MONSTER SIGHTING :: #4: King Kong Escapes

Now THIS is pure kaiju candy through and through. I remember watching this on rainy winter days on TBS while vanilla sandwich cookies into milk tea. Sometimes it would be followed up by or come before an airing of The Last Dinosaur, which was also a Rankin-Bass production. 

Heck, even the voice actor for Dr. Who is the same one that voiced multiple characters in the various Rankin-Bass Christmas specials. 

MONSTER SIGHTING :: #3: King Kong vs. Godzilla

Continuing my Godzilla marathon with King Kong vs. Godzilla, the first and what all had assumed up until the last decade would be the last time these two would ever come face to face. 

Secret of Memoria: Remy Niscent

Meet Remy Niscent, the main protagonist of Secret of Memoria. 

Remy is a twelve-year-old boy who wields a mysterious unbreakable wooden sword. He lives in his family's cottage just outside the village of Memoria with his furred companion named Purr, a talking housecat. His parents mysteriously disappeared when he was just three years old while on a walk outside the village, leaving a crying Remy outside alone, in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm.

He's an adventurous boy with a strong sense of justice and dedication to his friends. He dreams of traveling to every corner of the Frontier, fighting monsters along the way, and seeing everything this wild, untamed land has to offer.

 

It Finally Ends

 As I have come to learn this past week, the Assistant Customer Service Manager at my old job had finally left at long last, like cancer being removed from a body after a long strenuous fight. 

While I am glad to know that she is finally gone and that the ones that survived her tyrannical reign still remain there with a job and that I can finally shop there again, I'll never work there or for any other company owned by them ever again. The fact that management allowed her to do what she did for so long, bleeding them out of all their good help without so much as a peep says a lot about the type of people that run the company. 

I had come to find out just yesterday that a lot of the past employees that were let go for wrongful reasons were having their jobs offered to them again by the store. Myself included, though I left upon my volition after the heathen tried to write me up for something that she allowed others to get away with while trying to make it look like it was her friend's idea to do so. The principal of the matter is, and I hope the ones that were being offered their jobs back, are being done so by the same people that stood by and just watched this woman verbally abuse them, then fired for the stupidest little reasons without so much of a lecture or the three necessary write-ups. It was an abuse of power that went untapped. 

But I'm in a better place now, with a company that actually notices and respects me. Sure they're still a huge corporation, but the differences are like night and day. 

And now, I'm off to work a closing shift. 2 to 8. With a nice heavy late springtime downpour happening outside.

GAME POWER! :: Mega Man VII

Mega Man makes the leap to 16bit in Mega Man VII, picking up right where Mega Man VI left off. Wily is behind bars and everything seemed peaceful... for a while. The doctor had a backup plan, along with eight robots with timers installed that, if not interacted with for a year, would activate and begins seeking out their creator.

 

Beginning with a trend that started in the Gameboy games and then crossing over into the console games for 7 and 8, you are given only four Robot Masters to choose from at first. Something I imagine was done to take off some of the trial and error of going in blind with a new Mega Man game, which frankly I always liked, but I can understand why they might change it.

GAME POWER! :: Mega Man VI

If Mega Man V was peak NES era, then VI is right below it. You can really tell that the devs were already more focused on the forthcoming Mega Man X. The RM designs were overall fantastic, but their weapons are incredibly lackluster and suffer from the same issue as the later Mega Man X games in that there's just not a whole lot going for them.

I love the worldwide approach to the designs this time around. 

GAME POWER! :: Mega Man V

 

Aww yeah now here we go! Mega Man V was where I really, truly begin to enjoy the Classic series. The controls are tight. The charged Mega Buster works great. Level design is peak. Robot Masters are... well they're good. Music is amazing as always. Mega Man V is right up there with Mega Man World 5 as far as my favorite OG games go.

Just look at these guys! One of them is practically a train. One is in the wrong game, and another is actually a boss in Breath of Fire 1. 

GAME POWER! :: Mega Man IV

 

When the world finally felt at peace and there had been no signs that Dr. Wily had survived the collapse of his tower, a new mysterious doctor by the name of Dr. Cossack appeared one day with his own eight Robot Masters. Their prime directive? Destroy Mega Man.

It was once again time to pick up the Mega Buster and get to work. 

Mega Man IV was where, I felt at least, the series began to reach its highest points where gameplay was concerned. I would like to reiterate that I did not grow up playing the 8bit Classic games. My first full experience was with Mega Man X in 1994 and I wouldn't go on to play the older games until the advent of emulation in the late 90s/early 00s, so the lack of charge shots in the first three games felt off to me which could be part of the reason I didn't find myself enjoying the OG series until IV where Mega's skillset felt more complete.

Anyway, on to the show!

The eight Robot Masters we'll be facing off with this time are a far more varied bunch than that seen in the previous three outings. They tend to shy away from the human-like body frame a tad bit more here and there. I don't think the majority of them would go on to become as memorable, however.

GAME POWER! :: Mega Man III

Hoo boy, this is never one I look forward to playing as it's pretty much the only game that I am consistently bad at. I didn't grow up playing the Classic series like I did the X games so all the skills and techniques that I possess were gained in my late teens and adulthood, so more often than not, I just kind of flat-out stink when it comes to the 8-bit Classic titles.

Dr. Wily is up to no good once more. This time with a set of eight brand new Robot Masters for Mega to deal with.

MONSTER SIGHTING :: #2: Godzilla Raids Again

As a kid, Raids Again or 'Gigantis the Fire Monster' as my VHS copy called it, was my favorite of the black and white films. I was never much a fan of monster versus human unless it was in scenes dispersed between monster on monster action.

GAME POWER! :: Mega Man II

 

Do I love Mega Man II? No. Do I hate it? Absolutely not! It's an overall solid game and a huge step up from Mega Man I, but by no means is it the best of the 8-bit titles. In my opinion at least. 

As I had mentioned in my ReCollection for Mega Man II, it was the game that first introduced me to the world of video games waaaaay back at the beginning of the 1990s. 

This time, Dr. Wily added two more evil robots to the mix bringing the total Robot Masters one must defeat to eight, a staple of the series going forward.

ReCollection #6 :: Secret of Mana

 

As I have stated numerous times again and again over the years, Secret of Mana despite its flaws will always be my Greatest of all Time; It hit me at just the most pivotal time and helped shape my gaming interests and lead to the eventual development of my very own e-novel titled 'Secret of Memoria'. A slice-of-life epic fantasy built almost entirely off of memories from my childhood, recycled and recompiled into a fantastical new world full of adventure and bright new characters.

But this isn't about the here and now, this is about the past. The events of my childhood that surround Secret of Mana. The timeframe leading up to my obtaining a copy and the summer that I spent making my way through it.

"Time flows like a river, and history repeats. . ."

GAME POWER! :: Mega Man

 

That's right people, it's May, so that could mean just one thing: Mega Man! Every Mega May I like to replay a few Mega Man games throughout the month to celebrate my all-time favorite video game character. This time I am starting from the very beginning and playing Mega Man 1, released all the way back in the monumental year of 1987; The year of my birth.

Advrik's Garden #1

This past week, we (my brother and I) dismantled a deck that I had planned to build a lean-to on top of. The project never went anywhere beyond that so I thought I might as well save some money and put all of that wood to use by converting it into a fence to surround the garden beds.

I have always wanted to have a garden right outside my bedroom, but with the dogs that was never possible without some sort of fencing. 

The 8-foot weather treated planks of wood were cut into two 4-foot tall pieces, set apart four inches each. It's not pretty, but it works. 

At some point, I want to get some dark stain to put on the fencing to give it a more rustic, finished look. 

The area needs a lot of work still, but I am just happy to have it in all its muddy glory. 

I returned the corner bricks. They looked nice, but future prospects had them costing far too much additional outgoing cash in what is supposed to be a budget garden.

With the first two beds filled and ready to go, planting comes next. 

"Dragon Ball Village" and Secret of Memoria (ReCollection #5) PART 1

"Dragon Ball! Gotta find that Dragon Ball!" 

I've wanted to write this one up for some time, but first I wanted to dwell on things and see if I had everything together. Rewatching old home movies from around the time I did certain things helped a bit in getting things pieced together to the best of my memories. But because the Dragon Ball I made up in my head and the Dragon Ball I later discovered when the show began to air on Toonami in 1998 are two totally different things, so in order to create a proper timeline for each, I'm separating the two:

The Dragon Ball I invented in my head as an eight-year-old and the actual series were vastly different.

The former is the Dragon Ball that existed as a set of figurines and a single listing in a TV Guide on a channel our cable provider did not carry.

The reason I am taking this route is that the "Dragon Ball" I discovered, alongside Secret of Mana, played a pivotal role in the eventual birth of Secret of Memoria, and so to better understand the existence of characters and locations, even storylines, in Secret of Memoria, knowing how they came to be is a must.

I Caught the Chonker

Earlier today, shortly after wrapping up another early morning shift at work, I decided that I would head down to the spillway once more for some fishing. 

After cashing in my change jar, I had enough money to get myself a thing of night crawlers and to get me through to payday next week.

So I set off around noon, stopping at the gas station along the way for the worms. I also found the new Mountain Dew flavor which I will be doubt a Commercial Break for soon. 

I had originally intended on trying to get some catfish, but then I remembered the huge bass that hang out beneath the downed tree near where will the stream meets the river. I had been trying to catch these fish since March now, but they had until today seemingly had no interest in anything that I threw in front of them. 

I rigged up a big night crawler on a circle hook with a sinker and head, then tossed it out a little ways beyond the debris; I then reeled it in slowly until the worm settled just outside the shelter, in a patch of sunlight that was beaming beneath the trees. The worm wriggled, finally catching the eye of not just one, but all of the base that were hanging about. 

They all made a move towards it, but it was the biggest one that I had dubbed 'Chonker' the last time I was out that took the bait. What resulted was the most exciting, drag-pulling fish fight that I have had yet! 

I finally managed to land not only the biggest bass yet but also the biggest fish I have ever caught, period! The length of my arm, easily and weighed a good amount that my arm started to feel strained after a few minutes of holding it up for photos. I wasn't even mad that I didn't catch anything else following that- It absolutely made up for every past fishing trip that ended with nothing but a bite. 

The Return of the Garden Beds

 I absolutely love gardening.

And I owe a lot of that love to the fact that I grew up playing the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons series(Who says video games inspire nothing but violence?) so as soon as I had my own cash flow coming in, I've pretty much been running a garden every year since. Well, that was until 2021 when my world kind of got flipped upside down and the background depression I had been dealing with for the last several years suddenly cranked the volume up to eleven, leading to my clinical diagnosis and being prescribed 10mg of Lexapro, which I take once a day every morning.

A Farmer's Guide to Oldhill Farm (Stardew Valley)

 

So I started a new farm in Stardew Valley. The second one on the Steam Deck. Third farm overall for the Steam/PC version of the game. I started playing Stardew again shortly after getting my Steam Deck in January, modding the crap out of the game and making it three times as large. That need to mod soon ballooned out of control and I was adding cheat mods, and quality-of-life mods that oversimplified the game to the point that it wasn't fun anymore.

So I canned the playthrough.

But I came back!

MONSTERSIGHTING :: #1: Godzilla (1954)

Borrowing the name of the TNT movie block from the 1990s, MonsterVision is going to be a series of posts dedicated to my musings about monster movies of all sorts. And none would make for a better start to the series than the introductory film from the big guy himself: Godzilla.

Game Power! Beyond Oasis #10: To The End (Part 3)

 

With Non-Entity destroyed, I was sent to the Shadow Land; The world in which the great demon lord Agito is set to be reborn in, thanks to the help of Silver Armlet.

Game Power! Beyond Oasis #9: To The End (Part 2)

The king was gravely injured, but alive still. They took him to his quarters while I set off for the mountains beyond the castle to confront Silver Armlet.

Game Power! Beyond Oasis #8: To The End (Part 1)

 

Upon my return to the town, the siege was still underway but thanks to the chaos and confusion, I was able to sneak into the castle's waterways thanks to Bow, the forest spirit.

Game Power! Beyond Oasis #7: The Forest Shrine

 

Run, don't walk, in order to get...

After my short talk with the Wiseman of the mountain, I used a nearby portal that sent me back to the western beaches beside the castle. Enemy soldiers were nearby, meaning that I was likely already too late.

ReCollection #4: Breath of Fire III (1998)

 

Here we go with another ReCollection, this time for my favorite entry in the Breath of Fire series!

It was the spring of 1998. I was a little over ten years old and a happy owner of both the Nintendo 64 and Playstation; Pretty much anything I wanted to play was available to me, save for the odd Sega Saturn game that I saw on shelves for rent, like Legend of Oasis. But beyond that, the sky was pretty much the limit. 

Carp

 

Yesterday I spent another few hours out at the spillway in hopes of pulling in some bass or catfish, or just anything in general really. I suppose my lack of focus on catching particular types of fish has been what has lead to my not really catching anything as of late, so after this trip I may thought I might as well begin focusing up a bit more; Not to mention going out with some actual bait instead of just tossing lures all the time.

Despite my not catching anything this time, it was an exciting trip out just from what I had witnessed. You see, in late April/Early May, the carp tend to move into shallower waters to spawn. It just so happens that they had opened the dam almost completely up, putting a lot of the familiar fishing areas I'm used to under quite a bit of water. In fact, I'd say that I've never seen the water so deep before. 

By raising the water level considerably, it flooded the normally swampy area with two to three feet of water, allowing for some truly massive carp to make their way into the warm, shallow, and very muddy waters to spawn. 

And believe me, when I say, I have never been witness to this before, so when I saw what was easily a twelve-inch long carp swimming along in such shallow waters, I quickly doused the closest thing I had to corn-like lure with this foul-smelling gel and tossed it in hopes of hooking one of them. 

And that's when things started getting really interesting as a whole school of carp started pouring into the flooded area. 

Game Power! Beyond Oasis #6: Into the Fire

 

Today, we go. . .

I scaled the grueling mountainside, doing battle with both man and monster alike as I made my climb. The temperature rose rapidly, not from the warming springtime sun, but from the active volcano that loomed just overhead.