What To Expect: March 2021 (Patreon)

As of today, the US approved a 3rd COVID vaccine, and hopefully, it could mean that rollout will be faster than anticipated, even if it's a tad. All I know is that someone of my age/health should be eligible to get one around the summer (I hope, anyway), and I already know what I want to do once I get one: I'm going to try and start planning for my trip to Japan again, and with all the extra money I saved, maybe I could stay there for another week, maybe even get to have a side trip to Universal Japan in Osaka. That aside, I just can't wait til I'm able to go to Round1 and catch up on IIDX/SDVX again. 

For this month, I'm wanting to do another touch-up page for Moonlit Brew (this month, Chapter 3 Page 23), while I work with Eli on producing ACES Chapter 2 Pages 11-14! 

Nothing else exciting has happened (outside of seeing Splatoon 3 and an enhanced version of FF7 Remake coming out!), but, I've seen that MAME now has preliminary Firebeat support!  That's big because that hardware has been nearly impossible to replicate for 20-odd years, and with this month's MAME version, games like Beatmania III are finally playable! I lucked out and found the updated romsets for BMIII The Final, just last night, and while it's not perfect (The game will occasionally stutter, and the equalizer doesn't quite work yet), it's very playable! 

I've wanted to play BM III for the longest time because 1. It's 5-Key Beatmania, but with much better graphics and sound, and 2. Finding a cabinet is very hard to come by (there's only 4 known machines in the US, all of which are in SoCal, but 2 of them are in the hands of a private collector), and I'm sure Konami is never going to make a home version, at this point. (Allegedly, there were plans of making a PS2 version of BM III The Final in 2003-ish, but it was quietly cancelled. Not that it matters because it would've been Japan-exclusive anyway, but I digress!)  >>

Sorry I didn't have too much to talk about, this month, but I'm getting a tad more optimistic about the future, now. Hoping it won't be too long before things start getting back to normal!