Starting off with a bang!

This is possibly the first year in a long time where the beginning of the year has so many videogame releases that I actually care about.  Everything's been a lot better ever since I was relieved from my 9 weeks of ailments throughout November, December, and early January.  I'm back to feeling as normal as I can possibly be, though I'm still careful of what I eat and do each day.  I've been still keeping up with exercise, trying to sleep earlier (kind of failing on that aspect), and avoiding spicy food.  I took the time in January to recuperate and to catch up on finishing games.  Out of all the games I finished the past 2 months, Bravely Default is the one to mention.  I borrowed it from my sister a year ago and spent 30 hours on it before I got distracted by other games.  The past few months, I kept playing it again off and on until I spent another 30 hours on it and got to the end.  Bravely Default gives me hope for future turn-based JRPGs and shows that they can still be modern, relevant, and a lot of fun in this day and age.  To avoid any spoilers, I won't go into detail on it right now, but I might want to rant on it sometime soon.  I really enjoyed the game but was a bit put off by the last half of the game.

The past two months have been kind of crazy, filled with game releases, events, and deals.  The Steam Winter Sales ended early January, Amazon holds a special "get 20% off Pre-order or newly released games for Prime users", Final Fantasy Explorers released, Blade & Soul releases in the West (FINALLY!), Bayonetta and Corrin is released on Smash Bros., a Steam Lunar New Year's Sale lasted for a week, Project x Zone 2 releases, Fire Emblem Fates releases, and there's still more on the way with Black Desert Online, The Division, Senran Kagura Estival Versus, Trillion: god of Destruction, MegaTagmention Blanc vs. Zombies, Pokken Tournament, and Hyrule Warriors: Legends all releasing the following 2 months.  Do you know what else recently released?


I've been eagerly waiting for the release of Street Fighter V ever since I found out they added Karin Kanzuki, the one and only character I really wanted to have return to the series.  I was super excited when they said they were releasing it 12 hours earlier so that we can play it the night before.  I spent half an hour to an hour just trying to register and log into the servers.  After getting in and getting kicked off the servers numerous times, I tried playing with a friend online with the private lobby system called "Battle Lounge".  Not only did it not work, but it would kick me off the server every time I tried to join or host a room.  The next day, I tried playing through all the mini-story modes as I repeatedly got kicked off the servers.  I tried playing online with my friend again that night and it still didn't work.  The third day was when things got really bad.  The night before, they said they made a hotfix to the battle lounge and servers so people should have a more stable connection to the servers and be able to play with their friends.  Not only did it not fix battle lounge, but I was also getting kicked off the servers every 3-5 minutes and taking 5-7 minutes just to reconnect.  That problem has persisted throughout the week and now I don't even play it because I really can't.  I can play story mode and survival offline if I wanted to, but I won't be rewarded with fight money which is needed later on to buy characters, outfits, and extra content.  I have played offline a few times in training just to get a better understanding of the game's mechanics, but there's little point in practicing for too long when I can't even play with anyone.  I've tried connecting to ranked matches and have successfully played through 2 matches online with both of them not registering to the servers when finished and kicking me offline right afterwards.  To put it simply, Street Fighter V has not been working as intended for the past week and I have pretty much given up hope until they can get it properly working.  Not only can I not join private matches and stay logged into the servers, but the graphics are so intense that I have to set everything to low, direct input isn't compatible so I can't even use my fightstick, 3rd party programs doesn't work or doesn't work well to make the controller work, there isn't an arcade mode, and keyboard doesn't work when I have my gamepad (which works for the game because it has Xinput) plugged in so I can't even play 2-player versus.  From what I actually got to play so far, I love Street Fighter V.  But there are so many problems with it right now that it isn't worth all the effort I'm trying to put into playing it.

Aside from the myriad of games available and becoming available for me to play right now, I've gotten back into working on my music projects.  I've begun a large number of projects I want to do this year and hope that I can work more efficiently and produce more work.  I've uploaded The Guardian Legend Remix Project that I worked on last year:

After resting up in January, I immediately started working again starting February and have finished one remix so far.  I'm already a bit done with the planning phase of the 2nd remix I'm working on and am already thinking ahead on what other projects I can work on.  It's been a rather exciting 1.5 months in videogames so far so it's been a bit more difficult than usual to stay focused on work.  But I suppose I'm just as excited to get some more work out there.

I also want to mention that it's been a year since the passing of Monty Oum.  Rooster Teeth finished up season 3 of RWBY and I believe is the end of the series.  I had always planned on watching it once it had finished up entirely so I could binge on it rather than constantly waiting for another episode once I caught up.  I'm still saddened by his passing at such a young age, but I'm at least happy he was able to create something as amazing as RWBY to share with us before he left us.

Bye Monty, We Will Miss You!

I woke up this Monday morning and saw the headlines on the front page of Kotaku.  Monty Oum passed away last weekend after being hospitalized.  Rooster Teeth reported that "they weren't sure if he was going to recover" when he was announced being hospitalized, so I think it might have been something more serious than what any of us really know.  But that's not important.  The fact is that Monty Oum is no longer with us and it was shocking and devastating when I found out.  He was only 33 and only just begun his great work.

Monty Oum is a self-taught animator that was talented in creating creative and imaginative fight scenes using character models from various videogames.  I first found out about him from a friend that shared one of his most well-known, fan-made videos "Haloid".


The first time I saw this, I was awestruck by how intricate and fantastic it felt.  I told my friend "this guy is going to create some amazing things in his life time" and he agreed.  Later on, he was working on a project called "Dead Fantasy" which, much like Haloid combining Halo and Metroid, pitted Dead or Alive characters with Final Fantasy characters in a dynamic, multi-part fighting web series.  Along the way, he was hired to work on the game "Afro Samurai" and later hired by Rooter Teeth to work alongside the creators of "Red vs. Blue" in creating action sequences in the show.  Then it finally happened.  He got to create his own web series with his own original characters and story line.  Up until then, he's always worked with fan-made material or worked under existing intellectual properties.  So when I first saw the teasers for RWBY, I was so happy for him.  He finally got a team to work behind him to make his vision possible.  Seeing how it was a long series, I wanted to wait until it was entirely finished and binge on it (like I do with animé).  I never would have imagined that he would leave us so soon and so suddenly.

I was sad and upset.  It was clear that he was not finished with his work and he had plenty to still share with us, yet it seems that life has denied him of continuing any further.  Much with how I felt about my friend's passing 2 years ago, all I could think was how "unfair" it was.  I was so upset with my friend, Jessica's passing because she had a strong ambition and was clearly talented in what she did (which was photo-journalism).  She shared those dreams with me when we were both in college and talked about what we wanted out of life and what we wanted to do.  She had a similar passion in video games and expressed how she would love to review video games for a job.  She accomplished a lot before she passed on, but you could feel that there was so much more she wanted to do and could do.  That's how I felt about Monty.  His work wasn't just good, It was inspiring!  I had almost forgot that he was the reason why I put "Animation and Graphic Design" down as my major back in Jr. College.  Sadly, I never got to learn Animation (or working with any art, really).  I was so impressed by his videos that I wanted to learn animation and be able to create such magnificent fight scenes in film or video games whenever I got into the industry.  Alas, we won't be able to experience anymore new work of his.  But with what he has done in these past years is likely to stick with us for the rest of our lives.

I think it was even harder for those who actually met Monty in person to accept his passing.  From what I heard, he was truly down-to-earth and kind to everyone.  I have a friend that met him and she expressed how humble and respectful he was.  With his status and popularity, some feared he might have been arrogant with a big ego.  But that just didn't seem to be the case with Monty.

With Monty gone, fans of the RWBY series were worried about its future.  From what I heard, Rooster Teeth will continue it for the rest of the season and end it there.  It's definitely not going to be the same without Monty around.  Rooster Teeth asked the community to do something creative in tribute to Monty as "it would be something Monty would have wanted".  Fans drew lots of pictures celebrating the work and legacy Monty left behind him.

This one in particular made me tear up.  It's essentially Monty saying goodbye to his creation.  Although he won't be with, his characters will carry on his legacy.

I'm sad I never got to meet him, but he's definitely someone I'll remember.  We will miss you, Monty!