Now Playing / Now Watching

Hello dear readers and thank you for checking out my new post! Today I’m doing a bit of an update on what I’m up to in the gaming and anime worlds as well as revealing some future plans I’ve got for the blog, so why not join me to find out what’s happening.

One of the main reasons I wanted to write this post is that I wanted to write something about video games (as opposed to anime), but haven’t reached a point in any of the games I’m playing to write about them properly. How I ended up with so many games on the go is a good question, but while I’m here I figured I may as well write about the anime I’m watching too. As I mentioned in the intro I’m also going to chat about some future blogging plans as I might have something quite exciting in the works… more about that at the end, but for now let’s jump into the games I’m playing shall we?

Now Playing:

After finishing Persona 5 Strikers before Christmas, the main game I’m playing now is The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. Believe it or not this is the first Zelda game I’ve played myself as I experienced all the others as a backseat gamer. So far it seems like an excellent entry in the series, full of oddness and charm, and I have to say I have absolutely fallen in love with BowWow the bomb dog thing. One thing I love about the series is the way it challenges you to consider all of your abilities in order to solve a puzzle and it is just so cool realising you can now do something you had thought was impossible when you get a new item. Link is still a total idiot but I kinda love him for it.

Aside from Zelda I appear to have amassed quite a few other titles that I’m dipping into semi-regularly. I started a new playthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles X last year and although I haven’t touched it in a while it has been an amazing experience. I really focused on exploration at first and discovered what is possibly my new favourite video game location – Primordia Waters – whilst doing it.

Other titles I’m playing include Civilization VI – the latest instalment of the turn based strategy game that I loved between the ages of eight and twenty-three and then inexplicably stopped playing. I’m finding it tough getting to grips with all the changes and it isn’t necessarily as shiny as I thought it would be but I have a feeling I may grow to love it.

I’m also immersed in the rhythm based Persona 5 spin-off – Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight – and I am thoroughly enjoying it. There are things about it that could be better but the soundtrack is so awesome that I’d happily play along with it all day and many of the social scenarios have made me laugh out loud – it is a great edition to the Persona 5 universe.

As many of you will know I am also a keen backseat gamer and at the moment I am thoroughly enjoying watching my partner play Metroid: Dread, which looks as intense and scary as hell and far too hard for me to manage. Additionally he is now doing his own play through of Persona 5 which is fascinating to watch as his choices are quite different to mine.

Now Watching:

I’ve not got quite so much going on with anime at the moment, but one show I am watching religiously is Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba which is now focused on the Entertainment District arc. I don’t think anything will ever live up to the Mugen Train arc (yes… I’m still crying), but I’ve loved this one so far and am particularly enjoying the setting and all the super-flashy people.

I’m also doing a third re-watch of Yuri!!! On Ice in the run up to the Winter Olympics and it is as brilliant as ever, I just hope we hear something about the future of the series soon.

I’ve been watching Digimon Adventure 2020 for ages but I am still watching it I promise. It isn’t quite as engaging as the original version of the series but it is very fun and I have such a long history with the characters that I can’t help but love it.

Next up is Bartender, which is a really cool and stylish show about the relationship a bartender establishes with his customers and how he uses this to serve them the ‘Glass of the Gods’. This is a pretty unique show that gives you lots of cool stories, lots of interesting cocktails and a bit of education about the history of liquor while you’re at it.

I think I’ve written about this before but I am still kinda watching Fruits Basket too, although my progress has been very slow. I like the characters and it is entertaining but I wasn’t really sure it was for me until the last episode I watched (episode seven of the first series), when I thought it got really interesting and now I want to keep going to see where all this leads.

Blog Plans

I have a bit of a tendency to make plans and never keep them, especially when it comes to blog posts (I have ideas from 2018 in my drafts folder!), however there is something coming soon on the blog that I’m really excited to share.

Many of you took part in the 2020 collaboration I organised with fellow blogger (and all round great guy) Winst0lf called The Great JRPG Character Face-Off. We were really happy with how it went so we’ve decided that starting on March 1st we are going to launch a new collaborative effort where we are going to be asking you, the readers, to submit your top 5 something…

…what that something is you’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out, but it is related to JRPGs and as before our aim is to collate all your top 5’s and discover what the community’s favourite something is. It’s going to be super easy to take part so I hope you’ll all look forward to this event when it launches on March 1st!

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So there’s the update on my playing and watching and writing situation. But what are you playing and watching right now and do any of the games/anime I mentioned sound interesting to you? What about my upcoming collaboration? Any guesses as to what we’re doing this time around? Let me know all your thoughts below in comments and don’t forget to tune in next time for more video game and anime chat!

Thanks for reading,

Pix1001 x