Hey, friends!! So, Romancing SaGa 2 is releasing on modern platforms TWO DAYS FROM NOW

Of course, I'm super hyped, and I've already started working on getting a Play Diary set up for it. So hopefully I'll get some entries up very soon after it's released! Like, maybe even this weekend?!

This is also making me think about what I want to do for RSG3 -- I put the old one on hiatus because I was thinking maybe I'll just wait for the English release, but... now there's even hints of a SCARLET GRACE English release (?!!!!) so I might end up instead finishing up my current JP playthrough, and maybe do a couple others if I feel like it, then I can always switch over to the Engilsh-language remaster when it comes out, as part of the diary itself :D

I'm not going to return to playing it right away, though. I'm still doing Save the Homeland (I cleared the game the other night and have already started on a second playthrough loll) and ROCKMAN (I'm ALMOST done with the no-damage videos for R2... basically just have to do the boss rush and final boss, which is all easy, it's just about waiting for the luck to line up with Air and Quick). And then I'll be doing, of course, Romancing SaGa 2.

I'm also heavily working on my unsaga shrine/guide, which I hope to be something like serebii.net but for unsaga. I'm making a database with all the game information so I can dynamically create pages about monsters, arts, etc. and use those throughout the guide itself. I'm also going to be doing a lot of stuff like extracting graphics and sounds from the game and whatever to make this the most complete shrine I can. And I hope to eventually do this with other SaGa games in the future, but for now, I just want to get the unsaga shrine done. I'm trying to think of a good name for it -- I was thinking "The Strelitzia Inn" since Strelitzia is the game's symbolic flower, it's the flower of Iskandar, and it's the name of the inn in Vaftom, so... seems like a fitting name for a fan site, right? And it's kind of inspired by Galbadia Hotel, which I thought was such a neat name for a fan site back when it was in its prime, too XD

I also want to do shrines for some of the Harvest Moon games. Ushi no Tane already has great guide pages for most of the handheld games, but information on the console games is scattered around the internet and full of misinformation and rumors. SO I MUST BE THE HERO.

Anyway, get hype get hype~~~~~~ See you guys soon with the end of the Horse Race story in StH, the debut of R2, and the launch of RSG2!

Hey, friends~

So, we ended up getting Pokey yesterday and I did start a bit. And I started Lufia II, as well. I know I said I was going to try to get back into the rhyhtm but with both of these games to play, NXT Takeover, and Survivor Series this weekend, I don't know how much I'll really devote to writing play diaries lolll.

But after this weekend, I should have reclaimed my room from The Bugs and should be able to have a bit more time to myself and hopefully a bit of enthusiasm.

In Ultra Sun, I ended up picking Rowlet again. I just... really love this little thing. It may even have become my favorite starter of all time :O And yeah, I ended up doing US because Dens wanted UM. I'm pretty indifferent to which version I play, though.

I was going to name it Jack (after Jack Gallagher) but I ended up getting a girl... there's only like a 12.5% chance of that or something so I was surprised. And then I was stuck with the DOOM that is deciding names of things. I can sit for HOURS worrying about this hahaha. But I ended up thinking of the name 'Jaqueline' which worked pretty well.

After that, I learned that Caterpie was in the game (!!!) so I caught one. I wanted to do a rasslin' name theme but I asked X about what I should name it and she said Julius/Julian/Julio LOL so I ended up naming the little guy Julio.

And that's about all I've done so far; just reached the trainers' school thing. Gonna get my special Rockruff today, then I have to think of a name for that... I am probably going to go with Cedric but if she ends up being a girl, I don't even know. I guess I can just name them what I want regardless of their physical gender lol.

Over at GameFAQs forums we're doing this group playthrough thing of Lufia II. I'm pretty new to the whole GP thing (the only game I did before this was Sparkster which I ended up quitting in the middle because of all The Things) but it's pretty fun. They're always looking for more peeps so feel free to join.

I only just started. I used to rent this game a lot as a kid, but I never got very far. So I'm really interested to see the rest of the game now. I forgot how puzzley it was -- while it's a turn-based RPG, the dungeons are very Zelda-like, which is great. And there's lots of little puzzles and hidden goodies.

The battles seem pretty generic so far, but I'm still at the beginning with just the starting one character, so I can't really comment properly on that. I don't think I ever got far enough to even have a full party when I would rent the game (I think you can have like 4 members?)

The game is really designed with the player in mind -- text and walk speed is naturally fast, and you can hold down a button to quickly choose all your battle commands. When shopping, after buying an item, you can select a character to instantly equip it (unequipping whatever it replaces). It's very convenient. It even has a sort of "left-hand mode" where the L button responds to everything contextually as a general "action button," allowing you to do almost everything in the game with just the d-pad and the L button. You'll still have to use the R and B buttons now and then, though, as the L button can't do the stand-still-while-turning thing nor can it function as a cancel button.

So I really appreciate this dedication to convenience for the player. SaGa games on the SNES were like this, too, though a bit less refined. There was a 'immediately leave harmless area' button, fast movement and text, you could hold down a button to select battle commands quickly, etc.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the playthrough~

But yeah, I decided not to do a full diary or anything for this. If you want to see game updates about it, though, feel free to follow me on Twitter. There should be a little link in the top right corner of any page. Though during rasslin PPVs you might have to endure me spamming reactions a bit XD

Oh, and I do have more of Save the Homeland and ROCKMAN played through (R1 is actually completed as far as playing goes), I just need to write the entries for them. But yeah... rhythm, rhythm~

Hey everyone~ Remember when I said I was about to post again like... a month ago? XD Well, it's happening now. Life has been restless for a while, but now I'm good to go, I think.

I'm going to be making a few changes 'round here, though! Basically, a lot like the "problem" I had with doing SCARLET GRACE, I'm trying to force myself to do stuff I don't want to do, and unless I'm in perfect health, that's pretty much making everything way too overwhelming and intimidating and I'm just getting nothing done at all.

So, here's what's going to happen.

I'm going to be cancelling the Four Job Fiesta diary. It's... honestly super boring. I love FF5 but it's not that fun to write about, and the 'challenge' ended up being super easy and repetitive and it's just way too difficult to write an entire diary about. Every comment on the story is "just go with it" and every comment on the gameplay is "there were no troubles."

I'm going to be putting Tokimeki Memorial 3 on hiatus again. I keep starting this project and quitting lol. But I'm just super not feeling it right now.

Which means the only 'active' diaries right now are going to be ROCKMAN and Save the Homeland. ROCKMAN is nearing completion, and after that, I'm planning on going back into either UNLIMITED:Saga or SaGa SCARLET GRACE.

I've also joined a group playthrough group (lol) at GameFAQs, and we're starting Lufia II. I kinda want to cover it, but I don't know yet. I'm also considering starting a "mini-diaries" section for much less detailed diaries, but that could always just be blog entries, so maybe not.

Anyway, hooooope to get back into the rhythm soon, but I'm playing MMOs with my brother and my friend now, and Pokemon is coming out today, so... who knows lol.

Comment if you have a preference of unsaga vs sagasca! I kinda feel like playing both equally, so if there's any demand, I'll play that one. SCARLET GRACE will be an Urpina playthrough, and UNLIMITED:Saga will be the final playthrough with Ventus!

Hello, friends. I hope to get back to writing play diary entries again very soon! As in like, this week? Sorry for the long delay. Been going through a looooot of stuff. Thanks for the comments and everything while I've been dormant~

As for streaming, I think I'm going to stop trying to stream games that I'm also writing about because I'm terrible at getting screencaps while I'm also trying to read chat and talk. If you watch, you know that I can't even talk and move my character around at the same time, so trying to juggle all those things in my brain is way too much lol.

Anyway, just thought I should post since I've been so quiet here.

I think after I finish writing FF5 and R1, I'll get back to work on TokiMemo3 and just keep doing Save the Homeland for now. Then once I finish one of those, I'll maybe jump back into unsaga or sagasca? I know I keep changing my "plans," but honestly what I end up doing will probably just be whatever I feel like doing when I actually finish those things lol.

So, I've been thinking about learning romhacking, and learning a new thing is helpful for my health, and the simplest thing to do is create a graphics hack, so I did just that, fixing a major problem with one of my favorite games: the lack of mustaches (and beards).

Romancing SaGa 3 features many playable characters with fuzzy faces in their official artwork by Tomomi Kobayashi, and they continue to sport this beauty in the additional artworks created for newer things like Imperial SaGa, but in the game itself, the sprites all have bare faces. Perhaps this was to keep them all looking similar, but they have different shaped eyes depending on their age, and I mean, you can play as a lobster and stuff, so I don't really get it.

So, I fixed it.

SNES9X filter applied

The "Fuzzy Edition" of Romancing SaGa 3 contains but a few edited sprites so that the player characters match their original artwork a little more closely. The following characters have had their sprites modified:

• Fake Robin now has a cute little mustache under his mask. Sadly, I couldn't find Trucks's sprites in the data, so when he takes the mask off, the mustache comes off, too. Sorry. Just don't go into the bar until after you've recruited him and it will appear seamless :D
• Tiberius is as sexy as ever with his mustache to go with his beautiful bald head.
• Herman now appropriately has some grey scraggle on his face to make him look cooler and more piratey and more hot.
• Ward's face is... a little darker because his hair color and skin tone are very similar, so you don't notice too much. But I did try to somehow capture the essence of his van dyck in there somehow.
• And finally, Young Fang gets his little goatee, so if you want a complete party of fuzzy-faced daddies, you can make it whole with him.

Mock-ups I did before making the mod

Of course, there are no scruffy protagonists, so I was considering making a protag mod to complement this that would give Harid a mustache and Mikhail and Thomas beards. Maybe something for Julian, IDK.

Anyway, if you're ready to increase the sex appeal of your romasaga3 rom tenfold, you can download the patch here. I used a vanilla original RSG3 rom that was 4,194,304 bytes.

I've only tested it a little, so if you find any sprites that are wonky or suddenly losing and gaining hair, let me know.