Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I will definitely be getting back to BG3. In all likelihood I will have some time to boot up the PS5 this upcoming weekend. That said, I’m probably still at least 50 hours from the end though. It’s a huge game.

No particular movie or TV plans though. Nothing is pressing me, except opening weekend for College Football. There’s a couple games that I might watch. And yeah, since I have enough ‘highbrow’ activity during the week of the mentally taxing and intellectual variety, I don’t feel too guilty when I sit down on a Saturday and watch men throw a ball and tackle each other, or if I play a video game which involves role playing as a fighting monk with companions who are wizards and druids and a girlfriend who is a barbarian demon Tiefling. 😅

I could play chess or write poetry on the weekend but it just doesn’t quite blow off steam in the same way. 😂

@Elfuggingjefe Well yeah, Taylor and Travis were going to be there so everyone wanted to get a glimpse of the newly engaged royal couple! 😄

I didn’t watch the game but it looks like it was a good one.

@Elfuggingjefe It is the modern age Becks and Posh Spice!

It's good to be back~

@HallowMoonshadow Welcome back! I am offering you a virtual welcome back hamper of your favourite stuff, whatever that happens to be. 😃

@HallowMoonshadow Good to have you back!

@RogueCooper @Th3solution @BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN @Ravix

So despite the fact I said Ciao when I took off two months ago... I was actually in Japan the past five weeks~

My partner's family all lives there (aside from her mother who lives here).

Been a good seven years since I last went had an absolutely great time there.

Then spent the last few days frantically doing lesson plans and attending meetings for the new school year starting in a couple of days. Really reckless but... Oh well 😅

@HallowMoonshadow it may seem reckless from a work perspective, but that time spent is far more valuable to you as a person, and thus will benefit you across all aspects of your life, including work, for the year! Honestly, no one wants a stressed teacher who takes no time for themselves, they want a cool teacher who plays video games and goes to Japan for 5 weeks 🙌

It is good to hear you had a great time, and, if you have any cool/nerdy/geeky travel photos, they would surely go down a treat here, if you have time to share at any point. Yes, i'm nosey as f***, sue me 😁

@HallowMoonshadow Awesome! Whereabouts are their family based?

I was lucky to go out there over Christmas and New Year in 2005 as my dad had been working in Tokyo so we all went over for about 10 days. Mostly spent in Tokyo but with a few nights in Kyoto too. Amazing place and I loved the food (apart from the multi course very traditional meal we had one night..)

I’d love to go back and see more though. And not just because of Kiryu and the gangs adventures..

@Thrillho @RogueCooper @Ravix

So her extended family is all over Japan.

We spent a week in Tokyo for a family reunion (My mother-in-law and her husband coming along for this bit).

Then we went to the Kansai region (Or Kinki if you prefer) where we stayed with her... 5th cousin removed? (I hate extended family nonsense) at the inn she runs in a place not far from Nara.

We also had a couple of day tips to Osaka, Kyoto, Wakyama and Koya among other places~

Most the photos we took contain me or the family so you're not seeing them

This will probably take a while.

@HallowMoonshadow Sounds like a pretty incredible trip! I hope this/last week hasn’t been too much of a comedown afterwards.

@FuriousMachine Thought I'd follow up your Kurosawa news with a samurai recommendation of my own. Have you seen this? Have you heard about this? Are you interested in playing this? 😃

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Yeah, heard of it and it has definitely been on my radar, but to be honest, there are so many games in the "hitting things with swords" genre (callback to an earlier video posted on here somewhere of a guy pointing out that pretty much every game these days involve hitting things with swords... which is perfectly fine by me ) that they all start to blur together a little bit in my mind.
This one does look very good, though, and I think it may very well be something I'd enjoy.
I understand Onimusha is a long running series, but that this one stands alone enough so that a newcomer isn't confused, is that right?

@FuriousMachine Idk the specifics about this title, but I do know that Onimusha is, as you say, a long-running series, and this is the latest installment, released after a long gap between this and the last one.

I feel like I am cheesing the electric guitar with an overpowered build, because I am playing in a style heavily influenced by Bill Orcutt, which I found much easier to play than standard guitar playing, plus it's combined with an "easier" guitar tuning and the combination is literally op cheesing for the electric guitar! Just like the way I play Souls.

Edit: I also feeling after beating the Souls games and only being interested in SOTE as their most-recent, and therefore being their most highly-evolved version of the formula they've been developing for the last ten years or so, DLC, and having such a blast with Sekiro that I felt like I had to develop a build based on it in ER (currently perfecting the build in the base game in preparation for the DLC.), I feel that this will be the culmination of my FromSoft journey up to this point, and therefore of my recent gaming journey of the past eight years or so, since I returned to gaming properly in my early thirties after a lengthy absence.

There are manifold reasons for this, but, mainly it is because Sekiro, I feel, was the culmination of all my gaming experiences up until that point, and I have only truly ever really 'gelled' ,for want of a better expression, with FromSoftware Souls games, and Sekiro. I know there are Souls-likes out there but none of the ones I have tried have had that 'special magic' that I was looking for in the first place, only FromSoft really know how to do it to the point of perfection.

So it made sense for me to try a Sekiro build in Elden Ring, and, so far, as I craft my build, the option of becoming overpowered in Elden Ring, because it is a Souls game, has made it potentially even more enjoyable for me than Sekiro, at least I have had some moments where I have been having more fun.

Anyway, I digress, the point is that after completing 'Big Dark Souls 4' (aka SOTE) as some call it, there will be no call to play games until 2027 which is rumoured to be the earliest that FromSoft will release another single player campaign Souls game, that is not either a Remake of or Expansion for a previous Souls game, and since I don't feel I could maintain the same sense of anticipation that I did for the (delayed) Elden Ring until 2027 or later, without any other Souls games to play in the meantime (I mention I have beaten all the other base games that I'm interested in and I'm not interested in the other DLCs - don't want to have to spend hours crafting builds in the base games again - in order to access those DLCs), then I see SOTE as being my last FromSoft gaming experience and my last gaming experience for the foreseeable as well.

Maybe I will return if FromSoft put out something else I'm interested in later, or of something of similar quality catches my eye, especially if the game has scope for a 'Sekiro' build, but if my priorities in life have shifted by then, or I have simply changed too much as a person by that point, then it will have become inevitable that I will not return to gaming again.

I will endeavour to continue to post in 'General Discussion' by that point and hope to maintain my friendships on the website. But yeah, SOTE may be my last video game 'hurrah' ! .

Therefore I will spend time easing myself out of gaming with this last experience, transitioning my focus towards guitar as my main hobby instead, which has become more important to me recently, especially in light of this recent development of style, and think about more "real life" stuff as well, which relates to things that may change in the next few years as life moves on and circumstances may alter, hopefully for the better, and not for the worse. I wish you all the best, and can only apologise for the length of my post.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN you do seem to change your mind quite a bit…

I do, and all the above ,as a caveat, I will say, is subject to change. 😉
With further regard to changing my mind, I think it's because I keep trying to arrive at a final decision that I'm satisfied with, bearing in mind that life changes all the time, of course. Anyway, I'm satisfied with my choice for now. But I do bear in mind that I change my decisions quite a lot, and I will remember to keep that in mind going forwards from here, I've got a lot of loyalty and respect for PushSquare and think it's a great community to be a part of, thank you for your observation, kyle.
And thank you for reading my rather lengthy post!. How are you, anyway?

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN just noticed you tend to bounce around quite a bit, just an observation. and not a criticism so thank you for not taking it that way. No one could accuse you of being unenthusiastic about things. It seems to me that you should just find a way to prioritise all this stuff that you clearly enjoy 😂

I’m good, I’m good. It was January 10 minutes ago and now it’s nearly Christmas again…!!

Currently setting up my new PC, which I was lucky enough to get from my aunties and uncles banding together for my 25th (advantage of Irish Catholic families are the number of aunties and uncles). First time AMD actually, always had NVIDIA cards and Intel chips in the past. Windows 11 is definitely a change too, why is the start menu in the middle!!! There really isn’t anything like booting up a new PC though, super exciting all round.