Demons Crest:

While Reki Kawahara slacks off and doesn't write the rest of SAO's Unital Ring arc, he apparently has plenty of time to write a new series called 'Demons Crest.'  It's sort of like a ripoff of SAO that's worse in every way.  Unfortunately, SAO is so good that even a worse ripoff is still worth reading.  At least in manga form, which is generally speaking an improvement on books.  I've now read all the available manga of Demons Crest and eagerly await new releases.

I posted my novel 'The Greatest Vision' to Scribble Hub, figuring it deserves more readers.  Unfortunately so far it's only gotten one reader (maybe I shouldn't have published it in the middle of the night, where it then got buried by other people's releases, so nobody looking at the latest updates page would ever see it. . .), but fortunately that one reader already gave it a 5-star rating (the top possible rating), so just for that one fan who's clearly enjoying the book my act was worthwhile.

I finished the available plot of Heaven Burns Red yet again.  It ended on a fantastic note, with the resignation of one of the main characters from the party, something I totally didn't see coming but on reflection makes perfect sense.  However, the actual game continues from here, and I'm dying to learn who the replacement for the now missing squad member will be.  There could be so much more characterization of the original five now that they're in a different situation with a new person, they won't be able to act predictably anymore.  Hopefully the game publisher, Yostar, will get around to adding more content in a timely manner, like for instance next month.  There's nothing I want to do more right now than see the next day of this game.  Just one day of content would tell me so much I'm dying to know right now.

Multiplying the emotional impact of the game's pseudo-finale is that I actually beat it with the plot party this time, the ones shown in the plot to have actually been fighting.  My plot party has a long way to go to catch up with my power party, but at least they were strong enough to finish the plot.

The last boss was taken down by the combined might of all 8 Seraph Squads and all the technological acumen of humanity's amassed military.  It was the most epic fight in the game.  I can't praise Heaven enough.  It goes from strength to strength.

With my inability to progress Heaven's plot any further, it's time to switch to Dragon Quest 3 for a while.  I have plenty of games to play, Heaven or no.