Smashing Brother.... Blog?!

Hey, all. Yes, I'm still alive.

I haven't been updating nearly as often as I should. The truth is, I find the prospect of leaping right into reviews a little intimidating lately. Not sure why, but there you go. I still want to write here, however, so I've decided to use this blog as- get this- a web log. It sounds unconventional, I know, but I think it's worth trying.
_______________________________________________________

Super Mario Galaxy is awesome. More on that at a later date.

I've been playing my sister's copy of Harvest Moon DS quite a bit lately, which should make me an interesting test case for psychiatrists studying masochism. It's easily the worst game in the series that I've played- repetitious tasks are a given in any farming sim game, but HMDS also features dated graphics, an over-demanding farm building system (600 pieces of stone for a pond?!), an abominable touch-screen inventory system, and some of the most god-awful translation since Zero Wing. And yet, I just keep playing.

A big part of the draw of any Harvest Moon game is the courtship/marriage system. There are quite a few sweet, pretty, available girls around town, but I was instantly drawn to the resident witch- the game's only real villain. It's hard to say exactly what possessed me to invest no small amount of time and effort wooing a girl who turned the town's resident goddess to stone, banished all of her followers to an alternate dimension, then forced me to work my arse off to bring them back, but I think it has much to do with her very inaccessibility. I see her in her house, tending to a poisonous concoction of uncertain destination, and I think; "I can change her". I'll be sweet, show her how nice it is to be kind, and, gradually, like a bad romance novel, she'll drop her evil tendencies like so much unnecessary luggage and become a model citizen.

Preferably a well-translated one.

-Smashing Brother out.