Last October, I did a little photography project with myself and my Jacket costume from Hotline Miami. It was mainly because I wanted to try out a lighting idea I had ( and I wanted a new Twitter profile picture cause mine was forever old :B ) but I ended up liking a lot of the photos and wanted to try out some photoshop filters and such that I had been meaning to mess with for a year and then some.

I’ll probably post some more photos from this set at some point because the lighting actually worked the way I wanted it to(!) – huzzah!

One of them caught my eye though. It was called Revelations: Persona and the logo was written in this red, badass font. There were a couple of screenshots and images of a few of the characters. The only one I definitely remember seeing was Reiji (who was known as Chris in the North American translation) and I absolutely fell in love with him right then. He’s wearing no shirt under his school uniform jacket and a collar with a giant chain on it??? HOW COULD I NOT LOVE HIM? Hehehe. Well, Persona was nowhere to be found in my Blockbuster… so I knew it would be my quest to find it somewhere else.

This was before games (and so many other things) were easily accessible (Amazon having everything in the world, Gamestops on every corner, etc.) so I could have ordered it from a few different sites on the internet but I would’ve paid way more than my middle-schooler budget would allow. Fast-forward a couple of months to a vacation I took with my family to Florida. We hit up a giant flea market near the town I was born in and I found a huge table of all kinds of video games. LO AND BEHOLD, THERE WAS REVELATIONS: PERSONA FOR THE PLAYSTATION. I bought it for about $20, which was much more reasonable than what I would have paid online, and when we returned home after vacation, I threw that baby in the PSX and was on my way to Lunarvale! (That was the city’s name in the original NA release okay hahahah)

I adored the game overall, even with the questionable translation issues, the choice to leave out a whole giant sidequest and some of the odd changes they made for the North American version — and I think it’s because Persona was my first real foray into what else games — especially RPGs — could be. I had played Final Fantasy VII, which was my introduction to the genre and had picked some others up here and there afterward, but they all had that sort of “fantasy” flare. FFVII did have some futuristic elements (I LOVE YOU, MIDGAR) but overall it leaned towards fantasy for me and I had always been a fan of things that Revelations: Persona actually pulled into their games. Alternate universes, occult-related backstories, people’s own inner demons…… aaaaand contacting enemies by dancing seductively for them! One of my absolute favorite aspects of the game was the soundtrack. I was used to sprawling epic fantasy-ish tracks — which were always good, but never exactly my taste (that’s not to say I didn’t like them, but I wouldn’t listen to them as much as other game soundtracks). Persona though, I was floored when I heard the music.

The battle theme got a little repetitive due to the number of random encounters (did I mention Revelations: Persona was long and got kind of difficult in spots — when I finally beat it, I wrote on the plastic cup I was drinking out of at the time: PERSONA CUP! And then the date and time I beat the game.) but so many of the other songs made up for it (not to say the battle theme is bad, I love it — but I heard it SO MANY TIMES) and I’ve listened to them hundreds of times by now. They helped to create the exact weird/unsettling atmosphere of the game that I love so much and were just a style I had never heard before in a game — I mean, some of the tracks were downright creepy. Others were positively gorgeous and some made me want to dance — it was just a mix of everything I love. The soundtrack was written by Hidehito Aoki, Kenichi Tsuchiya, Misaki Okibe, and Shoji Meguro (who would continue composing works for the series from Persona 3 on) and is definitely one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time.

I asked for the soundtrack for Christmas one year (it was an import so I didn’t expect to get it — I guess my mom realized how obsessed I was with the game) and fell in love with it even more. It had a number of songs on it I had never heard because of the omission of a big sidequest in the North American release so it was like I was hearing it for the first time all over again!

Below are some of my favorite tracks — if I don’t just start linking them I’m gonna go even crazier rambling about how much I love the whole thing and then never get there.

• Opening
• Black Snow
• INVASION (Subway & Nemesis Tower Theme)
• Touching Unhappiness
• Hypnos Tower & Castle Mana Theme
• MAJIN… FOREVER (Police Station Theme)
• Ice Castle Dungeon (yessssss)
• A Girl at the Window (Hospital Theme)
• Monochrome (School Theme 2)
• God Taker
• 1000 of Ri Moles (Karma Palace Theme)
• A City, Sebek
• City 1 Post-Disaster
• City 2 Darkness
• Pandora’s Battle (i still have nightmares about this)
• Hospital (After Disaster)
• Deva Yuga
• Electric Brain Travel
• Thanatos Tower
• Elly’s Theme (*INCOHERENT SCREAMING RE: MY LOVE FOR THIS SONG*)
• Reiji’s Theme
• Yukino’s Theme
• Reminiscence ~ Departure (<3333)

And I couldn’t leave out the Velvet Room theme.

AND SPECIAL SHOUTOUT TO THE PHARMACY SONG TOO, OF COURSE.

When the game was re-released for the PSP in 2009, a lot of the songs were remixed, redone completely, or scrapped for new songs. It was a great soundtrack (and an amazing remake/port of the original game — especially keeping with a lot more of the Japanese ideas/names/etc. from the original) but it never reached the level of love I had for the original soundtrack from the ’96 Revelations: Persona. I think it was because that game and the music had such an impact on me that it will always hold its own special place in my fandom heart.

Special Place in my Heart is a post-when-the-idea-strikes feature here at Neon Shores where (when said need/idea pops up) I’ll write about something video game-related or otherwise that holds a geeky place in my weird little heart.

MILD FALLOUT 4 SPOILERS!!! (They’re from the beginning of the game. I wanted to mark them though, just in case.)

So the one year anniversary of Fallout 4′s release date is coming up soon – coincidentally so is my one year wedding anniversary. I got married to Nate, the other half of zhobot.net, on October 31st of 2015 and during our honeymoon, Fallout 4 was released.

I had been waiting for the announcement of Fallout 4 for so long, with every hoax concerning it breaking my heart a little more, and when it was finally officially announced in the summer of 2015 (with a release date of ONLY MERE MONTHS LATER) – I, of course, flipped the hell out. Nate asked repeatedly if we should change the dates of our honeymoon so that I could be home to play the day it was released. We had already booked just about everything so as much as I wanted Fallout 4, I knew it would be waiting for me when we got home – plus changing all that shit would’ve been a hassle/added fees/etc. so a few extra days of waiting would be okay since I had already been waiting however long.

Anyways, while we were in California (this is where we honeymooned – I had never been and he had only been a couple of times for short business trips), we saw Fallout 4 billboards constantly and it just served to get me hyped That Much More. Then we got home AND THERE THE BOX WAS, WAITING.

The main idea behind this post though: I read a number of reviews that said it was kind of questionable and/or odd that we were supposed to care about the spouse of our character, who we watch get killed in the first few minutes of the game. Sure, there’s some cute banter between them at the start, yadda yadda, but whatever, right?

I can safely say that I was just about mortified watching what played out in Vault 111. That might have been different if it had been released any other time.

I’m not gonna get into any ~teh power of luv~ and shit on that level, but I had just returned from my honeymoon, which had followed a wedding where I married I dude who I felt something for that I had never felt in my life. I don’t know where I’d be mentally, physically or emotionally if I had never met Nate and to watch my player character – who I named Heather – wake up from cryosleep to helplessly watch her son get kidnapped and her husband (who is named Nate by default) get shot – PARDON MY LANGUAGE: but it fucked me up a little. It also happened near Halloween (which was mentioned in their cute banter before Shit Went Down), which – like I said above – was the day we got married. MY FEELINGS.

So I totally understand why people say that being able to care for your character’s spouse in such a short period of time before they’re killed might not work that well, but Fallout 4 came out just at the right time in my life for me to really care and for that part to rip out my heart and shred it to bits while it cackled the whole time.

Plus, when your player character wakes up, you can open the cryopod your spouse is in and get their wedding ring (I kept both of them in my inventory the whole time – they are both still there and Heather is still wearing hers). And you can visit Vault 111 whenever you want and still see their body. In fact, companions will comment on it when they’re with you and you go to the cryopod.

Nick Valentine’s “Now that’s not… oh. Oh, I’m so sorry.” RUINS ME EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME.

And to rub it all in, Nate said if he got killed in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, he would be fine with me and Nick Valentine being a thing.

BUT I STILL. CAN’T. ROMANCE. NICK VALENTINE.

FALLOUT 4, PLEASE? I NEED NICK VALENTINE.

So in closing, Fallout 4 gives me feels and that is why. There we go, that felt good to ramble about, haha.

(P.S. I would love to go to Nuka World for real. Well, pre… everything.)

A game that has quickly shot to the single digits of our TOP GAMES EVER list, Layers of Fear is an atmospheric and detailed romp through a man’s manor and mind as he tries to finish painting his magnum opus. Today marks the release of the first story DLC for the game (the actual first one — which was more an event than a DLC — was an amazing Halloween addition that was only up for a little while), entitled Layers of Fear: Inheritance, which follows the painter and his late wife’s daughter. We’ve only watched the trailers that have been released and even though spoilers are everywhere right at this moment, we’re waiting until tonight to fire the DLC up for ourselves. We figure while we wait for the sun to set, we can share why we love the base game So Damn Much.

Nate: I love this game, plain and simple. Some claim it’s a rip-off of P.T., but you could only get that impression if you watched half of the trailer while doing something else and/or not paying attention. Yes, it clearly takes inspiration from P.T., particularly in the appearance of the main antagonist (or is she???). But like the name of the game suggests, it adds layers upon layers of rich storytelling and visual artistry to the P.T. “formula”.  There is an excellent balance of sad, strange, and endearing moments to balance out the moments of pants-shitting horror. But you have to work for these, they won’t be doled out on a silver platter. You’re rewarded for exploring every nook and cranny, picking up every item, and just observing the situation without mindlessly bounding on to the next room. In fact, some of these observations are what lead to the most pants-shitting moments of all, in my opinion, versus some of the more obvious jump scares.

Heather: This game intrigued me because I was still bitter and sad about the loss of Silent Hills (I always will be) when I first heard about it. We got the game during early access and finished the part of it that was available then, both of us really pumped for the whole release afterward. It didn’t disappoint and we’ve played it four times now, finding new things each time we do. I love that the basic story is there, on the surface, but to get the details you actually need to dig. You could skip right over so many of the letters to and from the main character to others (publishers, friends, companies, etc.), but more importantly (and friggin’ HEARTBREAKINGLY) you could easily miss letters between the painter and his wife (or are they?)… It’s in these pieces you collect where the deeper issues of the story show themselves. You can see the downward spiral that this relationship spins into and how it takes everything around it with it to hell. Below are some of the things you can find here and there. I used some of the tame ones before things really went south. ALSO, THE SHOPPING LIST. GOODNESS, SON.

Nate: Let’s talk about jump scares for a bit, as they are one of the more polarizing features of horror games. Lots of games do this wrong by making them seemingly random, not drawing out the tension for long enough, making improper use of sound, or hell, just having TOO DAMN MANY OF THEM! Layers of Fear mostly avoids this trend by using them sparingly and uniquely throughout your playthrough. I’d love to give examples but that’d be spoiling some of the fantastic firsthand experiences.

Heather: And when they are used, it’s not just for fun or for the hell of it. This painter’s mind is not all there so you expect lots of things when nothing happens and then when you think you’re safe, that’s when things happen. I also appreciate that one of the endings to the game steers you directly into the path– directly into the arms of the jump scares and even when you know it’s coming, it’s still creepy. You have to have the painter willingly torture himself with this to achieve one of the three endings and I appreciate the crap out of that, especially because it reminds me of one of my all-time (actually my #1 of all time) favorite games, Silent Hill 2.

Nate: Putting the horror element aside for a bit, the game stands on its own as an excellent surreal adventure game as well. The world around you is constantly changing, often before your eyes! This is one of the most unique things about the game: it can range from entire room transformation to subtle inception style visual tricks. If you ever wanted to know what it was like to take hallucinogens in the Victorian era, good news, LoF simulates this quite well!

Heather: I’m hyped for this DLC, especially since it should answer more questions about the story! Even with all the letters and things that we found in all of our playthroughs, there are still some unanswered questions that could have a little light shed on them. I was always curious about what happened to the daughter, so this should at least answer those! (And maybe the Halloween update will be added again this year!)

Basically, if you’re a horror fan, this game is a great addition to the genre and you should check it out! We’ll go crazy and paint with things that are not paint and possibly might come from a human body and freak out play the DLC in the meantime.

We’ll start with a quick paragraph about Katsucon. We went on Saturday to mainly see people we knew – not to do anything con related. We were kind of thankful that’s what we were doing because it was a madhouse zoo full of people everywhere and we pretty much hung out in the fountain area talking to lots of awesome geeks. We also went down to the giant hall that led to the pool because that was the only place where there weren’t a billion people and we wanted to at least get a couple of photos of our costumes. We’ve had these costumes done forever and we FINALLY GOT TO WEAR THEM. Byakuya Togami & Toko Fukawa from Danganronpa!

Thanks to Roger for getting these photos (SERIOUSLY THANKS TO ROGER FOR GETTING LIKE ALL THE PHOTOS IN THIS POST)! And also for hurrying and snagging these other goofy-ass photos from the back of a photo machine that did “example” shots of people standing behind the machine. They were only up for a few seconds after they were taken so he would always rush over with the camera and try to take a picture of the screen. SUCCESS!

That’s really about it for a Katsucon report, haha. Maybe one day we’ll actually go back to the con, but we aren’t sure as of now. We like seeing people we only see once a year though! This year we knew it was a no-go because of how much money it would be for hotel/badges for cons two weekends in a row and MAGFest is our favorite time of year (next to Halloween and Christmas… and MAGFest Classic ;D) so we knew which one we had to stick with in the back-to-back con issue.

SO MAGFEST 2016! We got there mid-afternoon on Thursday and the first thing of note that happened was Nate dropping what was left of a handle of Fireball Whisky (it was leftover from the ADAM drink at the wedding) which shattered on the tile and left the Gaylord National hall smelling like Fireball. I wish I had a dollar for every person who walked by while the staff was cleaning it up (the Katsucon & Gaylord staff who helped out both were amazing <3) and went, “IT SMELLS LIKE FIREBALL.” I could’ve used all those dollars to buy my food for the weekend. A couple hours later we were in the Ninja Sex Party panel, flipping our shit because NINJA SEX PARTY WE WERE IN THE SAME ROOM AS NINJA SEX PARTY OKAY. The panel was hilarious (as expected) and if you wanted to watch it, it is up on YouTube here! Their cover album (Under the Covers, yesssssss) was about to be released shortly after the con so there is some fun talk about that as well as all kinds of other hijinks. Overall, the panel was great and just served to get us super pumped up for the concert that was taking place the next night.

On Friday morning we put on the Saints Row 2 costumes we’ve had done FOREVER, DJ Veteran Child & Shaundi and we were joined by Denis who put together an SR2 Johnny Gat! He didn’t do the frosted tips because FIRST OF ALL, FROSTED TIPS, and second, his hair was already dyed purple even before he was going to join us as Johnny and it looked amazing. His hair fit the Saints perfectly so why not run with it?

Friday was full of playing video games, wandering around the vendor room/artist’s alley, and freaking out over awesome/adorable/perfect art and items and then Friday night was the NINJA SEX PARTY CONCERT AHHHHHHHHHHHH! TWRP joined them (since TWRP played on the cover album and there’s going to be a lot of awesome work between them and NSP in the near future) and we got to see both bands rock the hell out. The concert is up on YouTube too — check it out! It was effing great and as an added bonus, DJ Cutman shared a new remix he did of my favorite NSP song, Samurai Abstinence Patrol after the concert was over. You can listen to the remix here — it is a perfect remix of an already kickass song.

After the concert and more MAGFest madness, our room managed to get more photos of the Five Nights at Freddy’s/Hotline Miami costumes we originally brought to MAGFest Classic last year — we got to use the awesome wifi shutter app for the camera for some of the photos (like the first one below) and it worked out very well. These were taken around 4 in the morning? I’m not sure how that happened but our explanation for stuff like that is always just MAGFEST!

Saturday was playing more video games (because MAGFest) with Fallout 4 costumes in the morning and Until Dawn costumes with an amazing group in the evening. Fallout 4 is magical and we knew we wanted to make costumes from it but didn’t have the time or budget for anything crazy. We ended up going with Nate and Nora pre-Vault 111 — aka the two characters at the beginning that you can rename and change looks-wise and all that jazz. We also had a little baby Shaun which was a baby doll from the thrift store. It was the least creepy looking baby doll we could find there and it was dressed all in pink so we ended up calling the baby Shaunita all day. We even made the baby a theme song.

We met up with an awesome group of costumed people later who all loved Until Dawn as much as we do and we goofed off with them at a photoshoot and then thanks to Denis we got a couple more shots of us, also goofing off with the danger totem I made. Nate is always on his cell phone so him as Chris and me as Ashley worked out really well.

Roger helped us get photos for a Jacen Solo/Tenel Ka Djo (Star Wars: EU) photo thing we’re working on later that night. We had to time it just right so that there weren’t a bunch of people around the Gaylord National’s main fountain in the atrium, but the lights and water features were still going. We caught it about five minutes before they turned off. Woo! Here is a shot from that evening. The whole photo project should hopefully be online THIS YEAR AT SOME POINT HAHAHAHA. Look, see, I’m being realistic here.

Sunday was more video games. We need to stop writing con posts months later because we forget everything that happens, but HOW DO WE NOT PROCRASTINATE?

We were finally able to finish up the last details on our Hotline Miami 2 costumes and bring them to MAGFest Classic! We got some awesome photos– in the heat! And humidity! Really, it was so effing hot but we adore all of the photos that came out of this shoot so it was worth it. I also got a leg workout while holding an ~almost action pose~ (it was done both with and without the mask and she could feel sweat dripping down her face SERIOUSLY IT WAS HOT ALSO LONG PANTS AND JACKET WHY COREY HOW– YOU ARE A GODDESS). You can see those and more shots from this set on our Hotline Miami costume page!

Thanks to Denis for getting the photos above and Roger of Monki Makr for getting the one below!

For more photos of these costumes, check out our Hotline Miami costume page!

Last month at InterventionCon we finally got the chance to wear the Hotline Miami costumes we’ve been 95% finished with for the longest time. We put the finishing touches on the costumes the week before the con (bloodied up the Jacket mask and other fun bits like that) and on the Saturday night of the con, went outside in the heat and humidity to get some shots! Many thanks to Roger of Monki Makr & Denis for playing photographer and photographer’s assistant (also the DJ, which we’ll get to in a moment) for us that night.

We wanted to make sure we got photos masked (errr, helmeted in Nate’s case ;D) and unmasked so we did the unmasked shots first. The wig I was wearing was the first wig I used for Carol Peletier. I knew it had to be more of a blonde color but the cut was exactly what I needed. Since I had a new wig for Carol, I figured I could experiment with this one and if I messed it up then I wouldn’t be too disappointed since I wasn’t really using it for anything. I knew Rit had recently come out with a new line of dyes that worked on synthetic fabrics and that’s exactly what I wanted to try for this wig! The line is called DyeMore and I ordered some in the color Sandstone. It worked out perfectly and colored the wig easily, making it the exact color I was hoping it would!

After getting the unmasked shots, we swapped the wigs out and started wandering around in those. Did we mention how hot it was holy cow. I could feel sweat dripping down my face but looking at the photos later I realized it was worth it. This “Supreme Chicken” mask I found on Amazon (for much cheaper than the original rooster one I was looking at and couldn’t afford to drop $50 on) – after being covered in makeup and fake blood – was perfect. I am short and made sure my jacket was a size that would look somewhat fitted so I was worried the mask would look really big on me but together it all ended up looking better than I thought it would!

While we were taking pictures in an empty parking garage, Denis decided it would be a good idea to play a song our friend Erin had introduced us all to. It was the 1987 Crystal Light National Aerobics Championship theme. He pulled the video up on his phone and through our mask & helmet we could hear the wonderful keyboard riff. What did Roger and Denis say to do after that? Dance, of course. And naturally, we did.

We’re hoping to bring these back to a con in the future. Preferably one in the winter so that we don’t sweat ourselves silly. But we had a lot of fun in them at Intervention regardless. It also made us get off our asses to finish our Hotline Miami 2 costumes (which will have their own post in the near future!) and even spawned a crossover costume group this past weekend. More on all that jazz coming soon! Also, I had way too much fun editing these photos – especially the 80’s-VHS-inspired ones.

Yes, it’s true. It’s finally true. At E3, there was an announcement that Final Fantasy VII was getting a remake. There’s always the rumor every year and this year it can no longer be a rumor. I loved the reactions from people almost as much as I loved the announcement and I actually reacted way more strongly than I thought I would. I kept looking at Nate through the first 80% of the video saying “It can’t be. No. Nope. Not getting my hopes up nope.” and when I could see Barret’s arm and then Cloud’s buster sword and magical hair I basically flipped my shit and started shrieking something unintelligible. I had already gotten the Fallout 4 announcement which was an overload of YES PLEASE and now this? YES PLEASE, BRING IT.

As much as I love the other Final Fantasy games I’ve played, I think Final Fantasy VII actually has to be my favorite. IX is a very, very close second. But when I think about it, VII is always the one I mention first in conversations about the series.

“Ugh, gross. VII is everyone’s favorite.” Yeah, jump on the bandwagon, yadda yadda yadda.

“It’s really not that good of a game. Go back and play it without your nostalgia goggles.” You know, I might try. But I can’t take my nostalgia goggles off for this game. It’s not just the actual game I love, but Final Fantasy VII was a turning point in my life and also made me realize a lot of the sort of things I loved aesthetically. “Turning point? For what? Liking crappy popular games?” I’M DONE ARGUING WITH YOU, INTERNET-SELF. STFU.

Let me start by sharing the personal significance of this game. When FF7 came out, my father and stepmother were living up in Virginia (they moved to Florida when I graduated high school) along with my stepbrother and little stepsister. I would go and stay with them every other weekend and was in my early teens so I was in that phase of, “DON’T TALK TO ME I JUST WANT TO BE ON THE INTERNET, JEEZ” – although I guess I’m still in there so it must not be a phase. ANYWAYS.

My stepbrother, Josh, was about 9 months younger than me – give-or-take a day or two – and we were both into things of the geek-type but no geeky interest really crossed over to both of us. I had played a lot of computer games in the 90’s (Myst, Phantasmagoria, Shivers, Kings Quest, etc.) and there was a Nintendo in my household when I was younger. I loved that Nintendo and I loved everything I played on my best friend’s Super Nintendo but I never had or played a console after that. I knew about them, was mildly interested in them, but was still all about my point-and-click adventures — which, don’t get me wrong, I still love today.

I remember being in some chatroom on AOL (Myst chat, some random RP chatroom, it was usually something ridiculous with me, of course) and then deciding that I was hungry. I remember saying bye to all the internet pals I was chatting to and leaving the room the computer was in, which exited into the living room. Josh was sitting on the couch with his Playstation on and was completely engrossed in whatever he was playing. When I looked at the screen, I remember seeing a green expanse for a moment before he got in a fight with some giant snake thing (that was the Midgar Zolom, by the way) and was ready to head towards the kitchen when I heard, “Hold up. You gotta see this.”

I remember sighing and looking back at the television. He had Cloud, Tifa, and Aeris in his party while fighting the giant snake thing Midgar Zolom (don’t test me, I know my ZOLOM). “What do I have to see?”

“See this chick in pink? She’s kind of annoying. I think you’d hate her.”

“So? What do I have to see then? Why would I want to see something that annoys me?”

“She dies in the game later. So…”

Josh knew how I felt about things that really annoyed me. I was also intrigued by the fact that this magical, pink-clad healer lady with the shiny, pretty stick and the giant fabulous bangs was gonna bite it. Would a game really kill a character like that?

I had nothing else to do except grab a snack so I got something and planted my ass down on the giant sectional that took up most of the living room of the townhouse they had lived in at that point in time. The sectional was light grey with speckles of black and splotches of pink, green and blue. Do you know how I remember this? We spent hours (added up to days) on that thing – him playing and me watching. We dropped so many crumbs of all kinds of unhealthy but amazing snacks in between those cushions. He started the game over that first day I sat down so I could see Midgar.

(An aside here – I absolutely am in love with Midgar. The look of it, the idea of it, the Sectors, the Plates, Shinra – everything. And shit, that place was horrible. But those little touches of life and hope around it elevated it to this place in my head. That was the kind of universe I wanted to read about. That was the kind of universe I wanted to write about. That was where my love affair with all things dystopia began. To this day if you ask me my favorite place in a video game I will tell you right off the bat, “Midgar, Silent Hill, Rapture, The Capital Wasteland, Los Santos and Myst Island — did you want more than that? Oh, you only wanted one? Sorry, my bad.”

Not only did I love Midgar, but I zoned in on Wall Market – also Shinra’s HQ GOODNESS GRACIOUS BE STILL MY HEART, YOU PRECIOUS JERKS. But everything about Wall Market – Cloud in a dress, the Honeybee Inn, The Golden Shiny Wire of Hope, doing squats, EVERYTHING. And one of the things I hope with this remake is that a lot of that is still included. Reading interviews and such, it seems like there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing some of this. Which basically just makes me more excited.)

I remember one night – or early morning, as it was somewhere around 3am – we were so furious at Chocobo breeding that we were cursing up a storm. Now, if my father and stepmother heard us we’d for sure get a look and possibly a, “Hey now, come on. Language.” But they were asleep so it was chugging soda, eating chip crumbs and cookies and throwing out, “ANOTHER FUCKING BLUE CHOCOBO? DAMN IT RESET THE GAME, FUCK THIS.” When we woke up well into the afternoon and were asked why we were still so tired my answer was just a hiss, “Chocobos.” My dad had no idea wtf I was talking about. CHOCOBOS, DAD. CHOCOBOS.

We went through Midgar (“NO, NO. YOU NEED CLOUD IN THE BIKINI BRIEFS.”), the beginning of Cloud’s backstory (OR IS IT?!!*(!^#@*(@!), all the fabulous riches of Junon like the Parade mini-game, THE GOLD SAUCER (if Midgar wasn’t in this game you would be my number one, baby), Red XIII’s beautiful Cosmo Canyon home, Nibelheim (yes thank you Josh for bothering to get Vincent – he knew I would like Vincent – VALENTINE WAS OUR MAN), Sit your ass down in that chair and drink your goddamn TEA!, the END OF DISC ONE (he was right too – I was not really a fan of Aeris and Josh made sure to catch my expression when Sephiroth delivered the blow), oh my god do we have knights of the round yet?, did I just get my materia stolen?, snowboarding, the second round of fabulous riches in Junon like the slap-fight, Chocobo racing, running away shrieking from the Ruby/Diamond/Emerald Weapons, oh my god do we have to sit through this knights of the round cutscene?, sure yeah let’s jump in this crater, where did his shirt go?, listen to this kickass song, he’s doing some attack– ohhhHHH DO WE HAVE TO SIT THROUGH THIS CUTSCENE EVERY TIME TOO?

I mean, we dumped so much into this game. We weren’t sure what to do when we finished it.

I asked my dad for a Playstation and FF7 for Christmas that year cause I wanted it in my life forever. To my surprise, I actually got a Playstation for Christmas! He got me Sim City 2000 instead of FF7 though. “THIS ONE CAN BE SLIGHTLY EDUCATIONAL. …MAYBE.” He bought Sim City 2000 so he could play it but he didn’t. I got my own copy of the game when I could afford it and it still sits on my video game shelf today. Bright and shiny, all three discs… and that giant instruction manual. I bought the PC version later too. I don’t even remember why but I played through that too. And the box was shaped SO KEWL (sorry, talking about the 90’s brought me back to the 90’s)…

We took occasional trips to visit my Dad’s siblings in Florida and I brought my Playstation with us. Josh and I would play other RPGs – I remember us taking turns level grinding in Persona while sitting on the floor of my aunt’s living room. It wasn’t all fun and games with us though – we were stupid teenagers and we occasionally got on each other’s nerves. Siblings are like that sometimes. I remember coming back from a trip to Florida where he stayed home and hadn’t tagged along with us. Me, my dad, my stepmom, and my stepsister – we got back in the middle of the night after the 14-hour car ride and were all beat. The house was kind of a mess and Josh was nowhere to be found. He also let one of his friends sleep in my bed which was a giant OH NO YOU DIDN’T, THERE IS A FIRE IN MY EYES, CHILD. But most weekends were video games. Video games and going with my dad to his studio to sit on the internet and read about video games and send each other links about video games.

After that, consoles were a thing in my life. Josh and I would talk about video games and that shifted to movies and books and all other glorious geek things. We almost started a Vampire: The Masquerade game. We both had clanbooks – me, Toreador (later Tzimisce, come on, y’all), and him, Assamite. When my dad and stepmom moved to Florida in 2003, so did my stepsister and Josh. We would continue to nerd occasionally about things on AOL when we were both online – sorry, America Online for people who are still wondering what the hell I meant with AOL earlier in this ramble. Although, it might have been AIM (AOL’s jump to straight-up instant messaging) at that point.

In January of 2005, I remember sitting in the basement of my house with my sister. We had all the lights off and we were playing Knights of the Old Republic (we needed a CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE) – I was playing and she was watching. I had my awesome Jedi on the screen in the middle of a conversation when the phone rang. I answered it. It was my dad and he was calling to tell me that Josh had died in a car accident. When I got off the phone with him, I told my sister and went right back to playing Knights of the Old Republic. I couldn’t think about it. I didn’t want to think about it. I know I didn’t catch and/or process any of what was going on in Knights of the Old Republic for the rest of the night though.

Every single time since then, when I play a game that hits me particularly hard in some fashion, I always wonder if he would’ve liked it too. BioShock, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Persona 4, Portal, Hotline Miami, Grand Theft Auto V. I don’t know how long I would’ve stalled before jumping into consoles if it wasn’t for him. What kind of games would I be playing today? Would I have crapped on Japanese RPGs because they’re too long or there’s too much grinding?

I haven’t been able to play all the way through Final Fantasy VII since then. Every year I hear the rumor about the remake and hope it’s true and now that it finally is, I’ve realized how damn bad I wanted it – how bad I needed it. I really wish he could play it too though. Hell, I wish he could see how far video games have come in the past ten years. I’d be able to play video games online with him – we could curse up a damn storm at things like zombies and griefers without getting looks from the adults because we would be adults too.

So yeah, I do have perma-nostalgia goggles when it comes to Final Fantasy VII. I know parts of the story are a big what?, some of the translation was off, there are some plot holes, some weird parts, grinding grinding level grinding — but we had so much fun with that shit. The wonky parts, the amazing parts — the whole game. Whenever people ask me what my favorite Final Fantasy is, I usually answer IX. Sometimes, if I’m feeling particularly colorful that day I might even say VIII (that game and my love for it is a whole ‘nother story). But after the question, right away in my mind, VII always comes up first. It may not be what decides to come out of my mouth since there was (is?) that whole “VII is so overrated” period. Yeah, it may be a little overrated but really if you judge someone because they like an “overrated” game then go sit in the corner, you’re in time out.

Wow. I really didn’t mean to go on this long and I really didn’t mean to be all over the place with this but my excitement for the remake isn’t just because it’s going to be REALLY PRETTY (when I saw Midgar in the video I wanted to pass out, my precious) and we’ve been waiting for it so long. But this is one of the main games that helped make me like what I like and maybe even helped a little to make me who I am today. (When I see trash on the ground and pick it up and put it in a trash can I know AERIS WOULD BE PROUD OF ME OKAY? lolololol)

But as an extension of that, it was thanks to Josh (or all his fault, hahaha) that I even saw this game in the first place. Maybe with the remake I’ll finally be able to get through the game again.

In 2013 we did glowing black and green and 2014 was concept art inspired!

Someday we want to put together an original outfit set that’s all inspired by peacocks since they’re just right for the Glitterati, but for this year’s b-day outfit we settled for black with slight peacock touches here and there (plus we wanted everything to be a little grunge-tinged too – hence this fabric we found for the background + grain). Maybe this outfit is the preface to the peacock set later!

We did heavy makeup in blues/greens/purples on the main eye for each of us w/ silver & black on the other eye (the one under the hair, hehe). We also thought we’d only do half the lipstick too. Basically, one side of each of us is plain(ish) while the other has a glove with feathers at the end, dark eye makeup/dark lipstick, and the feathered ear cuff things. We added a splash of green with the green feather tank for Kerith and the green glitter-caked shoes for Jaryn.

We’ll always be crossing our fingers for a Dance Central 4 where Kerith & Jaryn cause the mischief they mentioned in Dance Central 3!

For more photos, you can check out the post on our tumblr!

The first weekend in March was PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts. We missed 2014 and weren’t planning on going this year (since tickets & hotel are so hard to get) but our friend Roger managed to snag Friday and Saturday passes for all three of us and another friend of ours, Denis. You might’ve seen them in such things as Animal Crossing & Saints Row costumes with us. I managed to get a room close to the con center once he told us about the passes and suddenly we were going to PAX East!

I want to apologize, first off, for the photos I have in this post. I didn’t bring my camera so all of these photos were from my phone. Last time we went up to PAX East, we drove – this time we flew up so we tried to not take a lot of luggage. Which also meant no costumes.

Just because I didn’t have my camera and we didn’t have any costumes didn’t mean we didn’t have fun though! We saw a ridiculous amount of interesting looking games and are very excited about a lot of the ones we saw and got to try out. At the bottom of this post will be a list of our favorites, why we loved them, and links to more information about them!

Amplitude! Rock Band 4! Hard Rock party!

One of the highlights of the weekend besides all the games we got to see was the Harmonix party at the Hard Rock Cafe. Actually I should change that highlight to just Harmonix in general. They had the latest build of Amplitude at their booth, they had just announced Rock Band 4 and they threw a kickass party at the Hard Rock Cafe on Saturday night. It was a definite treat to see all the HMX people we met at Pax East 2013 again. In fact, you might remember from the PAX East 2013 con report where we talked about how we met HMX artist Jamie McKiernan while wearing our Dance Central 3 Glitterati costumes – we saw her at the party and talked to her about all kinds of ridiculous things. Seriously, that company is full of talented and extremely kind people. Everyone at the booth was pumped about Amplitude, excited about Rock Band 4 and their Hard Rock Cafe party was sold out — they had an AMAZING con this year.

The other highlight was stumbling across a booth for a game called Enter the Gungeon, by Dodge Roll Games (and published by Devolver Digital, who we always trust). I was drawn to the fact that it looked like it was ridiculously fun to play and holy my goodness everything is adorable in the best and most badass way. As I was leaning over to grab one of the business cards so I could look into it more later I heard someone say my name – now, I knew Nate, Denis and Roger were to my right so when I looked to my left to see where my name had come from I was met with a face I hadn’t seen in at least a decade. Apparently, one of the developers of Dodge Roll Games is an old high school friend of mine. I flipped out, naturally. He was a grade below me and I was standing there explaining all of this to Nate and Roger (Denis also went to the same high school and kind of remembered him) and repeating, “OMG PRECIOUS DAVID CHILD LOOK AT HIM I’M SO PROUD.” That’s what I was saying also when I was taking that picture up there: “I GOTTA GET A PICTURE OF HIM SO I CAN TWEET TO SHOW THE REST OF THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOPLE LOOK AT DAVID ALL GROWN UP. LOOK AT HIM EXPLAINING THE GAME.” So besides Enter the Gungeon looking like complete crazy fun, I got to see an old friend too!

But really, I’m not kidding, keep an eye out for this game.

So with that, here are five games we had a blast playing/seeing/experiencing – we picked five to ramble about but there are more. We are so pumped about so many of these. There is a ton of talent out there.

1.) Enter the Gungeon (Dodge Roll Games) – SELF-EXPLANATORY IF YOU READ THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPHS.

2.) Monsters & Monocles (Retro Dreamer) – The four of us went back to this game three times. If you like co-op games (in the vein of Castle Crashers – 4 player kick-everything’s-ass kind of co-op!) then you will like game. We’re always looking for 4 player co-op games that we can all play in the same room and we are so excited for this one. The sprites are extremely badass and cute at the same time (I always picked the robot when I could okay) and the weapons were the right balance of useful, crazy and funny (Crumpet Cannon ftw) and there’s a great sense of humor about it. The tagline on the website is, “A tale of comrades, ballistics, and high tea.” –and there’s A ZEPPELIN. COME ON. I need this game yesterday.

3.) Homesick (Lucky Pause) – I have always had an extremely soft spot for point-and-click games (Myst, Phantasmagoria, Shivers, etc.) and you know how I love creepy games – not necessarily jump scare types, but the ones that really get to you and have an absolute slow burn about them. Homesick looks like something I am prepared to fall in love with. I’m preparing myself for massive amounts of feels. This game looks so pretty and so unsettling (and I mean that in the best way – I love games like this) and I cannot wait to dive into it and see what the whole story is with it.

4.) Tumblestone (The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild) – I will admit, I was ready to pass this off as “another puzzle game” until I was called over by one of my pals to play it. All four of us ended up playing on one screen against each other and had an absolute blast. You might think there’s no other way a puzzle game can be done, or “that sounds too easy”, maybe “that’ll get old fast” — whatever you’re thinking, Tumblestone deserves a shot. ESPECIALLY with three friends. It’s fast-paced, clever and the game description even says you’ll always pull a “just one more round” — this is true. We wanted to keep playing but there were people waiting so we had to tear ourselves away from it.

5.) Z’Isle (Miscellaneum Studios) – I know some of you are worn out on zombies and that’s understandable/cool/whatever but I was intrigued completely by this game. They had just started building it – we were told this when we ran into a bug while playing. This was no big deal though, for having just started what we saw was impressive. The game is based off a comic book series set in Montreal seven years after a zombie apocalypse. One of the main things that pulled me over there was the weapon one of the people at the booth was holding. It was made out of bike parts and it looked effing cool as hell. The picture I snapped with my phone came out like utter crap so here is a picture off of Z’Isle’s Facebook page. Give them a like and check it out. I got the first issue of the comic while I was there and it’s a great read!

Also, check out these games we don’t have room to ramble about!:

• Dog Sled Saga (a very darling game where you, a new-to-the scene musher, puts together and takes care of your own little set of sled dogs)
• Albert & Otto (a very smart and very engaging game where you play a boy who takes his magical bunny with him on a journey – Nate played this for such a long time, we didn’t realize how long we were there!)
• Dead Years (an open-world survival story with action RPG elements and A DOG! <3)
• Never Ending Night (THIS GAME LOOKS SO PRETTY oh yeah also it’s “a 2D side-scrolling, physics-based exploration game”)
• Kwaan (i am sobbing over how cute and perfect everything in this online adventure game is LOOK AT IT)
• Dead Secret (A MURDER MYSTERY :D!)

Overall, even without my camera and any costumes, PAX East was a blast. And to close this post out, here is a picture of video game YouTuber Markiplier (and the guy whose fault it is that we like Five Nights at Freddy’s so much) who was at his table meeting fans and someone left him hanging when he tried to shake their hand. He just stood there and looked at them. How could you leave Markiplier hanging people, he’s always so supportive of you.

We don’t know when we’ll be at a PAX convention next, but one day we’d like to go back again!