I Visited My Old Stomping Grounds

It has been over 15 years since my family and I moved from Michigan City, my old stomping grounds in Indiana. It was the State that became my birthplace where I used to live. To add on to all of this, because of how my life in Indiana got the best of me as a kid, I did various agendas consisting of going to the bowling alley, having cousins, enrolling schools, making friends near me, going to the most charming mall on the street that is the very heart of the town I moved from, watching the basketball and football games in person, experiencing white girls wearing skinny blue jeans and a white hoodie at middle school and white women with big butts?! Yeah, it's a pretty dang bold-tail agenda, I know.

Rewind back to 2009, my family and I moved to Arizona. And it's not just because I couldn't handle the unbearable level of coldness created by the snow. It's also because of the bullcrap I put up with, like people treating me like crap, my bus driver's assistant making me sit with that freaking greedy kid and committing school violence on my middle school and getting torn up for that. I even got suspended for an untimely violence I shouldn't have done at middle school like holy crap, it was devastating at heck. I was 13 years old at the time. Not to mention that after I threw that tantrum, she got angry and yelled at me as I was able to tell from her bloodshot eyes.

You have to realize that I am happy that I moved to Arizona to get away from the dang challenges I experienced in the past. It given me time to not think about them. But the only exception is not being able to do the buzzer well, but being able to spin the wheel. Yes, I know you're asking why the live action Spyro the Dragon movie should take place in Indiana. Don't worry, I'll get to that later.

Originally, I didn't want to visit my old stomping grounds because of the challenges from back in the day I experienced. But fast forward to 2020, I suddenly felt a mild urge to visit Michigan City because I was thinking of what few things that driven me to do so, like visting schools I enrolled, going bowling at the bowling alley, seeing my old friends other than my cousins, looking at my old house, colorful houses and stores and fast food places that are not seen in Arizona, the style of houses and more importantly, forests.

There are forests out there and the fun thing about them is that during the spring and summer times, they make me think of one of the best girls in the Spyro franchise. And that's Elora the Faun. But how is it that the forests make me think of her? Why is that special? Well, Elora is one with the forest. Leaf dress, goat legs with the same color as the tree bark, healing powers and collectibles of Avalarian Leaves in Crash Team Rumble to collect to unlock her during her Early Access.

I wanted to visit there, but I need to go on an airplane because it's the fastest way. I am afraid of heights for that. I have been having dreams that take place at my old stomping grounds, like visiting my elementary school and its hallways smelling like peanuts, sitting near the forest at the park of my elementary school, visting my old house, etc.

Fast forward to 2024, I have finally visited my old stomping grounds. When I arrived at my old stomping grounds for the first time since I moved to Arizona 15 years ago, I experienced what has changed. American Mattress is on the building that was once Hollywood Video, which I already told you about, Walmart has moved to a new location to pave the way for three stores I am not familiar with, there are food places that I thought they were supposed to be Arizona-exclusive like Panda Express and Chipotle, there is a Franklin St. Family Restaurant that was Lindo's, Big Lots was moved to a building that was Toys R Us, Citgo was rebranded to Golo, St. Anthony was rebranded and restructured into Franciscan Health and the inn is no longer called Holiday Inn. I forgot what it is now called.

Indiana is known for having places that Arizona doesn't have like Menards, Meijer, Schoop's, Holly's, Rio's, Albino's... And these places remained open for years despite economy changes even at a distance. If any of these places that remain alive get affected by the economy changes, then they would take off. But that will not be the case. Heck, I never had Schoop's or went to Holly's in my life. And personally, I am glad that these mentioned places remained open. But what I'm not glad is that the mall on Franklin St. has closed because of the economy changes. It was the only mall that was so charming that I explored there. I even threw a coin in the fountain and wished for something amazing. There was an arcade joint that had a lot of fighting games. That mall shouldn't close.

To add on to this, I visited my old stomping grounds twice last year. Once to attend at my brother's wedding and once to attend at my father's funeral. The first time was during the summer and it was a happy time while the second time was during the fall that it became a sad time. It kind of does fill out the Indiana-shaped sadness in my heart that 2024 became a nostalgic year for me and my family. Even the font on the text that reads "Putting the Magic Back Into Software" on the Silicon Knights logo made me think of the fact that a quality Chinese restaurant like Fortune House Chinese Cuisine was no longer there when I booted up Blood Omen. I kind of glued in to holding on to places that were taken out when we arrived.

The first time was better, and it's not the fact that I attended at my brother's wedding. It's the road trip me and my family had and it's considered the best road trip because of three things below.

The first thing is going through the highway between forests. They have been a staple during our road trip that they produce oxygen. We went through the road between forests when we arrived at Missouri on the way to Indiana and until we arrived at Oklahoma on the way back home. And I started thinking of Elora when we go through the road between the forests when we arrived at Missouri and until we arrived at Oklahoma. That was effective during the spring.

The second thing is stopping at gas stations. It is the most important thing to do when you're running low on gas and without fuel, your vehicle can't move. That's why it's important to fill up when you're running low on fuel.

And the third and final thing, Checkers. And I'm not taking about a board game. I'm taking about an American fast food restaurant and it has the same menu as Rally's, but different name, like Hardees and Carl's Jr. have the same menu. When we were at Illinois, I stopped by to get me some Checkers. The quality there is off the chain and I was astonished at it.

When I got back to Arizona, I couldn't stop thinking about the new stuff I haven't done on the time before I moved out, like telling the purple haired woman who works at the place where I got my tuxedo for my oldest brother's wedding about my opinion about how I think of Elora every time look at the forests, even while on the road when I get to Missouri on the way to Indiana and until I get to Oklahoma on the way back home to Arizona, experiencing Lerner and Rowe's 222-2222 Chicago phone number on TV when I was at Blue Chip Casino and had Rio's for the first time. When I was astonished at how they handled the taco meat, I pulled a Palamena. In fact, the taco meat is a bit higher in quality there than Taco Bell's. My visit to Indiana sank in to thinking of Elora when near the forest while doing something new and productive, which is listening to the Cave Stage theme from Marvel vs. Capcom 2, which is considered to be the best theme along with the Clock Tower Stage theme and thank God we have Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics.

It also sank in to doing nostalgic and old things that I have done at the time before I moved to Arizona. I went to Menards, but to look for a portable air conditioner, had hot dogs at Carlson's, went through areas my bus driver has taken me through and had a look at my old house and my local elementary school. But I did not visit Meijer or any of my schools I enrolled back in the day.

Yes, I know you are trying to ask what about Aldi. Well, yes, it's a store I visited at my old stomping grounds. But in this case, there are multiple Aldis across the US and it was franchised across the nation to help make money for all parties. Meijer, however, is located in the midwestern States.

And to visiting places with a lot of people to bolster coming across people I'm not familiar that resembles the quality of my old friends I have not come across other than my people, including the one who... straight up looked like Hinna from Visions of Mana?! Yes, I know it's bold.

If I am planning to visit there now that I conquered my fear of flying in a plane on the time I attended at my father's funeral to do a nostalgic experience, it's gonna be during the spring and summer times because of the warmth. It is gonna be my preference for when I plan to visit my old stomping grounds. That's why the first time was better that it was during the summer time when the trees have fully grown leaves and the weather was nice.

However, my oldest brother was going to set me a room when I visit my old stomping grounds and announced that I'm gonna be staying there for the rest of my life when the time comes. But I am here with a strong opinion. It's finally high time that I put my foot down and get my markdown on how I feel about this and explain why. I AM NOT moving back to Indiana. Not one bit. And I believe setting me up to live in Indiana again would literally be the worst practice they can do. The days in Indiana during the fall and winter; not one, became nice as the days in Arizona, so in the objective sense possible, the nicest place to live during the fall and winter times is Arizona. And it has higher degrees every day. Not just by a little bit, but by a landslide.

And instead of me telling you, let's take a look at the degrees of each day on both States. I will be using WeatherBug to state the degrees so that you will understand the gist.

Here's a look at degrees of the two States. It is currently winter and will soon be spring. The lowest temperature will be 33 degrees next Sunday. So with no nostalgia goggles on, no bias. Looking at the numbers, Arizona's weather during the fall and winter reigned supreme. None of the days in Indiana came even close to how nice the days are in Arizona during the fall and winter. The highest temperature in Indiana will be 46 degrees on Wednesday. Why the heck would my oldest brother want me to move back to Indiana for the rest of my life?

I love to visit my old stomping grounds, but I know in the back of my mind that I shoudn't be moving back there because of the unbearable level of coolness.

I want to point out that spring and summer are the best times to visit because of the nice level of crispness and forests having new green leaves. If we attempt to visit Indiana during the fall and winter times, then the nice level of crispness will not be present on these times. Think about this. Would you risk getting the flu? Do you understand what I'm saying?

Now let's talk about what I want in this post. And that's a live action Spyro movie. So why is it that the live action film adaptation of Spyro the Dragon should take place in Indiana and its fictional city? There are three reasons.

The first reason is my birthplace. This is a State I was born 30 years ago. I made a lot of cousins and friends and enrolled at schools there. I lived there for 15 years and I moved to Arizona 15 years ago, and it's considered emotional.

The second reason is a padding that I had during my visit to Indiana is that I like to look for a woman as my movie girlfriend for the live action Spyro movie. To my knowledge, the Sonic movies featured a white man named Tom Wachowski and a black woman named Maddie Wachowski, so I intend to look for a white woman as my movie girlfriend for the live action Spyro the Dragon movie there. It might be the one who I saw working at Carlson's.

Third and final reason, forests are there and it is perfect for the post credits scene for Spyro Movie 1 to entail Spyro meeting Elora. Forests are common of the environment today and it's largely applied to the Mana franchise with its entry of the Tree of Mana. To have forests in our environment is a very smart and important practice as during the spring and summer times, they produce healthy oxygen and Mana, especially for living.

Why I'm telling you about this is because I want to express my feelings and opinions about my experience in my old stomping grounds, especially coming across people I am not familiar with and places that were rebranded and restructured into. 2024 became a crazy year when I visited Indiana twice. It's no fun staying in Arizona all my life because of the nice weather, but it's gonna be a matter of time before my third visit to Indiana since I conquered my fear of flying in an airplane.

What I Want for miHoYo's Next Project

If miHoYo is planning their next project, I am thinking of a free-to-play open world action RPG that is a hybrid between Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana. And I believe a game like that could work. But can it actually work? Let's jump right in.

And man, I am obligated to make this post that will not ruffle people's feathers, but make them interested. If you're living under a rock like Patrick Star, you would know that miHoYo has great timeless games ported to consoles, starting with Genshin Impact, to Honkai Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero. These games became a huge hit right now, which is nice.

But specifically, I like to point out the direction of the topic on this post regarding what I want from miHoYo for their next project. If they have the next project in the works, this is gonna be what I want from them that I will be talking about. I have talked about this during my Wuthering Waves gameplay once, so it's time that I am going to tell you what I want for miHoYo's next project. And that is an action RPG that is a hybrid between miHoYo's popular open world action RPG Genshin Impact and Square Enix's critically acclaimed Visions of Mana.

When making a game that is a hybrid between two games in terms of gameplay, the first thing you must do is to find common denominators for both games you're taking their core DNA from and combining them to make a hybrid game. And what falls into common denominator should be a straightforward transition to a game drawing inspiration from other multiple games, so let's take a look.

Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana are both anime-style open world action RPGs. They involve two attack buttons. They have a marker to represent your next destination. The characters have Elemental powers to wield. There are dungeons and towns on the world map. There are side quests to partake and completing them gives you rewards. There are enemies located outside of every town.

And that's it. Those are the common denominators between Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana. They are both charming open world action RPGs, but they have different mindsets.

The Visions of Mana mindset is about the player character being followed by their two companion characters and a non-playable support character and having characters outside of battle. There are eight Elementals to wield and they cost MP. The Class Strikes are cinematic, but only the player character can use them. During combat, there is a border that appears when you confront monsters and can run against it to escape, but not in certain battles where the border is red. You can't earn EXP, Lucre and items until you defeated all enemies in the area. There are Elemental Vessels to use and they can change their playstyle. Each character has up to three classes depending on the Elemental Vessel they are equipped with. There's even collectibles scattered across the world and they are spent on items at the Dugbear's shop. There are even elemental Aeries to partake and Elementites to absorb energy from with Elemental Vessels.

Then you have the Genshin Impact mindset. While the game does has Elementals, they are also used as classes for each character. There is no companion characters. You can only see the player character the player can switch and they can defeat enemies alone outside of town. The Traveller is the main character. The world doesn't have any segmented areas when exiting or entering a part of town that there is no loading screen. It's just has great scaling and freedom with a day and night cycle. And there's no damage when you fall down on the ground from greater heights.

Making an action RPG hybrid between two games is easy, so here's what I think will work for a hybrid between Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana by miHoYo.

First off, in Genshin Impact, the main character is a Traveller while in Honkai Star Rail, the main character is a Trailblazer, so in a Genshin Impact meets Visions of Mana action RPG, the main character would be called the Guider. The Guider would be the main character for an action RPG I want for their next project. But like other games, they can be both a male and a female and you would give the Guider a name. It is easy to give them a name. That is the first thing to do when you're playing a gacha game for the first time.

There would be eight elemental classes of Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Moon, Wood, Light and Darkness. The male Guider would be a Light type character, like Val, who is both the Alm of Light and a Soul Guard and the female Guider would be an Earth type character, like Liza, who was both the Alm of Earth and a Soul Guard. Sure, the Mana franchise has these elementals, but they can be used as classes. Each character would have ultimate attacks that are cinematically faithful to both how Visions of Mana handled cinematic Class Strikes and Honkai Star Rail handled ultimate attacks.

When you enter a town, you would only see the player character and you can't attack until you leave town. You would earn EXP from using materials in the characters menu and earn money and get items after defeating all enemies in an area. Each character would have up to five tiers, so if they make it to level 20, they would be able to go up a tier to learn new moves and increase their max stats. Every 20 levels go up a tier. There would be three weapons depending on the class each character would have and they would switch between weapons on the fly and during their combos like in Tower of Fantasy.

Instead of me telling you, let's take a look at the elemental classes and their three weapons. I went to Google Spreadsheets to determine what elemental classes that have three weapons and they leave less room for error. Now, let's take a look at the three weapons on each class.

Among the Fire, Earth and Darkness classes, characters of these classes can have their own performance and they won't be non playable like Hinna, Liza or Aesh. What this means is that the Water, Wind, Moon, Wood and Light type characters are gonna be faithful to the performance of the playable characters in Visions of Mana's party among these classes, so you will expect every Water-type character to have an arsenal of a scythe, boots and flail to be faithful to Palamena's performance in this game, and if we get a female character that resembles Palamena in this game, it may either alienate fans and ruffle people's feathers, which means spark backlash and/or controversy or attract fans into playing this game and spark excitement.

We know that we can switch characters in Genshin Impact by pressing the D-pad buttons and you can only see the player character. I believe that we can amp it up a bit for this Genshin Impact meets Visions of Mana action RPG, by having the player character being followed by their two teammate characters and a non-playable assist character in game outside of town, and they can be capable of switching weapons on the fly like the player character, but not using their ultimate attack. Only the player character can. And because there is an endless cast of playable characters, there would be multiple team slots that hold up to four characters. Wuthering Waves handled that, except that it has team slots that hold up to three characters.

What about Elemental Vessels? Are they gonna be acquired as we progress through the story? I don't think so because Elemental Vessels would vary by class. A Light-type character for example would automatically be given a Vessel of Light.

One more thing to make regarding the situation in Genshin Impact and it's a gambling issue. Since Genshin Impact came out, players were addicted to gambling on that game. They spent real money trying to get the character they desire and it failed because of their bad luck. It's technically gambling. Like for instance, in the Mightykeef video, Keef was trying to get Diluc, but his chance of getting the character remained slim and spent real money trying to get it. That's what happens if you play games with gambling mechanics. That's why you must gamble responsibly. This means that if you run out of in game currency trying to get the desired character, just move on and get some more by playing through the game. That's what a Gacha game is.

But we can alleviate the gambling issue and frustration for this hybrid of a Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana action RPG game so that players can get their desired characters without spending a dime. Free lootboxes. They are earned when you complete daily side quests and missions. They contain characters, weapons, items and gear. Every ten free lootboxes would guarantee you a five star character and every five loot boxes would guarantee you a four star character. However, the RNG system would still be present, but use it responsibly and wisely to avoid having a gambling issue.

Now, if miHoYo is planning their next project, this I what I want from them. If it comes into fruition, will people want this? I think they do because they like action RPGs as much as I do. Besides, there are action RPGs that are inspired by Genshin Impact, so I believe that a Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana inspired action RPG from them could work for their next project and it must be completely profanity free like others.