ct_2024

2024 CLEARTONIC STREAM

This year started off with Mega Man 10 and 11 for the No Damage challenges. Mega Man 10 was a little bit harder but they both were fun, and in March I finished the whole endeavor. It took about 2 years and it was very rewarding to finish. Some titles were extremely hard but it was most definitely worth the effort. It was a pretty fun thing to stream too, you can see the day over day improvements in consistency, and the tension near the end of a potentially winning run is very high for everyone. I did Mega Man X No Damage in the fall, which was also quite difficult but similarly fun. I don't have a big interest in doing a full series thing again, but the one off was good and it's always an option to do another one.

My most playtime on stream this year was for Fire Emblem 4, which was a big effort over the summer to independently route an A Rank playthrough and perform it live on stream. It took a ton of preparation. This was the highlight playthrough of the year for me - this game isn't very well known generally but it's a great one and I had a blast doing it. It was a legitimately complicated & involved effort but the payout to do it was big. I also had a really fun time playing Fire Emblem 7 in draft format with mpg, jersey and ajarmar - it's a really good way to play those games and make it a fun stream experience too.

I have pretty mixed feelings about first playthroughs right now. In general, the last 2 years I didn't do them as much, but I used to do them more, and I tried to bring it back a little in 2024. This year's included Wild ARMs 3, Metal Gear Solid 3, Mega Man Battle Network 2, Great Ace Attorney 1, Outer Wilds and Xenosaga 1 (when I list them out, that's quite the variety pack). In recent years I've tried to be especially careful to make the viewing experience good - all smiles, no complaints, try to keep it positive and have a good time. But for some games, I feel that despite consistently praising them for its merits and having an all around great time playing them, I feel like I'm under the microscope for every single action I take and every single thing I say, and honestly it kinda sucks. It's a classic case of the critiques outweighing the fun moments in hindsight. I try to play without looking things up, and you can just feel the backseated-ness coming out of viewers, even those I wouldn't expect, and it manifests in weird ways- more than just telling someone what to do. It can be an exhausting and frankly annoying thing to deal with, especially when I'm trying to have a good time and just get by. The absolute worst is when people start drawing concrete conclusions about personality and intelligence from the way the streamer stumbles around a game for the first time. It's one thing if the streamer is being a whiny b*tch about what they're playing, but it's another when they're just stumbling around for the first time and having a good time, and it feels like that in itself just inherently pisses people off at times, even if they don't realize it themselves. I know there are many people that enjoy a first playthrough, and I do too, but I'm definitely more conflicted about it lately and wonder if some games are just better offline. Thanks to the mods for holding down the fort.

Coming back to speedrunning was good this year too. I took a break from speedrunning from fatigue for about 2 years, and coming back with a focus on the stuff I really care about has been worth it. Mega Man 8 has been a bit back and forth, but I've got plans for it. Dragon Quest IV PSX actually was quite a bit of effort and I'm fairly happy with the time I landed at. And it was good introducing Dragon Quest VI to the rotation of speedruns that I can bust out any time when I have a free day and am feeling the DQ. I'm a goal oriented kind of person, and now that the No Damage side of things is done, hitting some goals on the speedrunning side of things will be worth it, but also being able to not rust too hard on some titles that I can bust out for a casual run is also very appealing.

Final shoutouts to the shiny Golurk streams - what was at first an idea I thought might bomb turned out to be an incredibly fun & slapstick time on Wednesday morning. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him.

Offline I've been playing some Sonic games as a full series sweep (I am, for better or worse, a Sonic boy), and getting ready for a big Pokemon competition this weekend, which is the first one I'm attending. We'll see what 2025 has to offer. Thanks for the support