in particular for how impenetrable it seems at first vs how it falls apart once you get how it works

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I must have gotten further than I thought on my first playthrough because this guy super is not early, he's only a few levels from the top

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

It's been 11 years but I'm back for a rematch

A Ys Origin screenshot of the player character facing down a colossal insect with four legs, four bladed arms, a squat body, and a fanged mouth in the middle of its thorax. Onscreen text reads "Pictimos: The Grim Mantid"

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

one of the first items Ys Origin gives you is a mask (equippable at any time) that reveals secret pathways but makes all enemies invisible, which I do think is the most extraordinary act of game design villainy

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

God I've missed this visual style. Falcom never should have stopped making games that look like this, I mean that from my soul

An isometric view of a large, circular chamber where two parties of characters with hyper-deformed proportions are conversing. A dialogue box reads: "Cadena: 'He understands the severity of the situation. He'd want us to start the search and rescue as soon as possible, with or without him.'"

A view of the protagonist outside the tower, near the start of an outer walkway sculpted in blocky 3D. A blue save statue glows at the far end. The walkway is fully open aside from supporting pillars, revealing a sweeping view of the barren, volcanic landscape below.

The interior of the tower, inside a large chamber filled with water. A stone staircase rises out of the water in the foreground, opens into an octagonal landing, then continues up on the right. Colossal pillars line the wall behind. The hyper-deformed model of the protagonist stands in the middle of the landing, submerged up to her chest.

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

"isn't the mantis boss kind of early in the game?" yeah

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Playing Angeline Era got me in the mood to finally go back to Ys, so I'm doing that Ys Origin does not have bumpslash combat but it's been a white whale of mine for, according to my old save data...over a DECADE? That can't be right Anyway hopefully I'll beat that mantis boss this time

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I'm not sure whether to love or hate the final 2-3 hours, though. The game would not be what it is without them, they give it a lot of its narrative weight and have some incredibly memorable sequences...but they're also drawn-out, obtuse and feature some really maddening boss fights

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The writing is something else, there's a pervasive surreal quality to it and most NPCs are barely tethered to reality but every once in a while it'll slam-dunk you with something utterly sincere. Kinda like if Earthbound was a game that knew it was glitching out but still had all its heart

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Finished Angeline Era Wild game, feels like it escaped from an alternate timeline where an entirely different design paradigm prevailed in the 90s. Its bag of tricks maaaybe wears a little thin past the 12-hour mark but I had a good time with it. Played on Inferno, which was pleasantly challenging

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Having to attend a hospital appointment (non-serious) that turned out to be most accessible by a 50-minute walk BUT on the way there I'm getting to see some great dogs so who's the real winner, huh

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

More common in LNs/manga (and esp. at pubs with more separation between translators and in-house team) but choices made there often get grandfathered into other media too

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I also suspect quite a lot of titles just get penciled in early for the sake of announcements etc (potentially before a translator has even been picked) and never changed

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Reposted by James W

oni @ NYCC i09 @largeonions.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

THE HEART OF WAR // Kasane Teto 重音テトVS Yi Xi 奕夕【SynthV Original】「知己知彼，百战不殆」 (Know yourself and know your enemy, and you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.) 🧍‍♀️⚔️🧍‍♀️ #vocalopost #vocanew #kasaneteto #yixi

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I need Iron Bramble so bad, I was already looking forward to it before the demo but I didn't know we were going to be playing God's Most Awful Princess

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I feel like "actually Japanese game companies just have laws that make it harder to lay people off" usually gets deployed as like a harsh truth, but, like...yeah! They aren't morally better, it's just regulation and worker's rights! You should find that encouraging!

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

the amounts of money involved are honestly very slight (a few hundred yen either way) and I'm confident the experience will be worth it, but the naked extortion is, like, offensive to my faculties. the mind recoils

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Booking teamLab might be my first exposure to dynamic pricing (or at least, to a system that's so up-front about using it) and it's honestly such a demeaning thing to be subjected to that if I wasn't doing this for a friend who's visiting, I think I'd just refuse out of principle

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Finished one route (Leda) route in Fortune's Weave lotta game in this game

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I expected to get really into A Memory Called Empire (so much so that I pre-emptively got the second book too) but it's not sticking to my brain for some reason I'm gonna keep trucking at it, I really want to like it and I suspect I will once I'm in a groove with it, but it hasn't quite clicked yet

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

(Fortune's Weave) I like that in Muu's support convos she's all "I want to learn how to be a pretry lady just like Leda" and meanwhile on the gameplay side of things I'm training this kid to punch out God and I'm starting to think she could do it

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

also I do not have three regular iron swords I spent all my money on gifts and food

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Trying to fathom the mind of this girl I just tried to recruit in Fortune's Weave who said she wanted a token of trust before she entered my employ and then asked for three regular iron swords

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

like that reverse ojisan gacha game except it's real and is going to sell three million copies

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

a lot of fortune's weave's characters do feel very targeted at its existing fanbase but in this case that means it has a lot of middle-aged men who are vaguely pathetic and wet

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I know Leda is meant to be consumed by vengeance but like, I think it would instantly make this route more engaging if she actually got to be cunning about it about it instead of Sirocco just shepherding her around and doing all the thinking

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James W @soukoutaigi.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Gameplay aside, it looks and sounds noticeably richer, and it's def doubling down on Rusted Moss's weird, inhuman take on the fey. The trailer made me think I'd be playing a lost girl in a scary world, and Lilac is, uh, Not That. But I'm very down with her callous, disinterested brand of dreadful

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