#Fi just doesn’t have the stats on how awesome they are yet

[zolanort]

Oh youth, guided by the servant of the goddess: unite earth and sky, bring light to the land…

Skyward Sword: Saxophone AU on Ao3

@cutebutalsostabby

[tsskyx]

Unmeta

You know what’s ridiculous? This post was originally supposed to be an essay, an entire thesis backed with unshakable logic that I wanted to become my magnum opus. But as it turns out, I’m pretty terrible at doing that sort of thing. The first day I’m full of enthusiasm, while the next day I reread what I wrote and I delete it all again. It’s terrible.

For this reason, I’ve decided to just start with the opinion part. Instead of laying out the facts and easing the reader into it, I’ll just blurt everything out in one go. Instead of neatly organizing everything, I’ll write my thoughts as they come to me.

(Update for 2/Oct/2021: I no longer remember when I made the first draft of this post. Maybe it was in 2018, maybe even as early as 2017. Who knows. This post existed in my drafts since forever. It is time to finally publish it. It contains very little information, very little evidence for anything or logic or facts, it’s just a one big opinion piece that I began writing years ago out of frustration. Frustration not aimed at the game itself, nor at Toby or anyone else, but at my inability to decouple the “meta” from Undertale and thus causing me to disassociate from the characters that I loved, when I didn’t plan to do so. All I ever wanted is to make sense of the Undertale world, instead of giving its inhabitants a meta-existential dread. In a nutshell, for the Undertale world to be self-contained, the 4th wall must stay intact, and the mechanics of the UT world mustn’t resemble a video game. That’s basically the gist of this post. Proceed with reading.)

You know Undertale meta? All the 4th wall breaking stuff and whatnot? The stuff that makes the game so awesome?

What about it you say?

It’s not real. I don’t think it is. It cannot be.

Tell me, has Undertale personally impacted you? Was it more than just a game to you? I know for a fact that for many people, it was much more than that. So tell me, is it fine by you that despite presenting itself in this way to us, it still sort of cops out of this at the very end? (By which I mean, when we learn that we aren’t Frisk. That we’re just someone controlling them.)

Some say that this cop-out, this act of “disassociation”, is necessary for our psychological journey to end. And I agree. We cannot dwell on this forever, else we lose our minds. But what I meant is something much more... materialistic.

Let’s take Oneshot, a game that’s arguably even more meta than Undertale. Oneshot embraces the 4th wall. It labels us a god. It portrays the game itself as an in-game machine. And yet, it feels real. Despite all this ridiculousness, the story feels real and possible. Kind of like The Matrix. Perhaps think of everyone in Oneshot except for the main character as a Matrix program, while Niko is the only user hooked up to it. It still feels real, because Niko is real, because there exists a real world they can to return to.

But Undertale floats somewhere between being real and being a fairy tale, a mere bedtime story. The reason is its lax handling of the 4th wall. Say, if Undertale were to be considered a “real” possibility, as in, entirely fictional, but still believable, kinda like The Matrix, kinda like any science fiction, or just fiction in general, what would it be like?

I’ll tell you, everything would have to be real, everything would have to look exactly how we see it. There’d need to be turns, there’d need to be save files, there’d need to be so many bizarre things, it probably wouldn’t take long before the NPCs themselves realized their own nonexistence, probably around the time they developed computers and video games. It’d be so similar, they’d have to be either stupid or under some kind of spell to not realize that their entire world is just one giant video game. Especially Flowey. Some say that he has already realized this, as his dialogue hints towards this. Which puts a super unfortunate spin on his condition. Furthermore, the entire game could be described through its Game Maker code. No need for laws of physics, just observe the if-else statements!

It would also mean that Frisk is controlled by a third unknown entity. If we were to take everything we do to Frisk at face value, it must all be them. Except... after a true reset, everything gets reset, even things about Frisk, such as them expecting the whoopee cushion prank. So... Frisk isn’t in control. But Chara isn’t either. Take for example the final fight against Asriel. Chara appeared pretty enthusiastic during it. What if someone were to reset the timeline during the fight? Either it wasn’t them who did so, or they were just pretending to be entertained, or perhaps they aren’t the narrator in the first place even.

No matter what, there will always be an instance where Frisk forgets, and where Chara doesn’t do something when they could have. Once you mess with the game enough, their personalities stop making sense.

This gradual breakdown of the narrative as I keep attacking the logic of it from every direction imaginable is a symptom of something far bigger. The fact that unlike The Matrix or Oneshot, there is no “real world” in this game. The virtual part of it is what the game is trying to make us focus on. It’s all there is. There is not even a hint of “another” world in the game, a world that wouldn’t be governed by these terrible rules. And even if there was one, even if you consider what Sans said to be that world, even if you considered Deltarune to be that world, there is still no guarantee that everything will be okay. What if the characters - your friends, aren’t real in this actual real world, what if they’re all just computer simulations? There’d have to be an entire population hooked up to a virtual reality for everyone to be “safe” as I’m putting it in this hypothetical real world, which sounds not only ridiculous, but like a direct ripoff of The Matrix.

The game has made Frisk the main character. Why, when making Sans the main one, the one who at least has a possibility of coming from a “real” real world, would be far more logical?

Because it lacks logic. Undertale is an experiment. Toby Fox is not a genius. He was just messing around, he didn’t think of literally every tiny little logical detail (contrary to what some individuals would like to think), he just explained enough for most of the story to make sense. But, no matter how you spin it, this fundamental flaw will always be there. The story tries to merge you and the protagonist, before disassociating you from them. Even if you always were disassociated from them, how can the in-game world be real, when other aspects of your reality weren’t disassociated yet? Where’s the disassociation for battles and turns, for save files and time travel, for stats and everything? How can Undertale claim to be complete, when it isn’t? ... Perhaps because it is not claiming to be. It’s an experiment after all. And I don’t mean “incomplete” as in a single update / new game can fix it. I mean the premise itself is already broken from the start. And while there are many fictional worlds which function on a similar level of meta, Undertale is the only one that appears to irk me mad. I don’t know why. Maybe I love the characters. Maybe I love them very much. Maybe I love them so much, that I wanna write a fan fiction about them. And maybe, just maybe, this tiny little issue is making this dream of mine impossible. Undertale is a story conveyed through game mechanics. Choosing any other medium breaks everything down and the author needs to invent their own rules. There’s simply no way around it. Unless someone has the balls to program a fan game of their own, there’s just no way to resolve this without adjusting the canon a little bit, to make it “a little bit more sensible” as some would put it. Just a small nudge, a lil’ nudgie wudgie to the canon mechanics AAAAAND we’re in fanon territory. Excellent, better go all out.

Here’s my head canon, my little “adjustment” of the canon rules. Thanks to it, I can once again think about Undertale as a real world, I no longer need to philosophize over the meta like I did above, I can all put it past me:

Saving, loading, resetting? Regular sci-fi time travel.

The save file? The parameters of the time machine.

LV and EXP? Another set of properties of the machine, though it could be properties of the soul too. I’m undecided on that note. But either works, that’s what’s important.

Chara destroying the world through LV? No, screw that, Chara merely tuned Frisk out. And the black void was the inside of their mind as Chara denied them access to their own body.

The intro? Literally never happened, no one “saw” it. (The past was still real. It’s just the intro that never existed.) The outro? Literally never physically occurred, Frisk wasn’t “stuck” on the ending credits, unable to go further, fuck that.

Flowey? No screw everything meta about Flowey, there exists a perfectly logical explanation to everything he says, and if not, such as in the genocide run with him hinting towards people watching but not acting... he never said that in the first place!

Same with turns, the battles don’t actually look that way, there are no turns, what Sans perceives and abuses as such is just an illusion, the actual battle against Sans is absolutely fluid. And him pausing at the end and not letting us go is him keeping his guard up, until falling asleep and giving us an opportunity to sneak near him and strike. We don’t need turns to explain it. And what he said about turns... just ignore it! Ignore everything that directly proves me wrong! Because resolving that fucking conundrum IS more important than being logically consistent, and you can’t change my mind on that. Screw logic when the foundation of the entire fandom, of every UT-related fiction, is at stake here.

And I shall call this philosophy... the Unmeta. Because it attempts to undo the meta. Hence, “unmeta” for short.

[smilingperformer]

Pokémon Sword & Shield - Personal experiences, Part 1

About a week ago, I declared that I wanted to write down a critical post looking at my experiences with Sword & Shield, noting what I liked and what not. Considering the fact that I still haven’t completed the game (at around 37.5h mark and done with 6 out of 8 gyms), I’m gonna divide this post into two, where this first part focuses on gameplay, music and graphics, while the latter part, which I plan on writing next weekend, will focus on the story and character portrayal, including the trainer customisation, League Cards and Pokémon designs of this generation. Do note, these posts will contain spoilers for new, unrevealed Pokémon, so if you want to discover them yourself, I suggest you read this post at a later date! If not, then let’s get started! With a Charizard Pose!

As a disclaimer, the version I’ve been playing is Pokémon Sword, and as said above, the amount of time spent currently is around 37.5h.

Gameplay

Let’s start with the aspect that’s most important to the games, alright? So, how’s the gameplay in Sword & Shield? The battling system remains the same as previous games, meaning it’s turn-based, commanding attacks to your Pokémon. There’s not much to say to this aspect of the game, but I do love the improvements to the UI during the battling. Now that the series is back to one screen again (which happened first with Let’s Go), all the needed info has to be displayed in the same screen. If you ask me, it’s displayed nicely, and the UI style is very slick. The button mappings have changed for quick-selecting pokeballs and checking move-related info, so if you’re used to doing the R1 + a combo on checking move info, you’ll accidentally do the move instead. Happened to me a ton of times. But, since we have to consider that 3DS had less buttons for usage, new button mappings are fine.

The effects of Pokémon loving you during battle is still there, as in if you’ve been playing with your Pokémon a ton, battled with them and spent tons of time, they’ll start dodging attacks to your shout, curing poisonings and paralyses on their own without healing items, and get more experience. It does make the game easier, but I have found myself still struggling against some of the stronger type of Pokémon, even when my Pokémon has more levels. But that may be because I’ve tried switching out team every now and then to avoid being overly overleveled. And it’s been for the best!

Encountering wild Pokémon

First introduced in Let’s Go, Sword & Shield now lets you actually see the Pokémon catchable in the wild, making the world feel so much more alive. The grass encounters are still there, but instead of triggering random at your place, they’ll trigger nearby to you, and you can choose to either ignore or run into it. And from what I can tell, some Pokémon are only catchable in the grass patches. But I could be terribly wrong! The ways Pokémon react to you are different to the type of Pokémon you encounter, some examples being kind cheers from smaller Pokémon, some running into you at slower speed, some chasing after you and being faster than you, and some plain up teleporting away or running away from you as fast as possible. It’s such an awesome feat to see, and I have to note how much I love that Diglett and Dugtrio can actually be seen moving under the ground in fast speed, then coming up in another spot. It feels like such a huge improvement from how they moved in Let’s Go. Same with Rhyhorn, I love how they decide to charge at you, with no way to turn mid-ram! Meaning if you dodge, they miss. It’s such a nice way to show the wild Pokémon’s personality. This is why I ended up catching a certain Pikachu and making it my main Pikapal, despite wanting to get certain type. Because it kept coming at me, stopping to say “Pika~“, turning away in sadness, then turning back at me as I would approach it. It was so cute to see.

There are also fishing spots where you can encounter water type Pokémon, and they seem to appear in similar fashion as in Gen 7 games, but with less-obvious-looking spots. If you run into the spots, they’ll disappear, just like before. So go at them at walking speed! Speaking of which!

Controlling the character

Never have I enjoyed controlling my character’s movements in a Pokémon game before, as I have in Sword & Shield. Not only does the spinning have an awesome finishing pose involved now, you can also control the speed your character is moving at by the amount of tilt you do with your left stick. If you tilt it a tiny bit, you’ll be moving at a slow pace, and when doing this in a grass patch, you’ll be entering a sneaking mode, where your character will try to not make any sounds at any close-by Pokémon. It’s a feature that was last seen in Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, and boy am I glad to see that feature return!

Now, if you tilt the controller more bit by bit, you’ll notice how the speed of your character increases gradually, and the animations transition smoothly when doing so. I don’t have a gif to show of you of this, but if you entered this post before playing the game, make sure to try it out! It may be minor, but to me it’s such an awesome feat, as I can now walk or run at any pace I want, and gives me more control on the character!

At some point during the story, you’ll gain access to a bike powered by your Rotom Phone, and it helps you move at a faster rate in the game, if that’s what you want to do. I myself opted to mostly walking, mainly using the bike in the Wild Area. Controlling the bike feels good, turns feeling natural and the bike never feels like it’s going out of control. The speed boost by pressing B makes you go extra fast, and you’ll be able to upgrade it up to tier 3 in the Wild Area. I haven’t found the upgrade yet for being able to go over the water, so I’m gonna assume that’s mostly post-game. Or I’ve just missed it somehow, and I have no idea how!

Side note: Shiny hunting

Now, from what I’ve read, despite Let’s Go letting you see the Shiny versions in the wild, Sword & Shield does not let you see them. You instead have to encounter the Pokémon and hope that it is indeed a shiny. I myself believe this was done by design choice, as to make the Shiny hunting still feel rewarding, instead of making you just stand on one spot after getting max chaining, hoping for one to appear. Like it was in Let’s Go. Thou, in Sword & Shield, it’s a whole new method. You only have to focus on encounting that one specific Pokémon for countless times, and at certain points of counters, the chances of encountering a shiny increases. This is all official info from The Pokémon website! And I believe the article also states that, the glowing Pokémon, which have chances of having better stats, egg moves and other cool stuff, also have higher chance of being a shiny.

You can also apparently do Chain fishing for increased shiny chances on the fishing spots, which is quite cool! The breeding method is still the same as far as I can tell, but there’s now also a chance for a different type of Shiny sparkle animation. If you get a square type sparkle, then congratulations, your Shiny is extra rare!

Berry farming

I find the berry farming in this game to be my absolute favourite form, as I myself didn’t find any appeal on farming the berries itself, often neglecting that aspect in previous games, and this doesn’t feel even close to the tedious pick-up animation chain Gen 7 games had whenever you were picking up the berries from the ground. But, knowing how my sister has been liking the discoveries of mutated berry farming, that seems to be gone, and I do find that kind of discovery not being there kinda sad. Maybe there’s something to this later in the game, I don’t know.

Gym Battles

The gym matches provide some extra challenge in throwing at us Dynamaxed and Gigantamaxed Pokémon, which I myself haven’t been able to one-shot. While being overleveled does make it easy to steamroll the first few Pokémon on Gym Leader’s team, the final Pokémon always Dynamaxes or Gigantamaxes, and it does make you wonder whether your Pokémon’s gonna survive the hit or not. I always look forward to seeing what kind of Pokémon is gonna get Gigantamaxed next, as after the first two gyms, the Gyms always have a Gigantamaxing Pokémon on their team. At least, from what I can tell.

Speaking of Gyms, the Gym Missions have so far been a ton of fun. While one of the wants you to herd a bunch of Wooloo to knock-down barriers, other one has you avoiding traps, being auditioned or spinning around like crazy. So far none of the Gym Missions have been the same, and it’s very refreshing! One of them was very easy to cheat on thou, provided you had the right type of Pokeballs with you, which does make me wish Game Freak had implemented some type of restriction on what type of Pokeball you can use during the mission. But, I guess they didn’t want to force you to use certain type. Since you could actually keep any Pokémon you catch during this Gym Mission.

PokeJobs

The new feature that pretty much replaces the PokePelago from Gen 7 games. And it’s very simple: the new Rotom-powered PC Box has the option to check out jobs for your Pokémon to do, and they usually have a description that states in a fancy manner of what type of Pokémon you send out for that specific job. The amount appears to vary from 3 to 10 at a time, and you can send them out for from couple hours to a whole day. Once your Pokémon return, they’ll gain tons of experience based on how long they were at the job, and how well it was done. Sometimes, one of the sent Pokémon will come back with items! It’s a nice way to get your boxed Pokémon up to proper levels, thou sending them out on these jobs also makes them unavailable to use during that time. Logical, but I myself sometimes accidentally sent out a Pokémon on a job for a whole day, then realising I needed them for the future battles. I can only blame myself for that. I do find it a teeny bit annoying how the Pokémon disappear from the Pokebox, meaning if you’re very precise about organizing it, it’ll become a mess. Unless one found a good way to make it less messy. I myself haven’t!

Camping with your Pokémon

Throughout the game, you’ll be able to camp out with the current Pokémon on your team, and play with them using different kinds of toys on your toybox. From what I can tell, playing with them can give them experience at the end of the session, so it’s a nice reward for spending time with them and making friends along the way. Petting is not longer possible thou, which makes the Amié and Refresh lover in me cry in sadness. But alas, if we consider the fact that this game is meant to be enjoyed both docked and handheld, the petting mechanic would be extra akward to do with a stick instead of touching the screen. So, I can understand why it had to go away. This game isn’t motion-based after all, like Let’s Go was. Seeing the Pokémon play with each other and become friends with each other is such a wonderful feat to see, so I feel like Refresh was replaced with a good counterpart. I’m happy with my current experiences with the camping, and look to see if there’s more to it.

Or whether another Pokémon will come to my screen the moment I camp out and just stare at me for few seconds. Gosh you’re too cute Wanpachi!

The Curry making

During the camping, you’ll also have the option to make curry, to which up to 4 players can join up together to make a delish dish to eat. The partner eating the dishes with you is the one who’s first positioned in your party, so make sure you switch it out from time to time to see how different Pokémon eat their dishes! Smaller ones have smaller, cute dishes, while fully evolved tend to eat a huge amount! Above screencap being my Inteleon’s dish.

How you cook is based on what incredients you’ll be using. First you’ll choose the base of the curry, which can vary from bread to noodles to leeks that may or may not be liked by SirFetch’d. Then, you’ll add berries. I’ve been trying out different kinds of combos, but so far I haven’t failed a single dish. But I’ve also yet to get a perfect dish done. I’m guessing the way you perform with the mini-game of spamming button A, totating the right stick at right pace and timing your final button A also contributes to this. So I need to practice some more! I’ve been doing it a ton, and find it awesome time-spender. It also has benefits on making the Pokémon in your party more friendly to you, gain experience, and, based on how well the curry was made, restore health and pp, also reviving fainted Pokémon. It’s a great, cheap way to get your Pokémon back up to speed. Unless you’re in the middle of a Gym Mission, then you’re not allowed to do that. Which is a good way to restrict your healing options and make them more challenging!

Wild Area

Now this is what I was most hyped about in this game. The Wild Area. After couple hours of playing the game, you’ll reach this huge, unlocked and fully explorable area, where you can encounter all kinds of Pokémon, varying from levels 10 to whopping 60s at least! It’s entirely possible that you can encounter higher level Pokémon as well, but I myself haven’t seen higher than 60 yet.

Exploring this area is quite a pleasure, as in addition to previously mentioned controls on your character, you can now also move your camera with the right stick. Which is a first in a main-line Pokémon game. I have also discovered, thanks to a NPC I’ve encountered, that you can zoom in and out with a click of stick button. This will help you see either closer or wider, depending on how you like it. I myself like switching between the modes depending on the situation!

There are tons of areas to explore in the Wild Area, and tons of stuff to collect as well. Each day, each sparkling collectable respawns, meaning this place is the perfect way to farm yourself cash. Also berries, there’s tons of berry trees in the Wild Area, which can also be found on traditional Pokémon-styled routes.

Wild Area is also where, if you connect to the internet with Nintendo Online membership and through the Y-comm, which is pretty much upgraded PSS system from Gen 6 games, you’ll be able to see other players around the world right beside you. It’s such an awesome feeling, and makes the Wild Area feel even more alive. However, this does jag up the performance a bit, and you may see your frames drop down for a bit before coming back up. It’s a shame, but as an MMO player who’s had to deal with worse, it’s.... manageble. Not ideal, but not the worst. The way the trainers just pop out with no cool entering animation feels akward thou, haha.

There’s also Rotom Rallies to do, trainer battles to find, treasure digging through two NPCs and findable trainers who trade up items for amounts of Watts, the Wild Area currency you’ll obtain from glowing Pokémon and red glowing nodes.

Max Raid Battles

As previously mentioned, in the Wild Area, you’ll be seeing red-glowing nodes around, sometimes sending out a long beam to the sky. This indicates that you can enter a Max Raid Battle, in which you can join with up to 3 other players to take down a stronger, bigger wild Pokémon. This is also the only way to encounter Gigantamaxing Pokémon, thou I cannot say for sure if it’s the only way to get yourself a Pokémon that can Gigantamax. I’m not that far in the game yet. But so far, these raids have been fun, although I’ve only ever managed to join up with one other player, with rest of the spots being filled with NPCs. Which sometimes have really weird choices of Pokémon partners (looking at you, trainer with Magikarp against Pumpkaboo!) Depending on the amount of stars, the Dynamaxed or Gigantamaxed Pokémon may sometimes put up a barrier to slow down the process of taking it down. While the non-dynamaxed Pokémon on your team can then only take down the small, red-colored bars from the health bar, the Dynamaxed Pokémon can destroy the whole bar and do damage at the same time. I am not sure if it depends on type matchups or just works that way regardless of the move. But it does make the Dynamaxing feel worth the trouble!

The Gigantamaxed Pokémon seem to have way lower catch rate thou, and it really bums me to see the Pokémon run away after one catch try! God damn Gigantamaxed Sandaconda and Butterfree!

The Y-Comm

I don’t have screencaps to provide for this at this moment, but I’ve been using it quite a bit by now. As said before, it is basically a return to the style of PSS used during Generation 6, and you’ll be able to do Pokémon trades, league card trades and check out raid battles, while also request single, double and multi battles. One aspect from previous games is gone thou, and that’s the GTS feature. Yup. You can no longer put up a Pokémon to be traded for certain, specific Pokémon. Which is a huge bummer, considering how even I used this feature to help with completing the Pokedex in Ultra Moon. I don’t know what the reasoning could be for this, but I guess all I can do is speculate that Switch is not capable of this kind fo feature? I’m not able to say, I ain’t familiar with Switch backend capabilities. And I don’t remember if Let’s Go had GTS or not, but I’m guessing it didn’t. Otherwise, the Wonder Trade has been replaced with Surprise trades, which is basically the same, but this time happens in the background, without halting your progress with the game. Which is an awesome improvement to previous titles.

Quality of Life improvements

There has been a ton of QoL improvements done to this game, most notable ones being able to access the PC box at any time, which certain areas restricting the usages, like Gym Missions. You’re now also able to rename your Pokémon at any PokeCenter nearby you, also being able to make your Pokémon forget or remember a move at same place from the same guy. With no heart scale costs! No longer do you have to wait for almost-post-game to get your Steenee the move it should have learned already but somehow didn’t to be able to evolve to Tsareena, or run back at certain town to rename your Pokémon you either forgot to name or messed up naming. It all makes the game feel less inconvinient and more controllable.

TRs are also back from pre-gen 6 era (or is it pre-Gen 5?), which break after one usage. You can mostly obtain these during Max Raid Battles, so it gives you a great reason to keep doing those battles if you want more of certain type of TRs! Some are obtained while you do the story and explore the routes, so make sure to do that as well! There’s also now two different Pokémon Nurseries to put you Pokémon at, one being at Route 5, while other is located in the Wild Area. So, if you want, you can farm eggs at both of the locations.

You’re now also able to adjust audio settings for music, sound effects and what-not, thou it’s oddly behind finding a key item during the first big city, Motostoke. It’s possibly as a way to introduce this new feature, but it does feel a bit odd to make it an key item instead of making it a setting right away.

Music

Now that we’re done with the gameplay section, how’s the music? In short, it’s darn amazing! Each music so far has been a joy to listen, some of my personal favourites being Gym Leader Track (which changes dynamically based on whether your Pokémon fainted, beat the opponent or whether it’s the final round of the battle, it’s so cool!), Stow-on-side’s theme and the upper Wild Area’s tracks. Sonia’s theme is also such a pleasure to listen to, every time she appears in the story I just find myself not touching anything os I can listen to her track. I’ve yet to found a track that I’d find annoying, and so far this game’s OST has a high chance at being my favourite. Thou, Alola’s OST is still my top favourite, mainly because of Malie City, Ultra Necrozma and Gladion’s themes. Thou Marnie’s and Bede’s themes are awesome as heck as well! Especially the battles ones, thou the ones during their cutscenes are great as well! Lots of love can be heard from this soundtrack, and I can’t wait to hear more!

Graphics

To be able to talk about the Graphics, I’ve been playing the game on both docked and handheld modes. From what I can tell, this game looks absolutely stunning in the handheld mode, while during the docked mode, some of the shadows may look a tad bit jaggy and can flicker a bit while moving. It appears to happen in certain arears during the daytime, so it’s not that bad, but it’s still noticable. But aside from the shadows, the game looks amazing to play on a 23 inch TV, and also on 39 inch TV. The colors are such an eyecandy to watch, and I hardly find myself looking at something and being like “man, this looks so bad“. The trees in the Wild Area? Sure, the texture on most of those trees look akward, but I honestly don’t pay any attention to them? Because I’m mostly looking at the grass movements around walking Pokémon, how Pokémon feel like the belong to the same space, and how it just feels so nice. Say what you may about the graphics, this is the best looking Pokémon game up to date. Even if it’s not as gorgeus as Zelda franchise’s Breath of the Wild. It still looks good and appealing for my eyes as a Front-End Developer with graphics design studies behind as well. Could it use an improvement? Absolutely. Does it need it desperately? In my honest opinion, no. But I do hope the next game in line will look evenly or hopefully even better than this gorgeus game!

I will say thou, the drawing distance with trainers and Pokémon in this game is quite akward. It would appear to be around same distance as in most MMO lowest drawing distance setting, but it’s still noticable. I do understand this helps the game keep up better performance and not drop frames constantly (which has only happened to me in the Wild Area while connected to the internet), but maybe there’s something that could be done to improve the drawing distance in the future, to make the world feel way better? Only time will tell I guess.

Animations

The new animations added to the game look amazing, and your trainer character no longer looks like an emotionless, empty-staring character during cutscenes, but actually has a fitting face for the situation. At least, from what I can tell. The movements overall are smooth, and I haven’t seen too many jaggy model turning without any other movement on the legs or so. Maybe a bit with Pokémon, but not much with trainers. There are couple, but not overwhelmingly lot.

What is an awesome addition to the game thou, is the fact that there’s now visible lip syncing with character models, even with your trainer character, and the speed of the lip syncing is based on the text speed setting. I tried the fastest setting, and it made some of the cutscenes look SUPER akward, as the camera would do the movement as it is programmed, but the text was already done and the character at the cutscene is just turning around or being zoomed in and not moving their lips at all! It’s a bit akward, and hilarious! But this only happens in the fastest setting, as it works well with normal and slowest setting! So, make sure to not put on the fastest setting?

First impressions on story

You’ve reached the end of part one of my experiences with the game! To give of final thoughts, I’d like to say what my first impressions are on the story, now that I’m over the half-way point, at least from what I can tell. It’s been an interesting one so far, with the Gym Challenge feeling like where’s playing an actual Pokémon Anime season instead of just running from gym to gym. Each  gym leader has character, current favourite being Opal from Ballonlea Stadium. And it’s totally not because of how obsessed she is with the color Pink, and how she just scouted out Bede out of nowhere. In addition to Gym Challenge, there’s also a mystery with the Dynamax being built on, and discovering the legend of the Darkest Day with Sonia, and the lore behind the heroes that saved Galar during the Darket Day long, long ago. There’s also the build-up with Bede collecting Wishing Stars for Chairman Rose, Hop having amazing character development arc with having an Ego that gets crushed during one point of the story.

While I’ve been so much distracted by the Wild Area and not having completed the story yet, it feels interesting and I always look forward to seeing what we’ll uncover of the legend next, and whether Chairman Rose is doing something shady in the background or not. At least his backstory has me worried. The start of the game’s story was such an awesome way to get the story going, and I look forward to seeing how we’ll be possibly(?) restoring Zacian to its game cover glory. As it did look kinda beat with all the scratches and ear being cut.

Thank you for reading this post guys! It took hours to write, and creating a new private twitter account to get these screenshots transfered. But I hope this was an enjoyable post to read! I’ll be writing my second post after I’ve finished the story and played the post-game for a bit, which could be next weekend, or could not be. Depends on how much further I’ll get during the next week, haha! Anywho. Until next time!

[spidergwenstefani]

Finals Week

This is a really self-indulgent semi sequel to this ficlet I wrote a little while ago about theatre major Bucky and frat bro Clint. Apparently this is gonna be the AU i use for pointless fluffy comfort now bc I’m stressed with finals essays and these boys are helping.

I definitely shifted some background characters around since the last fic sorry steve but i don’t super care so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bucky spins his desk chair around in a lazy circle, watching the moon shining through his apartment window blur into a bright stripe with the rest of his surroundings. Someone on the floor above him has tuned their Spotify to some kind of low-fi study playlist, and Bucky feels genuinely relaxed for the first time in… months, actually.

This last week has been rough. Nearly all of his finals ended up scheduled on the same Friday and Natasha had to actually hold him back from leaping out the library window on Thursday night. It worked out alright. The Lighting Design 201 presentation had gone off shockingly well, the History of Stage Design final was way easier than expected, and his group project for Gender in Shakespeare really pulled through in the end. He half-assed the conclusion for his Dramaturgy essay, but there was only so much he could say about August Wilson without the professor realizing he was just spitting his class notes back at him. So now he’s done. A whole five days before the semester ends, too. It feels like a thousand-pound weight has been lifted off Bucky’s shoulders. He hums along to the slow jam echoing down from his upstairs neighbor, scooping up his phone to check his messages.

Nat (3 hours ago) Congrats on being done with finals

Nat (3 hours ago) If you didn’t turn that gd Fences essay in on time I will climb in through your window and strangle you in your sleep

Steve (2 hours ago) Hey! Me and some buddies were planning on going out for pizza around 7 tomorrow. Do you wanna come with? You can bring Clint so you don’t have to listen to grad students all night.

Steve (2 hours ago) Please say yes. I don’t want to listen to grad students all night.

Nat (42 minutes ago) Have you heard from Clint? He hasn’t answered my texts in hours. Not sure if I should be concerned

Nat (40 minutes ago) Send him a dick pic and see if that gets a response

Clint (3 minutes ago) im fckin dropping uot

Bucky ignores Steve and Natasha for now, typing out a quick response to Clint.

Bucky Well I’m done with finals

Bucky Can I convince you to stay in college with some fantastic Fuck Dramaturgy victory sex?

Clint i dont kno what htat is

Bucky I’ve explained Dramaturgy to you like five times

Clint i cant remembr

Clint what day is it

Clint bucky im dyin :’(

Bucky rolls his eyes, grabbing the keys off his desk and pulling on his sneakers. He would have preferred to avoid the Greek side of campus today if at all possible, but he has an idiot boyfriend to console.

Bucky omw

>>==========>

Beta Theta Pi is, as far as frat houses go, not the absolute worst. It had still been kind of a shock when Bucky realized Clint actually lives up to his frat bro vibes. Not only lives up to them but embraces them with the same enthusiasm Clint has for any other thing he cares about. Bucky could probably do PR for the Beta charity drives by now after how much Clint has gushed about them. Lord knows he’d do a better job than fucking Pietro.

Bruce answers the door on Bucky’s third knock, looking surprised to see him and vaguely stoned.

“Bucky?” he says after he gets a few blinks out of his system. Bucky wonders if it’s such a good idea to be smoking in his letterman jacket. Coach Fury’s been known to have a nose like a bloodhound. “Clint didn’t say you were coming over.”

“Has he said anything at all in the last twelve hours?” Bucky asks, shouldering past Bruce because he knows he won’t move on his own. Bruce is actually his favorite of Clint’s brothers. He’s chiller than any offensive lineman has a right to be. He does yoga, for fuck's sake. It’s probably the copious amounts of weed that mellow him out in the end, though.

“I dunno,” Bruce says, still blinking his way back to the present. He gives Bucky a slow smile as he shuts the door behind them. “Do you want tea? I made tea.”

“Maybe later,” Bucky says, because he’s just spotted Rumlow studying at the dining table and that’s the one Beta guy he genuinely doesn’t want to see today. He heads for the stairs.

“Wanna play Smash Bros?” Bruce asks as Bucky bolts for the second floor.

“Maybe later,” he shouts over his shoulder.

Clint’s room is at the far end of the hallway, and Bucky frowns at the closed door. Clint’s the kind of endearingly codependent guy that keeps his door open unless absolutely necessary, never wanting to miss out on anything that might be blocked by a thin layer of wood.

He knocks more as a warning than anything, letting himself in and shutting the door softly behind him. All the lights are off and nothing but moonlight illuminates Clint spread dramatically across the floor, staring up at his ceiling fan like he’s hoping it’ll fall on him.

“Fucking Christ,” Bucky mutters, mostly because he’s not sure Clint even heard him come in.

“I’m gonna die,” Clint answers from the floor. “Statistics is actually gonna kill me.”

“You can’t die,” Bucky says, leaning back against the door. “My mom will be crushed if I don’t bring you home for spring break.” The moonlight is making the angles of Clint’s face look especially soft, and Bucky takes a moment to watch him pout before sinking down onto the floor.

“No, it’s too late. I’m dying,” Clint says, shifting to make room on the rug as Bucky crawls over to him. He wraps his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and plants a quick kiss on his forehead before turning his glazed look back up at the ceiling fan. “You’ll come to my funeral, right?”

“Obviously,” Bucky snorts, sliding his hands under Clint’s t-shirt. He knows his fingers are ice cold, but Clint doesn’t even flinch.

“Wear black, okay? Something sexy, so my enemies get jealous of the hot piece of ass I bagged before kicking the bucket.”

“Should I cry?” Clint hasn’t seen Bucky act yet, but he’s totally going to audition for The Laramie Project next semester and blow his fucking mind.

“As much as possible. Maybe mention how much you’ll miss my massive dick.”

“I will,” Bucky says emphatically. He looks up at the ceiling fan and takes a deep breath, doing his best to bring tears to his eyes. “I’ll never love another dick as much as I loved his.” Bucky’s voice comes out impressively choked up. “I’m cursed to a life of longing. The only man who can satisfy me is lost forever.” Bucky blinks a single tear down his cheek, and Clint’s staring at him when he finally turns back.

“Holy shit,” Clint says, moving to wipe at Bucky’s cheeks like he’s actually worried about him. “Do exactly that, please. When did you learn how to cry on command?”

“When my third sister was born,” Bucky answers smugly. “I didn’t appreciate how much more attention tutus and pigtails got, so I had to find my own edge.”

“Becca’s sent me a few pictures that say you still cashed in on tutus and pigtails.” Clint rolls onto his side so he can face Bucky better, pulling him closer with a hand around his waist.

“I rocked those butterfly clips better than she could ever dream,” Bucky says, and Clint buries his laugh in Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky runs a hand up and down Clint’s back. “What day is your Stats final?” That earns him a despondent groan.

“Monday. I’m so gonna fail.” Clint’s voice is muffled by Bucky’s sweatshirt. “Why the fuck did I decide on a Business major?”

“Because you’re smart,” Bucky insists. Clint shakes his head weakly against his shoulder and Bucky smacks him lightly on the arm. “You are. You’re smart and practical, and once you have your diploma you and Nat can move to New York and open your gym.”

Clint mumbles something into his sweatshirt that Bucky doesn’t quite catch.

“What?” he asks, and he tugs the back of Clint’s shirt just enough to get him to scoot backward and speak clearly.

“I said you’ll be there too,” Clint repeats, rubbing his thumb back and forth across Bucky’s side and making an effort to keep his eyes anywhere but on Bucky’s. “Designing costumes on Broadway. Having a meltdown every other day.”

“Exactly,” Bucky says, and Clint looks up long enough to give him a hesitant smile. “And on tech week I’ll gripe to you all night long and make you rub my feet.”

“Sounds like a dream,” Clint says, and his voice is too soft to be joking. Bucky leans forward to kiss him. Clint brings his hand up to Bucky’s face, brushing his thumb over his cheek while they lose themselves for a moment or two.

“It’ll be awesome,” Bucky says once he’s pulled away. “And all you have to do is pass one dumb Stats final. It’s all easy street after that.”

“No it’s not,” Clint says, but his face doesn’t seem quite as pinched with worry. Bucky shrugs one shoulder.

“Maybe not, but this is all you have to think about right now. And even if you don’t pass, which you will, Momma Barnes will be waiting at the train station, ready to fill that void of disappointment with cookies and brisket. They offer Stats over the summer. You can even get Bruce to help you study.”

Clint smiles a little easier and presses a kiss to Bucky’s cheek.

“Bruce offered to help me study earlier this week, actually.” Bucky raises his eyebrows at him.

“And you’re not taking him up on it? Bruce is pretty much Einstein. You know that, right? What are you doing in here when you could be getting schooled on Stats in the library?”

“Well, you’re here,” Clint says and Bucky just knows his smile goes all dopey at that. “And I think even Einstein would struggle with Stats after smoking that much weed.”

“You’ll study with him tomorrow though, right?” Bucky’s not going to let Clint throw him off that easy. Clint rolls his eyes, but he nods. “Steve invited us to get pizza tomorrow. I’ll pay, as a reward for studying.”

“Steve invited us, or Steve invited you?” Clint asks, scrunching up his nose. Bucky snorts, shoving at Clint half-heartedly.

“Steve invited us. To go out with him and his friends. I dunno why you hate him so much. He thinks you’re pretty cool.”

“I don’t hate him,” Clint says defensively, but he still shifts forward to wrap his arms possessively around Bucky. “I just want to make sure he knows that the position of Bucky’s Buff Blond Boyfriend is already happily filled. Also, fuck him. I’m really cool.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Bucky says. He’s kind of stuck in Clint’s steel trap of a hug. “It’s not like that. First of all, I don’t date grad students, and second of all we totally have more of a big brother-little brother sort of thing going on. I think he’s more into Tony, anyway.”

“Aw, gross,” Clint laughs, letting Bucky out of his death grip. “They deserve each other.”

“People probably say the same thing about us,” Bucky says. Clint grins at him, opening his mouth to share some kind of smart-ass response. A knock on the door cuts him off and makes them both jump.

“Do you guys have pants on?” Bruce’s voice comes through the door way louder than necessary. “If you don’t, sorry. Keep doing your thing or whatever. We’re starting a new Smash tournament, though, if you wanna join.”

“No, Bruce. C’mon man,” Bucky hears Sam say, and there’s the sound of scuffling feet like Sam’s trying to yank Bruce back from the door. “They’re probably having their own Smash tournament in there.”

“Bucky would have invited me,” Bruce insists, and Clint sits up with a laugh.

“We have pants on, Bruce,” he calls, and the door opens a moment later.

“Are you guys just sitting in the dark?” Bruce frowns down at Bucky, who’s still sprawled across the rug.

“Yeah,” Clint says, and then because he catches Bucky’s meaningful look, “Are you busy tomorrow? Think you could help me with Stats?”

“Yeah,” Bruce says, smiling easily. Bucky thinks Clint looks relieved, like he actually thought Bruce might say no. “We can go to the library.”

“Alright, Bruce.” Bucky stands up, offering a hand and hauling Clint to his feet too. “Let’s smash. I call the pink controller.”

[crystalnet]

State of the Art: JRPG Spotlight-

Issue #1- 2017 at a Glance- A quarterly or bi-annual journal on the JRPG at large, focusing on recent releases, trends, quarterly reviews/analyses and upcoming release hype.

The other night I was getting yet even deeper still into the freshly minted minor-masterpiece that is Xenoblade Chronicles 2 when it dawned on me just how good 2017 was to the quaint little genre known as the JRPG. I knew all year while it was happening that some special games were getting released with a certain regularity, but now that the dust has fully settled, we can look back and be conclusively impressed by such a stellar stretch. 

3 or 4 years ago I think people were getting ready to pen their moratoriums on why big developers and JRPGs should soon plan on never intersecting again save for small-scale handheld releases, and now here we are and Japan is seemingly back on top as far as role-playing goes. That return-to-form didn't always seem so inevitable as it is now that it's fully underway, especially after a somewhat shaky stretch for the genre during the 7th generation. Indeed, high-definition graphics and devs who catered to Gatorade-guzzling gamer bros seemed to not be the boon to the genre that old-school role-players really needed, and even the first couple of years of the 8th generation saw the genre to still be on slightly shaky ground, without a ton of great titles to point to from those initial years. 

But then throughout the 7th gen a little franchise called Dark Souls (a JRPG in spirit, though not quite in practice, in many ways) started to build a little following, generating new interest in things like difficulty, customization, and innovative diagetic story-telling. As of the middle of this decade though, the genre still doesn’t have all that much of a presence compared to the late 90s heyday of JRPGs. Cut to 2016 though and Square drops FFXV which is a solid, if not-perfect realization of the 30-year-old standard-bearer of the genre, (a herald of sorts, if you will) and BAM. 2017 begins and in quick succession Nier Automata, Persona 5 and Breath of the Wild drop, all to stunningly positive reception. Now BotW, like Dark Souls, is not as much of a JRPG as the other 3 releases I hope to focus on, but Zelda has always had it's toe in the same waters as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, borrowing and simplifying elements of role-playing games from an action-adventure perspective, and in turn, also influencing those very JRPG franchises it seemed to pay homage to. 

This wasn't just a coincidental blip of releases though, proved largely by the fact that all the way at the end of the year, Xenoblade 2 would also drop, and show yet again how the JRPG can be fresh and vital, and can be a Nintendo-exclusive at that. Indeed, I hope to demonstrate my thesis that it was a particularly strong year by triangulating my discussion around Nier A, Persona 5 and Xenoblade 2. Not only are these three very strong titles, they are also all pretty vastly different styles of JRPGs, which I think displays the health and potential of the genre even better than the fact that they are so individually good. First of all we have an industry veteran and mad-hatter in Yoko Taro finally coalescing a fully-realized vision of action-JRPG greatness by collaborating with Platinum games to make something as heady, and intellectual as it is well-designed and fun to play. That game is something like a Hegelian Philosophy PhD driving a Lamborghini in terms of the amount of stuff going on with the writing and character development, all while sporting a super classy luxury sports-car, six-cylinder engine. For long-time fans of Taro, I don't think this direction could have ever been predicted, though they may have secretly dreamed of such a fusion of form and function. 

The best thing about how simultaneously weird and playable Nier A is for me is the way it hearkens back to the golden age of PS2 JRPGs for me personally. Without pinning it to a single PS2-era title, it gives me the same feeling that games during that console could consistently deliver on: a fully realized fantasy/sci fi world, a deep-yet-approachable combat system, a weird and very-Japanese, but also deep-as-hell plot, and a certain functionality that games like Kingdom Hearts 2, Rogue Galaxy and Final Fantasy XII delivered on back then. I don't mean to say it's derivative or stuck in the past, it's just that, the highlights of the PS2 days are my go-to precedent for what a good modern, post-16-bit JRPG is, since that equally sweet ps1 era can only be reasonably emulated on smaller and/or handheld retro-style releases. And while the story’s depth and esoteric nature recall the plot’s and worlds of PS1 and 2 greats like FFX, Xenosaga or Vagrant Story, the combat itself feels as fast-and-furious as hack-n-slash classics from then like Devil May Cry. 

So while Nier had action-(j)RPG style gameplay covered, Persona 5 was there for all the turn-based devotees, and oh boy were we there for it also. That game was a huge victory lap for Atlus, who has built up a deep fanbase over the past decade, largely because of youtubers (at least in the west we can thank the cult-y presence of its fans online for the slow-burn development of an army of Atlus acolytes, whereas P3 and 4 were only barely noticed in the States back when they actually first came out.) And they finally capitalized on that hard-earned interest by finally following up P4 after nearly a decade, and while they were at it, they also showed everyone that fully turn-based (not even slightly active-time) systems can still melt faces, please crowds and feel fresh, which is no mean feat at all in a world where some question if turn-based is officially dead save for retro-homages. 

And while Nier captures a kind of ethereal PS2-esque quality, Persona very literally pulls some of the PS2-era goodness into the future by updating and refining the awesomely deep and OCD-enabling systems of the now holy-grail-level PS2 era Persona games. Yes, wandering around Shinjuku, going on supportive dates with classmates, building up your relationships in general, and working a part time job between study breaks has been fully realized for the modern gamer, and it is glorious to behold. 

And that takes us to Xenoblade which out of all the titles I might be most surprised by. Being a bit of a Xeno-noob, I wasn't sure if the release was going to be a major or minor event for role-players, especially given Nintendo's spotty track-record with the JRPG, usually sporting all of maybe one or two truly notable ones per generation, as well as their tendency to censor and/or smother developers. But alas, Xenoblade is fully-formed, proper, brimming-with-life and as deserving of the title of new standard-bearer to the genre as any of the other fantastic JRPGs released that year, many of which I won't even get to. 

As is the case with the others, it seems to draw on PS2 era greatness in someways, by building on battle systems like the ones in FFXI and FFXII, while also being an actual descendant of the Xenosaga series that rocked that console, and also still draws on PS3-era titles that were successful (though smaller in number there were some good ones!) like Ni No Kuni and the Last Story. This is a round-about way of saying the combat system is an excellent take on the free-moving active-time auto-battling-but-with-real-time-triggers-style combat that started to show up towards the end of the PS2's life-cycle just when people were realizing the days of pure turn-based role-laying may be limited. And it also delivers on all those other check-marked boxes that any truly great and special JRPG must deliver on including: emotionally stirring and unique soundtrack, a deep and rewardingly complex story with all sorts of specific and detailed lore, a really nice visual style, and some incredibly beautiful locales. Okay that last thing isn't even a thing JRPGs usually have to deliver on, but it sure is a highlight. Some of the locations you move through during your travels in this game are breathtaking, and even more impressive than the  similarly psuedo-cell-shaded style of Breath of the Wild, whose open-world Monolith Soft also worked on (though you can't climb all over these areas I should say). 

I'm as blown away by the suddenly addictive combat (once it fully kicks in and you are given full control over 3 blades around the 15 hour mark) as I am by the surprisingly moving, funny and immersive story. I can be a little skeptical sometimes when approaching JRPG stories, but by all three of these aforementioned titles, we were treated to surprisingly mature and complex narratives, with refreshingly grounded and/or thoughtful characters. Indeed, with this many games firing on all these different cylinders (I didn't even mention the soundtrack to Persona 5 or Nier OMG), you know something special is happening.

So there you have it, three wildly differently styles of JRPG, only unified by their consistent top-tier quality. An old-school turn-based lite-novel hyprid, a full real-time action-RPG for philosophy students, and a MMO-style combat fantasy epic. And on top of all that there's myriad other fantastic releases, or even re-releases like the Final Fantasy XII Zodiac Age remaster of FFXII, one of my favorites and oft-forgotten FF titles that I think got overlooked slightly upon initial release precisely because of the way it showed other developers the way forward from pure turn-based combat. 

And then the behemoth that is Breath of the Wild saw a tried-and-true franchise get fully revitalized in a way that drew on the weapon system of Dark Souls as much as it did the food system of Odinsphere of all games. And like I said, though not a true JRPG, it shows that role-playing adjacent titles are also showing a come-back. Survival components in video games were always the more practical, realist cousin to role-playing/stat-grinding after all. 

So where do we go from here? Well 2018 will show us whether 2017 was a stand-out year or just the beginning of a trend, but all signs seem to point to an ongoing upward trend if releases like Monster Hunter World are any indication. Ni No Kuni 2 is due out soon, Octopath Traveler, which should make good on the idea of a retro-JRPG, and Kingdom Hearts 3 at the end of the year all help to paint the picture of an equally formidable year. Alas, Nippon is poised to continue its domination in coming months. All in all, fans of the genre should be very pleased, and if you haven't checked out one of the aforementioned titles get to it, because all of them are excellent, even if Xeno takes about 15 hours to truly get rolling and Persona takes a whopping like 20. All good things come to those who wait, after all.~

[biscuitreviews]

Biscuit’s Top Games of 2017 and Personal Game of the Year

2017 was a great year for gaming. Although the end of 2017 has a few people dubbing this “The year of the loot box” with games such as EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II, Destiny II, and Call of Duty WWII, just to name a few, I don’t think we can encompass a whole year of amazing games, from a few outliers.

Unfortunately, for a lot of the great games that came out this year, I wasn’t able to play a lot of them because I didn’t own a PS4 or a Switch. I just recently acquired a PS4 and will be playing catch up on many of these great titles. So the games listed below are the ones that I personally played this year that I really enjoyed.

Mass Effect Andromeda

This will probably be odd to see this game on someone’s “best of” list when this title is going to be on a lot of “disappointed” or “worst of” lists. Personally, I enjoyed Andromeda. I will admit that on release there were some weird animations and the writing was a bit weak in some areas. However, even some of the greatest games with great stories, have some places where the writing in their story was a bit weak. Uncharted 4’s Nathan Drake’s brother that he just never talked about ever is a perfect example of this. Great game with an equally good story, just the sudden appearance of a brother felt shoehorned in and forced despite Sam actually being a good character in his own right.

Nonetheless, Mass Effect Andromeda’s environments were beautifully crafted and the combat was extremely fun. Being able to switch to a different class on the fly to have the necessary skills to fight different enemies adds another element of control during combat. I really enjoyed myself with this game and it’s disappointing that the majority was hung up on the first few hours of the game, rather than playing through the entire game to see it’s shining moments.

Doki Doki Literature Club

Although this psychological horror disguised as a cute visual novel takes a bit to get into, once it reveals it’s true self, the ride doesn’t stop. Without spoiling much, this game slowly and I mean SLOWLY pulls back the curtain to how truly messed up this game can be. The game’s twist is something that truly impacted me and it’s something I applaud this game in accomplishing. If you haven’t played this game yet, go in blind, don’t look anything up, it will make the scares and the twists, that much more impactful.

Fire Emblem Heroes

I had two mobile phone games that I played a lot of this year and Fire Emblem Heroes was one of them. Yes this is a more watered down version of Fire Emblem, but despite that, it’s still a really fun game and will require strategic thinking, especially if you try the higher difficulties. This game eat up quite a bit of my time in the February and March period. It’s also one of the few mobile games out there that gives you plenty of opportunities and chances to build your team and gain new units without succumbing to microtransactions and it was something that I really liked with this game.

Magikarp Jump

The second mobile game that came out this year that I played quite a bit. This in my opinion was the definition of a great mobile game. It’s a game you can play for a few minutes while waiting in line because of how easily you can start and stop a play session. The ability to play the game offline was also an awesome feature and once again you can go through this game without purchasing any microtransactions.

Cuphead

Although I never finished this game, the 1930s cartoon aesthetic of the game was truly unique for a video game. I also loved how the story was built with couch co-op in mind. Yes you can play this game solo, but it is clear that the ideal way to play this game is co-op with a friend. I also really liked the easiness of how co-op was handled. You can be playing a game and have a friend join you while your playing in the overworld and they can exit out just as easily. The difficulty of this game was also one of the key on the major points with this game and it’s no joke. Many gamers have compared the difficulty of the game to Dark Souls. Now, personally, I have never played Dark Souls so I can’t really say for sure because I never played Dark Souls. Something I hope to remedy in the future.

Horizon Zero Dawn

I’m actually currently playing this game and I have to say I am loving it so far. I definitely see why gamers and critics alike just can’t stop talking about this game. It features a strong female protagonist, it’s a sci-fi setting, it’s open-world, and you get to fight robot dinosaurs. On paper that sounds like a fantastic idea for a game and it really is. I will be doing a review of this game once I complete it. It may take me a bit because I bought the Complete edition which included all of the DLC for the game.

Sonic Mania

In celebration of Sonic’s 25th anniversary, Sega decided to release not just one but two Sonic games. This is a game that is a love letter to Sonic’s past and is appropriately priced. This is a must have for fans of the Blue Blur, especially for those that grew up playing Sonic during his golden days.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of Wild

This is a game that really allows you to explore and experiment with its world and mechanics. To this day, many players are still finding neat things that you can do to where people are still saying “You can do that?” I can’t help but wonder what other mechanics and secrets are still to be uncovered. My favorite moment, although simple, is still something that I will always remember.

When I started the game I was wandering around the Great Plateau. I saw a small group of bokoblins at the bottom of a hill. I was at the top of the hill and next to me was a boulder. I pushed the boulder and it rolled down the hill crushing two of the three bokoblins. Simple, but something I’ll always remember.

Biscuit’s Game of the Year: Persona 5

This is my personal game of the year. This game not only made advancements into the turn-based RPG formula, but everything blended so well together. The menus, the interface, injecting personality into a silent protagonist, it’s a fantastic game. Completing the main story took me 101 hours and that was just going through the main story and doing some side quests and missions.

It also gives more of an emphasis on choice, not in a narrative perspective, but in a gameplay perspective. It’s something I think many people often forget when it comes to choices in gaming. It doesn’t just have to be only narrative choices to shape the story, it can be choices in gameplay to make things easier or harder during the journey. Do you increase your social stats to be able to increase your Confidant rank? Do you work a part-time job to have money for items and weapons? Do you hang out with a Confidant to increase their relationship to gain advantages in combat? All of that will shape how your gameplay experience will go and what advantages you’ll have throughout the game.

This is easily my favorite game of the year and is a definite must play. Even if you’ve never played any other Persona title, this is the game to play as it’s friendly to new players in the series.

I actually started playing Persona 3 right when Persona 5 came out and worked my to it. Also as some of you might know, my first review on this blog was Persona 3 and I marathoned the modern Persona games back to back to back.

[bloojayoolie]

Being Alone, Animals, and Apparently: >Hey guys, I wanna run a game Sure, guy, that sounds good. Let's go for that. Youve played in a few games, I'm sure you can handle running something >It's going to be my own custom setting, based on d20 modern Oh god, how is this going to turn out? >It's based on a book I've been writing since I was a teenager Oh boy, this is gonna be amazing >Post-apocalyptic future of the area we live in A standard take, but a classic one >Players are all equipped with Pipboys which operate as radios, inventories, and watches Oh boy! >Characters have energy bars that fill and deplete as they use their powers Oh boy! >Monster Energy drink is a energy-replacing item so important it serves as a major feature of the setting Oh boy! >Players pick an animal, a weapon, and an "element" and can transform into an anthropomorphic elemental animal form that gains extra powers and uses their weapon for super-damage Oh boy! >DM doesnt know how many core features of d20 in general work Oh boy >DM doesn't know the geography of the area we live in Oh boy! >DM doesn't know particular facts of reality Oh boy! >DM has a DMPC who the story is about who is the most powerful of the animal/elemental/weapon people Oh boy! >Much of the DMPC's plot revolves around a romance with the stand-in for the DM's dead ex fiancee Oh boy! >The DMPC's love interest dies tragically Oh boy One player dropped out within an hour of showing up the first day. The rest of us held on for a shocking number of weeks just so we'd have something to fill time with, and some place to go have pizza and hang out for a bit, and to have stories And oh. I have stories. The "elements" alone were... staggering. "Legends d20 Fallout: Mighty Morphin' That Guy Rangers >That Guy ran a game based on his post-apocalyptic tragic romantic autobiographical work in progress novel about people in the future using magic fallout watches to turn into animals Quoted By: *46403659 46403704 >4640397846404111 >>46404256 I've told this story a few times, but basically, this guy sets out to make a game based on the epic sci fi novel called Legends" he's been writing, based on his life, only set in the distant future. He uses d20 modern to do so. He had none of the books, never played the system, and didn't know how anything worked In addition to our regular hit points we had rolled, he saddled us with 150 extra HP. Why? Because he didn't know how damage worked. So, for example his main character (based on him, of course) had a sword that did 1d100 damage per hit. No strength bonus, no multiple attacks, just 1d100 d have characters who had d100s as their damage die. In fact, There's other fun stuff about the "combat system" I can go into later, but I wanna touch on the core concept of the game for a moment. It's ye olde post-apocalypse, after what is basically the Second Impact, a meteor made out of monsters and evil crashes into earth and reformats it into crazy world. The game takes place in the region we live in, which was kinda a neat concept to start with, but then it got out of hand because of none of us much geography Every player picks an animal, an "element", and a weapon, and those become our spirit animal/element/weapon. I was an ice wolf with katars, my friend was a darkness panther with a sword, and our other friend was an electromagnetic pteradactyl with a pair of berettas, at which point you might begin to see why I put "element" in quotation marks, because the magic system and cosmology were all over the map Quoted By >>46403692 46403978 >46404111 >>46430662 46403615 Here's some of the elements we were informed of or encountered: Ice Fire, Wind, Water 티ectricity. Plants. Poison. Darkness but not shadow Sunlight, Electromagnetism Nuclear Power, Acid Mental Healing, and I believe Drugs was one as well. I bring up darkness/shadow because, as I said, one of the party members was a darkness character, who could control shadows and use them to freeze people in place and so on and suchlike. However, the enemies were living shadows.. and he had no control or effect on them. Because darkness is different from shadow Anyways, we spent about two and a half, maybe three months of sundays playing games with this guy, halfway because the concept was so gonzo and he was such a pushover as a DM that we could basically justify doing any completely retarded thing we wanted, partly we had nothing better to do and felt bad for him, and partly it was fun to hang out and eat pizza and (as time went by) watch movies rather than play the game. I haven't really touched on the plot yet. We're locals in this post-apocalptic future, me a farmer and the other guy a raider (the third player, the pteradactyl guy, bailed out half an hour into the first session quite gracefully and never ever returned), and we go t this magical academy where, it is implied, we will somehow learn how to use our powers This is in fact a vicious lie The "magical academy is in fact a lawless hell-hive run by loosely disguised versions of the DM and his former fiancee (I say Versions because there were two characters with the same name as him) that was instantly and irrevocably termed "the mexican prison every time we mentioned it. "Lessons" consisted of us agreeing that our characters did nothing rational or interesting for 6 months at a time and we'd gain random stat bonuses or special powers that were either more or less game breaking than our current powers Quoted By 46403719 46403978 46404111 46403659 Between these wastes of time, we'd go do other time wasting things like chase a dragon only to have Version A of him come slay it, or scavenge for pristine cans of Monster Energy Drink around the remains of the cities. Which brings me, in a round-a-bout way, to the matter of the "combat system" You see, as I mentioned, he's never played d20 modern, played what seems to be very little D&D, and had apparently decided to hijack what Im told is some JRPG's combat system for his "homebrew. We're given energy bars, and every time we use one of our special moves the bar gets depleted. And our special moves are quite special. We can still use normal attacks, or we can use his totally awesome "combo attack", where if we get a 15-20 on the d20 roll, we deal an additional 1d4 damage! Or, we can use a "power attack" and, if we get a 19 or 20, automatically deal double damage, amazing! He actually wrote the word "power attack" down in his notes, then told us to it, and didn't understand when we seemed taken aback. In addition to these wonderful options, we also get some magic super abilities, like beam attacks or choking people with their darkness, or other things like that, which range between useless, already covered by abilities in the game, or completely broken. I had an ability where l'd shoot a super ice beam at someone with my katars, and get +d12 to damage for every chunk of my energy bar I depleted in the process, and that's where the Monster Energy Drink comes in because a single can of Monster Energy can be drunk as a free action and completely refill your energy bar And thus I became an ice drill Quoted By: *46403799 *46403978 »>46404111 46403692 I've sadly forgotten some of our funnier moments in the game, but others will never leave me. Like when our "ally", a poison T-Rex with a sniper rifle, kept shooting us in combat because the DM didn't understand what a "miss" means. Eventually we collapsed the Tacoma dome on him, us, and the enemy and that seemed to work out Oh, and all rope was referred to as "fuckin' rope" for no clear reason. All our items resided in our pip boys, by the way. Which was his exact description of them, no less You know how you can cause an explosion by filling a room with flour and then igniting it? It's a bit exotic of a trap, but it's something you can do. I told him about that once and from then on it became a valid combat tactic. In open-air areas. As a standard action Man, my mind's just boiling as I remember some of the other things. Eventually he decided +150 hit points was too many and brought it down to +89. We met a few people who he told us did 1d1000 as damage, but we never saw this in action Quoted By: >46403978 46404111 46404725 >>46406650 46403719 There was a fighting tournament that used DBZ rules, which the panther exploited by winning 4 fights via ringout. For you see, because all these people do 1d20 or 1d30 (he had a d30) damage, with maybe some extra dice for flavor, as damage, none of them had strength scores. So the easiest way to beat them, without having to carve through their 500 hit points using a sword? Bullrush. And the DM didnt know what it was or that it sted The panther dude took Agile Riposte and used the 25 dex granted to him by the DM being a moron and fighting defensively to take Attacks of Opportunity mpletely carve up enemies by exploiting the fact the DM doesn't know how often you can s the fast hero and I ended up with less dexterity due to the DM's incompetence. In return, I mocked the concept relentlessly. Whenever my character transformed from human to furry mode, I would do a power rangers henshin sequence "Blue Wolf POWER!" I also promised my next character would be a water crab with a sledgehammer for his weapon, so l could call myself "MC Hammer" and do the hammer dance, on account of being a crab. But it wasn't to be Two sessions in a row, we showed up and played nothing. We sat with the DM and watched then early-days Netflix for a bit, maybe had some pizza, discussed what we might do in the game next week, left after a half hour or so, came back next week, did it again, left again, and the week after that the DM simply didn't invite us over. The Legend of Legends ended as it began: With unbearable disappointment and confusion And that's the story of the worst game I ever played

[orhinge]

Games Update!

Felt like mentioning a few games I've played recently.

Nier: Automata

I... don’t know what to say about the game really, and i’ve seen too many people do great pieces writing about it. Really don’t feel like I can add to the conversation.

Yakuza 0

It’s a wonderfully quirky game, but I must admit the gameplay just hasn’t clicked for me yet. This is my first Yakuza game, mind you, so I suspect that really is all there is to it, I just need to figure out a good style for myself. Have not finished yet, in case you couldn’t tell. Planning on getting back into the game at a later date.

Persona 5

I’ll be the first to admit i’m pretty new to the series, my introduction was 4 Golden and I never played any SMT, let’s leave it at that, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

It really is a wonderful game, and an interesting contrast to 4. While I will say I preferred 4′s main villain, I still don’t fault the game for it. 5′s main villain works more as a symbol really, but they work very well as such. Far as the rest of the characters, i’m not going to go into comparisons between the two games. Really they just all work in my opinion.

The gameplay is prettier and spruced up, it’s funny really because the game has a lot of RPG elements I've never liked. Enemies return when you leave an area, you don’t recover MP/HP after combat (well, later there’s a method to regain a small amount but still), so it feels in essence you’re being bled dry, while it sticks this niggling idea in my head that I should grind as much as possible when I DO have resources to be strong enough for later (supposedly the grim reaper foe can pop up in Mementos if you spend too long, but I never encountered them in my playthrough).

Then outside of that, you got the whole time mechanic, you get two “actions” per day, sometimes only one, or even none on some story-based events. (although you can also shop around as a “free action” as it were). Buffing your stats, ironically doesn’t actually affect your combat skills (although some areas that buff your stats also reward you with currency), but they are required to perform some social links that do reward you with benefits from in-combat abilities for yourself or party members, to allowing yourself to create a daily item as a “free action” (that can actually be quite expensive, but doing more stuff in a day is always a plus!), along with the awesome character moments they lead to which is honestly the real prize /bleedingheart.

I love the moments, which is part of what makes it frustrating. I second-guess my every action, some actions (like going to the gym, which gives you a hp boost) fall by the wayside because dagnabbit, I want to upgrade all the social links! But I need to buff my stat, but where do i buff that stat, how can I best buff that stat, I can hang out with this person now but I can’t upgrade their social link, could I be upgrading it now had I done something else? Oh no! I was given the chance to read a book on a train as a free action, but i have no books! Or I had books, but it turns out they were about going to places I had already unlocked. It also means the idea of leaving a palace before finishing the second i’m in is a travesty, one that tried my darndest to avoid doing after the first. Not helping is that going into a palace or mementos consumes both daily actions, and in the case of mementos you can occasionally be “surprised” by another encounter one needs to do for a social link, but you can complete multiple quests in mementos at once! But how long do you save up the quests before doing them in one burst? AAHHH!

Ultimately, most of these worries will fall by the wayside once I get around to doing a second playthrough, since you get to keep your stats and i’ll have more then enough time to get to know all the social links, but that nagging feeling remains. And in spite of all i’ve said, the game still somehow works for me. I ended up giving all my characters SP bangle accessories over time. SP is king, with SP you can recover health AND do the moves you need to fight your way through areas. If you want to complete an area in one burst, recovering SP every round really slows down the bleed you get fighting through foes... Or you can be the phantom thief you’re meant to be and only fight when necessary while avoiding others. Course, then it’s a crapshoot whether you’ll be leveled up enough to take on the boss (or bosses in some cases), so do as you will.

Honestly i’m disappointed in myself for some of these “complaints”, it really is just me being sad that the game isn’t made just for me. I’m sure many Persona fans love the resource management and the strategy in planning out your actions for the day. And ultimately, to a degree I think I still enjoy it. I love the game. It really is more personal issues then issues in the mechanics/gameplay. Just felt like mentioning it nontheless. Hey, this is my blog after all XD.

The Surge

Sci-Fi Souls! Wooh. I feel like giving a bit of advice to the game, even though i’m not great at it and haven’t even finished it yet. Still, maybe someone can learn from my mistakes.  I’ll try to minimize spoilers like i did with the previous games, but there might be some vague allusions to plot. Also, note that i’ve been going with a slow, single-rigged weapon for most of the game, so I can’t give much combat advice for faster weapons.

First up, think Demon’s Souls rather than Dark when it comes to the safe zones for levelling up. There’s one per area, and you don’t find more but rather shortcuts that lead back to it. So keep your eyes out for those shortcuts, or your death will lead to a much longer backtrack then it needs to.

In general, similar to Souls remember to always move cautiously and keep your eyes open for enemies waiting in ambush (and in one case a hole in the ground that leads to your death... not that i’m bitter.) and alternative directions to go. Alternative directions hide rewards, better entryways that can turn an ambush against itself, shortcuts, or show you where a future shortcut or area may be (and yes, you do return to some older areas). If you don’t know which is the “main road” and which is the “alternative” one, don’t be afraid to turn back and give the other one a peek after strolling through it a bit.

If you’ve been following the game, you’ll probably already know with human enemies that dismembering limbs can get you items, from what I can tell you only get them by going for armored body parts, going for the unarmored areas may give you some scrap or lesser items, but if you want the whole limb, you need to go for the armored part (they say it just matters how much “damage the part has taken”, but if there’s a small chance you can get the whole limb even hitting an unarmored part, I haven’t been lucky enough yet.) Not only does going for the armored part do reduced damage, but it also decreases the stun effect your attacks have on an enemy. With a big weapon you can essentially stunlock a human enemy to death if you hit their unarmored part, but be ready to block or dodge their counterattack if you’re trying to get their gear (don’t stay back too long though, or you won’t have the energy needed to perform a dismember!)

Wearing an entire set of gear gives a buff, one I assume depends on the gear in question. I’ll admit, I haven’t experimented with my gear to find out exactly what the buff my set has actually does, but it’s there.

When you wield a large, heavy weapon like I do, it’s usually best to start off a battle with a charge attack (that is, leap at them and attack), it isn’t quite as damaging as a regular attack (it’s close though), and it consumes quite a bit more stamina, BUT it is a heck of a lot faster then a regular attack. Far too many times I found a foe could hit me as I was winding up with my bigass weapon and there wasn’t much I could do about it. Most of the time my character could power through thanks to hyperarmour, but the damage is there, and it’ll add up over time. 

Dash attack and you can usually stunlock your foe long enough to kill, or at least do a large chunk of damage before you retreat or block. Alternatively you can try to play a bit more defensive, and just make sure you only attack after your foe has tried and failed to hit you, but with some faster foes (or maybe you’re taking on multiple and they just don’t leave a big enough opening) your attack is just THAT slow and they can just go again while you’re open. Honestly, I think just a tiny attack speed increase for the slower weapons wouldn’t be amiss. Not a massive one, but just a small tweak.

That being said, I might think this way because I haven’t mastered blocking, which the game does advice heavier rigs to do over dodging. Blocking is a little different from souls. First up, instead of slowing down stamina regen, it outright drains stamina, so you can only do it for a short period of time before needing to recharge. Also, there’s actually only a small window of time where your “block” can work against bigger attacks (about the only attack that i can block after that small window seems to be drone charges or similar small attacks) and leave them open for a counter. There’s no other “parry” button, you just need to time your block right. You can also “duck” or “jump” while blocking to avoid some attacks, although I've had limited experience with it so can’t judge how effective it is.

Weapons also all have separate “combos” of R1 and R2 presses. If there’s a menu where it tells you what those combos are I haven’t found them, so you should either look it up or just play around with the buttons and experiment. In the tips in the game menu it mentions timing the presses right in the combo also decreases stamina drain, which I might look into at some point, and you may wish to as well.

At a point in the game you’ll notice some green smog that seems to do damage to you. Honestly this was probably just me being silly, but in case someone else makes the same mistake note that it isn’t the smog perse as it is the blue gunk on the ground that is damaging you, if you be careful and dodge the gunk you won’t take damage. Wish i’d known that earlier...

Later in the game, there’s a robot enemy that has a “tail”, taking out the tail not only limits the foes actions, but gives you an item that can give your rig more power in exchange for a slot. If you’re like me you’ll struggle a lot through the area where this enemy is and collect a lot of them, you can actually sell them back at base for 1000 scrap each, which isn’t too bad.

That’s about all the advice I have for the moment, I've also got a few minor complaints.

That damn tiny gap in the second area tunnels that make you fall to your death, darn you! darn you!

There’s a robot enemy on wheels where the back wheel is it’s weak point. Charging this foe, even with it’s back turned, is a grave mistake as it turns nearly in an instant. It’s just a frustrating feeling that I can’t ambush these buggers, even with my dash attack you’re not fast enough and hit armor and, most likely, a nasty counterattack. Maybe it’s just me, but it feels kind of cheap (the main way to best them isn’t great either, mainly just strafing around them waiting for them to make the mistake of attacking and just smack ‘em in the back. You can’t execute bots anyway so there’s no benefit in attacking the armored parts from what I can tell (well, apart from when that part is it’s weapon anyway).

The third boss has three parts that annoy me. First up,locking is pretty impractical with them, all well and good, except when you attack an enemy you lock onto them, so i find myself having to delock every time i hit the bugger. In hindsight, maybe there’s something in the options menu that removes it though... I’ll have to check later.

Second, theres a point in this boss fight where you learn the annoyance of hitting enemies that spend most of their time above you, it’s really awkward trying to hit them, lockon doesn’t really work (once again, i found it easier to delock after every hit), and since my weapon’s combo is based around enemies being on the ground, i essentially have to pause after every attack to make sure he doesn’t try the second part of the combo, which will miss by a mile! Blaaaaargh.

Third, for a poor bugger like me who died multiple times to this boss, collecting the scrap is a bit awkward. You have a “load bar” when you’re collecting it, except it doesn’t seem to work properly when you drop down into the boss fight and doesn’t actually pick it up even when the bar finishes. A couple of times i’ve been smacked to the earth for the sin of trying to pick up my stuff before I started fighting him. Actually, speaking of, there seems to be some unavoidable falling damage just entering the boss arena when you fall in. Isn’t much, but it’s there. Seems like a bit of an oversight.

Oh! And not a complaint, but I noticed while trying to beat the boss that along the way i’d suddenly start regenerating a little health briefly and have no idea why. Just weird, I think it has happened elsewhere too. Maybe it is what my gear does? Except i’m pretty sure it does something else, and it isn’t consistent, a healing symbol pops up and i just start veeeery slowly healing.

[inloveandwords]

BLACK LIVES MATTER. Visit this link for ways you can help.

*= I am trying to make a more conscious effort to read books by authors of color. I know many others are as well. Moving forward, I will be annotating books by authors of color with an asterisk. Please let me know if I missed one or mislabeled one.

Stats

Total: 28 DNF: 3 Rereads: 0 Ebooks: 7 Physical Books: 2 Audiobooks: 19 1-Stars: 0 2-Stars: 0 3-Stars: 8 4-Stars: 8 5-Stars: 12

DNF

*Real Men Knit by Kwana Jackson I received this as an eARC from Netgalley. This is a contemporary romance about a woman whose mother-figure has passed away, leaving behind her 4 adoptive sons. Some of them want to close her knitting store, but one wants to keep it open and enlists the help of our heroine. The author, Kwana Jackson, also goes by KM Jackson, is a Black author. She has a big backlist of contemporary romance novels under the KM Jackson pen name that I definitely want to check out.

I think this book was just a case of bad timing and burn out for me. I found myself skimming pretty early on in this book because it felt like the story wasn’t moving forward at all. Scenes were lasting too long to keep my attention. It was actually pretty disappointing because I was really excited about this book! I don’t knit, but I crochet, and I liked hearing about yarn and knitting in Penny Reid’s Knitting in the City series, however, I had to put this one down. Amazon

Becoming Mrs. Lockwood by LI Lynn I talk more about this in my 7yo Picks my TBR video, but this was a book that Roree picked out for me. I think I heard this is a Twilight fanfiction, but it’s another one that reads like fanfiction, however, is extremely different than the original. It’s about a girl who is on vacation with her mom in Las Vegas, but hasn’t been able to see any sights since her mom is gambling all day and night. Since she is underage, she can’t go with her. All of that felt like a stretch to begin with, but then this super hot guy spots her from across the room and immediately is in love with her and takes her out to see Las Vegas. There is also an age gap in this, but it isn’t a good one. She’s a very immature 18 year old who is still in high school. This is mentioned when they first meet, yet he still pursues her. It just… rubbed me the wrong way. Like, how can this be instalove and still be a 500+ page contemporary romance. I DON’T UNDERSTAND! Amazon

Taming Her Mountain Man (Bear’s Tooth Mountain Man #1) by Cameron Hart I read this for the Weekend Contemporaryathon, so I talk more about that in my Contemporaryathon Vlog. It’s about an adoptive girl that is running away from her shady adoptive parents to her estranged grandmother’s cabin in the mountains where she meets this older, loner mountain man who is running away from his past. This is a novella, so it’s obviously very instalovey. What put me off of it was the main character and the instalove wasn’t done well. She’s another one who is SO immature that I was weirded out by the age gap. I think I’ve found that I don’t mind age gaps as long as there isn’t a big difference in maturity levels. Amazon

  3 Stars

  Remind Me (Magnolia Sound #1) by Samantha Chase This was a book I just randomly listened to off of Hoopla before I realized I have a limit on how many books I can read on that app. My library just got Hoopla, so I’m still learning. To be completely honest, I remember next to nothing about this book and the next one on this list.

If I remember correctly, it is a second chance romance about a girl who has moved away from a small town in North Carolina. She had a summer fling with her grandfather’s neighbor, but she moves away to NY to be a successful woman in tech (as they do in these types of romances). A hurricane is threatening the town and they are being asked to evacuate, but her grandfather is refusing to leave, so the hero stays with him.

I want to take a moment here to talk about this. I live in FL and have lived through many hurricanes. Some that were scary (Irma), some that fizzled out to be nothing but some wind and rain. Either way, living here my whole life has taught me that when there is a mandatory evacuation, you GTFO ASAP. Hurricanes can and have flattened entire communities.

Anyway, this book was just meh. I didn’t really care about the characters. There wasn’t a lot of chemistry. It was just ok. Amazon

The Royal Treatment (Alaskin Royal Family #1) by MaryJanice Davidson I recently did a video talking about the books that got me through my Twilight hangover back in the day, and Mary Janice Davidson’s Undead series was on this list. When I came across this book on Audible Escape, I was curious to see how her contemporary romances would be.

And it was as I expected. Just meh. This is an alternative/futuristic reality in which Alaska is it’s own country or something weird like that. Anyway, they have a king there who is looking for a wife who would make a good princess for his son. He ends up setting up our main character with his son.

A couple of things were weird about this. First, the who Alaska thing seemed unnecessary, like, just make up a country like everyone else does. Second, she didn’t really do anything that I saw for the King to think she was so amazing. Something I did find interesting, was this was almost opposite of instalove. Both of them seemed pretty neutral about each other aside from sexual chemistry until the very end. I actually really appreciated that.

Also, the synopsis calls this book erotic. It’s not. If I did steam fans like Steph, I’d give this one 3 steam fans. Amazon

PS It’s Always Been You Part 1 by Lauren Blakely I read this one for the Weekend Contemporaryathon and talk about it in that vlog. Let’s be real, I read this for Scott Eastwood’s narration… and it was pretty disappointing. The book and his narrating. He had a lot of awkward pauses. Anyway, the time it’s going to take me to tell you what this book is about is pretty much as long as it took me to listen to this audiobook. It’s about this daredevil, reality TV show guy who once hooked up with this girl who is some sort of historian, but ends up ditching her for his career, until one day they end up having to work together. And that’s it. That’s the whole story. The End. Amazon

Abducting Abby (Dragon Lords of Valdier #1) by SE Smith I 100% do not remember reading this book at all. This is what happens when I go crazy adding audiobooks to my favorites in Hoopla (which I use as my TBR) because I got over-excited about having a new service.

This is a short, smutty, sci-fi romance that I picked up because… dragons. Abby creates and sells luxury artwork from her cabin in the mountains when one day an alien space ship crash lands in the woods near her and she ends up saving the guy inside not realizing that he’s a dragon shifter.

Now that I’m remembering the story, I did enjoy reading this one, it just wasn’t anything particularly special. I think I may actually move on in the series, though. If you like the whole fated mates thing, you’ll like this one. It’s no IPB, but it’s good for IPB hangovers. Averie – you should totes give this one a try! Amazon

Fire in His Blood (Fireblood Dragon #1) by Ruby Dixon Ruby Dixon is the author of IPB, and I was super interested to see how her other books are. This series is a fated mates dragon shifter post-apocolyptic romance. It’s pretty long, I was expecting it to be short like IPB, but it’s not. And I feel like I would’ve liked it better if it was. It just got a little repetitive. I did like when there is a communication barrier between the hero and heroine in these types of books. Especially when the hero recognizes that she’s his mate, but she’s like WTF, dude, back off. And I especially, especially like when they respect consent despite the communication difference. I’m over here like, “IF AN ALIEN DRAGON SHIFTER WHO HAS INVADED OUR PLANET CAN UNDERSTAND CONSENT, WHY CAN’T YOU, BROCK?” Amazon

Racked and Stacked (Blacktop Cowboys #9) by Lorelei James I read this for a secret TBR that I’m in the middle of right now because when I do secret TBRs it takes me years, so I’m not going to talk about this one too much. Just know it’s a cowboy romcom, enemies to lovers. Amazon

Something to Talk About by Meryl Wilsner This was an ARC I received from Netgalley. It’s Berkely’s first F/F published romance, which is awesome for the author. And I think this is OWN voices, but I’m not sure. I had super high expectations going into this one – I didn’t realize how high until the book didn’t meet them. It’s about a woman who works in the entertainment industry, I think she’s a director or producer, and her assistant. The media thinks that they are dating because of something that happens while paparazzi were around. This is a SUPER CRAZY INSANE slow burn. Like… the first kiss doesn’t even happen until 75% into this book. Don’t get me wrong, I adore slow burn. Mariana Zapata is my favorite contemporary romance author, but the burn was so slow in this one, it affected how I felt about the relationship. I started not caring after awhile whether they got together or not.

I can see how some of the scenes were supposed to be super full of tension, but I think because it took so long for the relationship to develop, I just wasn’t as invested. Amazon

Shy Girls Write It Better (Some Girls Do It #1) by May Sage I read this one for Contemporaryathon and talk about it in the vlog. It’s about a woman who writes erotic romance and accidentally gives her hot boss a copy of one of her manuscripts instead of a report and instead of getting mad, he wants to give her real life BDSM experience because she writes it so badly.

Overall, this was pretty good for a short, smutty read. I don’t love the overly innocent, inexperienced heroine to begin with, so that definitely affected my rating. Also the fact that she’s supposed to be a super successful romance author and she knows she sucks at writing BDSM, but yet she continues to do it? I don’t know, something about that entire aspect of the premise was off to me and I think this book would’ve been better without it.

I did really like that the hero wasn’t your stereotypical alpha, though. That was refreshing. Amazon

4 Stars

Point of Retreat (Slammed #2) by Colleen Hoover I read this book for Contemporaryathon. It’s the sequel to Slammed which is Colleen Hoover’s debut novel, a contemporary romance involving slam poets. Obviously it’s so much more than that, I mean, it’s Colleen Hoover. At first I wasn’t sure if this book was necessary before reading it, but Layken and Will’s story definitely wasn’t done. Amazon

*Flame in the Mist (Flame in the Mist #1) by Renee Ahdieh Renee Ahdieh is a Korean-American author and this book was a unique twist on Mulan. This book was as beautiful and badass as the cover.

I’ve always been partial to the story of Mulan, but I love how much more intricate this story was in comparison.

Our main character doesn’t magically have all sorts of powers and though she is a badass, it’s because of her quick-thinking bravery, and resilience, not any magical skill.

The writing was also one of my favorite things about this book. It was beautiful and fit so well with the story itself. I felt like I was experiencing everything our main character did, right beside her. Amazon

*The Marriage Game by Sara Desai I received this ARC from Netgalley. I believe this is an OWN voices novel. It’s a fun enemies to lovers romance where our main character, Layla, moves home with her big family after a humiliating break up that essentially lost her her job. Her father sets her up, not only with the office above his restaurant, but also with some arranged marriage prospects (without her knowledge). Little does she know, he also rented out the space to Sam, CEO of a corporate downsizing company. Read my review here. Amazon

*The Fire Between High & Lo (Elements #2) by Brittainy C Cherry My monthly Brittainy C Cherry novel. If you don’t know, I discovered BCC this year and fell in love with her books. I’ve been reading at least one of her backlist titles per month. She is a Black author, by the way.

This is a sunshine and grumpy, friends-to-lovers romance about two teenagers who have very rough home lives. Our hero’s mother is struggling with bad addiction which has trickled down to him and has been affecting him since he was a young child. Our heroine’s mother, though successful, is cold and disinterested. Though they come from completely different backgrounds, there is a lot they have in common that bring them together and they become really good friends.

This wasn’t my favorite BCC. That being said, It was still a really good, emotional story that I’ve come to expect from her. I think the main reason why I couldn’t give this 5 stars as I have literally every other BCC I’ve read, is because there is a lot of drug use and addiction in this novel and it’s just not my favorite thing to read about. Amazon

Mind Reader by Kirsty McManus I read this book for Contemporaryathon and talk about it in my vlog as well. This is one of those novellas that I found for free on Kindle and downloaded because it sounded fun. The hero can see other people’s soul mates and knows when they will meet. Until he meets our heroine, a woman who works in the STEM field who thinks it’s all BS. Their paths cross and sparks fly.

This book is perfect for those who prefer a lot less steam. It’s very fade-to-black.

This book was a lot of fun to read. I had a lot of expectations going into this book, and I expected it to be pretty predictable, but it surprised me a few times. Though the beginning as a little rough, it starts from the hero’s POV and he was kind of douchey, but the book ended up being super sweet. Amazon

*The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa I believe this is OWN voices for the latinx rep. It’s a romantic comedy between a woman who has been left at the alter and the groom’s best man and brother. Because of this, it is a hate-to-love, but it’s so much more. The hero is dealing with issues of his own self worth in comparison to his brother (the ex-groom). The heroine is dealing with prejudice in the workplace.

I feel like this book is a little underrated. It’s not my favorite enemies to lovers, but I think it is a lot better than many of the reviews I’ve read for it were. There are a lot of complaints about the male narrator in the audiobooks and I agree, but it didn’t completely put me off of the book because of it.

I thought that the humor was really good, it was awkward in some areas, and the issues both of the characters were dealing with played out really well. Amazon

*Girl Gone Viral (Modern Love #2) by Alisha Rai Alisha Rai is a South Asian American writer. This was a refreshingly diverse bodyguard romance with fantastic panic disorder rep. Katrina is an ex-model and divorcee to a very wealthy man, she also suffers from debilitating panic attacks, so when a couple in a coffee bar live tweet an interaction between herself and a man who approached her and it goes viral, she’s not only in danger, but it also triggers her anxiety. Her long-time bodyguard whisks her away from the spotlight and sparks fly.

I almost didn’t read this, but I’m so glad I didn’t listen to some of the sub-par reviews, because I really enjoyed this book. First of all, it’s a bodyguard romance and he’s been pining after her for a long time. There is also great anxiety rep.

I had to take away a star only because I felt like the build up of tension between these two characters was so good, but when they finally got together, I was a little let down and I couldn’t put my finger on why exactly. Amazon

*Desolate (Grace #1) by Autumn Grey Autumn Grey has officially been added to my list of authors I need to read their entire backlists alongside Brittainy C Cherry, Mia Sheridan, and Sarina Bowen. Autumn doesn’t have as many books in her backlist as the others, so I’m going to have to pace myself.

I didn’t know what this book was about going into it for Contemporaryathon. I just saw the author’s name and picked it up. Autumn is a Black author, by the way. I recently read Fall Back Skyward by her after buying it from her at Shameless Book Con last year, and I fell in love with it.

This book is a forbidden new adult romance between a man who is planning on becoming a priest and a woman who is wrongfully considered the town whore. As soon as I realized the premise in this book, I was hooked. And the characters, oh my goodness, the characters and their chemistry were so potent. From the moment they met and how fascinated our hero is with the heroine, despite his dedication to God. How he can’t seem to tear himself away from her.

I will say, my only complaint is that this is a cliff hanger. It is part of a trilogy which is complete and I will be reading on in it. That and the hero started driving me crazy at the end because he wouldn’t make a freaking decision, but like I said, I loved this book. Amazon

5 Stars

Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz I need to preface this by saying that I know Hannah Moskowitz has said some problematic things on Twitter recently. I haven’t seen them myself, I’ve only seen references, but I do want everyone to know that going into this novel.

With that being said, this book was such a great and refreshing representation of chronic illness in YA. I have Multiple Sclerosis and though none of the characters in this book have that exact illness, they do have their own and they do have similar experiences and thoughts.

The two meet at, I believe, an infusion center. Some place that many with chronic illnesses are very familiar with. And there is great chemistry and bonding and banter from the beginning. There were so many moments where I found myself nodding vigerously as they talked about healthy people vs. people with chronic illnesses. What it’s like to be surrounded by healthy people when you are not. Being limited and defined by your illness. Big topics that were well portrayed.

I definitely felt seen. Amazon

Grin and Beard It (Winston Brothers #2) by Penny Reid I’m slowly but surely making my way through this series and so far I’ve been loving every second of it. Normally I’m not a big fan of the fame element in a romance novel, but it was a little easier to swallow with this book because it was the heroine who is famous. Our heroine is a comedic actress who gets rescued by our hero, a park ranger, in a small town where she is filming her upcoming movie.

Fame plays a big part in this, which I normally don’t like, but there was something about the dynamic between her outgoing, charisma mixed with his southern charm that I loved. Amazon

Beard Science (Winston Brothers #3) by Penny Reid So far the first book is still my favorite, but this comes in close second. This is Cletus’s story, and he’s such a big weirdo I was wondering who he was going to end up with. It was NOT the heroine. Where Cletus is super smart and manipulative and quirky, our heroine is very polished and put together and naive. She has lived under her mother’s thumb working at a very successful bakery.

Nobody in town takes her seriously, especially Cletus, until she blackmails him and they are forced together. Soon, he realizes there is a lot more to this seemingly shallow woman.

I loved this book so much more than I thought I would, given the main character. I thought, when we were first introduced to her that she was going to get on my nerves, but honestly, her character growth and unexpected depth made me change my mind entirely.

And I’m such a fan of quirky heroes, so I loved Cletus, too. Amazon

Powertools: Collection 1 (Powertools 1 & 2) by Jayne Rylon You guys. I never would’ve expected a super steamy reverse harem novel would be so high on my list, but here we are.

I talk a lot more about this book in my Contemporaryathon vlog, but in short, I loved this book because though it was ridiculous, there was a strong romance in both of the two short stories. I also was totally into the whole summer vibe of the first book and the immersive autumn vibes of the second book. Also, the hero in the second book is so swoony and I fell so hard for him. Amazon

The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides #1) by Jennifer Ashley Yay! A historical romance I LOVED! I knew it was only a matter of time until I found one that hit the spot for me and it was absolutely this one.

This was a rec from a comment on one of my videos and they freaking nailed it.

This is a historical romance between a widow and a man with autism. Of course, back then, they just thought he was mad and threw him and everyone treated him so horribly because of it. Seriously, my heart absolutely broke. However, our heroine is the only one who truly understood him, or at least didn’t look down on him. I also absolutely loved her. Because she has her husband’s fortune, she doesn’t need to marry. In fact, men are lining up for her. She also isn’t a naive, innocent virgin. She knows what she wants and she goes after it. She’s smart and witty.

This was everything I am realizing I love in a romance novel. Amazon

*Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda This freaking book.

So, I haven’t seen this musical yet, but I am such a huge fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda and the music – especially Jonathan Groff’s song, though, I’m biased because I’m obsessed with him. I’ve watched performances and interviews and I’m so excited about finally getting to see this on Disney Plus on July 3. I can’t contain myself.

I actually downloaded this audiobook when it went on sale a while ago, but I picked it up on a whim last week and finished it in a day because I became obsessed.

I loved seeing how this musical became the phenomenon it is. I loved hearing Lin’s thought process behind creating it. How he wanted to depict these historical figures in a modern, much more diverse way, using a genre of music that was not associated with Broadway at all. From the choreography to the costumes – it was absolutely fascinating.

I just… I need July 3 to be now. Amazon

Lover Her or Lose Her (Hot & Hammered #2) by Tessa Bailey I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this one. So many people complained about how the hero was way to alpha for them and I kept thinking, “Well, jeez, if he’s too alpha for them, he’ll definitely be too alpha for me.” But, honestly? He wasn’t.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s definitely alpha, but I adored his reasoning for it.

Anyway, this is a second chance romance between a married couple who have a ton of chemistry in bed, but have lost touch of each other in every other way. So, when our heroine has had enough, she decides to leave her husband.

But he is not having it. To him, she is his everything. It’s kind of the opposite of The Bromance Bookclub because he thinks everything is fine since the sex is still really good, but that’s not the case. I loved how this book really dove into love languages and how both people must understand the other’s language and support it.

And there was so much longing, it made my heart hurt. Yes, he was very alpha. He very much wanted to be the one who provided for his wife, however, I wasn’t bothered by it AT ALL. Amaz

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune OMG this book was so sweet, I couldn’t handle it. It’s a whimsical fantasy that, if I had to explain it in one word, it would be charming.

It’s about a man in his forty’s who has led a very mediocre life thus far. He lives for his job, which is to evaluate orphanages for extraordinary children for a very corporate overlord of a company. He’s sent on a highly classified job to check out this orphanage for especially gifted, some think dangerous, children.

It’s very elementary school x-men.

And oh my goodness, the character growth and the relationships that are built, both familial, romantic, and platonic are all so strong and vibrant. This book absolutely lives up to the hype. Amazon

Beach Read by Emily Henry This is another book that absolutely lived up to the hype. Though the title might lead you to believe that this is going to be a fun, light read, it’s really not. There is a lot of substance behind this book that the title and cover do not allude to.

Aside from a swoony romance and hilarious banter and writing, we are dealing with grief, with loss, with resentment … a lot of heavy topics woven between this romcom story about two writers who have challenged themselves to write each other’s genre, one literary fiction, one women’s fiction/romance. Amazon

The Edge #0.5-2 by CD Reiss These are all short, but super intense military suspense romance novels. I feel that the prequel is required reading for this series because it sets up the relationship so solidly, that despite the craziness that this couple goes through in later books, you root hard for them. The couple meet in a war zone, one a surgeon who works for 8 days straight saving lives and one a psychiatrist who is trying to keep him standing and sane – along with all the other medics and soldiers. I felt like this book was so well researched and gorgeously written. CD Reiss is called the Shakespeare of Smut for a reason. The steamy scenes were just as intense as the rest of the book.

I absolutely plan on reading the rest of this series! Amazon

May 2020 Wrap Up BLACK LIVES MATTER. Visit this link for ways you can help. *= I am trying to make a more conscious effort to read books by authors of color.

[danafraedrich]

Book Review - Chasing Shadows

Chasing Shadows by KN Salustro (The Star Hunters #1)  Star Rating: 5/5 Genre: Science Fiction, Space Opera Buy the book: Amazon Synopsis (from Amazon):  STAND AND PROTECT Star Federation soldiers live by these words as they work to uphold peace across the galaxy. Founded at the start of the Andromedan War, the Star Federation annihilated its enemies and has gone unchallenged since then. Sometimes, powerful forces surface and demand more attention, be they drug lords, pirate crews, or bounty hunters worthy of Alpha Classification, but the Star Federation stands firm. Following the assassination of one of his subordinates, Fleet Commander Lance Ashburn goes on the hunt for the Alpha Class bounty hunter known as the Shadow. One of the best officers the Star Federation has ever seen, Commander Ashburn comes closer than anyone to eliminating the Shadow, but upon meeting her, he learns that a much larger and deadlier enemy roams the stars, one that could destroy the Star Federation. Caught between the Star Feds and her own dark past, bounty hunter Lissa a.k.a. the Shadow is pulled into a battle with no clean escape. With enemies on all sides, she must choose her allies very carefully. Her decisions could save the galaxy or plunge it into war, and this time, the price of enduring peace may be too high.

One of the most delightful experiences I get as a reader is reading a book that doesn't fall into my usual genre and loving it. This is another one of those experiences. I had the pleasure of meeting KN Salustro at BookCon last year when I went as an attendee, and she is so awesome, not to mention hella talented (more on that later). So I went ahead and bought her book without knowing anything about it. I've been trying for the last year and a half or so to support my fellow indies by eschewing my genre tastes and just diving blind into their tales. And it's been awesome! See, I've never really read a book like Chasing Shadows because I've never really been into military sci-fi. Can I call it that? TBH, I'm not familiar enough with all the subgenres of sci-fi to really say, but I feel like that's the right categorization. Space Opera is what's listed on Amazon, and heck if I know what that means. I just know it's light years from usual fare. He-ey, sci-fi joke. *Ba-dump ch!* 🥁 Anyhoodles, what I can tell you is that it reminded me of Star Trek, which I can totally relate to since I was raised on TNG, Voyager, and DS9. Holla back, fellow Trekkies! I'm a character girl, though, so the space battles and whatnot never really appealed to me. Thus why I have zero books like this on my shelves. And yet, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

There are a lot of things to praise in this book. Character diversity (both alien and human), equality (hooray for equally complex female and male characters!), fantastic action that never stopped throughout the whole book, the descriptions of planets that gave me such visions - seriously people, who needs hallucinogenic drugs when we have books? And KN's verb usage is on point! Gah! I adore her strong verbs! Yes, that's incredibly technical and geeky, but they were so powerful I can't not mention it.

Can we talk about the arkins, though? What the heck's an arkin, you might ask. The little critter in the photo at the beginning of this post. That's an arkin. They're intelligent, space-dwelling, flying, cat-dragon critters. They are such a fun piece of this universe. I need one IRL, stat! And KN, magical fabricator that she is, makes them! Yeah, she's a frickin' incredible artist too. Her plushies (like my little Cassiopeia) are sold via her Etsy shop, and she has some AH-MAZE-ING Star Hunters-specific planet artwork in her RedBubble and Society6 shops. 

Look at the detail on this guy! The wee paw pads (aka smush beans) and the eyes are definitely my favorite parts! And these planets! Soooooo pretty! I don't know what this style of artwork is called, but I LOVE it! 😍

I really only have one critique about the book. There are a few small info-dumps around the beginning, but I haven't dinged the review rating for it because I don't really know that there was a better way to handle it. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to build an entirely new world from scratch, and sometimes you have to just get the information across to the reader in order to move on with the story, especially if it's background info. 

So there's my review. If you've read the book and have thoughts, let's discuss in the comments below 👇. Or tell me about a book you ran into that was totally outside of your usual genres that you loved. We can chat about that too.

Thanks for reading!

[badbackgroundscience]

Good Riddance, 2017

It seems appropriate that the next comic in my queue ended up a disappointment, as we all say goodbye to the globally horrible year that was two thousand and seventeen. Don’t get me wrong, some good things happened, but...ooh boy...I don’t think many of us will be sad to see this year go. Here’s hoping hope remains alive in 2018, and we all do what we can to make Earth a better place to live.

Like, I don’t know, voting for people that aren’t trying to screw over their constituents. Or the future. 

Just a thought.

But to get back to that disappointment, Marvel’s X-Men continues to be my least favorite of all the comics I read for this blog. As someone who rather enjoyed the 90′s animated series for more than just its awesome theme song, it’s kind of a bummer.

In this issue we’re introduced to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants: Toad, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch,* and some cad named Mastermind who generates "hypnotic illusions” like that girl from Stranger Things 2. Their leader, Mr. Magnet Man, steals a freighter so they can all go to the mythical coastal South American nation of Santo Marco** - a completely different South American country from San Gusto, which also exists in this universe.

Magneto has Mastermind conjure up an army, and the civilians give up immediately. He then somehow gets a real army; we are not offered an explanation how. But they let Xavier and his students through without a second look at their excuse for coming there.

Naturally, a fight ensues. Among the pertinent panels, Quicksilver somehow doesn’t break his entire body after running into a wall at full speed

and Scott causes the building equivalent of a cave-in. 

Note the narration “one million volts of deadly current run wild thru the castle”. This is a small science booboo, but really the only one available that wasn’t powers-related (I did say this issue disappointed me...).

Current - which is a measure of how much electric charge is flowing past a given point in a certain amount of time - is measured in amps (aka amperes). Not volts.

Volts quantify, surprise surprise, voltage. Voltage is basically what forces current to flow - it’s sometimes likened to a kind of pressure. Current only flows when there’s a difference in voltage present in a circuit (i.e. one area’s at a higher “electric potential” than another).

Thanks to Ohm’s Law, we can relate the two terms: the current across a conductor (i.e. something that conducts current) is directly proportional to the voltage across said conductor:

Voltage = Current x Resistance (aka V = IR)***

Resistance depends on what the conductor is made of. Air is a very poor conductor, so it’s resistance is super high - like, 1.3×1016 Ω•m at room temperature. That means the amount of current produced by 1,000,000 V is about 770 billionths of an amp.****

Not really a menace.

(It’ll be a higher current through more conductive material, like wood, or rock, or the various other construction materials used to build whatever building this is. So, a worry for everyone besides Magneto and Angel - who can levitate and fly, respectively,***** but they should still probably be more worried about the ceiling caving in on them.)

Scott saves everyone by blasting the generator out the nearest wall and the two sides run their separate ways. Magneto then sets up a nuke “capable of blowing up this entire nation”.

Quicksilver actually deactivates it after all the baddies slide down their escape chute (Query: The nuke is set to go off in 10 minutes - does Magneto really expect to get far enough away from the blast in so little time?), so no one actually dies. We don’t see what Magneto does after there’s no boom...maybe some small part of him is secretly happy?

We don’t know how big Santo Marco is supposed to be, other than it’s “tiny”. The smallest real country in South America is Suriname, with 163,820 square kilometers (French Guiana is smaller, but technically part of France). If we turn that into a perfect circle, it’d have a radius a little under 230 km. 

Tsar Bomba (Царь-бомба) - the largest nuclear weaponized payload ever tested (1961) - had an explosive yield of 50 Megatons of TNT. Detonated at the surface (as opposed to in the air, which is what really happened), it’d (maybe)`* produce a 6 km-radius fireball and demolish everything within 8. The thermal radiation would give everyone within 51 km 3rd degree burns.

The bomb was 8 meters long (26 ft) and weighed 27,000 kg (60,000 lb). A bit bigger than what Magneto’s messing with.

But if we assume he has a slightly weaker but much more compact bomb (perhaps an antimatter ‘nuke’), Santo Marco must be roughly the size of Liechtenstein.

I think that’s appropriate for an entirely made-up country. 

* Neither of whom are, as yet, related to Magneto

** San Marco is the name of various places in Italy, and a neighborhood in Jacksonville, FL.

*** The “I” symbol for “current” originates from the French phrase intensité de courant

**** It takes about 3000 V to ionize (i.e. make conductive) one whole millimeter of air. A million would get you...a third of a meter.

Your typical lightning bolt is can get up to 100 million volts, which might suggest it’d only be able to make it 33 meters from cloud to ground. But that’s not taking into account other external factors caused by stormy weather (e.g. ambient electric fields of a charged thunder cloud and impurities in the air), which allows conduction to happen with fewer volts.

***** Actually I don’t think Magneto has been shown to be capable of levitating himself, yet...

`* These stats are based on this website, which extrapolates data on anything higher than 20 Mt. 

Support options: subscribe via Patreon, one-time gifts via Ko-fi.

X-Men #4 - Writer: Stan Lee, Art: Jack Kirby, Ink: Paul Reinman

Image credit:

map By Elevatorrailfan, CC BY-SA 4.0