So we went to Japan...

We were fortunate enough to visit Japan towards the end of last year which was amazing, so I figured I may as well do a few reviews of things we did while over there starting with the places we stayed:

Being the major international conduit, Tokyo is a busy but nice place to visit. Expensive shops and tiny streets with a spiderweb of train and subway services that make it easy to get lost around. Most importantly if you like Shiroi Koibito chocolates and are not headed to Hokkaido, the airport here is the only place to get them! Shinkansen bullet trains are an option to get you to another hub pretty quickly but again, not really something I'd do again because I enjoyed it - more just for utility. The Tokyo-banana snack boxes were nice though! Quick note on trains: we avoided the "sardine" crowd time by simply starting our days at around 4 - 4:30 AM (we didn't go there to sleep. Lol).

Kyoto has more traditional stuff and tight market lanes and hawkers. Our transport here is less trains, more cabs, and a lot of walking to get exactly where we needed to go. Might put a broad reaching categorization now: the old castles and temples (in all the cities) are ok and beautiful, but get underwhelming fast. As such I don't see a point in revisiting Kyoto. Funny that Starbucks is everywhere here, even beside ancient temples! Our favorite breakfast place quickly became the St. Marc Cafe chain which we visited many times, occasionally even for "2nd breakfast"! :P

Osaka is more modern with more upmarket shops and honestly, you might even forget you are in Japan here as it's just another crowded bustling metropolis, albeit with loads of maid cafes. Other than a day trip to Nara (to see the deer) and back by train, we just walked around a lot here in shopping malls. The Nara deer are cute but also stinky and a bit pushy when they see you have food. While I've no real desire to revisit said deer, there's another airport in Osaka which is useful for travel, even if you still end up flying to Tokyo first before heading elsewhere. Speaking of shops: Don Quixote (available in all the big cities) has a crazy amount of variety and its almost mandatory to visit at least one of them. I chuckled that their "toy" section covers everything from Pokemon and kid stuff right beside vibrators, fluffy pink handcuffs and kinky outfits.

Awajishima / Awaji Island holds my favorite spot of our trip. No trains go to this island and a cab would be too expensive so we took a bus and then pre-booked a rental car. People that know me know I hate driving but this island was freaking amazing. So few people and better yet, the winding mountain roads were almost all mine since I intentionally avoided the main highways that either follow the shore or cut right down the middle. This is the place we really want to come back to, as even when we walked around it was usually just us on the sidewalk - a huge difference from the other cities we spent time in.

Garden Story and Humankind

Of fruits and men...

Garden Story

This cutesy action RPG has you playing a fruit who is called to the service of guardianship against the night time appearing rot monsters that threaten each of the four seasonal themed villages in your grove. Easy controls and nice art make this nice to get into, but doing random quests from a board and grinding out money for gear, and then wrangling inventory space for said gear gets old fast. Ironically a victim of the Epic free games scheme because on its own I probably would have played more of it, but given a choice with a steady stream of things to try sorry - this one is left to rot.

Humankind

This civilization building game starts you out as nameless tribes in the Neolithic era and then as you collect "era stars" (which varies by era: in the first one its simply exploration and then moves to military or scientific achievements) and once you do you can progress to the next which lets you pick a culture to adopt which gives you specific bonuses. The Greeks are good at science, the Assyrians good at raiding and so on. While there are lots of systems running here none are immediately overwhelming thanks to the easy interface.

That is until you get to the "city cap". If you go over the city cap you start taking deductions that you might not even notice which can send you into an untenable position. A simple warning screen would have been nice. Eliminating enemy empires can also turn into a game of whack a mole (if you go via the conqueror route which I'm sure is everyone's first game :P) as they must be wiped out to the last city, outpost, and unit from the map which can feel unsatisfying - especially as that last unit will probably be hidden on one of their allies lands.

Still a decent game that I ended up playing more than I thought, even though its a type of game I generally dislike but yes, there are some nasty surprises that might catch you if you aren't looking out for them.

Spaceman and the Electric State

Movies with advanced technology?

Spaceman

On an important solo mission to see what's on the other side of Jupiter, cosmonaut Jakub (played by Adam Sandler) disturbingly discovers there's a passenger aboard his vessel - and its here to help him fix his deteriorating relationship with his wife? Yeah, as cool (and wrong) as the space stuff is this is definitely a study about a man who only thinks about himself and is ending up alone thanks to his decisions, conveniently reinforced by him being almost alone on his space ship. While the passenger is my nightmare fuel it certainly makes the movie. I'm not going to be watching this one again though!

The Electric State

In a world where robots gained self awareness then fought a civil war and lost, a teenage orphan (played by Millie Bobby Brown) goes on a quest with one such robot who claims to be her dead brother. While this certainly starts off weak it picks up as more and more action segments kick in (with some decent funny bits thrown in), showcasing a lot of cool CGI for the very goofy robots that really make the show. Does it pick up to the extent of making this visually entertaining flick to be a great movie? No, but decent enough for me not to mind watching it again.

Across the Obelisk and Mortal Shell

Games that expect you to die a lot.

Across the Obelisk

This cooperative fantasy rogue like has you control a group of heroes as they quest across a multi-path map and run into loads of combat that plays out like Darkest Dungeon - albeit with a merrier colour scheme and more humor, and action card decks per hero which eat up a variable number of "action points" to use (if you get lucky enough / built your deck well enough to draw them in the first place). Team wipes are guaranteed as that's the only time you get to upgrade things with currency you earned from the previous run. The result is a whole lot of repetition and not a whole lot of fun. Check points were invented for a reason!

Mortal Shell

This grim fantasy action RPG has you play as a thing that can take control of specific corpses ("shells") and plays a lot like Dark Souls, except there's a lot more bad guys in a lot less space making combat tricky and slow. The shells each have their own perks that you unlock as you get "familiar" with them. That is a cool system actually, as it covers consumables as well. Use a poison shroom the first time and you'll probably die (and lose your "tar"/exp/souls) but use it the next time and it makes you immune from poison. The third time and poison immunity lasts longer and so on.

Alas going is super slow especially at the start when you have no upgrades because of the packed environments and unforgiving combat. In Dark Souls you many more options of where to go and what to try where as here is mainly - run past these guys or fight well? Repeat because said guys are everywhere  and respawn when you "rest". With every direction feeling like a brick wall I still think there's a decent game in here somewhere, but I'm not patient enough to get to it.

Beyond Blue and Jurassic World Evolution 2

Where wild life is the focus.

Beyond Blue

This is an exploration game where you play a diver swimming around and scanning ocean wild life. The controls are easy and its a pretty good looking game but there's no danger to be found here, just story. I think I might have preferred if the game been one big map with plenty to see and scan (ala Skyrim) rather than the medium sized swim zones per level, separated by bits of "down time" on your small sub where you do things like make phone calls. Not a game for me.

Jurassic World Evolution 2

I didn't like the first one of these so it's no surprise I don't like this sequel which retains the sim-zoo feel. Dinos are on the loose and like pokemon you need to catch em all and imprison them in specifically determined man made zones. They retained the semi first person helicopter / chopper shooting part (tranqs only) which is cool, but I drew the line at having to make the first dinosaur 95% content. I'd much prefer to slay the dragons than trap them, but that's not the target audience for this game.

Warm Bodies and Venom: The Last Dance

A pair of corny movies.

Warm Bodies

This zombie comedy romance flick stars Nicholas Hoult as the protagonist zombie who falls for a very much alive girl.  This alternate view point is pretty original as its quirky nonsensical power of love plot. Might be a good pick for those of you who like the three C's in movies: cheesy, campy and corny but otherwise stay away.

Venom: The Last Dance

Closing out Tom Hardy's trilogy of Venom movies, this one has him on the run from both law enforcement and new alien scum sent by a bad guy who loves narration. It  certainly feels that they just wanted to get this over and done with many ridiculous scenes that should have ended up on the cutting room floor but I guess they really just wanted one last crazy ride with the anti-hero symbiote, so much so that they just whacked in a whole bunch of them in here to give them possibly their last chance of screen time. Definitely turn your brains off if watching this one. Not recommended.

Undying, Turmoil and Neko Ghost Jump

A trio of Epic freebies.

Undying

This zombie crafting survival game features a twist in that you play a mother already bitten in the intro, who must teach her young (and annoyingly useless) son how to survive in this apocalypse. Show him how to dismantle difficult machinery and defeat zombies, sure... but also show him how to get water from a fountain into a plastic bottle, how to water plants, and how to scavenge? He also whines A LOT.

While the game play is kind of ok but the stylistic character art is poor and it becomes readily evident that your main enemy in this game aren't the zombies - it's your own backpack and the lack of space there in. If you aren't keen on inventory management then this is not a game for you. Or me.

Turmoil

This 2D oil barony "almost" idle game is one with simple controls and simple decisions: after winning your desired plot of land from your competitors you send forth your hired dowsers to give you a hint of where to dig, then build the oil pumps to (hopefully) get the oil out and hire wagons to transport said oil to sell to the shops (where the price constantly fluctuates) or store in your own warehouse while waiting for prices to be more favorable.

Most of the action is automated, which lets you focus on how many things you have, where to place new things and if/where to selling to. Excess funds can be used to upgrade pretty much everything and that's the game loop. Surprisingly fun but gets repetitive fast.

Neko Ghost Jump

In this super silly platform game you play a cat on the cat planet trying to rescue his cat bride from scurvy space dogs. The main gimmick is that you must switch from 2D and 3D platforming because there might be tunnels you can only access in 3D view and then impossible diagonal jumps that become easy in 2D view.

I assume there's also some ghost mechanic as hinted by the title and intro cinematic but I never got that far as the game crashed on tutorial level 3. Not recommended.