March Round-Up '25

This month went at a wacky pace and has been tough all-around. I've been working hard on multiple projects I can't share publicly yet, finding new things to share in my streams, saw the dentist (thankfully things are fine), and dealing with many other things offline, but I'm grateful to have overall decent health. There is soooo much more than what I talk about here, but I hope you enjoy these highlights!!

Assorted IRL Things

Chris' parents drove out to spend a week with us and we had a pleasant time sharing more of our favorite places with them. Funny enough, this was probably the SINGLE week of the year that will have had persistent rain... but we worked around it! Lots of delicious food was eaten, museums were seen, and various cool places were explored. We got a new board game - Lacuna - and ended up spending an afternoon playing it plus a couple other games together at the AirBnb they stayed at. I'm grateful they made the time for us, I love them very much!!

We enjoyed a great variety of places together! State highlights, tasty foods, much art, and cuties wherever we went!

As far as projects go, I'm working extremely hard on a bunch of different things!! My partner is getting closer to wrapping up a wonderful bump-combat personal game project (which I'll be doing even more design and artwork for very soon), I've been tackling a bunch of commissions offline, and I'm finally starting the process of making a new game of my own. There's also an art show that I'm entering into with a couple physical pieces that I recently sketched out some ideas for... keep an eye here for some sneak peeks of what I'm working on in the coming months!

This image from some gamedev I'm doing is funny to me out of context

Games

Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is such an utterly fun game, sincerely one of the most fun action games I've ever played; I loved it so much that I Platinum'd it on my PS5!!! Despite not having the same kind of emotional storytelling as the other games in the RGG series have (though there is an incredible heartfelt moment in the post-credits scene), it was an utter blast playing as one of my favorite characters ever. As much as I enjoy the turn-based action of Ichiban's stories, I truly enjoy action combat most of all and the different play styles were equally exciting to use... it felt like Infinite Wealth had an upgrade! I was surprised that I thoroughly enjoyed the pirate combat too - it was a blast recruiting wild characters old and new to my ship, feeding animals to have them become supporters, and rocking out to karaoke as we sailed the high seas. Such a fantastic game, I highly recommend it even to those who haven't played other games (though it does make more sense if you have played others in the series of course)!!!!!

IT'S MY RESORT!!!! AGAIN!!!!!

Within Pirate Yakuza lies a MegaDrive emulator, and there I've slowly been playing through Fantasy Zone 2: The Tears of Opa-Opa. Why slowly...? Because the intense controls keep giving me literal blisters on my thumbs!!!! I love Fantasy Zone, one of the original "cute 'em ups," and hadn't tried the second game before - despite how taxing it is on my hands I'm enjoying it. I'm currently in the second-to-last final boss so I wonder if I'll be able to beat the game after my hands heal! Curse you, Buubuuman...

I've been watching my partner play through Vividlope, which has the aesthetics of a game straight from the Dreamcast, featuring hypnotically pleasing gameplay and adorable characters to match. Super easy to pick up and put down, and the music, sfx, and really just everything together mesh into one of the most wonderful indie arcade games I've seen in a very long time. There's a free demo if you'd like to try it out too, just watch out; it's addicting!!

The highly anticipated second chapter of Soul of Sovereignty is real and my GOSH I haven't stopped thinking about it. The art GG creates is so incredibly inspiring to me, and the writing for this chapter blew me away. There's one character in particular that I was totally endeared to immediately, especially with how I could relate to their story... this game is so, so good!! Please support it if you have the means - you can also try the free demo beforehand to see if it's something you'd enjoy!

I had a week of streams featuring games which featured animators from Studio Ghibli, which finally gave me the chance to try a game I'd yearned to play for years: Magic Pengel, The Quest for Color! Featuring art and background direction from Yoshiharu Sato, one of the key animators for My Neighbor Totoro, this game is a treat to look at and just overflowing with creativity. The concept itself put YOU in the artist seat too: you draw your own creatures, named "Doodles," and then have them duke it out in a big competition against other creations. I haven't gotten too far into it, but the fighting system's got some complexities that keep it simple but interesting, and I love drawing little guys. I look forward to more!

I've finally reached my limit of how many Pokemon I can get naturally in my run of Crystal, and have just started to revisit Pokemon Yellow to continue filling out the Pokedex. I've never played a full run of Yellow before - this is my first time! - and going backwards from playing Crystal feels a lot slower and rougher than I would have expected. I'm still enjoying it though because I Love Pokemon!!!

Just like Crystal version, I'm playing Yellow via my N64 transfer pack and Pokemon Stadium 2!

Anime

We've finally been watching anime again! We tried a bunch of currently airing shows (most of which we dropped after the first episode...), but we've seen some surprisingly cool stuff old and new.

My favorite anime of Spring 2025's season was, by FAR, Zenshu! An original by Mappa, it's about an animator who's thrust into her favorite animated movie and fixes things by using her animating powers. The first episode didn't fully catch my attention, but after just another episode or two I was fully invested. Something that impressed me most about it is its underlying hopefulness and wish to persist on - important messaging in these harsh times. Give it a watch if you want to see something stylishly beautiful that also happens to flip the isekai genre on its head.

Paradise Kiss is a gem of an anime by the same creator of another favorite of mine, Nana. A refreshing take on the kinds of people it featured, with a cast of complex characters bursting with hopes and dreams all their own. I sincerely enjoyed it and especially loved seeing the variety of outfits each episode, truly befitting eccentric fashion students!! I highly recommend this one for those who want a show with a fantastic artistic sense and slightly more mature tone.

A show I'd been waiting for last year and finally got to catch up to with its Spring airing is Tasokare Hotel (also known as "Twilight Hotel"), which has a premise that reminded me of a show I like, Death Parade (which I talk about below!), and while Tasokare Hotel was overall decent to watch I felt a little bit let down. The show could have been SO cool, but felt like it didn't have the time to explore the intricacies of its stories to the fullest, nor gave even the main characters enough time to really flourish themselves. Not a terrible show, just disappointing for what I was hoping for.

I just mentioned Death Parade and actually ended up rewatching it while I worked to remind me of why it felt better than Tasokare Hotel. I think overall the individual stories have more "oomph" to them, with the main cast of characters having stronger designs and mostly was just more fun to watch. I also have to mention that it has one of the BEST openings of all time, which I frequently return to when I need a mood boost (the ending slaps too, but I couldn't find a good link to it). Definitely recommend this show over Tasokare Hotel if you're in the mood for macabre.

Little Jumbo is an utterly WILD short musical film from Sanrio in the 70's. I don't think I could have predicted anything about its story and where it goes. It's worth just watching it without knowing anything prior (psst you can watch it in full right here). Go, be free and enjoy(???).

I was craving something with a heavy dose of heartbreak at its core, so I turned to environmental horror story Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. I watched this for my first time last year and thoroughly enjoyed it, and since then have experienced a hearty handful more of scary earthquakes and weather travesties of my own (including being displaced from my home via devastating fires earlier this year...), so it hit even HARDER this time. Excellent show that pulls no punches and feels so, so real in its portrayal; seriously well done.

On the flipside of my emotions, I've turned to Rilu Rilu Fairylu when I've needed a little pick-me-up. The show's simple and sweet, with very very cute and appealing fairy designs. Easy watching whenever you just need a little smile.

We just finished Appare-Ranman last night - I felt like it was pretty good overall. The main concept/plot is what kept me going after seeing that some of the character designs were kinda... ...uhhhh... and while I felt like the first half of the show was a bit slow, the second half shone brightest with the character interactions and action choreography.

Chris and I have been exploring the vast library of 2000's anime, and gave Full Metal Panic a shot. The action in the series is pretty cool, I enjoy it as long as it isn't focused on the typical HS anime shenanigans.... sigh. As a palate cleanser, we've seen some of one of my favorite shows I often saw at my school's anime club: FMP's spinoff Fumoffu - which I greatly prefer since its comedy comes from its hilariously over-the-top violence and silliness.

Other Media

Win or Lose is Pixar's first time producing a full tv series and it was really neat! The story's about a co-ed softball team who's getting ready to play in their championship game, and each of the episodes features a different character's perspective for the events that happen in the week leading up to the big game. Though the humor didn't really land for me most of the time, it was nice to look at and the storytelling was interesting. I'd say I enjoyed it!

Moana 2 is a movie I watched while I was working and while it wasn't terrible for simple bg noise, I kept wanting to watch it because the animation was so fun. I'm not really sure why this needed to come to be though...? I really liked the first movie and thought it ended in a way that was pleasant despite being somewhat open, and this one didn't hook me at all in regards to the story or characters. My favorite thing about it is that one of the antagonists had bat buddies (though they portrayed it more like a blood-eating bat despite being a fruit bat in appearance...?)

I watched The Lion King 2019 movie (aka the "live action" one which is really just 3D animated with a realistic look) because I wanted to see the new movie Mufasa and felt like having context from the first movie would be helpful, however it was truly just a lifeless husk free of any kind of goodness from its original iteration and a total waste of time. I went into this hoping for something to like and found nothing!! Near-static facial expressions aside, the voice direction is super awkward especially for the pre-existing lines, and the lyrics from many of the songs were mangled into joyless and very different contexts from its original version. This doesn't need to exist, and I'm glad I was doing something else while watching because I would've been bored out of my MIND trying to see it with full attention. I'm still planning to watch Mufasa, but man!!!!!

April's gonna be busy!

Next month is both my and my partner's birthdays, plus some more family is visiting, and there's just a lot happening in general... my head's spinning trying to make everything work out. I'll try to keep everyone up to date with stuff on social media and I'll continue streaming on Twitch for now. If you read this far, please let me know - it means a lot to me!!