Quote of the Moment

"I'm half living my life between reality and fantasy at all times." - Lady Gaga
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Honkai: Star Rail - Science Fiction Fantasy Gacha Game

So I promised my next post would be about Honkai: Star Rail, and here we are!

Star Rail is another Hoyoverse gacha game. Honestly, though, I find the story line more entertaining than Genshin Impact. It's that nice mix of science fiction and fantasy. And the humor is great, kind of off the wall at times (which is totally up my alley as you'd know if you've ever read any of my Fractured Fairies stories).

I've also already found two references to Persona 5, which totally made me fangirl - lol. It's awesome that the writers don't take themselves too seriously, making the story a lot of fun, even though there are plenty of serious moments. I mean, trashcans are a huge running joke. You have to play the game to understand... Trust me.

The art style is also fantastic. But you can judge for yourself because it's time for screenshots!

First up is my newest character's splash art - Feixiao.

Here's a nice shot of the Astral Express crew.

Now a few shots from the story line (unfortunately, I'm often too slow to get some pretty neat screenshots, or I'd have more - heh).

And finally, here's one of those humorous moments. The Trailblazer with a bunch of creations from a Genius Society member!

I know it's a gacha game, but as long as you can resist spending tons of money on pixels, it's definitely a game any science fiction and fantasy lover would enjoy!

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #71 through #75

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5 ~ #6 through #10 ~ #11 through #15 ~ #16 through #20 ~ #21 through #25 ~ #26 through #30 ~ #31 through #35 ~ #36 through #40 ~ #41 through #45 ~ #46 through #50 ~ #51 through #55 ~ #56 through #60 ~ #61 through #65 ~ #66 through #70

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71. Your desktop computer is wigging out on you occasionally. What would you rather do - clean the inside thoroughly or just build a new one? Hm. It's been 8 years since you last built this one... So you spend an insane amount of hours (maybe days), researching computer components and finding the best prices. Totally more fun than actually cleaning the old one.

72. All the computer parts have arrived. Remember, though, it's been 8 years since you've built one, and your memory sucks. So it takes several days to actually figure out how to assemble everything properly again. And in the process, you of course make a big mess with boxes, packing materials, and manuals. Oops. Worth it - so shiny!

73. Once the computer is finally built (and the old one is sitting in a corner waiting to be dealt with... maybe next year), you feel the need to play with all the RGB colors for your fans and keyboard, until you find calming and pleasing tones. And then the next day you decide it's still not right and fiddle with it even more. Pretty, shiny, colors are so much more entertaining than cleaning up all the computer component detritus.

74. Sick of your black thumb, and exhausted from cleaning up the sad remnants of your plants after the cat chews them up (she's the Devourer of Plants and Souls), you decide your time is better spent opening blind boxes. Botanical Unicornos, actually. Yes, the gamble of what's in the boxes offers a much better thrill than cleaning up dead plants. And the cat won't chew on these (or will she?)!

75. Should I do another game? I love games. So many games! OK, we'll go with my current favorite gatcha game. Must play Honkai: Star Rail! (A blog post with screenshots coming soon...)

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #56 through #60

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5 ~ #6 through #10 ~ #11 through #15 ~ #16 through #20 ~ #21 through #25 ~ #26 through #30 ~ #31 through #35 ~ #36 through #40 ~ #41 through #45 ~ #46 through #50 ~ #51 through #55

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56. Anxiety, mostly due to #57. It pretty much freezes you and you can't seem to muster the energy to clean anything or work on the projects you started three months ago. Close your eyes, then you can't see the mess. Better yet, take a nap or do #58.

57. Pandemic. Need I say more? OK, I'll say more anyhow. You're cloistered in your house most of the time for over a year... which makes you want to clean it even less. Not to mention to deal with #56 you're playing an inordinate amount of video games. No time to clean, busy with #58.

58. Genshin Impact! Oh, yes, it's another game. A super fun game with gorgeous scenery and beautiful music that's easy to get lost in. And 2020 made many of us want to get lost in things.

59. The house has become sentient and has decided to fall apart on you in the span of a month. Boiler dies during a cold snap? Yup. Front door steps crumbling to dust? Uh huh. Upstairs toilet overflows and water pours from fixtures into the kitchen below (which was remodeled five years ago)? Argh, yes. Who has the energy to clean if your house hates you?

60. Taking cat pictures and posting them to Instagram is loads more fun. Cats are cute. They make me smile. Don't they make everyone smile? I hope so. Cleaning doesn't make me smile. Why do something that doesn't make you smile?

Friday, August 30, 2019

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #51 through #55

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5 ~ #6 through #10 ~ #11 through #15 ~ #16 through #20 ~ #21 through #25 ~ #26 through #30 ~ #31 through #35 ~ #36 through #40 ~ #41 through #45 ~ #46 through #50

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51. It's time for the kids to go back to school, and that means gathering and labeling all those school supplies you've purchased so you can drag them to the Open Houses. Who wants to clean after doing that for two hours?

52. And since the first day of school is rapidly approaching, you feel you need to spend more "quality time" with the kids because you have a bit of that parent guilt wondering just where the entire summer went and you haven't done nearly as much as you'd planned with your little hellions.

53. The kids are finally in school. Not just for part of the day either. This is the first day ever that all the kids have a full day of school. The house is so quiet - too quiet. How will you fill this uninterrupted time? Either you freeze up, not knowing what to do with yourself, or you decide cleaning sounds way too annoying and not enjoyable enough to do on this first glorious school day.

54. Of course, playing Persona 5 is calling to you, insisting cleaning is less important. Especially when you realize as a completionist, you have at least 170 hours of game play ahead of you (according to How Long To Beat). Sounds like an awesome thing to do on that first day of school for the kids. Am I right?

55. Your kids come home from their first day at school. The Middle Schooler (holy crap, how is she a Middle Schooler already?) is freaking out over her new school and schedule, while the Kindergartner is so overtired that she devolves into a fit when you simply ask her to take her folder out of her backpack. So much for that plan to clean this afternoon (I use the term "plan" loosely).

NOTE: My kids have yet to start school yet (soon, yes, soon!), so 55 is also a prediction for when they get home after the first day. We'll see how spot on I am - lol.

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Summoners War - Sister Time

It's that time again! Where I post neat pictures of Summoners War Mons that I intend to work on. ;)

Unfortunately, I'm a little peeved with Com2Us right now. I finally opened the Rift of Worlds on my Water/Light/Dark account to access some new content. While I opened that new content, some changes made it so I now can't open the Elemental Rift Beast Dungeons until I get past a higher level of Rift Raid. I'd be fine with that, but now the Bonus Daily Task wants me to go in those Rift Beast Dungeons to earn the bonus 15 crystals each day (in the past, I was able to do Cairos Dungeons that I can easily access). I contacted support, and they pretty much told me I'm screwed out of those extra crystals until I clear R3 of the Rift Raids. My Mons are no where near that point. I have choice words and thoughts about the whole situation, none of them good. =/

I think today is an emoticon kind of day! =P

Anyway, aside from that bit of drama, I've been hard at work on my Water/Light/Dark account. I 6-Starred both Hwadam, the Light Taoist, and Gina, the Dark Mystic Witch as planned. It took me a bit to figure out Hwadam's mechanism, but he's pretty awesome in the right situations, especially in Arena defense. And I love Gina's AE that summons thorns (speaking of thorns, I did finish the major revision of Thorns Entwine the Blade -- onto the consistency edit).

Along with 5-Starring a bunch of other Mons, I also happened to 6-Star yet another Mon. Lyn, the Light Amazon! She's pretty awesome, and I moved her to the top of my priority list once I summoned her. Great as part of my Giants team, and I think she's what helped me finally get past Giants B10 on this account.

I've also decided I've ignored most of my other Water Mons too much, so it's about time I give them some love and care! This means, my goals for the next couple months will be to work on a select few. Right now, the top two are my Water sisters. These Mons work together to take out the bad guys.<3

As you can see, I just recently 6-Starred Talia, the Water Chakrum Dancer. She still needs a bit of leveling, of course. Conveniently, I already have her fully skilled up! I'd intended to 6-Star her a long time ago, but got sidetracked with other Mons. Her sister, Sabrina, the Water Boomerang Warrior, still needs several skill-ups and 6-Starring. She's next up. =D

After I tend to those two, it's time for Sigmarus, the Water Phoenix. Like Veromos, I needed to fuse this pretty birdy, and I finally convinced myself to do it. Hubbie thinks he's useful in Giants B10. So, he'll get the 6-Star treatment after the sisters.

We'll see what else I have time for before my next post! Oh, and I'll leave you with one more pic. I may not have summoned a Nat 5 Light/Dark Mon yet, but during an event, everyone had the chance to earn a new Dark Nat 5, the Vampire Lord Eirgar. I mean, he's nifty looking, isn't he? I've already 6-Starred him on another account. When should I 6-Star him on my Water/Light/Dark account, though? Too many Mons! o.O

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Summoners War - New Toys

Wow, it's nearly been three months since my last Summoners War post!

As mentioned in my last post, I took the time to 5-Star many of my 4-Star (and some 3-Star) Mons on my Water/Light/Dark account. There's still plenty I want to 5-Star soon, but I now at least have a couple more good teams to run Tartarus Labyrinth, which is a fun (in my opinion -- some people hate it) option for guilds. This week we opened up all three mini-bosses and Tartarus himself in less than three days. Now we just have to beat them all down!

OK, I have to admit, I wasn't just 5-Starring Mons. Because... I pulled some awesome Nat 5-Stars that I needed to 6-Star! I definitely got lucky, since both Mons were Water and I can use them.

First, I got Verad. He was one of two options I had to choose from since my 5-Star Blessing still hadn't been used. I think my other option was also a Water Mon, but I hands down chose Verad. He's the dragon I've wanted for a while on any of my accounts, though I'd gotten the Fire and Wind one on my main account previously. Look at that pretty dragon roar. I'm already feeding him devilmon to skill him up, and I love him so much. He's a beast.

Not even a week later (I had a rather great string of luck in the span of two weeks on three of my accounts, after a super long dry spell), low and behold I randomly pull another Nat 5. No Blessing this time, but luckily it was another Water: Lightning Emperor, Bolverk! This is a newer Mon, so I was also pleased to get him. I've already 6-Starred him as well, but as you can see, I'm still in the process of getting him to level 40. He'll be next up for the devilmon after Verad. He has a rather interesting mechanism with gaining Knowledge from buffs and then performing a kind of hitpoint tap with his big skill. I love the graphics of the skill, too.

Oh, and I also finished my fusion for the Dark Ifrit, Veromos, plus I 6-Starred him, too! Man, I've been busy on that account. I don't even know how many other Mons I 5-Starred. Lost track!

Aside from Nat 5 luck, I also managed to get my first Light/Dark lightning on this account. I pulled the Nat 4 Light Taoist (or Stick Boy, as the YouTuber Jewbagel calls them often), Hwadam. He's the next Light Mon I'm working on, currently building things up so I can 6-Star him. Also, he's nice and easy to skill up, since the Fire Stick Boys are only 3-Star Mons. I'd been saving a bunch for my Water Sticky Boy, but they all went to Hwadam once I summoned him.

I'm also hoping I'll have the time to 6-Star at least one Dark Mon before my next post. Here's Gina, the Dark Mystic Witch. I love how the Mystic Witches look, and I wanted to work on her right away when I summoned her, but clearly, as seen above, several other Mons got in the way of that.

This month is also pretty exciting in Summoners War. It's the 5th anniversary of the game, and they've started a pretty awesome event. So, by the end of the month, I might have three more Light/Dark scrolls to possibly get some more Mons to add to my list to work on. Here's hoping for my first Light/Dark Nat 5 ever! (The odds of pulling one of these is 1 in 300 -- never got one on a single account yet.)

Thursday, January 31, 2019

Summoners War - Look At The Pretties

Yes, I'm still playing Summoners War (and juggling too many accounts). Before I dive into my Water/Light/Dark account, I wanted to show everyone a pretty from one of my other accounts. I recently gathered enough bits to transmogrify someone, and I decided to apply it to Shaina. She's a pretty awesome Mon -- 4-Star Chakram Dancer, but many believe she should be a 5-Star. She especially kicks ass if you pair her with one of her Boomerang Warrior sisters.

Onto the Water/Light/Dark account, and my poll from the last Summoners War post. It was a tie vote between the Dark Grim Reaper, Thrain, and the Light Living Armor, Silver. So... instead of choosing, I worked on both! Yup, both Mons have been 6-Starred. A lot of work, but I managed to do it and max their levels out as well (skills, not so much -- Thrain is fully skilled, but Silver needs a few more skill-ups).

I worked on Thrain first. He's a bit squishy, unfortunately. But when he does survive, it's fun watching him rain down purple balls of death onto mobs. He's especially fun in Secret Dungeons -- he wipes out the early levels easy peasy.

I thought Silver was going to be more fun than he turned out to be. Right now, he doesn't do much damage, and he also seems squishier than he should be (not as squishy as Thrain, though). That might be due to my crappy runes, of course, but I'm still kind of meh over him. Maybe once he's fully skilled and has decent runes I'll have a better opinion of him.

Overall, Shaffron the Light Imp Champion is still my favorite (and Fran the Light Fairy Queen is a close second) of the Light/Dark Mons I've built so far. He is a wicked little Mon and can hold his own pretty well. They recently buffed him, which made him even better. I can't wait until I get enough bits to transmogrify him -- he's first on my list!

As for my goals for the next couple of months, I'm going to take a small break from 6-Starring Mons (even though I have gotten a few new Light/Dark Mons to work on -- including Light Penguin Knight and Dark Mystic Witch). I'm focusing on 5-Starring a few Waters to help more in Tartarus Labyrinth, plus I really need to finish my fusion of the Dark Ifrit, Veromos. Hopefully my next post will include a picture of him and a couple of the Mons that I desperately wanted to 5-Star and kept putting off for all of the 6-Starring.

I did promise one more thing, didn't I? That when I awakened my Water Druid I'd post pictures. You want to see them? He's so wicked cool! Even in his beast form. Happy farming, all!

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #46 through #50

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5 ~ #6 through #10 ~ #11 through #15 ~ #16 through #20 ~ #21 through #25 ~ #26 through #30 ~ #31 through #35 ~ #36 through #40 ~ #41 through #45

❦

46. Playing Harvest Moon: A New Beginning sounds like such a better use of your time. Who needs to take the time to plant real crops when you can grow fake ones? And pets -- just ignore your actual fuzzballs. Raise pretend cows and chickens instead. (Yes, another game!)

47. Your shoulder and neck are completely knotted, to the point that even if you move an inch, pain shoots down your arm and you yelp. This is a result of holiday stress, and you can't think of any better way to de-stress than to not clean, especially since you're in so much pain.

48. "Mama, mama, mama, mama." That's the call of the Preschooler you're hearing. If she doesn't let you get a thought in edgewise, what makes you think she'll let you get any cleaning done? Why even try?

49. Cramps. Enough said.

50. When you take the time to sort and fold the new clothes the kids got for the holidays, then you head to the basement for just a minute, and come back to find a cat in the middle of all your hard work. Also, she looks as though she's been comfortably laying there for hours when you know its probably only been seconds. Why fight the will of the fuzzballs? (I'm going to fill this list up not only with different games, but also with cats... cats are little life speed bumps -- funny ones, though.)

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Summoners War - Which Mon Is Next?

It's another Summoners War post - yay! (Unless you were hoping I wouldn't post anything else about this wretched game...).

After a couple months, my Water/Light/Dark account is coming along nicely. Slow but sure. As mentioned in my last post, I focused on working on my Light Imp Champion. There he is below - Shaffron, all Awakened and max level at 40. I'm still building his skills up, though, as I haven't gotten many extra Imp Champions to feed to him. Still, I'm pretty pleased with his stabbing game. ;) He can hold his own in a battle as well as pack a wallop.

I didn't just work on Shaffron. There was a special event that allowed us to get the Light Fairy Queen, and she is hands down one of the best healers in the game. Look at my cute little Fran. She's a prefect companion for Shaffron, too, and I don't regret quickly taking her to level 40. She's also max skills, since getting a hold of other fairies is pretty easy.

Now, I had mentioned I might post a pretty and shiny Mon from one of my other accounts now and then, but it just so happens I got a really nice one on the Water/Light/Dark account. Look at the Druid! And I was so lucky he turned out to be the Water one (since I would have had to shove a Wind or Fire one in storage). He's not Awakened yet, but when he is he has the option to turn into a wolf - pretty awesome. I'll make sure to include Awakened pics next Summoners War post. Currently, he's the next up for me to get to level 40.

I was super lucky to pull that 5-Star Druid, but I also feel pretty lucky with the Light and Dark Mons that I've summoned lately. So many interesting ones that I want to work on, that I can't decide which one I should focus on next (well, after I tend to that Druid, of course)!

So, I need everyone's help. Which Mon should I work on next? I'll list the options below. You can either comment on this post or vote using the simple Google Form (if you'd like to stay anonymous, this is the best choice): Which Mon Is Next?

I can't wait to see what everyone suggests! Happy hunting!

Eludain, Light Inferno

Groggo, Light Golem

Shren, Light High Elemental

Karakum, Dark Mummy

Driller, Light Frankenstein

Silver, Light Living Armor

Thrain, Dark Grim Reaper

Thursday, August 30, 2018

Current Game Obsession - Summoners War

I know I've mentioned Summoners War at least once in a previous post. I've been playing the game for a few months now, only as a free-to-play player. Actually Hubbie and I played it a bit a couple years ago and stopped due to some annoyances and slow devices at the time. When we tried it again recently, we reset our accounts and started fresh.

Then we added a second account each...

See, we have this blind box itch that we need to scratch and Summoners War helps with that (free, no less, since we haven't spent a single cent on the game).

And we may have just each started a third account this past weekend. Oops.

Am I crazy? Maybe. Have a lot of our other games been neglected? Oh, yes.

The thing is, though, it's harder to play things like Everquest and console games when you have kids (we still do play Everquest, and we will likely until we see the game's sunset, just no where near as frequently as we used to before kids -- I promise another Adventures of Karriya entry soon... TM). However, Summoners War is one of those games where you can easily put it down or pause when you have squawking little interruptions. Heh.

It's also a game where you don't really need to put a lot of thought into it if you don't want to. Battles are pretty repetitive and you can put them on Auto. I know this sounds insanely annoying for some people, but when you're trying to unwind after a day of the squawking, sometimes using as few brain cells as possible is a good thing. There are also so many Monsters (Mons) you can obtain in the game, so it kicks in my "Completionist" gene, so I of course want to max level every Mon I can get my hands on (this is easier said than done because there are also Star Levels and every time you move a Mon up a Star Level, you need to level it again).

Finally, what really pulls me in is the art. It's all so pretty. <3 That's my Hwa up top -- she's transmorgified (kind of like a costume) into Night Stalker Hwa. I must collect all the pretties! Which is tough and even tougher if you're not paying. Even though I haven't spent any money, I've gotten some pretty nice Mons.

With so many Mons, though, I've found myself neglecting a certain subset that I wanted to experiment with. There are five elements: Fire, Water, Wind, Light, and Dark. The first three are pretty easy to come by, the last two not so much (at least not the higher natural 4 and 5 Star Mons, and even many 3s). I wanted to fiddle with the Light and Dark Mons, which is why I made the third account.

Now, it's nearly impossible on a baby account to only play Light and Dark, even though in the progression the game gives you two Light Mons. So, I decided I'd add in one more element -- Water (since your first freebie progression Mon that kicks ass is Water). I also used a couple from the other elements I needed to get past a some steps in quest progression. Otherwise, I've given myself the challenge to use only Light, Dark, and Water Mons. This isn't going to be easy!

Luckily, I summoned a pretty 4 Star Water a couple days ago -- super lucky for an account that's only four days old as of this post! See the handsome Water Sylph? (Action shot!)

I wanted my first Light/Dark scroll, though, so I plowed through a certain scenario to obtain one, and had to fight this cool dragon at the end. Again, awesome art!

And... I summoned a 3 Star Light Imp Champion. He's a Defense Mon. So, he's officially the first summoned Mon (one you can only get from summoning from those rarely found Light/Dark scrolls -- maybe two per month, three if you're lucky with finding scroll bits to buy) that I'll be experimenting with. I have a few Lights and Darks that I got from secret dungeons as well, but I won't regale everyone with those for now.

I may make this into a blog post series, though. At least as I go through and experiment with things on my third account. Maybe I'll even post some of the pretties from my first and second accounts. Got to love the eye candy! Should I come back in a month to tell everyone how I liked using the Light Imp Champion? Or am I boring you all to tears? Lol.

Thursday, August 16, 2018

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #36 through #40

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5 ~ #6 through #10 ~ #11 through #15 ~ #16 through #20 ~ #21 through #25

~ #26 through #30 ~ #31 through #35

❦

36. When you're actually cleaning you find this beautifully spun spiderweb, and you don't want to destroy the spider's painstaking work.

37. No matter how well you think you wipe down the outside of the windows, once you pop them back in and the sun shines happily through, you see all the streaks that you missed.

38. You just cleaned the mirror in the kids' room 10 minutes ago, and the Preschooler bangs her head on it because she doesn't want a time out. Smudged forehead prints anyone?

39. Fireworks!

40. You're determined to take a whole week off of everything (well, except for taking care of the kids, of course) and play World of Final Fantasy the whole week.