u/DramaticErraticism

I think my favorite season so far has been Physical Asia, particularly Mongolia. A country I know a lot of history about, which I know nothing about in modern times. It was interesting to learn more about their culture and sports.

I'd really like to keep it somewhere along those lines, countries that we don't see in the limelight very often. Something within Eastern Europe would be really interesting, Lithuania etc.

South America would be really cool...what do you want to see?

I have been rewatching the show recently, this is at least my 4th watch and it is crazy how fresh this show every time I go back and watch it again.

I love the small comedy moments in the show, they don't happen all the time, but they hit so hard when they do.

I just watched the episode where Sally was caught masturbating at a sleepover. Betty calls up Don

Betty: She was masturbating in front of her friend.

Don: *Pauses* Jesus...was it a boy or a girl?

Betty: Jesus Don, does it matter?

I was laughing my ass off. It just shows exactly what the type of person Don is in such a small way. He is always living in the details and the 'why' and the angle. Betty, who is living in the 'real' world with the typical concerns, drags him back to reality and he snaps out of it.

The writing never fails.

Ive always been 'fit' in my adult life, always wanted to look good and the gym has always been in my life in some form or another.

When I look in the mirror, my face is a tad chubby but I can see the outline of abs and have good muscle definition. I figure I have about 10 pounds to lose at 6 foot 3 and 230lbs.

I did my first cut some months ago and came down 15lbs, I figured I would be really cut at 215. I had more definition, but I noticed I still had quite a bit more fat than I realized.

I am now six weeks into another cut and down to about 205. I am getting close to my goal but I realize I still have another 10lbs to go.

I started with thinking 5-10lbs and by the time I am finished, I will actually be 35-40lbs.

Its just kinda crazy how much fat we carry around and how easy it is to not really see it. I know we have fat inside our bodies and in small amounts all around, but it just really surprised me as I thought I was so fit already!

If someone told me I was actually overweight, I would have thought they were crazy. Not really much point of this post I guess, just wondering how many other people have been through the same journey or noticed the same thing.

Back in the day, I just picked up the game and learned how to play through...well...playing the games. I might have used the instruction guide, but most of my strategy and understanding comes from trial and error.

I was looking over some old threads yesterday and found out that the speed of your hero is based off the speed of the slowest unit you have equipped

WHAT?!

I have always wondered why enemy heroes seem to move so far while it took me two turns to catch up to fight them. I had zero clue that low level units were completely hamstringing my entire game. Goddam dwarves and Tree Ent assholes!

That makes me wonder what other simple things I am missing.

My base strategy is to start off, built a Town Hall, then focus on building out unit buildings and recruiting heroes to explore as far and as fast as possible. Collect as much gold and resources as possible and capture as many new towns as possible.

I tend to have one castle with all the upgrades and use surrounding castles and heroes to feed units to the main castle and upgrade them, then use a daisy chain to feed my main hero to keep them powerful. This seems like a good strategy but maybe it isn't?

Is there anything else obvious I am missing here? Some FAQ I should be reading? Appreciate any help!

Aunt called me yesterday, mom has dementia, doctor says she is 4-5 years along.

My mom has always been...childish and forgetful, for as long as I can remember. Simple things overwhelm her and she relies on my dad to make all the decisions and pay all the bills. She lives a very simple life and hasn't worked more than part time since her early 20s. She wakes up, cooks my dad breakfast, wanders around the house, makes some dinner, watches TV and goes to bed.

We could see her memory was getting worse, but since it has always been so bad, it was easy to just go along with it as part of her aging process. She still knows the things she has always known (kids names, cooking etc) and forgets everything she always forgets (what happened yesterday, what is going on lately etc). The only thing I have really noticed is she is taking 1 minute to forget instead of 10 minutes.

My parents are ok, we never had much of a relationship. My brother was close to them (physically and otherwise), but he passed of cancer 15 years ago. My sister is the next closest to them, but she has created a narrative where she is the victim and they ruined her life, even though my parents have given her a lot of money over the years and took care of her kids.

I am the black sheep child, visit a few times a year with a call here or there. Yet here I am, somehow the one who is going to have to try to manage this situation.

My dad is also 20 years older than my mom, 86 years old to her 66 years old. He is still mobile and sharp, but he is declining in his own ways and is in no place to be a caretaker. Even if he was younger, he is not a caretaking type, my mom did all the work with the babies and children, he worked, that was the deal.

They both have done zero planning, so my first step was to buy a kit with all the appropriate paperwork for any old person, so I can get their will, power of attorney and all that other good stuff setup.

Thankfully my aunt is helping as well, she is retired and has been managing dr appointments.

My parents are currently in denial, my mom was told not to drive anymore but she ignored that and drove my dad to the casino a few days ago, which doesn't surprise me at all.

Their income situation could be a lot better, could be a lot worse. My mom has a small 401k, my dad has a pension and they don't touch her 401k at all. They never tell me anything about money (another thing I have to figure out). If I had to guess, I would say they have about 300k in total cash + asset value with another 3k-3.5k per month between my dads pension and SS and my moms SS. Enough to pay the bills right now.

So thats where I stand, as it is. I have so many unknowns, my dad could die tomorrow or he could live another 5 years. My mom could be the same next year or she could decline overnight. There is zero percent chance I can convince them to move out of their house as it is and sell it and downsize.

So I am currently feeling stuck. I am going to focus on the paperwork stuff and getting all the financial stuff figured out so I know numbers and how to access things. I am going to help them setup autopay on everything, as my dad uses checks like it is 1985, for everything.

Other than that, Im not really sure what to do. I feel like I should be doing other stuff, but my parents wont change so I don't know what the point is.

Once my dad passes and my mom needs direct care, I am not sure. She will have some money to live on for a while, but it will run out and I am not going to bankrupt myself to take care of her. We don't have a relationship where I would ever move in and take care of her. I am feeling worried and uncertain, which is familiar to most of the people on this sub, Im sure.

I guess I just wanted to vent out my situation and wonder what advice people have for me? I feel like I need to get the car away from them, but they wont accept that. Even if I could get her license taken away, she would just drive regardless. I could sabotage the car, but my dad is still smart and would fix it...what if she drives and hurts someone? Not really worried about causing harm to themselves for making bad choices, but I am worried for strangers.

Both my grandparents on my moms side had the same condition around the same time. God I hope I get my dad's genes when I get that age. 86 with barely any issues, we always thought he would be the one with problems. I know this is a slow disease as well...after my brother and cancer for a year, I cannot fathom 10+ years of what this life is going to be.

I know I sound a bit dismissive about my parents, perhaps a bit mean even. Sorry about that, Im just stressed and the thought of taking care of people who never took care of me...its a sensitive thing.

Just got a call from my aunt, mom has Alzheimers and is already 4-5 years down the road.

Growing up, my mom was always forgetful and a very simple woman. She would get confused easily and never had any goals of any kind. In her 20s, she would go to garage sales, read, knit and was really an active parent in a lot of ways. Once she hit her 30s, it was all downhill at a rapid rate.

It was often a joke in my family at how forgetful she was or how she would misunderstand simple concepts, she laughed, we laughed, it was just the way it was. My dad was always sharp and handled all their affairs.

Now my dad is 87, still mobile for the most part, we always thought he would be the first to go. My mom is only 67, a full 20 years younger than him (a whole other topic for another day).

Currently, she is the driver for them, my dad doesn't drive at all. They live in a house with a huge yard and a lot of steps, pretty much a death trap for older folks.

I've met with them over the past few years, trying to get finances in order, power of attorney, but they simply will not do anything. They just ignore all problems and go about life as if it will never change, both retired, both just hang out and do the same thing everyday.

My aunt told me that my mom drove him to the casino today, after the doctor told her she should not be driving at all. I can see this is going to be the same thing and I have no idea how to make them change.

I'm going down to see them again this weekend and I feel like I have to be a bit more direct and let them know their lack of decisions is going to impact themselves in a big way and impact me as well. My younger brother died of cancer and my sister doesn't speak to them, its just me and my aunt to help out.

Im just not sure what to do. We aren't particularly close, never have been. Many years have gone by with me visiting once or twice and it feels weird to be in such an intimate situation with them, but there is no one else to really do it.

I considered using one of those online services that gives you a box of paperwork and you go through one thing at a time, I can sit there with my dad while we spend all day going through it, maybe if I sit there and do it, I can get him to actually do it.

Just feeling a bit overwhelmed, idk how to get them out of that house, idk how to get my mom to stop driving, idk how they would ever agree to live in an apartment, I don't have extra money to fund anything either.

Just yesterday, my FWB style relationship ended after 2.5 years, we talked everyday and visited each other every 3-4 months, it was a nice thing. Just been grieving the loss of that when I got this call, my brain is fried.

I know I can wish that they would want to work on this stuff for the sake of their son, if nothing else, but I know that I cannot waste time wishing. Let me know if you all have any advice (or just tell your own stories about parents who won't listen or change).

The only thing my parents have done since the doctor visit, is say they don't want to go back to that doctor again, which is basically some level of denial.

The only bright side is she has a few years left before she is really gone and she has lived her life for 30+ years as someone who hardly does anything, so she doesn't have to feel like she is losing a robust life, things will be largely the same until she starts being unable to care for herself.

Being the caretaker to people who never took care of you, is a tough role to fill. But I guess I will feel better after they are gone, knowing I did what I could, even though I really want to run away. Sorry for the rambling.

I moved 2.5 years ago, setup my PC and haven't touched it since.

I just went through a breakup of a 2.5 year FWB thing and have been feeling a bit more sad than I anticipated.

For some reason, I started to think about old comforts and HoMM3 came to mind.

I dusted my PC off, cleaned my screens and booted it back up. According to GoG, I last played in 2016. I still had the HD mod installed and figured out how to get things going.

My initial surprise was seeing an early access for HoMM3 Remake, but this sub seems to hate it so I am guessing I will probably dislike it as well. I didn't even like the HoMM3 remaster from 5-10 years ago, since they only included the base game and not the expansions...why even bother when you can play the entire game with a free community mod in HD?

Anyway, I watched the opening intro and felt some warm fuzzies with the early 3d graphics and high fantasy setting. I picked 'Very Hard' difficulty, as I usually do, then I picked a campaign and hopped in.

I must have been rusty as hell though, I spent 3 hours on the first map of the campaign and kept getting beat over and over again. I could hold them off, capture their towns/castles, hold the most resources and towns, but they just kept coming back with more and more troops while my army continued to dwindle.

I forgot how hard this game can be if you're not doing every little thing correctly. I know a common strategy is to send scouts in every direction to collect as much treasure and gear as possible, but its much harder in the campaign as you lose if your main character retreats from battle...and the maps are pretty tight, so you don't have a lot of area to maneuver.

Im going to switch it to hard and give it another whirl tonight. The game felt as good as it always has. Even though I have spent 1000+ hours on this game over the years, the story mode feels like I just bought the game for the first time.

Im also considering going back to HoMM2, which was my original love. Is it too hard to go back and miss out on the positive changes to 3 or does it still stand on its own?

I made it through the day without crying, just put Trailer Park Boys on my second screen and had a nice time.

Every other season, things go haywire right at the end. Was this the season they were possibly planning on ending the show initially?

Everyone has what they want and everyone is getting along.

Bubbles Kittyland is going great, 15 bucks a cat per day and business is boomin'

Peace bond is created and Randy and Lahey are buying weed from Ricky with no worries of getting arrested.

Lahey, Barb and Randy have a thruple going on (before such a thing was cool), Randy is cookin and getting high, life is good.

Even Corey and Trevor built the weed house with all the tinfoil and got respect from Ricky & Julian.

JROC & Bill get their trailers back from Julian at no charge.

Ricky is hanging out with Lucy again (and his daughter).

Ricky's dad is asst trailer park supervisor.

Even the goddam caveman got 214 dollars and a pound of weed to sell.

No one is getting hurt, everyone is relatively happy and there is peace in the park.

Of course Im glad things went on to season 7, as it has so many wonderful moments. Some of the newer seasons are obviously hit or miss, but there is still a bit of gold in there at times.

I found this game about a month ago due to a Reddit review someone did. I picked it up and had a fun time, I put in about 40 hours and puttered out from there. It was definitely worth the 20 dollars on Switch.

I still had a desire to play the game, but it just wasn't holding my interest any longer. I upped the difficulty to ensure I would lose here and there, but that only provided entertainment for a little bit. Upping the difficulty also caused people to harass me everywhere I went, making it nearly impossible to use the gym or go about my business.

I really enjoyed building a tag team with a manager, rivalries inside and outside of the ring, all the moves available to use and swap out, all the ridiculous things that would happen, but the game kept repeating a lot of the same stuff over and over again.

From a simple perspective, I would be happy with more dialogue and more situations. I want more trash talk, I want to be given a few different lines of trash talk to choose from, I want more complex feuds and betrayals. Things that would be pretty easy to add to the game, I would think. Additionally, having some actual use for money would be nice. If money does nothing for me and I am in no real danger of running out and winning belts is the only other thing to do, the game runs out of steam after a while.

I don't know exactly what I would like to be able to do with money (bribe people to interfere in your matches? bribe someone to join your team? bribe someone to hire you? Pay for a personal trainer to increase your stats? Pay for exclusive gym time without anyone else around to attack you?)

Overall I feel like the game is a good value, but I do think there are some small things that would make a big difference.

I feel like some of the most fun matches I have are the ones where I screw up badly and lose. Victory is usually fairly easy for most of us I imagine, so lets hear about your screw ups.

I have many and I am sure there are others that overlap with some of the things that happen to me. A few of them really stand out

• I was challenged to lose weight, so I could only drink water. I had a title fight coming up but I still wanted to run a few laps before my match. I spammed the vending machine to get water over and over, but I kept getting junk food. Eventually the vending machine blew itself up somehow and I got knocked down to 15% health. I still went into the match with some hope, but I got reversed near the ropes and sent flying over the ropes onto the ground. I was basically dead at that point, lost my title, my manager turned on me after that and I got kicked out of the company a few weeks later for failing to lose weight.

• Explosions seem to be a common theme in losing, I had a tag team championship match in an exploding rope ring. Things went well for a while until I reversed someone, which threw me back into the ropes, which caused them to explode and launch me out of the ring, at which point their manager used his tombstone to beat me half to death.

• I shit myself before the match so everyone was already making fun of me. Someone then attacked me and my shitty pants, causing me to lose my water bottle. I head into the ring anyway as I thought I could rely on my tag team partner to carry some of the weight. The match actually goes really well, I have victory in hand. I decide to tag in my partner so he doesn't bitch about not being involved, not realizing he had almost no health at all. I tried crawling him back to tag back out but he got pinned and we lost the title match. Then HE got pissed at ME for him losing the match and quit the team and challenged me! That one really pissed me off lol

Share some of your failures if you please.

Chicken McNuggets walked out the door of Wrestling School. The rain pounded on his shoulders and his waxed head, dripping down into his eyes. He padded his pockets, full of cash, while he walked to his 1972 Pinto.

A month ago he was on top of the world, now he was done for good. How did this happen?

Nary 5 months ago he got his first shot at a pro wrestling career. He walked into the same doors he was walking out of now, to start his dreams.

At first, he was losing more than he was winning. His diet was mostly made out of vending machine sirloin steaks. As he began to get more comfortable in the ring and learned to perfect his moves, he began to win more and more.

Before he knew it, he took the Wrestling School title, gaining the attention of the real players of the Wrestling World.

He got a call up to the big leagues with the Maple Leaf organization. Sure, they are Canadian, but a shot is a shot.

Everything was going in his favor, he won match after match until he was placed in the Tag Team Championship against two opponents that far outclassed him and his Canadian Mountie partner. The snow was falling and gifts were all over the arena, full of weapons and mayhem. McNuggets pushed his hardest but he was getting beat half to death.

Just when everything seemed lost, the other team picked up some dynamite and blew themselves up, sending their bodies flying from the ring and flailing on the ground. McNuggets wiped the sweat from his mullet and crawled up the top post and flew down upon his victims, over and over again. A ten count sealed the championship, he was on top of the world.

Belt after belt came and the fans screamed for McNuggets. His went to sleep each night with the sounds of fans chanting his tag team squad "Extra Value Meal! Extra Value Meal!", he was on top of the world. His latest challenger was paralyzed after the match, but whose fault was that? He should have allowed himself to get pinned instead of requiring McNuggets to bash him over and over again.

Like all gods, they fall eventually. McNuggets was told he was too fat by the Maple Leaf owner, lose 20lbs or you're out on your ass. McNuggets hit the track and laid off sirloin steaks, he could do this with ease. One morning he woke up and he had gained 55lbs overnight. Suddenly his 20lbs went to 70lbs, an impossible amount.

The boss told him he was out, kicked him out of the Canadian grappling club while he still held multiple titles. He was back to where he began, Wrestling School. He was ready to rebuild and show the world he was still in the game.

Then wrestling school told him he had 5 weeks to win a title or he was out. Week after week, no title shot was given, no way to win. Someone had a target on McNuggets back with an impossible goal. The weeks came and went and he was kicked out of wrestling school, told that it was never going to happen again.

And now here he is, back at his Pinto and left with only rage in his heart. He rolled down the window and spat and drove off into the Canadian night.

That was the last anyone ever saw of Chicken McNuggets, but there have been rumblings and rumors. McNuggets had a twin who logged lumber up in Alaska and he was not going to stand for what happened to his brother.

A shadowed figure entered the Wrestling School parking lot, smelling of stale fries and oil. The thunder rolled (or maybe that was the engine in his own Pinto). McNuggets will rise again.

With that tale told, can anyone answer a few basic questions for a semi-noob?

1. Can the game just make you gain 50-60lbs overnight? I've had it happen twice, but Im not doing anything to make it happen, that I am aware of. I only drink water bottles for health and refill them in the sink.

2. Can you try to force someone to fight you for their title? Can I just find the person with the belt and start fighting them in the street until they tell me they will fight for the belt, or do I just have to win and wait?

3. Is Ironclad a good contract item? I feel like most of my failures have been due to missing impossible goals and getting cut...but I also see the big risk in having no one to work with and getting sent back to wrestling school at the end. It gets tricky when I have a belt but I want the other belts but then someone offers me a contract for a new group that I feel like I have to take.

4. How does damage accumulate on players? Its very rare I can pin someone, even when I have them at 0 health and 0 aggression. Almost all my matches are won by submission and its not uncommon for me to seriously injure someone else. I don't mind putting my enemy in the hospital, but I do feel a bit bad when I paralyze some wrestler or I killed one guy by knockout.

I know someone posted about this game several weeks ago, but I could not resist posting my own review as a non wrestling fan and my experience.

This is one of the strangest and most addictive games I may have ever played. At face value, it looks nearly unplayable, but once you get into it, it hooks you. There is logic to the madness.

The game starts off with a wrestler selection screen, you choose from roughly 75 different wrestlers and pick one with stats that align with what you want (which are all fairly low, as they are all newbie wrestlers). You customize your clothes, body, music, moves and many other factors. It can take a good hour before you are done with your base wrestler and ready to head into the game.

You can also customize any other wrestler you want. This can be really fun if you want to create funny/interesting rivals to play against (like one streamer made a bunch of mega man characters and soda product characters). It takes a lot of time but it also adds a lot to the game.

Gameplay: The game is split into three different areas, the wrestling arena, off hours and the overview.

Wrestling Arena: This is where the action happens. Every week you are given a set of matches and activities to perform. When you first start out playing the game, you are a nobody who is in 'wrestling school', your matches are against other wrestling school newbies. The game takes some getting used to and wrestling school is the perfect low-stakes area to introduce you to concepts, controls and the overall function of the game.

You are thrown into your first match right away. You have no idea what buttons do what (as there is no control guide within the game I could find), you just have to hit buttons and start to learn on your own. While this may sound frustrating, it is actually quite fun. As you wrestle more and more, you figure out how to do more and more moves and play better and better. Your understanding of the controls aligns with your growth as a wrestler. I know that sounds crazy, but trust me, it actually works.

As you enter your first match, it becomes clear that this is not a game where you are going to win all your matches. You will have time where you are not even winning half your matches. Even if you have a wrestler dead to rights, you might get blasted into a submission hold and cry uncle, losing a match that you had in your pocket, just like a 'real' wrestling match.

While this may sound frustrating, it really isn't frustrating at all. It simply motivates you more and creates a list of your own rivals. That one asshole who used a cheap shot to win that one time? You are going to feel even better when you suplex his head into the cement floor and break his/her arm later.

The ring has a variety of match types, you have anything from your traditional 1v1 matches, first person to pin to 3 count wins, up to a 20 person free for all where you have to be the last man standing.

One of my favorite memories in the game is winning a 13 person free for all while in wrestling shool. Complete mayhem going all over while you try to leverage other wrestlers against each other to come out on top.

Wrestling isn't the only thing you do in the arena, you may be asked to commentate or referee. That doesn't mean you have to just sit there, you can feel free to cheat, help someone win or just beat up on your nemesis. You may lose money for your poor behaviour, but this is wrestling and you are going to do what you want to do.

Overworld: The overworld is mostly experienced in 2-3 minute bursts. You try to heal up after matches, workout at the gym to improve your skills, trash talk other wrestlers and even go into the subway to murder a rival by throwing them in front of the subway car and everything in between.

There are many instances where you go to freshen up for your next match only to get your ass kicked by some random rival. I was literally sitting on the toilet taking a shit, only for my rival to show up and suplex me off the toilet while I tried to crawl away and make it to my match.

You can also pickup and use anything on the floor, eating food and drink will heal your health but also put on weight. You can go to the hospital to try and find medical kits and sleep off the last match, it goes on and on.

You will have random events that occur within the overworld as well, someone might try to sign you to their company, you might be taken to court for some shenanigans you pulled off in your last match, pulled into your managers office to do a favor or have your manager turn you into a heel and change your costume.

Overview: The overview map allows you to see what matches are coming up, view other wrestlers, customize other wrestlers and modify just about anything in the game.

I know this all sounds crazy, I feel crazy even writing it out, but something about it just WORKS.

If you're on the fence about the game, there are some really good long plays to watch. I am not someone who watches youtube regularly, but something about watching someone else play this game was highly entertaining. I watched DDRJake's longplay and spent a good 12 hours watching it while I did other things around home and he is the one who really hooked me and taught me to play the game.

The game is available on PC and Switch, I believe those are the only two platforms. I've put in a good 50 hours so far and I can see myself putting in a few hundred hours. The amount of insanity in this game and the way crazy things just happen over and over, keeps it fresh and interesting and you are always invested.

I don't know what else to say, other than this is probably my game of the year.

If you still want more examples of what the game is like, I can think of a couple.

When I was in wrestling school, I was down to 700 dollars and lost 4 matches in a row, my nemesis made me submit when my health was high, a complete BS move. Then I randomly got a shot at the title for wrestling school and use my nut kicking move to beat the champ into submission, which led me to getting approached for a contract for 900 dollars a week and I get paid whether I am injured or not or show up or not. This led to a bunch of other wrestlers getting pissed off, someone tried to get me to create a union but I didn't want to get fired so I said 'no', suddenly the entire wrestling company is pissed off at me and attacking me randomly.

The only person I could find for a tag team partner was this guy with high strength and terrible stats. He looks like Carl from Family Matters and he shows up to every tag team match with 20% health, like he just spent the entire day getting drunk.

We had to face off against a really strong tag team pair and I had zero hope we could win. Luckily, this was a christmas pay per view match where the ring was outdoors and it was snowing outside and presents were all over the ring with absolutely no rules to the match. I was getting my ass kicked and I picked up a present and it turned out to have dynamite in it, which blasted their tag team partner over the ropes and into the concrete. Another set of dynamite blew up his tag team partner and we somehow ended up winning the match as huge underdogs.

I can only imagine how many people feel like this.

Most weeks, I play trivia with friends on Tuesday and meet friends for coffee on Saturday. I might have another social activity in there somewhere and the rest of the time I spend on my own (gladly).

Even with so few social engagements, I find myself skipping trivia or coffee just to do nothing.

I had a lady friend stay with me for 5 days, visiting my city. By the 2nd day I was counting down the days until she was gone, even though she is perfectly nice and we spent a good amount of time having adult fun. All she wanted was my time and attention.

The thing is...I do feel quite lonely a lot of the time but I also don't want to spend time with people. One of the best times I had in the past 4 years was at a random birthday party. I met a guy who was really into physics and space, we talked for 2 hours non stop and my mind was on fire, I was so stimulated and invested.

Is it just a matter of not having friends or relationships that don't spark my imagination? Am I spending too much time fitting in and acting a certain way instead of enjoying the conversation?

Its so rare to meet someone who I actually click with on a big level...but it does happen and it makes me feel like I just need the right people to befriend, but they are nearly impossible to find.

I can only imagine this is a common feeling? I know people may say I should feel lucky to have friends and someone to make out with...which I actually do feel lucky about, but it doesn't change this overall feeling. I spend a ton of my time walking my dogs, playing video games, reading, walking around the lake and working out with headphones on, playing drums and working from home.

I remember when VC1 came out, but I didn't have a PS3. Its been in the back of my mind for years and years.

I have a PS5 now and was looking for something to play, I picked up VC1 for a few bucks and had an absolute blast.

VC4 was 30 bucks, which was still quite a deal, so I picked that up right after, the DLC was 5 bucks for the entire pack, so that was a good deal at least.

While the story was so so so bad for the first 10 chapters, it really improved a lot as time went along and they got to the winter landscape/battles. I was so happy to see the dry/boring landscapes go away, since we had so many of those in the first game.

I love the sound of your troops walking through the snow, the tracks your feet and vehicles leave behind, all the over hanging ice and unique layouts.

They also added a lot of unique objectives in the latter half of the game. Instead of simply capturing the enemy bases, you have all sorts of unique things that happen and changing objectives.

The game also eases up on the time restriction to receive an A ranking for stages, I found myself getting an A ranking in quite a few maps, even though I didn't play all that efficiently. I do wish they added more variety in the criteria for an A ranking to make it more interesting (kill all enemies, take all enemy bases, lose no units etc). Just focusing on time is a pretty boring thing as it counters the entire point of the game. You are supposed to use strategy and technique to win a map, not figure out how to exploit as much as possible to rush objectives. Its weird that they would create a ranking that forces the player to ignore the entire point of the game.

The game feels twice as long as VC1, they really put in a lot of effort to give players something really big.

I also found the squad stories as an excellent addition to the game. Instead of playing with the same squad from the first mission, they give me a reason to swap out units and play with different characters. While most of the side story missions have really D-level scripts, they are still fun. I love to see bad character traits flip to something useful.

Grenadiers were also a fantastic addition to the game. They are fun to use for the player, while also adding a lot of complexity to maps. If you think you're just going to run through a mortar field, you're going to get a big surprise.

Overall, I have nothing really bad to say. Outside of the story absolutely sucking for the first half of the game, I loved the entire experience.

My only real complaint is that we will probably never see a VC5...but I actually didn't expect a VC4, so I'm just glad we got what we got.

I have found a few wallets over the years, just last weekend I came upon a wallet on the sidewalk.

I picked it up and took it inside and pulled apart the contents to try to figure out how to contact this person. It is truly amazing that you can have everything a person holds dear enough to them to carry around every day of their life, but they have no info on how to contact them directly and easily.

Credit cards? What can I do with these? Maybe if they use a credit union I can drop it off at a local branch.

ID? Ok, I have a name, I can maybe find them on social media, but in every single situation, I have not been able to find someone. Even if I could, would they see my friend request and accept my message before they start replacing everything?

In the latest situation, the person happened to have a realtor contact card. I called the realtor and asked if they knew the person, turns out they do and they were able to put us in contact.

Within a few hours, they had their wallet back.

In other instances, it has taken much longer. If you just tuck a piece of paper with your phone number in your wallet, someone will know how to contact you right away. So often it is about the time you get the wallet back, before you go off and cancel cards and go get a new ID and it could save you the time.

Thats all I got!

I've recently played the first and fourth game, I posted a review for the first game just a bit ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/1v9ybff/valkryia_chronicles_tbs_on_console_can_they_make/

I really enjoyed the first game quite a bit. Let me get into the 4th title. I initially posted a review of the 4th title last week while I was only 60% through the game, which is my fault. I thought the game was roughly the same length as the first and thought I was almost done. It turns out I had a lot left to go and that impacted some opinions in a big way. I deleted that post and made this one, would hate to scare anyone away with some of my previous negative comments.

Graphics: The first game was told in beautiful watercolor, even if the battle map graphics were a bit archaic. The 4th game was released in 2018 and still looks relatively contemporary. The battle fields have received a particular upgrade, instead of always fighting in the same dusty/arid landscape, you'll fight battles in the dirt, snow, rain and other interesting landscapes. Much of the game takes place in the winter, which I absolutely love. While the graphics are nothing to really write home about, I appreciated the uplift from the first game.

Gameplay: Much like the first game, you split your time between an overview/book section and the combat field. The 4th game has added a new function called 'side stories', that really adds some depth to the game. When certain soldiers are deployed, they end up building a connection which unlocks a unique side story. These side stories involve a short/unique battle and storyline, once you complete the side story, each of the characters involved 'lose' one of their negative traits and it flips into a positive trait. It was a little confusing how to get these side stories, apparently you have to use 20CP on a certain character to ‘promote’ them, which unlocks any side story they are involved in. Initially I thought they just had to be part of your squad, causing me to miss about half the side stories, I’ll get them in NG+!

The first game really gave you no reason to swap out units, this new feature really invests the players to swipe people out so you can unlock more and more of the side story content. A really great idea.

The rest of the game is pretty similar to the first game, you upgrade each unit selectively based off an XP pool that you gather from battles. You spend money to upgrade weapon, armor and tanks via money you get from battle. You get more XP and money via completing the battles in the least amount of turns possible. This is a small gripe I have as speed is only one criteria in the game, it forces the player to cheese the game a bit to get a good rating OR you have to somewhat give up your rating to play the game as intended, which is a failure of design in my opinion. Battles have received a significant upgrade from the first game, as well. Each of your units remains the same as the first game, with one GREAT new addition, the grenadier. This unit allows you to mortar enemies at distance while auto-firing on units that come within the range of your mortar system. The unit initially feels like a big boost for your team, but once the enemy starts using them, they really kick your ass lol. Mortars will also fire at anyone who comes within range of them, so they can unload shells on any unit that tries to run within their range. One small annoyance is that the computer is significantly more accurate with firing at moving targets, your units kinda suck at it while they are semi-accurate. Im guessing they probably didn’t want players to just roll out 3 grenadiers and sit back.

This allows the game to setup some really tricky situations where you need to get past the enemy grenadiers without getting your own ass blown up. This single unit adds significant complexity to the mission designs. My personal favorite are the snow-based maps, they look really cool and have significant depth and complexity.

The game starts out extremely easy all the way up to the 6th or 7th mission (similar to the first game where the 7th mission drops a crazy difficult spike on you). If you start this game and find it too easy, just keep on pushing through and you will find some really challenging battles.

You have 18 large story battles and 12+ side stories plus 12+ skirmish battles. There is a lot of content in this game and it took me roughly 2x as long to complete the game compared to the first. A lot of the battles have unique objectives, its not just simple ‘go capture the enemy base’ over and over again. Objectives also change sometimes, to keep the player on their feet.

Story: The biggest negative about the 4th installment, is the story. Instead of joining each character before the war starts, protecting your hometown and seeing humans turned into soldiers, you're dropped in a pre-made squad of anime stereotypes that you simply do not care about at all.

The first game had this really cool Buddhist viewpoint on war and death, told with some level of subtlety. The 4th game has nothing of the sort.

The first 50% of the game is really bad, story-wise. Characters have zero depth, everyone over-emotes anime style, I skipped over a variety of scenes as they had nothing to add to the game and they had nothing to say.

Thankfully, after the first half of the game, the story does start to get significantly better. There are some interesting twists, characters start to have some growth, people start acting like adults instead of children and there are complicated moral quandaries to ponder.

With the combat being so good, it is worth sticking through the D- early story to get to the good stuff later on.

One other odd item, you are introduced to a man named Kai early on in the game, but he isn't on your squad. You are also given a girl named Kai in your squad. The simple inference is that Kai had a sex change and is now a woman. I really thought this was kinda odd, but I was pretty impressed they would have a trans character in a game and go about it like it was no big deal. Really ahead of the time for a Japanese game, much less in 2018.

About halfway through the game you find out that the male Kai is still around and his sister took his place...even though she is clearly a woman and he is a man...and the military just doesn't notice...somehow? Even though she has giant boobs and tight leather pants for her uniform? It makes no sense.

Music: Not bad, its music, it does what it needs to do. They play the same music loop over and over again, some variety would have been nice. Every ‘light’ scene and squad story plays the same ‘this is a light scene, nothing serious’ music.

Overall: VC4 improves significantly in combat, with the addition of the Grenadier, combat becomes more layered and more complex than it has ever been, which is a huge plus in my book.

Side stories give you a reason to try out new characters and to unlock unique talents/skills while removing negative skills, which is another big plus.

They've padded out content in every area to make the game more robust. The big problem is the terrible story in the first half of the game, but that improves a lot in the later half of the game, making it worthwhile to stick with it and see it to the end.

They’ve also improved the NG+ system a lot, the first game had nothing really to add, you could use your overpowered units to beat maps to get an A ranking, something so boring that I didn’t even bother doing it.

NG+ unlocks ‘hard’ mode, so you’re still being challenged while also trying to get top scores on maps. They’ve also made A rankings easier to achieve, the first game required near perfect play to get an A ranking (or rush the objective with scouts), VC4 gives you flexibility to actually play the map in a real way and achieve the A ranking. Scout rushing is far less effective as well, which I am glad for.

When you combine all the parts, VC4 is a fantastic TBS game, a rare gem in the console space. Unfortunately, with not much word since 2018 and relatively slow sales numbers and a very small online community, this may be the last game in the series. TBS is a hard sell for console gamers, even though they are missing out on something really unique and special.

I looked at the trophies for the first game, out of curiosity. Only 10% of players have the 'completed the game' trophy, when only 1 in 10 people are finishing your game, something just isn't clicking. For me, I give it a 9/10, this is the best strategy game that is available on PS5, probably the best on PS4 and PS3 as well, there isn’t much competition. The game is much longer than the first, which was a huge win. I’m just bummed that I’ll probably never see a VC5, unless VC4 sold really well in Japan and has a lot more fans outside of the US.

I've recently played the first and fourth game, I posted a review for the first game just a bit ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/1v9ybff/valkryia_chronicles_tbs_on_console_can_they_make/

I really enjoyed the first game quite a bit. Let me get into the 4th title.

Graphics: The first game was told in beautiful watercolor, even if the battle map graphics were a bit archaic. The 4th game was released in 2018 and still looks relatively contemporary. The battle fields have received a particular upgrade, instead of always fighting in the same dusty/arid landscape, you'll fight battles in the dirt, snow, rain and other interesting landscapes. While the graphics are nothing to really write home about, I appreciated the uplift from the first game.

Gameplay: Much like the first game, you split your time between an overview/book section and the combat field. The 4th game has added a new function called 'side stories', that really adds some depth to the game. When certain soldiers are deployed, they end up building a connection which unlocks a unique side story. These side stories involve a short/unique battle and storyline, once you complete the side story, each of the characters involved 'lose' one of their negative traits and it flips into a positive trait.

The first game really gave you no reason to swap out units, this new feature really invests the players to swipe people out so you can unlock more and more of the side story content. A really great idea.

The rest of the game is pretty similar to the first game, you upgrade each unit selectively based off an XP pool that you gather from battles. You spend money to upgrade weapon, armor and tanks via money you get from battle. You get more XP and money via completing the battles in the least amount of turns possible. This is a small gripe I have as speed is only one criteria in the game, it forces the player to cheese the game a bit to get a good rating OR you have to somewhat give up your rating to play the game as intended, which is a failure of design in my opinion.

Battles have received a significant upgrade from the first game, as well. Each of your units remains the same as the first game, with one GREAT new addition, the grenadier. This unit allows you to mortar enemies at distance while auto-firing on units that come within the range of your mortar system.

This allows the game to setup some really tricky situations where you need to get past the enemy grenadiers without getting your own ass blown up. This single unit adds significant complexity to the mission designs. My personal favorite are the snow-based maps, they look really cool and have significant depth and complexity.

The game starts out extremely easy all the way up to the 6th or 7th mission (similar to the first game where the 7th mission drops a crazy difficult spike on you). If you start this game and find it too easy, just keep on pushing through and you will find some really challenging battles.

Story: The biggest negative about the 4th installment, is the story. Instead of joining each character before the war starts, protecting your hometown and seeing humans turned into soldiers, you're dropped in a pre-made squad of anime stereotypes that you simply do not care about at all.

Raz is the worst of all the characters, he's annoying and brash and would be killed via firing squad if this game was even semi-realistic. No one has any emotional depth. I have a creative writing degree from 25 years ago, that I have never used and I guarantee I could write a much better story given the same panels, it is so bad that it is downright confusing.

The first game had this really cool Buddhist viewpoint on war and death, told with some level of subtlety. The 4th game has nothing of the sort.

It wasn't until I was halfway through the game where I started to feel some small amount of affection to one or two characters. Thankfully the battle system is so good that it allows you to move past the bad story.

One other odd item, you are introduced to a man named Kai early on in the game, but he isn't on your squad. You are also given a girl named Kai in your squad. The simple inference is that Kai had a sex change and is now a woman. I really thought this was kinda odd, but I was pretty impressed they would have a trans character in a game and go about it like it was no big deal. Really ahead of the time for a Japanese game, much less in 2018.

About halfway through the game you find out that the male Kai actually died somehow and the female Kai just took his name, so I completely misread the entire thing but I don't know what other conclusion they wanted me to come up with, given no context lol

Music: Not bad, its music, it does what it needs to do.

Overall: VC4 improves significantly in combat, with the addition of the Grenadier, combat becomes more layered and more complex than it has ever been, which is a huge plus in my book.

Side stories give you a reason to try out new characters and to unlock unique talents/skills while removing negative skills, which is another big plus.

They've padded out content in every area to make the game more robust. The big failing is the poor storytelling and D+ anime acting and plot, a huge downward turn from the first game, but not enough to push me away from playing.

When you combine all the parts, VC4 is a fantastic TBS game, a rare gem in the console space. Unfortunately, with not much word since 2018 and relatively slow sales numbers and a very small online community, this may be the last game in the series. TBS is a hard sell for console gamers, even though they are missing out on something really unique and special.

I looked at the trophies for the first game, out of curiosity. Only 10% of players have the 'completed the game' trophy, when only 1 in 10 people are finishing your game, something just isn't clicking.

For me, I'd give the game an 8/10, if the story was better, I'd push that up to a 9/10.

With MS charging for CoWork on July 1st, we figured we'd still give it a go, since the tool was quite impressive.

Microsoft gave us 100k in credit, so we rolled it out to 400-500 users. We spent about 90k of the 100k credit between those users, most of the credits used by the top 10%.

At this point we are removing all access until we figure out a better plan and specific business value of CoWork. If someone has a really good idea for an agent that will save time/money, they can use it. Otherwise, it is off the table.

I used it a bit, just to test it out. I ran 3 prompts around automated offboarding process I was working on, that was about 24 dollars.

If we rolled it out to all 30k users, we'd be around 500k-1mm per month, 6-12mm extra per year, not a small amount, even for a large org.

As I said, CoWork is really impressive but CoPilot is going to have to be good enough.

I remember seeing this game back when it came out on PS3. Unfortunately, the last console I had was an Xbox 360, stuck purely to PC gaming for years and years.

I got a PS5 and a Switch 4 years ago and I've slowly been working my way through all the games I've missed over the years. As you can imagine, this has been quite a list and it has taken quite a long time.

I was running out of PS5 games I wanted to play, so I searched through the RPG section and stumbled upon this game. I didn't realize they had released a remastered version with updated graphics, now was the time!

Graphics - This game has a unique look to it, everything is painted in beautiful water color, which is a great juxtaposition against the content of war and death. While the cut scenes and battle map graphics are nothing to write home about, that isn't really a big reason I play TBS style games.

Gameplay - Gameplay is split into two distinct modes, one mode has you playing within a giant book, where you can manage your squad, spend XP on soldiers, upgrade your tank, weapons and armor, receive rewards from the royal princess for achieving various goals, watch story segments, read the newspaper and select skirmish battles (for XP and money grinding) or main battles to continue the story.

The rest of the gameplay takes place in actual battles. You are given a set number of slots for each stage and you must select from 6 different types of troops that have unique abilities and fighting styles. For instance, Scouts have basic rifles and can move across the map, Lancers have missiles that can take down heavy armor, but they cannot move very far, snipers can shoot from great distance, but they are very limited in movement, engineers can repair your tanks as well as sandbags and other key areas. You are given an overview of the objective and you try to select the right troops that you think you will need. Luckily, if you select wrong, you can retreat troops and deploy other troops at any base within the map.

Each 'side' gets to spend a set amount of action points each round. The player always goes first in each round and decides how they want to deploy and where to focus their energy. The game requires a fair amount of strategy as you can find yourself in quite a pickle if you just run headlong into enemy forces.

Once your turn completes, the enemy takes their turn and tries to destroy you.

Each map has a unique objective. Some maps require you to take the enemy base, some maps require you to destroy a powerful weapon, some maps require the use of smoke screens to sneak past machine gun bunkers and missiles, there is quite a variety of maps and objectives, keeping the game from getting stale.

The difficulty depends on the map, there was only one map that really gave me a hard time (the notorious chapter 7, which is a huge difficulty spike, especially for a new player). Outside of chapter 7, no other map was impossible or felt like it was unfair. I often got the 'one more turn' feeling, which is what a good TBS game is supposed to do.

Story - The game loosely follows the plot of WWI/WWII in a fantasy world. Basically, a facsimile of the German empire creates a blitzkrieg against the Dutch facsimile, you are the Dutch and you must protect your homeland.

This game has actual death, you are literally shooting and killing people and the enemy is shooting and killing you, which is something you rarely see within the JRPG-type space. They do a good job of investing the player in the cause of the small country and the troops/friends that you make along the way.

This game nearly made me cry with an unexpected death, I was completely caught off guard and my mouth literally fell open, I did not see it coming at all and it really hit me in the feelings, I am a 44 year old dude, I haven't cried from a video game since I played FF7 at 12 years old, I give them big props for achieving that.

While the story has a few JRPG-esque super villain moments, the story is fairly grounded overall and keeps the player engaged and invested.

The game wraps up in about 35-40 hours for a first time player, it also offers a NG+ with some unique content. Once you know what is going to happen, you can complete most missions in 25% of the time (or less, if you are cheesing with Scout rushing the objectives).

Overall - I wasn't quite sure what to expect and I wasn't sure if an older console based strategy game would really hold up after all these years, RTS/TBS has always been ruled by the PC gaming space, something rarely done well on consoles.

Thankfully, they managed to achieve something special. Right after I finished the game I went off and bought the only other game available on PS5 (Valkyria 4, which came out in 2018). I believe the other games came out on PSP and Vita, you can emulate them but they aren't anything that special.

Im not sure if we will ever see a 5th game, the community for this series is pretty small, there isn't a huge TBS audience on console, which is quite a shame as I would love to play more of these games and see what else they could come up with. The community on Reddit is tiny as well, which is quite a shame!

Overall, a solid recommend.

Spoiler tag in case someone hasn't played the game yet.

For a PS3 strategy game, I thought that they would make a fairly straight forward experience. I expected the game to align with a lot of the early missions, just start at your base, choose a team and go capture the enemy base. The main difference will be enemy types and terrain.

I'm nearly finished with the game at this point and I have to say I have been quite impressed with the mission variety. While not every mission has been fun (mainly Chapter 7 & Chapter 8, not a fan of stealth missions in any game).

You have missions where you need to capture enemy bases, but you also have missions where you have to flip rail yard signs, lure a giant tank boat down a specific path while destroying terrain around you, missions which require the use of smoke shells to provide cover to keep troops from dying, a map where you have to destroy a super tank but also capture each base to stop him from healing every turn, while half a dozen new enemies spawn each turn.

I really enjoy sitting for a minute and thinking about what my plan is and how to best maximize the turn I have and how to best complete the overall mission while protecting my resources. Itches my brain in the right spot.