Romoss ACE 10 and Q Series Power Bank Review

9 / 18 / 179 / 22 / 17

I’ll never forget the time I was in Melbourne for a conference and by 5 pm, my phone was only at 10% battery. I would’ve run back to my hotel room, but I had plans to meet some of the other participants for dinner, and I really needed to get my networking on! But if my phone ran out of charge, how would I find my way back to the hotel?! In the end, I turned off my phone until I absolutely needed it, but all that unnecessary stress could’ve been avoided if I just had a power bank with me!

Romoss was kind enough to send two of their popular power banks to me to review: the extremely portable Q Series power bank, and the powerful ACE 10 power bank. If you play a lot of apps on your phone, need a power bank for international travel, or just want to make sure your devices last through a long day out, read on!

Splatoon 2 Review

8 / 29 / 17

Despite the fact that my Wii U generally got much less play time than my other consoles, Splatoon was by far my most-played game of 2015. In my roundup of my favorite games of 2015 I mentioned that I hoped the Splatoon IP was here to stay. Since it’s only 2 years later and Nintendo has already released Splatoon 2 for the Nintendo Switch, I think it’s safe to say it is!

Earlier in the year, I didn’t forsee myself buying a Switch before next year at the earliest. Though I loved the original Splatoon, I thought I could hold off playing the sequel since it didn’t bring anything drastically new to the table. While the latter may be true, the former most certainly wasn’t!

Period: Cube ~Shackles of Amadeus~ Review

8 / 10 / 17

I’ve always been a fan of stories about someone trapped inside an MMO, so when I heard Aksys Games was localizing Period: Cube ~Shackles of Amadeus~, I was thrilled! As an otome game featuring that very premise, Period: Cube centers around a high school girl that gets trapped in the MMO Arcadia. After searching for clues of her missing brother’s whereabouts, all signs point to the mysterious “World V,” a new server in Arcadia where death is absolute. If your character dies, you die!

Bye-Bye BoxBoy! Review

6 / 22 / 17

After 2 installments in the BoxBoy series, the box with legs Qbby is back for his last hurrah in Bye-Bye BoxBoy!. Available for just $7.50 AUD ($4.99 USD) on the Nintendo 3DS eShop, Bye-Bye BoxBoy!‘s clean-cut presentation and bite-sized puzzles make it the perfect game to fit in during a commute or while unwinding on the couch after a long day.

Neko Box Japanese Subscription Box Review

6 / 9 / 17

Over the past couple of years, more Japan-related subscription boxes have popped up than you can shake a stick at. Most of the subscription boxes I’ve tried have been dedicated to snacks, all things cute, or trendy pop culture merchandise, but Neko Box stands out for offering high-quality Japanese ceramics, homewares, and other trinkets carefully curated around a different theme every month. They were kind enough to send me their recent Edo Box, which was filled to the brim with lovely traditional items!

NieR: Automata Review

5 / 14 / 175 / 29 / 17

Despite having put over 45 hours into NieR: Automata, I still can’t believe it exists. Director Yoko Taro has become something of a niche gaming icon over the years, but due to some very, very rough edges, NieR: Automata‘s predecessor NieR only achieved a small cult following among the few who saw past the subpar gameplay and lackluster graphics to appreciate its atmosphere and heavy-hitting themes.

I fall in the camp of folks who saw what NieR had to offer in terms of an overall experience, but always left my short sessions with the game infuriated by the miserable gameplay. It was clear to me that Yoko Taro had a lot of great ideas that would shine if he only had a just few more resources at his disposal… And lo and behold, those resources have finally come in the way of Platinum Games, a development studio that excels in smooth-as-butter action gameplay!

Tokyo Gacha World Review

5 / 9 / 175 / 9 / 17

These days, you can buy almost anything from Japan your heart desires online, but there’s one kind of item that’s always been particularly hard to find: Gachapon! Because gachapon toys are generally only sold through machines that spit out a random capsule toy, living outside of Japan means you miss out of the surprise of putting a few hundred yen into a machine, turning the knob, and waiting with baited breath to see what comes out… But with Tokyo Gacha World, a subscription box dedicated to gachapon, you can experience the delight of receiving random gachapon every month!