#I DIDNT EVEN SAVESCUM

[ezdotjpg]

my crowning bg3 achievement

[skeletalheartattack]

If you were a chulip character how would players kiss you?

find and present to me a working copy of Dragon Ball Z Budokai 1 for the PlayStation 2 and you can kiss my stupid ass

[whilomm]

my memories of pikmen from when i was a kid: cute, fun little relaxing game that can be a liiil difficult at times, but overall 🥰🥰 yaaaay pikmen!

me currently replaying pikmen: hundreds dead. all murdered at once with a single roll of the queen, who is simultaneously shitting out ravenous larvae. i try so hard not to leave a single soldier behind but still i lost Two and i weep for them every day, not even getting the honor of dying in battle. i am chased by the avatar of anxiety across hallways hoping i can buy my soldiers a few more moments to complete their mission. also, capitalism.

[zakomoya]

[ejsuperstar]

I FEEL THE SAME ABOUT INVENTOR AAAAA

Episode 3 is fun but so far i just have not enjoyed playing her very much idk

Despite how much i fucking suck at witch she's actually one of my favs to play (the TOP fav being robot).

I am absolutely dreading getting to the harder parts of this game though considering my current track record on how well im doing (not well)

notflooding the tags of that one post but. yeah i'm also too stupid for this game i had to get through it with brute force savescumming like a criminal and Sheer Dumb Luck

[ur-not-real]

another long post about a game i like/beat but on saturday i beat mother/earthbound beginnigs!

this game has been in my heart for a while, i bought the fan translation of the gba port when i was in grade 10 (5 years ago Jesus H Christ) with one of my first paycheques from my grocery store job in october/november 2018. i played it through on that cart, savescumming like there was no tomorrow so i didnt have to pay umpteen gazillion dollars to revive the party (and i didn't use the easy ring because Motherfucker I Am Hard Fucking Core) but even as hard as it was and as old as the game feels i still really really loved it

the ending was so damn cute too, it made me tear up i wont even lie lol, the writing of the whole game too and i love so much of the text in the game that i took several screenshots throughout

i always felt like the games colours and look were damn near perfect to me, its such a cute ass game and it always sort of reminded me of old charlie brown specials

mother is definitely my favourite in the series (Controversial, I Know) but its the one i always find myself coming back to, for as much as it really shows its age, its one of my favourite games

also p.s. dear my wife if you are reading this i left spoilers out of this review because i really really want you to play this (also i love you♥️)

[william-s-churros]

painful definitive edition thoughts from one playthrough lol

i mean its lisa, so am i gonna complain that much? the campfire conversations are a nice touch, but they're so sporadic and im not sure how to trigger them so i wasted a lot of time and resources trying to get the damn things to happen. as for the rest of the game tho, it really is pretty much exactly the same, just with an added layer of frustration to get bonus content thats like. fine i guess. the terry convo is obviously very charming and sweet but its kinda like i feel like the trailer/promo material kinda overpromised this feature lmfao

SPEAKING of overpromising... i was really hoping for more enemies lmfao.... area 3 has always felt extremely unbalanced to me and i was kinda hoping like. something would be done about that, but it wasnt, so whatever. i do feel like im the promo stuff it was stated there would be more battles but perhaps i just misunderstood?

anyways, its lisa! obviously i had fun playing it. i was just kind of hoping it would be like... harder.... or like maybe had an even harder mode than pain mode... outside of savescumming to bring back guys who died in battle and falling off a cliff once, i think i only game overed during battle once? i dont give brad joy and i usually play one-armed, tho i have beaten it armless and even then i still didnt struggle as much as i hoped i would... oh how i miss the highs of being killed by the mens hair club like 5 times before getting into the proper groove of things and the rush of finally defeating them... i guess this is just what happens when youve played a video game like 20 times.... you git gud as they say. sometimes i really appreciate the ability to stunlock (for ex, when fighting an enemy with permadeath moves lol) but sometimes being able to do that really detracts from the challenge ykwim?

who knows, tho. theres probably some kind of fanmod for masochists like me out there and maybe i should look for it. most of the ones i have seen as qol mods that make painmode easier which is basically the opposite of what i want lmfao.

anyways, all in all-- its lisa! most of the character information i got from campfire conversations is extremely compatible with my own headcanons already too so lmao. its validating i suppose! but its kind of on me i think for hyping it up in my own head. i am curious to see what becomes of this fandom as more people play this game this way.

ive heard theres a secret ending if you get all the companions that im gonna try for next. maybe its all worth it... we'll see.

also i still gotta play joyful! i do wonder if a lot of the changes made were to joyful bc that game felt like such an afterthought in many ways lmfao. we'll see igss! im probs gonna keep replaying these games forever because i love them, but yeah. i guess i was expecting more lmfao. but i still liked it! and im excited to try and get other things, but i do sort of feel like like easter-eggy character interactions is cheap in terms of replay value for me anyway, maybe id feel differently if i were still at that stage with the game that i found the battles really challenging and stuff, idk, lmfao

OH EDIT; super appreciated the toning down if not outright omission of the antiblackness in the original game, altho the american indian stuff was still pretty stereotypes, tho im not entirely sure what you could do abt that besides a complete overhaul of the blood moon area lol

[myrfing]

the tribunal glitched so that i believe I got WAYYY more deaths than I actually should have. like liz in my tribunal never got shot but she just vanished entirely from the game afterwards. almost every hardy boy died it was insane and i have no idea why it was so fucked for me so I didnt even know at what point to roll back and fix it. i was also totally unarmed i even had my necktie off because I had changed clothes to savescum ruby and her averted suicide was also my last chance to get a gun IT WAS SO HARROWING MAN

[chongoblog]

Zero Time Dilemma Review/Ramble

Okay, so if you’ve been following me, you know that I’ve gotten into the Zero Escape series, famous for 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward, streaming both games. I recently took the time to experience the last game, Zero Time Dilemma by watching cutscenes rather than playing it proper mostly because A) I heard it was REALLY dark and didnt want to risk it on Twitch and B) I wanted to experience it more freely like while I’m at work.

After experiencing it. I have......feelings about it. And because there’s MASSIVE spoilers involved, I’m making it its own post under the ReadMore below.

tl;dr LOADS of bullshit, flawed execution, and stupid decisions, but still REALLY enjoyed it

Okay so a LOT of this is going to be complaining, and like I said in the tl;dr I still legit enjoyed this game, so I’m gonna make this a compliment sandwich by saying something nice now, loading up on complaints, then ending with more compliments. Carlos is good. So is Sean. Sigma being voiced by Matthew Mercer actually makes him more interesting imo. I REALLY like Phi’s new design and the way they build on the initial concepts brought up in VLR more accurately portray the ideas that started all the way back in 999, that being the idea of taking thoughts across timelines, just like the player. From the beginning, the theme/gimmick was always “what if your character remembered information when you savescummed?” In 999 that began as flashes of information, and in VLR the characters’ consciousness actually time traveled at the very end. ZTD now uses the idea of the consciousness traveling across time and space and RUNS with it. I also think that Delta has a cool design.

I’ll be nice again later, but now for the things I Did Not Like.

Emo Moody Junpei makes sense from a writing standpoint, but that doesn’t mean I have to like him. Maybe I just got spoiled since Evan Wilson did a spectacular job with his deliveries in 999 and in ZTD it seems like his soul got sucked out. Not the fault of the delivery as much as it is the writing. Eric is bad, and I feel like that statement isn’t controversial. I don’t think anyone likes Eric, and if you do, then sorry for shitting on him so much, but god I just don’t like him. And the abusive childhood thing doesn’t give me a drop of sympathy, but then again I’ve always hated the writing trick that “this person is shitty and pathetic but it’s because abuse!” (see also Mikan). Diane is boring (sorry).

But I fuuuuuckin HATE Mira. I hate Mira so much. Like, at first I thought she’d be alright, yeah she’s definitely The Boob Character™, but I liked Lotus well enough and Alice grew on me significantly, so I don’t see why Mira won’t. Then she’s like “surprise I’m a serial killer”. Now if they just made her a serial killer, it would be kinda boring so I’m glad they TRIED something new. I just think the result was bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad. Like....”hmm I never felt any emotions so when my mom told me they were kept in hearts I just ripped em out of people :)” is some garbage I’d write in middle school when I felt especially edgy. Also yeah seems p ableist. I won’t go too deeper into Mira, since she’s a sociopath and I don’t know enough about the actual disorder to put a candle to the real thing, but....bleh.

I won’t touch on THIS aspect for too long because I’m aware that it had barely any budget and it wouldn’t have happened without a kickstarter (don’t know the details), but the animation is just....so stiff. It really takes away from the dramatic impact some scenes are meant to have. But even IF the animation wasn’t stiff, I still am not a big fan of the darker and moodier direction it went. Although that’s moreso down to personal preference. Final note about the presentation (which is by far the game’s weakest aspect) is that I noticed multiple points in the sound mixing got to nearly Sonic Adventure 2 levels of being unable to understand what people were saying.

Alright. Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Let’s talk about Delta. This is going to make up a MAJORITY of this post so strap in.

Delta is a meme. There’s no other way to say it briefly. He’s just such a huge fucking meme. Almost everything about him, from his plan to his “complex” motives to his backstory to his powers. I mentioned liking his design, but fuck it. That’s a meme now too. Delta is the stupidest part of the game, and as much as I kind of love it, I also need to complain about it.

First let’s talk about Delta’s plan (because it starts with the nicest part of this segment). His motives are “complex” which is actually greek for “he’s probably either a liar, an idiot, or both”. I said there was nice things, so I’ll start with those. The very ending’s “ah ah ah. I never killed any of you in this timeline. If you arrested someone for crimes of another history, there would be criminals everywhere” was something I actually legitimately enjoyed. Yeah, intent was still there and he’s still a bastard (plus there was kidnapping and non-consensual drugging involved so kind of a stupid take), but I still thought it was a fun attempt. And also the “I had to make sure I was born” thing is a mindfuck, and I love those. Basically the first retort is “well I’m alive, right? So I don’t need to make sure I was born with powers because I WAS born with powers, which means it happened in another universe. So I don’t have to.” Only to then realize that we’re just in the universe where he DID do that but then the only justification is “someone had to” right? Wrong. Let’s talk about the rest of his “complex” motives

So I give a pass to “I had to make sure I was born”, but now we see why he had to do this whole deal and what he declares at the end of the game. That there’s some religious fanatic who intends to blow up the world and completely end humanity. And he released Radical-6 in the VLR timeline hoping that it would kill the terroris only killing 4 billion people instead of 6 billion people. In the timeline at the end of ZTD, he says that they had used this experience to hone the skills of the Shifters that way they could use their newly honed take down the religious fanatic WITHOUT Radical-6 and save the world.

What?

Now......before I tear into this.....I have ONE nice thing to say. The “unleash radical 6 and kill 4 billion vs let a terrorist end humanity” gambit IS cleverly foreshadowed with the radical 6 decision game with Q Team. But also wouldn’t that have made, like 1800 times more narrative sense to give that decision game to team D who KNOWS the impact of radical 6, or team C who he explains this plan to later on? Damn, even my nice thing was backhanded. Alright let’s REALLY tear into it.

FIRST of all, this is the exact same plot of Virtue’s Last Reward. Only difference is that somehow Akane and Junpei are just as skilled at this technique as Sigma and Phi despite the latter going to do Moon Training (granted the moon training was also to give them enough of a jump to go back 45 years). Speaking of Virtue’s Last Reward, this game also reveals that Delta is Brother, the leader of Free the Soul. A group of religious fanatics. So I wouldn’t be especially shocked if the religious fanatic is working with Free the Soul. But for the sake of this argument, let’s just say they aren’t with FtS. How in the Flavor-Blasted FUCK does he know this? Did somebody Shift back from that timeline and then just get Mind hacked (and we’ll fUCKING talk about Mind Hacking dont you worry)? How would that be the only piece of information known about the end of the god damn world? And if there IS more, then why the fuck wouldn’t you tell them the information? How does he know that it’s inevitable when apparently a god damn snail can unleash Radical-6?

I call bullshit on the “religious fanatic” thing. Wanna know why? Because at this point, Delta had already founded Free The Soul. He started this shit in 1938. At this point in time, he and the rest of the Free the Soul had already kidnapped Alice’s dad to create clones of his dead brother. He was pushing for a new world order and then in the VLR timeline, tried to PREVENT this whole thing from happening by sending Dio to the Moon. So if he actually gave a shit about “honing their abilities” then why would he do everything in his power to stop it? There is ONE out that there can be, but it’s something not even HINTED at (and I’ll talk about this later), but I think that "religious fanatic” is a big ol’ lie that he made up to try and save face when he was faced with a consequence, but even that explanation makes no sense since he’s like “lol shoot me if u wanna I wont mind hack you”

And let’s talk about mind hacking. Let’s fucking talk about Mind Hacking. Adding Mind Hacking was stupid, completely pointless, out of left field, and actively makes Delta a worse character. For those that don’t know, Mind Hacking is an ability that only Delta has (and I guess the player character technically but that’s a whole meta thing from VLR that doesn’t get followed up on) where you can read people’s minds and also fuckin control them. Why? Why was this necessary, ZTD? You wanna know what I thought was really neat? When I saw that different timelines produced different X-Codes. I thought “oh shit, I know this is Game Stuff, but the sheer foresight of the villain to do that? That’s some Moriarty shit.” It would require some insane explanations, but we’ve had enough sci-fi that we could imagine with enough advanced tech, you could set up systems that could use conditionals to give certain responses based on certain outcomes. Like if someone dies after the decontamination room button is pressed, then the central computer outputs a different X-Code than if it’s after the initial vote. Just make up a new tech that accounts for Shifting (plus the QUANTUM COMPUTER you have RIGHT THERE) and you could make a villain with so much calculated foresight that he’s just a god damn genius. But no. Mind hacking. None of that interesting stuff, just “lol I read ur mind idiot”. No outwitting anyone, just “lol get mindhacked eric u scrub bang bang”.

Honest to god, honest to FUCKING god, do you want to know how cool the final cutscene would have made Delta look if he walked out and just KNEW what happened in another timeline because of his plans. Like everyone recognizes him as Delta and he just goes “ohoho I see you had a fun time in my other timeline” using that deduction alone. But nah, he’s just like “yo I just mindhacked y’all, nice experience y’all had” I hate mind hacking so much. There’s no part of his plan where he NEEDED to mind hack in order to succeed that could have been written without mind hacking.

Now there’s a bit of a missed opportunity here that could both make mind hacking relevant, made his motive not shit, and also maybe even developed him into a SUPER interesting character! I know this is a bit fanfic-y, but hear me out. Make Delta a VICTIM of the stable time loop/bootstrap paradox. For those who don’t know, the bootstrap paradox is when time travel makes certain events happen seemingly out of thin air since they are their own cause. Basically it’s this clip from Milo Murphy. This is something that seems like it’s KINDA there in the subtext, but if they actually dove into it, they could have a GOLD mine.

What if we keep the mindhacking, and before he even MAKES Free the Soul, he mindhacks someone who experienced the events of the “religious fanatic”. But not just anyone. An experienced SHIFTer who made it their goal to stop this religious fanatic. After hundreds of attempts, they still fail. Delta sees this and determines it to be inevitable. So he’s having fun, cursed by the knowledge of an inevitable apocalypse. Then he meets Akane, Phi, Sigma, or Junpei after they had undergone the events of VLR and ZTD. He learns that particular timeline. A bleak future, yes, but one single future where humanity is alive. He sees two futures, one in which all of humanity dies, and one where he is the leader of a religious cult that wipes out 4 Billion People with a deadly pandemic. And the idea of being that person disgusts him. He despises it. But he’s completely resigned to fate. He knows that things must go precisely as he’s seen at the price of humanity, too frightened by such a burden to even take a toe off of the predetermined pathway. His motive is that he’s so tightly bound to fate and so afraid to let it slip that he has no choice but to commit the atrocities, despising himself for it every step of the way, but considering it better than the inevitable alternative. It would give a purpose for the mindhacking powers, it would give him a solid motive, and it would make the ending SO much stronger, showing the contrast between a group of SHIFTers confident that they can change fate and the man who is completely resigned to his own. Fuck, I might steal this character concept because I REALLY think this idea would work to make an interesting villain!

Like I mentioned, this is KINDA there in subtext (with him quite frequently saying “life truly is unfair”) and this could be an interpretation of the character, but if ZTD had explored that theme, then holy hell what an interesting character Delta would be.

But even WITH this fix, holy hell, this plan is stupid. Because guess what, dingus. You just created like 30 new timelines that all end in annihilation.

He coulda said ONE line about “even if there is only one history that ends nicely, that is solace enough”, that might have been dark, but still powerful. You know, add some depth. But instead, he’s just like “hmm hmm shoot me”

And the Q Twist? I’m honestly not as mad at it as I should be. On one hand, it does that cute thing where there are little bits of foreshadowing so when you rewatch it, you notice little bits like shadows and stuff, but on the other hand, there are PLENTY of points where either the camera just straight up lies to you and doesn’t show him when he should be there or Delta’s just been fuckin SHMOOVIN on his wheelchair around the room constantly to stay out of the camera and everyone’s just been kinda chill with it. Maybe if they had been more careful with the camera it could have delivered a TOUCH better. Like, even if the shots are a bit off, that’s noticeable enough to be part of the hint, no? I don’t have as much to say about this, mostly because this post is getting long as fuck so I’m gonna wrap it up so I can move on with my life for a bit.

So even with ALL OF THAT, I still enjoyed playing the game. That’s right, compliment sandwich time. The three wards all being one ward was a really neat reveal. The fact that you can shoot Delta in one scene is creative with its replay value. I’m glad they touched on the philosophical idea of what happens to the people who made it out from the coin flip only to get SHIFTed into the exploding lab, and exploring that idea was fun. I absolutely lost my mind at the idea of the gun to sigmas head had a random chance of firing and then seeing it elaborated on in the dice scene directly after it. Gab is a good boy.

Cant wait to play AI

[hollyberrysoundsthecharge]

same aswell for act 3 because i didnt feel like i needed to savescum to not loose hours of progress (and robot aesthetic is the best thing to actually happen ever), and im torn between a final duel (because ticking noises good), scrybe of beasts (8 bit music SLAPS), and temple of technology (have i mentioned i like industrial/mechanical noises in music yet?) -ScA

YEAH!!! FINAL DUEL SLAPPED!!!

Also, industrial/mechanical noises are REALLY sweet. Hearing that for the first time was the indicator that I'd found my fave scrybe before I even talked to it-

[hoofbeast]

warning! dream daddy spoilers for damien’s route

first of all, i just want to say that i fucking love this game holy shit. i work full time so i only get enough time to play one route per day, so ill eventually get through all the dads, but i started off with damien. this post is going to be a whole shitload of screencaps and spoilers, so ill put everything under a cut

the theme song is so great XD i actually paused my pandora at work so i could listen to the song a couple times

i wanted to play my first run through of this game as close to me as i could manage. i took extra care to design my character to look like me. i had my husband help and he still cant get over how much this character looks like me. my first choice for hair color was white (like most of my hair is now) but we decided to go with red because no matter what i do to my hair i inevitably circle back to red. i gave him my signature sly smirk and i used my actual name, too :3

right away, this game has me pegged. this is exactly something i would do XD

she’s a real chip off the ol’ block. FUCK THE SYSTEM! *wipes tear*

we ran into brian and daisy in the park, and honestly, brian will probably be one of the last dads i pursue the ending for. few things piss me off more than one-upmanship. im sure theres a lot more to his character and route, but still. 

also, question: is it possible that daisy is on the autism spectrum? theres a lot more to see of her, but what ive seen so far is that she’s exceedingly intelligent, doesnt get along well with kids her age but seems fine around older persons, didnt understand the concept of playing pretend until amanda explained it. i remember being pretty much exactly like that when i was a kid, and ive been thinking of getting evaluated for a while, myself.

the pokemon battle dad brag-off was a nice touch XD is it possible to win? cuz brian kicked my ass like it was his job

seriously, wow. is this game somehow able to evaluate the choices ive made so far and build a personality profile for me or is social awkwardness a way more universal experience than i thought?? because this is exactly #me

so anyway, i met a few more dads before calling it a day. 

i kinda dig mat, he’s as awkward and rambly as i am, and i am always cool with people who are passionate about music and puns and music puns. so far, he was the top contender for my first dad. 

then there’s robert, with his hot, smoldering gaze. hot and smoldering because i can already tell that inside, he’s a blazing tire fire.

i dont hate craig (forgot to get a cap of him, oops) but i do hate everything he stands for. namely, jogging, exercise, waking up before noon, and jogging. fuck an entire pile of that. i totally blew him off when he tried to get me to come to the gym and went back to sleep. like i said, im playing this as though Daddy Felix were the irl me and, honestly, craig would be lucky if he got a text of anything but misspelled swears and knife emojis from me if he woke me up at 6am

i will state right now that i do. not. trust joseph. he’s the only dad ive seen so far that actively flirts right from the beginning which is highly suspect behavior for a youth minister, and once i did the yard party and saw that he was still married, i trusted him even less. what kind of future could my character ever have with some cheatin ass bastard?? if i give you a bad dragon gift card will you back the fuck up off me, joseph >:/

#me

forgot to get a cap of damien in dead, goth, and beyond (i am totally calling it that from now on thats perf omg) 

anyway, i got through the yard party part. i kinda feel bad for craig cuz i stonewalled him pretty hard haha. but mat was there and i wanted to know what he was saying.

about this dadbook thing, tho: its grindr. like, its thinly-veiled grindr. there is exactly 0 reason why a nonsexual social media site should have turn-ons and ideal dates. this is definitely where dads go to hook up and fuck.

i read through the profiles and decided to message damien, literally because his says to send him a letter if i wanna talk about black cats and i VERY MUCH WANT TO TALK ABOUT CATS, YES. i didnt expect it to trigger a date, but this is the opposite of a problem. i figured id just have to court mat on my next playthrough

damiens house is fucking awesome 10/10 would have tea again

hoh! looks like i found your slashfic, damien >:3

wait. the narration said it was a worn leather bound book. did this fucking nerd seriously have his gay naruto fanfic bound in leather and then he keeps it in his swanky library?? i knew there was a reason i liked him XD

i think the first time i saw this reaction was from brian at the park and i was looking at the text so i didn’t see what it actually was. this time i was paying attention and its fucking eggplant and droplet emojis and im fuCKING WHEEZING FUCK XDDDD i know damn well what that means ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

anyway ya boi felix fucking crushed it whoop whoop! i learned to date from the master (the dating master is of course papyrus)

i have actually never played a dating sim before so it never occurred to me that i could go on dates with multiple dads without fucking up my game. i thought i was locked in to damien’s route, which, again, was the opposite of a problem, full speed ahead ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

so damien wrote me a for real letter! what a classy gent. <3 i am always a slut for handwritten letters

so obviously i write him a letter back, and i try to pick the options that are classy and rule out the ones that are trashy or over the top. i remember being a goth teen (and a goth adult ahaha) and how much i hated being condescended to. i want to play along with damien’s shtick, not make fun of him

completely forgot to take any caps of the actual date, but damien is afraid of horror movies and that’s even more adorable than mcree being afraid of horses. also, the running gag of cliche horror movie shit happening when damien shows up (his door creaking open and then slamming closed, spontaneous cracks of thunder) is terrific. my favorite part of vampire chronicles II: evil never dies is during the twist ending where one of the characters fucking looks into the camera and says the full title of the next movie in the series (vampire chronicles III: evil must die again) like its an actual statement a person would say in conversation. that shit had me cracking up

third date i was cockblocked before i could kiss damien by his phone ringing, then we ended up here and omg if this is a blood donation clinic im gonna shit

i see pet carriers. this is a vet’s clinic or smth

*sharp gasp* he’s... a NERD!! not that i didnt know that already by the way he has smutty fanfic in his library lmao

who would i even be trying to kid, of course i am

me: *softly, choking back genuine tears* gaaaaaaaay....

fucking SWOOOOON

(also he reminds me of equius when his hair is tied back like this and just HNNNG!! this was the BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME)

sorry heteros, mothmans gay and we’re dating

piss off joseph im clearly with damien i know you want your slutty altarboy holes filled but find somebody else to do it fucks sake begone, thot

screeeeee<3<3<3<3<3

THE END!

not sure if ill post about other dads and their routes. probably not like this lol. im no good at this whole commentary thing. maybe ill collect up some highlights and post them or something.

anyway, im going to go through each of the dads while making decisions i would personally make, where possible. once im done with that ill go back and savescum until ive tried out each option so i can try for all the bad endings. my brother’s girlfriend told me theres a secret ending for joseph but i told her not to spoil it for me (maybe a polyamorous relationship with him and mary?? that would be awesome mary is cool), and i saw in the achievements that you can fuck robert on the first night. otherwise im actively trying to go through this blind and im having a blast so far. this is a very fun game

[frutigerfaggot]

I am Seriously Considering spending 60 dollars just to see the funny silly pretty vampire man. I have to see him. I Have To See Him. I have to—

@kosmo-politan this is YOUR FAULT!! How DARE you infect me with vampire liker disease (<- is having a funny silly time w/ it)

[tumblunni]

Bunni continues to play Monster Rancher Advance 2! And generally not enjoy it as much as the first advance, though i can kinda blame it on the fact the first advance trained me to get used to a bunch of differences from regular monster rancher and now thats all gone again :P ANYWAY, ONWARD!

* Its a shame that the training coach system’s revamp makes it so much harder to actually achieve it now. i feel so guilty that my first monster Wrigley didnt quite make it! And like.. fusion isnt even WORTH it anymore! if I fused my high stats Wrigley with another high stats monster then all I get is the base stats version of that fusion, it doesnt carry over AT ALL! And it doesnt even let you carry over Traits like MRA1 did. And retiring a monster just seems to be like another name for deleting them, so I just have Wrigley frozen in the hibernation lab forevermore now. I DONT WANNA LET HIM GO! I do feel guilty for giggling slightly at the fact he’s got that cold minty freshness now XD

* Oh, and the ‘nobody dies anymore’ thing has been rebalanced now. In MRA1 you could just continue going forever with your retired monster, you just couldnt raise its stats anymore. (Tho you could still LOSE stats, so that was kinda awkward) Now you cant do anything with your retired monster except rest and give it items, and then send it to retirement/coaching class. BUT because of that change, I didnt realise Wrigley had as little time as he did, and I didnt manage to do that final tournement in time. :(

* For some reason the ‘SPECIAL’ training has been renamed to ‘Sparring’ training even though its exactly the same thing. And its called Errantry in every other game. I DUNNO LOL Also Loyalty has become Reliance, and now the E rank tournement has returned from Monster Rancher 2. (This is part of why its harder to reach teacher rank now)

* A funny glitch that may have possibly fucked up my ability to complete the main story, I HONESTLY DON’T KNOW?? Okay, so.. in MRA1 there was an annoying thing where you could still ‘use’ unuseable items, and they’d be gone forever with no effect to your monster. I lost 5000 gold due to this, the badly translated item descriptions meant I didnt even know that the Silver Cup passively reduces stress when you keep it in your inventory... In MRA2 you now actually get a ‘this is unuseable’ message when you select them! BUT... there’s one random specific circumstance where the game doesnt check for this. Sometimes when your monster is upset with a choice you’re making, it’ll say ‘[Name] would rather [suggested action]’. This time it SOMEHOW came out with ‘Wrigley would rather eat [magic amulet key item]’?? And I was just mashing thru the text and didnt realise it until I’d already hit yes! I really hope this doesnt come back to bite me in the ass later...

* Oh and there’s now a cool rival guy character! I’ve gained three rivals so far but he’s the most actually a rival. Can I just say the plot works a LOT better with actual other monster trainers as characters?? Seriously. THANKE! Why on earth was I even fighting in these tournements last time, lol... Anyway, here’s Mr Bishie Mysterious Jerk Rival:

* There’s also another rival who has more of a story role.. or uhh.. maybe I’m not able to get bishie man story scenes anymore cos i lost the key item, lol Anyway, he’s a younger cutie patoot rival who’s actually on your level as another rookie, rather than being an asshole adult randomly picking on kids. (No seriously, bishie man is introduced as a dude who’s ATTACKING OTHER RANCHES and then he’s just instantly forgiven??) lil rival boy is a bit competitive and grumpy but its just cos he (understandably) feels like you’re cheating by having the legendary holly as your mentor. But then when you battle him he realises youre actually a worthy rival and then you become Kinda Friends I Guess? I like him!

* Also your third rival is GRANDPA Seriously, you literally just fuckin.. find a wild grandpa starving in the cold and take him in. And he says he’s gonna repay you by giving his monsters as free tutors for a certain period of time, but for the life of me I COULD NOT FIND any way to unlock them in the tutor screen! But this was back when I was first learning all these new systems to maybe I just messed up somewhere? Anyway, after a certain amount of time he’s all ‘I’m proud of you, you dont need me anymore, i’m gonna go join the tourneys too cos you inspired me to get back out of retirement’. And its kinda sad that he leaves :( I WILL MAKE U MO PROUD, MYSTERY FOREST GRANDPA I STILL DONT KNOW WHERE DE FUCK U CAME FROM

(Clarification: he is not saying this about you but about the jerkass bandit you just fought off.)

(This is the jerkass bandit you just fought off)

(It is TOTALLY unfair how the game throws you immediately into a battle with him as a tutorial to the exploration system! I literally got this as the first thing with my new monster after Wrigley, I just got lucky enough with the RNG that all his attacks missed and I somehow survived!)

* Random fun highlight of Wrigley’s short career: winning an all bunnies league.

* I really don’t like the random addition they made of a ‘counter system’, though. Apparantly this was an addition made in Monster Rancher 4 for the PS2? It wasnt very liked there either, but this is an absolutely TERRIBLE port of it into a modified game engine that was never designed to include it. In the PS2 game each move is assigned to the four face buttons, and you press one of those to choose which move to counter. Its still not very good cos you only have a 1 in 4 chance of it working, and the AI is completely random anyway so it’s only predictable in 2 player mode. but they somehow made it EVEN WORSE in this version, cos the moves ARENT mapped to buttons yet you still have to input a button combination with a 1 in 4 chance! You have to awkwardly try and hit B and one of the directional buttons simultaneously, and there’s no way to know which random direction the AI picked, and just... GAHHH The only good thing is that you can still play the game perfectly fine without ever using it, and the AI is equally likely to fuck up. I only saw a successful AI counter ONCE after raising three monsters! Anyway, look at this dumbass who failed a counter and smacked himself in the head for 220 damage as soon as the fight started.

* My second monster was kinda awesome, i lucked out and got a rare monster from random tablet regeneration! Its the only Antlan type that I actually like, cos its unique colouration makes it look more like a giant skull thingie. Woo!

* His name was Heartbreak! He didnt have many spectacular adventures along his way, just managing to become a coach for future generations. I mean, he didnt break my heart, so it turned out better than expected XD I’m sorry i didnt have faith in you, lil buddy! THIS GAME IS STILL REALLY DAMN HARD THO

* i haaaaaaate the changes to the coaching system I HAAAAAAAAATE dear fuckin GODDDDDD now you have to keep paying a salary every half a year or you lose your coaches forever all your memories of your past monsters dont have enough for one payment and they NEVER COME BACK T_________T I’ve been savescumming a lot more in this version of the game, there’s a lot of bullshit chances to lose everything... And like.. they kinda wanted to make a good change by letting you hire governement-funded coaches if you cant train your own. but their prices are so ludicrously high and the most powerful one just has 300 in two stats and 600 in one. Your own monsters are always gonna be better than that, and you’d need to raise a few monsters to even get enough money anyway! So yeah just.. fuck this system, seriously, dear god. I still had complaints about it last time, but i was more forgiving cos it was a new change to the formula and all, but this is just making it worse in every possible way...

* Its also very annoying that we have a lot more items in the game but all their descriptions are badly translated. I have NO CLUE what the whole second page is about! ‘Its a cake’, ‘its a candy’, ‘its a meat dish’. Even stuff that had descriptions last time doesnt! You’d never know that ‘smoked newt’ lowers your monster’s ‘spoiled’ status! I mean, at least you could kinda assume that the cake raises it, if you’re getting too strict? I think? Cos I thought maybe the cake is for raising weight like the diet pills are for lowering it, but I can never get it to actually do that. the weight system is so unintuitively awkward! Any choice you make will change it wildly while your monster is a baby, and then as soon as they hit maturity its nigh impossible to change it! And its really hard to keep pushing it back and forth to keep the middle for whenever the maturity flag pops up, cos its not even set to happen on their birthday or anything. And being fat or thin causes gigantic debuffs because WHY NOT! Weirdly enough the raising style doesnt seem to do that anymore, its just like the chance of them running away, and a (never actually explained) small chance of lowering their overall lifespan every time you drift away from the medium.

* But anyway, I AM glad that now your strict/spoiled meter actually does exist in the menu again! It was definately still actually a part of the mechanics in MRA1, you’d still get stress and disobedience and stuff and just not be able to know when you were getting close to it. But MAN is it unforgiving this time... its always been the most difficult thing to manage but seriously... but seriously I am glad its at least in the menu...

* HOWEVER... i have no idea what the personalities do!! There’s now a thing on the menu above the spoilt/strict menu that says stuff like ‘hot headed’ or ‘medium’. And it never seems to change throughout their whole lifespan, so it seems to be like a personality or nature value? Does it actually affec anything? is it like pokemon and it means its easier to train a certain stat?

* Also there’s now the ability to get ill and go to the doctor. Its mostly pointless as its just like.. okay now you get TWO potential punishments for being too strict- monster can run away OR get sick. And running away just means you have to wait a few months and lose training time til they return, but instead sickness is like a debuff that halves your gains in a certain training. Its surprisingly in-depth, they give you a full diagonosis of a random illness and some made up medicines you need to take to fix it.

* ...do you really get anemia from being malnourished? i thought it was genetic only?

* And then ALAS I didnt manage to get any screenshots of my third monster while I was actually training her. I coulda sworn I did?? But it seems I forgot, so have a pic of her as a training coach

(for some reason special monsters get an ugly red background in status screens)

* She was actually surprisingly useful as my designated Explorer monster! It just sucks that you have to rank up in combat tourneys to unlock exploration areas, and you have to do it AGAIN every time you get a new monster. I didnt realise this so i trained her with an exploration-focused moveset and had to blunder thru the tourneys like a total mess. Errantry/Special/Sparring is now also based around combat stats, your chance of gaining a skill is greatly reduced if your stats are lower than the tutor, even if you win the fight! And if you dont, its fuckin impossibleeeee! So I couldnt even gain more skills to fight the skill tutor to gain more skills, GAH! Am I supposed to assign my own tutors here who have terrible stats?? But then the stat gains I get would be low too! So yeah, an intelligence based monster and I never managed to get a single intelligence skill in her entire lifespan. ALAS!

* Oh and Exploration is also REALLY WAY TOO HARD AND UNBALANCED AND  HARD Well I mean.. its not??? But it is??? Its actually got much smaller stat requirements than in MR on PS1, and the chance of getting nothing when you inspect a ruin is much lower. But the odds of the MOST HATED STUPID MECHANIC are way higher, and it seems that there isnt ANY stat that affects it, its totally random with no way to avoid! See, sometimes randomly when you’re exploring you can get lost. this ends the exploration immediately and you lose every item you’d collected. COMPLETELY AT RANDOM. NO WAY TO AVOID. keeps fuckin happening at the end of my 500 HP long 50 items gathered super sessions with super Rina the kitty of joy and hugs so I just ended up savescumming every time it happened, its too bullshit to be allowed to exist! Rina earned around 30000 or so Gold during her lifespan, and I was able to get the barn upgrade to keep bigger mons. And she also found the item that unlocks Monol monsters. Yay!

* So yeah thats the end of my gameplay today, and I didnt really enjoy it as much as the last one. The weird new gameplay decisions are a part of it, but also because of just HOW MANY monsters are locked behind various sidequests, and how you have no clue how to get half of them. Last time they were all just tournements you had to beat, now there’s bullshit like raising five monsters of specific species to master rank and sending them to certain exploration areas to find orbs... And like, with the inability to carry over traits and stuff, and the smaller amount of fusions, you cant even make a particularly customized monster out of the ones you can start with. So its just les fun to wait to open up all the options. And there doesnt feel like much incentive to even do it anyway, its not like most of them were locked away because theyre stronger. There’s loads of stuff that was a starter monster last time and there’s just no reason you have to save up a titanic amount of 20000 just to get the weird rhino motorcycle i got by typing my own name in the game last time... But ehh, I might play again anyway? I dunno. Later. Much later.

* BUT I STILL LOVE MY SWEET MONSTER FRIENDOS love and hugs list of all the bebs: Jade the Golem/Lesione, Carole the Momo/Zan, Kyubi the Zan/Mocchi, Dandelion the special albino Lesione, and Diva the special albino Dragon and now Wrigley the Hare/Lesione, Heartbreak the special albino/halloween variant Antlan, and Rina the special albino Mew that looks more like nidorina hence the name ...I’m only just realizing that I tend to like the albino variants the best. I guess maybe its cos they look more normal and dont tend to have overpowered stats or anything. Except the albino dragon which was the strongest one in the first game, hence why I picked it when I just gave up and wanted to brute force my way to the ending... ANYWAY THEY ARE ALL CUTE AND YOU WILL APPRECIATE THEM

* ok bunni go play different games now

* also bunni go try and learn how to draw these monsters, yo