Bummer... I'm kinda feeling disappointed in myself. Not because TODAY is my birthday or anything, it's because it's already December, and I'm not even HALFway through my college thesis... T_T I'm probably the unluckiest person in the world when it comes to thesis(es), my topics have been turned down at least 7 times, and I've split out of groups twice now, and I'm currently working on my own... do I even have a chance of finishing by March? I hope hard work is enough to do so, I haven't been working on any of my projects because of it.
Which to spice things up... my computer came down with a virus, luckily, my Seagate Hard Drive had an automatic backup of my whole main hard drive.


Ok, enough whining.

I'm working really hard so that I can finish on my college projects, at the moment, so I'll be on a hiatus. This unfortunately means that my "School for Underappreciated Nintendo Characters" has been delayed. (And several other projects I had as well).

StarTropics just turned 19 the other day, and I should really make something special.. I had hoped the first chapter from my already mentioned fan-series would've been finished by then... But things got in the way, and my PC got screwed by 15 Trojans and a Trojan-downloader!

This next year, ST will turn 20... And for all that's holy, I want to put it on the MAP somehow! (Shame on Nintendo if they don't remember it) so I'll dedicate fully to work on my fan comic StarTropics Zero. It'll be the biggest thing I've worked on so far. In fact, I've been thinking about it for almost a year now.

Mario Bros. History project will continue as well. OC's will be very rare this year (not like I ever paint them or anything).

If I finish my comic on time, I might make another StarTropics Flash Movie, perhaps the third in the "Tropics" series, after Super Smash Tropics and PunchTropics? (I've been wanting to make "Elite Beat Tropics" for quite a while now).


Anyway, back to work for now. Gotta finish these pesky college projects, and get on with my life, lol.

Because I can't stand the last topic plaguing me anymore... I've HAD it with Smash Up! -_-

.... *cooling down... system set... reboot*


Alright.

It's been kind of a slow month.. But I'm surprised I got back into drawing my OC's (and some friends' OCs as well).

My "Nintendo School for the Underrated" is underway. I'm currently in the vectorizing phase. Soon to be colored.
I'm having an avalanche of ideas for it!

But I'm also carrying a guilty concience telling me I should work on StarTropics Zero instead. Oh well.. can't handle both, so I'll stick to the first one for now.


Been doing pretty random stuff lately.

Project Needlemouse is on the way from Sonic Team. Whooo boy... I'm not sure I want to see how this ends.. but half of me is excited about it being on 2D. 2D, to me, guarantees that I'll be replaying it over and over again. It doesn't guarantee that it'll be awesome though. I haven't entered the Sonic Cycle, but I'm praying those guys get it right for once. Though bad start with that lazy teaser... Though I guess that's why they call them TEASERS. xD

Oh well, out of topics for now.

Expect chapter 1 of my new comic anytime... er.. in one or two months. ñ_ñU (unless somebody can give me an effective tutorial on how to paint QUICKLY like so many deviants can, and upload one or two fully painted pics daily).

This happened right after I beat Mother 3 (which BTW, happy anniversary, Mother franchise! I guess I beat all 3 games on time to celebrate the 20th anniversary).

Er-hem, back on topic. After Mother 3, somehow, I got awfully attracted to Ubisoft's new game, TMNT: Smash Up! Sure, I had heard about it before. This... Smash Bros. wannabe... What I didn't know was that this game was meant to be the 25th anniversary celebration of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. NOW I was curious.

Before I knew it, my fanboysm for the Turtles had been ressurrected, after a long 15 year hiatus. Why are these turtles so loveable!?

Anyway, I've been playing the classic games, and I've been watching the 2003 cartoon (because it's said it was heavily based on the original comics... minus the blood).

This cartoon reminded me a lot of what ninja fights were all about, while at the same time giving me that sense of nostalgia from the 80's cartoon. Sure, ninjas weren't usually all about honor, I'd say quite the opposite. But it's funny how an american show can show the true colors of ninjutsu, while a Japanese show like NARUTO is so full of BS when it comes to what ninjas are like, with idiotic transformations, deities, and NO stealth whatsoever anymore. It's now basically come down to:

1.-who's got the better jutsu and
2.-the girliest looking guy is always the strongest.
3.-Turn to a beast to defeat the greater evil, pretend your out of control, remember your best friend, and be back to normal.

Don't get me wrong. Japanese obviously PWN at making stories about ninjas. Like "Ninja Scroll" for example, or "Rurouni Kenshin".

But Naruto basically used the past pop-culture of Ninjas to coat the DBZ knockoff that it is. Which is sad, because if it had remained on the path that it started out like, it would be 100 times the show that it is today.

Here's hoping Kashimoto regains his senses and makes the show better.
---

So I've been drooling all over TMNT: Smash Up! As a Super Smash Bros. fan, I'm dying to play it, and as a TMNT fan, I'm DYING to play it!

Hopefully, Ubisoft will know what they need to include in the game to make it a TRUE 25th anniversary celebration game. And that means Bebop and Rocksteady as characters and no Rabbids.

Then and only then will I really go...
COWABUNGA!

It's been soooo very long since last time I uploaded something...

It's all because of two things.
One, my thesis project is killing me.
Two, I had the oh so great idea of playing through all 3 Earthbound/Mother games...

In the past, I wasn't too fond of this franchise. I had played Earthbound (Mother 2) for the SNES 10 years ago, and I thought it was an "ok game" .... boy was I WRONG!


So, not too long ago I decided to get into this "Mother" business, and I decided to do it properly, by playing through the very first game.


Mother 1/Earthbound Zero:
What got in the way was... well... the terribly plain battle system with a black background.
But it turns out, after I dealt with it, I uncovered a beautiful, rare gem of a game!

Absolutely adored the music. Loved the character development (although things struck me as kinda rushed sometimes.. like the scene with Ninten and Paula.. you know which one I mean).

Decent challenge, no frustrating puzzles, but ackward random encounter.

In short, it was a beautiful game I'm glad I spent my time with.


Mother 2/Earthbound:
Everything that there's to say about this game has already been said, so I'll keep it simple...

One day, I woke up, turned on the game, and played it all day long, until I went to sleep.

THAT good! So many GOOD parts in this game, there'd be no end to the list! Zombies, aliens, anything that can make a good game is there! Great plot, great characters, GREAT music. Bla bla bla...

I take back what I said about this game being boring. I don't have the face to say that again after playing through it 12 hours straight!


Mother 3:
Everything was so good so far... Mother 3, though, kinda broke the pace. After an epic Mother 2, Mother 3 was the oddball of the bunch.

There's a long list of good things and bad things, but I'll keep it short.

The first minutes of Mother 3 were kinda like this:

"Hey you, watch out behind you!" *Ridiculously hard boss fight*
*finally wins*
"Let's go over there! ... Oh will you look at that!" *Boss fight*
*finally wins*
"We have to get back to town before..." *boss fight*
"Oops, wrong way, it was actually *BOSS FIGHT!*

And they were all TOO HARD! I found myself using up every last PP and every last item in order to win with one character left standing. A little TOO hardcore if you ask me. But ok. It also takes a LOT of time until you get to use Lucas, the MAIN character of the game.

The game itself was pretty cool. Some parts were boring (the Salsa chapter...) but overall, the story was entertaining and the characters are colorful. I enjoyed it pretty much... until I beat it.

Words can't describe how I felt when I saw the ending. It was a mix between disappointment and anger.
It was a shame that while this game constantly swayed from good parts and bad parts, the last "needle" this game pulled out, awakened the "EVIL dark dragon" inside me.


While I LOVE Mother/Earthbound now, Mother 3's ending left a bitter taste in my mouth.. It's a good game, has it's ups and downs, but the ending is absolutely the WORST. I swear I kinda wished for it to be all nothing but a dream, instead of what I saw, and that's saying a lot.


Oh well, at least I enjoyed the three games. Maybe I need to give Mother 3 another chance.. but... fat chance. The game is TOO hard. As a whole, the franchise is unique and a rich gaming experience. I'm glad I spent a whole month playing it. It was wrong of me to diss the franchise before. But it was all one big satisfying experience.

I thought this would never happen to me... but... I've become a Mother/Earthbound fan. @.@

... so I guess... Mother fan art can be included in my Gallery. ñ_ñ;
(The ME from the past is boiling in anger).

This is a great year to be a Nintendo fan, definitely!

Things started out awesome with Punch Out!! (and Excitebots seems to be cool, I have to try it out).

But today's E3 conference was solid proof that Nintendo hasn't abandoned their fans!

TWO Mario games made for the Wii, NSMB2 and SMG2.
A Metroid game being developed by Ninty and Team Ninja! How awesome is THAT!?
(also, zelda spirit tracks for you zelda lovers...)
And my favorite announcement of all... GOLDEN SUN DS!!!

That just blew my mind away! Before the conference I was wondering what on earth happened to that franchise, and decided to replay the last bit... and what do you know? An announcement on a new sequel!? I pooped.

And besides these spectacular announcements, there's also Sin & Punishment 2 coming along, as well as... well... Pikmin 3 for whoever's interested. And Pokemon Gold/Silver remakes!

Suddenly my whole life seems pointless next to these uber news!

I knew things were looking good for the big N as soon as they released Punch Out!! but Golden Sun DS and the Mario games have left me speechless! Now I must find GS: The Lost Age somewhere.. I never played it, so I hope I can find a copy of it somewhere...