My first week back at Twitch and 7th Moon.co is back up!

So I managed to get through a full week of planned gaming on Twitch and so far I'm going to stick to the plan of Dissidia during the week and Dragon Quest Builders on Saturday between Dragon Ball and Toonami. I got through almost wo ranks on Dissidia this week, so if I stick to it, at this rate I should make Crystal A and get the Dancing Madman title in a few months. Dragon Quest Builders picked some interest for me and I hope I can get some fans behind me while I keep that going. Tomorrow I'm planning a Super Bowl pre-show from 5-6 PM EST, possibly starting an hour earlier depending on how my day goes, but in any case my FFVI team of Kefka, Terra, and Locke will be hunting Sephiroth and everyone else in the Final Fantasy multiverse to work up my offline rank. I know I enjoy it, t should be a good show if you're into that sort of thing.

The other big(ger) thing is that I brought 7thMoon.co back. I et my old website lapse so it's gone but nonbody took the domain name so I got it back and rebuilt it, though I couldn't find the old format so I had to rebuild it from scratch. I actually think it might be better because the old website was made with a format that was not intended for what I used it for and I had trouble removing resources I didn't need so it kind of sucked. I think I managed to get all of the important stuff back on the website, it is three pages including a homepage that is little more than a hub for links to everything I have on 7th Moon, a character page that describes the whole cast, and best of all a page on all the wierd stuff I put in the book that I thought was self-explanatory but perhaps it was not. Basically the third page is actually a collection of three posts from this very blog that I collected because they were important enough that I want them accessible without having to dig through this blog. So go over there and look around and follow the links, download everything especially my game and most importantly buy my book and let everyone know that this is a thing!

Now, I need to go back to editing Supers so I can publish it in time for my next con in April, and between Twitch and the Super Bowl, I don't have a lot of time, so until next week, stay gold!

Twitch for The Toonami break

So I've been trying to work with Twitch but a number of problems came up, mostly time restraints and the biggest of all was Toonami starting at 9, which I loved, but it also meant I had no time to play before Toonami. Well, things have changed, Dragon Ball gets an hour at 8PM EST then there's two hours before Toonami, which means now I have a window to work with where I will be filling up that time with my games on Twitch. Starting this week, I will live tweet with the DragonBall hour and let everyone know what I'm up to, and then from 9-11 Dragon Quest Builders with my narration and commentary.

The plan is to play this game until I finish the story mode during this specific window with an hour at 4PM EST every other day of the week dedicated to Dissidia Final Fantasy NT as I chase the Dancing Mad title, meaning I will play Kefka in offline battles until he reaches top rank, after that, I will tackle the story mode or online matches, depending on what the online community is like at that point, but if the ESL tournament comes back for another season, definitely online. I will try to stick with this model on weekends with Dissida possibly being an hour or two earlier, although the weekdays may go to Final Fantasy XV either Comrades or sidequests in the main game depending on my mood. Weekends will definitely stick to Dissidia and Dragon Quest Builders, at least until Dragon Quest Builders is done. At some point I will either switch to Uncharted 4 or more Final Fantasy. Oh, and before I forget, next week Super Bowl Sunday, I intend to do a pregame show with Dissidia for an hour or two up until kickoff.

Saturday 9-11 PM EST - Dragon Quest Builders

Sunday 3-5 PM EST - Dissidia Final Fantasy NT (Quest for Dancing Madman Title)

Monday - Friday 4-5 Dissidia or FFXV

Dragon Ball Super Broly, Megalobox, Mob Psycho 100 and Mobius Final Fantasy VII Remake

For those who wonder where I've been fr over a month, I wish I could say I had something good, but mostly it was Mobius Final Fantasy event Final Fantasy VII Remake Fatal Calling. I am playing it because it is apparently the closest thing I will be getting to playing the actual Final Fantasy VII remake which seems to be about as likely to happen as me dating Britney Spears. It became a high priority for me because I didn't finish the last time it was active and it actually makes you start events over instead of saving progress even though they literally changed nothing. I'm not quite done yet, but I'm close enough I have some time to blog again and it was really important to cover Broly.

The main event here is Dragon Ball Super Broly. Not only is there a new Dragon Ball movie with Broly, but it also makes him canon. The movies that were released before took place outside the canon timeline, and it doesn't take a lot to notice that none of them can possibly fit with the main story, Toei Animation just made the movies to make money with no regard to story integrity which is fairly common in Japan. However, Broly was very popular and it was one of the franchise's biggest controversies, possibly the very biggest of all, that he was popular despite not being a true Dragon Ball character. Akira Toriyama finally gave in and put Broly in the story after the universe survival tournament arc. This time around, Broly lived his entire life stranded on a remote planet where he developed his fighting skills under his father Paragus who, as an old school Saiyan, believes Broly's entire worth is based on his fighting ability which seems to be potentially greater than Vegeta. After Frieza came back for the tournament he tries to rebuild his empire and sends out scouts to find anyone he can to fight for him and two scouts sumble upon Broly and Paragus and bring them home to Frieza. At this point, Frieza has a very different perspective on Saiyans, since the last two survivors have surpassed him he wants one on his side to bring Goku and Vegeta down. All of this happens while he is trying to gather Earth's Dragon Balls to wish himself taller bringing him in conflict with Bulma who wants the Dragon Balls to wish herself younger, and thus their competition of vanity brings the saiyans all together in one place and Frieza sadistically amuses himself by sending Broly to fight Vegeta tellign Paragus that he's allowing them to have revenge for their exile. Of course, Broly is psychotic and it becomes a free for all battle royale that is just everything any Dragon Ball fan would want. First round, Vegeta goes Super Saiyan God because somehow they figure out how to do that without five support Saiyans, and Broly holds his own with a new form that allows him to use the power of Great Ape without actually transforming into a Great Ape. Round two Goku steps in and uses every trick he's got. Round three, Goku and Vegeta both go Super Saiyan Blue and double team Broly who's still not wearing down and Frieza kills Paragus to set off Broly to go Super Saiyan. Round four, Goku lures Broly into a fight with Frieza before teleporting to Piccolo so they can practice Fusion. Yes that's right, Gogeta has become canon, which finally explains why Fusion Reborn was one of the movies released last fall with Broly and Bardock, this movie actually takes all three non-canon character plots and makes them canon. I won't give away he ending, but what I've described so far is something that just has to be seen, even if you know it, even if you've seen it, you have to see it again. I will say Broly did not die, so it was left open for a sequel or even possibly another season.

I have to say something about about Megalobox because last time I said I would and then I didn't. It's a pretty good story that is arguably sci-fi, but I actually have seen that the technology sort of exists for different purposes, so it's only a matter of time before somebody makes this real. In case you haven't seen the show and don't know what I'm talking about, it's boxing but with mechanical frames on the arms that add some extra punch to the punches. This makes the sport more dangerous, but boxers still want to box and spectators still watch so the show goes on. In this world there is one unfortunate nameless wannabe who has been fighting in underground matches but wants more, he wants to get into an official tournament open to anyone. A chance meeting with the reigning champ makes this a possibility, but it will be a long road for this underdog. Basially it's Rocky meets Real Steel, and it's got all the old school heart with all of the new school flash.

Mob Psycho 100 is another newbie on Toonami, the first Crunchyroll collaboration. Mob is an esper, possibly the most powerful psychic medium there is, but he is quite unaware and unimpressed with it. He is an ordinary school boy who wouldn't be worth noticing if it weren't for his powers. His story starts working for phony who needs him for back up when he encounters spirits that he does not have the power to fight himself. For him, life is normal, just including the ability to bend spoons and spirits like Dimples who wants to become god but a surprise exorcism has reduced him to little more than comic relief. For all of the extraordinary thigns that happen, Mob is unfazed, but he is actually trying to restrict his own power until one emotion reaches 100% and breaks through and overwhelms him until his power comes out and he goes psycho. It's really Mob's stark naivete that sells this seies, because otherwise it's the same as everything else out there, but never have I seen a hero who is so unenthusiastic.

So I have to get back to Mobius, but I promise as soon as I have finished Fatal Calling, I will be getting back to Twitch for Dissidia on Sunday to chase the Dancing Madman title, and saturday nights I plan to show something for Toonami Faithful between the Dragon Ball block at 8 PM EST and the proper Toonami block at 11 PM EST. I also need to find time to edit Supers so life is pretty busy. See y'all next time and stay gold!

Is DC doing Dragon Ball Z?

It has recently occurred to me that the DC cinematic universe is actually Dragon Ball Z. Try to follow me here, first of all, we all know that once it becomes Z, Dragon Ball rips off Superman with Goku also being the last of an alien race that died when his home planet exploded. Earlier on, Toriyama had already done a mroe obvious parody of Superman in Dr. Slump, so we know he was aware, we can't call it a coincidence, Goku is Superman, Superman is Goku. From here, let's look at the DC cinematic universe.

Man of Steel - after years of individually licensed movies, DC finally tries to tell a continuous narrative starting with Superman vs General Zod. General Zod is a villain from Superman's homeworld, and the big fight scene between them is quite obviously replaying Goku vs Vegeta. They had hundreds of villains and plots to work with, but of all options, they went with the one that paralleled the most epic showdown in Dragon Ball Z. This in itself is nothing, but where do they go from here?

Batman vs Superman - This was the movie nobody, not even the fans, saw coming. But in retrospect it becomes a bit more clear that Superman and Batman establishing a rivlary and then cooperating against a common enemy and Superman dying to sacrifice himself to defeat that enemy is a parallel of Goku teaming up with Piccolo against Radditz, and the nature of the final villain as an amalgam monster that was designed to kill Superman parallels Cell. But this is putting the narrative a little out of order, fortunately it gets a bit more on track in the next stage.

Justice League - Superman is brought back to life to stop an even greater enemy, an interplanetary destroyer of worlds named Steppenwolf. The gathering of heroes to fight Steppenwolf seems similar to Goku and friends fighting Frieza, including when the villain threatens to actually rip the planet apart at it's seams like Frieza did to Namek. The only thing missing here is it taking place on another planet.

The next step it would seem to be that Justice League 2 would bring in that guy from the fifth dimension I won't even try to spell. But anyway, my point is that if you want to see a good AMericna live action Dragon Ball movie and you weren't satisfied with Dragonball Evolution, try the DC cinematic universe. In the meantime, Megalobox premieres on Toonami tonight and I posted this because I don't know nearly enough about Megalobox to comment in it before I see it, but I'll get back with review/commentary next week.

NaNoWriMo 2018 and Twitch

If anyone was wondering where I've been for the last month and you didn't check your calendar, it was National Novel Writer's Month and I was busy writing my latest novel Supers. I barely finished it in the last hour of the last day, but I did it!

Supers is a slightly different take on the superhero genre, in this version the super powers are much more limited in variety in accordance with how genetic mutations work. As far as the general public knows, there are only two types of Super, the ones that can fly and have super strength, and one that also has electric powers as well. There's actually a third type that has telekinesis as well, but they are top secret because they are so dangerous that they are all kept hidden away while the known Supers are mostly drafted into the Army National Guard and work for the police as their day job when the militay doesn't need them otherwise. Of course, there are Supers that become villains, and the Super police deal with them, so crime fighting is basically just standard police procedure with flight risk taking on a new meaning.

The story focuses mainly on Nicholas "Sparky" Franklin, the one known case of electric powers who went to MIT and became a psychologist after being their experiment for years. At age twenty-six he is reunited with his childhood friend Amber Skye who got taken away with the rest when they work at the NYPD under Captain Steve Murica. In their first few days together, they meet Ray Jackson, Hope Freeman, and Lung Yang, three Supers that managed to hide from the draft only to get caught in adulthood. The story largely follows how the six of them learn to get along basd on the one thing they have in common, being Supers in New York City. The climax of the story is when some top secret special Supers break free and cause trouble which falls on the team of six to handle together.

Hopefully I will finish editing this in time to release by the spring of next year. In the mean time, now that I got through a month of marathon writing, I want to relax and play some games which I will broadcast on Twitch. I really want to finish Dragon Quest Builders and Final Fantasy XV Comrades while there are some DLC that may be fun to try and Uncharted 4 that came with my PS4 and I'd really like to get through these in the next few months before I rededicate myself to editing Supers, then going back to writing the sequel to 7th Moon and getting back into Dissidia before the next tournament, if there is one. Because of my hectic schedule including my day job, this is all going to be random with no schedule at all, so just know that I intend to play four games that will broadcast on Twitch whenever...

Flower City Comic (Mini) Con

This is a new one, the Flower City Comic Con is doing a mini-con, which I've never really heard of, I don't know what a mini-con is, and they haven't told me much, but I know this much, it will be happening at Greece Ridge Center Mall, which may be the closest possible venue to my home, and I signed up to sell my books, which got accepted so I don't really know what else will be going on around me, but I will be sitting there selling books all day both days, so if anyone wants to come along and buy a book or two, or all six of what I've published so far, if you happen to be in the area, please come by. Admission is free so just come on in. There will be a costume contest, a scavenger hunt, free comic books, and one of the cast members of the Walking Dead. I seriously don'tknow how this will work, but I'm still pretty excited about it, so Rochester fans please come by. As for everyone else, I will be posting pics afterwards so you can look forwad to the report then.

That's all for this week folks, I'm really busy getting ready for all that next week.

Mobius Final Fantasy, the end is the beginning

Recently I finished Mobius Final Fantasy, which is to say the main story, not counting all the extra crazy that they put in, that is literally infinite with constant updates soI can always login and find something to do. But I have always been a fan of the storylines, so finishing the main story felt like I accomplished something. I really doubled down on this game a couple months ago when my phone ran out of space and I had to delete an app, and as the only app that had back-up on my PC, it got cut, but then I just wanted to be done because it was kind of a wake up call that this had gone on long enough. It has actually been just over two years since I first downloded it shortly after it's initial release and since it was released in chaptes, it took time to finish. The extra time I dedicated to it recently pre-empted a lot of other things which is why my Twitch channel all but died, and next month is NaNoWriMo when I'll dedicate my free time to what may be my last NaNoWriMo novel, so I won't be hardcore gaming until December, but this was a huge part of the puzzle. Anyway, now that I finished the story, I want to review the game in full.

Mobius Final Fantasy is an audio visual spectacle to rival any of the numbered console games, but the mechanics do leave a little bit wanting and the story doesn't start out much better, but by the end, it does all make sense in it's own weird way. The game begins with Wol (or whatever you want to call him) awakening on the shores of Palamecia being called by the disembodied voice Vox along with many others to fight the fiends of Chaos. As you go forward, the momentum doesn't ever really slow down long enough for you to really figure out what's going on, you just meet a few random individuals filling the traditional roles of Final Fantasy telling you that you are meant to fulfill a prophecy as the Warrior of Light to defeat Chaos, proving yourself one minor fiend at a time. Garland, Mog, Echo the Fairy, Princess Sarah, and Cid all appear and elaborate on the prophecy, but the wierd thing is that other than these characters, Mog's fellow moogles seem to be the only native population of Palamecia, the world that you must save despite the fact that it all seems to be just one battlefield after another. Any player with any sense starts to wonder what the point is, but then Wol wonders too. As the script seems to get lazy, Wol goes a little meta as he waxes philosophical about just why he's fighting at all. Then Meia joins him, a witch who has been branded a heretic because she loved one of the past Warriors of Light and deterred him from his path costing him his life. As the story draws to a close, the mind blowingly horrific truth is finally revealed, none of this really matters, it's just a neverending cycle in which this world with it's own laws that may defy physics and every other science we know perpetuates the war between the Warrior of Light and Chaos. It just repeats endlessly with no real end, despite the theme of hope, the truth is palamecia has no hope because it actually is just a battlefield that relies on nobody ever stopping to think about it, compelled to just fulfill the prophecy to save the world as they have been told. Wol finally figures it out and the game ends with Wol, Meia, and Princess Sarah attempting to defy the prophecy...but did they really succeed? The gmae totally seems to make it up as it goes along and near the end, they actually admit that Palamecia warps to fit the narrative as it unfolds,that perhaps even the heresy to defy the prophecy is actually the prophecy merely testing the Warrior of Light as he reaches the same inevitable end as all the others who have come before him. The last scene is Wol, Meia, and Sarah each in a crystal foating in space, are they oing to a new world or just starting the cycle over again?

One possibility is that this is actually part of the time loop from the first Final Fantasy game. The story mirrors the original game with the same major bosses, and they say the hope of Palamecia goes to another world to help another Princess Sarah, which suggests this whole thing is actually just some prologue to the original game taking place in the time space in the middle of the 2000 year time loop. Of course, I've also said that's where Dissidia takes place, and we now also have to consider Record Keeper, Brave Exvius, Kingdom Hearts and World of Final Fantasy, so at this point I really don't know how any of this fits together anymore, the meta-multiverse is starting to collapse under it's own weight. But what a wild ride it's been and it is fun.

So I guess the question is, is Mobius Final Fantasy worth it? Yes, I would say it is. The mechanics take some getting used to and the PCversion proves this was made for a mobile device, not a console. It is largely a game of rock-paper-scissors with every enemy having an elemental affinity/weakness and every technique having an element to exploit that weakness or be foiled by that affinity. More often than not, the variety feels cosmetic, jobs limit your elements but you can just swap them around to fit the changing requirements of each battle. But speaking from experience, I picked my favorite job (Red Mage), my favorite abilitites (Fira from the Belias card, and whatever, though Cure, Flameshift, Fire Essence, or a selection of eggs from the gil shop work fine) and I just boosted everything with in game power-ups and I made it to the end and only paid real money twice, and both times it was just a lack of patience. Everything is available in game in abundance, so if you want to just play casually, this game is a fun romp through final fnatasy nostalgia that leavesme with just one question: why couldn't this have been Final Fantasy Spirits Within?