Scarlet Nexus, on the PlayStation 5

This game was released back in 2021, by BANDAI NAMCO. This one is an Action-RPG like, Devil May Cry, Astral Chain, and Tales of Arise, in which there is some Tales fingerprint in Scarlet. I mean, you even get Alphen’s Blazing Sword and its broken mask in this game.

I’ve had this game on my radar for quite some time, eventually, I forgot about it until it appeared in my Monthly Games on the PS Plus. I downloaded it right away and added it to my backlog, until this last weekend when I decided to check it out.

Scarlet Nexus takes place in a futuristic/alternate reality where some people are gifted with powers of the mind like Pyrokinesis, Clairvoyance, Teleportation, and others. There are augmented-reality-like advertisements around the city, people can send messages directly to each others’ brains, and those with combat abilities are recruited in an organization called the OSF (Others Suppression Force) to battle against otherworldly creepy-looking things known as Others which some remind me to the monsters in Stranger Things, to be honest. What are the Others? I am still unclear, I am only 4 to 5 hours into the story, and there hasn’t been a lot of information, yet, to get the whole picture. In these first few hours, it has been a lot of, training, and character development. There are two playable characters in the game, Yuito, and Kasane, with both, having their own story to follow.

The game is very Anime-like, in fact, my wife thought I was watching CrunchyRoll rather than playing a video game. The art is great, and the voice acting is not bad. When I first experienced the combat, I immediately got some Astral Chain vibes, and if you haven’t played this game, do yourself a favor and play it! Not sure if it’s the art style or the combat system but I felt right at home. The combat it’s pretty fluid and fast passed, think of Devil May Cry without the combo system though. For most of the missions, you will have at least one OSF member, sometimes two, with you and they can lend their powers to enhance yours during combat. This makes combat more variable and fun. There are some sweet combos to perform and awesome, very satisfying, finishers.

I did not think I was gonna stick to it as at first I feel like it was way too slow, sometimes I forget RPGs do start slow. But once you get the combat down and you start doing some missions, it kinda gets hard to put down. So yeah, I am having a blast with this one.

There is a reason why I have stopped reading about photography or listening to anybody writing or talking about photography on blogs, podcasts, or YouTube and et al.

Gear Acquisition Syndrome (G.A.S.)

It is definitely an obsession, and I guess it can be applied to many other areas, especially technology. It’s like we are never happy with what we have or we become distracted by other shiny things and then try to convince ourselves why the grass is greener on the other side.

Does it sound familiar?

Yesterday for example I was listening to ATP, and Marco was talking about cameras. I’ll be honest, I stopped the podcast and deleted it from the queue. Otherwise, I would have gone down a rabbit hole trying to justify why I needed one of those two cameras. Scheming a plan or plot to somehow sell my current gear to buy new gear, when, in theory, my current gear serves me well.

I would definitely like to “upgrade” my gear but it is something that, so far, might not be realistically attainable or plausible, or even necessary (or so I keep telling myself). For this reason, I rather ignore, hide my head in the ground or live under a rock, when it comes to this topic.

Ignore the FOMO and embrace the JOMO

I have to admit that I struggle a bit with, waking up early, being all over the place in the mornings, and always rushing out the door like a headless chicken. This morning, however, I woke up on time and was somewhat and mostly organized. I took some chicken out to thaw, I did not forget Marley’s lunch or water bottle and turned on the dishwasher on my way out, and on top of that, I took the trash bin out! All of that, before 6:17 AM, perfect.

Well, because either sheer bad luck or the always conspiring universe, and fucking Murphy, on the way to dropping the girls at grandmas' house, I remembered I did not take my Make-Gaby-Functional-pills. So, I dropped off the little devils and drove back to the house, the first unplanned pit stop. Still, up to that point, I was still doing “good” time. Every stop light was green for me, almost no traffic, small wins. Right?

However, some idiot, which will remain unnamed, forgot to gas up the car yesterday, the second pit stop. And since I was already there, by the gas station there’s Dutch Bros, and the best part, no line, second pit stop and second small win.

Yeah, I might have made it to work much later than I wanted, but I and the car were… fueled!

It’s spring break, and Marley is out of school for the week. So far, we don’t do anything crazy like going out of town or some luxurious vacation, but it has become a tradition that we rent a hotel room, locally in town and we spend a night or two. The girls get excited and they get to spend time at an indoor pool, and all the fun that downtown Boise has to offer.

Our check-in is tomorrow after work, and the girls know it. Tonight, they can’t contain themselves in excitement. I am perhaps not too excited, I mean, I am too worried about work and I’ll be gone for two days. But I guess we, as adults, need these moments away from work.

I’ll try to be excited as well, but won’t promise anything 🙈😁