It’s been a couple of weeks since my last Final Fantasy IX update. In that, I mostly detailed plans for levelling up after completing the Earth Shrine, which is essentially what I’ve spent the majority of the time between updates doing. Back in that last one, I reported that Quina was level 36, well, they’re […]
Content Under Pressure
You may have noticed a bit of chopping and changing here on Bar Harukiya in recent months, as I try and find things to write about whilst we continue to try and see out the COVID-19 pandemic. When I originally created this place, back on WordPress servers, I wanted to do a few things with […]
Why I warmed to Hi-Score Girl 2
Those of you who have been with me for a while may have read that I didn’t get on with Hi-Score Girl. So when the series returned with a 9 episode run for a second season, I didn’t immediately jump on it. My issues with it were mainly with the lead character, Haruo, whom I […]
“You know the code of the Bushida” – Samurai Cop
Anyone who was hitting their teens in the mid to late 90s will have stayed up late watching films on the then newly launched Channel 5. Whilst they’ve managed to show some incredibly popular films over the 20-odd years the channel has been in existence, there’s been a lot of turkeys too. Samurai Cop, from […]
Skater XL
In May I played around with two Early Access skateboarding games, Session and Skater XL, with the intention of writing follow up pieces for each once they’d had their “full” release. Well, that day has come, sort of. Both have now had console releases, however, Session still remains in Early Access (or whatever the Xbox […]
#ThrowbackThursday Final Fantasy IX playthrough part 38
After getting Quina to level 36 and equipping Auto-Float to, I head back to the Earth Shrine. I’m hoping that s/he has a fighting chance now. The Earth Guardians “Earthquake” attack now misses every time, taking some of the pressure off of Quina’s White Wind Blue Magic (which heals the whole party, but not by […]
I’ve never watched Alfred Hitchcock: The 1940s
It’s been a long time since I last wrote about any movies, but I decided last night that it was confession time. I’ve mentioned this to a few people but I recently came to the realisation that I’d never (knowingly, at least) watched an Alfred Hitchcock film. There are others on this BFI list that […]
#ThrowbackThursday Final Fantasy IX playthrough part 37
Even though Quina is only level 30 and has only learnt a few spells last week, I decide its time to try and head to the Earth Shrine. Once there Quina tells Zidane that s/he is really pleased they’ve paired up, Zidane admits to them that he got the “leftovers”. Amusingly this only serves to […]
My Riot – Rick Spears, Emmett Helen
Young Adult novels, and in this case, comics, tend to follow a similar formula (or at least from my experience they do): Young girl challenges the norms of her society in order to discover herself. My Riot is no different in that respect, however rather than settle for a dystopian future setting, we go way […]
#UbiToo: The insidious nature of the games industry
Over a year ago I wrote about the toxicity in gaming culture, recent events have brought my feelings towards that to the forefront of my mind again and I feel the need to put something down on Bar Harukiya about it. In recent months this place has mostly become a combination of reviews and playthrough […]