I really need to reread these early parts cause I don't remember all of those hints and revelations being thrown around as quickly and as plainly as they are here (this isn't a critique, I genuinely forgot a lot from these chapters).

I promise I won't be comparing the show with manga every time (I really enjoy it as its own thing!) but man, I do think they dropped the ball with some of the missing scenes this time. We lost on some fun character interactions and pretty important developments/hints for characters, setting and the mystery itself.
I really hope they'll come back to some of that stuff as few of the omissions hurt the show in my opinion.

Alright, rant over.

Another pretty episode and one with my girl Xiaohei too boot! I love her, especially in this voiced and animated version.
I forgot to mention it last week but I was surprised they decided to go with a wholly separate VA for Kujirai B. It makes the distinction between the two even stronger than it felt (for me) in the manga form. I wonder if this is a deliberate choice suggested by the author or something the studio came up with.
Either way, I don't mind one bit.

It's been a while since I watched an ongoing series so it's nice to start with something I enjoy.

I actually thought about including this case in my original post but I have tendency to waffle way too much and in the end decided against it to keep things shorter. It is a useful example to mention so thanks for that.

Did they even shut them down back then? I might be thinking about a different situation but I remember one of the other remake mods (was it New Vegas on Fallout 4 engine?) where they simply told the team they can't use the original audio. The cancellation of that mod happened months later and didn't even have anything to with that issue, I believe.

Either way, this kind of scenario is something I skipped over in my initial question since banning reuse of assets in different engines is a legal thing. I mostly meant them blocking/killing projects for no "serious" reason.

Still, it was a good idea to mention these kind of issues as well.

Can it change? Sure. There's just no reason to expect that based on Bethesda's approach to modding until now. I'd rather base my expectations on their past actions rather than assume the worst just in case.

Exactly, which is why I don't expect them to do anything hostile towards this project - both remakes have their own goals and approaches after all.

At the end of the day Virtuos are just a contractor - Bethesda are the ones with final say in the matter. Despite all their flaws they never really showed to be hostile towards these kind of projects (or at least I haven't seen them act that way) so there's no reason to automatically expect the worst. That's just my opinion though.

If I recall correctly the team behind Skyblivion was (or still is) in contact with Bethesda throughout the development and had no problems with the latter in regards their work. Heck, Bethesda itself posted about the mod on their site in 2023.

They've been aware of Skyblivion for years and there's no indication they're interested in killing it.

Little time, little playing, short (?) post this time.

I mostly played two games: Colin McRae Rally 04 and Star Citizen (it technically counts as old, right?). Didn't have time to try and fix NHL99 yet, maybe next week...

On another note, I'm having some craving to give The Sims (original one) another chance. I love the second game and will go back to it as soon as I can but there's something special about the first title. I don't know, maybe it has to do with me listening to its soundtrack lately or perhaps I want some of the less wacky atmosphere for a change - either way, the game is calling out to me.

I heard about the latter but never really thought about Steam Input like this, goes to show how easy it is to completely miss such stuff when you don't need it. Also, in case someone's confused BCI stands for Brain-Computer Interfaces.

I don't think news about a single tool for developers is some kind of ploy to improve their PR - most people won't even hear about it. It's just a neat piece of news since Ubisoft has been pretty good about accessibility in their games for years now.

Giving props when deserved doesn't mean you have to forgive and forget all the bad surrounding the company.

Right, forgot about that since I focused purely on software side of things. Good reminder!

As problematic as AAA publishers can be, their steps towards spreading accessibility within the industry as a whole are always nice to see and worth sharing, I think. Did anyone besides Ubi and EA did something like that?

Yeah, the core parts are all there, thankfully. The skipped content consists of character moments or focuses on their life in Kowloon so not essential but still unfortunate stuff to miss as I do think it adds a lot. I understand why they're doing it this way and I'm glad this series got adapted in the first place - it deserves a larger audience and I hope the show leaves people interested in the source material after we're done.

The ending plan is about what I expected, now the question is whether it'll be a full-on separate thing or if it'll be connected to where manga version goes. Thanks for confirmation!

Really solid write up!

As much as I love SimCity 4, there's something about the look and feel of 3000 that makes it slightly more iconic for me (both are fantastic though). Maxis really knocked it out of the park with most of the series.

Welp, more skipped content, more changes and still going at the pace of one volume per episode - can't say I'm a fan of that. It's not terrible so far but it's still a disappointing way to go about it. At least what did make it in is good so there's that.

I'm curious what the plan for the whole season is - there's not enough material if they intend to go this fast. I'm a bit worried.

My short time in game wasn't bad either, it's just forcing myself through the initial unwillingness to and anxiety of interacting with people in such environment is a bit too much for me (especially since there's so many other titles I can use as an excuse to not do that). As I said, it's a "me" problem.

I'm glad you're having fun! Old BF games and Project Reality were always a fun niche compared to titles focused solely on infantry combat so having it continue outside of DICE's attempts is great.

It's simple but fun in all the ways that matter. Holds up pretty well too despite its age. While I don't LOVE it, it did give me hope for an even better time with the sequel.

I love BF2. I love BF2142. I want to play Squad. I can't play Squad. It's a me issue, 100%, but having to do voice comms with randoms in a competitive environment is something I really don't want to deal with anymore.

The little I did manage to play was fun so support your endorsement. Anyone looking for a combined arms squad based shooter should definitely check the game out.

Game list:

• Colin McRae Rally 04
• Spyro the Dragon
• Original VA-11 HALL-A prototype from 2014
• Amagami

I promise I won't be spamming this every week but I'd like to once again link my Pixelfed account - it's fully focused on game screenshots and might be of interest to someone. This week I posted some shots from Cyberpunk 2077.