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grimelords · 5 years ago

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So since the last time I posted one of these the entire world has changed dramatically and hopefully 4 hours of music will tide you over in quarantine for a bit longer. Strangely I’ve been busier than ever, and what started as a personal challenge to listen to a new album every day in February turned into me listening to 116 new albums in March and 124 in April. I’ve got a stacked google doc full of star ratings and dates now and it’s really been a lot of fun, I highly recommend trying it yourself. This is my March playlist, because I accidentally took a month off, and I’m thinking of either switching these playlists to weekly to make them a little more digestible or just dropping them whenever. Who knows. Let me know what you think and drop album recommendations in the comments please.

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0k1JjT8fXcUFO6VpM3kaez?si=gWSv88vdShKSnHhLJ_80pQ

If you’d like to receive these playlists in a more digestible email format, please subscribe to my tinyletter here: http://tinyletter.com/grimelords

On A Slow Boat To China - Bing Crosby & Peggy Lee: Ok first off it’s amazing this song isn’t more racist. I don't remember now how or why I came across this. I think I was just thinking about crooners and how as a genre it's now existed in common popularity as a nostalgic idyll of a mytholigised past far longer than it was ever actually popular which is interesting. The origin of this song, according to wikipedia, is also one of the most 40s ideas I've ever read: "I'd like to get you on a slow boat to China" was a well-known phrase among poker players, referring to a person who lost steadily and handsomely. The idea being that a "slow boat to China" was the longest trip one could imagine. Loesser moved the phrase to a more romantic setting, yet it eventually entered general parlance to mean anything that takes an extremely long time".

Fight Night - Migos: I saw that Offset had some new show on Quibi the extremely fake sounding streaming service and I thought "how did Migos get so world conqueringly large that they get to make 10 minute shows nobody will watch for a $2 billion venture capital funded app that will never make any money?" They seem to have this massive reputation without having much to back it up. The last thing I remember everyone talking about was how Culure II was two hours long in order to game streaming numbers and was simply not good. They seemed to have sort of settled into making background music for scrolling instagram. But then I remembered Fight Night and I thought: "oh wait, that's right, Migos are fucking great". Where their other big hits like Bad And Boujee and Walk It Talk It have this sort of laid back vibe where they've comfortably nailed the formula and relax onto it, Fight Night commands your attention. StackboyTwan killed the beat - it has this propulsive momentum where it feels like it's constantly ramping up, moving up from the sidesick and bassline in the verse, up to the claps on the beat, and the big gang chants on the offbeat once the full instrumentation kicks in - then it just goes around and around and around with the constant bassline the whole tim. It's a perfect all-rise production because it never actually explodes, it's all building tension held down by an unchanging bassline.

Do It Puritan! - El Hombre Trajeado & Sue Tompkins: I am extremely delighted to announce that Sue Tompkins of one of my all time favourite single album bands Life Without Buildings has broken a nearly 20 year musical hiatus to appear on this song by El Hombre Trajeado. It is so nice to hear how her voice has changed and her approach has stayed the same. Her style is so unique and so good and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it.

5 8 6 - New Order: Before 'the incident' I had tickets to see New Order at the end of March and so I embarked on a big listen through of their discography, which has now unfortunately made it feel even worse that live music is cancelled indefinitely.

Oom Sha La La - Haley Heynderickx: First of all I love songs where they talking about how they're writing a song halfway through. And I love songs that seem like a pretty normal singer songwriter indie thing where someone just starts screaming near the end. I love this song. A great staring at the wall and absolutely losing your mind because you haven't done anything with your whole life anthem.

Elektrobank - The Chemical Brothers: Can you believe I've never listening to a full Chemical Brothers album before this month? Can you believe big beat ever went our of style? It feels insane that we ever swapped this sort of energy for the beige algorithm of EDM. I think there's a real triumph in this album, and in this track especially of replicating the live feeling in studio. Giving it this much space to grow and change and get very hairy near the end is amazing, it feels like it was just recorded live.

My Mind's A Ship (That's Going Down) - Katie Pruitt: It feels very rare to me that this sort of extremely smooth Nashville prduction actually makes a song better. It has a habit of strangling the life out of a song and making it blend into a boring paste of soundalikes, but with Katie Pruitt it works amazingly. Her songwriting is so distinct and clear and her voice, especially near the end where it punches hole in the sky, is so strong and so her own that it doesn't need anything else.

Water - Ohmme: "What if Tegan And Sara were a noise band instead?" is a question I didn't know I needed an answer to. I love any band that has the guts to write songs like this that sound like pop from an alternate history, so off kilter and odd and noisy but with this undeniable pop heart that the duo vocals make sound like schoolyard clapping chants remixed by Lightning Bolt.

Lions, Tigers and Bears - SLIFT: A friend put me on to Slift and described them as French King Gizz and really, I'm inclined to agree. This is the traditional long last song at the end of their new album, and as usual I am advocating that every song should be the long last song at the end of the album. I love this style of jam where everyone else goes to space but the rhythm section just digs in and works hard as fuck for ten minutes. Then the whole last 3 minutes of the song are just fat drone riffs. This song's got everything.

The Pines - 070 Shake: This 070 Shake album is unbeleivably good and it warms my heart to see the dark energy of The Pines live on through another century in yet another permutation. I have more to say about it later in the Jackson C Frank version coming up but it feels like this 070 Shake album kind of came and went but I implore you to listen, it’s an aoty contender for sure.

Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On - Funkadelic: If you can stop thinking about the intro, which I certainly can’t (Hey lady won’t you be my dog and I’ll be your tree and you can pee on me.) there is so much goodness in this song. For a while now I’ve been thinking about how, for lack of a better word, ‘positive’ music is consistently underrated in the critical canon. Dance music, disco and funk especially are derided as empty sugar music, while every cookie cutter metal band absolutely demands to be taken seriously. In dance music this manifests as genres like tech house sucking all the fun and individuality out of music until it’s just an endless parade of producers working to a schematic of the barest essentials. It feels like you can’t have fun and be taken seriously at the same time, which feels like an obvious contradiction but shouldn’t be!

Spoils - Dry Cleaning: Dry Cleaning are my Lock Of The Month Band To Watch In The Future Because They’re Gonna Go Off. They have such a great sound and I’m desperate for an album because I just need more. This song absolutely knocked me down when I first heard it. I love any band where it sounds like the singer has just wandered in while the rest of them were rehearsing. There’s a very good talking-songs movement happening in the UK right now between these guys, Do Nothing and Fontaines D.C and i’m excited to see where it progresses. I might put together a playlist a little later to show you what I mean.

As - Stevie Wonder: I finally listened to Songs In The Key Of Life this month, which is an experience I would recommend to everyone. This shit goes for 21 songs over 105 minutes and absolute bangs the whole way. The original release of this album was a double LP plus a 7", which is yet another reason I am grateful for streaming that I don't have to buy a damn box set to hear this thing.

Sleep Now In The Fire - Rage Against The Machine: I am working on a very niche playlist called Songs Where The Guitar Amp Accidentally Picks Up A Nearby Radio Station For A Couple Of Seconds and it's only 3 songs so far. A Man A Plan A Canal Panama by The Fall Of Troy, Melody 4 by Tera Melos and Sleep Now In The Fire by Rage Against The Machine. In every single one of those songs it feels like a critical component even though it's just an accident that's been left in because it sounds good. Here it's the perfect ending as the rage dies down and the commercial world fades back in. Anyway, my other question about this song is about the great Michael Moore directed video where they famously shut down Wall Street for an afternoon. There's a shot of a guy for a second holding a sign that says Donald Trump For President in 1999. Which is odd but not out of the question, he's been famous for a long time and there's always been freaks. My question is why the fuck did he have that sign that day? Was he amongst the Rage Against The Machine Fans that showed up? A counter protestor? Was he, perhaps most chillingly of all, just walking idly around Wall Street with his Donald Trump For President sign like usual and stumbled upon this whole hoo-haa accidentally?

Applause (Purity Ring Remix) - Lady Gaga: Did you fucking know that Purity Ring did a remix of Applause? If there’s something I’d love to know more about and it’s Purity Ring’s forays into pop production. After their first album they did some production for rappers like Danny Brown in the great track 25 Bucks, which is a good fit really - their sound is witch house with the tempo pushed back up, witch house of course just being chopped and screwed reinvented by tumblr users. So it’s a natural fit to take that new perspective back into the world of hip hop. They also did this fantastic remix of Applause after their first album. Then, after their second album they produced 3 songs for Katy Perry’s Witness album, and one Katy Perry song for a Final Fantasy mobile game soundtrack (?) and feel like the long silence and delay between their second and third albums is because of more behind the scenes pop production work - but if that’s true, where is it? Is it, as I suspect, part of my own personal Pepe Silvia, Katy Perry’s scrapped 2019 album that has vanished into thin air? Or is it part of Chromatica? I think Purity Ring have solidified an interesting place in pop, paving the way for Billie Eilish and Kim Petras’ dark anti-pop and so i’m excited to see where they go after this new album now that they’re the architects of the new wave.

React/Revolt - Drahla: The smartest thing you can do is add a saxophone to your band. The whole first half of this song could go for 20 minutes of growling screaming saxophone post-punk and I wouldn't mind. Then when the second half of the song kicks in it's fantastic in the way this whole Drahla album is: it's tight and sprawling post-punk at the same time with a complicated structure that seems to just pile onto itself instead of ever circling back.

And I Was Like - Porridge Radio: I'm seemingly having a real thing this month for songs that open with a bizzare acapella chant. Between this and the Funkadelic one it's a genre I'm very interested in hearing more of. Isaac Newton was a virgin and it's important to recognise that. The thing I love about this song is how it's in 3 distinc sections: Isaac Newton was a virgin, she's a birthday girl in a birthday world, and mum no please it's grunge, and they all feel like the concentrated energy of a 14 year old's thoughts. She sounds like she's almost crying when she sings 'she's a birthday girl in a birthday world'. The concentrated confusing teenaged energy of this song is just overwhelming.

Dirty Mattresses - Mama's Broke: So much of contemporary 'traditional folk' either exists as pure nostalgia music or as music that's trying too hard to be 'authentic' and evoke a mythology of a bygone time, but Mama's Broke manage to make it feel new and modern but honest and authentic at the same time. The super close harmonies and modern approach remind me of House And Land who I also love, but the songwriting is in another class entirely.

Building A House - CHOPCHOP: I don't know if you've ever seen Bad Boy Bubby but CHOPCHOP feels a little like the band that he ends up joining at the end. A musical ensemble built to enable the will of a very strange man. I think the band is from the UK and I'm not sure where the singer is from, but he has this incredible deeply accented voice that brings such a gravity to everything he sings in the way that anyone speaking english as a second language accidentally brings new weight to common turns of phrase.

Universal Soldier - Jay Electronica: It feels fitting, looking back, that Jay Electronica finally released his album right before the world ended. It was literally now or never. Some how Jay-Z is the breakout star of this album for me. He's got some of his best verses in years on here and he's a great opposition to Electronica's flow when they trade verses. I would also, as an aside, like to know the origin of the kids cheering sample throughout this, because it's the same one from AM//Radio by Earl Sweatshirt and Wish You Were Gay by Billie Eilish. So what's that about.

Sticky Hulks - Thee Oh Sees: I've been very slowly getting into Oh Sees and I love them a lot so far. Their unweildy, huge discography spread across a lot of variations of the same name makes digging into them very rewarding as well. There's a great line on their wiki detailing all the times they've changed their name that goes: Orinoka Crash Suite (1997–2003), OCS (2003–2005, 2017), Orange County Sound (2005), The Ohsees (2006), The Oh Sees (2006–2008), Thee Oh Sees (2008–2017), Oh Sees (2017–2019) Osees (2019) to give you some idea of what we're working with here. Basically it's just everything you could want from a pychedelic band like this: a history and discography as shaggy as the songs themselves.

Knife On The Platter - BODEGA: In reading about Bodega I learned that they don't have a drummer in the traditional sense. They have someone credited as a 'stand up percussionist', and in listening back I realised that's they key to the groove in their music. He's not playing a kit he's just slamming at a tom and a snare on a rack, while one of the singers plays hi-hat here and there. So all the drumming has this barebones caveman feel to it and I absolutely love it. The band feels a lot like The Fashion, and that whole mid-2000s dance-punk movement that I've been desparate to come back so naturally I love it a lot.

Against Gravity - Horse Lords: Horse Lords are one of the most incredible bands I've heard in a long time. Somewhere between a more analogue Battles and Laddio Bolocko, they make a kind of churning math-jazz that sounds like huge intersecting squares of rhythm slowly overlapping. It feels like there's an infinite depth in these songs, you can listen and focus on a single instrument and see it shifting in and out of place with everyone else, before you lose it again and it retreats back into the swirling mass.

Plain To See Plainsman - Colter Wall: I've been listening to this Colter Wall album a lot, and it's really beginning to rank among my all time favourites. I grew up around the flattest place in the southern hemisphere, so I love the plains and it's very nice to have a cowboy song I can relate to like that.

The Nail - Sarah Shook & The Disarmers: Sarah Shook has so much character in her voice I completely love it. She is also a fantastic songwriter that manages to make outlaw country punk that sounds authentic and doesn't have the rockabilly posturing that a lot of the genre suffers from.

Inner Reaches 慾望的暗角二 - Gong Gong Gong 工工工: The best thing about Gong Gong Gong is you can listen to this whole song before you realise they don't have a drummer. They're a guitar and bass duo that play and sing with such a layered rhythmic intensity between the two of them that they really don't need one. A drummer would just clutter the space already taken up by their ferocious rhythm.

Country Pie - Bob Dylan: I'm a big fan of Bob Dylan's dumb songs. He has a lot where if it's the first song you ever heard from him you would be mad at whoever told you he was the greatest songwriter to ever live for trying to trick you like this. What I especially love about this song is how abruptly it ends, like dad just came home and everyone panicked cause they're know they're not supposed to be staying up that late.

You Did It Yourself - Arthur Russell: It seems hard to believe that I've only just found out about Arthur Russel. He seems to be a mainstay of Music Guy lists and somehow I've only heard of him this month. I've been obsessing over the Iowa Dream album, which is a compilation of a lot of different (mostly extremely high quality) demos from the late 70s to mid 80s and what really shines through other than the singular strength of his songwriting is how readily and easily he bends from country style folk to romantic piano ballads, to groovy post-punk like this. What I love so much about this song is it's a great lesson in songwriting: sometimes a song can just be a vague review of a middling movie and still have emotional resonance. Incredible. There's a great NPR article about Arthur Russel and the process of assembling half-takes and demos into complete recordings that you should read if you're interested. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/20/779721417/which-arthur-russell-are-we-getting-on-iowa-dream

The Dogs Outside Are Barking - Arthur Russell: I love this song because it's such a perfect distillation of a teenaged moment: trying to find a moment alone with someone when you have no freedom at all to create one. The song cycles through potential situations but leaves the problem unresolved, existing in the moment of nervous romantic tension preceding an unasked question and it's just beautiful.

Men For Miles - Ought: I love the vocal melody in the verse here so much. Spiking up unnaturally at the end of the lines like a nervous and strange version of The Strokes. Even the way he cramps his words in in the chorus is so good, switching registers randomly like he's impersonating someone else.

Mister Soweto - Lizzy Mercier Descloux: https://pitchfork.com/features/from-the-pitchfork-review/9828-lizzy-mercier-descloux-behind-the-muse/ Pitchfork has a great article about Lizzy Mercier Descloux detailing how she is continually undervalued and underappreciated. I found her though my Discover Weekly and became immediately obsessed with this album - a perfect mix of off-kilter 80s bass and brass that is so colourful and seems to move in a million directions at once like the songs can't even catch up with themselves sometimes. I'm excited to dig into her discography more and try to understand her more because she has a truly unique approach that I can't get enough of.

Sweden - Marilyn Crispell: I've been looking for a while for other pianists of Cecil Taylor's calibre, rare type that it is and I am so glad to have finally found out about Marilyn Crispell. She plays free jazz like Taylor, but in much less percussive and disonnant style. There's a New York Times quote that seems to follow her that says "Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano. She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz." and it's really very apt. She will move with seemingly no warning at all from mediative, colourful stokes to a mad descent unto uncertainty and beyond, then back again without a moments hesitation. Her music moves like a dream, linking a stream of unlinked images with an ease that only seems incongruous on reflection.

Twins - Gem Club: I have loved this song for a very long time and I come back to it over and over and appreciate it anew. What I appreciate about on listening to it this time is the strangeness of it's structure, following up the verse with an instrumental break, and then a long instrumental intro to the chorus gives it so much space to spread out and breathe, giving the beautiful gravity of the song even more weight. Then after the chorus it moves straight to a bridge and then the intro and first verse again. It's a fantastic song that makes it's small parts so large, where another songwriter or another producer would pare them down.

Grand Central - Paul Cauthen: Something I've learned in listening to a lot of cowboy music is that the number one thing that cowboys hate and fear is getting hanged. They hate it worse than cats hate getting sprayed with water. I found out about Paul Cauthen combing through Colter Wall's similar artists looking for more of this brand of new old fashioned country and I really found it here. Paul Cauthen comes from four generations of preachers and left the church to pursue country music instead, which feels like an extremely old fashioned position to be in here in 2020 but I guess lots of people in Texas still live like that, and thank god they do or we wouldn't have Paul Cauthen's big mournful Elvis voice to sing us songs about the railway.

Serafina - BAMBARA: I love this sort of spoken word leather jacket rock and roll. It's so extremely Cool in an old fashioned way. Like a more rock and roll version of Enablers.

So 4 Real - The Hecks: I love love love this song that sounds like a sped up Prince demo. The strange thinness of the mix and the way the vocals are buried just makes it sound so strange and great, like it was put together on some ancient 4 track recorder that can't handle the pure energy of the song.

In The Pines (Version 2) - Jackson C. Frank: There's a very good 3 hour compilation of Jackson C. Frank recordings that came out a few years called Remastered And Unreleased that I listened through the other day. It's just magnificent. This version of In The Pines is one of my favourite I've ever heard, the mournful vocals coupled with his churning rhythm guitar really brings out the darkness of it in a way I've never heard.

(Tumble) In The Wind (Version 1) - Jackson C. Frank: Another favourite from this compilation that is slightly hard to listen to. I don't know if there's a date on it but I'd guess this was recorded near the end of his life. It is so beautiful, but you can hear in his voice and breathing that he's unwell. In Horseshoe Crabs by Hopalong she sings a story from his perspective this song really seems to fit in the second half of that. "Woke from the dream and I was old / Staring at the ass crack of dawn / Walked these streets up and down / Looking for Paul Simon / All I found was myself, lost in time / I tried singing my songs / But I lost my mind"

Sludge - Squid: I'm thinking of putting together a playlist of all the great Black Midi-adjacent bands I've found out about recently and Squid is at the top of the list. This new breed of art-punk is so fantastic and goes in a million different directions. I'm just so excited it exists.

Straight Shot - Quelle Chris: I love this song and Guns is a phenomenal album but there’s one thing bothering me. The ‘who are you, what are you’ part at the end sounds so incredibly familiar to me and I can’t figure out why. As far as I can tell it’s not a sample, but googling reveals that the english voice on it is fucking James Acaster the standup comedian. So what’s going on? Quelle Chris himself is less than helpful: “Straight Shot is one of those ideas that reached out to me, we got along and I simply showed it around town. The chorus, poem at the end and basic piano progression literally came to me in two separate dreams”. Who knows. Great song though.

Levitation - Dua Lipa: What I really like about this song is that she says sugarboo. This whole album bangs and Dua is really reaping the benefits of being the only pop star with the guts to release an album while everyone’s in lockdown I also have a half-baked theory about the way this song is almost interpolating Blame It On The Boogie in the ‘moonlight, starlight’ part as a sort of aggressive takeover of Michael Jackson’s cancelled legacy. Which is smart really. The same way Taylor Swift is re-recording her albums, let’s just get The Weeknd in the studio for a couple of days and give the world back it’s bangers.

Another Crashed Car - Nine Inch Nails: I am so glad Trent Reznor put out another two volumes of Ghosts. Ghosts I-IV from 2008 seems to have been the bridge from his Nine Inch Nails work to his film score work, and now that he’s had such success with that it’s nice to hear him writing in this style without telling anyone else’s story again. It’s also interesting for him to go back to this project now that Ghosts I-IV has paid dividends in the form of the sample at the centre of Old Town Road but that’s neither here nor there. It’s hard to pick and individual track from these, because they work so effectively as long form albums and not individual tracks, but I chose this one because I put the album on as background ambient while I was doing some boring data entry at work and this track is the point at which I realised I was going out of my mind with stress from doing the simplest tasks because of Trent’s Damned Chords.

Lilacs - Waxahatchee: This is a perfect song. It makes me want to like, draw charts about it and go through it bar by bar to figure out how she did it. It’s perfectly put together. It feels like she uses every trick in the book and it just comes together flawlessly in 3 minutes. Amazing.

Cool Water - Hank Williams: I decided to properly listen to Hank Williams because his shadow stretches over so much of country music, and while a lot of his music really alienated or bored me, and a lot of his songs feel like they would read as novelty songs today (like Hey Good Looking), this is the song that made me understand why he’s so revered.

In My Bones (feat. Kimbra and Tank And The Bangas) - Jacob Collier: Jacob Collier generally irks me. He makes brain music for redditors that lose their mind when someone shows them chord inversions or odd time signatures. Youtubers whose whole personality is ‘y’all heard Giant Steps?’ But he killed it on this song. It’s great despite him. There’s still a lot of corniness to work through, mostly in the big yuck funky lyrics, but structurally it’s a kaleidoscope and a big chunk of its success I’m putting down to Kimbra and Tank who understand that performance is a bigger part of a song than composition in a way Collier maybe doesn’t yet. He can overload the bassline and stop-start the rhythms as much as he likes but without actual personalities driving it it’ll just sound like a Peter Gabriel midi played at 200%.

Earthquake - Graham Central Station: I learned something wonderful in researching this band. The leader, Larry Graham, who was in Sly And The Family Stone is credited with inventing slap bass. He himself refers to the technique as "thumpin' and pluckin' ".

Quand Les Larmes D’un Ange Font Danser La Neige - Melody’s Echo Chamber: Once again furious that I’ve known of Melody’s Echo Chamber for years but never listened to them until now. I have been missing out. This is a perfect sprawling psychedelic jam punctuated with a bizzare cut-up recording about shitting yourself when you die and being declared brain dead in the vatican. It’s got everything. I had to look up who the drummer was on this song because he’s just nailing it, and it turns out it’s Johan Holmegaard from Dungen which is really a perfect fit.

Murder Most Foul - Bob Dylan: I was thinking the other day about how Bob Dylan is doing in quarantine. The man who hasn’t stopped moving his whole life and who’s been on a never ending tour since the 70s is now, I assume, just pacing a hole in a hotel carpet somewhere and jabbering to himself. The strangest part of Bob dropping this 17 minute song about JFK out of nowhere is that he hasn’t put out any original music since 2012. So a gigantic song like this is an even bigger surprise. I, already a huge fan of gigantic songs and Bob Dylan, unsurprisingly love it. I love the slow stirring of the instrumentation, like he hired Dirty Three as a backing band and I love that nearly the entire second half is just listing good songs that he knows. It’s a remarkable song and unlike anything i’ve heard before from Dylan or anyone else. It’s interesting to hear Bob Dylan step into being the great chronicler of the 60s like he’s been told he already was his entire life almost 50 years later, finally accepting the fate foisted on him. The other thing I love about this song is the line when he for some reason praises Lee Harvey Oswald’s shooting “Greatest magic trick ever under the sun / Perfectly executed, skillfully done”

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0k1JjT8fXcUFO6VpM3kaez?si=gWSv88vdShKSnHhLJ_80pQ

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eggoreviews · 5 years ago

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E3 2019 Nintendo Direct - BREAKDOWN

Oh wow. That big ol direct sure was something. So now I’m here to break down everything that happened in unnecessary fashion and give my personal reaction to everything that happened with my tried and true Excitement Rater. Want to see my heavily scientific and not at all arbitrary process? Then click down to see the deets.

Before we kick off my (very very scientific) breakdown of this year’s packed direct, I thought I’d briefly go over how I rate things:

A random string of letters/numbers = Immeasurable excitement

YEEHAW BABEY = Big excitement

Heck Yeck = Vague excitement

Yeah! = Not really excited, but still could be good

Sure, why not? = I’m more confused than excited but sure

Oh = The excitement isn’t there

Oh no = Used on the rare occasion I really don’t like what I’ve seen

The Hero from the Dragon Quest series in Smash!

After a brief montage of some games that already came out I guess, the direct jumps straight into an ominous shot of World of Light baddie Dharkon, followed by a seemingly hopeless fight between Link and one very possessed Marth. Then the Luminary turns up gloriously on his horse. With all the leaks that had been flying around for so long, I think pretty much everyone had accepted the presence of Dragon Quest at this point and I was totally stoked when this happened! I love Dragon Quest! And my boi from 11 is here, along with a few other DQ veterans as alt swaps and a pretty awesome looking stage overlooking what seems to be the land of Erdrea and the World Tree. Now to wait until summer and hope the Smash team have some sick ass remixes for us when the time comes!

Excitement Rating: YEEHAW BABEY

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition

In a move that makes it a lil obvious that DQ’s Smash addition was more than a little commercially minded (not that I really care I’m still big hyped), a trailer for the expanded edition of the series’ latest installment follows. Seeming as I’ve already played this, I doubt I’ll be picking it up again but I still heartily recommend the game to any JRPG fan. Admittedly, the fact you apparently get to explore worlds from past games is pretty exciting.

ER: Heck Yeck

Luigi’s Mansion 3

In a way I thought was surprising, Nintendo’s first proper focus of Luigi’s Mansion 3 actually took up more time than Animal Crossing, but I guess that’s because it’s further along in development. We now know that the game is set within a haunted hotel and had some new gameplay features shown off, including the various ways Luigi can succ a ghost. Most exciting I think for me was the various multiplayer aspects, such as the local co-op option to play as Gooigi and the seemingly challenge and minigame-based ‘Scarescraper’ which I think incorporates online co-op too. Overall, this is looking to be a creative and well thought out entry in the series and I’m here for it.

ER: Heck Yeck

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance - Tactics

A licensed tie-in game for a thirty year old film feels a little odd, but I suppose stranger things have happened. This looks to be a sort of top-down tactical thingy involving the various characters from The Dark Crystal and for some reason Netflix is involved, I don’t know, but I guess it could be interesting.

ER: Sure, why not?

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

The adorable remake of this classic Game Boy title seems to be coming along great and this direct’s extended trailer gave us a good look at what we’ll be exploring come September 20th. The overhaul Koholint Island has had is phenomenal, giving us designs for Link and various other characters that we’ve never seen before and that makes this remake look especially unique. Another very exciting aspect for me was the dungeon builder that looks like great fun! You collect different dungeon parts as you go and then you can build and explore your own! Am I a goblin child or does that sound like the best thing ever?

ER: YEEHAW BABEY!!

Trials of Mana / Collection of Mana

I’ll admit I’m not really familiar with the Mana series, but from what I was shown in this direct, it looks to be a fairly standard JRPG. That’s definitely not a bad thing, as most JRPGs are amazing, but nothing in this trailer really stood out and came into its own. That being said, the gameplay and graphics look pretty solid and I’m sure the Mana fans have been fairly starved for content for a while so that’s something to look forward to. On top of this remake/new game with the same title as an older game (I really don’t know), the Collection of Mana containing the series’ first three games is being released real soon on the eShop.

ER: Yeah!

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition

Following a few scattered rumours, we finally have confirmation that a Witcher 3 port is in fact in the works, coming packed with all the game’s DLC. This basically legendary RPG is not one I personally had a great experience with, but I’m sure a lot of people are gonna be happy to play this in handheld. I’d keep expectations tempered however, with the likes of Assassin’s Creed 3 and Saints Row the Third proving that these ports don’t always function brilliantly on this platform.

ER: Yeah!

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Yet another and probably our last Fire Emblem trailer was shown in this direct, giving us a better look at how the story might play out and what our villains are going to be. With most of the gameplay features explored in the previous February direct, it’s good to have a slightly better idea as to what’s actually going on in terms of story and, to me, the results seem pretty damn good. Definitely one to keep an eye on!

ER: Heck Yeck

Resident Evil

In a slightly unnecessarily convoluted advert, we were given a two minute reel of two teenagers playing the original RE in tabletop mode in an abandoned house (??), along with the kind of less than exciting announcement that we’re getting the two weakest entries in the series for Switch, RE 5 and 6. I probably wasn’t the only one who felt a little passive about this whole thing. That being said, definitely not complaining about 1 & 4 being ported over.

ER: Oh

No More Heroes III

After the very slightly disappointing Travis Strikes Again, I really wasn’t expecting them to drop a trailer for the series’ third mainline installment so soon after. What we’ve seen looks pretty much like classic Travis, with a smidge of gameplay seen that looks just a bit more like what we’re used to. Of course, with this being the first reveal, there’s still a lot to find out but this looks very promising.

ER: Heck Yeck

Contra: Rogue Corps / Contra: Anniversary Collection

I’m not gonna pretend to be familiar with the Contra series, but this doesn’t at all look like what I’ve seen in the past. Honestly, this seemingly tactical shooter didn’t elicit much excitement from me and neither did its rushed character drops or its oddly rough textures. I’m unsure of actual fan reactions to this, but in my mind this one kind of sits in the ‘guess this exists’ category. As well as this, we got a shadowdrop for the Contra Anniversary Collection, whereas Rogue Corps comes on September 24th.

ER: Oh

Daemon X Machina

In what seems to be almost a mainstay in Nintendo directs, we’ve got another vague trailer for this mech shooter that finally has a confirmed release date of September 13th. The gameplay looks harmless enough, with the mechs seeming to be a blast to pilot, but beyond that, I can’t really see a lot of substance that would draw me in beyond the cool robots. I’m sure it could be good, but not really one for me.

ER: Yeah!

Panzer Dragoon

I was completely unsure of what this one was, but it looks a bit like a cross between The Last Guardian and those bullet hell sections from Kingdom Hearts 2. They’ve certainly nailed the smooth graphics and the cool looking creatures, but this one is mostly a case of needing to know more.

ER: Yeah!

Pokemon Sword & Shield

This one’s obviously a title so monumental that it consistently needs its own directs, but there wasn’t any *real* news about it in this direct. We were given a brief explanation as to how the Pokeball Plus works in conjunction with the games (something to do with taking your Pokemon for a walk) and the fact that we’ll see more gameplay during Nintendo’s Treehouse streams. Still, excitement remains pretty high for these titles.

ER: Heck Yeck!

Astral Chain

This game, to put it bluntly, looks awesome. The newest Platinum Games IP seems to be set in Blade Runneresque futuristic city with an alien threat and some cool ass looking fighting police people. Our second proper look at this game has cleared up a few murky doubts as to what exactly is supposed to be happening, so now we’ve got a much better idea of what this game is going to be. The story seems pretty full and polished, the gameplay looks like brilliant fun and I’m definitely not mad at the cool monster designs. This is one I’m definitely watching.

ER: Heck Yeck!!!

Empire of Sin

I know very little about what this game is supposed to be, but it looks to be a 40s gangster XCOM, substituting alien fighting marines with gun toting mafia dudes. The trailer went for style over substance, giving us an edgy visual thing of some burning playing cards and broken bottles, but the little gameplay we saw looked decent enough and may just end up injecting more variety into this genre.

ER: Yeah!

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order

An obvious pick for any Marvel fan, this hack-and-slash is jam packed with various heroes and villains from the comic series’ rich history. Ghost Rider and Elektra were among those revealed to be playable, while the likes of Mysterio, Hela, the Destroyer, Doctor Octopus, Surtur and MODOK are seemingly part of growing cast of villains. Looks like a good bit of fun if nothing else, though the immediate presence of a season pass is a tiny red flag.

ER: Yeah!

Cadence of Hyrule

In an unexpected but greatly welcomed crossover between Nintendo’s RPG titan Zelda series and the indie developed Crypt of the Necrodancer, a new rhythm based dungeon crawler with some brand new Zelda remixes and the presence of Link and Zelda as playable characters. This game’s retro graphics look totally adorable and the addition of the Gohmaracas were a definite highlight.

ER: Heck Yeck!!!!!

Mario & Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

Tell you what, this definitely looks like a Mario and Sonic Olympic Games game. There looks to be a decent amount of variety in terms of what sports are involved and with its online multiplayer, there’s no shortage of vaguely cartoon sportyness to be had with friends both real and virtual. I’d be lying if I said I was totally disinterested because it does look a bit fun, but we all know it won’t be anything groundbreaking.

ER: Yeah!

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

In a fairly drastic formula change, Nintendo have decided to strand us on a desert island rather than move us innocently to another village, but Tom Nook is still here and oh yes he’s coming to collect his bells. From this surprisingly brief trailer, most of Animal Crossing’s core gameplay seems to be intact, with the return of craftable items from Pocket Camp, and the sudden bombshell that the game has been pushed back to March next year. Never going to be a bad thing if the finished product is all the better for it, but I guess that just means more info is to come!

ER: Heck Yeck

Highlight Reel

In what looks like a list of honourable mentions, Nintendo gave us a laundry list of other titles coming to the system:

Spyro Reignited Trilogy is joining Crash on the Switch with his acclaimed remaster trilogy.

Hollow Knight: Silksong, the prequel to the original game, looks just as charmingly dark as its predecessor.

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is showing up I guess, but I’ll come out and say I know nothing about it except that it looks cute.

Minecraft Dungeons looks better than it has any right to be and looks a bit like blocky Diablo I guess

The Elder Scrolls: Blades sure exists and I’m unsure of what it’s trying to be, but whatever quells off the need for Elder Scrolls 6 I guess.

My Friend Pedro, another strangely unique title from Devolver Digital, looks like it somehow incorporates banana peels into its combat system.

Doom Eternal looks like Doom always does, but a distinct lack of gameplay may put its dual release with the other consoles into question.

The Sinking City with its Lovecraftian inspiration looks totally brilliant and looks to be a unique experience for sure, so eyes firmly open for this one

Wolfenstein Youngblood definitely looks all Wolfenstein-y, but rumours of Dishonored-like sandbox levels has definitely piqued my interest.

Dead by Daylight still looks unfortunately a bit eh, with its slightly not great graphical quality from what we’ve seen in the trailers.

Alien Isolation was an extremely odd one, but I’m not gonna say no to more good horror content on the console.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles seems to be continually delayed, but they’ll probably get round to it eventually.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 looks adorable and I’m very into the idea of Dragon Quest Minecraft, so sign me up.

Stranger Things 3: The Game looks a little more SNES-like in terms of graphics than its 8 Bit mobile predecessor, which is definitely a decent step. An obvious pick for fellow fans of the show.

Just Dance 2020 is definitely a Just Dance game. Yep, sure is. I even checked. And it is.

Catan is a tabletop game of sorts, but I really couldn’t figure out what kind from that few seconds of vague footage.

New Super Lucky’s Tale looks like Bubsy, but actually good and worth real money

Dauntless looks like a bit of a Monster Hunter clone, but you know, doesn’t look terrible.

And lastly, Super Mario Maker 2 was tacked on the end there to remind us all that Nintendo is taking our money in 2 weeks.

Banjo-Kazooie become Smash Ultimate’s 3rd DLC Fighter

Just when we all petering out a little and the hype seemed all but dormant, they go and drop this on us out of nowhere. While I personally don’t have an attachment to the bear and bird, I’m fully aware of their significance and how much they mean to a lot of people out there. And that excitement ended up being contagious, so this fact coupled with a pitch perfect reveal trailer has got me hugely hyped to see these guys join the fight come autumn.

ER: YEEHAW BABEY

Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

And now, dear reader, for the reveal that removed my scalp and cut out my eyeballs. At first, I was totally confused as to what this could be. And then I recognised the symbols, and then my perfect lil Hyrule eggs come on the screen and it’s all spooky and there’s dead Ganondorf and I don’t clock the fact that I’ve just screamed out loud. A direct sequel to my absolute favourite game of all time is happening and it’s real and I get to live another adventure in the best game world ever crafted all over again. I think it’s safe to say I have transcended the definition of hype when it comes to this one.

ER: AAA!!! AA!!! GFFGF!!! THIS!!! ZELDA!!!! HGGGG!!!!

So there’s my probably a little stupid breakdown of everything Nintendo bestowed upon us this E3. Guess I’ll jump in after the next direct to give you yet another heavily scientific analysis of its events. Or I’ll babble at you until I start punching the keyboard. Either way, happy trails my dudes. Don’t let the hype bugs bite.

#e3 #e3 2019 #zelda #loz #the legend of zelda #mario #smash #super smash bros #super smash ultimate #astral chain #fire emblem #animal crossing #pokemon #Luigi's Mansion #dragon quest #final fantasy #nintendo #marvel #resident evil

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acradaunt · 6 years ago

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Etrian Odyssey Nexus Playthrough - Week 1

I thought it would be a fun idea to record weekly my progress through EO Nexus. Why? I enjoy reading people's experiences where multiple options are available; what they chose, and why, and how exactly that turned out for them. It's something this EO has more than ever before, and it's such a central concept to my own work on DR, so in its own way, it's research. And since there is a need for people to have 100 QR codes, it serves a purpose there, too.

I'll try ultra-hard to avoid any form of spoilers, so expect me to be vague as hell about stratum or FOE names. To make the most of all these fun class options (and the extremely early Memory Conch), I'm rotating characters around as I see fit, but mostly in accordance with when conditionals are needed or interesting weapons are available. I mean, that kind of class-switching has been the norm for things like Final Fantasy since III, so why not do it here? Between these two things, I'm going to be writing about how characters are faring and where they shone, rather than going on about each stratum.

Couple general notes before character remarks; I'm playing on Expert (which is the norm for EO), and I just punched into the fifth stratum. On that, things are really coming together, as I'm now seeing enemies from three different regions of III and IV at the same time. Lush Woodlands was so aggressively a carbon-copy of its EOIV incarnation it made me really worried. Those fears seems fairly quashed at this point. Also, um, character remarks in Read More, because they're actually kinda long.

Imperial / Arcanist / Harbinger / Shogun / War Magus / Nightseeker - None of these have seen any use yet. Of 19 classes, some just might not fit in a first playthrough. The first three definitely'll show once subclasses come along, but right now aren't super-appealing for various reasons; Imperial's ridiculous TP requirements make it sound like a non-starter in early game, I don't trust turn-end heals when most random battles last 1-3 turns, and, well, I feel it'd be wrong to use my #1 Harbinger without also bringing along a certain Dragoon (Hero) and Masuaro (Ronin). That debuffer role has also lowkey been stolen by Landsknecht, of all things.

Klein the Hero - Klein has been absolutely devastating in random battles, but has generally floundered during bosses and FOEs, with Hero mostly being about multi-target attacks and a bit of a TP-hog. After netting the 3rd stratum boss' weapon, his damage output has been fairly ridiculous, and Shock Strike is nothing short of amazing. He's definitely not going anywhere, but I wouldn't say he's irreplaceable, either; that sword's nutso damage is innately amazing in anyone's hands. In a lot of ways, Hero is a remix of Dragoon, and while I definitely didn't like Dragoon at first, it grew on me quite a lot.

Iris the Protector - Iris came in strong against the 2nd stratum boss, and only got better with that boss' weapon able to shoot cheap line-piercing Fire attacks that could sweep most of the 3rd stratum. Ultimately, circumstances made her not very appealing for the 4th stratum, and I haven't seen any remarkable new spears, so she's mostly waiting for that. Or a Boss/FOE where Taunting is effective to return to the forefront.

Terra the Highlander - Terra was off-and-on for the early part of the game, trading said spear with Iris as was convenient. Veteran Skills haven't been particularly kind to her, but Master or Subclasses might still change that. She's certainly strong and sturdy enough to handle the frontline, and there's something to be said about how tricky it is to shatter a three-person front-row that doesn't need to rely on Protectors.

Stella the Zodiac - One of my starting five, Stella repeatedly died in one shot in the 1st stratum and burnt through TP way too fast, and performed similarly poorly in a brief stint in the 3rd stratum. I considered bringing her on again for a specific FOE, but ultimately didn't. After Warlock's same-turn Charge and Runemaster's Runes, this class just feels tremendously disappointing.

Coral the Landsknecht - Easily the most all-around reliable, if never the shining star. Extremely burly and with a diverse array of skills at hand, she's always useful. Primarily though, she shield bashes to cripple foes with Debuffs then Links away when they can't possibly do enough damage to kill anyone.

Erika the Ronin - Absolutely the core damage dealer for the 2nd's Boss and the 3rd stratum, primarily due to an incredibly good Katana you get midway through the 2nd Stratum. She was all about Air Blades from the back-row, then dashing to the front-row to regain her stance, drop offenses, or go for a strong arm-bind. It's a really fun class, all around. However, getting caught by a single good attack, even when in the back, is usually a death sentence for her, so it's a bit tricky, too. That said, she still came through big-time in both the 2nd and 3rd Strata Bosses, which were more endurance matches and about conserving TP more than anything, so there's something to say about that.

Laura the Medic - Not a ton to say here. Medics heal and revive; lifesavers when things get hairy during FOEs/Bosses. What is no joke is her Star Drop's ability to ruin defenses. Like Erika, she did occasional row-switching when things were safe. Not something you'd expect from a Medic. During initial planning, she was gonna be a Medic/Landsknecht, for high-speed Star Drops, but Star Drop is a normal debuff now, not a one-turn affair like it was, so I'm not too sure what her endgoal is anymore. I'm considering swapping her for Adam, who's designed to be a Medic/Zodiac, so I would at least have SOME form of normal mage (not to mention cheaper TP for heals via Free Energy). Laura's a dumbass though, and I love her for that, and right now, the Medic is hitting stuff in her free time, not casting, so she fits the bill better right now, especially as conserving TP is still a huge deal. STILL can't buy Amritas.

Juri the Survivalist - Probably the overall MVP for the first four strata. Blinding Arrow was vital against most Lush Woodlands FOEs/Bosses, and doubling all harvesting for a single skill point is nothing to scoff at. Add in cheap on-field healing, and she was good enough to kick Laura out for the whole 3rd stratum (until FOE/boss time). She's definitely starting to feel like she's falling off, though. Veteran added some nice moves for random encounters, but Master skills sound very lackluster, with only Disabling Shot sounding appealing (though Disabling Shot [Add Leg Bind to ALL Bow Skills] is VERY appealing). Master's still a long ways off though.

Yai the Pugilist - Yai wound up coming in for some conditional-drop hunting near the end of the 3rd Stratum, and with another great fist from a FOE on the World Map (making it a... WOE? MOE?), has stayed around off-and-on since then. Binds can always completely swing the flow of a fight, but they're not super-reliable, and she suffers from Erika's frailty, with none of the row-swapping tricks to keep her alive. She isn't terrible, but she's failing to live up to her EOV self. That said, she actually combos amazingly with Coral this time, as opposed to last time where she was the only one who DIDN'T play into Coral's pierce-a-thon.

Olga the Gunner & Leon the Sovereign - Neither have seen significant use but bear mention. When Bind conditionals first came up, it was an immediate coin-toss between getting Olga or Yai ready. Yai won because the current array of Guns failed to impress. However, with Yai's questionable performance and Juri's waning damage, a solid Gun could easily make Olga a mainstay. Leon, likewise, is basically waiting for more Skill Points and a weapon with a decent Skill to use to come in on. Leon definitely hasn't felt as sturdy as he did in III, which is also holding him back a bit, as I'd prefer him to be a part of the front-row wall-of-steel. Still, using the same gear as Klein and Klein's own iffy performance against bosses means he'll probably push through for the 5th or maybe 6th's Stratum bosses.

Kagura the Ninja - Brought in for a bit during the 4th stratum, when I was wondering if I was overlevelled, as upon first arriving, I was seeing yellow FOEs. I don't think I was. She actually served pretty decently in random encounters, essentially being able to mass-sleep an entire wave of enemies, which came in major handy, as the 4th just loves throwing 4+ enemies at you at once. Having her mother's (now retconned to being her sister, I guess) badass Katana to swap to definitely eased her entry into the group. Not material for FOEs, though; her overall damage output remained quite poor.

Kahna the Landsknecht - It's no secret that I'm a huge sucker for Landy's Links and especially Fencer's Chains as a primary form of team synergy. I'm seriously considering the possibility of running TWO Landsknechts; Coral on Shield Bashing debuff duty, and Kahna as a high-speed Linker. Truth is, Coral spends so much time with the shield keeping foes down, she has little time to lift herself up, and Landsknecht has no shortage of damage buffs, to boot.

#Etrian Odyssey #Etrian Odyssey Nexus #EON #EOX #EO #EO Nexus

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