#((I will make the post after I post all of the screenshots after Leon's battle but. Yeah <3))< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[antihibikase-archive]

Eternatus Capture ☁

[sceaven]

Devlog 24/11/2024 -- Miscellaneous November Wrap-up

Hello! It's already the 24th...! The month has felt very fast for me...

My work on Scarred By Heaven over the past few weeks has been more of the same for the most part--a lot of menial spritework and cutscene code--so this is probably going to be a short post covering a few random noteworthy topics.

Story Progress

I've managed to make significant progress on the first chapter's cutscenes and battles, so here are a few screenshots and a clip from that:

It feels a little like I'm trying to animate an action movie in RPG Maker sometimes, but I'm happy with how they look so far. :)

Downtown Map

I've also managed to confront and create a gameplay-friendly draft of the 'Downtown' area of the overworld. Here's the before and after:

It's mostly generic placeholder buildings at the moment, barring the ones with unique designs, but I'll eventually get around to replacing them with more interesting and colorfully designed ones. I'd prefer to wait until I have some more of the game's sandbox-y side content implemented and fleshed out before I start doing that so I can design buildings that accommodate certain sidestories or minigames.

Animation Debug Tool

I also made myself another small, janky debug tool--this time for testing out different cutscene and battle animations in-game!

Most animations in SBH work on a simple 'event' system that triggers certain 'events' like sound effects or pauses at certain frames of animation. Previously whenever I'd want to tinker with animations it'd involve recompiling the entire game every time to adjust for changes in the event code, which was very annoying. This debug mode, however, just lets me load animation code as plain text from the clipboard, and converts it into the correct format to be used as code, allowing me to test out minor changes very quickly during runtime.

It probably isn't that exciting to anyone except me, but it's been a massive improvement to my workflow.

---

That's about all for now. I've been talking a lot more about graphic design than game design lately. Hopefully I'll have something more exciting to show off in the next post...

If you want to read more, I've also finally made a website character page for Leon, which you can check out here.

Thanks for reading! | - HSTopaz

---

(Cross posted from my website!)

[verlysgaminglife]

Gilded Shadows

Hey all, I know it's been a minute, and the last game I said I was going to play was Our Life by gb patch, but since I'm an active Pateron of them and they are working steadily on the derek dlc and that is my working copy of the game I'm still holding back playing it.

personal update

I also have had some personal issues that have kept me away from Tumblr and a lot of social media in general. The last time I was gung ho about my gaming channel and all of that was the start of a years long battle with my realizing that I am non-binary and being cool with it. I just didn't want to be on camera for a while and didn't know why. Now that I know what's wrong maybe I can finally get around to doing stuff again.

that's the tiny update on my personal issues for those of you that care. :)

onto the main topic

Gilded Shadows is an awesome cyberpunk/solarpunk VN (visual novel) that I was happy enough to send Kickstarter funds to after playing the authors first VN Changeling.

as you can see by my play time I've put some "decent' hours into it. ;)

Arcalis is a planet with a complex history.

Centuries ago, when humans arrived, they found it abandoned. The only remnants of its previous society were massive bio-domes dotted on the surface and designed as protection from the hostile climate.

With one side of the world bathed in eternal day and the other cloaked in frigid night, the bio-domes are oases where people live sheltered from the scorching winds and storms. But whether in the bright, clean cities of the day side of the planet, or the poor and crime-ridden cities of the night side, life is never simple nor peace easy to come by.

When a fateful encounter exposes Morgan Leone, a young woman who has long hid her ESP, as a queen ranked Esper, she finds herself on the run from multiple factions eager to attain her abilities. Endgame, the planetary defence organisation; Crimson, a notorious crime syndicate from Delphine; and even the shadowy group only known as "the Host" - each group sends operatives to retrieve her.

Now, with several paths open to her, she must choose her allies carefully. Between light and shadow lies grey twilight where the lines between good and evil are blurred. And in a world where the only constants are the endless day and night that divide the planet, Morgan learns those who can't adapt…also can't survive.

I will make one main comment about this game that I want everyone to realize. The author of this VN is the same person that drew the sprite art and the CGs. she's a goddess, a superhero, she's an angel. and no, she didn't pay me to say that.. I just told you all. I gave *her* money for this game. lol

I am going to be sharing my latest play-through here on Tumblr. I also share my screenshots through steam so ho boy anyone there because I can't really do anything about the oversharing of my pictures. at least here I can tag things in certain ways if I bug you too much. lol all my tags on here will have VGL-gilded shadows so if you get tired of seeing my posts you can block that.

There IS a recommended order but I'm doing my own thing with this being the third time I've played this game. so I'm playing it with the night side first and then going the day side.

so my play order will be Caissa, Jack, Ari, Caleb, Magnus, and then Lance. I'm playing Magnus and Lance as the last two because of the spoilers in their routes.

with sharing my screenshots I will do a mix between blog posts with commentary and photos themselves with comments. My whims carry me at times. lol

[epicspheal]

Since Leon is the chairman/battle tower manager, does that mean that the player has ended the reign of chairmen pressuring champions and making them keep up a public image? With Rose in jail and Leon taking his place now that he’s no longer champion, Leon would have known how stressful being a champion is and would take it upon himself to make sure the same doesn’t happen for the next champion which is the player.

Great question! I want to preface this first by saying that’s it not 100% canon that Leon is the chairman of the league now. It is canon that he’s the owner of the battle tower. I haven’t seen any NPCs state that he’s now the chairman of the league.(but if anyone finds screenshots please let me know). Now that doesn’t mean he isn’t chairman, as he makes for the most likely option for the position to be passed down to among known NPCs, especially since he owns the tower. However, just like the Isle of Armor manage to hide of couple of important new NPCs, the same could be said for a new chairman NPC popping up for the Crown Tundra. I hope it is officially confirmed that he is now chairman, because it makes sense and it provides for some interesting future interactions with him. However, going along the line that Leon is the chairman now, my intuition would be that Leon would make for one of the better chairmans the league has ever had since he knows the stresses of being champion personally. There’s also what he says after you beat him in the champion’s cup:  “It’s time we adults started working on improving the here and now, for the sake of all that’s to come!”  Of course, that above quote was more directed at making sure the environment of Galar is safe and that the energy crisis Rose was worried about was avoided. However consider the fact that Leon spent a lot of time away from home, and how a previous chairman asked Mustard to win a rigged match, that quote also fits him improving the state of the league (and this is the topic for another post, but honestly I think a plotline that explored the league and its pitfalls would have made for a very interesting main game story). Not to mention throughout the main game he was very adamant on you (a child) not taking on too much responsibility. Even though you are champion now, I’d imagine he’d still be cautious about you taking on too much especially if it meant taking away your enjoyment of being champion. This is why I’m super excited for the Crown Tundra DLC. Judging from what we know so far, it seems to have some interesting features lined for the post-game when you’re champion. Hopefully we get to see Leon living up to his quote of improving the here and now by making the league better than ever!

[nestlefox]

A pokemon theory/speculation about a random name

I know this is different than all my other content, but I think this needed to be said.  This has been lingering in the back of my mind since this was announced.  Also, this has barely been addressed, with only two posts talking about this.  

So ever since June, I had this question, " WHO THE HELL IS RAIHAN!" If you don't know who I'm talking about, There was one clip where Leon, our sexy lord and savior, said this name. And as said before, barely anyone is talking about it.  But I have one theory about this suspicious person.  And I will explain my theory, by the process of elimination.

First off, no, I do not think Raihan is the player character.  I know most people will disregard this at such, but I don't think so.  And from the information we have now, it's only proving my speculations.  If this was the player character, why didn't they use the names "Victor" or "Gloria" ?.  And before you say, "They couldn't because they didn't announce the player names until much later?", that's bologna. Because if that were the case, why are there two characters named "Sword" and "Sheild" in the September nintendo direct without any explanation.  And as much that previous sentence would discredit my theory, it doesn't.  

Second off, I don't think it's just a random person.  The only way to have a chance to battle Leon is by having an endorsement.  So this couldn't an npc or someone stumbling upon a battle with the champion himself.  And even then, there's the name.  With a name as specific as  "Raihan", I can't just blow it off as a random guy.  Looking throughout the history of pokemon npc, they have pretty straight forward names (i.e. Lass Ashley or Rising Star Nicki, you get the gist of it).  

I know I still haven't answered the questions you might be having. "Why isn't  the Sword and Sheild names for the characters are important?" and "Why are you so worked up about this name?".  First off, I don't have a life. And second, it's because, just like most of the human characters we've seen, Raihan is named after a plant. Specifically an herb.  Looking up this plant will give you this.  So the fact that this name comes from Basil and we just got information about cooking in SWSH raises questions and opportunities.

So, who do I think Raihan is.  Well I know it's not a high chance that this could be a gym leader because that wouldn't make any sense.  So that's out of the picture.  I suspect that this Raihan person is an antagonist or possibly on your side.  I know that sounds confusing but let me explain.  There have been two theories about who this villain could be.  A) either Leon is the main villain of the game or B) Rose and Oleana are the main villains of the game and are using Leon as a ploy and Leon is just oblivious as hell. So with these theories and this screenshot, there are two possibilities.  Either A) Raihan is trying to stop Leon from his evil schemes or B) Leon is trying to defeat this villain.  But another caught my eye while writing this.  Look at Leon's quote.  "You know I don't lose battles, Raihan". This isn't something you say to a random opponent or any stranger.  If you're going to say something like that, there must be a much personal connection for you to say that.  A part of me speculates that this guy had some close ties with Leon.  Maybe either an old friend or something similar to Guzma's relationship with Kukui.  Something is suspicious with Raihan and I don't think they're happy with Leon

So do I think this makes sense? To me, yes.  Is this logical? probably not.  Am I taking this quote way too seriously? Maybe.  Can this whole theory be instantly squashed by just one clip? Absolutely! And if that does happen, I will promptly draw my main OC in a clown costume :'), so I hope this doesn't blow up in my face.  

[mattoyaki]

⚔️ Pokemon Sword Nuzlocke (Part 6/Finale) ⚔️

Part 5 is here.

For those of you who have been following, thanks! For those of you who have been tolerating all the long posts, thanks even more!! 😂

We finally reach the end of my Nuzlocke run. It’s mostly dialogue, with a few battles thrown in.

No photos this time around because honestly I was just rushing through to be done with it and I forgot to take some screenshots. 🤷‍♂️

Slumbering Weald

I encounter Weezing here and name it Doug.

Doug - (Weezing) Lv. 47

The story does get slightly better in the ending part up to the battle with Eternatus, but man I really feel the story would’ve benefited from having a true antagonist like Sordward/Shielbert from the post game.

Tons of dialogue here and now back to Hammerlocke for the showdown with Rose and Eternatus.

Hammerlocke

Rose is extremely easy, SpicyNoodle and Stuff’n demolish him.

Eternatus does knock out Wormy, which was unfortunate. It was either Wormy or Trans Rights and I figured Trans Rights would be more useful for the rest of the playthrough. RIP Wormy. 😭 I replace him with Microdose.

After miles of exposition I make it through and save the region. Now for the league!

Wyndon

First up is Bede who’s now a Fairy boy, respect. I still demolish him though.

Why do they heal your team between battles? I hope next gen it’s back to E4 we can pick the order we battle and have to heal ourselves.

Nessa and Bea are easy, Raihan was a little harder but still got through with no issues.

Leon was somewhat challenging, I was forced to sack Stuff’n to allow Sombra a safe switch in to Dynamax and take out Charizard. Thanks for your help Stuff’n you’ve come in clutch a lot this run.

I know this part is much less detailed than the others, I was honestly just so ready to finish and move on. I like this game, I do. But it simply could be way better, and the only reason I can up with that’s it not better is capitalism. It’s unfortunate.

With that said I enjoyed the run, though it wasn’t that challenging i do like the Galar region and it’s Pokémon.

Part 6 / Final Recap:

Ending Team:

Sombra (Inteleon) Lv. 71

Microdose (Shiinotic) Lv. 54

SpicyNoodle (Centiskorch) Lv. 67

GurrenLagann (Golurk) Lv. 64

Trans Rights (Mr. Rime) Lv. 64

Graveyard:

TootieFruity (Steenee) Lv. 41

Witch Bitch (Hatterene) Lv. 53

Wormy (Flapple) Lv. 62

Stuff’n (Bewear) Lv. 65

[askmerriauthor]

Pokemon SwSh Thoughts - Post Game

So I’ve finished Pokemon Sword’s primary content.  All that’s left is to finish up the PokeDex and drive myself insane trying to whip up all the variations of Alcremie.  That, and delaying buying an online subscription for as long as possible before I bother with trading to get the other game’s exclusives.  Here’s some thoughts on the game after the fact:

Pokemon SwSh really needed to come out in late 2020, period.  I’ve enjoyed the game so far, but I’ve played it for about a week without putting in too much time/effort grinding and I’ve already done pretty much everything there is to do.  I had my Starter leveled up to 100 before I even left the Wild Area for the very first time.  The pacing and content depth of this game are pretty much non-existent, whereas the majority of the effort has clearly been put toward refining the competitive combat development.  That’s great for those players who really like the battle system, but not so much for those of us who like story and broader gameplay elements.

Pro - Streamlined Gameplay One thing I’ve wanted in Pokemon for ages has been the ability to skip tutorials.  I understand the necessity of having them, as every game that comes out is going to be some player’s first and their presence is for that player.  But at least having the option to skip them for us old hats would be nice.  SwSh does that!  I was delighted to discover that the game allows you to bypass tutorials with a simple yes/no prompt when a new element is introduced.  How to catch Pokemon, type match-ups, how to heal at Pokemon Centers, and so forth - all the stuff previous games led us through by the nose has been made optional this time around.

I’ve seen some people saying that this game holds the player’s hand too much as it leads us from one gameplay element to the next and doesn’t let us progress at our own leisure.  To some degree this is true, but it’s far less egregious than in previous games, such as SuMo.  There’s yet to be a good balance between giving the player free reign and giving them enough guidance to ensure we never feel lost, but this has been an inoffensive example as far as I’m concerned.  The game does end up feeling rather railroaded, but I don’t necessarily consider that a fault of hand-holding. I’ll get to this matter later on.

Pro - The Style Galar is a very pretty region and the game makes good use of the Switch’s higher capacity to produce excellent backdrops for the player to explore.  Many of the Pokemon have charming animations (Falinks is my favorite on this respect).  The towns are all really well-designed in terms of visuals, especially compared to the bare-bones looks of older generations.  I feel like there could have been more, but what we got is still great.

Pro - Implications in Lore Those of you who know me know how much I love lore and world building.  Pokemon, as a franchise, is ripe with opportunity to examine its lore to the most tiny and obscure detail, so any new addition to the franchise is welcome on that front.  Galar has some pretty fascinating nuggets to contribute.

I love that the League in Galar, as well as competitive Pokemon Training in general, is treated like a career sport.  In specific, I love that this view and practice is exclusive to Galar - I wouldn’t like it at all if the entire franchise shifted to this angle, but it works great for a one-off region.  I like that Kabu specifically relocated himself from Hoenn to join the sports league as it doesn’t exist in his home region.  The Champion being a sort of major celebrity/superhero, the way Gym Leaders can recruit proteges or even inheritors of their rank from among contenders, the sort of clique all the Gym Leaders have with one another - it’s a really neat dynamic.  I also like the notion that actually completing the Gym Challenge isn’t something common and most Trainers who try rarely make it even halfway through.  That’s an interesting contrast to other regions where collecting Gym Badges seems almost as a given and the League itself is considered the real challenge, or where the whole endeavor is designed to be finished as a matter of course, like in Alola.

There’s also some really neat additions to the overall lore brought in from the Pokemon Masters mobile game.  While its place in canon is questionable, it does specifically mention Galar in a few places.  The idea that Pokemon who do not appear in the current Dex are banned from Galar by customs (perhaps identified as potentially dangerous/invasive species) is an interesting one.  So is the claim that Iris - the Champion of Unova in BW2 - is a cousin of Leon and Hop.  I love it when there are connections amid titles like that as it really helps build a more unified setting.

-Edit-: Darn, apparently those screenshots were fakes.  Strike that positive from the list, I suppose.

Mixed Pro/Con - The Availability of Pokemon and the Wild Area I’m not talking about Dexit - I have my own thoughts on that explained elsewhere and frankly don’t think it’s going to end up as bad as everyone is fretting over in the long run.  No, in this particular case I’m focused on the availability of Pokemon that are in the game itself.

To put it simply... it’s too easy.  I know that filling out the PokeDex isn’t supposed to be a huge challenge, but I’ve gotten the majority of it done - evolved forms, item-reliant forms, gender/size/color variations included - with pretty much no effort whatsoever.  I like the idea of the Wild Area in principle but what it ends up being in practice is lacking.  It’s too easy to just hoover up Pokemon at a breakneck pace, which leads to other zones and the Wild Area itself becoming pretty much immediately obsolete.  I have no need to return to them once I’ve gotten everything I need and there’s not enough general content to urge me to visit again.

The Wild Area itself is a big open sandbox that you can roam around in, which is nice compared to more linear zones in past games.  Galar has its railroad routes, but they’re brief (aside from the obligatory overlong water route, which even then is still quite a lot smaller than other regions’ have been).  However, it’s just that - a big open sandbox.  You can wander through it very easily and even traipse into the “high level” zones without fear because you can see all the Pokemon coming and give them a wide berth to avoid them.  There aren’t any obstacles or challenges within the Wild Area itself, and the game makes it supremely easy to find Pokemon even under specific weather/time conditions, which I feel is a missed opportunity.  I would have rather the Wild Area been MUCH bigger and more involved, full of places to explore and puzzles to solve.  Similarly, I would rather that Pokemon were more difficult to come by as well - that a greater deal of effort would have been put toward tracking and discovering certain harder-to-find Pokemon, with more in-game detective work to find your prize.

Mixed Pro/Con - The Characters The ensemble cast of new Gym Leaders are great - I enjoy the majority of them and frankly want more interactions, more encounters, just more in general.  That’s sort of the problem though - I want more.  The game itself criminally under-utilizes these characters, especially compared to how much more involved and explored Gym Leaders have been in recent games.  There is precious little content using the Gym Leaders here in Galar as it stands and I constantly found myself wanting them to hang out longer and have the chance to learn more about them.  Their League Cards are a neat little addition full of interesting tidbits about their histories, natures, and relationships with each other, but I would MUCH rather have gotten to see all that play out in the game itself rather than read it as a flavor blurb.

On the con side of this, however, is the fact that all of the characters are extremely one-dimensional.  We’ve been seeing a steady increase in the depth and development of supporting characters in the games since BW onward, with SuMo arguably having the most to date.  The overall characterization in SwSh is incredibly lacking by comparison as we don’t get nearly enough time to be with the cast, nor is the cast given the chance to present more than one note per.  Nobody has any sort of emotional growth or development.  The closest thing to a character arc in the game is Hop’s acceptance of the idea that he’s not going to be the Champion, but it doesn’t have anywhere near as much punch as it could and is over in the blink of an eye compared to how he spends THE ENTIRE GAME repeating the same “I’m gonna be the Champion/Hokage/Pirate King!” spiel every time he’s on screen.

Con - Dynamaxing and Max Raid Battles I’m not really on board with the whole “Mega-Evolution is best! No more gimmicks!” train because that’s just silly to me.  Every game has its gimmick and the way Pokemon gradually picks up tricks and traits from its past versions to consolidate into newer titles is one of its strengths.  That said, Dynamaxing is worthless and a pointless addition to the game, both in presentation and practice.

The visual of a Pokemon going kaiju is a neat concept and one I was initially intrigued by, but in practice it falls flat because it’s as thin as cardboard.  It’s just Mega-Evolution and Z-Moves smooshed together with an additional 3 round time limit tacked on.  All it functionally does is buff your Pokemon’s HP pool and add additional weather/status effects to certain attacks, but in some cases the Dynamax versions of attacks are actually weaker/less useful than their base form.  In Gym Battles all the way through the final League fight with Leon, I didn’t bother with Dynamaxing because my Pokemon were strong enough to not need it.  I could one-shot Dynamaxed Pokemon with ease using a non-Dynamaxed Pokemon and that really shows a flaw in the design if ever there was one.  Dynamaxing doesn’t add or improve anything vital to gameplay - it’s just fluff.

Max Raid Battles as found in the Wild Area are even worse.  For those of you who don’t know, these are instanced battles against a Dynamaxed/Gigantamaxed wild Pokemon where you team up with three other players/NPCs.  If you win, you get a bunch of useful items and have the chance to catch the wild Pokemon as well, which is the only way you can get certain Gigantamax-capable Pokemon reliably.

The issue with these Max Raid Battles is that they’re an absolute slog.  In the early stages of the game they’re all super easy to the point that I could solo them and thus gathered mountains of EXP-boosting candies, which let me overlevel my Pokemon beyond reason.  Since the whole “your Pokemon is too high level and won’t listen to you” thing apparently doesn’t apply to Starters and special Event Pokemon, I was able to max-level and run rampant across all opposition with my Starter and my special “thanks for buying early” Meowth.  HOWEVER.  The difficulty scale of the Max Raid Battles increases with your game progress, so by the time I finished the game and went back into the Wild Area, the Max Raid Battles’ difficulty had ramped up.  That’s an okay compromise on its face, but the manner in which the difficulty has increased is poor game design.  The battles aren’t any harder, they just take longer - the wild Pokemon has more HP,  tosses up a few rounds of shields to soak damage at the start and again halfway through the fight, and purges stat boosts from the player and party throughout the battle.  It just makes the fights a pain in the ass to get through rather than making them more challenging or fun, and it’s gotten to the point that I don’t even bother with them anymore.  They’re just not worth the trouble, not even for the sake of trying to farm EXP candies because, at this point in the game, all Pokemon in the Wild Area scale up to level 60+ and thus are perfectly serviceable as EXP farming fodder themselves.

On a lore side of things, Dynamaxing is really confusing.  There’s the whole visual aspect of the Pokemon growing to giant sizes and sometimes changing their appearances, and there’s these massive arenas built to facilitate the whole thing.  But the game itself goes out of its way to impress the fact that the Pokemon aren’t actually getting bigger.  They just appear to grow in size and haven’t actually physically changed themselves so Dynamaxing is more like a giant hard light holographic projection than anything else?  It’s just a really weird design choice to have made and I don’t understand why it was included.

Con - The Writing So, writing is very important to me.  It’s literally been my job for the past decade with various game studios.  I don’t consider myself any sort of literary snob as I feel there’s a place for schlock right alongside masterpieces - they all serve a specific purpose and fulfill a particular hunger the reader would like satisfied.

That said, SwSh’s writing is abysmal.

Right on the face, there’s not enough of it.  The game is criminally short and light on content, which directly impacts its pacing.  Remember earlier when I mentioned that things felt railroaded?  That’s because there’s not enough story to rest on - it all flies by as fast as can be, forcing the player along a very narrow and brief chain of events that don’t feel consequential at all.  Further, the player has no agency in events whatsoever.  It’s not the player’s story - it’s Hop’s story.  We’re the supporting role to his journey, shallow as that arc may be.  Hop is the one who initiates the events of the game without our input as a character and then we spend the entire game following him around, or being pushed into the next event by other characters who are facilitating Hop.  At no point is the player ever given the chance to express their own characterization, motivation, or even opinions.  Nearly every two-choice dialogue option that appears boils down to “Yes” or “Slightly More/Less Enthusiastic Yes”, which is a huge downgrade from the genuine negative responses and NPC reactions that were present in SuMo.

In terms of overall plot, SwSh has pretty much the same level of depth and complexity as the original Red/Blue titles, and that is as scathing a criticism in this modern age as I can possibly imagine.  The whole story is “run in a circle, collect badges, fight vaguely present villainous threat, fight league.”  We are actively forced from one gym fight to the next with no time to breathe, no story-focused events in between, and not even any chance to appreciate the gym, its leader, or even the towns they take place in.  It’s one and done - once you’ve got the badge there’s no reason to hang around and the story shuffles us along quickly as can be.  I mean that literally in some cases - there are hints of a greater plot at hand with Sonia investigating the history of Galar’s legends and the potential machinations of mega-corporate mogul Chairman Rose.  But each time those are broached in game play, the game pushes the player off-screen and says “Well, that’s not something you need to worry about.  Go get another badge!”  I mean, LITERALLY!  There’s a point where The Plot begins to kick in where Pokemon begin to spontaneously Dynamax and cause havoc, which is the narrative queue for the player to become involved and for the story to reveal a new facet.  But when that happens, Leon LITERALLY says “leave this to the adults, you just focus on your Gym Challenge” and runs off-screen to handle it himself.  It would be a good narrative subversion if it led up to things eventually getting out of hand and the player getting roped into things, or the player having the ability to defy such warnings and interject themselves into danger.  But that doesn’t happen - the game just forces us to focus on the Gym Challenge alone and keeps all the actual plot of the game off-screen away from us.  This is very poor narrative design and game design alike, and it all comes to nothing because we’re forced to clean up everything in the end anyway by battling the villain and legendaries as per usual.

Though I should also point out that there’s no villain in this game.

But what about Team Yell and Chairman Rose, I hear you ask?  They’re not villains, both literally and figuratively respectively.  Team Yell never really does anything other than act as brief gate locking elements throughout the game until you finish the Gym you’re at, then they bounce off to the next part of the route they’re set to block.  They don’t do anything bad and, as it’s later revealed, they’re actually just a bunch of Spikemuth Gym staffers who are posing as hooligans to support Marnie.  They’re literally not villains and, once you beat the Spikemuth Gym, they actually become supporting characters who cheer for the player character and help out against the actual supposed villain of the game.

The actual “villain” of the game is Chairman Rose and his assistant Oleana.  However, they’re only villains because the script says they are.  They don’t actually do anything bad throughout the entire game nor is there any indication that they have some sort of grand master plan.  The most we get is some unusual happenings like small quakes and explosions in the distance, but the game never allows us any chance to investigate - we’re just shoved off toward the next Gym each time.  So when Chairman Rose is finally revealed to be the Big Bad, it comes completely out of left field and seems to happen for no reason whatsoever.  Further, IT IS FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.  Chairman Rose’s plan and goal is never explained in depth - all we get is the vague indication that he believes that Galar isn’t sustainable and there will be an inevitable energy crisis in about 1,000 years, and somehow his EVIL SCHEME will fix it.  But, like, even Leon flat-out says “I understand your concern but you’re being hasty, this doesn’t need to be rushed, chill out for five seconds and let’s figure this out reasonably”.  Instead Rose interrupts the Champion match and announces his EVIL SCHEME on global broadcast for literally no good reason.  There was no dire immediacy that required him to do it right then and there, or in that manner, but the plot needed to move us along so that’s how it goes.

It really doesn’t help that, prior to all this, there’s absolutely no indication at all that Rose nor Oleana are bad guys.  They’re just business folk who appear to have nothing but good intentions and support for Leon, with the other adults of the cast all happily trusting them.  There is nothing to make them seem suspicious in practice and they offer no reason to doubt them at all, so them suddenly being the bad guys is just confusing.  Further, how the player is first introduced to the concept of them being antagonists is easily the most ridiculous logic jump and overreaction I’ve seen since the old Adam West Batman television show.  So get this: after a battle, Leon says he’ll meet Player and Hop for dinner to celebrate.  Player and Hop wait for Leon, but he never shows up.  Another NPC explains that Leon was called in for a last-minute meeting by Chairman Rose (who is his boss and has made such requests of Leon’s time throughout the game, as I feel is important to point out) and apologizes for having to miss the dinner plans.  Simple enough sort of situation, right?  The sort of thing that any reasonable person would shrug and say “Well, that sucks but okay, let’s go eat on our own then” to, right?  So what happens here instead?

The Player, Hop, Marnie, and her Gym Leader brother GATHER A SMALL MOB AND STORM CHAIRMAN ROSE’S BUSINESS HQ, FIGHTING THEIR WAY THROUGH SECURITY.

I mean, escalation much?  We all have smartphones - just send Leon a text, for goodness’ sake.  I’m playing through these events constantly going “why the hell are we doing this and why is everyone acting like it’s some sort of dire emergency?”.  And do you know what happens when we finally kick down the doors to Chairman Rose’s office?  We find Chairman Rose and Leon quietly having a peaceful chat, after which Leon apologizes for having to cancel the dinner plans and we all walk out together like nothing happened.  It was just this huge, needless overreaction that has no consequence and that neither Rose nor Leon even bat an eye at.  We, as the players, learn absolutely nothing of importance and are back on the Gym Challenge immediately with no functional changes to the narrative.

Like... what was the point of that?!  How was that the best option to try and put Chairman Rose and his underlings into the role of antagonists for us to oppose?

So what is Chairman Rose’s EVIL SCHEME anyway?  Basically he wants to provide Galar with renewable clean energy which... uh... is bad?  Somehow?  Apparently he plans to use a Legendary Pokemon called Eternatus - apparently the source of Dynamaxing - which is literally never mentioned at any point in the game except precisely when it’s time to fight/capture it, nor does fighting/capturing it have any impact on the story or setting.  You would think that the player being in control of a massive Eldritch horror that has UNLIMITED POWER at its disposal would be something of a sticking point somewhere in the story, but no.  Eternatus and Rose’s plan are never mentioned until precisely the time you need to deal with them, and once that’s done they’re both never mentioned again.  Done and done all in one.  No gradual seeding of information, no hints and clues throughout the game, no development of lore - just wham, bam, thank you ma’am and off we go.

Y’know, call me silly but in a game that has undertones referencing climate change, extinction of animal species, and criticisms against capitalism run amok, is it really a good idea to depict the guy advocating for clean energy to be bad?  That feels like a missed mark to me.

The post-game plot, should one bother to call it that, is just inane.  It basically boils down to a pair of one-shot baddies who show up and say “Ha ha! We’re rich and that means we’re better than everyone! Watch as we cause trouble for vague reasons, get hoist by our own petard, and then fuck off forever! Byeeeee~!”  The post-game is completely pointless and doesn’t add anything of value at all.  Which, again, compare to older games like ORAS’ post-game expansion content and it’s nothing but a damn shame.

SwSh’s writing is shallow and limited at best, with one-dimensional characters, no genuine conflict or resolution, terrible pacing, and repetitive elements that boomerang around over and over and over again to the point of annoyance.  Compared to what we’ve seen Pokemon achieve in earlier titles like BW, ORAS, and SuMo, it makes it all the more obvious that SwSh was not given ANYWHERE near the time and love it needed in development and is a massive downgrade in that respect.

Con - Lots of Style, No Substance To wrap all this up - I enjoyed playing SwSh as much as I did any other early Pokemon game.  I think that, as a first installment on a new system, it’s fine.  That’s all - it’s just fine.  It’s serviceable as a means of establishing the franchise onto the Switch and completing its move off purely-mobile mediums like the Gameboy and 3DS.  It’s pretty to look at and has a superficial level of engagement, but its prettiness and level of content very quickly reveal themselves to be only skin deep.  Once you get past the initial gloss there’s really nothing to this game compared to the content, involvement, and writing quality displayed in past titles on lesser-powered systems.  The towns are all pretty but there’s nothing to do in any of them aside from a Gym battle - there’s no additional fun to be had in each location, making them little more than set pieces.  The characters have initial appeal and potential for more, but the game never explores them at all.  There’s room for a bigger narrative and interesting story with the elements presented, but no opportunity to actually see them fleshed out.  The Wild Area seems big and involved at first, but as soon as you’ve gone around its loop once or twice you suddenly realize how small and compartmentalized it really is, and it lacks any reason to revisit in the end game.  The major game play function - Dynamaxing/Gigantamaxing - is little more than a novelty that is basically irrelevant to gameplay itself and, in an absolutely baffling decision by the folk behind the official competitive scene, is actually somehow banned from being used in competitions?  Like, not even “we’ve disabled the Dynamax button in online” but rather “if the competitive Pokemon you’ve spent so much time perfectly constructing has a Gigantamax form, it will not even be allowed access at all, so you better have an identical non-Gigantamax version on hand if you want to play”.  So, what exactly is the point of even having Gigantamax Pokemon then?

Everything about SwSh seems half-baked.  The ideas are there but they aren’t finished.  It should have been given much more development time and, having been in the position of the creative/dev team under demands from the shareholders, I completely sympathize with Game Freak’s devs in all this.  SwSh is ultimately a weak product but one with a lot of good ideas that weren’t given the chance to really shine.  As such, I’ve got rather high hopes for the next installment to improve on the unfortunately thin foundation SwSh has set.  Game Freak’s team has given us some amazing Pokemon games in the past and, assuming they’re given sufficient time and resources to make a title to their satisfaction, I have every confidence they’ll do so again.

[shions-heart]

@distinct-dottiness​ for some reason your reply isn’t showing up in my activity ;;; so forgive the screenshot

this will be after Hikari Are! I can only work on 2 fics at a time without one being completely neglected (I’ve found) so i’ll be working on Hikari Are and Finding North and then this, probably. maybe. idk cuz I also want to write the The Awakening sequel so ;;; WE’LL SEE

but yes, I went back to reread my previous posts on the AU too cuz I forgot, and a lot of things are the same! but a lot of things are different, too.

for instance, i’m borrowing heavily from Firefly and Dark Matter with this (two space pirates shows I highly recommend). where aliens attack Earth (like in the original idea) but Earth’s big corporations make a deal with the aliens to split Earth and its off-world colonies between them to live in peace. so everything is controlled by the Galactic Authority which is made up by super rich and powerful Earth CEOs and the aliens, basically. And the CEOs own the military.

Iwaizumi, Oikawa, Matsukawa, and Hanamaki all fought in the war together, but afterwards they didn’t want to be indebted to corrupt CEOs who would sell out their people to win a war, so they go rogue and become space pirates, stealing from the corporations to give to the colonies. Yahaba and Watari are hired by Oikawa to be the ship’s doctor and the ship’s navigator/back up pilot respectively. Kyoutani is one of the alien race that was rejected by his village by having sympathetic leanings toward humans, so Oikawa gets him on board too. Kunimi and Kindaichi are young cadets from Oikawa et al’s flight academy who got stranded in a poor colony after the war. Kunimi became a registered companion (much to Kindaichi’s chagrin) to help pay for food and clothes, and Oikawa hires them to get them out of that life.

Matsukawa and Hanamaki are actually married, and Iwaizumi and Oikawa are mutually pining.

Kuroo buys passage to a far-off colony, posing as a medical student, but they find out that he’s smuggled Kenma onboard, who is the heir apparent of the cat-like Nekoma clan on a planet that was taken over by the aliens before they came to Earth. Kenma has a bounty on his head and has been living in hiding since before the war. Kuroo is trying to get him to this far-off colony where the remnants of their clan have escaped. Oikawa agrees to take them, provided they help in their piracy.

Ushijima and the crew of the Shiratorizawa also fought in the war, but they stayed on in the military after the peace treaty. Ushijima kept them alive during one of the worst battles of the war, so they’re all extremely loyal to him, owing him their lives, basically. They’re given the task by the Galactic Authority to hunt down the rogue Aoba Johsai and bring them to justice.

So the main storyline is a great game of cat and mouse between Oikawa and his crew and Ushijima and his crew, with the kuroken drama thrown in to make things more complicated. 

Gotta have my poly group so:

Ushijima and Tendou are together and have disclosed as such to the military HR. Tendou also has feelings for Semi that date back to before the war. He’s confessed them, but although Semi returns the feelings, he is reluctant to “take away” his captain’s boyfriend, despite Tendou insisting Ushijima would be fine with it. To Semi, it still feels disrespectful to the man who saved his life.

Shirabu and Goshiki are newly together, which Semi thinks is inappropriate, considering Shirabu outranks Goshiki, but the two don’t seem to care. Semi has feelings for Shirabu as well, but hasn’t revealed them, as he outranks Shirabu and doesn’t think it’d be appropriate, something that annoys Shirabu, because he returns the feelings.

Semi is greatly sexually frustrated as a result and has hooked up with Yamagata a few times, and has a sort of queerplatonic relationship with Leon, who gently encourages him to let go of his anxieties concerning the matter and just be with Tendou and Shirabu. Kawanishi, who is Head of Security, watches all this drama unfold via the security camera and judges them.

[noro124]

sorry about all the swsh posts in a row, i just like looking at pictures of raihan. 

under the cut i’m just ranting for a while about how i wish leon had more character so feel free to skip that

i keep going in the swsh tag because i’m looking specifically for content of leon being upset. this sounds kinda fucked up at first glance, but it’s because the personality he shows everyone is so one-dimensional!! because he’s gotta be cool & fun & supportive & competitive (but not too competitive) for TV. (because gamefreak made him that way :/ ) & when he loses to you!! you get to see a TINY little bit of him being sad & upset before he masks it all again for tv. 

like his pose when he loses to you? i'm not good at reading body language, but i know a sad bitch when i see one. in the championships, you can DEFINITELY 100% see he is sad before he forces himself to smile for you. (not shown in the images bc i don’t feel like making a gif: he is shaking). & i mean i understand that! losing for the first time in 10 years! it’s understandable that he would be upset. but at the same time.....

dude i think i just want to see like. character development. more character. now here’s a bunch of pictures of leon

smug as hell. wrong too.

^this smile? fake

also whenever you see him in the battle tower, he never smiles at you. he only smiles at his charizard lol

he’s always >:-| face when it comes to you. he’s not happy to see you, he just wants to defeat you to get his peace of mind back.

& when he loses again,

this man is about to cry bc he got his ass kicked by a 14 year old again. & it’s hard to see it in the vid bc it’s covered by text, but his fist is clenched & he’s shaking again. like he’s MAD mad.

& even afterwards, he doesn’t smile at you. he never smiles at you after you defeat him because he’s so focused on kicking your ass but he can’t lol. “we managed to make it one brilliant match!” he can’t even say “a champion time!” anymore. from his updated league card, 

Leon's biggest problem now is apparently coming up with a new signature catchphrase to replace "Let's have a champion time!"

“one brilliant match” bro.... :’)....& even then, “one brilliant match!” exclamation point. positive words. your body language says otherwise, leon. i know they’ve given him an “excited” animation bc i’ve seen it before!! this aint it

arthur meme

saw these comments on the video i screenshotted too. :-) like are you okay leon? do you need to talk to someone? like other people are paying attention to this shit too so i’m not just obsessing about this with no foundation. 

gamefreak i just want to see his real personality please!!!! not the one he put on for tv. & i know that we never will as long as we’re playing from the perspective of a 14 year old because leon is an adult & will not talk about his feelings to the kid that made him upset. he probably talks to sonia or someone else & that’s not an interaction we’ll get to see because this isn’t that type of game! it’s pokemon for kids not Adults Talk About Their Feelings The Game. 

also, nobody’s (aka i have not seen a single post about) acknowledging the fact that leon took an explosion to the entire face. he told his beloved pokemon to save his younger brother & his bro’s best friend & then the pokeball exploded. & later hop was like “oh yeah he got knocked out & was in the hospital for 3 days but he’s fine now” 

like this cutscene was really good & got me to care about leon. why would they make me see this & then barely do anything else with him if not to torment me?

this man is dead.

AND THIS SHOT WAS SO DRAMATIC!!! like i loved it. if they were capable of doing things that invoke strong emotions the whole time, then why did they not.

can i please see this content. leon could have fucking died can i please see it 

so tl;dr i’m looking for this specific content bc i feel unfulfilled by the crumbs laid out in the game. do i care way too much about this? yes, but it’ll go away in a couple days! it’s just topical to me rn since i watched my roommate beat the game yesterday! i know there’s more to leon’s personality than

thanks 4 reading

[1wngdngl]

Pokemon Shield playthrough

I’ve been playing this game a lot since last night, and I still haven’t gotten on the train yet ;) I like to take games slowly to make sure I notice and experience everything along the way. It looks like the best way to share my game progress is through screenshots, so that’s what I’ll do. Cut for length and spoilers - I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers and leaks for the past couple weeks, so if you want to be able to experience the games fresh yourself, now might be a good time to click away. [This post covers up thru getting the Dynamax band]

I went ahead with the “standard” female character, but you can bet I’ll be customizing her as soon as I can. What’s with that knock-kneed stance, anyway? Pokemon trainers should stand strong and confident!

Chairman Rose greets us. Everyone online was guessing he’ll turn out to be evil or something. He certainly looks suspicious, doesn’t he?

And here comes the first surprise of the LP - a brand-new Pokemon, not even seen in trailers! (except for that fuzzy 1-frame image from a while back.) Its trunk looks kinda like a soup ladle. Maybe it’s a play on a teacup/teapot elephant? I wonder if it evolves...

Here’s Leon fighting an unknown trainer - maybe a Gym leader?

I really like the art style of the map - it’s so whimsical :)

The map also shows current weather for all locations. Look at all the different stuff going on in the Wild Area at the same time! I’ve been to the real England, and I don’t remember it having such extreme weather...

The map also has a few useful features, like displaying your next objective, and showing the facilities in a town (but only once you’ve been there yourself). The towns and such all have really interesting names that emulate that old English sound.

First thing I do when I gain control in a new Pokemon game? Change the battle style to “Set”. It seems more fair, plus it helps make the game just a bit more challenging.

I’m a little sad that the old option to change menu/text box borders seems to be forever abandoned, though... >.>

My house. It’s a pretty decent-sized place. We have a pet Munchlax and a few Budew outside. My character practices her whistling.

My mom. Or “mum” as the game calls her. The dialog is noticeably slanted toward a more British dialect - I wonder how they handled the accent in other languages?

Speaking of my mom, she seems rather big compared to me, doesn’t she? Quite a bit taller. I’m guessing my character is around 12 - when I was that age, I was the same height as my mom and done growing. Maybe they think people won’t believe this character is the mom’s child if she’s too tall?

Also, my dream is to one day have a /dad/ in a Pokemon game. Seriously, why does every other house I visit have a husband and wife, and my character is always stuck being the only child of a single parent? What if in one of these games, my dad was the champion or the evil team leader - how fun would that be?

My bedroom. The pink clock on the wall reminds me of one from a previous Pokemon game - was it ORAS that had those round clocks on the wall that you could set?

My first step on my journey. Looks like my mom spends every minute gardening - I guess the Budew help her?

Ah yes, every Pokemon game needs a “power of science” guy :)

Here’s another surprise - how many Pokemon games give you a fishing rod right at the start?! Usually you have to track down three different fisherman to get the three versions of the fishing rod. I’m also happy to see that Pokeballs have their own pocket again :)

The handy map tells us where to go next, with even a little picture of our destination.

The champion of Galar, of course, has a huge house.

Wow, a Purrloin! I forgot that they stood on two legs. I like its little bed.

Also, Leon’s family decorate their house mainly in trophies.

I guess this is Hop’s room - I like his artwork. I know Leon has a Charizard - does he have these other two Pokemon too, and that’s why Hop has posters of them?

Leon’s room is mostly a shrine to hats.

Speaking of Leon, he really knows how to play to the crowd ;)

So, some people are wondering if /Leon/ will turn out to be evil in the story. I didn’t really get that vibe from him. He seems like a genuinely nice guy, but he does seem like he has some worries on his mind, like his cheer is sometimes forced?

Maybe he actually hates the limelight and gets uncomfortable with attention? Maybe he’s secretly terminally ill? Maybe there’s some massive threat about to attack the Galar region? He seems really concerned with making sure that Galar has lots of strong trainers. Maybe he knows something about the legendaries?

Alternately, some people were saying that maybe Leon isn’t actually a great champion, and his fights are rigged in his favor by the chairman. /If/ that were the case, I bet that Leon is actually unhappy with that situation and wants to make the tournament more fair.

Or maybe everything in the game is exactly as it seems ;)

Nothing important here, I just like this screenshot. I wonder if Fletchling are native to Galar too?

My first Pokemon! (in this game, at least...) I picked Sobble because he’s the most endearing.

My first battle! I like how the interface is laid out, and how detailed the background is beyond the fighters - you can even see Leon standing there.

My Pokemon's details. I don’t play competitively so I don’t know if it’s a particular “good” Sobble. It seems like this species is a fast special-attacker, so I’ll have to keep that in mind.

The Slumbering Weald (my spellchecker doesn’t even recognize that word :) ) It’s very spooky and seclusive - and it’s right next to the starter town too! You’d think if it was really that dangerous, people would put up more than a flimsy wooden gate to keep trespassers out...Hop, of course, is an idiot and runs right into it; and I, the spineless protagonist, have no option to say no. >.>

My first wild encounter! This starts the trend I noticed all during the opening hours of this game - most of the wild Pokemon are brand-new, totally-unrevealed species. Like this squirrel thing. (Although some people guessed we would get a new squirrel based on that shirt design). I wonder if it evolves?

This part was actually pretty scary, with the Pokemon (I can’t remember its name...) suddenly appearing out of the fog. The Pokemon acted almost like a hologram in battle though - my attacks couldn’t touch it.

What if the twist is that the legendary wolf Pokemon are just illusions, perhaps even man-made ones created to keep intruders from discovering some secret in the forest?

Anyway, we escape from the situation perfectly fine, because of course we do ;)

I noticed that this particular generation gives you quite of a bit of money at the start, but I guess that’s because you encounter the first boutique so early. There’s a fair number of affordable options too. Some of these Pokemon shirts I wish were /real/ shirts.

My new look :) Mostly I just ditched the dress for jeans. This looks like a comfortable outfit, although that knapsack is a bit unwieldy.

We visit the professor’s lab. She has a lot of books, plants, and a tea set. I wonder if she ever has problems with Polteageist?

The new Pokemon center design. I love that the move deleter/relearner and nickname functions are all in one place - I always hated flying around the map trying to remember where they were.

That Pokemon behind the counter is another totally new one. Could this be a Galarian Audino?

Using mystery gift, I was able to get this “Gigantamax” Meowth. However, due to my rule of only using Gen 8 Pokemon, it’s just gonna chill out in the box >.>

Leon is very generous with Pokeballs. Even the items you find on the ground are generous, often containing 2 or 3 “copies” of an item when you check it out. Is that a new thing for Pokemon?

Here I battle my first trainer that isn’t named Hop. He has that squirrel shirt and is a total pushover.

Just chilling by the professor’s house. It looks like maybe you can only fish in fishing spots (those darker circles on the water), but at least you get your fishing pole right away.

Also, I discovered that while I could not sit on beds or chairs inside, I am able to sit on this bench :)

The way the Pokemon mill about in the tall grass is very interesting. Some will try to avoid you, others like this Yamper will chase after you. It makes the routes feel a lot more populated.

I guess this is Sonia’s room. It’s very pink. I wonder if she even /wants/ to do Pokemon research, or if she’d rather be a fashion designer or something.

The in-game time of day doesn’t seem to match up with the Switch system clock, at least not from what I’ve seen so far. For example, suddenly it is sunset and I catch a falling star. (look how the reflection in the water changes :) )

I haven’t decided yet if I want to buy the Switch online service, but in the meantime I decided to at least pick my profile picture. The icons you can choose from actually reveal quite a lot about the trainer classes and gyms that are in the game. For the first time ever, we have a Dark-type gym! Their logo is a sideways version of Team Yell’s logo - does that mean that Team Yell or Marnie is the Dark gym leader?

I spent a while catching Pokemon around the professor’s house. I can’t tell if I got every possible species without looking online, but I did build up a good roster.

I found it really cool how many new, surprising Pokemon showed up this early in the game. There’s the fox one (which is a Dark type and reminds me of Zoroark), the turtle one (which has got to be a pre-evolution of Dreadnaw, probably the 1st of 3 stages), the bird one (based on the “Rook” in its name and the fact that it learns Dark-type moves early, I’m guessing it’s a pre-evolution of Corviknight), and the bug one (can’t wait to see what its final stage looks like).

I went through the party to find the best Pokemon that fit my self-imposed rules (only new, Gen 8 Pokemon, no overlap of types). I know that this means I won’t be able to use Galarian forms or Gigantamaxes of old Pokemon, but just because I’m not using them in my main playthrough doesn’t mean I can’t catch them :)

Next time: I step onto the train and leave my home behind.

[sleemo]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Deleted Scenes: Everything We Know

— Slashfilm | Dec 20, 2017

The first cut of Star Wars: The Last Jedi was three hours and ten minutes long and writer director Rian Johnson has said they are preparing to release 20 minutes of deleted scenes on the future Blu-ray/DVD release. We have the exclusive details on a number of deleted scenes and reshoots from the latest Star Wars movie.

Read on to see what we’ve learned we’ve learned about the Star Wars: The Last Jedi deleted scenes.

Luke Skywalker’s Last Lesson To Rey

One of the biggest deleted scenes involves another lesson Luke Skywalker gives to Rey, taking place chronologically after they talk inside the cave where Luke mentions Darth Sidious. Rey notices boats arriving at the island and there appears to be a big fire from where they’re landing. Luke tells her that it is a group of bandits who regularly come back to the island to plunder and kill the caretakers. Rey is very concerned and wants to help them, but Luke tells her that if you help them now, the raiders will come back stronger and it will make things worse in the future. He asks Rey if she is always going to be here to protect them, saying that a true Jedi Knight would do nothing and would only act to maintain balance, even when people get hurt.

Rey, furious at his reasoning, ignites her lightsaber and runs really fast, a Force-powered run that we glimpsed in one of the featurettes about the making of the film (see the screenshot at the top of this article). She runs over rocks on shallow water and bursts through a door with her saber into the village square ready for battle. Luke yells for her to wait, but she doesn’t stop.

She is surprised to learn that it’s not a raiding party, but an actual party, with caretakers celebrating and swinging glow sticks. This piece of concept art from The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi shows what the scene looks like. The caretakers all stop and look at Rey, confused. One of the caretaker motions her her glow stick and Rey swings her lightsaber, imitating her movements, and sighs. The caretakers resume partying. Rey spots Chewbacca sitting at the party with a bunch of Porgs and R2-D2 (wearing a festive necklace). “Seriously?” Rey says to Chewie before storming out to find Luke.

Rey is mad that Luke lied to her and she confronts him. He admits that he’s sorry, but that she ran so fast and he couldn’t stop her. Rey says that she thought they were in danger and tried to do something. Luke responds, seriously this time, that that’s exactly what the resistance needs – not some old husk of a failed religion. He was again trying to teach her a lesson. Rey cries, explaining that her real friends are really dying and “that old legend of Luke Skywalker that you hate so much, I believed in it.” Luke is in shock. He realizes that he pushed her too far. Rey tells him she was wrong about believing in him and storms away.

The scene gave a further motive for Rey to want to leave the island. The caretaker party joke apparently wasn’t very funny, but the real reason the scene apparently didn’t make the final cut is that Luke ended up coming off like an even bigger asshole. Even though the basic details were approved by the Lucasfilm Story Group, it somehow didn’t feel authentic to the Jedi “code”.

Canto Bight Changes

Canto Bight had a lot of little bits cut out and some of the story was changed with reshoots, but it’s not like a substantial set piece hit the cutting room floor. Here are some examples of post-production changes to the Canto Bight sequence:

• We originally saw more creatures leaving their vehicles with valets. Creature design head Neil Scanlan told us they created upwards of 85 practical creatures for that sequence, but that we might not see them all, and some of these creatures fell victim to this cut. There were a lot of creature extras that didn’t make the film, but don’t worry – they may have been reused for Solo: A Star Wars Story.

• Originally, the film spent some more time clarifying the dynamic between Rey and Finn, and further setting up Rose’s crush on the Resistance “hero.” Rose chastises Finn for “pining for Rey,” which Finn quickly denies, claiming that he was “raised to fight” and that he finally found something to fight for in his friend, Rey. “Whatever,” responds Rose with a hint of jealousy.

• The scene where Finn looks out over the Canto Bight racetrack while Rose recounts her childhood was reshot to include the broom kid from the ending of the movie, establishing him on the field with his alien owner. In the original scene, Rose’s story of her childhood was a bit tamer and Finn shared his backstory with her, revealing a further connection between the two characters – that they both had family members taken by the First Order. Most of the sequence was reshot.

• The chase scene through the casino on the fathiers was a lot longer, including a funny sequence where they crash through a bathhouse and disrupt a practically created alien creature, who is swept up into the air and loses his bath towel. 

• While they never shot the sequence this way, the original costume tests for Finn and Rose in the sequence had them sneaking in using lavish tux and dress costumes as disguises. They decided to do away with the disguise, as they already had another moment in the film where the duo go undercover on a First Order ship.

Snoke’s Ship

On the First Order ship, there was an extra shot of Finn arranging their First Order uniform disguises on an elevator before they walk out with BB-8 in the trash can. Finn tries to flatten Rose’s hair, but it keeps curling up. A First Order officer follows them and they quickly head to another elevator. They frantically push the button to close the door, which takes forever and they nearly got caught.

Actor Tom Hardy originally had a cameo as a First Order stormtrooper in this sequence. A group of stormtroopers get in the elevator and our heroes are nervous they are going to get caught. One of the stormtroopers slowly turns to Finn and gives him a look. Finn turns around in his Imperial officer uniform and asks him what his problem is. The stormtrooper, played by Hardy with a southern accent, says “I know who you are…. FN 2187! Damn boy, I never took you for officer material!” The tension is cut by the reveal that the two grew up together, but the troopers are somehow unaware of FN’s treason. While Finn’s act of desertion is a legend in the Resistance, maybe the First Order hid that information from their army so others might not get the same idea. (This scene could be where Prince William and Prince Harry shot their cameos as stormtroopers, but we were unable to confirm.)

Later in that same sequence, after it is revealed that Benicio Del Toro’s DJ has sold out Finn and Rose, there was originally a funny exchange where Rose yells “How could you?!” To which DJ rolls his eyes and scoffs “I’m sorry I turned out to be exactly what I said I was.”

Phasma’s Lost Badass “Sergio Leone” Moment

Phasma originally had another badass moment. The scene took place chronologically after she battled Finn on Snoke’s ship, right after he smashes the hole in her helmet. A group of stormtroopers corner Finn and he tries to get them on his side, saying that they can join him and escape Phasma’s grasp, just like he has. Finn says that she’s really a coward who sold out the codes to Starkiller Base. He pleads with the First Order squad to escape with him. The stormtroopers all look at each other…and in a moment borrowed from a Sergio Leone western, Phasma pulls out her blaster and guns down all six or seven stormtroopers herself before they have any time to react. It felt like a tribute to a classic western shootout, but for whatever reason, it didn’t feel right in that moment of the movie.

Admiral Holdo Reshoots

Other reshoots involved Laura Dern’s character Admiral Holdo, who was originally way more condescending to Poe, calling him “honey” and “flyboy.” Her character and story arc remain the same, but they made her character a little bit less abrasive so that audiences could come around to her character later in the film. If you watch some of the over-the-shoulder shots of her in the film, you can clearly see that her lips are not moving to her ADR’d dialogue.

Another Moment Between Poe and Finn

When we talked to editor Bob Ducsay about the deleted scenes, he told us about a few other moments that got axed (and elaborated on the caretaker scene mentioned above):

“There’s a scene where Poe first meets up with Finn after he’s sort of recovered.  And this, it goes right before Leia slaps Poe.  After they come out of hyperspace.  And it’s really just a buddy scene.  And he basically is bringing him up to speed.  And it’s a really, really good character scene.  And the only reason it’s not in the movie is just because of time.  I really love that scene.  But it’s the sort of thing you can just put in, you go ah that’s good.  But there’s nothing we took out of the movie that shouldn’t be taken out of the movie.  Because the thing is ultimately you put this thing together and it’s the screenplay of the movie and then you go yeah, okay, so now we’re on this new stage, which is now we have to tell the best story, which isn’t everything that’s in the screenplay or everything that was thought of.  There’s another sequence, it’s basically like the third lesson where Rey has a big scene with the Caretakers, which are those sort of Nun like fish characters, the people who take care of the island.  And that’s a very elaborate, involved scene.  And it’s very funny and it’s very good.  And we cut it, I mean, it had actually progressed quite a bit.  And it’s very, very good.”

“There’s one scene that we had to move.  It’s a kind of a small scene.  But it’s a scene with Poe in the hallway.  And he’s talking to Finn.  And if we were able to move the scene from here to here, it made it better.  But where the scene actually took place was in a different, was in a place it couldn’t take place to be in that spot.  Because Poe wasn’t on the bridge yet.  And we wanted it to be earlier, right?  And so we mocked it up and we did it.  And what we did was we reshot that moment. It’s a tiny, tiny moment.  It’s not the sort of thing you’d ever think, why would you reshoot that?  Literally the only reason we reshot it is because we moved it.  And it now had to take place in a different place.  And he’s walking down a hallway and he’s talking to Finn on the communicator.  And that’s an example of the sort of thing that happens in post-production on films like this.  If you’re able to do such things.  Because obviously on a smaller film you can’t afford to do that, because you just live with the structural problem.  Anyway, it’s fascinating because it’s really wonderful the things that you can do in post.  Like that.  And it made the movie better because we did it.  It made a, it’s all, like if you were to take this chunk of the movie and all we did was remove this one thing, take this chunk of the movie, it’s exactly the same length as it was before.  Except it feels faster.  And it’s just because the scene is in the right place now.”

— Slashfilm 

[epicspheal]

Leon needs a Vacation

[Image Description: A screenshot of Leon and Hop’s kitchen in the post game. The player character is speaking to the mom who says “You know, the last time Leon came round, he actually took his time to enjoy a meal with us...”]

So Leon, (prior to being dethroned) was always rushing his visits going home. First of all it’s sweet that he actually got a chance to relax for a bit. The man deserves. The question remains: was his rushed habits the results of his own personality or if Rose had anything to do with it? My take on it is that it’s a bit of both.

Both in the main game and the post-game we see evidence that Leon is a bit of workaholic. You rarely see him off the clock in the main game as he is typically dealing with the Dynamaxed Pokemon all on his own until Eternatus knocks him out. Which I mean makes sense, that’s his job as champion. But when he gets dethroned, he pretty much buries himself in taking over Macro Cosmos and building the battle tower. I mean considering how long of a successful reign he had as champion, not to mention the multitude of sponsors...it’s safe to assume Leon is loaded. He could have easily taken a well deserved vacation to destress and cope with the loss of his image and title. But nope, he dives right in to even more work.  So Leon’s extended absences from his family can reasonably be attributed to his own workaholic tendencies (that he likely got from having to help raise Hop and possibly financial help to the entire family as champion). But, I mentioned Rose here for a reason... Rose as we know is an extremely impatient man. An extremely impatient man who chaired one of the busiest and largest (once you factor the minor gym leaders) Leagues in the Pokemon world as well owning a business conglomerate. So naturally, Rose would have a lot on his plate, and a beloved champion like Leon would definitely make for a good way to seal business deals for more sponsors, promoting the league and promoting non-league business operations. For me, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where Rose would basically be insistent that Leon helps out with some business deal ASAP, even if it meant cutting short a visit home. After all Rose did say “ if something needs to get done, there’s no time like the present, after all! “ (Quote from Hulbury at the Captain’s Table).  Leon would of course, oblige likely not wanting to disappoint the chairman or hear Oleana’s wrath (because she would likely remind him that Rose was the one to give him that first sponsorship- that he wouldn’t be where he was without Rose). So tl;dr- Leon is a workaholic, Rose was probably one of those bosses that overworked his employees due to his own impatience, and Leon needs to take a vacation. 

[epicspheal]

Let Sonia Battle Please!!

[Image Description: Picture of SwSh post game in the Hammerlocke PowerPlant with Sordward and Shieldbert and their followers. Sonia is telling the player “I can’t really battle, but I’ll support you however I can!]

So in the post-game of Pokemon Sword and Shield if you talk to Sonia before battling one of the royal weirdos in the Power Plant you’ll get the above quote from her saying how she can’t really battle. As soon as I saw that, I immediately thought back to Opal’s notes on Sonia.

[Image Description: Screenshot of Opal’s notes on Sonia. It reads: “Sonia: Fail. Number of correct answers: 3! You have talent, that’s for sure, but yougive up a litlte bit too quickly. Then again, I imagine it’s not easy being the granddaughter of Magnolia. ]

You know...Opal says Sonia has talent (which we can assume we mean battle-wise). As I’ve said in other posts, Opal’s been shown to be a very astute person as far as ascertaining aspects of another character. According to her notes, it’s not like she’s unskilled at battling, just that she gives up too quickly. Now mind you, Opal has held a gym leader position for 70 years. Not only that it seems like she stayed in the Major Leagues the entire time (this is compared to Kabu who we know has dropped down to the minor leagues on occasion). We don’t know what rank Opal held when Sonia and Leon went on their challenge, but it’s reasonable to assume given her long history she probably wasn’t one of the first 2 or 3 gyms. So Sonia is definitely not lacking in the battle skills department, if Opal of all people thinks so. So why have Sonia say that she “can’t really battle”? I mean, one can make the argument that she could still be comparing herself to the superstar trainers around her (Leon, the player, Piers and Hop). But I feel like she could’ve taken on one of the royal twin’s followers and held her own. To me at least, there is a difference from being not good at battling and being outclassed by once-in-a-generation levels of talent. Judging from what we see, Sonia is the latter (being outclassed by Leon and then the player by proxy), yet it seems like the game treats her as if she can’t battle period. It’d be one thing if she had stated she had dropped out after getting only 1 badge, then yeah I could buy her not being good at battling. But again, I doubt Opal ever sunk that low in the rankings (Opal, like Kabu seemed to be another major roadblock for the gym challenge). So Gamefreak, can we like have NPCs have decent character development like Sonia had in the main game (you know where she works on the whole giving-up-to-easily flaw by committing to learning about Galar’s history thus earning the professorship from Magnolia) and let them still be decent battlers (particularly when part of their backstory is about them taking on a freaking gym challenge)?