I finally got my Raz and Lili plushies in from the Psychonauts 2 campaign, NINE YEARS LATER. They’re pretty cute and I really like them, though Lilis’ has a lot of flaws. Her blouse colors are way off and the triangle pattern is much larger than in the game. Her skirt is only 1 color instead of 2 and they didn’t even attempt to match the underwear. All in all not that big a deal.

Something that really urks me about it though is that they were supposed to be CAMPAIGN EXCLUSIVES that I paid $100 for each. But then Double Fine went and sold them online for $40 a pop.

They already lost my good faith from the “Backpack” campaign reward debacle 4 years ago. It wasn’t the backpack from the first game with the badges. It was the new satchel design from the second game, which is NOT what was promised. I paid $300 bucks for it and its definitely supposed to be the bag from #1 if its supposed to include the merit badges... Granted, the quality was very nice though.

Listening to music when working to drown out everything but what I’m concentrating on has long been the way I’ve done things, and sound quality is important to me.

When I’ve had housemates, I always used my Sennheiser HD 650 Open Back headphones along with an RME Babyface Pro for custom wave tuning. To perfectly tune the waveforms so it sounded the best to me, I spent many hours listening to the same sound clips over and over, ones that I’d already heard thousands of times before and knew impeccably.

Now that I’ve had my house to myself for a while, I always listen to everything through surround sound (I have my house wired for 7.1 in my office, living room, and bedroom). While the sound quality is a pretty big step down, I really enjoy being immersed in the music, coming in from all directions. Any headphones I’ve tried just can’t simulate that experience.

I generally just listen to stereo tracks that are upmixed (upmuxed?) to 7.1, which gives me what I want. Actual surround sound music tracks are rare, and it’s even more rare that they are actually good.

In 1996 there were 5 Eva (Neon Genesis Evangelion) OST CDs released, and in December of 2004 they were rereleased with 5.1 surround editions. I have acquired copies of the first 3 of these CDs and the surround mixes are phenomenal. I’ve been saddened by the fact I don’t have the 5th CD (I’ve found a physical copy online I intend to grab soon) as it contains one of my favorite Eva songs, “Komm, süsser Tod”.

It recently came to my attention that there was a “Neon Genesis Evangelion 5.1ch Surround Edition Soundtrack” released in 2015 that has that song and I finally acquired it today. Unfortunately, the surround remix on this CD is horrible and I deleted it after listening all the way through. Very disappointing.

Another fun tidbit. I’ve lost a good deal of my hearing ranges from playing percussion in instrumental band in high school. I recently went to an audiologist and tried out hearing aids and HOLY CRAP, everything in life suddenly sounds so much better and crisper. The Oticon Intent hearing aids are absolutely amazing. The best versions (#1) definitely give the best quality. The lowest tier version (#3) didn’t cut it for me. I’m probably going to settle with the mid-tier version (#2) due to price vs quality loss.

Using these hearing aids is a huge step for me in bridging the gap to listening to music out loud and through my Sennheisers. And what really surprised me was that using the hearing aids actually enhanced the sound quality when listening through my Sennheisers.

To adjust the hearing aids to my needs I went through a 10-ish minute test in a sound booth in which all the ranges of my hearing were testing, so the hearing aids could boost the different ranges to match my hearing loss. What really made me smile was when I compared the hearing range loss chart with the waveform I came up with for my Babyface. They were almost exactly matched. Which tells me I haven’t lost much more hearing in the last decade.

In honor of my recent Sekiro accomplishment, I bought myself a cute little Sekiro letter opener sword to go on my office side desk.

I honestly think I may consider Sekiro the best first player game ever made. It’s by far better than any of From Softwares’ other games (I am a big Dark Souls fan. Elden ring was boringly easy). I had been trying to do a perfect run for about a month and finally got it done.

In 10.5 hours I killed every enemy exactly once (no more, no less), 0 death screens, no cheese, no exiting battles, bought out all vendors, and collected all items. It was a lot of fun.

One of the reasons I love Sekiro so much is that it’s about the zen perfection of a specific skill set, patience, timing, and reaction speed (I am also a big fan of Super Hexagon - almost have a 4 minute run on it). There is no experience grinding to get past bosses, though certain skills acquired through exp are extremely helpful. This makes it harder than dark souls, and winning gives much more of an accomplishment feeling.

It goes far beyond that though. The level design is top notch and art assets are visually stunning. It’s an integrated cohesive world more so than any of the Dark Souls, and I’m a bit of a sucker for Japanese themes.

Combat is wonderful. Pretty much all the fights are fun and fair once you learn how to play, and you can even freaking pause the game! :-D You have to keep on your toes at all times cause ANYONE can kill you. The game both lets you sneak or just run in and murder everything if you’re good enough. The replayability is much higher than any of the other FromSoft souls like games too.