like a star, like a firefly

Just because Fortune's Weave has been out for a couple of weeks now and I won't be able to play it anytime soon, it doesn't mean I can't or won't scratch that Fire Emblem itch in other ways!

And so last week I started playing Engage again, after having stalled on it for a few years. I was a bit worried that the way I suddenly stopped playing it before meant I didn't really like the game that much (even though I was on Fell Xenologue 2 at the time, which I did find genuinely interesting) but I think the reality was that I'd gotten myself into a bit of a boring gameplay loop by playing a load of paralogues and skirmishes back-to-back and doing Somniel stuff in-between every time without progressing any of the story, which is kind of my own fault. ^^; It may not be my favourite FE, but now I've been playing it again, I am still enjoying it.

My first focus has been on going through the rest of the Xenologues, and I finished the last of those the other night. \o/ I liked it quite a bit! The alternate versions of the royals are intriguing, even if I ended up not seeing much of their unique encounter dialogue, and I've become pretty attached to the Fell twins.

Next I plan to finally play the Chapter 20 battle and thus get on with some of the main story again, because I always swore to myself that when I got back to this game I was gonna do it for Veyle. I'm still pouncing on the easier skirmishes when they pop up, though, so I can start leveling up the Fell twins and hopefully try and incorperate them into my main loadouts once they're stronger.

Angstober 2026

Loving the pretty purple feathers on this year's graphics. ♥

I don't plan on trying to do all 31 days this time, as that got quite exhausting for me last year, but I definitely do want to write at least a few things. Angstober is always fun to work on, no matter how few or how many prompts I decide to make fills for.

I beat SO1 R, for the first time with this version and the third time with SO1 in general!

It may definitely be showing its age now, which makes me feel a bit spoilt as someone who remembers the days well before quality-of-life conveniences like fast travel became expected things in games, but I still have a big soft spot for it. I always felt there was something quite endearing about the story and characters, relatively simple though they may be. ♥

Erys and Millie were always big favourites for me and remain so now, and I still like Ioshua quite a bit. Meanwhile, I've developed a surprising fondness for Pericci this time round, even though I didn't use her in my main battle party. I'm chalking a lot of that up to her ending, which is actually quite bittersweet; she may not be terrifically relevant to the overall story, and she may only get a couple of scenes that explore her character to any real degree, but there's sad implications there and she's definitely a very lonely girl under the comic relief.

I've also gained a few new ships this time round, with Millie/Erys having overtaken even Cyuss/Phia as my favourite ship! (Relationships outside of the three main canon couples tend to only get crumbs at most, but there can still be good crumbs that tickle the imagination!) In general, I've come to think that Millie should kiss girls, and I say that as someone who still likes Roddick/Millie. ^^;

I'll give this game a break for now, but as I said before, I do have plans for eventual further playthroughs.

( What plans are those, you might ask? )

I think I'll start playing SO2 R very soon!

Because the recent news on Fortune's Weave has put me on a Fire Emblem kick in general, and because I know I'm not likely to be able to play the new game until at least next year, I've been poking at some of the previous games in the meantime.

This has included starting to play Binding Blade for the first time! I'd been interested in that one for a long time, but it's only recently that I've, um, gotten the means to play it for myself. ^^; So far I'm up to the beginning of chapter 5.

Honestly, though? I'm not sure how much further progress I'll be able to make, because I'm finding this game quite hard in ways that aren't that much fun for me. Maybe I'm spoiled by all the games I played that came out after it, but I swear it's got a much steeper learning curve and takes much less time to get considerably more difficult. (Case in point: I came perilously close to losing Wade in chapter 2!) I'm chalking this difficulty up most to the hit rates being an absolute crapshoot (even moreso than Shadows of Valentia), the bosses feeling a tad overpowered, and enemy reinforcements suddenly appearing and immediately moving in the same turn. In other words, this game is hard in ways that feel borderline unfair to me.

I at least remember what I played of the Conquest side of Fates being challenging for the right reasons, so the challenges in question felt satisfying to overcome. Binding just feels more frustrating than anything, as if getting good outcomes relies too much on luck compared to using actual strategy.

What's not helping matters even beyond the gameplay is that Binding feels quite light on story and characterisation so far. I wonder if that improves later on? I swear I remember Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones being more character-driven and having more detailed storytelling than this, assuming I'm not putting those games on a nostalgia-tinted pedestal...

All that being said, I'm not necessarily going to give up on Binding forever at this early point. I do think I might rather poke at different FE games for a while, though. Blazing and Stones both look appealing on that front... as does Engage... and my Silver Snow run of Three Houses that's been stalled for years... and Shadow Dragon... possibly even starting over with Path of Radiance... I've certainly got a few options, in any case!

threesentenceficathon is up and running again for 2026!

I'm hoping to actually write some things this time, after I ultimately didn't write anything for this in 2025. At least I haven't got an injured arm making things difficult, unlike last year!

New Fire Emblem game coming to Switch 2?

New Megas for the Kalos starters in Pokémon Legends Z-A?

Super Dangan Ronpa 2 remake with an additional new alternative scenario?

Whoa.

I've been playing The Hundred Line since it released in late April, and beforehand had played the demo as soon as it dropped on the Switch... and as of last night, I've beaten the whole game! As in all 100 endings!

When I started playing, I didn't necessarily plan on or expect to get every single ending, given how dang huge the game is. After a certain point, though, my desire to explore a good number of different routes turned into wanting to see all of them, and the game's such a fun ride that I found myself more than happy to stay on it the whole way through.

Because I'm nuts, below the cut is a list of what order I did the routes in and the order in which I got each and every ending, plus a few more thoughts.

( Surprisingly, not that many spoilers beyond route names; I've kept things as vague as I can )

It feels weird to be done with this game after I've been playing it to death for three months, but I've seen Kodaka talking about wanting to possibly add even more routes through updates or DLC, so I'm glad this isn't necessarily the end of my time with these characters and the world and situations they live in.

When I'd last played the Switch version of Tales of Vesperia back in 2019, I'd just returned to Dahngrest after finishing up at Ghasfarost, immediately before the next major set of events that happened there.

Since I picked the game back up just over a week ago, I've made it to Mount Temza -- slightly past the farthest point I'd ever gotten to in the 360 version!

( Some assorted thoughts, with spoilers for up to Mount Temza )

I think I've got a hard boss coming up very soon, so I'm wishing myself luck with that...

I wish I could hit a reset button on this year. It's gotten off to a terrible start for me.

As if injuring my arm last week wasn't bloody awful on its own, today my Switch seems to have randomly died -- even though it was working just fine just last night. The screen went black and stayed that way when I was booting up a game like usual, pressing the home button didn't do anything, going from TV mode to handheld mode didn't do anything, and after turning it off it's refused to turn back on again at all. That'll be several hundred hours worth of progress in Fire Emblem and Zelda and Pokémon gone...

NEXT DAY ETA: Looks like my Switch works again now! I didn't lose entire playthroughs' worth of progress after all! Still, I really could've done without that unnecessary stress!

I finished my Utena rewatch. Still one of my favourite anime. ♥

( Scattered thoughts )

I plan on rewatching the movie and rereading all the manga (first manga, movie-manga, After the Revolution) soon.

That feeling when I watch what's ostensibly a comedy episode, yet the analysis notes I write down for it wind up going to incredibly depressing places. :(

Utena's comedy episodes are odd beasts, because when you rewatch them with knowledge of the whole show, they turn out to have a fair amount of unhappy subtext and/or foreshadowing that makes them hard to laugh at in hindsight. That said, I don't agree with the implicit notion that the show has no genuine comedy and that every single thing is actually secretly horrifying; then again, it's mostly little moments that I find funny, like the endings of some Shadow Girl plays or Juri wanting a turn in a massage chair Nanami was sitting in.

Next up for me is eps 28-29, which I'm not looking forward to all that much because ugh, Ruka. It's possible that I might end up not hating him as much as before, but I don't exactly expect my opinion on him to do a 180, and just seeing him in the episode preview had me cringing already. ~.~

I'll do it for Shiori, though! And for everything that comes after these episodes!

I love episode 9 of Revolutionary Girl Utena so much. I have about a million feelings about the coffin flashback alone.