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A Study In Sherlock

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While power was out a few months ago, I had the chance to do the one thing I never enjoyed and still don’t. Reading books, specifically classic ones. The kind of books that you would see on someone’s shelf and think either, “Woah, this person must be smart to understand that,” or “Wow, this person is superficial and hasn’t read a single page because old words written in a pre-modern structure are hard for him to understand. Notice how the spines of the paperbacks are still perfect.” That’s me, I’m the second. As someone with The Iliad & the Odyssey, The Lord of The Rings series, and The French dictionary, I can 100% say that all the books on my shelf are unread. Unfortunately, that was until now. You see, I watched the BBC’s Sherlock. I’ve watched CBS’s series Elementary. I’ve watched Fox’s House M.D. and the anime Detective Conan by Gosho. All because I used to love watching genius minds unravel mysteries, which may make it seem odd that I’ve never once read a mystery novel, inclu...
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Revenge Manga - The Worst of A Great Trope

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There are no original ideas, only retelling of old ones. At least, in theory. Stories of revenge & betrayal are as old as humanity's history of storytelling. But before we discuss the stories, especially the one that brought me to writing this, let's briefly discuss genres. Generally, how an author approaches a genre will dictate the story more than the genre itself. Style over substance is a phrase usually used in relation to this, like in the case of action genre of movies, with the Fast & Furious series being an example. This is because the effects, sound design, & visual appeal of the characters & their environment, make up for any shallow story or logical inconsistencies, which is when the rule of cool is in use. This rule essentially states that, if something is cool, no matter how stupid or illogical it may seem, it's good. Using Fast & Furious as an example again, the car wheelie at the end of the first movie is impossible, but pretty cool in the...
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Manga Rec - My Death Flags Show No Sign of Ending

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A guilty pleasure of mine is the type of manga with a male lead in the body of an evil noble. What started this was none other than the manga stated in the title. At first, I expected it to follow the evil-to-suddenly-good progression that most take from the start. However, I was pleasantly surprised by one aspect of the story: the words the lead wants to say & the words that come out of his mouth don't line up. This, essentially, makes him a tsundere (minus the romantic feelings). This makes the manga better in every conceivable way. Instead of following the usual trend of completely erasing the ego & traits of the previous host, having some aspects left over creates a unique situation. Even if the impact is lost over time. While I won't spoil the story, like most in the genre, it doesn't aim to tell a deep narrative or explore different ideas, which may be a turn-off for those who are looking for something with more bite. I would not hold any expectations diving i...
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Bethesda - A Case Study of Problems

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Many others and I take issue with modern video games for one or more reasons. These reasons tend to shift quickly to real political and social issues without addressing actual design problems, allowing them to continue. For the sake of being apolitical for a moment and to express my issues with modern games, we'll be looking at the Bethesda series The Elder Scrolls and a handful of other games for comparison, but mostly the former.     For background, my entry into Elder Scrolls was the fifth installment, Skyrim. I owned it both on my Xbox 360 and laptop. Generally, when I take to a game that's a later entry in a line of games, I also look into the earlier games and that is what led me to buy a copy of Oblivion and much later Morrowind. And when I learned the second entry in the mainline, Daggerfall, was free, I got it as well.      For the older games, Daggerfall and Morrowind, I quickly got Daggerfall Unity and OpenMW. The simplest way to describe them is to t...
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Elden Ring - To Love Suffering

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 If I were told, back when Dark Souls originally released, that I would enjoy the suffering caused by a later entry from the same developer, I would have given that person a side-eye of disbelief & annoyance. I was one of those people who ended up dropping the game not that far into it. Although, to my credit, I didn't return my copy of Dark Souls the next day, partly on account of being too young to drive, & I never threw a controller in rage. It wasn't that deep. The game was different from the other games I enjoyed at the time, which were more power fantasy in comparison to the likes of Dark Souls. A game series that, while seemingly unfair to the player, is not impossible to beat, but certainly not easy. All one has to do is learn the boss patterns, understand the game mechanics, & don't panic roll. But I must admit I never did. Fast forward to Elden Ring which was originally released in February of 2022 & not long after I bought the game. Then after a f...
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Detective Conan - The Ran Problem

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For the past few months, I've been watching the mystery crime drama Detective Conan, known as Case Closed in the English release. For those unaware of the show, the simple summary of the plot is that it follows a child named Conan who is actually a high school detective who was poisoned by men in black. Instead of killing him, the poison shrunk him into that of a child, and ever since then he has been living with his childhood friend and crush, Ran Mouri, and her father Kogoro Mouri, who runs a private detective agency. Through Kogoro and others, Conan solves cases ranging from murders, bomb threats, and kidnappings.     The series is over a thousand episodes long, half of which is non-canon filler that we will not be covering. We'll instead be focusing on Ran and to do so we should go over more about her. To start, she is the captain of her high school's karate club, deceptively strong, can be quite observant, and also has a crush on Shinichi, Conan's real identity whi...
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Satisfactory 1.0 Review - How I Wish I Loved Automation

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I had originally written a script for a video review of Satisfactory. I did not like the result and decided to instead start a blog to properly write down my thoughts from here on out. While parts of the original script are used, it has been rewritten.           Satisfactory describes itself on Steam as a first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Originally an early access game, as of September 2024 it has finally reached 1.0 and escaped that status of early access. This has brought with it the final elements of the game.           As a form of disclosure, I have to admit I haven’t completed the game and the majority of the review will be for the first half which new players will experience. Options           One of my favorite video game critics used to dedicate the opening parts of reviews to the options menu. This is not without cause, as it can be a va...
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